As Zacharie was the perfect video game merchant, he was often found way ahead of the Batter at any given time as long as he was in a habitable zone. What the Batter never really did think about (neither did his puppeteer) was the possibility that Zacharie had a habit of also watching the Batter whilst on his mission. To be honest, the Batter never really thought much about anything when he was away from a situation that called for it. There were infuriating puzzles to think about and mines to traverse, he didn't have time for idle thoughts.
"Miaou." The moment he heard that voice though, his mind was blank for different reasons. "For a nominal fee I can massage that damaged arm of yours." Zacharie offered with a smile behind his cat mask.
The Batter was first silent, trying to formulate something to say. It happened quite often and Zacharie never seemed to mind his awkward pauses. "I thought you were just supposed to give me hints, cat."
"I'm a cool cat though." From under the dark eyeholes of the skin mask, Zacharie winked, "I offer a variety of services as long as proper compensation is given."
The Batter stared at him, "Monetary?"
"Credits, music boxes, rare paraphenalia. All depends upon if you have what I want."
"How did you know my arm was injured?" An eyebrow climbed up the Batter's stoic face; it intrigued him how the merchant knew the purifier's soreness. Fortune and luck tickets, along with his own natural healing abilities healed the wounds of the flesh, only leaving soreness in the hastily mended meat. Soreness that was not always readily expressed. Zacharie just chuckled.
"I'm sure your puppeteer is wondering what's taking so long for you to simply accept or deny a simple transaction, dear Batter." Zacharie avoided, "Do you want that massage or not?"
"If you'll take your mask off…"
"Nope." The answer was swift and firm. "If you have nothing else preposterous to ask me for, I'll tell you that I have no hints for you at present. You're going to have to do some thinking on your own. Or rather, your puppeteer is." Zacharie stepped away from the counter of his shop, waiting for the Batter to be tugged out the door by his collar and strings.
As the Batter began to feel his marionette strings pull, he quietly said "I do want that massage some time."
Zacharie, from behind his counter moved not a muscle and thanks to his mask, the Batter could not tell if his facial expression changed at all. He cursed himself as he was lead out of the room for upsetting him. There had to be reasons why Zacharie never showed his face. Even statues of him depicted his face enclosed in a mask.
Unexpectedly, his puppeteer lead him into the adjacent building to the one he had just been in. As he entered it, he watched Zacharie appear from out of the hallway, his hand still on the face of his mask to make sure it fit snugly. Now he was faced with what the Batter had come to fondly refer to in his head as his "true" face. He always thought that the mask reminded him of a toad.
"What'll it be today my athletic friend?" the Batter couldn't tell if he was annoyed or not.
"Do you have any new bats on hand?"
"No." Okay, yeah, Zacharie wasn't happy.
"Would you like to have my bat in your hand?" He could scarcely believe he said that with the puppeteer watching and everything.
"Excuse me?" Zacharie didn't splutter, Zacharie was always calm and composed, never, ever did he splutter… However, he did sound curious.
"Nothing." the Batter felt his pale face blush as he reached to adjust his cap. "I'll just take some fortune tickets." Even if he really didn't need them, he didn't want to come to the shop and then suddenly walk out again. There was something about being around Zacharie that woke up the long-dormant human in him. Something that pushed aside all of his violent exploits and heartless tendencies and made him seem… Good? No, vulnerable was the word.
"You know the price. Fork 'em over." Zacharie wiggled his fingers at the Batter, little did the man know, that he was indeed smiling broadly behind his mask.
The Batter handed the merchant enough credits for three tickets, taking the time to nudge their fingers together. If he noticed, Zacharie didn't react as he placed the purchased tickets on the counter with his other hand.
"Pleasure doing business with you." Zacharie stored his money and turned his back to the Batter as his strings again pulled him out of the store. Zacharie sighed to himself and scratched underneath his mask. With a vague grumble, he heard the door next door open and the Batter walk back in. What was up with the puppeteer making him constantly walk back and forth?
Pulling off his toad mask and replacing it quickly with his helpful cat mask, he traversed the hall between rooms. When he arrived behind the counter there, however, he watched as the Batter placed his hand obediently on the yellow, floating cube. Unlike every other movement the puppeteer bade him make, the motion of his hand onto the cube was jerky and stiff. It always was. Zacharie watched the tension in his body and listened to the way his breaths came faster during a save. He knew the Batter was afraid of his puppeteer leaving him. He was afraid of the darkness that would envelope him until his marionette master returned.
Zacharie heard the faintest of snaps that was inaudible to the Batter and watched as the invisible strings detached from the puppet's body. The Batter fell limply to the ground at the cube with a faint grunt.
Continuing to watch him, Zacharie waited until the Batter's breathing was even and calm before he climbed over the counter and approached the helpless body.
