Life, Fantastic.
tell them that the world is dying

Running a hand through his green hair, Fran suppresses a shiver as he places a hand on the door that would let him into his 'friend's' room. This place had always slightly unnerved him – something about being surrounded by warranted crazy people tends to do that to their saner counterparts – and there was also the fact that the temperature was always enough to chill him to his bones. In all honesty, he didn't want to come here to begin with, but the red circle over this particular date on his calendar had told him that a certain someone would be upset with him if he didn't show.

The walls around him were suffocating and a sterile white. Pure. But it didn't seem pure. Too many dirty thoughts. It's enough to choke him. Glancing down the halls, Fran sees no one and swipes the plastic card that acts as a key through the metal scanner that acts as a lock. He sighs when the little light flashes green, signifying that he can enter the room. And he does, keeping his head low.

It's white too, the everything. The walls of the room were smooth and clean despite a few scratches, the hard floor was cold to his bare feet, and even the modest furniture shared the same degree of tidiness. The rooms here are never allowed to be a mess, he was told once. Everything must be clean – living space, body, and mind. Of course, Fran had figured out that it was a lie. Nothing real was ever truly this clean – especially not here.

His green eyes landed on the other occupant of the room sitting against the wall across from the bed, the only contrast to the white other than himself. Bel, who is only a year older than him. But Fran feels several years his senior.

"Hi," he says, tone limp and unenthusiastic. "They made me take off my shoes this time. I can hide a weapon in them now, according to the staff." Fran walks over to the simple bed, sitting down on it and putting his arms behind him to support him as he leans back in an attempt to look casual. There's a lot of acting involved on these types of visitation.

"Oh, can you?" Belphegor's voice is curious, peppered with amusement. Maybe salted would be a better description; pepper is too dark to suit his room. "You're thirty-six minutes late, you know."

"I know."

"You're always late."

"I know."

There was a calculated pause – as if Bel already had the conversation mapped out in his blonde, delusional little head. "That's not very nice. I'm a prince. You really should put some effort into getting here on time. I'll buy you a watch." He laughs, his head rolling along the wall from one side to the other. Drawing his knees tightly to his chest and hugging his arms around his knees, he laughs harder than he should.

Fran rolls his eyes, not exactly amused with the other's antics. "You can't buy anything, remember? Not while you're stuck in this place. It smells different." Like fresh lemons, he thinks. Acidic. Most of the time, it smelled faintly of dust.

Bel nods quickly, his thin fingers playing with the fabric of his loose pants. "They say it makes it cheery. It just gives me a headache, and so they give me more pills sometimes." Again, he pauses, and looks to the side as he tries to find something else to say. "How is Mammon?"

Fran sighs for the second time today, having expected this question. Bel always asked it without fail, sometimes more than once each visit. "Dead as always. If they keep giving you so many pills, you're going to end up dead too."

"No." Bel's lips twist into a grin. His teeth are white too. "I'm glad to hear Mammon is doing well. He needs to stop being so stingy, though. He never shows up at all. I miss pulling his cheeks."

A small, punctuated sigh escapes from Fran. "He'll never show up."

"He will. And then we'll both drown you in a pond, where ugly frogs belong."

Fran leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and propping up his head in one of his hands. "Sure. And then you'll be in jail, where burly men will touch you in your sleep." He gives Bel a disinterested look, which has no effect on him.

"They wouldn't dare touch a prince."

"Fake prince," Fran quickly interjects. "Have you been making any progress at all? I was told that you still haven't been cooperating. Boss will be mad, and it's nearly been a year." Receiving no answer, he stares blankly at the other male. Bel looks zoned out, his attention seeming to be focused through the bland scenery outside of the small window on the wall nearest to the bed. Just a tree with hardly any leaves, and short cut, dry grass; the sky devoid of any clouds, which Fran is glad for. Too much white. Clouds are great and all, but there's just so much a man can take.

There's a good chance that Bel is simply choosing to ignore his question.

The 'prince' looks a little paler and maybe even a little thinner every time he sees him. It was Xanxus' and Squalo's decision to put him here – after Mammon's suicide, he wasn't quite himself and no one had the capacity and patience to deal with him. Granted, he wasn't that bad at all until they had left him alone here. No one had simply wanted to deal with the stress that he was creating, and they couldn't exactly set him loose on the streets without a place to go. It was easier said than done; after practically raising Belphegor from a child to a young adult, no one could do it. A temporary home was a better option, really.

And then there was the medication, and the numerous side effects that only made everything so much worse. One of those side effects were hallucinations and delusions, giving him the 'I'm a prince' idea, and some ridiculous notions about the mafia and rings, and blood. Lots of blood. Every day, Bel came up with a new story with all of them in it, as if he was living an alternate reality in his head, or if they were all fictional characters in a novel he was writing. Everything he had told him about their fictitious lives stung together almost perfectly too.

The story about him murdering Rasiel probably stemmed from his hatred of his brother, and the freak accident that killed his immediate family. Him being a prince may be triggered from the fact that he had always lived wealthy, especially after they died. There was just so many things that Fran couldn't possibly keep up with all of it. Just listening sometimes was interesting, although he had learned early on to tune him out and nod occasionally. He had never been very close to Bel, but everyone else was always too busy to visit him.

