Reverse Chariot Part II

[madimpossibledreamer]

We saved the world from Orochi!  seriously that was more stressful than the uber bosses but good has triumphed over evil

it's an open question whether teddie even knows what water is

Main Points:
Persona 4 Past Will Tell AU (protag swap + Average AU)
second person chie pov
Chapter Summary: face yourself
Word Count: 1100
Rating: Teen

        When you wake, Yosuke’s holding a hand out to help you out.  You almost scramble away from him, mortified by the dream, and that’s when you see the yellow-eyed version of yourself behind him.  She just looks…sad and empty, now, but still, you can’t forget—or forgive—the things she said.  “Yosuke, that’s not how I think of you!” you hasten to tell him, and he smiles and shakes his head, fiddling with his headphones like he does when he’s upset or nervous.
        “Ted explained.  That’s your Shadow.”  He’s not moving away, his outstretched hand just as steady as it’d been.
        “It came from you, Chie-chan,” Teddie agrees, still here.  Funny; she would’ve thought he’d have made a break for it as soon as he could. 
        “And it’s not all there is to you.  You still made me feel welcome, still made me feel like more than just that ‘Junes kid’.  If anything, we’re desperate losers grasping for friends together.”  Yosuke’s reassuring—how can he be reassuring, after what he’d heard—despite the hoarseness of his voice—so she—I?—really had been strangling him?  “I’m honored you’re my friend.  And if you’re up for it, I’d love to play hero with you.  We still have to save Saki-senpai, after all.”
        You stare at him for a long minute, then take his hand, letting him pull you up.  He doesn’t bother to hide the relief in his face.  He’d been more worried about you than himself.
        “Don’t get used to me saying it, but…you’re actually pretty cool,” you say, and he coughs and can’t hide the wide, wide grin on his face.  You ignore him and walk over to it.  “My Shadow, huh?  Yeah, okay, so maybe I can be a little controlling, but I wasn’t lying about being their friend!”
        It nods, smiling gently, and then turns into a card, floating down to you.  You stare, uncomprehending, but Yosuke whoops in joy.
        “You’ve got a Persona now, too, Chie-chan!” Teddie exclaims, and you grin tiredly, because you see just the slightest outline of something really cool before it joins with you and you feel complete again.
        And then sway.  The exhaustion catches up with you all at once, and you instantly turn to Yosuke, understanding that he had to have fought with his Persona and must be equally if not more exhausted than you—you didn’t actually do anything, after all.  “Are you okay, Yosuke?  Did you get hurt?”
        He blinks, uncomprehending, then shakes his head, waving it off.  Just like you’d expected he’d do.  “I’m fine.”
        “Sit down,” you insist, helping him sit down despite his protests.  “Um…Teddie, you don’t happen to know where I can find water?”
        Yosuke stops holding himself stiffly and slumps over, barely in time for you to catch him.
        “Nope,” the bear answers, sounding worried for the both of you.  “Oh, but I do have…these! Tada!”  He produces…glasses?
        You blink at him, confused.
        “What are these for?” Yosuke asks, slightly faintly.  He’s pulled his headphones after his ears and started his music player, probably to keep himself awake.
        “Try them on, Sensei!  You too, Chie-chan!” Teddie insists, and you exchange a look with Yosuke, shrug, and do so.
        And gasp.
        The fog disappears—well, enough to see, at least.  It helps your burgeoning headache a little, anyway.
        “I told you, this bear can be useful!” he puffs out his chest, and you think briefly about questioning him why he didn’t pull these out earlier, like, before you got in a fight, maybe.  Maybe the two of you wouldn’t be quite as exhausted as you are right now.
        And then an idea strikes you.  “Teddie, will the Shadows be dangerous, say, before tomorrow?”
        Yosuke instantly pulls the headphones down, angry and panicked.  “Chie, no!”
        “We’re the only ones who can do this.”  You feel a little less alone, a little less weird, that those words send a thrill through him as much as they do for you.  You’ve, only slightly kidding, been practicing for this your whole life.  “If we get killed trying to save her, what will happen to Senpai then?”
        “They won’t,” the bear insists, sounding sure.  It’s not the first time, and it’s been wrong before, but it’s a start.
        Yosuke swallows, glancing at his hands, which are shaking again.  “We can’t fail,” he states softly, and you smile encouragingly at him.
        “Then we won’t fail.  Simple as that.”
        That finally gets a laugh out of him, even as he rubs a hand at the back of his neck.  “Man, you make that sound easy.”
        “I mean, I’ll just kick any Shadows that try anything funny, and we’ve got Personas, and you can use…something better than a lead pipe you just picked off the side of the road.”  You try not to think about the zombie stories Yukiko’s too fond of.  He snorts at that too.  “At least you’re clumsy, so you can explain away the bruises with another bike accident again.”
        He winces.  “Ugh, that’s so embarrassing.”  But he’s actually perking up a little again.  “Actually, and you can just say you were training.  Given that you broke an umbrella trying to show off, people would buy that, too.”
        It’s your turn to wince, but you punch him in the shoulder, feeling lighter than you have in weeks.  “What a team we make, huh?”
        It takes another half an hour once you make it back to the entrance without being jumped more than once (and Tomoe makes short work of them, alongside Jiraiya, although both of you are even more tired after that) before you leave, as Yosuke irons out how the fog and Shadows going berserk works.  You understand, even if, when he finally stands to go through Teddie’s TVs, he’s shaking pretty badly.  He needs to reassure himself this won’t kill the Senpai he’s crushing over so badly.  You feel bad about teasing him so much, because while there’s still some of that hero complex about him, too, he said so to your face, he genuinely doesn’t want her to die, so there’s something noble there, too.  He finally works out that it has to do with the fog, and that it’s only when that fog clears up that they lose control.
        Maybe it’s something about Shadows not wanting to see the truth, either.  You’re not going to voice that out loud, though.
        You told him not to get used to you calling him cool, but privately you admit there’s something about him, that nobility despite his big mouth, that means you don’t mind taking orders from him.