Title: Nineteen Eighty-Four
Artist/Author: KivaEmber
Disclaimer: Bleach doesn't belong to me, and the themes of this story is based off of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four novel.
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Hichigo ShirosakixIchigo Kurosaki, Souske Aizen
Rating: T+
Warnings: Totalitarianism, invasion of privacy, dictatorship, homosexual themes, AU themes, adult themes, insanity, profanities, contortion of perceived reality, fucked-upness, and corruption.
Summary: Based off of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Shiro didn't believe in subjugation. It was a terrible waste of time and effort when everything was going to bubble over and blow up in their faces. Implied HichiIchi.
A/N: I've just finished reading that book. I loved Animal Farm, so I thought I'll read Nineteen Eighty-Four, and loved that too. Everyone voted for Anger Issues too, so, meh, I thought about it and tentatively decided to try this amalgamation of both of my favourite things.
His thoughts on doublethink, or Reality Control, is very interesting, and I tried to explain it as well as I could, on how I view it, but I think I just came across as very rambly and confusing. Sorry XD;
George Orwell is probably rolling in his grave at this monstrosity. I also can't use Newspeak to save my life.
Oh, well, enjoy!
X.x.X
"We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us; so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him."
--- O'Brien, Nineteen Eighty-Four
X.x.X
NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU
These words were always emblazoned on the massive posters of the rugged face that swallowed up most of the surface it was pasted on, piercing eyes following you as you walk past, away, or wherever. They were even engraved on the coins, a small etching of Big Brother's face staring up at you as well. Everywhere you turned, Big Brother was there.
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU
Shiro had to restrain a scowl that threatened to break through his impassive mask. The booming military beat the telescreen had been roaring out clicked off, sharply jarring into a whiny high pitched shriek that Shiro presumed was one of the new 'songs' that The Party had recently churned out. With a mental sigh, he just swirled the oily gin in a grimy glass, round and round as he stared at the hypnotising motions, needing to ground his attention on something so that he wouldn't twitch, wouldn't give his tumultuous thoughts away to Big Brother.
A single, involuntary movement could condemn him, anyone, to the 'Thought Police'. They were the men who took people away, always at night, for thoughtcrime, in Newspeak, and vaporised them. They obliterated their very existence from the world, not leaving a single speck behind, not a single wisp of memory. They ceased to exist. And if The Party says that someone does not exist, then they did not exist, not in the present and not in the past. They became nothing. They became, in Newspeak, unpersons.
Shiro, who very much loved his life and existence, played by Big Brother's and The Party's rules loyally – even if the voluntary subjugation to the shit it represented made the albino grit his teeth discreetly and a violent, near uncontrollable urge rear up inside of him, making him want to smash the telescreen and rampage around until his pent up frustration was spent.
Shiro downed his grimy glass of gin, and immediately coughed at the harsh kickback it gave. Throat burning and eyes stinging, the albino coughed again and thumped his chest. A second later though, the world grew a little fuzzier and cheerful, and he felt his lips curl up slightly in a mildly deranged grin.
Aware of the telescreen, Shiro heaved himself out of the moth-eaten chair and turned away from it, staring out of the fogged and dirt streaked window at the ruins of the city. His grin twisted into a bizarre grimace, now that the telescreen could not see his face, as he glowered up at the thick smog blocking the sky, clawing spires of the three Ministries the only thing he could see over the horizon of dilapidated flats and buildings.
To his left, towards the slums, he could see the flashes of the bombs roaring down on them. Shiro watched in mild amusement before turning away, trusting his discipline, and swaggering past the telescreen. It was playing a crappy rendition of Beethoven now, though The Party had claimed Ode to Joy as their own – which to the public masses is true, even if they remember Beethoven being well renowned for that particular piece. The Party said they composed it therefore it is true.
Shiro's expression twitched and he immediately stiffened, casting a faux-uncaring glance at the telescreen. Hearing no barked admonishment for his momentary lapse, Shiro shrugged his shoulders and continued on to the bedroom.
The poster that was required to be pinned up in every room greeted him.
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU
X.x.X
Life before The Party took control was very sketchy.
Oh, the history books were very exact and specific in their information. They painted out the social hell that existed with extreme, painstaking detail, their closely picked words churning up patriotic rage at how Eastasia and Eurasia oppressed Oceania until people were scrabbling on the floor for food. They also attacked the social hierarchy that was present before The Party too, how the 'capitalists' right at the top horded everything from fine foods to expensive, gold plated furniture, and left the lower and middle class scrounging their crumbs.
