Title: Relay of Life

Genre: General

Paring/s: -

Line: -

I was four when I first meet Demyx

My mother was the first person to tell me we had new neighbours. She wanted us to go greet them. I knew from experience that she would take over an hour to plaster enough make up on to make a drag queen faint. I remember the moving vans. Huge fat and white. They purred like watchful tigers.

The light flash of gold caught my eye, and a small boy about my age wheeled about on a bike. I'd stuck out my foot when the wheels crunch over the pavement. In twisted amusement, I watched the boy go flying. My foot hurt like hell all the same.

The bike was dumped on the grass, and the boy looked up at me, a mix of confusion and pain in his eyes. He then bursted into tears.

A week later he got me back with water bombs

I was seven when we both drew blood

A skateboard seemed a big deal at the time. It was black, with red flames on the hard bottom. Just big enough for two people. The largest hill on our street was a straight drop down. I'd never been on the roller coasters at the yearly fairs, but I suppose this is what it felt like. Demyx was reluctant to get on.

I promised I wouldn't let anything happen. He sat in front, and I hugged him round the middle, somehow managing to get my legs on the board. There was a culdusac way down the very bottom, welcoming us like a kiddy pool. I don't remember much else, apart from insane speed, then the wheels had hit some gravel and we fell off. And rolled all the way down to the bottom. My back had been skinned raw.

Demyx's mother had forbid him from ever seeing me again

I was eight when I'd found out Demyx was being bullied

He'd come to me at school break. We always sat together at lunch, along with a few other boys from our homeroom. He was trying in vain to hide a gradually swelling eye. I hadn't bothered to ask what had happened. I'd learnt over the years Demyx was clumsy.

However when he moved in his seat, I started to notice a nice collection of cuts and bruises over his arms and face. I'd pressured and pestered until he cracked, and muttered something about Seifer having another go. There should never of been a first. Pleasently, I'd excused myself, and stalked out into the courtyards

I'd been suspended for a week after I got my hands on Seifer

I was still eight when I first dislocated my arm

The collection of stones covered my hand in dust. I took aim, and threw again. It clattered loudly on the windowpane. At last, Demyx stuck his head out, eyes heavy with sleep. He asked what I thought I was doing at this ungodly hour of the morning.

I asked him to come down, and bring some cloth. Once he saw my arm, he was instantly awake. He watched me with his luminous eyes, then finally took up my dead arm. I winced a couple of times when he poked and prodded it the wrong way. All the while gratefully he hadn't asked why my arm was like this.

Demyx thrust the cloth he'd taken from his house, half way down my throat. Without blinking, he jerked my arm down, then up back into place. My screams of pain were lost in the material.

Nightly meetings became a weekly habit after that

I was thirteen when I found out my fascination with fire

Our science teacher could never control us. He's stuck us with an experiment, and left it at that. We were trying to find out what flame was dirty, and left soot remains when burnt in different oils and fuels.

The class was like an aquarium. Glassy eyed and mouths agape. The teacher voice reminded me of a rusty record. Some poor soul hit their head on the desk when we got to the punch line.

When the Bunsen burners were flicked on, somebody's gas began to leak. I recognised the smell from when our gas heater broke. First fuel. A teaspoon or smaller was put in a copper cup, and a match was lit over the fuel. It flickered, then up it went.

When I was little my mother used to hide the matches, to stop me playing with them. I had the strongest urge to just sit and watch the flame forever. It was a habit she wanted me to grow out of.

But the perfect opportunity was opening for me. Being left in a teacherless class room, with flammable liquids. Time to have some fun

My family was found half a thousand dollars worth of damaged equipment and plaster. And I was suspending for another week.

I was still thirteen when Demyx and I sat on the river bank

The stopbank near out houses was one of the few sanctuaries left in the whole city. All the rest had been gobbled up by metallic monsters, or washed away by natural disasters. It had flooded once when I wasn't born yet. The water had raged all the way to the very tips of the trees, the bank just holding the water back. One more meter and the water would have eaten up half the city. Or so my older brother tells me.

I sat on the low hanging branches of the willows, enjoying the last of today's light. The sun was bleeding away into the river. Demyx was on the sand, lost in his own little world. He picked up his head, and spoke to me, even though he wasn't looking my way. In the few sentences he spat out, he slowly began to unravel the world to me.

"Why are we here?"

A question that nags at us all at some stage. Why are we born. Our purpose in life. If we were brought into this world, can we truly accomplice anything. Or is the human species really just wasting away on earth.

Through my childhood, I was willing to keep an open mind. I'd touched on the subject of God, but never believed strongly in Him. If there's a greater force out there, we have to find it ourselves, and not go worshipping something that isn't there.

Our talk on life, ended up on death. A matter I'd rather stay away from. Dying doesn't seem possible when your mind is young, naive. Your body just one day shuts down, and you'll never get up again. If the whole meaning of life… is just to die, then why are we put on earth? After our body decomposes, will our spirits live on? Demyx argues that they will, in the hearts of others. But when the hearts of other's die, the next generation will not know us. I drop the conversation sharpishly.

"I reason I was put on earth… was to meet you, Demyx."

END

Wasn't that a crap load of sugar at the end? I dunno, I think their life would have planned out like this. I would have prattled on, but I got bored. Another little filler because I have a few in the back

-Ixi