Lucidity
by DisreputablePriestSanzo
Summary: An unexpectedmorning encounter with a catalyst of sorts. Featuring Ky and company;coffee and cigarettes; and a little moral hey-nonny-nonny-and-blood-all-over-the-place.
Disclaimer: I don't own it.
Author Notes: See end.
He woke up slowly, and tried to take stock. First and foremost - where was he? Judging by the comfortable, yielding nature of the immediate environment, and what felt like a pillow beneath his aching head, he was in bed. Well. Good start. A better start than it could've been, anyway. The aforementioned ache in his head, fuzzy and dull and nonetheless pounding mercilessly at his temples, stirred a vague memory of alcohol. Oh my Lord.. The ache in his arms and side felt like he'd been in a fight. Oh my Lord.. And..for some reason, he realised, coming to a little more fully, the bed smelt faintly of cigarette smoke. The deep, even breathing he could hear wasn't entirely his own. Oh my Lord.
He tried to sit upright and see what the hell was going on, but fell back down again instantly as a pain burst across his ribs like a supernova, a residual wave lapping at the shores of his headache and not improving it. He grunted in pain, and managed to lift his head up a little to look around. This, it turned out, was a definite mistake.
" - Oh my God!" Ky was not usually a man to take the name of the Lord in vain, but waking up in a strange place, feeling like he'd been trampled by half an army of his robotic impersonators, and - just to top it all off - in bed next to over six foot of a rather unfamiliar but notoriously psychotic Gear, was not an auspicious start to the day. In fact, one that well deserved calling upon the Lord, if only to verify exactly what he had done so very wrong. He repeated the exhortation several times, for good measure, and tried to get up again. The former turned out to be pointless, the latter unsuccessful, and the combination another definite mistake. Ky froze as he realised the level of noise and movement he'd been making had caused enough of a disturbance to make the creature at the other side of the bed stir. He watched it shift a little, experimentally, and then mutter something which sounded very likely to be impolite, though it was difficult to tell due to it being muttered in what sounded like German, and from a mouth buried somewhere between a pillow and a good two feet of black hair. Ky decided that God wouldn't mind being called upon that much by someone who really needed some assistance right now, and repeated himself.
"Oh my God." The Gear finally looked at him, and frowned, red eyes blinking slowly.
"..No," it said eventually, "I'm not your God. Now shut up." Ky attempted to draw himself up indignantly, and gasped in pain and annoyance as his ribs refused to cooperate. The red-eyed frown redirected itself at him again, and cranked up a notch to Baleful. "Shut up," it repeated bluntly. The tone was definitely that of an order, not a request.
"Why - why should I," Ky spluttered, rallying his facial muscles into a glare, "You - "
"I what," the Gear retorted, giving in to being woken, however rudely, and sitting up with an irritated sigh, "Prevented you from making a complete fool of yourself last night?" Ky managed an outraged scowl. It was an expression he usually employed when dealing with Sol, but never mind that for now. Sol..? What did he -
"What the..what the hell happened," he demanded. Manners were not a thing to waste on the unappreciative, and besides that his headache was making it difficult to think.
"Last night? You were in a bar. Nursing your ribs, your self-pity, and a lot of vodka shots. Or so the bartender told me. When I got there you were ranting something about Sol Badguy and robots and government conspiracies to anyone stupid enough to come near you." As much as he hated to admit it, this was starting to sound awfully familiar. "Seeing as I happened to be on the premises, I intervened before your audience got bored and started throwing things, ended up drinking far too much, mostly to keep it away from you, and as you couldn't have collapsed in the gutter without assistance, brought you back here. Alright? Now let me sleep." Ky frowned, watching him lay down again, and tried to think clearly. There wasn't really a lot he could say about that. He remembered having wandered into the bar after his latest spat with Sol, miles out of his way and on leave for long enough that none of his men would think to come looking for him. His ribs and head still ached fearsomely, and should he choose to start a fight, he was grievously hungover, on his enemy's apparent home ground, and not entirely sure of where he'd left his sword. Speaking of which, his mind prodded him, how long's it been since you woke up in bed with anyone?
That particular thought gave Ky enough energy - not to mention momentum - to propel himself out of bed with a startled yell, landing on the floor heavily and jarring his current aches unpleasantly. There was an aggrieved sigh from the bed, and its inhabitant sat up again, scowled at the heap on the floor, and then slowly stood up and moved to prod the heap idly with one foot. Ky disentangled himself from the machinations of the bedspread, and leaned heavily against a convenient nightstand. He tried to muster his dignity, failed, and settled for glaring instead.
