#im just obsessed with past lovers who have mutual amnesia

[wolfywolfy]

Genuinely I love Julian's route in The Arcana so much. The potential of it, this inherent pull towards someone and you don't understand why -- he's admitted guilt to murder yet you can't help but feel this strange insistence that he's innocent. You don't know how, but your body, mind, & soul are screaming at you that this man that you have never met before is good, he's not what others say he is, he's not what he himself says he is; and then you learn that he doesn't even remember what happened, he just assumes he's the guilty party because he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he was. Why else would he forget unless it was an unbearable guilt he couldn't bear the weight of?

And, on top of it all, he has this same strange familiarity with you. How does he feel when he sees you in the shop and his heart stutters? When suddenly his aimless searching for something feels resolved, when he looks at you and everything feels right? He doesn't know you and yet his body remembers.

The mutual amnesia of people who used to be extremely close. He sees you for what he thinks is the first time ever, but his body is telling him no, we know them, we miss their touch. And you, the apprentice, slowly realizing you're feeling the same things? You immediately trust him because, before you forgot, he was your partner. Your mentor. Somebody you were so incredibly, incredibly close to, but you died and he blamed himself and everything crumpled and he made himself forget so it could never happen again and then --

There you are. And neither of you remember, but at the same time, some part of you does. The muscle memory never left. He touches you so casually, pats your arms and grabs your hand and leads you around the alleys as if it's second nature because it is. He dreams of your face and his torment and of losing you, and doesn't realize that it was real, and that his body itches to hold you because that part of him can't bear to lose you again.

I am obsessed with it. How many little tells are there, really, that the two of you share and hint at it being an old habit from times forgotten? How many little touches used to be daily routines? How many flutters of visions aren't just passing thoughts and wishes, but memories?

You think of how hard it would be to kiss Julian with a plague mask on, and his response is "Imagine trying with two of them," because he wanted to kiss you when you were his apprentice, when you were both desperate and tired and aching and tortured by the plague with only each other's company as a comfort. Maybe that's why you had the thought of kissing him in the first place, too -- but neither of you know why the subject was brought up, neither remember, yet some parts of you do.

Ugh. I love it. And when Julian finally does regain his memories? And he realizes you're real and you're here and you've been here, and he has been able to touch you and hold you this whole time, but now he can truly appreciate it, but he's also horrified with the weight of losing you all over again. Oh my God. It's so good. The potential underlying thoughts and emotions are so good.