Remembering the Forgotten
By: Ellipsis the Great
DISCLAIMER: Kingdom Hearts and everything affiliated with it belongs to SquareEnix and Disney. All I own is the plot…although the original idea came from orangediscord's one-shot 'Left Behind.' Also, the idea for the 'relocation' of the Queen's soul comes from a book called 'Golem in the Gears' by Piers Anthony. And the idea for the ritual is some sort of weird merger of my own ideas with ideas from the movies 'The Brothers Grimm' and 'Thirteen Ghosts.'
Summary: Sometimes, I thought I was the only person who remembered him…eventual Seiner, other pairings unknown.
Rated: M.
Spoilers: Takes place after Kingdom Hearts II; I dunno how much of the plot will be included.
Warnings: Yaoi and some angst. More warnings later if needed.
Chapter Seventeen: Eloquentia (eloquence, readiness of speech, fluency, persuasiveness)
"Belief makes things real, makes things feel…feel alright. Belief makes things true, things like you…you and I. Tonight, you arrested my mind when you came to my defense with a knife in the shape of your mouth, in the form of your body, with the wrath of a god. Oh, you stood by me, belief." –Gavin Degraw, 'Belief"
I sat in stony silence near the back of the ship, glaring at anyone who came too close. Usually, that meant I was glaring at René, who kept coming back to check on Hayner and I. Or maybe he was trying to apologize again. Either way, my glare had even scared Sora away—and Sora was usually too oblivious to know when people wanted him to fuck off.
But it was two hours since we'd taken off, and Hayner still hadn't woken up. I was beginning to…well, no, I was far past 'beginning to worry.' By then, I was even past 'out of my mind with worry.' Not that anyone but me could tell, unless they knew that I would get crueler and crueler the more worried I became. At the moment, this was only evident by my glare, since so far no one had made the mistake of trying to talk to me.
But no one really gives a fuck about that unless they're the one getting yelled at, right? Right. So let's get back to Hayner.
Hayner had stayed stubbornly unconscious no matter what I tried. And I had gone far beyond the usual smelling salts, slaps, and shakes. I had even tried holding him upright and dropping an ice cube down his pants—nothing. Not even a shiver, the little bastard. Once I had finally given up (about three-quarters of an hour into the flight), I had sat down and laid him out across the couch in the back of the ship, resting his head in my lap so that even if I drifted off (which wasn't likely to happen, but might) I would know that he had woken up. I'm a light sleeper. To amuse myself (because even us stalwart defenders get bored after an hour of sitting), I had taken to mapping out Hayner's face with a finger, drawing it in fantastical situations in my mind's eye. Then I ran my hand through his hair a bit, working out the gel so that his hair wouldn't be too nasty and clunky when he woke up. Maybe that sounds romantic or something, but it wasn't. Since I was still kind of trying to wake him up, I yanked pretty hard through some of the knots and clumps.
And then, finally, Hayner's eyes fluttered open.
And, God, I wished he had just stayed unconscious, because his eyes were so dead they almost looked gray instead of the dusty cinnamon color I knew they were.
He shifted, like he was about to sit up, but seemed to lose the will to do so almost immediately after. Instead, he reached up and put his hand over the one I had in his hair.
"I…don't have a soul." He rasped, looking up at me. The look in his eyes—or, well, the lack of a look in his eyes—sent a shiver up my spine.
"You trust me, don't you?" I asked, grabbing his hand and holding it like I thought that would keep him from fading away. "I told you I would take care of everything."
He closed his eyes and sighed tiredly. "I suppose so."
"No." I growled, squeezing his hand so hard his eyes flew open again and I saw something—some unidentifiable streak of emotion—flash through them. "Don't suppose. Know. Know that I am going to take care of everything. Know that you can trust me. I swear to God, lamer, if you give up on me I'll fucking kill you."
A tiny grin tugged at one corner of his mouth. "You're so melodramatic."
"Yeah, well, if you disappear, then the only sane one to talk to around here is Cid."
"You don't like Cid?"
"Sure I do, but he's porking a vampire. If he's the sane one, I'm fucked. And not in the good way, either." I said, glad that he seemed to be livening up a bit.
"Am I any better than a vampire?" He asked. "I mean, I…I don't have a soul, and I used to be a heartless, and my mother…oh, God, my mother is…"
"Chickenwuss, I already gave you one squicky, emotion-ridden pep talk about this. Sort of." I said. Upon receiving a 'look' from Hayner, I sighed. "I only have so many emotional outbursts in me that don't involve me getting pissed off, y'know, so listen the fuck up because I'm not going over this again."
"Well, you're off to a good start." He drawled, sitting up and turning about so he was beside me and could look at me without getting a crick in his neck.
