Apocrypha
Seventeen ways Odd and Ulrich's friendship could have ended, but probably didn't.
A/N: This was inspired by reading one of snickiefics' half-finished fics and the product of a week's worth of drabbling on the margins of notes in school. Enjoy and don't forget to leave a review.
Warnings: Character death in some of these, slash in some of these.
"You ready?"
Ulrich can't tell if Odd means if they're ready to kick ass or ready to die. But he nods and shares one grin with Odd and then they run into the chaos.
"Return to the past now."
Well, they're in the past, Ulrich reasons, looking down at his eight year old body (unfortunately housing his thirteen year old brain).
But Ulrich is patient, and he can wait. So he does. For almost four years. He meets Jeremie and Yumi again, both in his same situation and they keep an eye on the supercomputer and plan against XANA attacks that are bound to happen soon. And wait for Odd.
The bus comes to Kadic one day, and he's waiting for it, but Odd Della Robbia never comes with it.
"What was that?" Odd snarls.
Ulrich can still feel his lips tingling when he turns and bolts out of the room.
"I just have a really bad feeling about this," Odd mumbled, his mouth buried in his pillow. His eyes, however, never left Ulrich.
Ulrich smiled and cuffed Odd on the shoulder. He didn't say anything, just gave Odd a mock salute, which Odd returned half heartedly.
As he watched Ulrich walk away, a cold shiver swept through his body as he tried to forget his half-remembered dream and how his half-remembered dreams had ways of coming true.
"So," Ulrich drawled. "Art school, huh?"
Odd had a dab of green paint on his cheek and his hands hadn't been their usual pale tone for almost a year now, in favor of reds and purples and oranges.
When he grinned, the dab shrunk but a large yellow streak appeared beneath his chin. A yellow streak that made Ulrich unreasonably angry.
But Ulrich smiled back anyway, trying not to feel hurt that Odd had no qualms leaving them behind.
The footprints in the forest are still fresh, but Ulrich stops.
Odd must have gone for a reason. And in that case, who is Ulrich to search?
"Turn it off," Ulrich hissed. "Just turn the computer off!"
Odd paled at the controls. "You and Aelita are both trapped in there. You'll-"
"-be saving the world!" Ulrich snapped. "Listen, Odd. I know what it's like up there. What good is us coming out of the supercomputer if you all are dead?!"
"Alright," Odd whispered. "I'll miss you both."
"You too. Now go."
A minute later, as Lyoko turned black and Aelita dragged him into the tower (he made sure to get one last view of the forest), he swore he heard a choked sob. And then nothing.
In the time since the computer had been turend off, apparently virtual reality and codes had become child's play. Materializing Aelita had taken one twenty-five year old PhD student, who at the time when he discovered the ancient supercomputer in the even older factory had been desperate for a topic for his thesis, two weeks.
He didn't tell them what he was doing, just muttered and typed and at one point in time, he had done something so they had been somehow been forced to sleep for three and a half days. But when that was over, they were free and Aelita had more memories than she knew what do with.
The student, while not particularly interested in being their friend, did let them stay in his apartment, show them the ropes of the new society, and had some government official fix them up with new identities.
It was when they were traveling and exploring a history museum when Aelita's shaky voice called Ulrich over, to a painting of a forest turning into blackness, as if disintegrating. And it was done by none other than an Odd Della Robbia.
"He died over fifty years ago," she whispered, touching his name on the small plaque by the painting.
And Ulrich had known. Knew. But he still felt as if the floor was swaying beneath him.
"What good is us coming out of the supercomputer if you all are dead?!"
"Milly and Tamiya told me some interesting new today," Ulrich said coolly.
"Oh yeah," Odd asked, tossing a ball to Kiwi. "What's that?"
"You. And Yumi."
Odd smirked and leaned his head back on his pillow. "Hey. You snooze you lose, good buddy. You could have had her at any time for the last year and a half. But you didn't do an-y-thing. And now, I did."
They didn't think anything about Ulrich's pounding headache that morning. Just blamed it on Sissi and had a good laugh.
No one was laughing three hours later when Ulrich collapsed and wouldn't get up and the EMTs pronounced him dead on arrival.
Odd waks up to the sound of Ulrich throwing clothes into a sporting bag.
He could ask questions, but he doesn't. Instead he lies in his bed and listens to the rain fall and Ulrich mutter obscenities to himself. As soon as Ulrich leaves, however, he sends Kiwi after the boy. Ulrich is a dependent sort of person and needs a friend and unconditional love. And if Odd isn't good enough, that's okay. As long as Ulrich has someone.
That day, Ulrich woke up and didn't remember Lyoko. They tried to tell him, they tried to coerce him into the scanner. But he never believes, and more often then not they have to launch a return trip before the police arrest them.
So eventually, they stop trying.
"You can't die," Ulrich croaks.
Odd still smiles, even in death. His last prank.
"You kissed me?!"
Ulrich wasn't sure if it was a question or an exclamation, so he just blushed harder and shrugged. He couldn't believe he had actually just done that. But he couldn't deny it either, so he felt his face grow red and brace himself for Odd's onslaught of confusion and anger and disgust.
And then suddenly, Odd's lips were against his again.
"We'll find him," Ulrich says to them.
They don't quite believe him. He doesn't quite believe him either.
Ulrich strokes Odd's hair. The gel is hard and plastic-like and the area where it was purple is crunchy. But he really can't care. Odd's face is grimy with streaks of clear and even though he knows that there's blood, Ulrich doesn't look down far enough to see it.
He had been muttering this whole time. Murmuring nothings when Odd was alive and dying and pleading now that he was dead.
"It could be worse," Odd said lightly.
"How?" Ulrich asked. "How could it be worse?"
Odd smiled but didn't answer that until: "Sissi could be here too."
"At this point, I think I would rather see Sissi."
And Ulrich meant it. He would rather see Sissi then the hulking men dressed in pitch-black. Rather be anywhere than the cellar that was wet and infested with rats. But, selfishly enough, he was glad Odd was here with him (and he hated himself for saying that).
And then, the door burst open and Ulrich shoved his hand over Odd's mouth and volunteered himself to go first. Odd screamed as they pulled Ulrich out, but he noticed, rather satisfactorily, that they were leaving the other boy completely alone.
He would stall. Stall for enough time for Jim and Jeremie and Yumi to flying in and save Odd. Stall for enough time for a return to the past. Stall so that these Men in Black would know enough that they would ever need Odd.