A/N: Seriously though. Did anyone else think Justin Bieber was a girl when they first heard him sing?
Chapter Two: Shooting an Elephant.
It's a sad day when you find out that it's not accident or time or fortune, but just yourself that kept things from you.
- Lillian Hellman
He woke up the next morning lying funny on his back, and his elbow twisted down under his stomach, facing that stupid window. The problem was it had two layers – theirs looked out into the garden, and the garden's window was on the ceiling – so light came through slow and later than it really rose. Usually.
It messed you up, he'd noticed after the first few days, once you were used to sleeping when you found a place and waking up when…well, there wasn't a set pattern for waking up. Maybe when someone found you and got mad.
But now they slept until near noon when the sun finally reached them; they went to sleep accordingly late.
There was almost no real light in that room, and Hayner was the first one up. He didn't move for a long time. He pretended he was ten and having a sleepover at Pence's house.
Yesterday had been New Year's. Technically. So that made it eleven since. Eleven? Oh, goody, this year he'd turn old enough to drink legally.
That was a laugh, Mister Hayner. "Legally." Like there were laws. Ha! Get it?
He stared outside, past the big leafy ambiguous plants, up towards where the sun was just peaking up where he could see it and magnified by the bubbles of the glass dome. Some funny part of him liked the sparkle of light on the edge of the window frame, and childishly he raised his hand up from his stomach and spread his fingers out, placing his palm over the light (or, where the light was for him). It was, for the most part, blocked out. And like it was a fly or a piece of dust floating in the air or a feather, he closed his hand around it, as if to catch. The light was not caught, of course, but spilled back out into his vision again, silhouetting his fist.
So Hayner Conway associated blinding white sunlight with a room full of prisoners and Seifer. He associated blinding white with the relief of a place to sleep safely and the freedom to be trapped, with waking up before anyone else did and catching the air. What of it? He didn't know, and wasn't sure he wanted to. But what he did do, was he smiled and decided he was ready to actually wake up.
Eleven years since the world ran out of gas and things stopped moving, and people just stopped going places altogether. Eleven years since widespread electricity and communication and flying over the ocean and driving in a car and trains, really the only thing he missed was the train that ran through Twilight Town.
How could the problems be fixed if none of them could talk to each other? No more firing off an email across the country. The world had been shrinking; eleven years ago Europe was a few hours away on a plane, you could video chat with your friend in China, Google anything you wanted to know about anything, and they'd gotten so used to it – hadn't been able to – adapt fast enough, had gotten too advanced to go back to how it was.
The world was stuck in park. In limbo. It had gotten bigger.
It was almost but not very surprising the way that the normal things never really left you. There were days he wanted absolutely nothing more than he wanted a shower, to feel completely and totally clean. Not temporary-clean that standing under the rain gave you, that washing your arms with dirty water gave you.
His whole head felt greasy, his hair slick with oil, itchy. He imagined tiny bugs crawling all up and down his skin and pooping on it. He thought about that time he'd had the seven-year-old-genius idea of using his new magnifying glass to look at his skin, at all the tiny little creases in it, that curiously organized geometric pattern of lines. He thought about each of those creases being filled with dirt or – or blood.
So Hayner sat up, crouched, stood all the way up like he was unfolding himself and made his way over to the fair-sized brown plastic basin of water they'd been given.
As horrible as it was he a little bit liked it here. Because you knew when you would be fed, and every day a new brown plastic basin of water and a piece of cloth to wash yourself. And even – even with all this crap and the constant not-quite-clean feeling he felt in the geometric cracks of his skin, that stupid teenage boy mentality of "I don't want girls to see me naked" went in his mind and he just couldn't wash under his shirt or his pants with this many girls around! There weren't supposed to be boys in this room, he could tell.
But everyone was asleep now, so it was alright, and anyways the basin was secluded, in the tiny room-ish protrusion off by the very back, like somebody had pushed a section of the wall in and left a corner all to yourself. What a funny shape for a room. Like square with a square pimple off the side and rounded around the big window-wall. He shivered, glanced nervously at the opening of the protrusion to make sure there wasn't anyone awake who could see him (only Seifer was close enough, and that was okay) and pulled off his shirt. He sat down, cross-legged, in front of the water and squeezed out the cloth.
He stared funny at one spot on his arm, bit his tongue to keep himself awake. With a certain sort of consciouslessness he started scrubbing at his arm with the rag, up and down and up and down, watching his skin get pulled one way or another and bounce back, watching his skin turn red.