But Shiro distinctly remembered, even though his memory was admittedly hazy from remembering that far back, that Oceania, Britain it was called before The Party, was not being oppressed by Eastasia or Eurasia. In fact, there were more countries, smaller and broken up across the vast expanse of the two other supernations, and there was a web of complicated alliances and grudges which confused Shiro, so therefore did not pay close attention to it. It was in History class, before The Party began meddling with history, and Shiro was only seven then in nineteen fifty-seven.
But no, apparently it was untrue.
A lot of things that Shiro remembered about history was untrue – even the history The Party propagandised when it began taking power steadily through the 'fifties and 'sixties. They constantly changed their tune; books were destroyed and replaced – though that was untrue too. The books always had that information in them; they were never replaced or corrected.
The Party created the helicopter. The aeroplane too! They created the battleships and ships in general! They created the radar and the radio and the phone and whatever else they could think of! Shiro was amazed that they hadn't tried to claim that they created the Earth. They probably would in a few months to a year's time.
And what was worse was that the masses swallowed this up. They revered Big Brother as a God, praising him for his omnipotent protection and cursed the foreigners that dared to struggle against Oceania. Any previous, contradicting statement or evidence to a new wave of propaganda were obviously fake, planted by Eurasia spies, or by The Brotherhood – Kisuke Urahara's organisation that rebelled against Big Brother, a traitorous man that was once an inner Party member during the earlier days of Big Brother.
It was nauseating. Shiro felt like he was the only sane man in this fucked up society, and it was hard to conceal his disgust and surprise and anger towards Big Brother and The Party. Extremely hard.
But when the Thought Police would begin to suspect him for thoughtcrime, Shiro vowed was going to go out in style. Do something so heinous so that the stupid public wouldn't forget, that The Party couldn't just cover it up. He didn't know it would be yet, but so far it involved going into work with a sawed off shotgun.
Never mind the fact that sawed off shotguns didn't exist anymore. Or ever did. He couldn't remember. It was probably a weapon he had read or in a film or a new weapon for the military fighting the Eurasians. Whatever. He'd go into a work with some form of weapon.
Shiro's work was in the Ministry of Truth, a rather ironic name since that is where the 'adaptations' (i.e. forgeries of the past and books and God knows what else) occur. He was the proud owner of a small blinding white cubicle, and sometimes, making sure to hide his smile from the telescreen in his cubicle, he would internally joke that being an albino and all, he could probably camouflage himself against the wall – though the blue overall uniform would probably hinder that.
Work was mind-numbingly boring. Newspeak was used nearly all the time in it, a language which Shiro did not care for because of its sheer stupidity (ungood replaces bad, doubleplus is used to emphasis the word, and some other stupid rules Shiro couldn't remember at this moment in time). But work gave him money, money equalled food, and food equalled sustained life – albeit an oppressed, privacy-free, sustained life.
Next over to Shiro's cubicle however, was the main reason why Shiro didn't just shoot himself to escape the boredom and stupidity of life.
The person who was in the cubicle next to him had the same job, to 'fix' errors (they were always called 'errors', or 'mistakes', so that no one could truly say there were forgeries and tampering with information). So did the person on the other side, but they were a boring, nondescript man that was a stupid sheep just like the rest of the losers in the building. He wasn't.
Ichigo Kurosaki, if memory served correctly, which it usually didn't but Shiro was pretty sure that was right. Just glancing at the guy told you he wasn't orthodox like Big Brother wanted everyone to be. His hair, a fluffy tousled mess, was a flamboyant orange, nearly painfully bright against the pure whiteness of the cubicle walls. He always had a scowl on his face too, whether or not he was facing the telescreen, as if he did not care whether or not such a strong action would peak the Thought Police's interest in him and watch him closely.
It intrigued Shiro, because though Ichigo's clothes were tattered and filthy like everyone else's, it was like spotting a vivid rose growing out of a pile of shit – amazing and somewhat funny to look at. He guessed it was the eyes that took him.
They blazed, harsh bronze eyes that were wild, unrestrained by the chains of Big Brother; or more specifically, they were the eyes of a caged wolf, prowling the bars of its cage, patiently waiting until the carer got careless and stuck his hand in within reach of sharp teeth. They were like Shiro's eyes.
But Shiro never made more contact than he had to with Ichigo, because talking to someone with whom you have no business with was suspicious, and pointed towards individual thinking. Individual thinking was a danger sign to the Thought Police, and it would only be a few weeks later until Shiro and Ichigo were dragged out in the middle of the night and vaporised.
