AN: Written for the Goodbyes contest over at CamoBeanie on dA, because PTLX (known as Ellipsis the Great here) is stepping down as group administrator. Sad times, guys. D':
The end of his life starts with a hello. A single, two-syllable word that will tear everything he has ever believed in apart. Tear it into tiny little pieces, throw it into a fire, and then laugh at the shredded remains of what used to be his sanity as it smoulders into a fine ash.
Life has a way of sucking like that.
It all starts when he meets Seifer Almasy, all freckles and glowers and blue jean coveralls that don't quite cover his Christmas-themed socks. It all starts when Hayner mumbles a muffled hello around the fist he's shoved into his mouth from behind his mother's skirt. It all starts when they're sent to the sandbox to play and Seifer decides it would be infinitely funny to dump a handful of the gritty dirt down the back of Hayner's shorts.
When Hayner runs to his mom, snot and tears dribbling off the tip of his chin, swearing to never talk to that big jerkface Seifer ever again, she reacts accordingly, cooing and smoothing down his hair and whispering nonsense into his ear until he's calmed down enough to hiccup out an indignant accusation.
And that's the end of it. Hayner doesn't stick around long enough to listen to Seifer's half-hearted apology, insisting he wants to go home right now, his quivering lip and wobbling chin threatening an impending tantrum. His mom takes pity, and they leave before the floodgates can break loose.
Hayner and Seifer will look back on that day with wistful fondness. They will remember it as a simpler time, a time when all that mattered was how many Pokémon cards you had and whether or not you watched the newest super-cool TV show airing. A time when whispered words didn't hurt and ugly looks didn't sting, when your parents loved you no matter what and their words to you weren't uttered with contempt and malice. A time when it didn't matter who you loved, because love was an all-encompassing word that didn't really mean anything to you.
They will remember the day Hayner slipped and fell in the mud, and how Seifer, in a brief moment of kindness, offered him a hand up before pushing him right back down. They will remember the one and only time Hayner had ever beaten Seifer in a fight, standing triumphantly over his fallen adversary and flashing Pence's camera a cocky grin and a thumbs up despite the blood bubbling out of his right nostril.
(And when they do grow out of the silly card games, and when the cheap façade of children's television crumbles into a mess of rubble and stupid punch lines, it doesn't matter anyways. They've grown up. They've moved on. They've become something different; something living and breathing and feeling and yearning for more, something that requires thought and balance and the urge to just keep moving or else be left behind.)
They will recall these dusty memories and they will smile; a small quirk of the lips that will pull back in a grimace to reveal bared teeth, tight, bitter, weary. Ready.
But what should have ended that day at the sandbox, what should have ground to a halt and rusted into place and decomposed until it was an unrecognizable heap of scrap metal, didn't. Seifer just couldn't seem to stay away. He nosed his way into Hayner's business more times than Hayner cared to count, his actions always resting somewhere between violent and agitating. His unwanted presence, whether it be during a fight, a warm heat beside him in class or just a piercing blue stare from across the cafeteria, grew and grew, grew and twisted until he was a constant in Hayner's life and changed from violent to annoying to grudgingly accepted.
It was somewhere in the middle of high school (Hayner's not sure which year, though if someone were to ask he would say junior) when, amidst the homework and social groups and hormones and the erotic world of girls, Hayner realized that Seifer's constant presence at his side wasn't just a nuisance. It wasn't just something he could blow off and pretend wasn't there, like that midterm due next week.
He began to realize that Seifer wasn't there just because he was there. That Seifer was there because he wanted to be. Because if he wasn't, then he would have lost all contact with Hayner and things really would have ended that sunny day in the sandbox. Because maybe, just maybe, he liked Hayner a bit more than he let on.
And that made Hayner think, dangerous as that was. That made Hayner think that maybe, just maybe, he tolerated Seifer's constant, annoying presence because he liked Seifer a little, tiny bit more than he let on, and maybe Seifer excited him in ways a girl just couldn't, made him want something just out of reach, made him yearn for something he probably shouldn't want.
And that set into motion a whole chain of events, starting with Hayner's declaration of "Okay, so I don't actually hate you," and ending with Seifer's tongue in his mouth a little while later.
Things have a funny way of working like that.
Love. Love works in strange ways. Love can build an entire city, just as easily as it can destroy one. Love can make stupid people do more stupid things. Love can break hearts. Love can kill.
Love can make two idiots see past the ends of their bloodied noses and realize just how dumb they're being.
Love can make them realize that maybe, just maybe, they aren't so different after all.
Love can transcend anything. Love can save the world.
Love is a fucking liar.
