Xirysa Says: And here we have part 2. This entire 'fic is dedicated to all the KentxLyn fans out there, but mostly to Kitten Kisses, Qieru, Sardonic Kender Smile, and LittleGreenBudgie. You guys are awesome. Enjoy.
To the Other Side and Back Again
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Part 2 of 2: Reminiscence
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Down the street and around the corner is a small gray house. It is a quaint little thing, squat and compact, with a small garden and a tree with a tire swing hanging from a sturdy branch in the front yard. The shutters are painted white, and a picture of a small bird is painted on the side of the mailbox. There is a wrought iron fence surrounding the yard, too, and a paved path leads from the main road to the front porch, upon which an old red rocking chair sits.
But the house is old, and no one has lived in it for many years. The garden is overrun by weeds, now, and the rope on the tire swing is fraying. Rust covers the fence here and there, like splatters of blood. Once a clean, pristine white, the shutters are now the color of old snow. Even the smallest gust of wind sends the faded red rocking chair creaking, and so much dirt and grime covers the mailbox that it is impossible to tell what color the bird used to be.
They met here, many years ago, at the beginning of summer. They were both children, and they were both broken. Her parents had died in a car crash; he had escaped the terrors of an abusive home.
"My parents were hit by a drunk driver," she said through the fence, the grass tickling the bottom of her bare feet. "I'm living here with my grandfather, now."
"Dad hit me a lot. Especially when he was drinking," he replied from the other side. He tugged his sleeve down a little lower, to cover the large purple bruise that hadn't faded away yet. "My Uncle Wallace lives down the street—he's not my real uncle, but I wish he was. I'm staying with him."
She nodded. "Alcohol is bad," she said. "I'm never going to drink, even when I'm all grown up."
"You're right." He wiped his nose on the back of his hand and cleaned it off on his jeans that were two sizes too big. "It makes people do bad things."
"Yeah." She was silent for a moment, but then her eyes lit up with excitement and she gestured excitedly at the tire swing behind her. "Hey, do you want to play?
He shook his head. "I want to, but I can't. My uncle wants me home before it gets too dark."
"Oh." Her face looked slightly crestfallen, but then she brightened up again. "Can you come tomorrow?" she asked.
"Sure," he said, "I'll be here."He smiled at her. "I forgot to tell you, my name is Kent."
She smiled back. "I'm Lyndis," she told him, "but you can call me Lyn for short, if you want."
He blushed. "Lyn's a pretty name," he said shyly as he stepped away from the fence.
She giggled, and his face got even redder—it was almost the color of his hair! "Thanks. I like your name too, Kent." Lyn waved at him as he started walking down the street, towards his own home. "See you tomorrow!"
Kent waved back. "Bye, Lyn! See you later!"
They played together a lot that summer. Sometimes, other children joined them. There was Sain, who lived in an apartment building on the corner of Caelin and Second, and Wil, who Lyn had found feeding a stray cat. There was Florina, too, whose parents were divorced; she lived with her mother in the house next to Kent's. Florina had two older sisters who lived with their father; whenever they visited their little sister and their mother, they would play with the rest of the children.
Sometimes, they pretended that they were on a journey to save the world from an evil wizard who wanted to control it. Other times, they battled dragons to restore peace to the world. Once in a while, when they couldn't think of anything to play, they would tell stories to each other.
Out of all the stories he heard that summer, Kent's favorites were the ones about the princesses and their knights. He had always liked the idea; sometimes, he would imagine himself to be a knight. His armor would be red, to match his hair, and his horse would be a strong, noble steed. Kent told Lyn once, and she said that she agreed.
"You'd be a very good knight," she said. "You're smart and nice, and you'd do a really good job to protect all of us from the bad guys." Then she frowned. "But who'd be your princess? Every knight has to have a princess to save."
"M-maybe," Kent started slowly, "you could be my princess?"
Lyn smiled. "That's a good idea," she told him, "but I don't want to be one of the princesses who sits around waiting to be rescued. I want to fight, too."
"You can be a fighting princess!" Kent said excitedly. "And when the fight gets too rough, I'll be there to help you out."
"Always?" Lyn asked, and Kent nodded.
"Always," he said as he put a hand over his heart. "I promise."
Summer was over all too soon that year, and soon school started. They went to the same school, but he was a few years older than her. Even then, he always made sure that he was there for her whenever she needed him. And so the years passed. They finished school and graduated with high marks. Most of them went to the community college on the other side of town—they couldn't afford much else. They entered the working world. Kent became a police officer like Wallace, and Lyndis became a teacher at the elementary school she had attended as a girl.
But something was wrong. Kent didn't know when she had stopped being just his friend anymore. All he knew was that one day, Lyn smiled at him, and he realized that he liked her. He had had crushes before, of course; there was Florina's sister Fiora, along with a few girls at school and work, but this was different. When Lyn smiled at him, his heart would leap in his chest, and it seemed that there were always butterflies in his stomach whenever she was around. He told Sain once, and his friend had simply sighed.
"Must be love," he said as he walked away—to flirt with some poor, unsuspecting girl, no doubt—and Kent was left standing there, very confused.
Love? It couldn't be. Lyn was... Lyn was Lyn! She was just a friend. Yes, a childhood friend who had grown into a wonderful and beautiful and smart woman and—good grief, Kent was falling for her.
Kent couldn't remember exactly what had happened when he told Lyn about how he felt about her, but he distinctly recalled waking up the next morning with her back against him and his arms around her, feeling more content than he ever had in his entire life. He had watched her chest rise and fall as she slept, the curves of her body beneath the sheets, the small tattoo on her shoulder blade that she had gotten on a whim during college.
When she woke up, she smiled at him. "G'morning, good sir knight," she murmured sleepily as her hands ran over the stubble on his cheeks.