So, Shiro just watched him, covert peeks every now and then. Sometimes it gnawed at him until he felt irrational hatred for Ichigo, the raw hate towards Big Brother and the forced subjugation zeroing in on the rare gem just a few metres from his left that he was unable to grasp. The frustration and rage boiled inside of him until he fantasised about killing Ichigo, crushing his throat, tearing him open and delving inside of him, until the spasm of insanity passed and he continued with his work, blotting out the orange haired man in the next cubicle.
Big Brother was watching.
X.x.X
Shiro never got the hang of doublethink, or in Standard English, Reality Control. It involved both stupidity and iron will over the consciousness and sub-consciousness, using a method called crimestop; an instinctive reaction to any thoughts that were 'unorthodox'. Crimestop blocked out rebellious thoughts and made the person forget that they even had it, therefore, anyone that Shiro passed in the street could hate Big Brother, but because of doublethink and crimestop, they don't remember having such rebellious thoughts, and never will. They will forever love Big Brother because they forcibly made themselves stupid and blind. Ignorant cunts.
Because he never knew how to do doublethink, Shiro thoughts as himself very cunning to avoid detection for his unorthodox ways – but really, it was only a matter of time before they caught on. Shiro was a realist at heart. But because he did not have the necessary self discipline needed to retard his mind and accept anything that The Party spewed out, Shiro was, understandably, very confused when the bulletin on the telescreen that afternoon at work had declared that Oceania had beaten back Eastasia's forces with help of their allies, Eurasia.
That morning they were fighting Eurasia with help of their allies, Eastasia.
Thankfully it was during the stuffy confusion of lunch break, where people were crammed elbow to elbow eating the curious substance tentatively called food, voices buzzing over in a deafening roar and vision impaired by the dim fluorescent lights and steam from the kitchen. No one saw Shiro's momentarily unguarded expression of utter incredulity, nor heard his soft, bewildered 'what?' But Shiro checked himself and panicking; he lowered his head so quickly that he almost dunked his face into his gruel.
Barely a minute later, and the space between his shoulder blades itched, a sign that someone was staring at him, and Shiro frowned, heart hammering as he wondered if anyone saw. If it was an amateur spy he was screwed. A member of the Thought Police and he was fucked. But when he looked up, face blank as it could be, he could only see the people sitting across from him too wrapped up in their conversation that was entirely in Newspeak. It went over his head. He couldn't keep up with the near quacking noises.
Glancing to his side, and discreetly over his shoulder behind him, he saw nothing suspicious. But the itch was still there, and he knew that it wasn't the telescreen because from where he was sitting, he was too far away and too hidden to have his expression seen by it. He rolled his shoulders in agitation.
The man next to him got up, practically elbowing Shiro in the ribs and nearly wrenching a curse from the albino, and the space remained empty for not even thirty seconds before someone claimed the empty space. It was the man who worked in the cubicle next to him.
Shiro would've stared if he hadn't honed his control over his expressions (but that was steadily decaying every passing day), and instead he gave the scowling redhead a brief, cursory glance from the corner of his eye, pretending to be engrossed in the unknown lumps of something in his gruel.
Ichigo just sat there. He wasn't touching his food, nor was he joining in any form of conversation with anyone. He was just sitting there, staring at the piss coloured gin in a black smudged cup with that perpetual scowl scrunching up his features. Shiro didn't bother to try and make contact, despite this rare chance given to him. He reached for the gritty bread on his tray, forgoing the gruel for now, and took a bite of it, staring up at the steamy ceiling.
Shiro suddenly remembered when he passed someone in the street. He looked like a ruffian, one of the proles, but as he was wearing the scuffed blue overall uniform of a Party member like Shiro, the stranger obviously did not come from the lower class. The first thing Shiro noticed about him was his hair. It was a soft blue, light and bright as the sky (not London's sky. It was the sky of the countryside on a cloudless day at noon, something that Shiro had been able to see when he was a bratling), and the guy had a constipated look on his face, like it was taking all of his willpower to not explode on the first person it took to talk to him.
It was probably true, and when Shiro was close enough to discern the colour of the man's eyes, the man's face twitched.
It was a small spasm, one that tugged up at his upper lip into a momentary snarl before it smoothed out into that constipated look. Just as Shiro was passing him by, the man's face twitched again.
Shiro couldn't help but think 'poor sod' because it was obvious that he was not one of the loyal idiotic sheep, but someone like Shiro. But unlike Shiro, the guy had obviously lost control over his facial expressions and wasn't able to contain his disgust and anger for any longer. And that's why Shiro knew, with utmost surety, that the blue haired stranger was going to be vaporised relatively soon, possibly by the end of the week.
