Paradocs: Oh, just enjoy the vague-ness of this one-shot! I thought it up on the ferry dock yesterday afternoon. Such a good time to think....
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned herein. Yet.
I stand on the shoreline, and I watch.
I've been here for hours, standing in the same place, watching. Nothing else. Just watching. It's quiet here, and I like that. Respect it. There are few places in the world as quiet as here. I seek to preserve that quiet. Live to preserve it. Hell, I breathe just so I can keep it alive.
It's strange, I know. But's it's a purpose. It's my purpose.
I watch a tree drift by, carried by nothing more than the tide. It's a whole tree, a trunk with its branches and root ball intact and attached. Completely whole, but lost, disconnected from its world of earth and sky, without any of its fellows to offer it consolation, even now.
I smile, the sort of sad, quiet smile people have grown used to seeing on my face. The tree reminds me a little of myself.
Behind me lie a wide swath of driftwood, mostly whole logs, some like the tree in the water. Stranded, unmoving. Together, but alone in their deaths. They remind me of others, but I refuse to focus on them for long. I turn back to the tree in the water, watching as waves caress its rough bark with infinite gentleness.
Behind me, I hear voices. People talking, walking, disturbing this perfect silence of my sanctuary. I jam my hands firmly into my pockets, forcing myself to say nothing to them. I would only further desecrate this beach with my voice, after all. But I listen to them. Some deep curiousity forces me to find out what they're saying, even if I know I don't care, from a logical standpoint.
"Hey, isn't that---?"
"Yeah!"
"Why's he here?" The first one (a girl, from her voice) asks. I can feel their stares, and I focus on the tree and waves.
The second one, probably another girl, though her voice is a little more rough than most, shrugs, I imagine. "Dunno. He used to come here a lot, apparently."
A gasp. "With... them?"
I can hear her friend grimace. "Yeah. They say he used to be friends with them. Best pals. Before..."
"Oh, yeah! I heard about that! A car crash, right? Weren't they---"
"Ssh!" The maybe-girl warns. I feel their eyes burn into my back. "He didn't do anything at their funeral, you know," she adds, quieter now that they've remembered I'm there. "Didn't cry, or look upset. Just stared and said nothing." A conspiritorial look, then, quieter, "I heard he laughed at it, though. He's probably as insane and criminal as they were."
A sad sigh. "Ahh... He's dropped out, hasn't he?"
"Dunno," the second says flatly. "He hasn't done anything more than stare and say nothing since, though. Probably a matter of time 'fore they put him in an institution, though."
"Ohhh..." I am beginning to tire of the first girl's sighs and squeals and gasps. It annoys me, her over-emotionalisation of everything. "Well, maybe it's best." I sense a nod, and the two move on, voices fading in the distance, exchanging gossip over fashion and what he saids and the hundred-and-one things teenage girls talk about.
Their gossiping brings back memories to me, bittersweet and addictive as dark chocolate. I let them fill my head, somewhat glad for their presence right now.
There were two of them, as different as could be, and yet, more alike than anything God could have ever created. Both were tall, slim teens, with long, wild, light-coloured hair, but where one was tan and muscular, with grey-blue eyes and pale violet hair, the other was pale, with dark brown eyes, white hair, and the gracefully dangerous physique of a martial artist. They did what they wanted, when they wanted. They were the very definition of rebellion, and they knew it, wearing their disregard for the rules for all to see. They managed to get grades that were barely passing, to never get caught doing anything they could be expelled for. They were the troublemakers, the kids who were too cool for school.
They were also my friends. My best friends.
I first met them in our second year of middle school. I was tall for my age, and thin, with long white hair and mud-brown eyes. I was obsessed with grades, studying every waking moment. I'd heard that high school would be hard, and college even harder; I didn't want to fall behind then, so I stayed ahead now. I'd been reading a book (algebra, I think, though it could've just as easily have been history or art) when they'd come up behind me, together as they always were.
"What's this?" The book was suddenly lifted out of my lap, and my careful notes spilled out all over the concrete. I spun around, anger flaring, and found myself looking up at them.
The white-haired teen held half of my book, his tan companion holding the other half. The tan one grinned wickedly as he saw me, wiggling his fingers at me in a mocking greeting. He elbowed his partner, who'd been looking at the text with a look of mild curiousity.
"Yo." Now two pairs of eyes were watching me. "Kid wants his book back." Not a question, a fact. I blanched, frightened (I'd heard rumors about them; who hadn't?), but I nodded. They tossed the book back at me, lightly enough for me to catch it and not hurt myself in the process. I thanked them, or tried to, at least. The words got chocked and tangled in my throat.
The martial artist laughed, then held out his hand. The other was grinning still, running his fingers through his wild mane. "Look, you wanna come to lunch with us? Or are you gonna keep cramming that shit into your head?" At first, I hesitated. The school gossips said that they went off the campus for lunch and came back late every day, usually still eating whatever they'd picked up. I was a strictly by-the-books student; I'd never cursed or lied, much less broken any rules.
You can imagine my surprise when I said yes. But I didn't have any friends at this school yet, being a new transfer from another town, and I was kind of hungry.
We got curry that day. Chicken curry, with rice and green beans and all sorts of other vegetables in it. I remember that clearly. It was the best lunch I'd ever had. And we got back just in time for class, too.
That was the beginning of our friendship. We were completely different, the three of us, especially me, with my quiet attitude, obsessive study habits, and complete lack of coordination. I ended up with more bruises and scrapes than I could ever count in the first month of knowing them. Not because they were hurting me. Those two were as violent as a pair of rabbits, really; all their arguments and fights were just bickering, done in the best of humors. No, I earned all those 'war wounds' (as Akefia called them when he saw them with his critical grey-blue eyes) by tripping and running into things. We ran a lot, and I was hardly the 'graceful' type, by any definition.
Akefia and Baku (the pale, lean one of the pair) brought me to the shore a lot. It was their favorite place, somewhere no one else ever came. We spent more than one afternoon (and mornings, too, on more than one occasion, since they had a tendency to skip school when the weather was just perfect) here, watching the waves in something close to silence. Akefia and Baku would get into their little friendly squabbles, and rely on me to help them out of them, to act as judge.
Three years. Three years of perfect bliss, of learning to bend the rules and, more often, how to break them and not get caught. My grades started to slip, but I didn't care anymore. I was happiest around them, and they liked me, genuinely liked me. They called me the good little boy, the angel of our trio. "And we're the demons, sent up from Hell itself to corrupt you, the pure little angel, and pull you down with us," they'd say often, and I would deny it, sometimes saying that they were good, honestly, and other times laughing that I was hardly an angel. They'd laugh everytime, and we'd wrestle, and everytime, I'd lose, trapped between their arms. Their little angel, and it was their job to protect me, they said.
And protect me they did. Every time a kid had made fun of me, teased me about my hair or my grades or even looked at me crossly, they'd leapt on them, like a pair of trained lions. Akefia would hold the kid (or, on occasion, kids), while Baku would make sure that they understood that under no circumstances, none whatsoever, were they allowed to look at me that way, let alone say my name even in passing. Akefia would release them, and they'd slink off, usually with a few bruises or cuts to nurse. After a while, no one dared pick on me again.
I feel water on my face. Warm water. Silently, I flick my tongue up to taste it. Salty, like the ocean before me. Tears. I wipe them away with one hand, and stare at the moisture on my fingers.
That was how they'd died. Protecting me.
It had been a warm day in late May. Akefia and I had been laughing at Baku, who kept drawing attention to the fact that someone had taken his Pocky, and it was his favorite, dark chocolate, fer Crissakes, and (a glare at Akefia) that bastard had better get it back now. Akefia stopped on the sidewalk, and pretended to search his pockets before he turned them inside out with a look of mock-disappointment on his face.
"Sorry, Bak'. Looks like I'm all out. Some little angel must have decided to save you from the evils of Pocky and taken it himself. Ask him." I laughed even harder, holding up the 'stolen' box of Pocky and, still laughing and holding the box, ran into the street, too happy to bother looking where I was going.
"RY!" I stopped at their sudden, panicky shouts and turned. A semi-truck, going too fast to be in control of the driver, was hurtling down the street.