He kissed her shyly. "Good morning, princess."
A few months later, when the leaves of the tree in the yard just started to change color, he proposed to her in her living room. The ring he had bought was a simple silver band—he hadn't been able to afford anything else. He didn't even think that she had given him a proper answer. But what had occured after had certainly sufficed as one.
They planned the wedding for the beginning of summer. It would be a small wedding, just a few friends and whatever family each of them had left. But then, tragedy. Wallace was dead, caught in the crossfire of two rival gangs, and Sain, too. Lyndis sobbed openly, and even Kent, who had always been a master of keeping his emotions in check, felt tears on his face the day of the funeral.
Afterwards, they sat quietly on the porch of her small gray house. "They knew the risks," he told her as she hiccuped quietly into the shoulder of his leather jacket. "We all did. But if it means that it keeps the people we care about safe," his hand played with the end of her long hair idly, "then it is well worth it."
"Don't leave me like that," Lyn said to him, and Kent wrapped his arms around her and held her to him as close as he could.
"Don't worry, I won't."
Tragedy, however, struck again when Lyndis' grandfather final succumed to the illness that had plaugued him for years. Kent helped her put her few possesions beside his into the trunk of his car before they moved away from the small gray house with the tire swing.
"This place holds too many memories," she said as he approached to intersection of Bulgar and Fifth. "It's too painful to stay here."
He nodded. "I understand."
But even after they moved into the small, cramped apartment, Kent sensed that she was not well. She became more withdrawn. Even working with the children at the school didn't make her nearly as happy as it once had.
Then he noticed the bottles. Just a few, maybe once or twice a week. But the same apprehension he had felt as a child, watching his father drain bottle after bottle and waiting for the yelling and the screaming and the beating that was sure to follow, was still there.
One day, he came home from the station to find her asleep on the couch wearing a pair of his old boxers and a shirt that was several sizes too large. Two empty bottles sat on the floor beside her. Kent shut the door as quietly as he could, but Lyndis woke up anyway.
"Hey, you," she muttered. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. "What's up?"
He walked over to her and kissed her forehead. "Not much. I'll go warm up something for dinner." He didn't expect her to grab the collar of his leather jacket and pull him down to her.
"But that's not what I want for dinner," she said coyly, pushing his jacket off of his shoulders. "I'll give you three guesses."
Kent could feel the emotion welling up inside him like it always did. He would never be able to resist Lyndis, and she knew that. But now, she wasn't herself. He pulled away halfheartedly and shook his head. "Not now, love," he said quietly. "You're not feeling well."
Lyndis frowned. "I'm fine," she said. Then her eyebrows furrowed. "You just don't want to, do you?"
"What?" Kent was taken aback. "I don't want to?"
She nodded. "Yes," she said. "I'm here for your convenience, aren't I?"
"No, Lyndis! Never!" How could she even think of something like that?
There were tears in her eyes now. "I'm just your fuck buddy or something, aren't I?" When Kent tried to lean towards her, she pushed him away. "Go away, Kent."
"But Lyndis..." He needed to make her see that it wasn't like that, that he really did love her. "Lyndis, I love you..."
She curled up on the couch again, her face covered by her hair. "Just go away..."
That night was the first time they hadn't shared a bed in a very long time. Lyndis woke up the next morning with a terrible headache but with no memory of the night before, but Kent was still uneasy. He had taken to hiding the bottles whenever she bought them, and slowly, Lyn was getting better. Everything was getting better.
A month before the wedding, however, the fragile happiness Kent had tried so hard to build was broken.
There was a shot. Then came the pain, in hot, burning waves.
Not now! Kent wanted to scream. Not now, not when I still have Lyndis and love and a life to live.
But the pain consumed him, and then he was gone.
Kent watched her after that. He watched as she sat at the table, anxiously watching the clock every few minutes. He watched as she opened one bottle after another until someone came to tell her that he was gone.
It was strange to watch her during the funeral—his funeral. She wasn't the woman with the beautiful laugh and caring personality anymore. She was a husk, an empty shell, a parody of the woman she had once been.
He watched as she retreated further and further into herself with only her bottles for company. Florina came to see her, sometimes, and some of her friends from the school, too. The loud gym teacher that Florina was seeing and his friend, the soft-spoken second grade teacher who had married the owner of the dance studio down the street.
Lyndis, they said. Lyndis, it'll be alright.
But she would just shake her head and take another mouthful from her bottle. No, it won't.
Kent watched as she smiled when the light left her eyes, and he found himself smiling, too, when he saw her approaching him. Together, they watched as they found her in the morning, and then they were happy again.
Down the street and around the corner is a small gray house. It is a quaint little thing, squat and compact, with a small garden and a tree with a tire swing hanging from a sturdy branch in the front yard. The shutters are painted white, and a picture of a small bird is painted on the side of the mailbox. There is a wrought iron fence surrounding the yard, too, and a paved path leads from the main road to the front porch, upon which an old red rocking chair sits.
Sometimes, they say that you can see two children sitting in the shadow of the tree. A little boy with bright red hair and a small girl whose long hair blew in the warm summer breeze.
The little girl turns to the boy. You'll be my fearless knight, right, Kent?
The boy smiles. Of course, Lyn.
Do you promise? the girl asks.
I promise. Blushing, the boy takes the girl's small hand and brings it to his lips. Forever and ever.
Xirysa Says: Part 2 wasn't that short after all. Oh well. Whatever. This was total lamesauce. Definitely not my best work, but still rather fun to do. Once again, I don't think I stayed close enough to the drunk prompt of it, so this really fails in that aspect. More ambiguity, too, but still. And the ending is totally terrible. Feedback is amazing!