A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, j37 – write a fic that is M rated. Because Light and Hope and their trauma is too much fun to play with, however that comes out…
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a chaotic heart
Chapter 1
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They stop in the street, two statues amidst the chaotic flow of people. And neither is quite sure why they've stopped. She doesn't know him, and she certainly doesn't know anyone with hair colour that shade of green. He doesn't know her either, though he might know other black haired women her height. The blue eyes are rarer, but moreso his grey. She, at least, can argue he caught her eye simply because she's never seen that combination – if she's the sort to pick out such trivial curiosities in a crowd. She isn't. It's something else – danger or familiarity – that's made her look. And he can argue he's mistaken her for someone else but he can't quite put his finger on who.
They stare at each other a moment. The crowd flows around them like they're simply pebbles in the stream but that only lasts for a fragment and then the boy starts as though someone's elbowed him in the ribs on the way past. She narrows her eyes; it was a brush against his shoulder and nothing more, from her view. But the boy is jittery. And covered in grime a good shower won't simply scrub off, though to the unobservant observer, he looks clean enough. She's seen far worse stumble into the bar at which she works. But not so jittery.
And, for some inexplicable reason, she is annoyed. Oh, she can explain it away to herself if she wants. He might have recognised her under the dyed black hair and plain suit because she hasn't done anything else and she's not hiding. Not really. She's just sick of people staring, of people whispering, of people following like lost puppies or trying to poke little toothpicks into her hide. Or maybe that's her own paranoia.
In any case, his jittery stare vexes her and she snaps at him. Politely, because he can't be more than fifteen and that tames her tongue and fist. She snaps: 'What is it?' instead of something more vicious, more crude, and her fingers only flex and unflex as though they'll drain the tension from her brow.
Though she may as well have punched him in the face for how he jumps. His grey eyes flicker left and right when he collects himself, left hand clutching at the cloth of hooded jumper that covers his chest. Silly boy, she thinks, somewhat scornfully – but it's a forced scorn. The action is somewhat cute as well, like a parent having snuck up on their child. But she has no place for such thoughts so she discards it immediately. 'What is it?' she asks again.
'Ah – ' The meaningless sound falls from his lips, followed by nothing as his mouth opens and closes, and then another: 'ah…' He's still glancing around, as though there's someone else who's stopped on the sidewalk aside from the two of them, and he can escape her scrutiny.
'I'm talking to you, green-hair.' Like there's any doubt, and to her irritation, it doesn't stop his eyes from darting around, like an electron bouncing off the crowd. In fact, she seems to have excited his panic.
'I – ' He's stuttering again. For some reason, the stuttering reminds her of something, but it's a vague and formless thought she likewise sheds. 'I'm sorry!' he suddenly bursts, and then he's propelling himself away and she sees only stained sneakers – and not only stained, and worn, but looking like they've taken a knife to their sides at some point – before he's vanished into the crowd.
She shrugs and continues on her way, casting off the encounter as well. The people are a chaotic flow that don't touch her again, and the surrounds grey and still. Lamp-posts not yet flickering beneath the afternoon sun. Posters tacked clumsily to the wall, of ads and sales and missing persons and none of them concerned her so she gave them a cursory glance some days and today not at all.
And the boy does not look either, because he's afraid to see his own face staring back at him.
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She forgets the grey eyes staring until they are on her again. At the bar where she's extra-vigilant, waiting to catch someone's hand creeping up her leg so she can snap their wrist and suffer no loss for it. Except she's caught a different gaze, and it's that boy again: green haired, grey eyed and dressed in that same hoodie and baggy pants and falling apart sneakers. Still nervous as a tick but managing to hold a conversation, it seems. Though it's less talking and more listening to instructions, it seems. He's away scrubbing at the tables soon enough, without a wrinkle of disgust at the knowledge of what happens on – or beneath – them.
He's not staring at her anymore as well, but she keeps an eye on him thereafter and he feels it, because he constantly looks up: to the bar, to the staff, to the people who trickle in before the flood and she suspects he's to be gone before that flood because he looks too young to be in a bar during serving time and that'll get them all under the fire of he's caught.
And she's right. He does disappear before the manager's yelling at her to pour the first glass and she's doing it, watching that dull yellow lick the edges of the glass. She fixes glasses one after another until someone else comes to take the bar and she's called elsewhere herself because she's not supposed to be behind the bar in the first place and that's a shame, but she takes what she can get and less from certain others: those who stop to stare, because they're imaging what's below her dress pants and shirt, or her dyed black hair.
But they're usually adults. Children don't look at her with such curiosity because they have no need. Except a few. Those whose souls she'd taken. Whose souls she'd saved. And that child is hardly the epitome of a saved soul, she thinks. Does it bother her? Not really. She's steeled her heart to such things. Long accepted she can't take the world's burdens on her shoulders and that she's never wanted them anyway. She's selfish like that, and if selfishness is what keeps her from breaking into immeasurable pieces, then so be it. She knows a selfless man who broke and she can never do what he did and she knows it. She can only drown in black and white and colours and crowds and the glass of wine she allows herself when it's closing time, amidst the chatter of the full time crew.
And she doesn't wonder aloud as to why the green haired child is cleaning the tables again. She can feign disinterest if they look at her, but they don't. Someone else asks the question. And the owner replies. Just like she expects – like they all expect, really, because he has a habit of picking up strays in more ways than one, with his staff and with his visitors as well. It's good in some ways. She's as comfortable as she gets. And sounds like the kid's avoiding…dirtier work. Or at least lowering the hours with some good honest pay. But it's bad too. Attracts the wrong kind of people. People who hunt strays. Who use them till their heart's content because society and pretty names aren't backing them up. She's fine. She's safe. The regulars know not to mess with her too badly and a sore wrist will push the point in for the others. The kid though? He's probably screwed, if he hasn't been already. But the manager shrugs and says he can only do so much, and it's true enough. Did more than enough by offering a street kid a pittance job, in her opinion.
And not a shred of that has anything to do with why she's caught his eyes on her more than once.
But he's a child and hardly threatening, whatever truth or delusion he's seen under her disguise.
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In the end, it's an accident three weeks later that gives her the puzzle pieces she needs, and she's been pretending she doesn't care but when someone's knocked a jug of something over the kid and he's rubbing his eyes and something's glinting strangely in the puddle that chains him, she admits to her curiosity and stares hard at him.
At one eye grey and the other a dull emerald green.
At the contact lens lying in the puddle, out of place on a poor homeless boy.
He knows she's seen, because he gives a cry in the back of his throat and snatches up the contact lens that's fallen out and weaves through the crowd like a fish, and she wonders why that green eye is so significant, why that boy keeps on catching her eye and she his –
And then it hits her: the absurd idea that won't let go until she's proven it wrong without a shadow of doubt and she can't. She can't because she's dyed her own hair so who's to say he can't do it too? He's gone a step further with the contacts and that's the only proof she has, and the proof she doesn't need because now the puzzle is clawing at her and she wants an answer now.
So she weaves through the crowd herself and into the bathroom for the staff at the back, where she's so sure he'll be. And he's there, trying to put the contact lens back in but his hands are shaking and she seizes his wrist to stop even that clumsy move.
She has a theory and it's insane and most of her doesn't want to believe it but there's a small part that does. So she just spits it out. Spits it out so he can crush her little wild fantasy and they can both get on with their lives – or affirm it. And then what?
But it's too late. 'Hope? Hope Estheim?'
And he jerks and tries to escape, but only loses his footing and dangles limply from the wrist she still holds.
