Author's Note: Inspired by Assemblage 23's "Lullaby" and "Breath of Ghosts", and weiss kittyn's "Memorial Address". Warnings for: Spoilers for Xenosaga II, gore, character death.


"Lullaby"

Return to me
When slumber's fog has lifted
Return to me
Stronger than before

Blood-stained fingers drew skittering senseless patterns on the Durandal's controls as Junior slithered to the floor. There was no one there to catch him; no Mary and Shelley, no Gaignun to come running to attend to his needs. Just the cold deckplates of his unbreakable sword, his prize, there when he needed them the least.

He bent over coughing, tasting blood but producing none. His heart beat thready, irregular, dancing with fibrillation as somewhere else

Albedo clutched a hand in his white hair, biting clean through his own tongue to keep from screaming and giving himself away to the monsters that lurked outside. The other hand clutched at his chest with strength enough to drive talons through cloth and skin and muscle, desperately seeking a shared pulse that was already ebbing.

Rubedo, he begged silently, violet eyes wide now and unseeing as he stared past the fever-vision THINGS that waited for him out there. Rubedo, please come back and make them go away. Please come back and

It was a white hallway, still and soundless. Gaignun knew he did not belong here. The slow trickle of crimson trailing from one corner of his mouth and staining his fingertips told him that much. This, he decided, is a fever-dream.

This, he decided, is very bad. There was no reason for the senseless agony that pounded through his chest and temples, nor the heat that twisted through him. There was no reason for him to be so sick that he found himself as an outsider in his hallucinations.

He stopped, trailed a finger along the wall to his left. A crimson smear stood out against the white, pointing the way down further into oblivion. He knew what awaited that way.

He knew

(crimson)

Junior raised his head at a touch along his jaw, still coughing in the effort to get whatever thing obstructed his breathing out. His breath caught; he thought for a moment he'd be sick as the touch traversed his jaw, took him by the chin and forced his head up to stare into a pair of green eyes.

"G--Gaignun?" he stammered. Another cough, wracking, spattered the illusion with a smear of his namesake red. "Gaignun! What the h-hell are you doing here? What's--"

A strong hand took him by the shoulder, hauling him to his feet and supporting him on knees too weak to

(ivory)

They wouldn't go away he knew that much the hallucinations never left him alone not lightly and he's never been quite sure which of the monsters are the product of his broken mind and which of them are real and that's actually pretty damned funny now that he thinks of it and starts laughing which gives him away just as much as screaming would have and they're upon him for monsters always always ALWAYS turn on one of their own when they sense weakness it's just natural selection and he can't

fight them off? But that's quite unnecessary, quite unnecessary, Albedo. He peered frightened and coughing through a hand splayed across his face, purple eyes bloodshot with fear and anxiety. There among them was something he recognized, a basilisk lording itself over the other monsters, with green, green eyes.

"Nigredo?" he managed, voice hoarse and choked by stress, only to find fingers winding through his own, himself being pulled up to

(crimson)

stand. Strong arms folded around him, holding him stable as he coughed up his lifeblood into their embrace. "Gaignun," he said weakly. "Gaignun, what's going on?"

Only silence met him. Hallucinations have no power to answer the questions we need answers to most. The worst part of terror is its senselessness, a thought that occurred to Junior just as he looked once more into his little brother's green eyes and saw

(ivory)

death waiting there for him. He wasn't afraid because after all isn't this what he had asked for for all these years? But he was defiant because not like THIS not like THIS this isn't what he wanted abandoned and alone in his far-flung wanderings incomplete and sobbing for breath and sick but he doesn't know how, doesn't realized this green-eyed specter is death not jealousy until he's staring it right in the face.

He pulled away, though he wasn't strong enough to run. "No, not here--" was as far as he got before Death closed with him and placed its lips against his mouth, tasting his blood as it silenced his protests. The kiss

(crimson)

lasted for what seemed like an eternity. When it broke he understood just how senseless it all was, but didn't even have time to laugh about it, like his dark half might have. Gaignun simply placed a hand on either side of Junior's face and spoke two words: "I'm sorry."

The boy was dead before he hit the deck.

(ivory)

The fall wasn't enough to still the mindless spasms he went into as the Executioner's telepathic poison hit his bloodstream. There was no profound nonsense in those last thirty seconds, no madman's observations on reality, no laughter, just a long, shrill scream for an older brother who would never hear him again.

The Kirschwassers, alerted by the death cry, arrived within minutes--but he'd stopped twitching by then, beyond their feeble help.

(ebony)

It had taken something out of him to release his older brothers; already, their presences had fled beyond his ability to reach, down the white hallway marked by that crimson splash of an arrow: This way toward Eternity.

It was his turn next.

Nigredo turned his back to the Infinite, staring at the man who had started this senseless death. "I hope you're happy, Father," he said.

In his office on the Kukai Foundation, Gaignun slumped over his desk, one hand knocking a dish of candies off of it. The glass rolled away, fetching up against the door with a thump and leaving its contents upset all over the carpet.

Standing behind the Director's corpse, the blond-haired man clicked off an old-fashioned stopwatch.

"Thirty seconds, Executioner. I made you well."