"At least you're not out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere this time." he commented to himself, squatting down to arrange the Batter's limp body into a more comfortable position. One could mistake the Batter for dead as he was, he was pale enough, but the absence of his strings also made him cold and indeed lifeless. The only signs of his sleeping was his breathing and very faint heartbeat that Zacharie listened to on occasion when protecting the torpid man.
Slowly unbuttoning the Batter's uniform, he removed it and peeled his black undershirt off him with great care. As expected, his body wasn't mangled or bruised underneath his protection, he was perfect. Something Zacharie wasn't.
Again repositioning the Batter so Zacharie could get at his sore shoulder, he thought about the Batter's earlier request.
"Because you asked so nicely." he mumbled, taking off his mask and sitting it down on the ground. Zacharie avoided mirrors as often as he could when his mask was off. He trailed a hand down his rough cheek, tracing his fingers along the lines and scars of the bellicose man he used to be. "But that's not all." he chuckled bitterly, slipping a thumb past his right eye into the socket and popping out the false one therein.
To say that he had much of a face wouldn't have been entirely true. Sure, he still had half of his lips and a very thin layer that served as a right cheek, but having an empty socket where an eye should have been tended to upset people. An absence of a real nose tended to do the same as well.
He wondered if the Batter ever noticed his right eye wasn't a consistent color. Or if it ever crossed the Batter's mind why he kept an over-abundance of Eyes on hand. Certainly it was much simpler for him to use one of his special abilities to examine a monster just as closely. He tossed the Eye that had outlived its usefulness into his bag of rejects to get on with his real task.
With strong, careful hands, Zacharie massaged the Batter's shoulder. He worked the knotted muscle for awhile, it was almost therapeutic for himself to be showing another living being care. Once, he had Sugar, but she preferred to do her own thing more often than not. Spiriting herself away into places he was better off not going.
"Z… Ach… Ar…"
Zacharie recoiled at the unexpected voice of the Batter. He flung his hand out and groped for his mask, as the Batter's eyes laboriously lifted open.
"Y… our face…" he haltingly spoke, Zacharie lifting his cat mask back to his grotesque visage.
"How are you awake?" Zacharie spat at the puppet laying prone in his lap.
"Wh… at, happ… end to… You?" the Batter asked, trying with all of his being to just lift a hand. He wanted to touch Zacharie, to remove the mask from his face.
"You're just a puppet. It's none of your business. Go to sleep." the merchant huffed. He had done significantly more to the Batter while in stasis before and had never once woken him. He had covered him during a rainstorm; he had lifted and carried him, thrown him from the paths of spectres in their mission to harm him; he had fought monsters that bathed both the unconscious and Zacharie in blood and not once did he ever stir.
"I… Don… 't like… Sleeping." Zacharie snorted, formulating a number of harsh things he could say to the Batter, "I am… Afraid."
Zacharie suddenly laughed, pushing the Batter out of his lap and onto the cold, concrete floor. The Batter remained silent with his eyes open, stoicly staring at the sweater-clad man.
"You're afraid? The purifier of the zones, destroyer of spectres, is afraid of sleeping." Zacharie couldn't help but grip his stomach with his one free hand as he chortled. "Not only are you rich in credits, but perhaps you do have a sense of humor in there too." Zacharie finally reached back and tied his mask around his head to free up his hand. As the Batter lay on the ground, Zacharie wondered if the Batter found it the least bit unnerving that only one eye stared back at him; unnerved that where the other should have been, was just a dark, empty socket. "Being fearless is wonderful, Batter; I suppose I should welcome you to the world of those that constantly live in fear." Zacharie was still bitter as he stood. He reminded himself to not be too nasty; immobilized the Batter might have currently been, but he wouldn't always be that way and he had seen what a killer arm the man had.
"No… thing spectral… scares me." the Batter asserted, obviously gaining ground with his ability to speak. "Nothing… Physical. I can… Purify those. Dreams… Nightmares… I cannot fight."
"You like to hide behind your, big, pendulous bat." Zacharie winked with his good eye, but all it looked like was a blink in the absence of his second.
"Were you… Human or… Elsen?"
Zacharie sucked his marred tongue in thought but made no noise as he debated answering the Batter. The batter had never shown any past interest in him besides what potentially could have been behind his mask or what he had for sale. It was very odd for the Batter to suddenly act so inquisitive. However, Zacharie had hereto never spoken to the Batter without the presence of his puppeteer…
"Are you implying that I am something different since I lack a face?" Zacharie hissed.
"No… But many of us… Lose things… Here." the Batter took a very deep breath, "I know I… Am losing some… thing… Really quickly."
Zacharie frowned from his face's hiding place. It was easy to forget that the Batter was human before all of this purification nonsense came to him. The Batter did have feelings, he was a person… It was silly to think that of a video game character, but all characters had backstories and the Batter's was one he had burned into his memory.