"..Last night," he exclaimed, sounding about as shocked as he felt, "I didn't - you didn't - we didn't - " One thin, black and rather hostile raised eyebrow was aimed in his direction.
"Grow up," the owner of the eybrow advised him acidly, "I have more interesting things to do with my time." The Frenchman was illogically outraged for a moment, then decided to give up on the whole thing as a bad job. It helped that during the interval he'd noticed that both himself and the other man were fully clothed, and mechanics of the kind he'd been considering just didn't work through two pairs of jeans. He tried to move again, and clutched at his ribs again. That'd be Sol's parting gift, right there, his unhelpful mind told him. It was a good thing he was too proud to accept assistance, anyway, he realised; the Gear had already left the room, abandoning him to the confusion of bruised ribs, spatial relations, and a shocking hangover.
When Ky finally did manage to stand, vomit repeatedly in the sink, and drag himself down a set of unfamiliar stairs, he found his inadvertant host sitting at the breakfast table, in the company of a broadsheet newspaper, a cup of coffee, and one lit cigarette slowly making the journey to join the stubs crowding the nearby ashtray. It was evidently morning. Sunny, too, judging by the light glaring in through the multiple windows, out of which he could tell that the house was somewhere in a town or city. There were houses and traffic noise outside. Mindlessly, Ky moved to pour himself some coffee, going through the motions and taking a sip, shuddering at the bitter taste before even realising that a, there had been a cup left out for him, and b, it could be poisoned. He stared down at the liquid doubtfully. With tea, he would've been able to tell by the taste, but he wasn't used to coffee and in his attempts to divine whether it was in fact toxic, realised that he may as well have been drinking paint. He gave up and took another sip. The room - kitchen, he corrected himself - was unreasonably bright, clean and airy, except for the smell of cigarettes. Something, he felt, was so injustifiable about that. And while he felt it, the quiet developed an air of hostility. He had to say something; his host was clearly engrossed in reading the newspaper. That in itself was bizarre, incongruous, and, again, injustifiable. Ky set his cup down carefully, having half-finished the probably-not-poison.
"You," he said firmly, "Are supposed to be dead." The newspaper lowered slightly, allowing the impassive look that he'd felt seeping through it to meet him at full force. It felt a lot like being hit in the face with a block of rubber.
"Mmhmm," the Gear agreed noncommitally, raising the newspaper again.
"You resurrected Justice." Ky tried again. He wasn't, honestly, sure why.
"Mmhmm." The Frenchman shook his head. He hadn't even warranted a look, this time, and felt irritated about that. A lot of things were inexplicable lately.
"You," he said, slightly louder this time, "Tried to kill me."
"Mmhmm." A little ash was flicked off the end of the cigarette, and it disappeared behind the broadsheet again. Ky was confused. He felt, at this point, that the Gear ought to have said something by now, or looked annoyed, or given killing him another go. He shouldn't, and of this Ky was absolutely certain, have simply carried on reading, smoking and drinking. The Frenchman glared; he was damn sure one of them was going to behave appropriately.
"Aren't you going to say anything about that," he demanded. This time the newspaper lowered again, but only a little. It should've slammed down like the drawbridge of Barad-Dur and let the ringwraiths storm out, why isn't he angry?
"..Not really," Testament said simply, and turned to examine the back page. Ky scowled, feeling childishly angry at being cheated of a spirited attempt to murder him. His ribs complained at him to sit down, but the only chairs in the room were by the table and he didn't want to go any closer than he had to. Fighting Gears for so long had given him a kind of sixth sense for their auras, and even if he knew exactly what it was, something felt dangerous over there and he didn't want to go near it.
He sipped at the coffee again. His sense of integrity chafed with the concept of what he knew from research and odd personal experience to be a devious, manipulative, almost certainly insane, homicidal Gear responsible for mass murder and attempted genocide, sitting calmly in the kitchen of a rather nice house on a sunny morning, perusing a broadsheet and smoking. Ky couldn't remember the number of his comrades, men he had known and, alright, sometimes liked, who'd been slaughtered by Gears and never gone home, not even in coffins. There hadn't been enough left of a lot of them to bury, and now.. He clenched his fists, furious. Now some crazy murderous Gear probably to blame for a reasonable proportion of those men's deaths, was living like this? He felt like his knucles would burst, and quickly unclenched his fists only to narrowly avoid breaking his fingers slamming one hand down on the counter.
