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[Lisa is a free spirited animal, and takes to no master. Which is cool and all, except someone has to make sure she has food to eat, water to drink, and a clean place to shovel space kitty litter onto the floor of the bathroom so that when Ryuji goes to shower he painstakingly steps on each pebble and curses his existence.

And the mismatch between her and Ryuji is just that. As hyped as Ryuji made it seem that this thing was possessed by station ghosts, she's rather amicable and friendly to just about anyone else. Sauntering up to Dave, even, enjoying his presence, looking for the scritches and the love she deserves.

Ryuji stares at this from his elevated position, nervous that Dave's going to be attacked at any moment. But that doesn't happen, and he's left, jaw agape, not processing what the hell is going on.]

Uh...

[He carefully climbs down from the chair.

Okay, this is kind of cute. He wonders if he should be taking a picture in case he needs it for future reference, but... nah.]

[..... Dave curls his fingers a little, offering the requested scritches, and oh god. oh hell. it's like she sauntered her way right past his emotional barriers and straight into his heart without even the slightest hint of effort. he's not sure how it happened, or quite frankly, what even happened??]

[he has a full seat on the floor, crossing his legs. maybe it's only natural that a kid like Dave, whose mom loves cats so much she kept a huge army of cat clones in a lab, would be so endeared to the little guys.]

[.............]

Huh. She's pretty cute.

[Ryuji is

so confused.]

...

[He quietly pushes the chair back up into the alcove beneath the desk, and tries not to make any sudden, fast moves. Who knows if this is all a trick to get him to lower his guard. He can't be sure of anything. Ryuji opens his mouth. Closes it.

The part of his rational brain that functions (questionably) seems to shut down in the presence of this unholy image.]

You two are cute together.

[Dave pauses mid kitty ear-scritch, because Ryuji's just called him cute, and he's. not sure how to process this information.]

[.........]

Yeah, I guess. [was that really the best you could come up with, Dave. not even a thanks, even if it's meant jokingly? god, it's awful.]

[his weirdly awkward piece said, though, he moves to give Lisa a good scritch under the chin.]

[How does he offload the responsibility of motherhood onto someone else, really, the question that needs to be answered.

(and if he's really the mom, does this make Lisa in her perfunctory teenage years, where she's meant to rebel against her primary caretaker before she one day accepts the reality of their relative positions?)

prooooobably not.

And hey, it just hit him that he said the word "cute" and "you two" and he might want to die a little bit? His brain didn't really seem to want to comply with anything else at the moment. Scrunching his face, he scratches the back of his head like he always does when he's said something Dumb and needs to recount his steps.]

I mean like. You're kinda a natural here. [And, with a little bit of honesty mixed into all this-] I don't really know what I'm doin' here. I've never had to look after anyone but myself. We couldn't really afford an animal in the house.

[he'll take that change of subject, that chance to promptly brush away how awkward the both of them suddenly were right there.]

Don't really know, either. The only animals I have any real experience with are birds.

And crocodiles.

[Dave.]

Lisa's probably smarter than the crocodiles, though.

[Dave.]

Don't cats hunt stuff, though? Maybe she's just attacking because she's got nothing else to hunt.

[It's fine!

It's fine.

Ryuji nods, thinking that the only time he's even seen a crocodile up close and in person was at the zoo on a middle school trip. He borrowed some money from a friend so he could take the train home, left high and dry because he wanted to buy a present for his mom. Stupid... stuffed dolphin.]

I don't think you could swindle Lisa out of all her money. I mean. If she had money. And if money mattered up here?

[Here he is, defending a cat whose actual intelligence he has no claim to know, whatsoever.]

Real glad I look like a big meaty piece of prey. Thanks for that image. [Has some of that awkwardness dissipated? He can't really tell. He could use a moment to himself to gain some composure.]

Hold that thought. I gotta pee. Been standin' on that chair for long enough and holdin' it in.

[He heads to the bathroom, excusing himself.

And. Oh my god? There's an audible curse heard from behind the door. You'd think he's beating himself up or something, but- no, he's just discovered the ramen.]

[... uh.]

All right in there?

[should he. hang on, he scoops Lisa up in his hands and just sort of sits her on the bottom bunk, because that was clearly the smart thing that needed to be done right now. yup, he's a natural at this. good cat. best friend.]

[Dave steps across the room, then, toward the closed door to the bathroom. is Ryuji really cursing himself out in there? for what? or, did he trip? he's not about to barge in on a dude, so he'll just wait for an answer to his question.]

[There are just some things in life that aren't right? Like, did he step on a bug in past life that was once secretly some Buddhist monk working his way back up the reincarnatory ladder, thus cursing him and his existence throughout each and every step along the way? Could a burrito have upset the balance of everything, then, when it was flushed out to meet it's frozen end, for all eternity, wafting aimlessly as a permanent tv dinner waiting for some alien to come and swoop by? And these space ghosts, then, perhaps one of them was in fact some sort of chef, who was wronged by the artisanal love that they had put into the fabricator?

Ryuji is having an existential crisis, all over a 6 pack of shin ramyun. Screw it. It's not worth it. He'll just... calmly pick up the pack of energy drinks, set it aside on the floor as it (hopefully) hasn't touched that morass of shitwater in it, and then just... let it go.

Just let it go, Ryuji. He looks like he could cry, though, as he exits the confines of it.]

I'm--- I'm okay. I'm okay? Don't worry about it. We're done hangin' out in bathrooms anyway. I mean. If you wanna see for yourself. But it's a horror in there. It's a real life, goddamn horror.

[WHY IS HE SO OVERDRAMATIC OVER RAMEN?]

[even if they're on a strict no-chilling-out-in-the-bathroom policy, Dave can't help but be curious, especially when Ryuji's being so cryptic about it. so, he'll take just a quick look and move on.]

[and. ... and, yup, that sure is some ramen in a toilet. it'd be funny, if it weren't so sad — Ryuji's now got the most flavorful bathroom on board. this toilet is a fucking ramen hog, is what it is.]

What the hell? What's with all the goddamn toilets on this piece of shit station?

[you reap what you sow, Strider and Sakamoto.]

God, they could have at least dumped the flavor packets somewhere less completely disgusting.

See. That's the game they're playin'. They're tryin' to mess with us and get us all pissed off by bringin' shit from home and dunking them in the toilet.

[Space conspiracies 101; he'll have to report back to the resident tinfoil hat association among the station. Ryuji's not serious, at least, he doesn't think he's serious.]

And I've been... I dunno. I've been a pretty good guy my entire life? Sure, I've had a few screw ups along the way. [It's? Just ramen.]

I mean, who hasn't, y'know? But this. This is the last straw.

This is taking it too far.

[He looks at Lisa, lazily chilling on Ren's bed.]

I'm declaring war on every EFFIN' shithole in this entire place.

[can't believe Ryuji is getting about as mad about ramen as Egbert did over some Betty Crocker cakes — though, in retrospect, they both probably have very good reasons to be pretty fucking pissed over some instant dinner + desserts.]

Okay, how are we doing that?

[yeah, he knows Ryuji (likely) isn't serious — and Dave has a bone to pick with the toilet ghost, too. so a little bit of egging him on it is.]

[We- heck yes.]

We take this fight to the pipes themselves.

[If Dave hasn't figured it out, ramen is more than just ramen to Ryuji. It's the comfort and semblance of home, a thing to grab onto. Food is a form of memory; countless dates with friends, innumerable times waiting in line for Tokyo's best hole in the wall joints. A place to go when his mom was working late at night and there wasn't dinner on the table. It's not just broth, or packets of cheap, disgustingly salty flavoring packets, it's a tangible feeling of closeness to what used to be.

Seeing the ramen in the toilet like that was... eh. Too complicated for Ryuji to actually explain. Some metaphor about slamming on all his hopes and dreams, it being worth the equivalent of bodily waste, etc.]

Either that or we're s'posed to set up a shinto shrine and pray for the spirits to go away.

I... I dunno how this works.

I've beaten ghosts down before, that's easy. But we can't see 'em. It's not like they're just waiting to have a bedsheet tossed over their heads so they can be all "oooooh~~~ I'm comin' for ya~"

[Complete with spirit finger wiggles. Lisa stares at him. He feels judged.]

[Ryuji will absolutely be catching a little bit of judgment for the spirit fingers — but the tildes for emphasis barely register, considering Dave himself was managing to speak in comic sans not even a week ago. and further still, Lisa's probably judging Ryuji enough for the both of them.]

[but, he'd also be able to relate, if he knew that. he knows what having to fend for oneself feels like, although their circumstances were probably largely different. it sort of sounds like what ramen means to Ryuji is about the same as what apple juice means to Dave, even though the idea of it being a reminder of "home" doesn't have the same sort of connotation. maybe "safe" is more the right word. it's something familiar, and it's something that's his. maybe you just wind up getting attached to odd things, growing up in a household like Dave's was. or, if there's never any food in the house, anyway.]

[so, as lame as it might sound externally, it's understandable.]

