XX: This one ended up being much longer than I initially planned for many reasons. Honestly, if this were the place to flesh it out into a multi-chaptered, longer story with more development, I would likely do it. There ended up being so much potential with this idea and I wish I had more time to play around with it. This was one of those prompts where it turns out fine enough as a short story, but could be amazing if it had more time to sprout. But I've got so many other plot bunnies I want to tackle, and I can only execute so many ideas at a time, sadly.
Halfway there: A little over a year later of updating this series, I'm finally halfway through. The little milestones really help motivate me. :)
Special offer: As a celebration for finally hitting the halfway mark, I'm offering to take requests for the next prompts. Explanations and requirements for submitting a request can be found on my profile page.
Writing style: Usually, when I write about contemporary/21st century settings, my writing style is less abstract. That's the case here. Since I'm not describing a fantasy world that's so different from ours, I feel less of a need to delve into the descriptions that way since it's a setting we live through every day.
Thanks again: For all the feedback I've gotten. It really helps me push through when the going gets rough.
Defined by time, love lives on by its unorthodox nature and pace.
XX - Love
Rubbing her dark-lidded eyes, Terra Branford saunters into the slipshod, raggedy kitchen of the Farron household, her filthy bunny slippers slapping against the cheap wood floor. On instinct, she fishes out the paper filters and ground coffee from yellowed-out cabinets.
She's no natural creature of routine, but since getting up every day at four in the morning means she gets some quiet time to herself before everyone else gets up and turns the house into a warzone of chaos, she does it anyway. Besides, there's the added bonus of witnessing the serene, night-like skies of the early morning through the windows.
As she scoops the ground coffee and savors the earthy, strong smell, she glances at the prone bodies lying in the living room, only some feet away. Cloud's sprawled all over an alcohol-stained couch, his face resting haphazardly on the coffee table. A powdery substance and rolled-up dollar bills litter the wooden table, like the way snow covers houses. And on the ground, Vaan snores, one of his cheeks squished into a cushion of drool. Terra sighs at the sight of a bottle residing in his limp, dry fingers. Chip bags and cigarettes and other remnants of should-be discarded stuff are littered around them, Cheeto stains and beer stains here and there.
Learning to live in the Farron household is like learning a new language, vernacular and strange. Lightning's taken in her, Vaan, Cloud, and Onion over the course of some years. They were all close friends of Kain, homeless just like he was until Lightning warmed up to him enough and finally took him up. One by one, as Kain grew on Lightning (and is now dating her to this day), he convinced her to house the rest of them too.
Still, she's got rules, tough requirements to follow, and when she's gotta enforce them, she's the polar opposite of a saint regardless of her actions of hospitality. She's made them all get jobs to get everything paid on time (this Terra gets, because Lightning herself is just a cafe barista, and she can only pay so much for all their needs), and generally lets them horse around as long as they're contributing their share.
Where they live, it's not bottom-of-the-barrel slum life or anything, but it's certainly no middle-class residence either. It's a modest worker cottage house with only a single bathroom and two bedrooms. By some miracle, they figured out a way to make room for each other.
Just as Terra pours the coffee into a mug, she hears the clicking of the front door. Must be Light and Kain. Lifting the cheap porcelain to her lips and taking a generous sip, she moves toward the living room and leans on the door archway. Steam curls around her wan fingertips, unfurls onto her face, and she relishes the sensation. Man, she thinks, wouldn't it kill to have the money to go to a sauna or soak in a hot tub right now.
Lightning walks in, and Terra's eyes widen at the sight of Kain, who's unconscious and held in a fireman's carry by Lightning. Shodden, ashy strands of hair sway in tandem with his flaccid legs, concealing his eyes.
Eyeliner and eyeshadow are slightly smeared around Lightning's weary eyes, uneven. She's like some stupid-looking parody of a Banshee. Terra narrowly withholds a laugh so she doesn't spit out her coffee.
Touching careful fingers along the trails of her eyeliner, Lightning groans. "This is why I can't stand makeup. I can't believe I let you do this to my face. Glad I didn't let you make me wear the prostishoes, those would've killed my feet."
"Heels. And the makeup, well, I had to, what with you not having experience applying it." She crosses her legs and leans further on the doorway. "But it definitely looked great on you before… whatever happened last night. Anyway, how'd the party with Kain go?"
