Author's note: If you're reading this, I sort of apologize. It's my first oneshot, and... it blows, kind of. I just wanted to get it out here because I... felt upset with something, and someone, and... yeah.

Look At Me

xxx

Could hear the sound of his breathing, out of rhythm. Always too fast, always too slow. Never the wavelength, never the... standard. Could hear him inhale, the crackling of white noise. Missed his exhale—too quiet, irregular, whispering.

Could hear him draw breath. Once, twice, thrice. Too shallow, gaping fish, zebra man, sad blue eyes. Sad, fucking... teary-eyed smile. Fucked, you know—we're all just so fucked, he said. He said with that stupid smirk, that smile that painted sunsets over glimmering features—the quirk of lips that urged his fingers to curl around smaller, tapered ones. Nervous, it said, when it spoke to others in tones of glee. Scared, it said, beneath a layer of broken self-assurance. Silver, sliced hair—strands everywhere. Every goddamn direction. Cut, shredded strips of starlight littering the floor in pitiful wisps.

I'm not so sure. I'm not so strong. I'm not so cold, so brave, so quiet, so hardened as I pretend. Not so damnably, comfortably silent and superior and brilliant and... refulgent as they believe. Did you know that word actually has a positive connotation? If someone would have spat it at me, oh like a viper, God I would have sneered. Repugnant, that word says, its demented, fucked up cousin. Refulgent... stupid, asinine, wretched—not shining brightly, not... not whatever it is.

I heard it once, heard it before—his hair is so damn refulgent, right? How does he take care of it all? It's just so... long, and shining...! And, and....

Oh God, I didn't want to hear it. Didn't want the cacophony of voices bouncing in my brain reminding me of how lustrous those locks spilled everywhere were... and a desperate, fumbling grope of pale-as-dying-birch fingers toward the nape of his neck furthered disgust. I'd cut it. Cut it all to fucking hell, with his sword. With that boy's sword. The boy with the hellishly goofy grin and pleasant demeanor. The boy that dragged me to the demon's stomach and back, out of the fire and flames, dead against a canyon... the boy that died a thousand different deaths that day. The boy I am. I've become? The boy I was supposed to be. A new hero for a new time, they say. What about me says... says...

Could hear him stop breathing—hold his breath to look at me... stare through me. Engulf his vision with my repulsive figure... and then exhale a cracked laugh. A laugh that could split the souls of the innocent... tear the hearts of virgins in two. Concealed beneath the lines of his sardonic jubilation, a weeping sob. A dying, strangled whine of outcry. Why, why, why, why? Look at me, his crying eyes said. And I noticed, clinging to his reddened tear ducts... shame. Really? Why for, what has God given us to be ashamed?

Ashamed. Of me. A glint of disgust in the salt dribbling down pale cheeks. Squeeze. Had to crush that hand in mine, understand, or he wouldn't have felt it. Wouldn't have jerked down to really meet my gaze, really study the flecks of sunshine in snapping blue eyes. Come on, he said. Please, I wish he would have uttered, but as collected as a heap of madness can be, he stood so silent. So steady. Such a Stonehenge vision of stability, he urged, come on.

The laugh choked the air we breathed—mine, this time, softer, sadder, a hint of lackluster incredulity. Come on? Really, come on. Teeth chattered, bodies shook—the ground trembled. And the heat swallowed us all.

Flashes of black. Flashes of white. The fire swallowing Nibelheim. The fire scalding all those villagers, the... flashes of black, flashes of white.

Could hear him suppress exasperation. Clung to his skin, nails dragging through tattered uniform.

You did this, he says. He says and I barely smile, because... God, God, I did do this... didn't I? Didn't I?

I know. I know, I can whisper. And that's it, all I manage. Come on, he says again.

Spread ten fingers wide, grate my teeth together. The end, right? Right, we're gonna die?

We'll live, he announces, and the shame has vanished. The translucent, glittering vulnerability slips and dries from his face, and it's kinda funny in this light the expression on his face.

Give me your sword.

Only a fool would comply. He does.

I'm about to do something horrible, I warn, and his mouth tightens—what more, now? So, I... love you...

Straight through the heart. You'd think I were some kind of bastard, wouldn't you... killing him, slaughtering him...? Whose heart, did I specify? Mine. Now he hears the sound of breathing, out of time, slow, fast—gasping, shallow. Now he sees the glint of sparkling silver—dirtied, smattered with blood.

Carry me.

Not even a flinch of hesitation. Not even a dislodging gesture of the weapon. Coughing, fuck. Impale... Impala... antelopes...

Fuck, fuck...

Seph... hey, Seph... the bracelet... you gave me... I left it... on the desk, you know...

It's alright, the answer reaches me. Somehow, when life's leaving you, you... don't have those awesome, dramatic thoughts. The last I love you's... it's more like, I think I left the door open for the cat again, or... hey, wait a sec... my clothes are bunching, and...

Jeeze, I feel like a jellyfish, kind of, and...

Please, look at me. Please...

Hey, Cloud, it's all right.

Look... at me...

He didn't.

It's going to be all right. Again.

The sound of irregular heartbeats... like one machine.

Okay. Swallow. Settling.

The trail of red, like a supersonic sound wave into the afterlife. Cataclysmic oozing down the pathway of fire...

Fuck, that bracelet...

I wish I'd have had the bracelet.

I wish...

Those eyes.

I could really have been him.