"Don't fucking push me, lamer." I said, eyeing him for a moment before continuing. "Now, look, chick…Hayner. All of that shit you're so worried about? It's only part of who you are. Just because you're missing some bits…that doesn't make you a bad person, or whatever. I mean, Roxas didn't have a heart and—even though he pissed me off most of the time—he wasn't a bad guy. And you being a heartless once upon a time? Fuck it, y'know? Sora told me he was a heartless once, and after that he didn't have a soul for a while, and there was never anything wrong with him. Or at least…nothing that hadn't been wrong with him before. As for your bitch of a mother…you can't choose your parents, right? I mean, look at my father! Does him being a drunk asshole make me a bad person? No. Just because our parents shape who we are, doesn't mean they make us who we are. After all, there are homophobes who have gay kids, and religious folks who have atheist kids, and pacifists who have serial killers for kids…and there are downright bastards and bitches out there who have really good kids, like you."
He nodded wordlessly, sniffling loudly.
"Now," I stood up. "I gotta go brush my teeth before all of this sweet bullshit gives me cavities."
He let out a weak, forced laugh, but reached out and grabbed my arm when I turned to go to the bathroom (because, really, I just had to take a piss).
"Seifer, what if…what if I can't tell her no?" He asked. "I mean, she's my mother…what if I go through with this shit for her?" He met my eyes with his. "I don't wanna die."
With a heavy sigh, I sat back down and threw an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close to my chest. That was the second time I'd done that in as many days; epic quests obviously weren't very good for me, making me all emotional and crap.
"That's what I'm here for, fucktard." I said. "Everything happens for a reason, remember? The reason I'm the one going with you on this cockamamie quest is so I can keep your dumb ass out of trouble."
"Seifer?" He pulled away from me a little.
"Don't fucking worry about it, I told you I'd—" I cut myself off with an alarmed gasp as he held up his hand.
Or tried to, at least. Hayner's hand was gone.
(PAGEBREAK,Y'KNOW?)
"I didn't think it would start this fast." I said shakily as we all sat around the table, Hayner's arm stretched out so that we could all see its decided lack of hand. "We've gotta hurry this damn quest the fuck up."
"Is it…is it completely gone?" Sora asked, reaching out to poke at the spot where Hayner's hand should have been. "No! No, I can feel it! We just can't see it."
"Here." Cid pulled a pair of gloves out of fucking nowhere and handed them to Hayner. "Put those on for now."
"Has anything else disappeared?" Riku asked as Hayner put the gloves on.
"Not that I know of." Hayner said.
"Go to the bathroom and check. We need to figure out how fast this shit's gonna go." Cid said, jerking him up out of his seat and pushing him toward the bathroom.
Hayner nodded, and I smirked a little when I saw him pull his pants out a bit and let out a sigh of relief just before he disappeared around a corner.
"So…" Sora began awkwardly.
"How much longer d'you think it'll be before we get there?" I asked, looking at Cid.
"How in the hell should I know? I don't even know where we're going, twerp." Cid said.
"You've got a map, don't you? What world are we heading toward?" I asked.
Cid grumbled something that made René, who was sitting closest to him, blush a little. But he still reached up and pulled a map out, rolling it out across the table along with some odd looking tools.
"Alright, look. This is a rough map of the known worlds. I nicked it from the King's ship last time he visited." Cid said.
"You WHAT?" Donald screeched.
"They have more copies, fuck off." Cid waved him away, scratching his head thoughtfully as he looked at the map. "We started here, and we're moving…hm." He fiddled with some of the tools (wish I could be more descriptive, here, but fuck if I know what he was doing. Use your damn imagination). "Alright, well…the way I figure it, and assuming that that damn ring doesn't decide to change course on us, we're heading towards this world." He tapped a finger on the world in question.
"Prydain?" I asked with a frown. "What do we know about that world?"
"I've never heard of it." Riku said.
"Me neither." Sora said.
"That's where Taran's from." René said.
Everyone got quiet and looked at him, and he took on the rather clueless expression of someone who didn't realize how important something they'd said was.
"I met him before those two found me." He pointed at Donald and Goofy. "I was world hopping with this kid named Lewis and his son Wilbur—it's a long story, don't ask—and we ended up on this world called…um…oh, right. India. Duh. Anyhow. So we were trying to help this kid named Mowgli get rid of this huge tiger named Shere Khan, and we found him antagonizing this other kid. Taran. And he said that he had been…launched…from his world, Prydain."
"By who?" Donald asked.
"I don't know, he never said." René shrugged.
"Gawrsh…d'ya think it was the Queen?" Goofy asked.
"Probably." René said. "We could ask."
"What do you mean we could ask?" Riku asked.