"You're despicable," he growled, "You've no right to..to any of this!" Eyes flicked away from the financial pages to regard him levelly, irises scarlet in the bright light.
"And you," the owner of the eyes returned placidly, "Smell of vomit. Shower's upstairs, third door on the left. There's bandages in the drawer if you want to wrap your ribs, though I doubt it'll do much good." He took a drag on the cigarette and ground it out in the ashtray, conspicuously not looking back at the newspaper this time. Ky glared and found himself at a loss. The sheer wall of excessive pragmatism had loomed up out of nowhere and verbally disarmed his anger. It offered aid but not assistance, unexpectedly, but was so clinical and matter-of-fact in its method that concepts too elaborate to wrestle with in the teeth of a hangover dissolved. Ky turned and went upstairs, leaving his cup of poison halfway between two extremes.
The shower, he had to admit, improved his physical state no end. Unfortunately, it did little to nothing for his feeling towards the world in general, Gears in general, and Gear generals, specifically his host. Charity, it turned out, is a worse thing than wounds to receive from enemies, and bounces straight back off the armour of righteous indignation. Much like the coffee, Ky was some way into the shower - though without any intention of drinking it - before he considered that it might be some kind of plot. The stall seemed clear of malicious devices, though, and he was almost disappointed. It'd be so much easier to explain, he thought ruefully, working shampoo into his hair in the hope of removing the vodka smell, if it was a trap.
Having washed and dried and re-dressed, Ky was well aware that the sensible thing to do was leave promptly. The water, switched to cool, had made good progress on his headache, and his ribs weren't as badly bruised as he thought, merely stiff and fractious at being pulled about. The sensible, logical, practical thing to do was leave. So why am I going back to the kitchen again, he wondered, frustration welling with himself as he navigated the stairs, and nearly blossoming into rage with his host as he re-entered the room and saw the Gear still sitting at the breakfast table. Having now finished the newspaper, he appeared to be lighting a new cigarette - though several more ground-out stubs had appeared in the ashtray since Ky had gone upstairs - and considering the patterns on the surface of a fresh cup of coffee. The Frenchman wasn't sure where to start. The many little particles of anger that had occurred to him in the shower seemed engaged in a nebulous cloud of Brownian motion somewhere behind his bruised ribs, none of them striking his skull hard enough to spark a decent argument. Even an opening line would be good, he mentally sighed, just something to -
"What is it exactly," a voice interrupted, "That you were referring to before?" Ky blinked.
"What?"
"What is it that I don't have a right to," the Gear elaborated patiently, leaning on one elbow and watching circles drift in the coffee. Anger struck skull jarringly.
"All of this. Any of this."
"This what?" Ky's face managed to express confused, tired, headachy righteous anger, though his eyebrows weren't sure they'd ever be the same again.
"What?" A somewhat exhausted sigh, and a drag on the cigarette followed. A thin stream of smoke billowed and vanished over the discarded ash.
"This. The..whatever it may be that you say I have no right to. Would you care to specify?" He's not as hungover as he should be. It's too early in the day for those kind of speech patterns, Ky's aggrieved and tetchy mind grumbled at him. He shook his head slightly, attempting to jar some sense into his brain, and found the result satisfactory.
"Any of what's here." He cast about for an example and decided that bigger was better. "The house."
"It's not mine," the Gear said promptly, in a tone too insipid to be really called blunt. Ky glared, startled.
"What?"
"This house does not belong to me." He wasn't sure if that made things better or worse, and switched to interrogation to avoid the blatant silence of the morally entangled.
"Then - then who the hell does it belong to? And why, in the name of all that is holy, are you living here?" Cans of worms, he realised, a few sentences too late. More thin cigarette smoke wafted towards what by now should've been a rather cloudy ceiling. There was a moment's pause, inhale exhale.
"The house belongs to my father. I live here, albeit sporadically, because Dizzy occasionally visits this part of the world, and I stay here to check on her when she's around and retrieve various necessary items for when I leave." The Frenchman wasn't sure what to make of that, but in the spirit of one with one foot in the grave and the other heading for it pretty quickly, he let his mouth make the inquiry without passing it through his brain. Anger was, albeit temporarily, derailed by a can of worms.
"..Your father? Does he live here, too?" The Gear shook his head. Swoosh noise.