Straight.
At.
Me.
The next few seconds were all in slow-motion for me. Akefia tackled me out of the way, just as Baku tackled him. The loud blare of a horn, warning them to get out of the way, followed by the screech of brakes being applied too quickly, too suddenly, too late.
And then, me, lying out of the way on the asphalt, with their bodies in front of me, broken and bleeding.
Dead.
My best friends were dead.
The only two people in the world I'd cared about, the two people I felt most comfortable around. And they were gone.
They'd protected me. Me. Their angel.
And they'd died for it.
For me.
The next months up until now were a blur.
A funeral I barely remembered, that I recall laughing at, madly, instead of crying, because they were probably watching everyone else's faked tears and laughing, wherever they were now.
The summer and first few months of school, spent here, just watching the shore.
I hadn't spoken or done much since the funeral I'd laughed in. I was left alone, and I'd all but stopped coming to school.
More tears on my cheeks. Bet that'd make them laugh. I wipe them away all the same.
I wish I could have them back. I'd give anything to be by their sides again, being laughed at for my attempts at cussing, or being taught how to throw a punch that would hurt more than anything they could ever give me. To be called their angel.
The water. It touches my feet, soaking through my tennis shoes and freezing my toes. I don't move away. I hadn't realized I'd been here so long. I turn my attention back to the tree floating in the water.
And then I laugh. I laugh, long and hard, and take off my sweatshirt, then my t-shirt, my pants, and, last of all, my shoes. I wade out into the water, colder than ice. I'm frozen through in a matter of seconds. I keep wading, until the rocky ground drops and the water is deep enough for me to swim through. I laugh again, not knowing what I'm doing at first. We used to dare each other to do this, I remember now. Who could go the deepest in the water before something froze off? Normally, I lost, only getting a few inches in.
Baku and Akefia, though. They went out past the dock, then, after a minute or so, would come racing in, teeth chattering while I laughed and handed them the coffee we'd brought. Or was it hot chocolate? I've forgotten.
But today. Today, I'll beat them. I'll go out, way past the dock, to the middle of the water, where they'd never gotten to. I laugh again, resting my arms for a moment on the tree and feeling a sudden gust of wind transform them into icicles.
Good. I'll need icicles, if I'm to beat their record. I laugh, and I paddle onwards, swimming where every adult I've ever known has told me not to, in a season where only the insane would do this, the insane or the trained.
I was neither.
In the middle of the water, I stop. My arms aren't cold anymore; none of me is. I feel the wind hit my face, but it feels nice, pleasant, even. I tread water slowly, and smile as I watch iron-grey clouds cover the sun, leaving only half of it to shine on me before it is completely engulfed in darkness.
I blink slowly. It's nearly sunset, and I've hardly slept in months. Sleep hurts me now, giving me only nightmares and little else. I swim over to a rock sticking out of the water, and hold on to it, resting my head against its hard surface. I'm tired now. I'm ready to sleep. I couldn't have those dreams here, where we used to laugh and talk, no. I close my eyes, only to hear a voice:
"Yo, Ry, wake up!"
I blink awake, and look up. Two boys, with black feathered wings, are looking at me, both with a smile on their faces. Faces I'd know anywhere.
"Baku? Akefia? Why are you...?"
"Here?" Baku grins, holding out his hand to me. I grab it, and he pulls me up to stand in front of him and Akefia. "We're comin' to get you. What else?"
Akefia laughs, clapping me on the back. I grin. "And here we thought you were the smart one, Ry. Baku," he elbows his friend. "You owe me a bag of chips. The kind that are all barbeque flavored and shit." Baku frowns, and I laugh. It's like old times. Just like old times.
"Hey!" Baku pokes two feathery masses that have appeared behind me. "How come you get white ones?"
I turn my head to look, and smile, then grab their hands as I march them up towards the now-gleaming sun and the clouds.
"Because," I say gently. "I'm an angel. I'm your angel."
Paradocs: To stop any stupid questions: use your own judgement, kids. If you must know, because someone lost a brain cell or two being an idiot, then you can ask. Kapeesh?
Also, technically, my first Bakushipping. Squee.