Stepping over Vaans's body into the room, Lightning yawns, flashes a stern-yet-exhausted glare at Cloud, and gently uncoils Kain's slack body from her shoulders and settles him on the couch. "Rager," she corrects, stretching her arms behind her back. She kicks off her boots and cleans off her mini dress. "Blacked out, but it was fun while it lasted."
Terra smiles. "Good to hear. Honestly, I never imagined you could do that kind of stuff. You're usually so… rigid. This is your first rager in, what, months?"
"I try not to overindulge. Can't stick to my responsibilities if I'm always out of it."
"I think you should let yourself indulge more. Kain's been dying to spend more time with you and you know it. You can count on me to keep the order, promise."
Heading to the kitchen, Lightning shakes her head. She gathers a fistful napkins and returns, wiping away Cloud's mess. "No way. Once in a while is good enough for me. Also, make sure Cloud cools off on the mako. He snorts the stuff like it's his life force."
Easily, Terra catches a sloppy twist of Lightning's normally keen features, pure evidence that contradicts what she says. "C'mon, you totally want to spend more time with Kain."
Rolling her eyes, Lightning shrugs at the suggestion. "You don't know how hard it is to be in charge when I can't be all the time, believe me. Managing bills; making sure no one in the house gets in trouble; keeping living conditions barely good enough."
"I'm willing to try for you. I mean, you guys just started dating and need some more quality time together. I know you're used to working around like you're some robot that's programmed to scream 'responsibility' all the time or something like that, but sometimes, relationships should come first."
Minor turmoil clenches Lightning's eyes as she stands, done with her cleaning intervention. "There's really no in-between for me. It's either working hard all the time or overindulgence."
Lightning's voice has a jerking lilt to it. Frowning, Terra's gaze retreats to the rippling currents of her beverage, lets Lightning have the win. She's overstepped a boundary, something private, secluded.
Glancing at Kain and barely catching sight of shut eyes that are dimmed by his hood, hope burnishes her heart. He's intimate, close with Light; maybe even the reason she went to this rager at all.
Maybe he feels the same way I do. Maybe he can convince her.
Breathing out a sigh, she forces a fragile grin. Sipping up the last of her creamy coffee, she sets the cup on the table and starts for the ground, picking up scattered cigarette packages and huge food crumbs to make up for her mistake. Actions of productivity are a godsend for Light when she's in a bad mood. "Enough about that. Don't worry, I'll clean up their mess."
Already unstiffened from knots of emotion and her natural, sharp poise regained, Lightning mouths a quick "thanks" before heading off into the hallway, likely for the restroom first, and bed later.
These days, Cloud operates on a simple truth: as long as he's got drugs nearby, he's okay with living out his shitstain of a life. Mako in particular is his sturdiest safety net, perfect for days where he accidentally looks into the mirror and spots the memory-enriched scars and bulbous acne on his face; on days where he doesn't see the point in trudging along as the pain of everything scores its fangs into him.
He knows it's all dumb, something that really belongs in melodramatic stories that lay it thick with needless angst. So he keeps as much of it to himself as possible, avoiding Terra's insistent, angled prods of compassion like a wildfire.
Yesterday, he was lucky enough to jack mako off of a deaf old lady. In truth, and he knows anyone would hate the hell out of his guts for it, he's glad that he did.
It's all too much, the crap life puts him through the wringer for, even though he knows he doesn't deserve an ounce of commiseration. Really, in the end, it all had been for some slipshod mistake he'd made at work, a dumb little thing that still set his manager off on edge. Anything worse, and he's sure he'd been fired and would get kicked out of the house, having to crawl along through the rest of the years on the street.
'She'd give you time to find another job,' Terra's words drip and echo in his cynical cave of a mind. 'She'd be mad, sure, but I'm sure it wouldn't be because she actually hates you as a person.'
Guzzling down his fifth swig of straight Vodka, Cloud sets down the bottle and leans over on the kitchen table, bare arms cushioned below his lowered chin. Nah, she clearly hates me for hogging up her living space. Not that I blame her.
Terra is one of those prodigious paragons that makes getting around the daily boobytraps of life look like it takes nothing. If she's any reliable narrator of her life story, then Cloud's aware that there was a time where she 'felt like him too', where she didn't see the point in going on, saw herself 'as a mistake'. But somehow, unbelievably, at the juvenile age of 22, she got her shit together.
It screams fake. But at the same time, he can't slam her with a retort because she's an infinitely much better person than he ever will be.
Scooting in his chair, he debates slamming his head down with force good enough to knock him out clean, preferably enough to give himself a concussion. But before he decides, there's the sliding of another kitchen chair, and he holds back a sigh.
"What, Kain?" He doesn't bother looking up at him at first.
With crossed arms, Kain leans forward. It's one of those rare moments where he's not sporting that weird hoodie, and in the unfettered, dull light of the dusty ceiling fan, his eyes resound with wavelengths of mystifying mauve.
"Nothing," he eventually shoots back, trying his hardest to look unfazed, but the suddenly downcast eyes give it all away before he even has a chance.
"You know, your schtick's a lot less convincing when I can see your face."
Despite being caught in the act, Kain snorts. "And you seem to care about things you normally don't pay much attention to."
Taking in a listless breath, Cloud sits up, dribbling restive, dirt-suffused nails on the table. "Whatever." And because he knows something's up, and he's tired of focusing on himself, he chooses to narrow his focus on the issue. He opts for an indirect push in the direction he thinks is best; the concept of pressuring people on personal things is alien to him. "Anyway, hasn't Terra talked to you about, you know, your whole thing with Lightning?"
"In the form of subtle suggestions, like you're doing now? I suppose so."
Cloud sighs. "Stop deflecting. I'm not one to pry; you know that. I hate talking about stuff like this, too. But you don't need to make everything about me to make your point."
I already hate myself enough, thanks, he contemplates adding to finish his retort, but he decides to keep the self-esteem nonsense to himself. No need to make things needlessly sappy.
Kain's slight smirk recoils into a firm, straight line. He replies with silence, a wistful flare of acknowledgment in his stare. He looks down at the table, folding meticulous-shifting arms atop it.
Clearing his throat, Cloud looks away as well, but without the relaxed-seeming gentility of Kain's persona and instead with the grace of socially awkward teenagers. "Look, whenever you're ready, you can talk to me about it. Or Terra. Or maybe even Vaan… actually, no, don't tell him."
Kain quietly chuckles. "I was about to say. I'd sooner feed myself to the sharks than talk out my problems with him." He pauses, sits back. "I feel that I am ready, truth be told."
You just weren't sure how to go about it. People like Kain are a bit harder than the average person to get, and it's frustrating.
"I thought doing what I always do when she's bottling up her feelings would work. Confronting her, helping her get things through that thick skull of hers. I always ask why she refuses to spend more time with me when she clearly has some free time on her hands. But she always finds a way to shut me out, to leave. Which is strange for her. She gets angry, of course, but she doesn't stick to the issue like she regularly does when we argue."
Even though he's no relationship expert or therapist, Cloud kinda gets it — Surprising, considering it's Kain. In the moments where he'd happen to glimpse their interactions, Kain seems to have this magic, this spell, that makes Lightning listen to a different perspective when she clearly doesn't want to. Somehow he pulls it off while pushing on her, picking on her precisely laid defenses, and while she usually replies with the vilest of remarks and retorts, it's usually at most a day or two later until she's cool with him again. Rarely does she linger on the aftermath grudges, really unless Kain does something so stupid that it deserves recrimination.
"Well, you guys only started dating last week. And people like her always need some alone time. Single or not."
Kain eyes his nails, displeased at the display of chipped purple polish. "At this point, it seems it's less about alone time and more about her ignoring me."
Cloud's on the verge of rolling his eyes. Romance isn't his forte so he just rolls with common sense as a form of guidance. "Maybe you said something wrong in one of your confrontations. I mean, you guys partied together last night. What do you mean by 'ignore'?"
"Generally, she was more open to me when we were platonic. Now she's often so distant we could be mistaken for acquaintances."