The underside of his arm was next, then his shoulder. He scrubbed even harder at his chest, dirtied from the residue of sweat on the inside of the shirt, under his armpits (don't tell the girls; they won't want to wash with armpit rags).
"Go easy there," was the quiet sound.
"Sora?"
"I wake up easy." Just the tip of his foot was visible around the corner; Sora scooched closer so he was on the same side of the wall as Hayner. "What'd your arm ever do to you?"
"Nothing. It was just itchy."
Slowing the frantic rubbing down, Hayner moved the rag across his chest again, down over his hips, and on his back as best he could. He hadn't seen his own reflection for a while (unless you counted windows at night), didn't know how people saw him. He looked down at his torso, fancied that he was thick enough, worried he looked emaciated or bloated like those orphans in Africa on the old TV ads.
"Is this the first time you've actually washed in here?" Sora leaned his head against the wall and wound his fingers in the chain. "Hasn't it been nine days?"
"I'm usually not awake before anyone else."
"So?"
"So, it would be weird, taking off your clothes and getting a sponge bath with a ton of girls in the room with you."
At which Sora laughed and wrapped his arms around his own bare stomach, shaking his head and staring out the window. He stopped for a while, started again, looked at Hayner. "That's funny," he said. "That you still care about that. Nobody really cares about that sort of thing now."
"Yeah, well." Hayner laughed, too. "I just feel like once I stop caring, then that's it, you know?" You've sunk all the way down. Like those hookers who had sex with guys right out in the open, since they didn't want to pay for a hotel.
"I know," Sora replied. "I get that. It's just you don't see that very often now."
Hayner copied him and wrapped his hands around his stomach, staring out the window, not-staring at Sora. This one time at summer camp when he was nine, there'd been this kid who looked almost exactly like Pence, only he had brown hair. It was so weird. The first time Hayner saw the guy he'd called out to him, "Hey Pence!" and felt betrayed and embarrassed when he turned around. Fake Pence. He'd refused to talk to the kid even once the whole time at camp, too, like it was that guy's fault he looked like Hayner's friend.
Hayner was also mad at Sora, for looking like Roxas-who-lived-with-a-Rich-Man. Like since Roxas was a backstabbing asshole that made Sora one for looking like him. Hayner wasn't stupid. He knew. He knew Axel was one of those guys who acted like feudal lords, letting people farm off his land in return for his share of food.
(He was so confused by that. Why couldn't the people have the land to themselves? Who said Axel owned it besides a piece of paper? Why would they bother giving him that food? Did he have guards, threats? What kept them in check? Why didn't everyone just get rid of the taker who wouldn't give? It was like a horrible history lesson with no test at the end.)
There was the dark little part of his mind he didn't touch. The confused sad little part. Mostly he was okay, actually, because it was surprising how much you could get used to if you were detached enough. You could take everything in stride. It was sort of nice.
"So…so we'll uh, see you around, then."
"Yeah. I guess." It was weird, seeing your rival and his cronies after all this crap, them acting like it was normal to just greet you and ask how you were all doing. That old animosity faded dully. How silly it was to accuse Seifer Almasy of being a fat-ass idiot now, that sort of thing. Because you were just so relieved to see someone you knew, to know that the people who had been before were now.
"See you eventually, chickenwuss," Seifer shoved his hands in his pockets.
"Mm. Yeah," with a little smile and a wave, Hayner let him go and followed Olette down the other end of the street. Four in a group was good. Down to three and you still did fine. Add another three into that entourage and you had too many to deal with.
Still, though. That was always how he worked, wasn't it? Some part of Hayner wanted to cling onto Seifer – wanted – Seifer to cling onto him, God, he didn't know – to acknowledge I Have A Connection With You I Don't Have With Anyone Else. You could be honest with your enemy the way you couldn't with your friend, you could tell him what bugged you about him because you wouldn't have to see him until you fought again.
He didn't do anything, of course. There was some rule in Hayner's mind that didn't come from how he was raised or a past trauma or anything, but had just been there as long as he had. You didn't show you were attached to people in case they weren't attached to you. You said "bye" like you didn't care at all, and if he cared to ask you to stay, then let him do the asking.
Hayner let Seifer walk away that time. He didn't want to ever have to be the one chasing anybody. Because people who tried too hard fell really hard, too.
Seifer loved to say crap like that. "The good thing about being a pessimist, Chickenwuss, is that you're always either right, or pleasantly surprised! Win-win, see?"
If you were detached enough from all the crap then you could adjust to anything. 'Cause it didn't actually really affect you. You could let your friends abandon you and be okay because they weren't really all that important to your wellbeing, and you had other things to do.
