Pale Blue Shadows
A lot of you are guessing that this story is slowly coming to a close – this is true. So I'll put it out there now, that if any of you want to steal bits of this universe and/or write a sequel, bits out of time, etc., let me know. I'm happy to share.
Chapter 36: The Absence of Choice
Really, the only things keeping the fragile pieces of her whole were the fact that she wasn't alone, and that Syx had somehow managed to extract a promise from Tiff that Roxanne would be returned to him. It was all she was really living for now.
In the end, he came to her. Really, Roxanne realized that he would never have had the patience to wait, especially with the rest of their circumstances considered. Which was why she lay still, in the middle of the night, watching the pale blue shadows cast upon the wall by the distant hospital parking lot lights.
She had known the moment he had arrived. Even in sleep, she had been able to feel their link come to life, fragile emotions tentatively fluttering in her stomach. Or perhaps in his, and the feeling was only mirrored in her own. She wasn't sure it really mattered. It had become painfully clear over the last few days that without him she was directionless. As high as the rush of power had made her feel, the aftermath was an emptiness.
For so long now, she had lived for revenge, for vengeance. With it complete, the real reason behind her living was left bare. And it was him. She had no career left, no friends beyond Minion and the Bots, no family. Without Syx, she had nothing. A large part of her knew that wasn't good or healthy or right, and it struggled against her feelings, bothering her all through her waking hours. She felt pushed to find some other reason for being, some reason to rebuild herself and reclaim her independence.
With his arrival, it all fell to silence. There was calm in his presence, even as he remained silent, curled into the uncomfortable-looking seat by her window. He sat there, and she lay there, both silent. Minutes stretched on, and the quiet calmness inside of Roxanne seemed to grow. He was all she had, but then again, she was all he had too.
Roxanne finally turned her head, her eyes meeting his between the shadows that filled the room. He looked sad, or maybe thoughtful, and it gave Roxanne pause, seeing the feelings in his eyes but feeling only calm and peace in their link. She opened her mouth slightly, but closed it. She didn't know what to say. What could possibly begin to mend the hurt? They might need each other desperately, but need was not enough to cross the abyss between them.
"Did you mean it?" he said finally, puncturing the silence with the question Roxanne had been demanding of herself for days.
"No," Roxanne said softly. She paused as she felt her heart sink in her chest. "But also yes," she sighed softly, acceptance and shame mingling in her voice. "I was afraid, I think. Without even really knowing it," her gaze fell to the starched, white sheets that covered her form. She splayed her fingers across the blankness, watching the tendons of her hand flex and shift, moving the IV needle just enough to cause minute amounts of discomfort.
"I didn't know it was going to be like this. Like, I can't always tell where you end and I begin, or what is really me. Even when I couldn't feel you, I was doing things and thinking things that I'm not really capable of doing. With the Bots, with the code…" she shook her head, "And all the while, I was acting for Wayne, pretending to be someone I never was and never could really be. Most days, I didn't know who I was. There was only the goal – getting you out and getting Wayne dead. There was no me, no Roxanne. Not really.
"Even now, sitting here in the hospital, trying to figure it all out, I know that without you, I have nothing. I'm no one. I've lost everything that I used to define myself. I got scared. I saw a chance to be someone, independent and powerful, and I guess, I took it. Or tried to. I didn't… I didn't do it on purpose. It wasn't part of the plan."
Roxanne lifted her gaze, finally forcing herself to meet Syx's green eyes. They glowed in the darkness of the room. She swallowed slowly, a lump rising in her throat. He looked at her with something that looked like understanding, but at the same time, there was something suddenly predatory about the way he sat. Where at first he had seemed sad and introspective, curled in on himself, he now looked like something wild, coiled and ready to pounce. With a start, Roxanne knew this was what she feared – that she would be lost entirely, devoured by him: his thoughts, his feelings, his being – and it was what she craved. Which was why so much of her was in revolt. Surrender wasn't really in her nature.
"I'm scared that I'm going to get lost in you," she breathed. "I'm scared that, in the end, there will be nothing left of me."
He moved like a predator, uncoiling slowly and then suddenly crossing the room in a blink of an eye. He moved between shadows, and Roxanne wondered what it must have been like for him for all those months. He was changed in some way, though Roxanne couldn't immediately place how.
"You're afraid there won't be anything left of you?" he said softly, suddenly a whisper in her ear and a breath across her bare neck. "What about me?" he demanded softly, his voice deceptively calm. "What about what will be left of me? Knowing that you are somewhere that is not beside me, with someone who isn't me, that you would go willingly or even plan to leave?"
Roxanne felt a shiver run down her spine, her eyes watering slightly as he played on her guilt. She realized now the reason for the calmness in the link. He was forcing himself to be calm, because beneath it his emotions were as raw and conflicting as her own. He was furious and terrified, miserable and wrathful, possessive and bitter, all wrapped into one mess that he didn't want to put on her all at once. Because he knew she was afraid.
Roxanne met his stare. He gazed down at her with alien eyes, miles away and under her skin all at once. He was seeing all of her and through her all at once, and Roxanne wanted so many things. To give in and surrender herself to him for all time, to run away and escape that gaze, to pull him close and push him away.
