Crossover, SMT Digital Devil Saga / X/1999 , O'Brien/Subaru, temporal disaffectation (1/4) Right but Not Correct 2022.10.29
(This fic is a companion piece to [Bad username: “mithrigil”]’s brilliant Aneurysm, specifically the epilogue, and should be read in context of that. The ‘verse is hers [and CLAMP and Atlus’s], I just play in it.)
Subaru has to cut his visit short. He has a thousand apologies prepared for the necessity, a thousand English “sorry”s and “I deeply regret that”s and “if you will excuse me”s, and he stammers them all out breathlessly, one after the other. He keeps his hands behind his back or crammed into his coat pockets so the researchers at the Karma Society won’t see his fists trembling, the fabric of his gloves stained with sweat.
Once he’s in one of the bathrooms, white surfaces scoured and stripped of any trace of color, he leans over the sink, grips the marble basin, and suppresses the need to retch.
This is not his place. This is not his world. But he inhabits it now, and the ghosts of dead children cling to his skin, a film he can’t dispel. His gloves leave crude smudge marks on the basin, oil and perspiration. The mirror reflects the overhead fluorescents back into his eyes, multiplies the glare tenfold. There are eyes on him: electronic, supernatural—
—human.
In the mirror, he sees one of the stall doors creak open another few centimeters. Brown eyes, or the reflections of them, lock on his. His lab coat is the same white as the walls. Subaru doesn’t need to glance at the laminated ID badge pinned to his lapel to identify him.
“O’Brian-san,” he says. He uncurls from his hunched position only to bow again.
“Angel told us you were getting out of here today,” O’Brian says. He crosses to the sink next to Subaru’s, lathers his hands and forearms with soap, rinses them, squeezes more soap from the dispenser and repeats the process.
“I am, yes,” he says. “Regrettably, family business called me home.” It’s the polite answer, the answer that isn’t one.
O’Brian switches off the taps; the last few drops of water hit the basin with a series of soft plinks. “That’s probably for the best.”
“Yes.” Subaru tears his eyes from the mirror, from the image placed in opposition to himself. “I think you are correct about that.”
O’Brian’s shoes squeak against the tile. “I can show you how to get to the entrance, if you want,” he says. “It’s easy to get lost in here.”
“I have noticed.” Even Subaru’s smile feels old, old and tired and worn even if his face no longer betrays such things, no longer indicates the passage of time. “You are a good man, O’Brian-san.”
“I’m not.” O’Brian looks down, turns away and rips a length of paper towel from the dispenser, rubs it briskly over his hands. “But—thanks.”
A shadow passes over O’Brian’s face, a translucent hand caressing his cheek. He shivers.
“My apologies,” Subaru says. “I believe my presence draws them out.”
O’Brian’s fingers trace the path of the ghost’s touch. “Them. Right. Normally I’d be skeptical, I think I’m still a skeptic by the standards of this place, but here…”
“You explore—” Subaru hesitates. What you should not is tempting, but he doesn’t need to voice that. “You explore the realm of the divine, and you are not accustomed to thinking in those terms.”
“This isn’t what I signed on for.” O’Brian rubs the back of his neck. He still grips the damp paper towel in his other hand, wads it up in his fist.
“Which part, O’Brian-san?”
He shakes his head, mute, then swallows. “All of it, I think.”
“I understand.”
“You know,” O’Brian says, “I think you do. That’s why you’re going home early, isn’t it?”
Subaru nods.
“Did Angel ask you to leave?”
“The decision was hers to make, yes,” Subaru says. “But I am—relieved she made that choice.”