"Sorry, hang on," Sora stood up and leaned backwards, hands on his hips, stretching. "This is stupid. I can't remember your name."
"Hayner," Hayner said.
"That was it! I remember thinking that it almost sounded like it could be a normal name, like it's kinda like most names, only it's different." He wrinkled his nose. "God, don't listen to me. I'm not very coherent right now."
"Haha." His laugh was about as enthusiastic as he could make it sound.
He twisted the cloth in his hands, making little loops with his fingers until Sora leaned down and took it from him. "I'll do your back," he said, "Hold still."
Turn around, I gotta talk to you. Hayner shivered and didn't move.
"So what's the deal, anyways?"
"What with?"
"You and that guy. I mean, I know little groups were common for kids in the first couple of years, but they always disbanded, didn't they? Everyone disagrees? I haven't seen two people going together for a while, even before I got in here."
Hayner snorted and unconsciously leaned forward, away from Sora's hand on his back. Sora didn't notice, or didn't care; kept washing. "Then why do you keep talking about that Riku guy?"
"That's different. That's not survival, we're gonna fix things. What was his name again?"
"Seifer."
"Why do you stick with Seifer?"
There were about a million reasons Hayner could've given, of course, but they were all sort of long and involved, and the kind of thing that was easy to imagine but hard to describe. He was maybe a little embarrassed, actually. It reminded him of his piano teacher. Practice practice practice all week until you had it just right, but when it came to showing Mr. Labelle, you couldn't get your fingers to move right and he corrected something you already knew how to do. It was embarrassing to try and explain to someone and have them not understand. It was just easier to euphemize.
"I guess it's…I dunno. Two pairs of eyes."
It was habit more than anything else.
"Oh."
"You sound disappointed!" Hayner laughed and that was when Sora pulled away, wrung the cloth out over the basin; the loss of Sora's warm-blooded hand left the water on his back uncomfortably cool. He a little bit pretended he was stepping out of the shower and into the less humid air. That feeling.
"Yeah. I kinda figured you guys – "
"We what?"
"I dunno. I thought you were gonna say it was because you were friends or 'cause you didn't want to be alone. Not because it was easier."
Hayner shrugged, because he was the kind of guy who didn't like disappointing people, or something (because it was easier if they liked you more than you liked them, because it was easier, if you didn't care about anything at all, to leave it behind, because it was easier to have the pachydermatous skin of the kings of the apocalypse).
(Because dreams come true if your dreams are small enough, and you make sure they're easier, too.)
Standing up, he stretched to one side and looked down at Sora, cross-legged, staring up at him with a slack mouth and raised eyebrows. Not Roxas, not Roxas, you can't hate him because you hate Roxas.
"Well," he had the tone of an excuser, "We're not…friends, really."
People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.
- Thich Nhat Hanh
The back of Seifer's skull hurt. He'd always thought about pain as some tangible thing that flowed through you. Everywhere, all the time. And it had peaked at the base of his head, pulsing dully and worse when he shook it around. He wanted to dissipate the hurt by shaking it out.
Hayner would call it dark-yellow-red, not hurty. Fucker probably had synesthesia. He thought everything was colors, he thought he was colors, not the normal 'my shirt is black' way. He thought feelings were colors.
Honestly, Hayner could probably taste sounds, and hear feelings, too. Did feelings get mixed up when you had synesthesia? Probably. He only knew what synesthesia was 'cause it was in a sci-fi book he read, anyways. Didn't matter, anyways.
Haha. "Doesn't matter how the gun works as long as it shoots bullets." That's how he'd thought.
"We're not…friends, really," was the first thing he heard when he cracked open his eyes, facing in Hayner's direction, of-fucking-course.
The pain of injustice and cruelty wasn't really there, if you didn't think of most other people as human, so this was his main problem.
Ha! How Hayner to think that. We're not friends. No wonder who he was talking about. No wonder he didn't think Seifer was his friend, probably too defensive if he couldn't be the leader. Pissed Seifer off, actually. The guy wasn't any good at this surviving in the real world crap, but he got mad at Seifer for keeping him alive? The fuck? Whose fault was that, chickenwuss?
Just because you didn't have your sheltered-ass little possy following you around, just 'cause you realized- .
He wasn't wearing a shirt. His tiny arms, his skinny chest, that one barely discernible line of muscle down his stomach that told you he wasn't a kid anymore, the narrow hips that told you he didn't eat much, the proud shoulders, all on display. And the light coming through the window, glancing off his face while he stared out. Must be lonely.