"No, he's dead." The glare dropped to a frown for a moment, perplexed. Said like he's got any number of dead parents. It was an odd, misplaced thought that..that could have a father, or any family really; it didn't sit right in Ky's mind. But he'd supposed previously that Testament had to be a human-convert of some kind; most sentient ones were, and anyway, no normal, manufactured, drone-Gear was that much of a conniving bastard. Not that they'd had any dispute so uncomfortably personal before; it'd always been kept to the tidy lines of good and evil - no matter that everyone thought they were the good ones - and attempted genocide. But for a short while they'd been at direct odds over a town in the north of Italy, back in the Crusades, and Ky had learned the hard way about the destructive power of several hundred Gears appearing where he least expected them to. He tried to avoid the tangent of memory that he had on the subject; you can re-can an opened can of worms, but two cans can prove to be a whole new kettle of fish, as it were. Quite uncanny, Ky thought, and then mentally hit himself. Now, subconscious, is really not the time.
"..was your point, anyway?" He blinked and shook his head again, hoping for a better result this time. His skull felt rather like a magic 8-ball, he decided; turning up increasingly random answers each time he jarred it, and probably full of some strange blue fluids.
"..I'm sorry," he said out of habit, and instantly regretted it, "What were you saying?" The Gear sighed patiently, and went for a new cigarette, biting down lightly on the filter of one, sliding it free of the packet, and flicking a clear green plastic lighter at the end.
"I was asking you," he explained, "What your point was to begin with. Does it really matter who owns the house?" The 8-ball shattered and Ky's train of thought cleared the platform end.
"My point was that you," he pointed to be sure that there was absolutely no doubt, "You..shouldn't be here." Outside the window, the sun slipped behind a cloud, momentarily. The eyes dulled from bright scarlet to a dull maroon colour, and slid from the end of the cigarette held in one hand to Ky's face and back again.
"We've been over the I Should Be Dead argument already," their owner said implacably.
"That wasn't what I meant," Ky snapped. He probably knows that. "I meant..how can you..how can you have the nerve to live here, in a nice house, and have coffee and newspapers and..and smoke all the time!" He was speaking louder than he'd realised, but to hell with the neighbours. "..Do you even know how many people, how many of my men, with thoughts and feelings and families that they cared about didn't ever go home because of you? Do you know how many children there were that actually missed their dead fathers and grew up not knowing them, because of you? Do you?" He'd moved closer despite warning himself, and slammed his hand on the table. Had it been the counter as before, he probably would have injured himself.
"No. Tell me." Glaring furiously at his enemy, as was his custom, Ky was slightly thrown by the lack of reaction.
"What?"
"I don't know the numbers. Tell me." His face contorted in anger and disgust as the sun got up and continued on its journey, and the eyes staring placidly back at him suddenly flared back to scarlet again.
"..You're insane," he spat eventually, wanting to turn away and storm out in revulsion, but finding himself still standing there several seconds of silence later.
"..Probably," the Gear agreed, watching him with the obdurate air of one who has heard all this before from a number of different sources and has no intention of wasting their time arguing the case either way, "Do you think it's any better?" The blonde's eyebrows creased together in perplexion yet again. He was beginning to feel he was suffering not so much from mood swings as a mood roundabout.
"Do I think what, out of the many things that are clearly very wrong with you, is better?" His temper was beginning to unravel at the ends and become tangled, due to the poor needlework of a bad night out.
"Do you think it's better to be here," the other continued, in a tone of quite inflexible calm, "Or to be dead?"
"That's ridiculous. Who'd want to be dead if they could be alive?" Ky felt that the morass of mind-games he appeared to be freewheeling right into would not do anything for his headache. As it so happened, he was right.
"Who'd want to be alive, if they could be dead?" The cigarette was rubbed out abruptly into the glass ashtray. "Well? Aren't you a Christian? You should believe in Paradise, if you are. Those men, they died fighting a Holy War. Shouldn't they be in Heaven now?" Ky opened his mouth and stopped. Should've seen it coming. He could either stick to his point and deny his religion, or admit that they were better off. Or maybe -
"They were taken before their time," he snarled, "Because of you. Even if they're happier now, their families - the children that grew up without fathers - " Oddly enough, though the packet was on the table, no new cigarette appeared. Ky felt oddly gratified to have gained his adversary's attention, however temporarily.
"No, you can't play that card now." He stopped, startled. Why's he talking like this is a game? "Crusades orphans don't work on me. Both my parents died in the Gear raids near Zurich. Try again." What? Somewhat jolted, the Frenchman cast about for his argument, and found a thread.
"That's different. You don't sound like you care at all." The Gear shrugged elegantly.
