Disclaimer: Squaresoft owns all; leave me alone.

Warning: dark, some naughty language, violence, possible future slash (this chapter is slash-free, and I'll include it in the warning if any ever appears)

Rating: R

Notes: Not sure where i'm going with this; may be rough as i'm just writing off the top of my head; comments & criticism greatly appreciated. This is not a love story. Get over it.

The Nature of Our Misery

By Creole

Chapter One: How It Works

The blitzball smacked into his forehead with a dull thud, setting off a fireworks display behind Bickson's eyes. He watched dully as the blitzball sank past his chest, his feet... He hadn't been focused; he wasn't focusing; they were counting on him; why couldn't he do it? Lights were flashing in his vision- Graav had the best throwing arm on the team- and his breath rushed out through his oxygen filter, making a commotion of bubbles. Bubbles like their lives, expanding and growing fast only to implode. Dead. They were as good as dead. This year or the next; why did it matter?

Suddenly, he couldn't be bothered to keep himself afloat anymore. Why waste the effort? That crack in him was opening wider, fissuring; the clear blue water was acid that ate into him. Wider and wider the soul-holes would open until he was gone and there was nothing left. He felt himself sinking... this faux-happiness... half a meter and he snapped back to become himself again. Ignoring the burning stares of his teammates that scored his back, he swam down to retrieve the lost blitzball. He pulled himself back into position with practiced ease, passing back to Graav's incredulous face before signaling. Again.

His teammates lost their inquisitive stares and their faces glossed over, perfect hard masks. Pros in their element. Their other selves. The selves that ruled their lives. Graav passed to him again, slower by the tiniest of increments. But Bickson could tell; he had played with this team four years now. Four years of practice to learn everything there was to know about them. To know that every unnecessary motion, every wasted effort, wasn't. That it all meant something. There was a reason. He knew that Graav, no, the team, was worried. Bickson caught the blitzball and speedily delivered it past Raudy into the goal, a shit-eating grin on his face. That was their way. Speaking without speaking. He was okay, for now. Until tonight.

The practice dragged on for another hour. Another hour of passing and blocking and scoring and swimming until you couldn't tell up from down or yourself from the water anymore. When his muscles were burning and he could barely keep afloat, he knew that it was enough. He signaled to the team and dragged himself towards the exit.

The others stiffly pulled themselves out of the water behind him; they always let him out first. Respect and all; he was the team captain. He was the captain of the best team in Spira; what was there not to be proud of? They were efficient in every way. They recognized each others' flaws and strengths and judged not. He knew that he was a conceited bastard; who was he to deny it? And his teammates had never felt the need to point it out; they knew that he knew and it wouldn't bog them down. In fact, it became a part of all of them. Of their outside selves. A perfect cover. The correct response to glory.

He smirked to himself, settling down heavily on a bench to stretch his aching legs, careful of the fresh bruises there and the pruny skin on his fingertips that he knew would tear easily for the next forty-five minutes. That was when he noticed that the others hadn't begun their usual post-practice chatter. He looked up from massaging his sore hamstring to meet the stares of the five. They looked at him in a new way, almost as if... they thought something was wrong with him. That he was slipping. He looked each of them in the eyes, challengingly. None of them could quite hold his gaze- though Doram lasted longer than the others- and in the end, he was victorious. So what if he had slipped up a little? They wouldn't win this battle; he had practiced this persona for years. He was better at this than he was at even Blitzball. And he was the best.

He delicately pried the oxygen filter out of his mouth, wincing a bit as the long end slid out of his windpipe. He placed it in the antibacterial soup that the league provided for them before plucking it out and storing it out in his locker, in the case in the back. The case with the sphere lock. Some fans are truly rabid, especially those pitiful few loyal to the Besaid Aurochs- and it was best to keep anything that they would be counting on to keep them alive locked away. The keeper of the Al Bhed Psyches a few years back had his tampered with by some disapproving Yevonites- likely one of the Goers' fans, shamefully. Everyone was too focused on the thick of the action at the oppostite end to notice him slowly turning blue as he scrabbled at the locked exit gate. It was only at after the game had ended that he was noticed. He had been floating dead for half of the game, supsended somewhere between his home goal and the midfield. No one but his teammates and a few fans showed up for his funeral, but from then on the exit gates were left open.

The others began murmuring to each other as they toweled off and changed into identical 'dry land' uniforms, occasionally including him in the conversation. Balgerda, especially, liked to ask his opinion about every subject from politics to Yevon, giving her own well-thought-out opinion as she stripped down. The women changed in the same room; there was no modesty here. The team kept no secrets from each other. But after awhile, Balgerda sensed his need for solitude. She moved maybe ten centimeters closer to the team, away from him. That was all the team needed to know how he felt. They kept to themselves.

The Goers worked like one organism; gauging each other's needs and fulfilling them, offering support when needed, the occasional outburst of violence taken as one would take a lover's kiss. Each of them had come in more than once with bruises on their bodies that people assumed came from Blitzball. How many times had Bickson run his tongue over a split in his lip to taste copper there? How many times had he lifted his head from his pillow to leave it red? The Goers were in no way violent by nature; they weren't sadists or masochists. Oh, no. The stress of the game, of the responsibilities, of pretending- sometimes they build upon you until your veneer cracks and all the ugliness that was stored away for weeks, for months, rushes, floods out. And you feel like your head will explode, like you will kill someone. Like you almost want to. A quick trip to a teammate's apartment fixes everything. One look and they know. They know because you are all part of the organism. One and the same. And they'll take your blows, knowing that it is for the good of the team, their own good. For surely the rage will eventually build in them too, and they will need you.