Somehow Seifer could remember that moment of fifteen-year-old honesty, of heartbreak at losing the last in your group. Do you dream, Seifer? Do you ever remember what you dream?
He wondered what had changed since then, or if anything had.
What Seifer missed about Fuu was that when you were really sad, she'd say one word, like "Sorry," and hug you from behind. Girls were like that, even if they were girls like Fuu. They understood things, and it was okay to hug a girl, 'cause that didn't make you a fag.
Not that that mattered anymore.
Seifer felt bad that sometimes he considered selling out, or selling Hayner out, to the Rich Men. If anyone else called them that, he didn't know, but that was how he thought of them: the Rich Men in their towers. He thought, it couldn't be so bad, being a pet. You got perks, you got a place to sleep, even if it was with a pervert he couldn't be there all the time. And the window was closing for them, may as well get in on it while they could or – something.
He didn't really think he'd do it, of course. It was far beyond what he could understand doing. It was a book solution, it was a Deus ex Machina. It was a stupid sexy solution, and an excuse for some young girl to fall in love with some inexplicably young and handsome and rich man, as per usual.
There it was, though, in his imagination. Not a young handsome guy (and they were all guys, somehow, every single one was a man – at least, so far – maybe it times of crisis people – he didn't know, because they weren't leaders). But a little more realistic, add a touch of fantasy. Mid-thirties, early forties, starting to grey at the temples; a little chubby from under work, fat from abuse of the few people unlucky enough to be roped into the farms; guilty about paying a boy for sex but excited by the novelty; handsy, smiling. Seifer would think about something else to get hard, think about whatever worked while chapped hands closed around his body.
Lie back and think of England.
He snorted.
The thing was that Seifer, himself, wasn't the best candidate for it – too muscular for the real perverts, too boyish for the gays.
Hayner, on the other hand.
That was why he was starting to hate himself. Because he had one person, really (acquaintances didn't count, the kind of people you asked to get you a piece of food in exchange for labor), and even that person he was willing to whore out for a little more stability.
He stared at Hayner's proud shoulders, at the mouth which never called him friend. So Seifer groaned and rolled over onto his face, inhaling the must and dust of the green room carpet, ignoring the sharp pangs of light coming through the window, glancing off his head.
"You aren't?" Sora stood up suddenly, blocking the noise of Seifer's groan and his rollover with the creak of his cable-chain, whatever it was. However long he'd been in there, it had been enough to make Sora's legs shake just a little when he stood up, to nearly atrophy the muscles in his calves.
Hayner shrugged and looked for something to dry off his back (and his front, now that he thought of it). He could use his shirt, but that seemed like it would defeat the purpose. Shivering, he wrapped his arms around his torso and turned around to let the sunlight warm his skin instead.
What a nasty thought he thought, then.
I know it's bad. I know I should be angry or worried or afraid of what will happen, and how I will survive, or how I'll even get out of this fucking room and away from that pink-haired asshole.
But the sky is so empty and perfect and beautiful.
He found it funny the way that technology destroying itself fixed shit. Did that mean technology fixed shit, if it was fixing itself? If you got rid of yourself, why bother being there in the first place? Of course, if he went down that road, he came to the stupid conclusion that life was pointless anyways (you're gonna die anyways). He dismissed the thought from his head, because there was no good to come from thinking around in circles anyways.
"Hayner?"
Don't say my name, he almost snarled, but this wasn't Roxas. He said it the same though, said Hayner's name the same way. Funny world, wasn't it? Maybe there weren't enough faces to go around.
"Sorry! I zoned out."
Sora laughed nervously and shifted his weight to his unshackled foot, wincing. "I figured. What do you have to think about?"
Shrug. "Same things everyone thinks about, I guess."
"Like what?"
Nosy guy. "Like, I'm cold, and I want to leave."
"Oh. Yeah, that seems about right."
This amazed him sometimes, down to the bones in his bones: their way of life had ended, the closest thing to a city he knew of was a feudal plantation, transportation gone, communication gone, but he still managed awkward moments all the freaking time. It was borderline impressive, actually. If he had gotten a high school education he might have had more to say on the subject, but as it was he didn't know how to put it.
"Um," he'd almost forgotten how to make conversation. "But, so how long have you been in here, again?"
"You already asked me that!" Sora laughed and stretched weird, putting his hands on his hips and bending backwards.
"I did? Sorry."
"A few months. And it's fine."
How long had it been for them? Eight days, nine days? Little things ran through the veins in his legs, itchy energy at being held still for so long. His brain floated in his head, severed from rationality.