Pretty sure that last thing you just got done saying would be enough to scare off the toilet ghosts.

[there it is. but he just moves right on to the next subject without even pausing, like he'd never even said it at all.]

I don't really have any experience fighting them like you, though. Most of the ghosts I've met weren't dangerous as much as they were really fuckin' obnoxious.

[Wow, okay???]

Asshole. [Muttered to himself, just as Dave continues on.]

I don't think they were real ghosts, to be fair. It was more like... what people think ghosts are s'posed to look like? More like shadows that exist in the back of everyone's mind. Yeah. Actually, that's. Uh. Well, literally speaking.

[It was explained to him over, and over again, but it still never made much sense. They were fighting the Jungian cognition of what people believed, from a collective unconsciousness level, certain myths and spirits were supposed to look like. But, this is Ryuji we're talking about here. Might as well actually be ghosts in sheets.]

I bet actual ghosts are pretty pissed off about bein' ghosts, which would kinda explain why they're obnoxious.

[He has some tinfoil hat theories about the station and why it's so haunted, but he doesn't think they're very good.]

Or the people you met were always just giant pain in the asses and it just kinda transferred over to the afterlife.

Those bets probably aren't too far off.

[he tries not to think too hard about Karkat's dancestor, or the one with the glasses who got really pissed off about storytelling — they're both also known as the two beings in paradox space who can monologue for longer than Dave and Karkat combined. and that's just. that's terrifying.]

[luckily, Ryuji gives him something much more interesting to think about than longwinded dead trolls.]

So you're saying you fought nightmares? With the guy living in your mask.

[that's not skepticism or anything. fighting in one's dreams is completely feasible where he's from.]

Yeah... I mean. Kinda? That's surprisingly close to the level of bullshit that we had to deal with.

[Funny how now, he relatively wishes for his catbus and his friends to be exploring the veins of those nightmares that ran deeply under the city of Tokyo, subway lines that connected people and yet divided them so easily. Killing a shadow was a piece of cake- there was always some bit of accomplishment in doing it, even when no one had a clue about what was going on.]

And then sometimes we held 'em up and made 'em give us money.

[Okay, maybe he should chill with that shit.]

But... I dunno how to really talk about the mask, though. It's not a dude living in it. It's me? Like, in the nightmare metaphor, it's just my own thoughts and feelings given a form. It's what happens when you face yourself for who you are and accept it. The mask is just realizing that like... you wear a not-literal-kinda mask against people to keep yourself safe.

That makes... no goddamn sense, I'm sorry, man.

[Consciousness is a weird fucking thing in Persona.]

But we should figure out how to trap one of the ghosts. Then we might be able to figure out what the hell it is they want.

Edited 2018-06-09 05:35 (UTC)

[he actually finds that a bit relatable, though not in the way that might seem obvious. not that he's accepting of it, or even outright aware of it sometimes, but there probably isn't a person he knows more in need of facing themselves more than ... well, him. and therein lies the problem: can't face your demons if you refuse to acknowledge there's something that needs facing at all.]

[no, but he's thinking of something a lot more literal.]

Makes sense to me. You fight with what's basically another version of yourself, right? [Dirk keeps calling them splinters. Dave never really had a specific word for it, until he heard that.]

That's not too far off from how I used to fight. Assuming it was needed to maintain a stable time loop, future me's popped in to help fight off whatever all the time.

Don't really know how you capture a ghost, though. I guess if you wanted to be idiotic about it, you could try vacuuming one up like a Ghostbuster.

Yeah, basically. Futaba tried explaining it a few times, but it's related to something called cognitive psience. Shit was way outta my league, so I just went along with it. Something to do with individu... individi? Forget it.

[Individuation, the process of learning that a person's societal image that's been learned through various efforts of the superego is just a role, and not the identity of the person who performs that role. Two separate things, and once disjointed, allows the user to grasp onto a power that belongs to themselves and wreak havoc with it. Or something like that. Ryuji should've listened to her more.

So, he'll settle with the idea that it's just a version of himself fighting on his behalf. Ryuji carefully approaches the bed, eyeing Lisa, wondering if she'll open up to him a little bit. She perks her head up, and that's enough of a sign that he shouldn't force the friendship. Maybe it's better to give up and let her come to him. Maybe that'll happen in a year or two.]

Musta gotten real tiring after a while. Keeping track of everything like that. Hell, I know I'd be frustrated if there were two of you in the same room. One of you is enough of a pain in the ass. [Ryuji smirks, trying to make light of a pretty serious implication here. He doesn't really put any bite behind his words though; if anything, it's dumbly fond sounding. Which isn't how he intended on that to go, but whatever.]

I know of a way. Or well, I used to know. It's not really an option anymore, though.

[if it makes Ryuji feel any better, i didn't understand a word of that either.]

Yeah? That's good to know. If we ever figure out when April is, I'll prank you with an army of future Daves. [that doesn't even qualify as a threat, honestly. Dave (probably) wouldn't use time travel for the sake of a good joke. but, he's already expressed at least some of the nature of messing around with timelines, and, based on Ryuji's first comment that it sounds tiring, Dave gets the sense that he understands. so a toothless quip to a jab that had no bite at all is what he decides to roll with.]

But, you can't go and say something about knowing a way to capture ghosts without elaborating — even if it doesn't work here.

[It's okay. Two years later and I'm still wondering what the fuck Atlus was thinking when they created this series.]

April?

[It takes a moment for it to settle in. He has to think about that for a moment, but then the image of 3-4 Daves all conspiring to play pranks on him brings him into the enlightenment of the gravity in that situation. Practically a Bodhisattva at understanding how much fucking HELL THAT WOULD BE, he crosses his arms, and scrunches his face.]

Hard pass?

[Oh god... how does he even... where does he. Open mouth and insert foot. Or something larger than that, because Ryuji's can definitely fit more than a foot and have him still blabbering about.]

It involves going into a different dimension. The Metaverse, it's called. It's made up of peoples' feelings and thoughts, and stuff that can't usually take form in this world can over there.

[That really doesn't actually explain much of anything, so Ryuji tries to pace his thoughts and make it a little more helpful? If he can actually do that properly.]

If a ghost is haunting this place, they probably have some extremely negative feelings. If you can go into that world, you can do things to find out what those are and sorta... take... them. Right oughta them.

[Ryuji, stop, this is confidential. His friends would be so upset with him.]

[don't worry, Dave won't tell anybody. hell, if anything, it sounds sort of like the dream bubbles — an endless collection of consciousness that changes to suit whoever's dreaming it. or afterliving it, as it were.]

[so, he just accepts that explanation for what it is, rolling his shoulders in a sort of half shrug.]

Fair enough. I feel like you'd probably get along with Terezi on that front, actually, if deciphering ghost emotions is the end goal — don't know anybody who can read people better than she can.

[he won't actually elaborate on why, though. explaining what a Seer of Mind does is best left to the Seer of Mind herself — if that's something she decides to explain, that is.]

It sorta sounds like you'd have a better start at figuring it out than the rest of us, anyway.

[That's... pretty aptly described. The only difference is that the dream bubbles actually allowed you pass through them. The Metaverse was a thing you had to infiltrate and commit subterfuge in order to get what you needed done out of it.]

Terezi... doesn't ring a bell. [He's texted with her though! And found out that she calls cats "purrbeasts" or... wait, what was it? PURRB34STS. Or whatever that was supposed to be.]

Sounds pretty neat though? I mean. It's hard trying to figure people out. Or what they want, really. I guess.

[He should offer a little bit of a caveat here, though-]

To be honest, most of the hearts I stole were from living people. It's just a guess about the ghosts, honestly. Not that it matters anymore? Since I... can't go there anymore.

You'd definitely know it if you met her. Trust me.

[was that said fondly? yeah, a little bit. they've been through some real messes together, and even though she isn't exactly the Terezi that he knows, he still trusts her, and thinks of her as a close friend. and, he likes to think the feeling's mutual — even though he isn't exactly the Dave she knows, either.]

I wouldn't rule your heart snatching powers out just yet, anyway. Dunno about you, but where I'm from, shit has a habit of being completely irrelevant right up until it isn't.

Then I guess you'd just have to be an actual Ghostbuster.

[He offers a small consolation prize of a smile. Their attempt to kill Yaldabaoth was supposed to be their last heist together as a group. Ren's confirmed that, in a roundabout way, the future for them as phantom thieves has pretty much come to a close. It's a weirdly sad feeling, when you have purpose and meaning, only to see it yanked out and made inert. These cycles keep happening to Ryuji and he never knows what he's supposed to do with his life when things come to a close.

Grin and bear it, he guesses.]

Yeah. Heart snatching. Like, just shoving my hand into people's chests and ripping them still out. [Holding out his hand, like there's a living, beating thing there, complete with pulsating.]

I'm dangerous, you gotta watch out for me.

I mean. Nah. It wasn't that hardcore. It was all metaphors, anyway.

[What the hell is with the Ghostbuster shit, though?]

Well... we already got the tacky jumpsuits. Now all we need are superpowered soul vacuums.

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