"You are mine, Roxanne," he said calmly, his eyes blazing into her own. "You had the opportunities to leave, to choose differently, and this was the choice you made."
Roxanne pulled in a heavy breath. "And now I have no say?" she whispered in reply.
"You had your say already. And either you lied then or you lied in front of all those people," his eyes glittered dangerously.
"Couldn't I have been telling the truth both times?" Roxanne heard herself ask, as if from a distance. "People can change their minds. Feelings change. Women are notorious for it, if you believe the media anyway."
"I don't," Syx snapped, leaning in closer now. His hands were covered in his signature black leather, but they pressed hard into the white sheets and thin mattress of the hospital bed. "And that's one habit humans will have to get rid of. There's something to be said for conviction."
Roxanne blinked. "You can't change human nature," she whispered, her fingers wrapping the sheet into handfuls and pulling them close to her, "We can't help who we are, how we feel, how our feelings change and grow and fade."
"Then maybe you shouldn't get to make choices based on emotion," Syx replied in a growl.
"What should our choices be made on then?" Roxanne demanded back, her expression only vaguely challenging.
"Maybe you shouldn't get to make choices," he mused, pressing closer to her.
Roxanne let her head fall backwards against the pillow, her neck arching invitingly despite herself. She trembled when Syx's lips ghosted across her skin. A ragged gasp escaped her mouth as his teeth nipped against her pulse point. Shaking hands pulled free of the tangled mess of her sheet and pressed against his leather-clad chest. "Syx," she moaned helplessly, her mouth already searching his out.
When he let their mouths touch, it was like fireworks exploding in Roxanne's brain. She ached for his touch, wanted nothing more than to kiss him forever. Her hands roamed up towards his shoulders, pulling him closer to her. His scent filled her senses and Roxanne let go of her reservations. She had nothing else but him, and really, what else could she possibly want or hope for? There was no one and nothing that could make her feel like this.
He pulled away, leaving her aching with want and need, gasping with exertion and the threat of pain than road up her nervous system from her slow-healing leg. His eyes were dark as he scanned up and down her body, his smirk more violent than Roxanne remembered. "I can fix that," he said softly, off-handedly, as if she were little more than a damaged Bot.
Roxanne felt like her heart was in a vice. He seemed so cool, so distant, and yet his kiss had burned with need. "Syx," she whispered brokenly, "What's happened to us?"
Syx's smirk drew thinner, his eyebrows more raised. He straightened himself, tossing his cape behind himself nonchalantly. "Do you want your leg healed?" he said in a tone that seemed almost bored.
"Yes," Roxanne agreed quickly, even as her forehead remained wrinkled in concern. The feeling that something had changed, some part of her reality had shifted, was even stronger.
"Good," Syx scooped her up without a second of hesitation, pulling the IV from her hand with little regard for her comfort, wrapping the sheet more securely around her as he moved.
Roxanne swallowed against the nick of pain to her hand, wrapping her arms around his neck. Her eyes widened as she realized he was walking towards the door to her room, rather than the window. "What are you..." she began, her voice catching in her throat as he kicked open the door to the hospital hallway. "Where are the guards?" she asked uncertainly, the sudden silence of the hospital filling her ears with an eerie disquiet.
Syx shrugged slightly, dropping one shoulder towards a particularly dark shadow on the floor. Roxanne's eyes strained into the darkness, peering intently even as Syx began to walk down the hallway away from the shadow. There was a long moment as Roxanne felt the handle of the sheathed De-Gun press against her buttock. Her breath caught in her throat as she slowly realized the true nature of the shadow.
"Why are we just walking out of here?" Roxanne said suddenly, hurriedly. "Where are the nurses, the doctors, the guards, the patients?"
"What does that matter?" Syx replied, his voice betraying nothing.
The handle of the De-Gun pressed insistently.
"What have you done?" Roxanne's voice echoed slightly in the darkened, empty hallways. "Are they all... is everyone dead?"
"Only those who needed power to stay alive or who got in the way," Syx replied, almost conversationally.
The world spun out from under Roxanne as she digested his words. She felt faint as she calculated the death toll. The De-Gun dug further into her, pressing now into the side of her hip. She felt nauseous. The De-Gun couldn't kill before she'd gotten her hands on it.
"What have you done?" Roxanne whispered in a fractured voice.
"You made me the monster, Roxanne," he replied, his smirk still in place as Roxanne finally dared to look him in the eye. "I'm just living up to your expectations."
Roxanne shivered, her arms growing slack as she stared incredulously at the man who held her in his arms. "What are you doing?" she asked mechanically, her eyes frozen in their horror and disbelief.
"You killed Metro Man, but failed to take over the city," he told her in clipped tones, "Instead, you set me up as a pawn in your own villainous schemes and managed to revive the limited law and justice remaining in the city. If we're going to be villains, my love, we need to be evil ones. You've left us no other choice. We'll have to terrify them into believing in us."
Roxanne didn't think she had ever seen Syx look so evil, or so terrifying, as he did in the shadows of the bloodstained hallways of the hospital.
Perhaps Syx did have plans for what to do with a city.
Roxanne could only hope. After all, she was no longer the one making the decisions.