That was a month ago, and Shiro internally shrugged when it hit him that that man was probably dead now, stricken for the records and forgotten – except in Shiro's memories.
'Poor sod', he thought again with a slight, superior sneer.
A shrill whistle cut through the chatter, and startled Shiro enough that he jumped slightly, knocking shoulders with Ichigo. People began abruptly standing, taking their trays and preparing to go back to work. Shiro just heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes, relying on the chaos around him to hide it from the telescreen, before reluctantly standing. He nearly bumped into Ichigo again when the orange haired man stood at the same time, and Shiro sent him a tired, unrestrained glare.
"You bumped into me, comrade." Ichigo replied to his glare, scowl firmly in place. Shiro jerked, surprised, and Ichigo then left without saying anything else, disappearing into the throng of people and leaving Shiro standing there stupidly clutching the tray.
"6079 Masshiro Shirosaki! Why aren't you going to work!?"
Shiro practically lunged forwards as the voice barked from the telescreen, hastily placing the tray on the side of the cart and nearly upsetting the full bowl of gruel. He mentally cursed himself, giving him a few mental kicks and slaps to try and keep his dulling mind sharp enough to go through a day of work without arousing the suspicion of the Thought Police.
But his mind wasn't focusing properly. It kept circling that sentence 'you bumped into me, comrade' over and over again in an infinite loop. He had never heard Ichigo speak before, not one word, and hearing him, exclusively, in that rough brazen voice sent strange jolts across his skin. He felt like he had drank a whole galleon of Victory Gin straight, kickback violent enough to send him reeling, blindly clutching at reality to keep him conscious.
As Shiro ascended the stairs to his workplace, he smashed his mind back into order. Survival before curiosity, he reminded himself. Survival was the main priority, and even if he may have finally talked to a possible fellow hater of Big Brother, that was no reason to lose his head and almost hand himself over to the Though Police nicely wrapped with a bow on top.
No. No, no, no. Absolutely not. Shiro knew his days were numbered. There was no point hastening his death date.
'I'm a dead man', Shiro thought with another internal sigh, collapsing into his seat at his cubicle and dragging his new orders to him. The orders were fixing a 'historical error' in the printing of the history books. It was probably the Eruasia/Eastasia alliance thing.
He became hyperaware of the activity around him then. He could hear the droning of the telescreen, documentary he thinks, the soft murmurs of the other people in their cubicles, rustling of papers, scratching of pens, his shallow breaths and the thundering palpitations of his heart. His heartbeat was loud, a roaring tattoo, nearly drowning out everything, and Shiro couldn't help but think that he was going to snap at any minute because this whole fucking system, Big Brother, was messed up and he wanted to punch or kill someone-!
"-asia was our ally, not Eastasia."
Shiro stilled. That was Ichigo's voice, rough and brazen and defiant, as the orange haired man presumably murmured into the mouthpiece of the speakwrite. He was working on 'correcting' too. That wasn't unusual. They made multiple people work on the same thing usually and picked out the best one, or amalgamated a few or something-
Regaining his senses, Shiro subtly shook his head and was grateful that the telescreen hadn't picked up on his little episode. His heart was still pounding from the brief panic attack though, and so Shiro massaged his forehead, passing it off as trying to soothe a headache instead of trying to keep his mind together, and glanced down once more at the orders.
"That's right…" He murmured vaguely to himself, lowering his hand and reaching out to the telescreen. He needed to dial up the reference to the history books. "Eurasia is our ally."
Shiro wasn't good at doublethink, but he was good at pretending he was.
X.x.X
When Shiro was a child, he had been bitten by a snake. He couldn't recall its species, but he remembered the most prominent colours on its scales as black and red. Anything else was fuzzy, except for the pain. Shiro remembered the pain when it bit him.
The snake had flashed out of the undergrowth near the old ruins of some buildings the blitzkrieg had levelled. Shiro hadn't realise that it had been there for the whole half hour that he had been sitting there, and afterwards he was too busy crying for his dead mother when it darted away to remember where it went.
He couldn't understand why it bit him. It just did it, randomly, with no provocation as if to prove that it could. Shiro had always been a little wary around snakes since then, well, a euphemism really. He was terrified of them, but like hell he was going to spread that around.
Aizen reminded him of snakes.
X.x.X
Pens were a rare thing to see nowadays, since The Party wants people to use Speakwrite rather than using the old age instrument of pens and pencils. Because of this, Shiro obviously had one, though he had it hidden out of view of the telescreen in his sock drawer. It was a beautiful, old fountain pen, ebony casing and silver rimmed. He even had a pot of ink with it. Shiro called it Zangetsu because he always wanted to name something, inanimate object or not.
