The Elsewhere Chronicles
See disclaimer in the prologue
Some people went through their lives with God's own luck, blessed by wonderful happening after wonderful happening, either grateful to their karma or taking it all in stride. They won lotteries, they got promotions and scholarships, they were recognized for their hard work and they attracted beautiful men and women in droves.
Ansem was just about the opposite of that.
Kindhearted, patient, and brilliant as he was, he had to be the unluckiest person Leon had ever known. Mishap after mishap continued to plague Ansem through his career and personal life—how he managed to stand it, Leon didn't think he'd ever know.
Twenty-eight years old and aristocratically handsome, Ansem had ethnic tan skin and pure white hair, which he'd always grown straight down to his waist in a gleaming, immaculate silvery curtain. His eyes were dark gold, and always met other people's with measured assertion. He'd had soft, layered bangs that he combed back fiercely while he was working and left hanging into his face when he wasn't. Confident without seeming superior, Ansem always seemed dressed to kill, whether wearing a lab coat, a tuxedo, or his favorite black cashmere sweater and a pair of jeans. As attractive as he was sweet-natured, Ansem had just the kind of build Leon admired in men—a tight muscular structure without bulk. Having seen for himself, Leon knew that he had a pretty nice six-pack to go along with the dramatic sweep of his brow, his strong and very slightly beaked nose, and his dark, full, sensitive lips, which looked cutest in a pout that Ansem rarely wore, but Xemnas—his cousin, the leader of the Organization—often displayed.
Like Sephiroth, Ansem DiZ had always appeared to be an unachievable dream of perfect manhood. At least, he had until the accident…
About four months ago, there had been an explosion and an ensuing chemical fire in the labs where Ansem worked. Caught inside and unable to escape until the fire squad had arrived, Ansem had sustained horrific burns all over his body, as well as several shrapnel wounds. He'd been recovering in the hospital for several weeks, and while skin grafts had repaired the worst of the damage, he had—and would probably have for years yet—scars like dark winestains across his face, chest, back, and hands. In addition, the doctors who'd taken care of him had shaved off what remained of his beautiful white hair—it was starting to grow back, but it was barely longer than the expected norm for a man at the moment.
Leon still thought Ansem was beautiful, even though the other man wouldn't believe him when he said so. Confident as he appeared, Ansem was sensitive as hell and got depressed easily. Leon would've liked to confront whoever had managed to give Ansem such low self-esteem, but according to the gentle scientist, it had been more of a combination of circumstances instead of any one person. Leon didn't exactly believe him—it would be just like Ansem to protect even someone who had hurt him so badly.
Besides, the second blow had been hard enough for Ansem to deal with that Leon couldn't spend too much time on what had happened in the distant past.
Shortly after Ansem had gotten out of the hospital and was starting to regain some semblance of normalcy, he'd had to deal with yet another shattering event: While he'd been incapacitated, the closest of his research assistants, Xehanort, had made off with all records of his findings, reaching Ansem's expected conclusion and presenting it to their patrons as his work instead of his mentor's. It had been devastating—months of Ansem's hardest work gone, and the credit for it given to someone else entirely.
Ansem's friends and supporters had marched off to his patron, who had already accepted Xehanort's stolen presentation, and protested about how unfair it was. They'd pretty much been told that life was unfair, and there was nothing that the high-and-mighty corporations giving the scientists patronage were willing to do to make up for Ansem's loss.
Leon and the others had been mad as hell. Even Xemnas, who usually didn't get along with Ansem at all, had been out for blood, setting the Organization to trying to track down Xehanort—who, quite wisely, had apparently gathered up his monetary rewards and skipped town.
Leon himself had only met the guy once or twice—supposedly, he was a cousin of Ansem and Xemnas, if a few times removed, and the family resemblance showed. Like Xemnas, he had darker skin than Ansem, and his hair was more creamy off-white than silver as theirs was, but close enough. However, he'd had a sneaky look to him that Leon hadn't liked, even then. It was all in that smirk—the nasty one he wore when he didn't think Ansem was looking. Sure, Leon knew that Ansem tended to be a bit too prone to giving people the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes he thought that the older man had to have been blind to trust someone like Xehanort. Maybe he'd just thought that even someone so covetous would abide by the old saying that blood is thicker than water.
Well, whatever the case, Ansem knew his mistake now, and he was paying for it.