Gazing up at the dull, eye-breaking light of the ceiling fan, Cloud blinks, processes, and settles on a reasonable conclusion. "Try a different approach instead of confrontation. It's probably hard enough for her that she's busy babysitting our sorry asses. Just… ask her about her life and give her the time she needs to respond. Who knows, maybe the issue doesn't really come from your partnership." Sipping up more Vodka, he glances back at Kain. "And dial it back a notch or two with the Shakespearian lingo. Makes you come off as a dick sometimes."
"The first tip I will consider," Kain replies, standing as he pushes his body weight against the fake wood of the table, hands flat against the surface. "The second, likely not. And now, a word of advice for you."
Cloud holds back an eager, dismissive groan. "I told you, this isn't about me — "
"I know. But you ought to know this." Kain's already seized the red-rusted handle of the back door and slightly opens it, flashing a profiled glance at Cloud.
The window of the door splashes Kain's face with fulgent sunrays, and despite the mildewy, chipped should-be white paint of the door that's spluttered with nicks of brown that frames his body, he looks like someone that belongs with the higher class people for once.
"Know what?" Cloud asks, ignoring the instinctive clutch in his gut.
"Terra is not as perfect as you think she is."
And before Cloud can rile up something of a reply to throw back, the door's already closed and Kain's gone.
Or really, if he hadn't listened to Kain's last words, he would've already replied. But instead he's thinking about Terra as he just hears her door slam shut, a stentorious noise that effortlessly resounds through the small house.
He finds her on the front porch, seated on the tilted, rough wood of the doorsteps. She's got a cigarette in hand, exhaling lackadaisical threads of smoke into the breeze. The mechronomatic buzzing of nearby cicadas and the chorus of tree branches that dance and sing along frequent airstreams bring to life an otherworldly sense of serenity.
"I take it you're allowing yourself a break for once." He stands in front of her, a little off to the side because he knows she'd feel bothered otherwise.
"Mhm." Even though she's anything but wealthy-looking, sporting khaki shorts and a plain midriff with spaghetti straps, she maintains the poise of some elegant businesswoman, sitting up with crossed legs.
He sits beside her, torrid stair boards creaking in protest. Fishing out his cigarette case and match from his jeans, he notes how Lightning scoots an inch away (and how it clearly wasn't to give him room — there's plenty).
This time, he lets her commence conversation whenever she wants. Perhaps that is the key disconnect between them, the lack of acceptance of different communication methods.
She inhales, her cigarette elbow reclining along her uppermost knee. "What? Here to bug me again? Did Vaan sneak in more drugs? Or did Cloud have some secret mako stash you found out about?"
The delicate fire of his match wriggles in the wake of newborn winds as he ignites his cigarette, minuscule flares of flame flickering on the end. Ponytailed strings of his hair ripple and flow amidst air currents, not too unlike the tides of smoke that spill from his lips.
"Not quite any of those things, I'm afraid." He punctuates his last words with his trademark snark.
"Not even the first?" She continues to stare out into the neighborhood road, its withered asphalt uneven and stained from dismal elements. "Liar."
"No, not even," he answers, ignoring the jab of her last word. "I just want you to know that whenever you feel ready to discuss our issues, feel free to talk with me. Take all the time you need."
Incredulously, her eyes narrow. "This isn't like you."
He shrugs and doesn't answer back. She blinks and stays silent for some seconds.
"Some time ago, I'd say you wouldn't get it. But we've gotta make this work. And even if it doesn't work, we're stuck under the same roof. Least I can do is keep us mutual."
Breathing out, she continues gazing forward. "It's not really on you. It's on me, my shit choices."
"Choices such as?"
She taps off the excess ashes of her cig in a nearby, acrid-smelling ashtray. "I could go on and on about them, Kain." She pauses, and the twitch in her eyebrows betrays to him the notion that she's processing the best way to explain it all. "You know Terra relapsed again? 100 days of withdrawal gone — " — she snaps her free fingers — "just like that."
Curious, he leans forward, glimpsing her again and letting his eyes rest from the stodgy sight of the streets. "I'm aware. Are you bringing this up because you're going through something similar?"
A stiff stretch of silence. Finally, "Yes."
"I can imagine. I'm going through it too." The words feel somewhat fickle, somewhat true.
Lightning waves her head, and after a relaxed inhale of her cig, she replies. "Really? You get it that much?" She stares at her cigarette. "The hell am I smoking?"