He was staring at the drawer, right now, the muted murmurs of the telescreen heard past the thin panel of the walls. He wanted to write something, he didn't know what, just wanted to write something about everything because he heard that spilling out your secrets onto paper was a great way to keep you sane; but Shiro couldn't afford to show his inner thoughts out to the world, especially Big Brother and the Though Police, so Shiro was debating, gnawing on his thumbnail.
He had paper too. Parchment actually. He found it in one of the old junkshops near where the proles lived, shops which he usually loitered near. They usually had interesting relics in them from the past, before The Party. Though Shiro hardly bought any as it's 'suspicious'.
The murmurs escalated into shouts, a booming military beat accompanying it.
As if that helped him to decide, Shiro leant forwards and jerked the drawer open, rummaging around the worn fabric of the socks with barely restrained desperation. Blood roaring in his ears, Shiro balanced the thick parchment on his thighs, nearly spilling the ink in the pot on his sheets when he practically ripped off the cap and dunked the tip of Zangetsu into it.
Black splotches spattered onto the yellow parchment and Shiro pressed the trembling nib against it, chest heaving and golden eyes carrying a feverish wildness as his pale lips moved silently. Then, he scrawled out nearly illiterate words, soon dropping capital letters and punctuation as he continued on.
I hate The Party. I hate Big Brother. I hate this whole place. I want to kill them all. I want to to to kill them, but I'm a fucking dead man you know. Dead, dead, dead, and I don't give a flying fuck because if I'm dead and insane at least I'm not submissive, fucking trapped under this stupid fucking Big brother and i wish it would just disappear along with that fucking the party it's shit, shit, shit shit shit and i hate it i want it gonegonegonegonedownwithbighbrotherdownwithbigbrotherdownwithbigbrotherdeargodi'mfuckingdeaddowndeaddeaddeadeadeadeadbigbrother-
Shiro stopped himself. Taking several deep breaths, he leant back and blinked at the mess he had made, the words looking more like smears and violent scratches than any recognisable language. He ran ink stained fingers through his hair.
Carefully setting the parchment aside, Shiro tried again. He felt calmer now that he had burned off some of the bottled up rage which had been threatening to boil over for the past few days. His writing was neater this time.
I dunno who the fuck I'm writing this to. Is it a letter? A diary entry. Fuck if I know. Dunno if diaries exist now, or journals. I dunno. Apparently girls have journals and guys have diaries, or is it the other way around? Fuck. Dunno. I dunno…anyway, to whichever poor bastard who's reading this (and if it's a Thought Police fuck you and your whole fucking society you can kiss my rotting corpse's ass) 1984 sucks. I think it's 1984 anyway. Could be 2009 for all I know. Hopefully there's no such thing as Big Brother or The Party over there, in the future. Doubt it, but I'm allowed to dream…though that's becoming illegal nowadays. Fucking cunt suckers. I dunno what I'm writing about either.
Shiro scowled down at the parchment, kneading his forehead irritably. He had all these notions and thoughts ricocheting around his head at what felt like one hundred miles per hour but they didn't reach the paper. His handwriting sucked and Shiro didn't know any grandiose vocabulary. He never had Secondary school education; actually…didn't finish Primary school either.
God damn Newspeak. It's retarded Standard English, the language of poets. Or something like that.
Shakespeare. He wrote pensively. I'm no fucking Shakespeare. Dunno any words. Didn't finish primary school you know. Funny. I'm smarter than the rest of these fucking sheep and I can…fuck, see the world. I wanna get off it. The world. Spinning too fast, or just too still, fuck I dunno. I say that too much, dunno. Shit. I hate, this all…I hate this all too much. I'm angry. Furious. Rage. Not even Two Minute Hate is enough to make…to burn off. Stupid. I'm stupid. World is stupid. Fuck. Dunno. I. Don't. Fucking. Know. But I'm not stupid enough to be controlled by damn Big Brother or their bitches. Too stupid to write a fully cohren- coren- coherent letter. Fuck, can barely spell coherent.
Shiro groaned and covered his eyes. Well this was bloody memorable. He was making such a big fucking mess! But, he still carried on writing, trying to improve his handwriting.