With awful timing, Seifer hissed, "Psst! Lamer! What're you doing over there? Put on a shirt!" Sora sat down and waved goodbye.
"Yeah, yeah."
Tugging his black tee over his head (the inside of it still smelled like sweat and dirt, and he felt dirty again), Hayner made his way over to Seifer and sat down cross-legged. "What is it?"
"Huh?"
"Didn't you want me over here?"
"Oh. Yeah, I guess."
"What for?"
His hair had been pushed back, flattened against one side of his head, a long red crease on his cheek from where he'd slept on his arm, paralleling the scar on his face. He rolled his eyes. "I dunno."
"Kay."
There was a long, awkward pause between the two of them, winding and curling around Hayner's neck. Five years or whatever it had been (he was saying five years, anyways), and he still felt around Seifer the way grade schoolers felt around upperclassmen. You just tried to impress them and make them think you were cool for a little kid; you weren't honest, you didn't say what you thought. Like an older brother. He didn't want Seifer to think he was stupid; if Seifer thought he was stupid then he had the upper hand. No fair.
Hayner's boots pinched his feet. Made sense that they would – only fair that they would. He'd stolen them off a sleeping homeless guy, after all. Like hermit crabs.
"I got an idea," Seifer said, not looking at anything but the floor, moving a little closer with his conspiratorial whisper. "To get out, I think."
A thrill of blue hope streaked through his center. "You do?"
"Maybe. You know that guy, the one with the weird hair over one of his eyes? The young one?"
"Yeah. Mister don't-blame-me." (Always giving them guilty looks, always trying to justify his work.)
"Exactly."
Hayner rolled his eyes as the flutter in his stomach died, joining the other corpses. They were starting to pile up. "I don't think just 'cause he's feeling kind of guilty he'll actually help us escape, Seifer."
"I'm not saying that." Seifer glared at him, playing with a fray in the carpet.
"What are you saying then?"
"Just that – God, are you seriously still mad at me?" The surprising thing was that – suprising things were – that for one, Seifer actually cared enough to ask, and that for two, all that time together and Seifer still couldn't read him. It was a forced companionship in every sense of the word.
Hayner wanted to say what he'd said to his mother as he entered his rebellious phase, time and time again. Well, no, I'm not mad at you, but the fact that you keep insisting that I am is kind of making me.
Instead he chewed on his lip and muttered, "No. Keep going."
"I'm not saying he'll help us. It's just, I get the feeling that…that if we tried something, he wouldn't stop us, you know?" The reanimated streak of hope sputtered inside of him, in his gut, flitting around when Seifer looked at him with serious eyes. It was like they were conspiring to cheat on a test in school, tricking the principle. That sort of crazy, it would only ever work in a movie, let's build a four-story treehouse when we grow up with all the money we'll have idea. What if it didn't work? It couldn't, it didn't make sense, banking on the guilt of some guy to keep from calling them out when they ran. What happened when they got caught, got killed?
"Well…what, what did you think – were you thinking of?"
Seifer pursed his lips, traced circles on the ground. "I…dunno, exactly. But I think I know how to get out of here, so if we bolt past him…I mean, he's a little guy."
"That's your genius plan?"
"For now, yeah." He brought his pretzel legs up to crouch, arms around his knees. "Sorry."
Which put Hayner off, really. A lot. Seifer apologizing for having a bad idea.
"What's that for?"
"I have a headache. God, shut up." Hayner turned his head to the side and grit his teeth, hardly surprised by Seifer's immediate reaction. He stared off at one of the girls, the pink one, Sora's friend, sleeping curled up in a corner. Her skirt rode up over her skinny, pale legs, and the curling up made it really easy to see the curve of her underwear. She was white and clean and sexy.
He didn't feel anything. He tried to imagine holding her, bending down to kiss her collarbone, running his hands down her hips and onto her butt, softly touching one of her breasts. Nothing but nothing.
Sad state when you were so detached you couldn't even muster up the energy to fantasize about sex with a pretty girl.
What he missed a lot, too, on top of all those other things God there were so many things he thought his head would explode with the effort of remembering it all – what he missed was people caring about him, asking him if he was okay, if he needed anything, how his day was. He wondered if Seifer ever wanted things like that; he wondered if Seifer ever thought about girls. Probably. He probably did.
He wondered if he should ask if Seifer was okay. But he didn't anyways.
Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.
- Ellen Goodman
Mister don't-blame-me brought them lunch that day, peering through the window of the green room door, his plaid shirt buttoned all the way up to the collar.