So, naturally, the job landed on Fran. Life never really turns out the way you want it, does it? Sometimes it's just as sick as the blonde sitting on the floor across from him.

"How long are you staying this time? It's always sad once you leave. I never get any other visitors, you know. And on one likes to talk to me. Not that I would let them. Stupid peasants. They buzz a lot." Fran's eyebrow quirks at Bel's rambling, and he absentmindedly pulls at a loose string off his jeans.

"Everything you say is weird. Maybe I can have a nice visit if you don't open your mouth." He sighs again, shutting his eyes so he doesn't have to look at the mess.

Bel pouts, wishing he had something to throw at Fran. "Do not avoid my questions. So disrespectful." He wiggles his toes, and holds back a yawn. Mammon was never this boring. "I want to play a game."

Fran avoids his question. "Like what..? There's nothing to do here. If I were you, I would probably kill myself like Mammon did from the lack of anything productive to do."

"Nooooo."

"If you say so."

Bel laughs again. The sound grates against everything, reverberating in Fran's ribs in an annoying way. It doesn't belong here. He's too loud to be in a place like this.

"Mammon isn't dead. He's just hiding! Hide and seek. I told you this before, remember?" Bel wiggles his fingers this time. Fun. "Why can't we play a game too? Maybe you'll disappear this time, and Mammon will come back. I would like that."

Fran tilts his head slightly, and sits straighter. "I remember, I remember. I also remember you attending his funeral, senpai."

"It was an illusion."

He sighs. "Of course it was. Everything is an illusion, isn't it?" In a few minutes he can go. Lussuria is making lasagna tonight – he always does when Fran visits Bel. It's a cheap reward, but it works most of the time.

Fran blinks, and Belphegor suddenly stands up, leaning uncomfortably close to the older-but-still-younger male. "You never seem to believe me," he muses, thoughtful and maybe even a little bitter. Fran is tempted to tell him that no one believes him, but decides to hold his tongue. Invading even more of Fran's personal space, he can feel the blonde's breath tickling at his face. Regardless, he holds his ground as well.

"I dislike you," Bel states, and Fran can also feel his stare. It's piercing, in an oddly medicated way. "And I like you even less because you don't believe me. And," he says, more forceful this time, "I dislike you because you're not Mammon."

Fran blinks, having heard this spill before. Belphegor is so... predictable in the most unpredictable way. It's bothersome at times, but makes him easier to verbally combat.

"I think that I may even hate you," he says flippantly, yet determined. "Mammon would have believed me because he knows. Not knew, he knows. Because he's still alive, and he's just waiting for the prince to find him. We were playing a gaaaame, and unfortunately he is very good at them. Not as good as I am, but it is somewhat difficult to continue searching when I'm stuck in this hell."

Fran blinks, and keeps an impassive face. "So what do you want me to do about it? You're crazy – you always have been and you always will be."

"I am not," Bel cuts him off, beginning to sound vaguely irritated with him. "I want out of here. I want to find Mammon and pinch his cheeks again, and I want to be able to eat something real and live without being dissected by their eyes." With a growl, he grabs Fran's shoulders and pushes him down onto the bed, while he hovers over him with a clinical expression.

There's a burst of static from the intercom system in the room, a female voice barking at Belphegor to stop or drastic measures will be taken.

Instead, he relents and presses his weight onto Fran's shoulders. The younger male hides a look of surprise. This has never happened before. Unpredictable. If he was imagining things, Fran would swear that he can see the shadow of Bel's eyes. Dark circles blemishing his otherwise pale skin, like he had been having sleeping problems. Predictable.

"I hate you," Belphegor seethes, practically hissing at him in his outburst. He digs his thin, spidery fingers into the material of Fran's clothes, like he was trying to tear into his skin and break him from the inside out. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. More than anything living on this planet."

He's never seen or heard him this mad or upset before. Annoyed, yes. But never angry at anything.

Fran lets Belphegor rant, it only lasting a few more moments before the door of the room is flung open. Two men run in and quickly wrench the blonde away from, standing on the opposite side of the room. One holds Bel's arms painfully behind his back while the other makes sure to keep his feet planted firmly to the ground. He's stiff, baring his teeth at the men like a feral animal.

Fran sits up and rubs his shoulders, pointedly looking away from Belphegor. And then a woman's hand is on his shoulder, in an effort to be comforting. There's frown lines on her face and she gives him an apologetic look. "I think you should leave."

"You think so? I was hoping to enjoy more time with my lively senpai."

"I think you should leave," she repeats, steel in her tone.

The woman then lets go of him and Fran notices that there's a syringe of something in her other hand. She steps towards Belphegor and the man holding his arms back grabs a fistful of blonde hair and holds his head still so that he can't move. Administering another dose of medicine... or maybe even a tranquilizer, Bel slowly relaxes. The small crowd of people lead him to the bed, where Fran moves from to stand against the wall near the door, and they leave with a silent reprimand. They'll be back when he leaves, he's sure of it.

Unorthodox.

Fran wonders what kind of hell this place is when there's no one to watch.

Bel gathers himself and lays on his side at a drunken pace, his face turned towards Fran.

He gives him a lazy sneer. "I'll be looking forward to our next visit, you toad."

Fran says nothing, and exits the room with ice gripping at his heels.