Ichigo Kurosaki isn't a sheep. He is like me. His eyes are like mine. They're, if you wanna be poetic, predator. Everyone else are sheep. Sheep eyes. Stupid and dull. Mine and Ichigo's are sharp, cunning, insane. Definitely insane. We're m i n o r i t y (Shiro wasn't sure if that word was what he wanted so he spaced it out) so we're insane anyway, according to society. I like it. Insanity. Hate it though because I can't just drift through life. Instead I have to see all this shit for the price of having a clear head and pride. Damn. Dunno if I got the short straw or what. At least Ichigo is probably suffering along with me. Which is good. He actually spoke today. Had a rough voice. Don't think he smokes though. Don't sound like he smokes anyway. I like Ichigo. I hate him too though. I can't talk to him. If I do the Thought Police will take us away quicker. Thinking I may as well talk to him though. Fuck, I don't give a flying rat's arse anymore.
Shiro fiddled with Zangetsu, nose scrunched up. No. He doesn't care anymore. But he couldn't talk. He wanted to but he couldn't, even if he wanted to and internally didn't care whether or not he died quicker. Self preservation was a powerful instinct.
I'm going to talk to Ichigo.
Shiro nodded to himself.
I am going to talk to Ichigo. I am going to say something to Ichigo. I want to hear him say something other than 'You bumped into me, comrade'. I want to hear him say my name. I dunno if he knows it but he will say it before we die. I die. He'll probably worm out. Maybe. Slim chance but he may. Just…want to hear him say my name, at least once. So, I will talk to him.
Shiro reached the end of the parchment and squirmed impatiently for the ink to dry. He wanted to write on the back because he only had four pieces of parchment left and he wanted to make them last. After a minute, he gave up and carefully turned it over. He dunked Zangetsu back into the ink and continued writing.
After he got into it, writing was actually kinda fun.
I dunno what The Party wants. I don't have any theories or care why they're trying to retard the whole nation. I see the advantages to obedient people, but dumbing them down so they're practically morons of the highest level and unable to take a step without asking their babysitter is just masochistic (Shiro grinned. He learned that word from a charred novel he found ten years ago). I bet the same is going on in Eurasia or Eastasia. They make the citizens loyal only to them. So, if by some chance, one of them take over the other bastard, they have to kill the whole populace/population (Shiro wasn't sure which one was to be used so he dumped down both) because they would rebel instantly and never bend to them. Humans will be extinct at the end of this. Doublethink is a load of shit. Humans don't exist as creator of reality. Humans are taken along for the ride. They're I N S I G N I F I C A N T. Pathetic. I know. I see them everyday.
Shiro lowered Zangetsu on the parchment, blinking as if a thought just occurred to him before shaking his head. He blew on the ink, drying it, before carefully stashing it, the pen, and the ink pot back into the sock drawer and sucked on his ink stained fingers. The taste was weird on his tongue, but he only stopped until all evidence of the ink was gone.
The Big Brother poster was glaring at him, disappointed as its BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU slogan leapt out at him.
Shiro flipped it the finger.
He really didn't care anymore.
X.x.X
Coincidently, Shiro did get to speak to Ichigo.
It was on one of those horrible muggy days when the smog overhead was nearly suffocating. The sky was a sickly greyish yellow, the rays of the sunlight being stained by the industry pollution and stinking of burned shoes. Those days always sent Shiro into violent coughing fits, and the albino was sure that if it wasn't the Thought Police, it was going to be the smog that killed him. Why that morning, before he set out to work, he was stuck in his small toilet for nearly half an hour, hunched over the sink and retching blood into the grimy basin.
Doctors were only a privilege given to those in the Inner Party.
Shiro could still taste blood on his tongue all through work, and as he did not wish to be crammed into the lunchroom in his current state, he went back home through the slums. Or tried to. He was too busy coughing and trying to breathe through the thick smog burning his throat and ended up walking around in a circle before he was able to calm himself down.
He met Ichigo a street away from exiting the slums. The orange haired man was crouched on his haunches, giving what looked like a parcel of food (possibly a whole week worth of food tokens) to a pair of small girls. One blonde and the other black haired. In fact, the black haired one bore a scowl eerily similar to Ichigo's.
Shiro stopped and observed, one hand pressed against his chest as Ichigo nodded and pulled himself to his feet, patting the blonde girl on the head, his expression softening into a small smile.
Smile…?
Then bronze eyes flashed over to Shiro, and the world stopped for one whole fucking second as they just stared at each other. Then Ichigo's expression hardened and he turned to the pair of girls, murmured something and started walking towards the main streets, the pair of girls turning back towards the small shack behind them. The black haired one looked at him and scowled fiercer at him.