The faceless girls, the ones he'd decided to ignore, all got into various states of excitement; standing up, moving closer towards the door, sitting straighter. Hayner couldn't help but wonder what this room was for; were the girls that important, if they left three teenage boys alone with them? Would they be trapped in here long?
"I'm gonna need you guys to back away from the door, okay?" said Zexion, because he knew that was the man's name (though he didn't feel like such a spineless ass deserved it), opening the door a crack. "You know the drill. Thanks." He sounded like a camp counselor.
The door opened all the way, wide and gaping, and he pulled in a cart of food from who-knew-where, wheeling it to the center of the room.
There was a key hanging around his neck. It was tied with some yarn, or something; obviously hand-made and simplistic. The key had grey plastic on top, encasing the actual metal. A little logo in the grey plastic. And the metal shone when it hit the light, bright and unnatural.
So Hayner didn't know what really made him do it. The guilt for losing the knife, the anger at getting locked up for no reason, the desperate need to prove to Seifer that he was just as good at this whole survival thing. He darted forward before he knew what he was doing, because if he said he'd do it on the count of three he just wouldn't, and his hand was out and around that key, his fingers brushed against the hardness of the man's sternum (God, it was like he never touched other human beings anymore), closing over it in a claw, yanking hard. He watched mister sympathy's head jerk forward, thought he imagined the rope breaking, thought he imagined the snap and worried he'd killed a man.
It was over fast. Leap, grab, fumble, yank, leap back. "Hey!"
"Hayner!" It was Seifer who shouted (who else?), grabbing his arm and pulling Hayner behind him and to the side, other hand out protectively.
Something like hatred or trepidation curled in Hayner's stomach, that schoolboy fear of getting yelled at by your favorite teacher. He stared at Zexion from behind Seifer's arm, clutching the key in his hand like it might really open something, letting the string dangle downwards. He inched forward, just a little, allowed himself to let his chest touch Seifer's arm. To prove they were connected.
"Hey!" shouted mister guilt again, maybe a little quieter.
Call it Stockholm Syndrome, or maybe just giving a shit about someone other than himself or Seifer, but the guy was a painful sort of pretty. When he stared at them with his wide eyes, still hunched forward where the tug had pulled him, panting. His mouth open, his hand over his chest, other hand clenched in a fist. And God the way he stared at them, eyes tight, how his mouth hung in an open snarl; thesomething that was there in his eyes.
He relaxed his face, then, let it fall down until he stood straight and laughed bitterly. It was a long, slow process. His newly smooth face was out of place with Hayner's heartbeat like the blades of a helicopter. "Hey," Zexion said, it seemed to himself, "Those are my car keys." He laughed again and shook his head, abandoning the tray of food and heading for the door.
"How am I gonna get home without my car keys!" he shouted, turning to look at them with a mirthless, maniac smile before slamming the door and locking it again.
The nice thing about being a pessimist is that you are constantly either being proven right or pleasantly surprised.
- George F. Will
Zexion leaned against the door and stared at the framed poster on the other end of the hall, one of those remake vintage sci-fi movies from the fifties that all had named like The Thing from Above or The Mysterians or Monsters from Space.
Must be nice, putting a name to the thing you're fighting. Another laugh. Over a decade and he had yet to rid himself of the last vestiges of English minor.
Must be nice, being in that green room, hating the obvious, protecting each other.
He scrunched his hands against the cool wood of the door, fingertips in, fingertips out, brushing the sweat off his hands.
Ha-ha! Like a triumphant older brother, Good for you! Dammit. He shivered and tried to remember what else he had to do that day, what else that man was going to make him do. Stoke that boiler in the basement (why call it a boiler if all it did was burn wood?), he knew that much already; the rest was dependent on the will of Marluxia.
Who made him imprison little girls in the hope they'd be useful one day.
Who made him imprison broken teenagers to pretend they'd done something bad.
Who made him make believe he was doing the right thing.
Who made him think that the only way to fix anything anymore was to obey one person, no matter what he told you to do.
Who made him pretend that everything was going to be okay.
He'd been trying to make himself feel better about it, lately. The world was fucked anyways! May as well do what you could, insure that you'd survive, at least. So he beat his head against the wall,thunkthunkthunk until it was hard for him to think anymore, and licked his lips. That was what: he kept thinking about what he'd done so far, what he was going to do.
Zexion was too busy for friends in high school. There had been a poster on the wall of the gym, one of those stupid "different kinds of wellness" things that told you how to deal with stress and all. It was full of bullshit, of course – because nobody took them seriously if you saw them everywhere – but it had said, about schoolwork, that your best bet was to study solo. He'd never been good at finding the middle way (that was a hoot, the middle way, he'd known a Buddhist once before the guy'd been killed). Did things to the extremes.
You should've seen him play piano. All he could do was loud or quiet. If you told him to be a little louder he'd bang on the keys like he was mad at them, he'd make such loud noises you would worry the strings would break; tell him to back off a smidge and all of a sudden you couldn't even tell whether or not he was making any noise at all.
So no real friends in school, forfeited for grades. Paid off, of course, since he did get into a good college, top of his class. His path was laid out for him like a crystal railway:
crack.
Haha. Shit. Maybe those kids were better off after all, anyways; what were they, twelve years old when it happened? Ten? Fuck. Young enough that it didn't matter. Young enough that the wholes of their short lives would be an adventure.
It was almost remarkable the way he had found stability even here. And he kept reeling back on Marluxia's words, rolling his ears around them and listening hard. Your eyes don't see anything, do they?
crack.
He ran a quick hand through his hair, frizzing around the edges like a thin blue halo, and began to walk toward his boss's office. Environmental science, at this point, meant nothing to him: again that falsely poetic air flitted in his mind, and he still found himself trying to think of the words with the best effect. He played the conversation in his mind, imagined what Marluxia would say, what he would do. The best retaliations, or when to shut up. As futile as that was.
Which was why, when he came upon the door, a nice rich cherry wood with a mocking label ("director") at eye-level, he hesitated before knocking.
Before he even saw Marluxia's face, before the door had even finished opening, "I'm leaving."
His face was broad, tan, freckled. Angled handsomely and in confusing contrast to that hair, mauve and chunky. His eyes were expressive. They were sharp. Often, when they spoke, Zexion kept his eyes fixed on his collarbone instead.
Marluxia raised his eyebrows, keeping his mouth steady. Zexion almost wanted to retract it, to unsay his sentence, cowardly as he was. "Well," the words were lilting. "I suppose you'd better come in."
If there was anything he'd learned about their boss man it was he had a mouth more venomous than a snake's. He could make you regret your words as you were speaking them, draw your tongue back behind your teeth; he could twist your words to what he needed them to mean and make anyone sound like an idiot. In minutes he unwound your entire argument, pulled you to say his words without ever saying them himself. He could make you do anything for him. With him.
Which was why Zexion wanted to leave right away, and why he was unsure why he'd bothered to come and say this. Get it overwith. More like he simply didn't want to undertake anything entirely alone. What was he hoping for? An okay? A smile and a gold star?
But he entered the room with his face schooled as he could get it, glad one eye was obscured by dark hair bleached with sunlight. And he tried to pretend it was fine what he was doing. He tried to pretend he wasn't about to get killed or something, and ignored the poisonous stare on the back of his neck because he knew that man was – knew he was – planning something, or thinking things that Zexion could not understand or plan or think, and so Zexion himself was questioning his reasons before he'd even begun to explain them.
He sounded like a principle when he sat down in his office chair, stolen from the broken lawyer's office across the street. "Zexion, Zexion, Zexion." Tut-tut-tut. You would be hard pressed to remember they were the same age. "You never fail to fascinate me, my friend. Every time I think I know what you're up to you prove me wrong."
So condescending, he sounded! Like he was making a mockery of his thoughts. "Don't patronize me, Liu-maru."
Narrowed eyes, suddenly, and gave Zexion a sense of brief triumph (like screaming in delight on your way down a broken roller coaster). "You don't call me that. Zexion," he laughed, a tenor noise that shook the air in the room like shaking out a dusty bed sheet. He frowned. "You'll ruin it." They fell into the sort of silence that was nothing but baited traps, and, "You must remember that from the lectures, at least. Clean cuts, Zexion. They heal faster, Zexion."
The room had yellow walls.
"So you're leaving?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Now."
Another chuckle. "Bringing nothing with you?"
"Nothing to take."
"You wound me." He put a hand to his chest and clutched at the black shirt there right over his heart. "Humor me. Why?" A new seriousness.
Zexion licked his lips and leaned up against the wall, ankles touching. "I keep asking myself why I follow you. And why you do what you do. I can't come up with a reason for myself, and – "
"And me? Why am I how I am?" This time his laugh was quieter, and it was boxed in and soft around the edges, and Zexion fancied that maybe it was a real question under there.
And, ah, here was the kicker. "You're doing it for fun, aren't you?"
"Is that a question?"
He could not imagine ever having banter with someone like Marluxia. "Tell me why. It won't change my decision. But I want to know." If only to prove to me, Marluxia, that there is something inside of you still.
"You wouldn't understand." Jaw clenched, eyes averted, and so suddenly sad, and God, it was hard to remember they were supposed to be the same age! "Honestly." He crossed his legs and held his head up proudly, staring out the window at what could have passed for a decrepit, functional convenience store. He rested his hands on the arms of the chair.
"You must be so depressed, holed up in here. It must be such a drain on you – "
"Shut up!" he hissed. "You stop talking, Zexion, you stop talking right now. Sitting around complaining about how awful I am, it must be so easy." Sneering, "That's what I always noticed about you environmentalists. You complain about the world slowly dying and us overpopulating it, but that never stops you from taking hot showers or having babies, does it? Don't talk to me about doing things for fun. You – haha! – you seem so smart, you know. You're a child, Zexion, you're an absolute child." This was what: it always came down to Marluxia thinking he was better than you, and convincing you of it.
"I thought I was your favorite?" he hissed back defensively.
"That's the sad part." Schooling his face back again, Marluxia began to observe his knuckles. There was a dent on the back of his neck, Zexion noticed, where a mole had been clipped. "But oh well. There will always be people like you, Zexion." (He said his name different. Wrong. He said 'Zecks-shun', not 'Zecks-ee-on'.) He pinched the bridge of his nose in a show of exasperation. "Please wait outside for a few minutes. I need to – gather some things and we can discuss this further." Gather myself.
As soon as Zexion got outside Marluxia's room, he inhaled through his nose narrowly and bumped his forehead against the wall. He closed his eyes. It had been over much faster than he'd anticipated, and he hadn't gotten to say any of what he'd really wanted to say – it was, of course, his boss who ended up vocalizing his thoughts, who backed Zexion into a corner, but that was how it had always been. Zexion preferred to do things from behind the scenes. He liked to manipulate with just words and not actions. And so, use-it-or-lose-it took place in his body, which he refused to use as a tool. He had shrunk, it seemed, since that time, and could no longer cut an imposing figure.
It took him a few moments listening to some of the murmurs outside before he began to run, down the hall, past the window which looked out onto a curiously untouched baseball field, past the broken copy machine, past the empty and torn cork board, the old theater props they hadn't found a use for, and down the stairs through the double-doors opening the hinged metal outer doors and slamming the handle down behind him, and out into the forest which was slowly regaining its footing all the while his legs aching with every strained push and his heart trying to push its walls out and explode with blood and trying not to nightmare. In all his nightmares he ran away from something and it caught him because he gave up, because if he gave up he could at least say he wasn't bested because he could say it was on his own terms. He stopped running and turned around, backing away still and hand out behind him to feel for trees.
"Yeah? You want me to do somethin'?"
"It's Zexion."
"Ha! Oh, fuck, I knew he'd be the first to snap! So what do I do?"
"…frankly, Xigbar – I'm disappointed you have to ask."
"You okay, there? You're kinda – "
"I'm fine, Xigbar. Do your job."
That was how it happened. Marluxia following Xigbar, who held a gun in either hand and a detached grin. God. God, Zexion hated that man so much.
It took only a glint of shining black metal and the reality of bang to get Zexion to stumble further back, trying to remember where that deer trail was, and his eyes met Marluxia's so briefly it was painful because he could just almost maybe imagine the look of a strangled prince of pessimism in there.
"Oy! Better start runnin', shrimpy! I've been wantin' to do this for a long time!"
Refusing to rise to the challenge, Zexion darted behind a tree where his knees stiffened and he found himself unable to move again. I'll run further into the forest on the count of ten. And I won't stop, even if I give up. I'll run until he shoots me. I'll run until I die.
This plan seemed somehow better.
Ten…nine…
"What, not even gonna give me a good chase? Bolt like the bunny you are, man! No gettin' away anyways!"
Eight, sevensix – dammit…
"The world ain't gonna run out of bullets for a long time, Ienzo!"
Zexion tripped, fell down on his face, stood up and ran at the same time so that he was closer to the ground now, somehow. And somehow he found those old rotting train tracks and he followed them, he ran and he ran and he ran and ignored the madman shouting and the bullets. And the world became nothing but the breath in his ears, and the darting eyes looking at his forward path, and the thumpathumpa of his heart telling him he was going to die.
Thumpathumpa.
Can you feel my heartbeat, Ie? Listen. I've always said the best things happen more than once. Like TV shows, or sex, or heartbeats. Listen.
A/N: Well this was basically the world's biggest bitch to format just now. DID YOU HEAR THAT, FF? YOU ARE THE OARFISH OF FORMATTING.
So how was your day.