At Sixes and Sevens
A collection of Jr./Rubedo & Albedo one-shots, drabbles, and short stories
COPYRIGHT NOTE: I don't own Xenosaga
COMMENTS: I want to take a moment to personally thank readers for sticking with this story. I admit I haven't been feeling my best throughout the writing of this series, so your support tremendously buoys my confidence. :)
And I especially want to extend my thanks to my wonderful reviewers, who, no matter what I write (and no matter how long it takes for me to write), always keep coming back for more: Princess of Heart 11, Dizasterrific, Tylida Doradelo, and the anonymous Guest who left a very nice message/reminder regarding another Xenosaga HD petition (let's not give up, fellow Xeno fans! :D). I hope you can forgive me for being unable to keep up with reviews/replies of my own. You're the best!
So what's in store for this episode? Yours truly is fooling around with wordplay and Jr.'s infamous potty mouth again. :P This is actually my favorite 6&7 one-shot to date, so I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
6&7#4: "Four Letter Words" | Genre: Drabble/Angst | Rated: T for strong language & references to violence and sexuality
Four Letter Words
Aiselne Nocturnus
Cuss.
Jr. did plenty of it, but who could blame him? He was not the little kid his appearance suggested, and considering the past twenty-seven years of his life, a petty potty mouth was the least of Number 666's crimes.
Twin.
The most frequent reason for Jr.'s swearing. Nowadays it seemed that Jr. could not even think about Albedo without cursing the son of a bitch; cursing the violent pain Albedo inflicted upon others, sometimes even upon himself, the regenerative masochist. Cursing himself for abandoning Jr.'s other half and running away from the mess he made.
Yet still never cursing the day the twins were born.
Beat.
He still remembered the song they shared, tandem heartbeats from a tender time when Rubedo's other half was simply, always a shoulder-glance away. The beating never stopped, even after their separation. A perpetual, comforting echo.
Tear.
Dr. Yuriev was the first to separate the babies. Neither felt whole ever again, but Rubedo and Albedo were content as long as they could still live together. Play together. Eat together. Sleep together. Wake together. Bathe together. Dress together. Work together. Study together. Fight together. Be together.
Eventually all of that togetherness inadvertently drove them apart, or at least drove one brother away. Rubedo could no longer resent his father for separating them, when he himself tore them apart on that fateful, horrific night on Miltia. Only this time the damage was permanent.
Hell.
The warzone of Old Miltia was still burned in the back of Jr.'s mind, haunting him for fourteen long years. There were days it felt like Rubedo never escaped the Miltian Conflict, the gruesome past superimposed over the idyllic present Jr. and Gaignun built on the Kukai Foundation:
Fancy penthouses deteriorated into skeletal remains of bombed skyscrapers. Bright blue sky turned black, hazy with smoke, whilst twittering birds warped into the maddening Song of Nephilim. The beach's ocean oozed blood, and rising from the surf was not a happy-go-lucky swimmer but a corpse, dripping red that gave way to white. Then Albedo would seize Jr.'s neck and drag him down into the water, all the way to the bottom of the abyss where there was no hope for escape.
Time.
It allegedly heals all wounds. But tell that to the red-haired boy who screams himself out of a recurring nightmare every morning, and Jr. will just cuss again.
Gone.
For a person whom Rubedo abandoned on Miltia, Jr. never let go of Albedo emotionally. One is never lost when his memory is kept alive. But there was a difference between Albedo always being in Jr.'s thoughts, versus Albedo literally returning to the stage. No longer could Jr. lick his wounds with the happier memories of their youth—now he had to face the monster he created in his adulthood.
Glad.
To say Jr. was disappointed to see Albedo again would be a lie. He just wished the brothers' fourteen-year-long reunion could have taken place under better circumstances, circumstances that did not involve a trail of mutilated Kirschwassers leading to the throne where Albedo nearly violated the innocent Realian on his lap. And even then Jr. cursed himself for feeling a pang of relief in just seeing that sick bastard again. Because underneath it all Albedo was still his precious twin…right?
Fool.
Jr. played that part all throughout Albedo's game. Dumber than thinking he could atone for the past, Jr. stupidly played into his twin's hand, doing exactly what Albedo wanted—what Albedo had always wanted—right up until the end.
Damn.
Sadly, when Jr. finally realized what he had done, it was too late.
"Shit!"
And he could swear and cry and scream all he wanted, but Albedo's blood would forever be on Jr.'s hands.
Dead.