Shiro ignored the young brat and started off after Ichigo, heart thumping painfully against his ribs. His diaphragm spasmed violently, nearly making Shiro buckle over with the force of the coughs, but he wrestled it down and kept on Ichigo's heels. Just as Shiro was within arm reach, Ichigo stopped, sharply turned, and pinned Shiro with such a piercing look Shiro nearly jerked back in surprise.
"Why are you stalking me, comrade?"
Shiro stared, mystified, before giving a rather lopsided grin. His heart had calmed, and breathing was oddly easy now. Strange. "I wasn' stalkin' ya. I just happened upon ya, comrade." He paused, golden eyes trailing down and then back up. Ichigo's clothes had a faint layer of yellow dust. "Fate, I guess."
"I see." Ichigo stared at him, and Shiro stared right back. Neither talked for a long moment.
"You have blood here." Ichigo suddenly said, raising a finger and tapping the left corner of his mouth. Shiro copied the motion, shrugging to himself and wiping it away absently.
"Yeah. It's the smog." Shiro waved lamely, then wheezed a little as his lungs' airways constricted slightly. Clearing it with a cough, Shiro thumped his chest. "Bad fer me."
"You stare at me a lot." Ichigo mused, seemingly to himself. "Really obvious too. You sit next to me at work."
"I do." Shiro muttered, not sure if he was agreeing to the latter or former of Ichigo's musings, or both. "So what?"
Ichigo looked over his shoulder, where the main street was just around the corner. "Don't you care?"
"Not anymore. I don't think I'm gonna last much longer, Thought Police or not…" Shiro coughed. God how he hated hot days. "I said I was gonna talk t' ya."
"…" Ichigo shook his head, in what, Shiro wasn't sure, but the redhead continued talking. "Insane you are. Being vaporised is worse then dying of some disease. They'll make you confess, you know."
Confess: A euphemism for torture. "I'll make sure I'll be confessin' something good, then." They were a little too close to the main street; now that Shiro thought about it, and it was almost the end of lunchbreak. "But I'm satisfied now. More than…" Shiro smiled strangely.
Ichigo was giving him an odd look, bronze eyes holding his golden ones. "…Alright."
And then they parted ways.
X.x.X
I saw him smile.
Shiro smiled himself, drawing nonsensical lines around this carefully written sentence. He spoke to Ichigo (and possibly is now under direct suspicion of the Though Police but who gave a fuck now?) and saw him smile. More than he had expected.
He said I was insane. But I knew that already. I saw him smile, and I spoke to him. That's alright. Didn't hear my name though.
Yes, and that was a shame.
X.x.X
Shiro definitely hated Aizen. That brownnoser was smiling at him.
X.x.X
His hands trembled as he scratched out a barely legible scrawl, coughing lightly and smiling giddily. He was happy, genuinely happy, and it was enough to agitate his worsening lungs so that it was hard to breathe – but in a good way, if that made sense.
Hesaidmynamehesaidmyname it was my name! Holy fucking shit it sounded wonderful and i can die happy by confessing or being shot or whatever i don't care. He said my name.
"Shiro…" He murmured to himself, trying to imitate the rough, brazen purr that Ichigo had gruffly murmured when the redhead had passed him in the cloak of the crowded lunchroom. He couldn't do it, but the memory of it was enough for him.
"Aaah…" Shiro sighed happily, then giggled helplessly. He kept them low, breathy with the lack of air in his tight lungs. Jesus, this was overwhelming! Deliriously so! He felt, so…yes. That's all he could say. Yes.
I can die happy. He wrote with flourish. Big Brother can fuck itself. I can die happy.
X.x.X
It was two metres by two metres, the telescreen taking up half of the wall to his left and an evil looking, metal door on the opposite wall. Shiro stared across at the wall, slouched over and half lidded gold eyes staring at the crack on the ceiling. He wasn't worried. In fact, he felt rather serene. Not even the telescreen's constant scrutiny could smother the soft grin twitching the corner of his lips.
Shiro had been expecting it, and he was amazed that he lasted this long. It was three days after Ichigo had said his name.
He was going to be vaporised.
The door opened with an ominous creak, and there were voice snapping out, a familiar one growling back in a rough, brazen voice. Shiro straightened, chest tightening as he watched a redhead figure being shoved in, the snarled orders of one of the guards before the doors closed.
Silence reigned.
Shiro met bronze eyes blandly, lips curling up into a wild, insane grin. His new companion just gave him a flat, exasperated look, uncaring as he was. No words were spoken, no angry accusations or heartfelt confessions. No. They just sat across from each other and stared.
When the guard came and dragged Shiro to room 101 that was the last he ever saw of Ichigo Kurosaki, the man that he kinda sorta probably loved.