"So judgmental. Look, if I tell you about my personal experiences, will you eventually share yours? I want to… I just want to understand. You said it yourself, might as well keep things 'mutual'."
"It depends. Don't rush me. Sometimes, it's best to keep things to yourself. But go ahead and share if you want."
He sits back again, mentally chiding himself. "I'm sorry." Smoke unwinds along winds of warmth, spiraling beyond the reach of earth. "If you decide to, you can share when you feel ready. Tomorrow, a week from now, even a month."
Then, like collecting the fragmented shards of a decrepit mirror, he regathers remnants of sullen memory. It's like looking through tear-smeared glass into a display of tangible regrets, always leaving one with the wish to go back and start over, and it hurts him to not look skyward or forward for once.
"Cecil always got what I used to think I deserved." He's already told her a bit about him, but not much. "The whole nine. Empathy, love, support. Even though we both were born in poverty, eventually adopted into a nice home, he was the golden child."
"Sounds like a people pleaser. Why else would they give him all the attention?"
Kain snorts but doesn't grin. His throat's getting achy, and he revels in his next inhale of smoke to soften the pain of his past. "He was anything but. You see, he was always so polite, well-mannered. But I wasn't. And he also happened to appeal to our caregiver's beliefs."
"Polite?" Tilting her head, she raises a brow. "What kind of polite?"
"The kind where you take things as they are as long as you feel good enough. He always struggled with understanding what he truly wanted. He wouldn't speak of those issues with me, but I could tell. And me? I struggled with getting what I wanted."
He breathes, steady and still. Blinks out a sudden tear, hoping Lightning didn't see it.
"What did you want?" The inevitable question comes out clipped; absolute.
Paradoxically unsure of how to explain, he shrugs again. He doesn't understand why he's always found it so hard to put his honest desires and goals to paper despite his internal certainty. Piece by piece, he stitches together something of a good enough answer.
"I wanted many things. Acceptance, encouragement, a sense of true security. Love." He holds back against an internal correction, that Cecil gave him love in small doses here and there.
He messes with one of his stray bangs, gazing down.
"But looking back, I cannot blame them for not understanding my wishes. I asked too highly of them. All I had to pay back for were my poor decisions. When I got older, every now and then I took to the bottle, then complained that Cecil always had it all. To an extent, he did, but I should have also been grateful for having a place to live in at all."
He squeezes one of the sleeves of his blue, loose shirt with a restless grip, closing his eyes gently. "Eventually, I came out a shameless drug addict. I was mad at everything, blind. I could not stand seeing Cecil having a fulfilled relationship with someone I also had feelings for. I couldn't stand the sight of him receiving free gifts just for getting good grades. Everything. He always had everything. And he didn't realize how much being pampered only hurt him in the end."
"I snapped." A tear slips past his defenses, a sleek trail that highlights one of his cheeks. "One night, the year I turned 18, while I was drunk I assaulted him. I knocked him down, punched him. Kicked at him until he bled"
He wipes away more tears, continuing. "And yet, at the end of it all, he still came to forgive me. Even after our caregiver disowned me, he tried to make him forgive me."
At the end of it all, he's drying his tears. Though he doesn't sniffle, the urge to do so is great. But despite this, the words he speaks contradict it all. "A part of me will always hate him for that. Always, he had to be the one with the morals, always had to put on a show of integrity. Those habits of his are the reason I'm sure he's unfulfilled despite living in a beautiful mansion."
Kain basks in the natural silence that follows. His bloodshot amethyst eyes flicker with the tint of history so old yet so seemingly recent. He's a little surprised Lightning seems to get that what he said toward the end was not out of bitterness or spite, from the contemplating gaze she sends his way.
"He kind of reminds me of Serah." Despondent, the comment comes out somewhat meekly, unusual from her. "Minus the whole 'not understanding yourself well' thing. All she wanted was happiness. And I failed her."
At the mention of her sister, his stomach coils with burning apprehension. She's a special topic Lightning avoids 99% of the time, and for an exceptional reason.
"Guess I'll just explain everything now." She puts up a front of nonchalance, but it's so transparent that Kain can immediately tell that it's hard for her to gather up everything she went through for years and compress it all into a few measly sentences.
"I was just as much of a hard worker with her as I am with you and the others now. She kept me focused. A dead dad? A drug addictive mom that also died later? A low-income area? Serah's teenage tantrums? That didn't stop me."
Uncrossing her legs, she sets her mole-specked elbows on her knees, eyebrows lowering softly. "But somewhere along the line, I just… lost her. She started spending time with another guy. He always did dumb shit just to make her happy. You know, stuff like stealing things to share with her, or fighting with some assholes that perved on her."
Shutting her eyes, she plants a palm on one of her temples, leaning on it. "They hooked up. And I used to hate his guts, Kain. He put her life at risk with his presence alone, but they both didn't care because of some 'power of love' BS. Every day, the visits got more frequent. It was like she didn't live with me anymore. It gave me this strange feeling."
Kain's reply is unstifled, certain. "You cared for her deeply. I understand that feeling all too well."
Lightning nods, the shimmer of a sly tear dousing shaking eyelids. "Yeah. And when I finally confronted her about it, I was so… so mad. I went off about how their relationship was a mistake, that he would get her killed, that she was safer with me and that she should've been happy with me."
When the tear gives way, it doesn't fall or shine as drastically as his multiple ones did, but it's every bit as poignant. "And all she had to say was one thing. It was enough to shut me up." Reopening her eyes, she gazes up, and Kain imagines it's because she feels the action frees her somewhat from the pent up guilt. "That she felt that despite raising her as a responsible parent should, I didn't really understand her or open up to her. Then she ran off crying. I'm sure she headed to his place that night."
"Then, well, you know what happened next. She died in a car accident, and now you know it was because of me." At this point, Lightning's stubbed out her cig in the ashtray and is using her hands to sloppily wipe away the stray tear from her eye. "For the longest time, I denied it and got into drugs just like my mom. Alcohol, cocaine, morphine. Anything to soften the blow. Deep down, I knew the truth. But I always tried to convince myself that it was her boyfriend."
Both of their scleras reddened from ardent teardrops, they gaze upward. Something about the sky relaxes the chains of their past transgressions that keep them bound to earth, Kain feels.
"Kain, when I met you, something about you just clicked with me. I don't know what it was, your fancy speech that somehow didn't come off as patronizing or your honesty. But whatever it was, it helped me get back on track and let go of the drugs over time. So, thanks."
Flashing her and the sky a humble smile, he snorts. "You're welcome."
"I guess part of it was taking you and the others in. Had to give you guys the support you needed. And that's why I'm worried about relapsing again. I've never felt deeply for another person besides Serah. We're supposed to be official, but I'm just…"
Afraid, Kain almost says, but he goes for a term easier for her to take. "Wary."
Nodding, she stands up, the floorboards creaking. "Taking care of you all, it's made me feel better. Obviously won't fill the void in me that Serah did, but it's done me good. So I want to take things slow, okay? I don't want to screw up again. And I'm not sure how I'd take it, if I lost you too."
After grinding his cigarette in the tray and standing alongside her, he crosses his arms and faces her. "I understand," is all he says, but it's enough for them both to feel right and heard.
They walk off the steps and toward the sidewalk, taking their time. They have a habit of taking a stroll amidst the destitute houses after long talks, and this is no different.
"Funny how love works. So risky yet rewarding," he says. Memory-ingrained images of Cecil's sad, weary face impede his thoughts. Rue twists some of his mind at the visage. "Sometimes you don't realize how much you care for someone until it's too late."
Her tired azure irises convulse in response. "Yeah. How love comes in different forms is beyond me." She names off the ways with fingers that seem to think on their own. "Romance. Selflessness. Selfishness. And…"
Midway through the lawn, Lightning glances back at her house, through one of the front windows. She taps his shoulder and gestures at one of them, and Kain catches her minute grin before looking.
"Family," she finishes. "Found family, really."
The window showcases Terra's room. She's with all three of the boys, laughing like the most precious person in the whole wide world. Cloud's surprisingly with her, and Kain can even see his faint smile. Vaan's talking nonstop, probably going off of some dumb story about how he hunted down 100 rats. And Onion's likely nitpicking the issues with his claims, supplying evidence to the contrary. It's obvious they're there to help her feel better, and it alights his heart with a familiar, nostalgic feeling.
"Yes," he says, smiling. "The strange, unique family we are."