Within six months of forming as their generation's Goers, they bought a townhouse and split the rent. It was easier that way. Much more efficient.

But once, early on, Bickson himself lost control when the rage had him. He beat Raudy hard enough to make him cough blood, to leave an arc of red on the floor where he slid as Bickson attacked him. But Raudy never complained as he pummeled him; never a sound came from his lips until it was over. And when it was, it was only to rasp, "Get the first-aid kit." After standing for a moment, aghast at himself, he fetched the kit and washed his hands of the red stain. He wet a towel, catching his reflection in the mirror. He felt strangely cleansed; the dark circles beneath his eyes spoke of weariness, but those would soon fade. He knew that he wouldn't have insomnia again for at least a month. It was very liberating, this releasing of the evil inside you. Get it all out. Kill it away.

Hearing a soft cough from Raudy, he came to himself and seized the towel and kit to inspect him. He first wiped the red from where it had dribbled down that brown chin, then gave the towel to Raudy. He slowly pushed him back to the floor from which he had risen and opened his shirt to inspect his wounds. After briefly looking him over, he motioned for Raudy to hand him the towel once more, wiping the sweat and pain off his dark skin. Fortunately, there were no open wounds that he could see. But after gently applying pressure all along his torso, he came to the conclusion that his ribs were broken, and possibly his collarbone. He felt sudden guilt; by beating Raudy this badly, he had incapactiated him. That was bad for the team. He was impeding their progress, keeping them from being at the top of their game. He fucked up.

He was, of course, quite good at first aid by then, but resetting broken bones wasn't his specialty. His eyes flashed to Raudy's, holding his gaze for a moment in unspoken apology. A nod from Raudy, and Bickson went to retrieve Balgerda, the most medically qualified of all of them.

He felt a resentment from the rest of the house; one of them had been put out of commission because he had been careless. He couldn't blame them. They had to tell the fans that Raudy was taking a break, was on vacation. And they had to hire a temp to fill his place. The temp wasn't a bad keeper, but he wasn't part of the organism. With every blocked shot, he beamed with pleasure and looked to them as if he expected praise. He didn't know that winning, that getting it right, was all they needed. That praise wasn't necessary. That the game was the focal point of their lives. He didn't understand, couldn't translate a look or a motion into words. Into action. After games, in the locker room, he would babble incessantly about how great the game had been, that they'd won, how excellent Abus's last-second score had been. And they knew that he expected praise in return for praise, for Abus to tell him how fabulously he'd blocked the ball. But it wasn't coming; in time, all that he came to expect was cold stares when he spoke out-of-turn.

By the time Raudy came back, he was out-of-sync. He was rusty. He was still good; one of the best- but not the same. He couldn't find his center, couldn't merge back into the group lifestyle. It took nearly a month for him to adjust and be re-absorbed into the organism. Ever since, Bickson had been very careful when the rage was too high. They all had been.

But he was losing his focus. He was cracking. They could all see this fracture, this hole in him. They knew. They acted as though nothing had changed, but they knew. He wasn't fighting the good fight much longer before he broke. But while he was captain, the Goers would be the best team in all of Spira. He would give them a run to remember. One that would go down in the books. Something that would make people happy. He sensed the team silently filing out the door. After sitting immobile for a few seconds, he raised himself off the bench, changed, and followed. He stepped out of the locker room to see their outside faces, the condescending smiles pasted on. The group tilted their heads ever-so-slightly in his direction, their stances asking if he was ready to play this lesser, secondary game with them. He slapped on his conceited grin and joined them. They knew his answer. He had recovered and his cracks were nicely glossed over, hidden with sarcasm and an unrelentingly cruel wit.

Perhaps twenty fans lurked outside, all of them wanting autographs, a handshake, a hug. Attention from their idols. These people lived to breathe the same air, to step where they had stepped. The Goers gave them some happiness, if only for a little while. Made them forget Sin. Forget the death. But they were like a pack of wild dogs, worrying at them like an old soup bone. Tearing them apart. Their love would drive him to an early grave, or to madness... Shaking himself free of that line of thought, Bickson casually flirted with some of the young girls in the group, sure to drop a witty line or two in order to perpetuate his outside self. The stuck-up playboy. His best role.

The team continued with their P.R. crusade, their outer shells of personality impenetrable. No one knew but them that the outside persona was only partly true. That they were an exclusive clique but for different reasons. That they hid that intense, secret part of themselves that made up everything they were.

To the delight of a few female fans, Bickson smoothed back his flaming red hair and snottily queried, "So, what losers do we have to beat for the title this time?"

He felt like his grin would break his face in two.

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Talk: I love the underappreciated secondary characters. The Goers conveniently fall into that category, which not only makes me adore them, but means it probably hasn't been done. This chapter was very dark; expect the 'mood' of the story to change often, based on my- er, Bickson's feelings at the time. But it will remain predominantly dark. I think. My first fanfic- here's hoping it didn't suck. ...No, you can't have your time back.