X.x.X
Fuck. It was Aizen all along. The damn snake man was a bloody Thought Police.
"I knew…" Shiro rasped, his lungs barely able to drag in enough air to talk let alone breathe after his week (month, year?) long 'confession' session. Apparently Shiro had bronchitis when he was vaporised, it only got worse as he began to confess. "There was…something f-fuck…fuckin' wrong with ya…"
"Wrong with you, Masshiro." Aizen gently corrected, and fuck he may as well been right about that. Shiro could barely figure out the colour of the ceiling let alone who was wrong or right. "You had a terrible mental illness. It affected your memory so that you believed things that hadn't happened had happened."
"Whatever." Shiro turned his head away from snake man, golden eyes fluttering close. It was too tiring to stay awake sometimes. Plus, he was lying down on something, something that sent him through convulsions of agony when they didn't like something he said, but still – flat surface was a bed to him. "What…th' fuck…ever…snake man…"
"We're making you better." Aizen continued, smiling benevolently – Shiro could hear it in the man's voice. "We will fix your memory until you can doublethink. Resist us and, well…you had three months of experiencing that, haven't you? Then, when you realise the crime that you have committed against The Party, we will cleanse you."
Shiro barked out a cracked laugh, which sounded like a twisted mix of a despaired sob and a maniacal giggle. "That's…something ya'll never…do." He forced his eyes open and rolled his head over to face the snake man. He was smiling benevolently. Bastard. "Kill me…I'll fuckin'…blow…blow a hole…in yer…shitty plan. I'll always…hate Big Brother…I'll resist ya."
"You will?" Aizen smile remained kind. "We still have the rest of your life, Masshiro."
Shiro grinned painfully, golden eyes dull. "Dunno 'bout that. Apparently…m-my…lungs are gonna…give out soon. Damn smog, yeah…?"
Snake man's stupid square glasses were reflecting the light so Shiro couldn't see the look in his eyes when Aizen's smile gained a sharp edge. "That's what doctors are there for, Masshiro."
X.x.X
Chestnut Tree was a café that was usually occupied by people who are teetering on the edge of being watched by the Thought Police. Full of those artists, you know? They sold a stronger version of Victory Gin with a stick of celery, though God knows why.
Shiro had just been released a month ago, barely, and he knew exactly what was going to happen. They had 'cleansed' him. Wiped his mind clean of any rebellious thoughts against Big Brother, against The Party so all that remained there was the low buzz buzz buzz of thoughts that weren't called to fore. Shiro gulped down his fifth (sixth?) glass of gin that day and coughed.
His lungs never did recover properly, but that was alright, Shiro wasn't going to be using them much longer.
The telescreen was frantic. News of the front against Eurasia was supposed to show soon and everyone was waiting painfully for it. Shiro personally didn't care. He should, but he couldn't bring himself too. His glass was refilled by the waiter, and the albino stared listlessly at the telescreen.
Soon, possibly within the hour, most likely after they had given the news out on the war front, Shiro was going to be dead. It was the rules. They didn't want martyrs against Big Brother; they didn't want revolutionists or resistors. They wanted broken men who begged The Party for forgiveness and bared their necks.
Pathetic. Shiro couldn't remember if he did do that. The later days of his confession were hazy.
A cheer, deafening and crushing, howled out through the streets, and Shiro dragged himself out of his mind to see the woman on the telescreen practically screaming in patriotic ecstasy as they declared that they had defeated Eurasia! Eurasia was defeated and people were screaming in raw joy and crying and leaping around and God knows where the streamers came from but who cared because Eurasia was defeated!
Shiro, laughing maniacally though he didn't know why, lifted his glass of gin in mock salute, grinning happily to himself as he downed it immediately after. Slamming his glass down, Shiro giggled helplessly to himself. He couldn't help it. Everyone was laughing; screaming in raw stupid joy and Shiro couldn't help but be washed up in it. He needed it.
Click
Ah. Now was the time then.
Shiro's glass was refilled, slower this time because the waiter wasn't looking properly but trembling in joy with a twisted look of pure patriotic happiness on his grey face. Shiro picked up the glass as soon as it was filled and held it up again. The waiter was gone and he could feel something cold against the back of his head.
Now. It was now. Oh well. He knew exactly what he needed to do. For the good of The Party.
"Yes…" He mumbled. "For the good of The Party." He downed the glass and grinned, triumphant and vindictive as his last shreds of dignity and rage reared up. The last brief moments of life were vivid, brighter than Ichigo's hair and his beautiful, predator eyes.
"Big Brother…I ha-"
OWARI