The day Hayner's parents find out about his and Seifer's relationship isn't pretty. It's a mess of rude words and heated arguments and ends with most of Hayner's clothing stuffed angrily into a duffel bag. He tells himself that it could have gone worse. That his father could have gone the extra step and hit him across the face. That his mother could have stopped crying and moaning no, no, nonono over and over again long enough to choke out the word he knew she was longing to say.
He stays at Olette's house for the first couple of weeks, then moves on to Pence's when Olette's parents' words seem too cheerful and their smiles too forced. Pence's parents don't seem to mind the intrusion as much, but Hayner gets the niggling feeling that they don't want someone like him around their pure-as-snow son quite so much.
(Because rumours spread like wildfire, and his mother never was one to keep her mouth shut. Caught up in the histrionics, no doubt, loving the drama surrounding her and her less-than-pure offspring. Begging him to come back home and then mouthing hateful, spiteful words, glancing over with haughty eyes and an upturned nose; why couldn't he have been the perfect son?)
He only stays long enough to graduate.
Life is short. If Hayner has learned anything, it's that life is too damn short. It seemed like it would go on forever, back when he was 17 and just out of high school. Back when he thought the world and everything in it (minus a few things) sucked and should just get on with blowing up or whatever. Back when he was young, stupid, and in love.
Before love turned sour and spoiled everything he had fought for. Everything he had wanted. Everything he'd had.
And when Seifer, 35 and tired of the fighting, tired of the arguments and the cold nights and just not being in love anymore, turned his back and walked away, Hayner let him. Encouraged him, really, shouting obscenities and empty threats and choked, meaningless words.
And then he was alone. Alone with everything that was left behind, things he couldn't look at without remembering and regretting, things that made the nights that much lonelier and made him wish it had turned out differently.
Years later, when he looks back on his childhood memories with embittered fondness, when he's over the drama and the pills and the calls he never made and never received, when he's done with his mother's perpetual calls that always end in tears, he's more than ready to say goodbye.
Seifer visits him when he's rattling breath through a tube. Sits down in the chair positioned a little ways away from the bed, looks at him, and starts to cry. Not loud, noisy sobs, with shaking shoulders and a snotty nose, but a quiet, more subdued kind of crying, like he's been through the former and is all cried out.
"You didn't tell me," he says, when he can catch the breath to. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Didn't...want to bother...you," Hayner wheezes.
"God. God. You're an idiot," Seifer says, snatching some Kleenex from the bedside table to wipe his face with.
"Yeah," Hayner says, "that's why you liked me, remember?" He tries to laugh, but his chest constricts painfully and he ends up in a coughing fit. Seifer makes a move to help him, but Hayner waves him away.
"Loved," Seifer says once he's seated again, quietly, almost too quiet for Hayner to hear. "Loved you."
Hayner doesn't say anything to that, just struggles for another breath.
"You're not going to get better," Seifer says, after a time.
"No," Hayner agrees, smiling a little. "I'm not."
"God," Seifer breathes. "God. I—"
"Don't," Hayner cuts him off. "Don't...say it. Don't apologize."
"But it's my fault," Seifer pleads, and Hayner almost smiles again because Seifer has never pleaded for anything in his life save for that one time in high school when he thought Hayner might leave him, even though Hayner would rather jump off a bridge than do anything like that.
"As much mine...as it is yours," Hayner says.
They share a moment of silence before Seifer dares to speak again.
"How long?" He asks. "How long have you known?"
Hayner considers the question for a moment, rolling his eyes from the window to Seifer's pale, drawn face. "A while," he finally admonishes. "A long time. And...I'm ready. I've accepted...it."
Seifer hangs his head, and Hayner can see him shivering, can see the way his shoulders are jumping and twitching with barely-suppressed tears.
"I'm sorry," he says, despite Hayner's earlier insistence on no apologies. "I'm so sorry."
Hayner wants to comfort him, to tell him it's okay, really, you didn't know, and a part of him, an old part that had been buried under bitter words and lonely nights just wants to tell him to shut the hell up, asshole, you're being annoying, but he's getting short of breath and can't find the words to right this wrong, anyways.
The end of his life started with a hello. A single two-syllable word that tore everything he ever believed in apart. Tore it into tiny little pieces, threw it into the fire, and then laughed at the shredded remains of what used to be his sanity as it smouldered into a fine ash.
It started with that hello, so many years ago under the hot summer sun, and ended in a hospital room, cold and sterile and gasping for breath that won't come, with love and friendship and family and rose-tinted nostalgia all crammed somewhere in between. With fights and bloody noses and harsh words and dirty looks all wishfully forgotten, but still there, leaning against a wall in the back corner and just waiting to make their way to the front. With pills and appointments and calls he wishes he could make, but knows he won't glaring painfully at him from the finish line.
An audible hello, a voiceless goodbye, and the unspoken I love you hanging in the air.
AN: Losing someone you love hurts, guys.