A/N: Okay, not a lot happens in this chapter. But it's pretty damn important for the story. It's a big chapter for both Liz and Kid, but Patty quite literally slept through it. :P
By the way, I just bought myself Imagine Dragon's album Night Visions, and it is incredible. It's been a great inspiration for me in my writing. I strongly suggest you listen to 'Demons' while reading this, because it had a great influence on this chapter. And it's a great song.
Oh, and I hope you didn't come here for fluff. How I love to torture my favorite characters! Btw, there's blood in this chapter, and will be in future chapters too. Nothing too graphic, just a warning if you desperately can't cope with that.
Chapter Ten Wicked Witch
He thought he did it. Kid thought he was the one who'd blown apart their resonance, and he was totally wrong.
So now, things weren't the same. Not exactly, anyway. Before this things had been looking up. It was like she might actually have it in her to stop being so paranoid, and simply see the places he could take the sisters. That was, of course, until their practice four days ago. Now they were sliding on a very slippery slope, and were losing touch with each other fast. They'd only been out to two very short practices since, and both times they were practically back to square one.
And Liz couldn't stop thinking about what she'd done. She swore, she'd never meant to... hurt him, not like that. The way he collapsed, broke down. No one could fake it. This whole time, she'd been absolutely horrible to him. And he was genuinely trying to help her. As fucked up as it was, he was just a freak that needed symmetry.
Even if he was also a god, a brat, and absolutely loaded.
And now, thinking that she was hoping to steal from him... Was she really so naïve to believe that? She'd felt his wavelength, the power it held firsthand. It was almost terrifying. Yet, he'd opened his soul to theirs, and she'd attacked it with her own. But that wasn't even the worse part. The sisters weren't even hurt, not a scratch on them, and he acted as if he'd blown their arms off. Liz forced herself to do nothing but watch as he tore himself apart over it.
And because of it, only now did she have a true understanding of Kid's obsessions. It was like nothing she'd ever even heard about, let alone seen. They were nothing short of crippling. Seemingly small things to her could cause his calm and cool persona to shatter. He would collapse, sometimes even cry, and morph into what was like a totally different person. Like a demon, a whole different part of him that swallowed him whole. That too, was terrifying.
Usually Patty was the one to pull him out of it. Liz tried, she really did, but she couldn't bring herself to be the comfort he needed. Most of the time she'd give up trying to convince him to pull himself together, and leave in frustration. Then she would have to spend the next few hours feeling guilty as he tried to fix whatever wasn't right. Guilt was all she'd ever felt these past few days, something she hadn't felt in a long time.
When he did go into a symmetry fit, it crushed her too. That boy, curled in a heap on the floor, he was the one that she was planning to rob blind. It made emotion well within her that she couldn't even explain, something caught between anger and sadness, with a huge weight of guilt. By appearance, by first glance, he was more than fine. He was a rich, powerful reaper. But within moments, over such little things like tilted picture frames, he became a mess.
How could she leave him? How could she find it in her to walk out the door with his money, knowing that he was suffering from an obsession that could take someone so strong to a sobbing heap? How did she even think she could get his money in the first place? And why was she still worrying about that now!
There was one thing she did know: leaving would be running away. And Liz Thompson absolutely did not run away.
But she really didn't know what to do. Things could be great right now, they could have been forming a fantastic level of resonance. But she had, well, attacked was a strong word, but then again it was pretty much what she had done. She had smashed what he was so carefully trying to shape, and she had shattered it, broken it to pieces.
Kid dealt with broken things worse than he did asymmetrical things. And that was saying something.
But Liz didn't have it in her to correct him. She let him believe he was the one who had severed it, and the one who had hurt them. When nothing could be further from the truth. As sorry as she was, she couldn't tell him. He would hate her. Kick her out. Stop seeing her as beautifully symmetrical and start seeing her as hideous. For some reason, now she cared what he thought.
When the thought she didn't want to be kicked out crossed her mind, she suppressed it instantly. But still, it nagged her quietly, as she began to realize how childish it was to have been so nasty to him. All he wanted was two symmetrical weapons, and he'd been willing to try to get through to her to get that. All he'd done so far was give, and ask for so little.
We blow up a few monsters, and we get the life we've always wanted. One off the streets.
It was only now she'd realized that she wanted to stay.
And that thought didn't give her the mercy of dawning on her, oh no. Reality was much too cruel for that. It hit her like a slap to the face and a scream in her ear. At one a.m, in fact, four days after... the incident.
A loud smash had woken her up. Her eyes had shot open as she was ripped from her dream, senses waking up a beat slower. Using the shattering echoes of the initial clattering to anchor herself to the waking world, she blinked slowly. Propping herself up on her shoulder, she glanced to Patty beside her, who was still deep in sleep. Her little sister always was one who could snooze through the apocalypse.
Liz peered through the inky darkness of the bedroom. Eyes adjusting slowly, she looked towards the faint light bleeding through under the closed door. It was then it dawned on her dozing mind – Kid must have caused the smash. Before anything else, a coil of worry wound its way through her stomach. It barely took a second before she was pushing off the covers and standing. There was no way she could get back to sleep anyway. And there was an insistent nagging in the back of her head that willed her feet to move.
The door clicked softly as she opened it. Sparing one last glance to Patty, who still slept soundly, she padded down the stairs towards the source of light. It was coming from the living room, an artificial glare that made her tired eyes wince. She rubbed at them wearily before pushing though the half-closed doorway, words slurred and mumbled. "Hey, what's with all the-"
Her words trailed off. Feet freezing in place, her eyes widened, breath catching in her throat. It felt as if time had stopped for a moment, to give her a chance to take in the scene in front of her.
Most of the room was as it always was. Everything was lined up to scrutinized perfection, down to the very last millimeter. Despite the harsh precision of each piece's placement, it had begun to feel a little more like it couldn't have been any other way, and it was as close to having a real home than Liz had ever been. But the flawlessness of the room only magnified what was wrong within it. Despite the way her mind was at a halt, the thought briefly crossed that maybe this was how Kid saw every little thing. Tiny details magnified to gaping flaws. This thought was also the one that snapped her to her senses.
He was sitting on the floor, in a way she'd already seen far too many times. But this seemed to pale the others in comparison. The mirrors on the walls of the room, placed exactly across from each other, now wore spider web shatter across them. They cast the light in an uncomfortable way. Despite the disorder, the scene still held a more bitter sense of symmetry, with the raven haired boy sitting in the middle. Shards were scattered around him, and held tightly in his hand. So tight that thin trails of blood dripped from his fingers to his wrists. The crimson was an almost sickening contrast to the pale white of his skin. He wasn't completely still, either – his body shook silently with sobs.
As if to greet her, he spoke quietly, in a surprisingly calm contrast to the way he looked. "I can't fix it," was all he said. If she hadn't been looking at him, she could have closed her eyes and imagined the cool, calm Kid was speaking. It made a connection to this side of him that chilled her to the bone. Before now, it was like two different people. Now she'd seen that they were the same person, and it made her chest clench.
He may look black and white, but he had a spectrum of colours his very own. This was the red that coated his palm.
Suddenly, she was by his side. Her hands hovered over his for a moment, before she laid them over top. She paid no mind to the crimson now covering her own fingers. He barely reacted, but his breath was losing its shudder. It was a bit like being there had snapped him to his senses. Gently, she tried to pry open his hand, an attempt to stop the shards digging into his skin.
She only succeeded in causing his grip to tighten. Blood dripped faster, the streaks staining his skin thickening as more glass pressed into his palms. It almost made her scream in frustration, how it was so hard to help, that no matter what she did she seemed to cause Kid grief. Liz almost left, almost ran to get the blood off her hands.
But Liz Thompson did. Not. Run.
"Kid, you have to let go." Her voice was almost a whisper, softer than she thought she was capable of. Her eyes were wide and pleading. He still hadn't looked up to her. It didn't take an expert, however, to know tears streamed down his cheeks. Her words did seem to have some impact though, and his gripped softened just enough. Peeling open his fingers, she set to pick out each shard, one by one. Thankfully, most were large, pieces that he must've frantically scrambled to grab. As she worked, she heard his breathing slow. Soon he had stopped shaking. He didn't even flinch as each piece was plucked out of its respective gash, wounds that should have been deep enough to be quite painful. So she worked quickly, and tried to be as gentle as she could. Halfway through, she realized her hands had been shaking as well.
A light sigh passed her lips as the last fragment of mirror was taken from where it had embedded in his hand. It was a sigh of relief, one that matched Kid's of fatigue. Finally, finally, he looked up, eyes tired and faded. He swallowed hard before he spoke, answering her look that pleaded for an explanation. "My hair, Liz... The lines... They're asymmetrical-"
Liz cut him off, but it wasn't the way that she usually snapped at him. "It doesn't matter, Kid. It really doesn't." Her voice was carefully hushed and gentle, a voice she'd only ever used with Patty on their worst days.
This was a pretty awful day for him.
She didn't want to know how hating his hair had caused both mirrors to smash. The same way Kid clearly didn't want to explain. Instead of pressing for an answer, she stood, holding onto his scarred hands to pull him up too. At first, he refused. "They're still broken..." He mumbled. Stopping him before he could look at the asymmetrical cracks in what remained of the mirrors, she tugged a bit harder, and he gave in.
"Doesn't matter. I'll clean it up. We can get new mirrors." Her speech was wooden, voice stern as she pulled him into one of the symmetrical bathrooms. If anything, the restored order around him could serve to calm him down a bit. She didn't know much about how to deal with this sort of thing, but she was learning what worked. Sometimes you needed to be a bit sympathetic, when they were this bad, but sometimes you just needed to tell him to get over himself. Sometimes, both.
It seemed he didn't have it in him to protest further about the mirrors. Filling the basin with warm water and a splash of disinfectant, Liz dipped both of their hands in, watching as the blood which hadn't yet dried mixed through the water in deep red ribbons.
It came as a surprise to her that his wounds were almost nonexistent. Only the largest of them were still open and bleeding, the others were just red lines and scrapes. She didn't think too much of it though, because he seemed to be much more composed now. "I'm sorry." He said flatly. "I can't help it. It's not your burden; you shouldn't feel obligated to help."
Giggles welled in her stomach, and under different circumstances she might've laughed. Was he serious? No good person could've left him in that state, and even if Liz wasn't the best person in the world she was no exception. "You've had to deal with this a long time, haven't you?" She smiled, but it was bittersweet.
"Ever since I can remember." Kid replied, occupying himself by watching ripples of red against the white porcelain. "I've always had it. It just... happens. I have no control over it at all, most of the time I don't even realize it's happening until..." He trailed off, but Liz understood fully what he was saying. It felt like he was spilling his darkest secrets to her. Sharing a weight he had carried for so long.
Everything that she had done to him clenched her chest, and a wave of guilt she was far too familiar with wound through the pit of her stomach. It was like she saw him through new eyes, saw him past his skin-deep impression she'd seen first and into something much bigger. She thought she knew him, a rich and strong god with something against her. It almost hurt, to think how wrong she was. Yes, the god part was right, but they had a lot left to learn about each other.
And the fact he'd had it all his life... She didn't dare to think what it was like when there was no one to help at one in the morning.
"It's okay." Was it? Probably not. But the words felt right. Even if neither of them were okay. And that was why she had to stay, because the guilt of leaving him when she knew things were like this was unbearable. If she did that, then she might as well lose her soul. Because there would be no hope for her.
She wasn't going to stay out of pity for him, he didn't need it and she didn't want to give it. She was staying for reasons that she couldn't really describe herself. The thought that they could help each other, perhaps.
It felt as if she'd suddenly broken away from her anger, and her hatred. It was impossible for it to disappear in an instant, of course. But suddenly it was like she could see what she was doing, who she was, and she knew it was time for a change. Time to shed off the way she acted to survive in Brooklyn, and shape into someone who could make this work.
Oh god, it's starting to sound like I'm a character in some crappy, midday TV drama...
Washing the water, now tinted with blood, down the sink, Liz insisted on bandaging Kid's hands. Despite his insistence in telling her he was fine, she still wrapped them, if only for her own reassurance. So they sat across from each other, as she carefully wound the bandage around his palms. The flow of blood now was barely a trickle. But she didn't think too much of how quickly the wounds had healed. She was too busy mulling over other things. The silence between them was thick, and despite the comfort of it, she'd worked up the courage to break it when she'd moved onto his left hand. "How often is it that bad?" Liz asked, eyes staying fixed on his hands as she worked.
Kid looked up at her through black bangs. "It doesn't happen too much." He said, his voice slightly quieter than usual. "But at least once a month I suppose, depending."
She cut the end of the bandage after securing it, gathering the courage to meet gold eyes. They were still weary, the two tones of golden yellow not quite as brilliant. "Depending on what?" It was pressing her luck to ask, but she wanted to know. Perhaps she felt she had to.
"Circumstances." He shrugged his shoulder lightly, flexing his now wrapped hands. Liz understood his silent plea for her not to pry further. Early days, after all.
After fairly short-lived argument, she managed to send him off to bed. For a second she knew that she was acting a bit like his mother, like the one she was for Patty. She always had a strong parental instinct, even for people on the street, especially young kids that were kicked out like she was. The sisters would always be sure to give them whatever they could spare, like Robin Hood. Albeit a much less heroic version.
If she could find a scrap of good in her, that was it.
So she cleaned up the shards, wincing at the ones with spots of blood. The mirrors were taken down, and she made the mental note to buy replacements. Normally, she would have detested cleaning up like this. But she owed it to him, at the very least. Especially if she wanted to stay.
Which she now knew she did.
Even if she wasn't ready to let go of her old self in an instant, she was ready to begin to trust him. She could demolish the wall around her soul, and begin to reach out a bit herself. They would never be able to completely change for each other. But they could shake off the things holding them back, and meet halfway. A bit of time, and after learning to lean on each other, this might just work. As mad as it was.
The first thing she had to do? Tell the truth.
This could be harder than I thought.
A/N: I know that Kid's obsessions are usually played for laughs, but I think I remember Liz saying at one point that he was a lot worse before the Thompsons came along. That's why this is a pretty dark take.
You know by now how much I adore reviews. They're what keep me going, so every single one is appreciated! (I know I always beg for them, but they really do motivate me to better my writing. So pretty please?)