Stygian

A One-Shot by Ellipsis the Great

Summary: Darkness isn't so bad when there's someone there to lead you home. Prequel to 'Blind Trust' and 'Touch.'

DISCLAIMER: Kingdom Hearts and everything affiliated with it belongs to SquareEnix and Disney. All I own is the plot…

Rated: K+.

Hayner was blind.

Again.

And this time, he definitely hadn't deserved it.

Last time…okay, maybe last time he had deserved it (he'd have been out for blood, too, if he'd woken up with beetles and June bugs in his bed. And underwear). And maybe even the time before that (people didn't usually enjoy being pushed into dog patties, he was sure). All of the times before that, too, perhaps…

But this time he hadn't done anything that bad. Just brushed Dodger's teeth with his brother's toothbrush. And his brother was practically a dog anyhow, so surely the (relatively harmless) prank didn't warrant blindness…did it?

Hayner sighed and ran his hands along the wall, searching for any sort of marker that might give him a hint as to where his brother had abandoned him this time.

Instead, he ran into someone and fell over.

"Sorry, sorry. Can't see." He stood back up hastily, flushing darkly and quickly brushing off the thought of his brother having blinded someone else.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised—a little chickenwuss like you's probably too short to see anything."

He felt the color drain out of his face even faster than it had filled it—he knew that voice. How could he not? It belonged to his worst enemy (well, as much of an enemy as a seven year old could have), Seifer Almasy. And there was no way he was getting any help from Seifer.

In fact, he was sure he would soon be getting just the opposite.

In fact, he was kind of shocked he hadn't already been pushed back to the ground.

"Erm…um, no…I'm, uh…actually blind right now." Hayner managed to get out, flustered to the point of stuttering. "A spell…"

Seifer laughed. "Oh really, now? Poor little lamer pissed off the wrong person, huh?"

Hayner frowned. Seifer was always calling him names like that…and he was pretty sure that even eight year olds weren't supposed to know words like 'pissed.'

"Look, I…I just wanna go home, okay? Please don't be a jerk today." He said, his voice far more plaintive than he had wanted it to be.

The truth was…the darkness of being blind was starting to get to him. Not that it hadn't always shaken him up, because it had, but he was really beginning to dread any sort of darkness at all. And that feeling of dread intensified every time his brother put the spell on him, which seemed to be more and more often as his own pranks intensified and his brother evidently realized how much the spell got to him.

He could almost see Seifer's smirk at the plea.

Except that Seifer still hadn't hit him yet. He wasn't even saying anything…Hayner wondered if that should worry him.

"Oh," said Seifer, instead of the hitting or taunting Hayner was expecting.

For some reason, that one small utterance made Hayner's bottom lip start to shake. It was like that miniscule act of kindness—which wasn't really even an act of kindness at all—had lowered all of Hayner's inhibitions about showing any sort of weakness in front of Seifer…in front of anyone, actually, but mostly Seifer.

"…Lamer?"

Hayner quickly brought his hands to his cursed, sightless eyes, hoping to hide the tears that were welling up and slipping out of them.

"I really hate this spell." He choked out, hating how tiny and scared his voice sounded. Then he sucked in a sharp breath in an attempt to hold his tears at bay. "I," another sharp breath, "really hate it. I wanna," a breath, "go home."

Seifer made a weird sound that Hayner couldn't place—not a laugh, nor a whimper. Something that sounded like surprise and uncertainty.

"Okay." Seifer said finally.

Then, there was a light touch at his elbow, half pushing and half pulling him to one side before his feet caught up with where he was being led, luckily before he tripped over himself. The hand attached to the elbow in question lowered, even as the other continued rubbing at his runny nose and eyes, and quickly found itself being held by another hand—slightly bigger, slightly stronger, slightly rougher, and all Seifer.

"'S okay." Seifer said, still leading him along with uncharacteristic gentleness. "Promise I'm just takin' ya home."

"Pinky promise?" He squeaked out.

A pause. "Yeah, sure." And the hand in his left for a moment to join pinkies with him before returning to its previous position.

"Where are we?" He asked. His voice was getting less jerky now; his tears less abundant.

"Near my house. The Sandlot." Seifer replied.

No wonder Hayner hadn't known where he was—he always tried to avoid the Sandlot, because that's where Seifer and his two goons hung out. That was probably why his brother had left him there—he'd be hopelessly lost and at the mercy of the one person who wouldn't have mercy on him.

Except that…Seifer kind of was having mercy on him. And Hayner contemplated, for a moment, being suspicious of or insulted by the mercy, but at the moment he really did just want to go home, and if they stopped he would probably start crying again. Even if he'd been the one to stop them.

"You got quiet." Seifer said suddenly. "Y'okay? 'M I goin' too fast?"

He shook his head without saying anything, but Seifer slowed down a little anyhow. Hayner took advantage of the slow in pace and pressed himself closer to the larger boy, reaching up hesitantly with his free hand and running it over the fabric of the sleeve of the weird polo shirt Seifer usually wore. The fabric wasn't as coarse as he would have expected, considering Seifer's personality.

"So who done it?" Seifer asked, an almost (almost) teasing edge to his voice.

He just shrugged. Even with this weird show of compassion, he wasn't about to tell Seifer that it had been his brother who had done this to him. With his luck, the two of them would team up and…well, make his life a living word-he-wasn't-supposed-to-know-but-meant-a-really-fiery-place.

"Dunno or not tellin'?" Seifer prompted.

He didn't answer for a moment, and then carefully said, "Dunno," even though it was a lie.

"Any guesses?"

He shrugged as best he could, wondering he Seifer had been looking at him to see the movement. "Dunno." He said again, just in case. "Someone who don't like me, I guess."

"Well there aren't many of those." Seifer scoffed. Hayner wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or was just upset by the thought. He also wasn't sure why Seifer would be upset by it, so he decided that Seifer must have been being sarcastic.

"Shaddup." He muttered, but regretted it immediately when Seifer's hand pulled away from his. "No, no, wait, don't—"

"Yer home, chickenwuss." Seifer said, a hint of a laugh in his voice.

"…Oh." He said softly, embarrassed by his outburst.

Seifer really laughed, then. "Awful clingy, aincha?" He asked. And this his hand had grabbed Hayner's again and placed it on the doorknob. "There."

"Th…thanks." He forced out, turning his head to one side so that hopefully Seifer wouldn't catch him blushing again.

"Don't mention it." Seifer said. "Or I'll punch yer face in."

He wasn't sure whether he should giggle or get mad, so instead he shrugged. It was so much harder to know what a person meant by what they were saying when you couldn't see their face—even if you could hear them!

Seifer's hand was lingering on his, and he grabbed it before Seifer could pull it away. Then he gave a sharp tug, pulling Seifer forward and planted a kiss where he thought a cheek might be, but he was pretty sure he caught the corner of Seifer's lips instead.

He turned and nearly smacked into the door, remembering to throw his hands out just in time to catch himself, find the doorknob (somehow), and disappear into the house before Seifer could recover or retaliate.

Hayner wasn't looking forward to having been blinded and getting a black eye all in one day.

(PAGEBREAK,Y'KNOW?)

Hayner's mom found him a few minutes later and lifted the spell, and that night Hayner stole a polo shirt of his father's that had fabric similar to Seifer's. And he huddled under his blanket with his face buried in the shirt, his eyes squeezed shut to keep his tears in, and wishing his father wasn't so strict about boys over the age of five not having nightlights.

And—though he tried not to think about it—wishing that Seifer was around to keep the darkness from seeming quite so scary.

The End.