It was not the same as when Rubedo abandoned Albedo on Miltia. Back then, there had always been a slim, idealistic chance that Albedo would come back and the twins could live happily ever after. But now Jr. had killed his brother, and there was no fairytale ending for fratricide.
Half.
And without the comforting beats of Albedo's heart echoed in the right of his chest, Jr. understood the true meaning of being an other half. Incomplete.
Miss.
We never know what we have until it is gone, an old adage that had been overused as far back as Lost Jerusalem, but that did not imply the saying was untrue. Jr.'s nightmares of Old Miltia paled in comparison to the terrors he endured during the months following Albedo's demise.
Heal.
The wounds would scab over, but eventually rip open again, often by Jr.'s own volition. He wanted to move on, but a part of him wanted to eternally punish himself for destroying the greatest thing to ever happen in his life—for throwing away the past, for murdering Albedo in the present, and for denying any possible future the twins could have shared. All because Rubedo was scared.
Fear.
He was scared on Old Miltia. He was scared to face Albedo. He was scared to face the monster he was deep inside. He was scared to lose everything.
But what good was it to be scared? Everything Jr. feared inevitably came to pass anyway. Being scared only wasted time and made him run away from things, not just the potentially bad things but the potentially good things, too.
Life.
There were so many things Jr. missed out on throughout his twenty-seven years, some due to being raised a sheltered childhood in a military institute. But the more important moments Jr. missed with Albedo were entirely his fault. Perhaps the brothers could have come so some semblance of a ceasefire. It was challenging for Jr. to imagine it, but not impossible, either.
He had intended to bring Albedo back to the Durandal after their battle in the Omega System. It was anyone's guess how Jr. would handle their rocky relationship afterwards, but the redhead often fantasized. Life would not be easy, especially after the crimes Albedo committed, but Jr. figured he, Gaignun, and Helmer could finagle some legal mumbo-jumbo to appease the Federation. And if necessary, Jr. was willing to leave with Albedo for a while until the madman became nothing more than a forgotten nightmare in Second Miltia's history.
Jr. hated the idea of running away again, and how silly to imagine running away with Albedo, just the two of them. Too much togetherness tore them apart in the first place, after all. And the twins were no longer innocent children, when togetherness was not quite so compromising. Living together. Eating together. Sleeping together…
"Fuck!"
It would not be the first time Jr.'s adult mind slipped into carnal thoughts, but with Albedo?! Being a man trapped in a child's body was no excuse. After abandoning and eventually killing his sibling, how in hell's name could Jr. remotely consider defiling his brother any further?!
Need.
Even so, there would always be that nagging, magnetic desire. From the moment of birth the twins had always been together, always needed each other, and even now across the rift of death Jr. realized he did not want to live without his other half.
But the boy had to keep living, because other people needed him.
Fate.
Yet of all the people who relied on Jr., Albedo needed him the most. Even after achieving his goal, his death, his freedom, he could not stay away. And just as when the twins were first reunited in the Song of Nephilim, Jr. was not disappointed in seeing the White Testament, though he again felt guilty knowing his happiness was at the cost of another loved one's life. Ironically, Gaignun seemed to understand his older brothers' bond better than the dysfunctional twins ever had. To rejoin the twins in spirit was a cause worth dying for.
Soul.
Refilling the gap left inside him for most of Jr.'s life took some getting used to. True, Albedo had always been in Jr.'s thoughts, but having Albedo actually inside his head was another matter altogether. A literal headache, Jr. would tease, and the younger brother would snicker at his sibling's lame joke. When was the last time the twins laughed together?
The white twin slept most often, more content than Albedo ever felt during his life, and it had a similar soothing effect on Jr. Either Jr. was finally maturing into a more levelheaded adult, or his reconnection with Albedo was what he had always needed to be happy.
Done.
For the first time in twenty-seven years, Jr. and Albedo felt whole. There was finality to their completion, as though the end had finally come to one long chapter in their lives. This was not the ideal ending Jr. originally hoped for him and Albedo, but it also meant a new story could begin, preferably one the brothers would not mess up.
Hope.
Jr. and Albedo were no longer two halves—they were one. Both were reborn into this brave new world, where Lost Jerusalem was their destination. The journey would not be easy, and the scars of the past were still healing, but for Jr. the challenges felt just a little less impossible now. He was not facing these new trials half-cocked, in all senses of the phrase. This universe would meet an older, wiser, stronger Gaignun Kukai Jr.
"Love."
And once the Elsa found Lost Jerusalem and achieved its true happy ending, Jr. had every intention of telling his treasured other half one final, overdue four-letter word.
Fini
