Warnings: Touch of violence and fluff
Unchained Melody
Chapter 2: Water Music
If Medy had known what to expect on his first day in Twilight Town, he might have stayed in hiding. Because he didn't know Twilight Town from the dark side of the moon, Olette drew him a rough map, and then the children sent him on his way. They would have given him a grand tour, but Hayner said that they had important things to do. And so Medy was left to his own devices.
With no rush to learn the town, Medy kept his explorations brief. And he liked what he saw. Though he lacked shoes, the sun-warmed cobblestones beneath his feet felt right somehow, as if he'd preferred walking around with bare feet. At least, that's what he thought until he felt a sharp pain in the bottom of his foot. Medy knelt to see what he'd stepped on, and while he was occupied, a hand caught him by the back of the shirt. The person the hand was attached to pulled Medy back upright and whirled him around, pressing his back roughly against a building.
"Hello, stranger," a young man in a sleeveless white coat purred maliciously. He kept Medy pressed back with one hand, the other tapped a sword whose blade was insulated in blue which made it resemble a a club with a hilt, against the brick by Medy's head. "Name's Seifer. I'm the disciplinarian around here, and I think you were causing some trouble last night."
"Come on now, Seifer. I don't want to be any trouble for anyone." Medy tried to force a tremor out of his voice. He'd rather be searching for a job and buying a pair of shoes than dealing with an angry 'disciplinarian.' He wanted to run back to the children's clubhouse and lock the gate. "Now, what do you say we all be friends?"
"I'd say you're a coward and a trouble-maker – the worst kind of trouble-maker there is," Seifer snarled. He thrust his sword into Medy's hands, then pulled back. A girl standing behind Seifer tossed him another of the strange swords and Seifer lifted it to strike. Medy shut his eyes, lifting his arms to ward off the blow.
It was a blow that never came.
Instead, Medy heard gurgling and cursing. He opened his eyes to see grimy water sloshing from above into Seifer's face. With a glance upward, he realized that the water came from the gutters and said a silent thank you to whoever must be up there cleaning them out. Then he took off running.
Medy's feet pounded the pavement as he ran downhill. He could hear his pursuers behind him, though he didn't dare spare a glance to see how closely they followed. The ground sloped even more sharply, forming a ramp. Spotting a side road, Medy leapt over the edge of the ramp and ducked beneath an arched street sign.
Feeling much like a soul being pursued by the hounds of the Underworld, Medy dashed between the buildings until he came out into a large open area. A square of sand filled the space. But more importantly, Hayner and his friends were also in sight. Hayner stood in the middle of the sand, running through motions with the same sort of blue-coated sword while Pence and Olette cheered him on from a bench off to the side of the sandy area.
Medy ignored the startled looks from the children as he plowed through the sand. He rushed past Hayner, kicking up plumes of sand. As Medy reached the end of the sandy area, he vaulted over the bench and ducked behind Pence and Olette. The sounds of pursuit slowed to a stop.
"It figures," Seifer muttered. Medy peered up over the edge of the bench to see Seifer and Hayner circling each other, weapons at the ready. "I should have known he was with you losers."
"Anyone who can get you this riled up is a friend of ours," Hayner countered. He made a feint at Seifer, which was easily countered. "So, we going to do this, or would you rather keep whining?"
"Oh, it's on, Hayner. It's on!"
And indeed it was. The boys burst into a flurry of motion – parrying, thrusting. They moved through the formalities of testing each other's defenses, though they both seemed to know each other's strengths and weaknesses. The battle felt as though it had a rhythm to it, and Medy found his hands drumming out a cadence against the bench. The beat he set was fast and furious, matching the motions of the combatants.
Though not as well-muscled as Seifer, Hayner seemed to depend upon his speed to provide an advantage. This wasn't to say that Seifer was slow; merely that Hayner was that hairsbreadth faster.
Medy's eyes remained glued to the fight as his hands continued the drumming. He barely noticed as Olette elbowed Pence and pointed out something. Not until he heard Pence gasp out a single word. "Amazing!"
Medy's hands faltered on the beat as he turned to see what had caught the children's attention. He only saw water sloshing down over the edges of a bucket set out to catch rainwater, which he found to be expected if someone was cleaning the gutters. Yet, that didn't explain Olette's sudden pout, or why Pence jumped up and rushed to examine the bucket.
"Oh, it stopped!" Olette sighed. "How was the water doing that? Did you find anything, Pence?"
Pence shook his head as he returned to the bench. Unlike Olette, he seemed less disappointed and more intrigued. "Look, Rai and Fuu saw it too! See how they're watching the barrel. Did you see, Medy?" When Medy shook his head, Pence said, "It was like a little version of the Struggle made out of water!"
Medy shook his head again, trying to fight back a sudden tiredness. What imaginations these children had! Even he knew that water didn't behave like that! Feeling less frightened and more amused, he turned his attention back to the battle, only to find it drawing to a close. Both boys were huffing from their exertions, but neither seemed willing to back down.
"Hayner! Seifer! Call it a draw," Olette called out, a beacon of reason in the midst of battle.
Even then, the boys glared at each other, silently daring each other to be the first to speak that dreaded word. At last, Hayner stepped back, lowering his weapon. "Draw," he offered, young voice filled with a distasteful tone. He obviously didn't like being the first to back down.
Seifer also took a step back, lowering his weapon as well. "Until next time," he said. Then he added, "And until then, keep your new friend out of trouble." He stormed off, coat flaring out behind him as he left the sandlot.