"You have never… Seen me… At my worst." the Batter assured and Zacharie knew that for a fact. The Batter had said he was losing something, little did he know that he had already long lost it. Just as Zacharie had lost his "something" long ago too.
"I was human." Zacharie solemnly pronounced. "But, like you, there was something defining in… A trait that I carried. A sin. What yours is, I don't know… I'm guessing wrath, but mine was definitely greed." He pushed his mask up to sit on his mop of black hair. "Like the greedy wide-mouthed frog, I consumed and conquered until I ate myself to death; now I am this."
The Batter's eyes locked onto him, frozen in horrified recognition. Zacharie expected it, but it didn't mean that it didn't hurt. Walking over to his bag, he pulled out a fresh Eye, its iris a pretty blue. He popped it into his socket and rolled it until it sat straight and fixed on the Batter. He saw everything that was possible with the specialized Eye as he fixed it upon what could have been his adversary under slightly different conditions.
"In my greed I became the faceless merchant every game needs. And you…"
"A… Monster." the Batter responded, he well knew. He felt the beast inside of him rolling about just beneath his skin. He was pregnant with anger, guilt, wrath.
"To be frank, yes." Zacharie shrugged, pulling his mask down to again cover the remains of his countenance. "You and I are much the same."
"You're… No monster, Zacharie." the Batter reasurred, sending Zacharie into another fit of laughter. "No… Stop… You're not."
Zacharie's laughter stopped instantly and he paced over to the Batter, squatting beside him. He put his hands to the ground, astride his friend and leaned down into his face. He was so close that the Batter could smell the skin of his cat mask; it still smelled like it belonged on a cat rather than his aberrant face. "You. Don't. Know. Me. You don't know who I've destroyed, whose lives I've ruined, but I know everything about you. I hold all the judgement here, Batter."
"Do you know… How badly I want to… Kiss you?"
Well… That was… Unexpected, certainly.
"You've grown very bold since we first met."
"Is it catching your… Attention?" The Batter's lips pulled into the slightest of smirks.
Zacharie didn't answer, this was the last thing he had ever expected to happen since meeting his new friend. Would he honestly…? Even after knowing how things would end…?
"Yes." The merchant replied, pushing his mask up enough to reveal his mouth, "But would you still kiss this?" Zacharie smiled, his teeth all caddywhompus in his mouth, each one filing to a fine, sharp point.
"Kiss me." the Batter ordered, unable to move himself.
"If you wanted it enough, like you wanted to stay awake, you'll do it yourself." Zacharie kept himself above the Batter, waiting for him to gather his own muscle. Part of him wished that the Batter wouldn't be able to, he was only a puppet after all and shouldn't have been able to. At the same time, he wanted proof that someone honestly wanted him that much. In spite of his flaws, in spite of his lust for money and power, in spite of his mangled face, somebody still wanted him.
For a long time, the Batter stared at him, his face twisting into all kinds of configurations in his frustration. He fought with everything to get there and Zacharie could see it through his Eye; he saw the tensing of his muscles as if he were about to attack, the flow of his energy as if he were charging up. Even still, the Batter couldn't move.
"I knew it." Zacharie replaced the mask over his mouth and sat back.
"Please, come back…" the Batter spoke, trying to see Zacharie from out of the corner of his eye. "It isn't for lack of… Trying."
"I know."
"I want you… More than Her."
"Those are some big words you're talking, Batter." Zacharie stretched and yawned widely, he could really go for a nap. This whole mess was tiring.
A sudden snap broke the silence between them, however.
In a heartbeat, the Batter was sitting up and grabbing Zacharie by the front of his sweater. He pushed the mask up off his head and pressed his lips gently to his.
In response, Zacharie sputtered and pushed back away from him, groping violently for his mask. The Batter's eyes had gone predatory again, the strings and collar amid tangling themselves around his limbs and neck. The puppeteer had returned.
Their moment of who they truly were was gone. Zacharie located his mask, his heart drumming in his chest and stood, brushing himself off. He darted for his place behind the counter, sliding over it and standing where he normally did whilst the Batter hastily, but robotically redressed himself for his master's arrival.
The Batter stood and stretched his muscles, cracking his neck and rolling his decidedly more relaxed shoulder. His expression was controlled and cold again, but his strings still had slack to them. The puppeteer was still loading.
"Sometimes, when you want something really bad and fighting doesn't work. You just have to be patient." The Batter flatly told him, allowing his lips to smirk again.
The strings went taut and the Batter began his step out of the room. Though, with a final glance over his shoulder, he didn't miss Zacharie's thumb lifting the edge of his mask to reveal a joyous grin.
Notes:
Oh... Hi guys...