Leon shoved his hands into his pockets as he headed towards the old playground, one of the few that hadn't been remade with plastic parts over the past couple of years. Ansem liked to meet him here; both men enjoyed the solitary atmosphere of the place at this time of evening, when the children who had played here during the day were all at home, either eating dinner or getting ready for bed. It was a little lonely, a little isolated, a little secluded, and on nights like these when you could feel the chill in the air and see your breath, you could almost sense the nostalgic magic of the place.
Ansem was sitting on one of the swings, drifting slightly back and forth as he wrote something into the notebook he usually had with him. Whatever he was writing, he was giving it his full concentration and didn't seem to hear the crunch of Leon's steps on the woodchips that surrounded the wooden play equipment. He was dressed in dark clothes again today, with a black trenchcoat on over his semi-formal dining outfit. The cold made his skin seem paler than it usually did, and his short white hair gleamed in the low light like frost.
"Hey," Leon said softly, and Ansem looked up at last, giving the brunet a wan smile.
"…You came."
Leon walked around to stand behind Ansem, putting his gloved hands on the other man's shoulders, looking down into the soft golden eyes that tilted back to regard him. "Of course I came. Whatever you may think… the rest of us aren't going to desert you like he did. We… I wouldn't do that to you, you know that."
Ansem dropped his gaze, staring down the empty street in silence. "…That's not what I meant…" he started, but Leon could hear the lie in his voice and both of them knew it was true.
Leon sighed and rubbed Ansem's shoulders supportively. "You're going to brood yourself to death, keeping your mind on this for so long. It's already been months, and yet you still won't go back to work. It shouldn't hurt you now, but you won't let me love you… and I haven't seen you smile like you mean it for a long time. Cloud and I are worried about you."
Ansem sighed, and Leon watched his breath haze around his face in the chill of the air. "Sympathetic as always, and practical, too…" Leaning back slightly, he gently touched his scarred left hand to Leon's cheek. "I've always thought that science was all I would need in life to understand things, but it's difficult to truly comprehend the complexities of the heart. Now, that's a science I could spend my life at and never discover a single thing."
Ansem let the hand fall and scraped the heels of his boots against the ground, kicked bare of woodchips beneath the swing. Drawing his knees closer to his body, he hunched over and propped his face in his hands. "If only there was some equation to solve it all. A formula to soothe the aching heart… mathematical laws to passion and despair… but if there are, no man can yet decipher them." A long silence, in which Leon gave Ansem a look to which the older man paid absolutely no attention, caught up in his musings. "There are drugs, of course, to correct the chemical imbalances of the brain. But not even those are foolproof, and they affect the mind, not the emotions."
Leon leaned forward and put his arms around Ansem, drawing him close. "Okay, that's it. Forget the fancy dinner idea—you're in no state to go out right now. We're going to the Red Nocturne, and you're going to see Larxene."
Ansem edged around to look at Leon. "It's closed."
"I have a key, and Larxene usually stays for a while so she won't run into Xemnas and Marluxia on their way home from college. You know how sick she is of listening to them fighting. No excuses—you need someone with experience in these things, and no matter how annoyed Larxene acts, you know she'll listen."
"…All right, if you insist…"
Leon stood back, letting Ansem get off the swing and fold his notebook closed. As the two of them headed down the walk to Leon's pickup, the brunet frowned and turned to his companion. "…What were you writing in there, anyway?"
Ansem smiled faintly and shook his head. "…Nothing of any importance."
---
Despite his confident words to Ansem, Leon couldn't help feeling slightly guilty as he unlocked the Red Nocturne's front door, slipping inside for all the world like some thief. Larxene stayed here after hours because it was her personal alone time—the lights in the back were on although everything else was shut down, and instead of the relaxing jazz music the café usually had in the background, some Avril Lavigne song was playing softly over the speakers; it was the one about the lonely girl trusting herself to a kind stranger, which Leon could recognize by ear but not by name. Yeah, she would be pissed, all right—Larxene enjoyed her solitude and did not at all like being interrupted in it.
Out of all the people Leon knew, only two of them could always be relied upon for sympathy—Cloud's old childhood friend Aerith and Larxene. The difference between seeking one's counsel instead of the other's was that if told of someone else's suffering, Aerith felt that she had to do something about it, while Larxene was content to just listen.