After that, the days in Twilight Town passed fairly peacefully for Medy. Hayner, Pence, and Olette agreed to let him stay in their clubhouse under the condition that he paid a daily rent. Medy found that he didn't mind this condition as, after a day of performing odd jobs posted on the job board, he could easily afford that strangely delicious treat for them – sea salt ice cream. He rarely saw the children during the day, and their clubhouse was only his at night. Though they'd been wary at first about letting him stay, apparently strangers were enough of a rarity in Twilight Town that the children had no fear of them.
Even a week after that first face-to-face encounter with Seifer, it still worried through Medy's mind. Perhaps if Medy hadn't arrived as he had, stowing away on the train, Seifer would have left him alone. Though Seifer could never prove that it'd been Medy he'd chased that night, the fact that he'd shown up in town after the event was apparently enough to instantly awaken Seifer's suspicions. Yet, after the battle, Seifer deigned to ignore Medy. He didn't know whether or not to be insulted as he went from cowardly troublemaker to someone Seifer couldn't be bothered with in such a short amount of time.
Life in Twilight Town fell into an enjoyable pattern for Medy. His days were filled with work as he strove to make enough munny to pay his rent and still have something left over for himself. As each day drew to a close, Medy found the ice cream vendor so that he could purchase his rent payment, and then met the children at the Twilight Town Station. The four would climb to the top of the station tower and talk. Medy mostly listened, except on the occasions where he asked questions about the town.
Nights were the most difficult for Medy. As he lay alone on the couch, his dreams were plagued by men in black, a castle in white, and a key. Sometimes he felt the echoes of a gaping emptiness inside, and sometimes it was an insatiable craving for light. The dreams he came to hate the most were the ones filled with a dark nothingness where he only existed as a vague flicker of will, barely able to cling to his existence. In those dreams, soft voices murmured through the darkness, promising peace if he allowed himself to fade.
It was after one of the latter dreams that Medy jerked awake one night to the sound of the chainlink door clattering open. He remained still as he listened to the soft footfalls. "Medy?" a soft voice whispered in the darkness, and for a moment Medy thought it was one of the voices that belonged in his dream.
But only for a moment.
"I'm awake, Olette," he assured the girl as he sat up on the couch.
Olette lit a lantern, setting it down on the crate that Hayner often used for a chair. Medy could see in the flickering light that Olette shook with fear. She looked small and young in her nightgown. Her hair wisped around her head as though she'd only brushed her fingers through it to put it into any kind of order. "I didn't mean to wake you," she said, wringing her hands together. "It's just... There's a monster under my bed. The guys don't believe in it, but it's there!"
Realizing that Olette had come only because she wanted someone to listen, Medy motioned to the couch and she sat. She clasped her hands in her lap and stared down at the floor. "The monster growls and laughs, and it has a scary, booming laugh. Sometimes it talks about how tasty little girls are, and sometimes it says that no one escapes the Boogieman. I caught a glimpse of it once, all lumpy with glowing green eyes. I don't know what to do, Medy! Hayner would fight it. Pence would try to investigate it. He'd figure out everything about it, including how to make it go away. And my parents... They just tell me that I'm too old to believe in the Boogieman."
Olette's lower lip began to tremble as she neared the verge of tears. Though whether they would be tears of frustration or fright, Medy couldn't be certain. To give her a moment to compose herself, Medy poured Olette a cup of water from a pitcher he'd found while helping collect trash. It was an old clay pitcher, with a chip knocked out of the top. Medy felt that the missing chip gave it a bit of personality, and he'd cleaned it up and kept it filled.
Olette accepted both the water and the moment's composure with a grateful smile. It was Medy who broke the silence, his voice thoughtful as he stared up at the ceiling. "You know, the things that hide in the dark are normally only scary because you can't see them. Put them in the light, and they might not be so scary at all," he pointed out. "Would you believe that I think I might have been one of the things hiding in the dark once?"
Medy flashed Olette his most charming grin as she burst into laughter. He knew that he was hardly frightening or intimidating, and trying to picture him as thus was ludicrous. But Olette's warm laughter was just the thing to hold the shadows at bay. Fear fed the darkness, but joy confused it and forced it back.
Leaning against Medy, Olette laughed so hard tears came to her eyes. She wiped them away without a thought. "The day anyone finds you scary, Medy, is the day I take up Struggling. Still, I needed that. Thanks."
This time, the silence that filled the clubhouse was of the companionable sort, the terse fear from early having evaporated. Medy knew Olette would be leaving soon, and then he could drift back to sleep. He felt that maybe his own dreams would be more peaceful tonight. After all, he didn't have a bed under which boogiemen could hide.
"My mom used to sing to me when I was scared. Before I became too old to be scared of the dark," Olette said. Her expression softened as she began to hum a haunting melody. Medy nodded his head in time with the music, finding the tune a simple one. And then Olette began to sing, the notes clear and beautiful. "Golden slumbers kiss your eyes; smiles await you when you rise."
As the first verse drew to an end, Medy's gentle baritone voice took it up again. The impulsive need to sing, to lose himself to the music, filling his heart. Yet Medy almost faltered as he saw the water in Olette's cup beginning to rise. As he missed a note, startled by what he was seeing, the bubble of water nearly lost its shape. But as Medy continued to sing, both he and Olette watched.
The water lifted out in a globe at first, but as the song continued and Medy focused his concentration, its shape changed. The top half of the globe spiraled upward into a point. Layers peeled away and flared out, adjusting itself to Medy's will. Occasionally, a ripple passed through the water as it struggled to splash back into its original shape. But at last he managed to form a single, perfect rose from the water.
Medy let the last note of the song die off, shaking from the exertion of imposing his will upon the liquid. The water splashed back down, half as much spilling over the edge of the cup as went into the cup.
"I have no clue how I did that," Medy breathed into the silence.
