Work Text:
I remember when it happened; when I saw her. A brilliant pink flame - pulsing against the darkness of your mind. An omnipresent force, resolute and overwhelming.
I could sense your fear.
Shelby Uavou.
You had shut yourself in your room, withdrawing from everything. From me. You didn't let me get close. You didn't want me to see. Privacy was something very important to you.
Shelby Uavou.
When we were young, you would sometimes call me Victor when you were upset at me. Not upset upset, just the usual teasing that best friends did. I called you Jackson once. We had been arguing about the money you had spent at the arcade. You laughed on the outside, but on the inside you were solemn. I could sense that you were genuinely hurt.
Shelby Uavou.
You had been sleeping less and less. You had been passed out on the floor when I decided to look. The ultimate invasion of privacy.
I had seen things similar to your mind before. Businessmen with deadlines looming, working mothers juggling two or three jobs at once, even politicians before an important election - all with their minds utterly taken up by a singular thing.
Some of them would know to come to me. The only psychic in Nickville Square who didn't just take the money and run. I would help ease their burdens in exchange for favors. Usually money - though sometimes the odd policeman would offer to look the other way next time one of our plans fell through. In any case, I thought I knew what to do. I thought it would be easy. I thought I could have my friend back.
Shelby Uavou.
You must have awoken sometime while I was lost in concentration, because I heard you cough and then shriek. You were clutching your head, looking up at me in terror. It had never hurt someone before. It shouldn't have even been able to hurt anyone.
After a while you just lay still. I carried (or more accurately, dragged) you to the living room couch. I watched your chest rise and fall slowly for what seemed like hours before you finally opened your eyes.
Your gaze was vacant. Void of the spark you once had. I kept apologizing but you didn't understand why.
I've told you this story time and time again.
You usually shrug. Tell me that what happened, happened. That you don't feel any attachment to her - or even that you never did.
I always let it go before. Until I found this.
Your diary. You never told me you kept a diary.
I now know that you hadn't told the truth. That you never stopped feeling the connection.
I knew that the moment I saw her name written here. The name that was once consuming you - it had never stopped.
You had suggested our final heist to me and I thought that it was a sign that things were finally improving. Going back to normal between us.
Now you're gone, and this is all I have left of you.
Tomorrow I'm going after you. I'm going to bring you back from wherever it is you are now. And then I won't have to write to you, not knowing if you'll ever even read this. I can tell you myself.
I'm going to find you, Pent. And we can work through this. Together.
Shelby Uavou will complete me.