Although, that probably had something to do with their differing backgrounds. While Aerith was your average kindhearted middle-class Good Samaritan, Larxene had been born a few towns over, and had run away from home at the tender age of fourteen, making it here and staying after getting to know Axel, Marluxia, and their little group of outcasts. Five years later, she was still here—twelfth member of the Organization, manager of the Red Nocturne, and like Axel, taking the year off from college… though she was waiting to hear back from the prestigious one she'd applied to. It was some psychiatric thing… either that or psychological… Leon didn't really know the difference. But once Larxene had her degree, she would be damn good at helping people with their troubles professionally. Everyone knew how skilled she was at it now.
Leon kept that in mind as he went behind the counter and knocked on the wall before poking his head back into the cleared space behind all the kitchen equipment, where Larxene was just looking up from whatever book she was reading now to give him the evil eye.
"Can this wait, dammit?" she demanded, waving her paperback at him as she glared. "Some of us happen to be at a delicate part in the book we have been trying to get through for the past week."
Leon winced as Larxene hit the guilty spot she'd aimed for. Both of them liked to read, and Leon knew how much Larx was enjoying the latest Nora Roberts romance she'd picked up. Still, it wasn't like he could back down now.
Ansem saved Leon from having to explain, coming up to stand next to him, giving the blonde and the brunet a nonplussed look.
Larxene sighed, dogeared her page, and set the book down. "Come on, have a seat," she said in a resigned tone, gesturing to one of the other folding chairs around the small circular table. "I need to inform Leon of what we can and cannot make for now."
As Ansem sat, Leon followed Larxene into the kitchen. Once they were out of Ansem's range of vision, she nailed him with a glare that would curdle fresh milk. "You owe me big for this," she hissed.
"I'll take over your Friday shift," Leon whispered. He'd expected to have to bargain with Larxene for some time with Ansem, but he'd have to make the sacrifice. Ansem needed all the therapeutic time she could spare for him.
"Friday and Saturday," Larxene seethed. Leon could practically see her eyes glowing, considering the pure madness of her stare. "No less. I'm being generous."
Leon winced. That would cut into his personal time with Cloud… but still, he'd decided that Ansem really did need some help…
Taking that as agreement, Larxene turned to the refrigerator and opened it, shooting a sidelong glare at her employee, stabbing an angry finger at him. "Your ass is mine, Lionheart. He better really need a bitching session right now, because otherwise I'm going to barbecue you."
Leon sighed and felt some little corner of his consciousness shrivel under her fury at the prospect of two days of covering for Larxene here in the café. She'd do her best to make it hell for him, of course. It was all in how you flipped the coin—depending on her mood, Larxene was either the most sympathetic soul you'd ever known or the world's craziest sadistic bitch.
"Anyway, you are going to make whatever food we can spare while I get him started." Larxene waved a hand at the contents of the refrigerator. "We have lots of pie. Apple pie, cherry pie, blackberry pie, lemon pie; you name it, it's here. We also have coffee cake. Lots and lots of coffee cake. There's some kind of flan in the freezer, but I wouldn't trust it, it's been sitting there for a couple of weeks. We're out of ice cream, sadly. And no, you are not making anyone coffee. We need our coffee for tomorrow. Get some damn soda, or some beer. Unless you want milk, and I'm not even sure if that's still good."
Leon shrugged. He knew he'd be able to pull something together from this that he, Ansem, and Larxene would like.
"Oh, and the cost of whatever you make gets taken out of your next paycheck."
It wasn't any less than he'd expected, but still, Leon headslumped so violently that it almost turned into a face fault. "You're evil."
"And like it or not, you're an employee, and I have access to your money—plus I know where you live. Now stop acting like a lurker and get some food made." Shaking her head at him, Larxene turned on her heel and flounced back over to the small table where Ansem waited. Leon stared for a while as her jean-covered butt sashayed off, then shook his head and turned back to the fridge with a sigh.
His irritation was reduced marginally as he heard Larxene strike up a conversation with Ansem, and knew that at least for today, he'd managed to fulfill exactly what the increasingly depressed companion of his heart needed.
"Ever tried effigies?" Larxene drawled, and Leon could tell from the tone of her voice that she was smiling in that slow, crooked way that was so likable. "They work like a charm, and it's fun to pretend to torture people you really hate."
Leon heard the low beginnings of Ansem's laughter—elusive as smoke, and just as dark and alluring—echo through the halls, and managed a smile as he slipped a platter of coffee cake into the microwave.
He'd done right in coming here after all.
:TBC: