bakerstreet | HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?

HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?

WHAT IF THEY HAD LIVED? MEME

We're not going to have a ton of prompts today, folks. However, we are going to have this. Say your character or someone close to your character dies in canon. Perhaps they die young, perhaps they're a big damn hero, perhaps they're a slithery villain that SHOULD be dead. What would happen if they didn't? How would the world change? This is your place to explore that kind of AU! Did the death situation never happen? Did they perhaps escape by the skin of their teeth? Did something (or someone) save them? How does the bright and shining (or dark and ominous) future pan out for them?

• Top level your character. If you like, you can explain any world changes you might want made. If not, you can hash it out with your future partners.
• Reply to other's top levels!
• Have fun! Mark any spoilers for anything that's been recently released, please!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Some part of her feels like she should be prepared for what's inside of the file. She knows that Komaeda is "sick", but no one has ever told her what that means. Or much of anything else about him, for that matter.

Even before she's flipped open the first page, the cold and sickening truth trickles through her veins. She has cared and loved for Komaeda, as she has with Yukizome and all of her classmates. But she has never, ever known him.

I'm sorry, the miserable thought streaks through her mind. I'm so, so sorry... Komaeda-kun...

Nanami doesn't want forgiveness for this, either. But perhaps learning more now is the only way she can atone.

Some part of her thought she would be prepared. That part had been horribly wrong.

She reads about the plane crash, the meteor that had inadvertently saved his life while killing his parents at the same time, orphaned at such a tender age and in such a traumatic way. The serial killer that kidnapped him in middle school and stuffed him into a garbage bag, and every time Komaeda has called himself "trash" bounces around cruelly in her head. By the time Nanami has gotten halfway through the records detailing the lymphoma and frontotemporal dementia, there's a strangled sound that keeps reaching her ears as if from a distance, and it takes her a minute to realize that they're sobs that are coming from her. She grips the papers tight in trembling hands. Nanami has never cried like this before.

Six months, the thought floats through her head hazily. They only gave him six months to live. With that window... He could've just been dead one day, and not a single one of them would have known why. He never told them.

And with the way everyone treated him... With the way he treated himself... Why would he have ever done so?

Her face is wet with tears as she reads through the rest, even though it's all things she knows. The exam incident, Komaeda's suspension, the limited account of the fall to despair - which she has to skim, lest her mind fill in all the blanks - and what Komaeda had done to both himself and others as "Servant"...

Finally, she sets the file down. Takes a moment to try and breathe again. Gives up on wiping away the tears when more keep streaking down to take their place. Somehow, Nanami manages to gather up the papers again, moving automatically, and makes her way to the room next door where Hinata waits.

She's quiet for a long time before she speaks. Before she's able to.] ...I read it. [Her voice comes out raspy and hoarse. Almost unfamiliar.] I read all of it.

[Hinata doesn't look up from fitting cables into the side of Komaeda's pod. He checks to make sure they're secure and taps out a series of codes into the laptop. From the screen his own face looks back at him. 'Logic Drive starting.' The Ai draws back and walks away into tunnel of light behind him. His fingers tap on the keys and go still as he turns to face her.]

Don't blame yourself. He never let anyone know him until he met me in the simulation. Even that, it took me being persistent. He is a difficult person to get close to.

[He lets go of the keyboard and closes the distance between them. He holds out his hand to her.] I couldn't share him until you understood.

[Nanami. Komaeda. They're his. But Komaeda could get away with trying to be background noise if even one person didn't understand his history.]

We can play some games while we wait on the logic dive. It will take a while. He's stubborn.

[It startles a laugh out of her, watery but genuine.] He wouldn't be Komaeda-kun if he wasn't, would he?

But knowing what to say or do to help... that's just like you too, isn't it? [Hesitantly, gently, she places her hand in his.] Thank you for letting me get to know him more, Hinata-kun. Even if some of it was hard to read... I'd rather know. I wish I'd tried harder before, but... I want to do what I can to understand him now. No matter if it hurts or not.

So I'll wait with you. Even if it takes a long time for him to wake up. [She gives his fingers a soft squeeze with her own.] I'd be happy to play something with you until he does, though. It's been so long since I had anyone to play games with... [Her eyes are still wet at the corners, but there's less strain in her voice and in her smile.] You should be able to beat me now, right?

It's true I know what to say now but, that's just from experience. I didn't tell anyone my problems either. [It goes without saying as he tosses her a game controller that he could beat her. If he made the effort.

That's now what he wants right now.]

If you do beat me I'll tell you what the file doesn't say.

[Hinata lost on purpose. Repeatedly. He'd told her about little details about Komaeda's likes. The way his breath would catch right before a ramble. His eyes going wide with surprise when someone was kind. The way he looked when he'd made his decision to kill them all.

Each piece fits into the whole until there is a soft sound as the ai returns. 'He will be waking shortly.' The game system goes quiet and Hinata waits for Komaeda.

'...can you hear me?'

Komaeda turns his head to focus on Hinata's face. They share a smile as holds his left hand out. After he's helped up and they share a conversation, Hinata points to the right. He turns his head and his breath catches, eyes going wide.]

You kept your promise.

[Nanami gives it her all. She doesn't get upset that she wins, because it's not like that time so long ago. Hinata isn't distracted when he throws the game - she can see focus in his eyes, and it makes something warm up in her chest. She drinks in every detail he gives her about Komaeda, and it's like a key to old memories she hadn't paid much attention to. Little things here and there, suddenly illuminated by the quiet words that settle down in between rounds. Nanami shuts her eyes and pictures each thing, trying to burn it into her brain.

She doesn't want to forget anything ever again. She will never allow anyone to take these things away from her.

When the AI announces Komaeda is about to wake up, Nanami freezes. A nervous energy thrums under her skin, keeps her completely still while at the same time fills her with the desire to move, to run over to where he sleeps-

She waits. Listens. Breath catching as she watches Hinata go to him. Talk to him...

And everything goes quiet around her, eyes drawn to him and unable to look away. Memorizes the catching of his breath and the widening of his eyes.

"You kept your promise."]

Komaeda... kun...

[She wants to run to him. Wants to hug him close and never let go. The best Nanami can do is move closer, hand hovering uselessly like it wants to grab for him, but doesn't know if it should. Her heart feels like it's expanding in her chest, fit to burst.]

You're here. You came back. [The tears from before are back, welling in her eyes, but she's smiling wide as she says that phrase.] Welcome home.

[Okaeri.]

[He dips his head, acknowledging the greeting. He glances up briefly as Hinata steps back and away towards a worktable in the back. His eyes lock with Nanami's as he climbs out of the pod.]

Will you help me? I believe Hinata-kun wants me at the table in the back.

[The grunt of affirmative from the back tells him all he needs to know about that.]

[Nanami hears him too, and that's really all the confirmation she needs. But she does have to wonder... Is it what she thinks it is...?

Well. They'll find out soon enough, one way or another.] I can help you. Do you... [Hand stretches out towards him, and there's a little pink that enters her face when she does, but... it shouldn't, really. Maybe more than anything it's just an excitement that hums low in her veins, equal parts nervous and ecstatic. She can talk to him again. She can hear his voice again.] You haven't been in the pod long enough for it to cause much damage to your leg muscles, but do you need a hand getting over there?

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HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?

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