"Why should I? I never knew them. And I don't believe anyone is taken before their time. All these missing fathers you're talking about, maybe their deaths will go on and inspire some..great art, or music, or something, from their families. Maybe the memory of them will make people work harder than they otherwise would have done to remake things, better than they were before. Maybe some of them were really shiftless drunken bastards who joined up on a whim and now they'll be remembered as martyrs and heroes. Isn't that better?" That is not a question.
"Maybe goes a long way for you. You just don't want to admit that you ruined..thousands of people's lives, for.." Ky hesitated and silence dropped through the tension like a falling brick. It left a hole. "For..?"
"Some silly ideal or other. Freedom, I think. That's usually a favourite with angry mobs and armies, isn't it?" A new cigarette appeared, along with the green plastic lighter. "But that's beside the point. You said I don't want to admit that I..ruined thousands of people's lives? Was that what you said?" Ky nodded. So did his adversary, although in a slower, more contemplative manner. "I ruined thousands of people's lives. There. It doesn't feel any better, no matter how many times it's said." He took a drag at the cigarette, a long slow inhale in the quiet room. "Always leaves a bad taste." Who'd rather be dead, if they could be alive? Ky swallowed hard and shook himself a little, drawing back.
"You're insane," he repeated, more for comfort than anything else.
"Probably. That's irrelevant, I was going to be sooner or later anyway." The Frenchman stood as still as someone who'd just trodden between the coils of a rattlesnake, and watched the string of smoke hang upside-down from the glow of its parent. The sun sidled behind another cloud outside, teasingly, and left everything in grey, grainy, photocopied suspension.
Shortly afterwards the sun came out again to let itself be seen, and the air felt like clear, still water. Ky left the room, slowly, and went upstairs to fetch his coat and bag and sword, and check he hadn't forgotten anything. He hadn't. He came back down to the kitchen. The windows looked too big and empty and garish, invading any privacy the room may have had; it smelled of cigarette smoke. Marlboros, the carton on the table said, the red ones, not the white ones. He hefted his bag over one shoulder and finished buttoning his coat, and then stepped into the kitchen again, clearing his throat.
"Can I ask you something?" You already did.
"What?" The Gear was lighting another cigarette, and watching one of the windows with a faint, colourless smile, red eyes reduced to some indisctinct shade of brown by the light. Ky shifted uncomfortably in the doorway.
"..Why did you..why didn't you leave me in the bar?"
"You saved Dizzy's life once. I wanted to see if there was any sense in you." He felt it was best not to ask whether there was or not.
"..I'm leaving now."
"Mmhmm."
"I won't call the police."
"Mmhmm." Thank you would feel awkward. Something told him it would've sounded wrong whoever had said it, and for whatever reason. He hesitated in the kitchen doorway for another few minutes; a cloud faded everything to monochrome and back again.
"I didn't know you smoked," he said eventually. It seemed slightly pathetic.
"I don't," the other said simply, "Dizzy doesn't like it."
"Oh."
"I didn't know you had a death wish."
"I don't," Ky objected, startled back to life.
"Then don't chase Sol. If you're meant to see him, you will." To his own surprise as much as anyone else's, the Frenchman found himself cracking a smile.
"Nobody is taken before their time, right?"
"Mmhmm." The Gear turned lazily to face him, one elbow on the table and the cigarette dangling from the other hand. "Any idiot'll beat at the door and scream to be let out. Save your energy, whoever's got the key'll come when they're ready." Ky nodded.
"I won't come back here."
"Mmhmm."
By the time Ky had turned and stepped out of the kitchen, he knew the Gear's attention had turned back to cigarette and window. He wasn't even there to begin with. He sighed and shook his head again, and opened the front door. The house looked empty. None of the lights were on inside, and as he closed the door behind him, nothing beat at it, or screamed to be let out. He walked off, slowly, down the street, looking for a signpost to tell him where he was; his ribs and head still ached, and it was gone midday now. The air felt cleaner out here, and he breathed in the clouds that'd shattered across the sky. A week later it was empty, and not even the smell of smoke remained. He left a packet of Marlboros, the red ones, not the white ones.
Author Notes: Randomly inspired drivel. They seem out of character at times, but, well..Ky's confused and hungover, not to mention fairly outraged; Testament has nothing else to do with his time and knows it; and neither of them wants to be there. I wanted it to feel awkward, kind of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object and both being at a bit of a loss for what to do. I don't know if I pulled it off, but never mind. I liked writing this, it's a bonus for me if others liked reading it. Thanks if you got this far!
DisreputablePriestSanzo