"Oh, well…" He pulled a strange looking object out of his pocket. "Lewis and Wilbur were going to take Taran back to his home world. So then I decided to go my own way, and they gave me this phone to contact them if I needed them. I was going to use it after those two tied me up," he glared at Donald and Goofy, "but couldn't, obviously, and then I got caught up in all that's happening and just…didn't see any reason to use it anymore."
"René, you're amazing!" Sora exclaimed, throwing his arms around the silver-haired boy, who flushed and gave him a wide-eyed look. "How do you work it?"
"Oh no!" Cid said, snatching it out of René's hands before Sora could. "You aren't going anywhere near this, sky boy—you'd probably break it."
"All you have to do is open it." René said a little defensively. "It automatically calls them. Sora wouldn't have hurt anything."
"You have obviously never seen him around technology." Cid said, flipping the phone open before handing it back to René. "Here, you talk to them since you know them."
"Wilbur, give me the phone!"
"No! I'm older, I get the phone!"
"I'm your father, you have to do what I say. Give. Me. The. Phone."
"You aren't my father yet, Lewis! And I'm still older!"
"Give me the phone, Wilbur!"
Cid and I exchanged a glance.
"You guys." René said, chuckling a little. "Just share."
"René! Hey, René!" The voice belonging to Wilbur (at least, I was pretty sure it was) exclaimed.
"Hey, Wilbur. Hi, Lewis." René said. "Say, is Taran still with you guys?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. Here we are, worried sick about you since you haven't called, like, at all, and you wanna talk to Taran. Thanks a million, buddy."
"No offense, Wilbur, it's just that I've been really busy, and…well, there's some stuff going on around here that's…" René shook his head. "Anyhow, I just really need to talk to Taran."
"Yeah, sure. Make your excuses." Wilbur said shortly, though he didn't sound as upset as he seemed to be trying to sound. "Phone's for you, Taran."
"Oh? Oh, um, hello, René. How have you been?" A new voice said.
"We kinda don't have time for pleasantries, Taran. I need to know about Prydain." René said.
"Prydain? Why?" The new voice, Taran asked.
"It's a really long story." René said. "Who kicked you off of Prydain, Taran?"
"I don't know, really. Some woman who called herself the Queen. Kind of odd, if you ask me, because Eilonwy's mother is dead and there aren't any other queens in Prydain."
"Okay, umm…" He trailed off, looking up at us. "What else do we need to know?"
"Hey, Taran?" I asked. "This is a friend of René's. My name's Seifer. Tell me: are there any clear fields in Prydain? About the size of a big football field?"
"…What's football?"
"Like this, Taran." The other voice, Lewis, said.
"Oh…well, yes. There are several."
"What about any that are…I dunno, steeped in evil or some bullshit like that? That's where the Queen will do everything, probably." I said.
"Well...the courtyard in the Horned King's old castle is quite big."
"Horned King? Ugh." I rolled my eyes at the name. "That's where she'll be, though. And if there's a castle, she'll have a good place to keep the souls locked up."
"…I'm sorry, but what are you talking about?" Taran asked.
"Go ahead and explain it to them, René." I said, standing abruptly and heading toward the bathroom. "I'm going to go check on Hayner."
"Okay." René said, the others gathering around him to look into the odd, futuristic device.
I left the room, knocking on the door to the restroom when I reached it. "Hey, lamer? You okay in there?"
There was a weak, muffled agreement from the other side of the door.
"Can I come in?" I asked.
"Ngh."
I blinked at the door. "I'm…taking that as a yes." I said, pushing the door open.
Hayner was sitting beside the toilet, head in his hands (one gloved, one not), topless, shoeless, and missing one of his socks.
"You all there?" I asked.
He nodded wordlessly, waving the gloved hand as if to say that that was all that was missing so far.
"Are you…sure you're okay?" I asked, entering hesitantly.
"I threw up." He said in a tiny voice.
"You aren't getting sick, are you?" I crouched in front of him and put a hand on his forehead. "That's just what we fucking need…"
"No, I just…threw up." He said.
"Yeah, well," I sat down beside him, "I hope you're not looking to get another damn speech, because I am seriously all the fuck out. At this point I'd just be fucking repeating myself."
He gave me a smile that looked more like a grimace than anything else. "Nah, no more speeches, I promise." He said.
"Ah, shit, you need a goddamn hug, don't you?" I asked. "I knew I was gonna regret not letting Aerith come along."
"You're such an asshole, Seifer." This time he managed to actually smile, and even get out a laugh or two.
I let out a heavy sigh, throwing an arm around him and pulling him to my side.
"It's gonna be okay, lamer." I murmured into his hair.
"I thought you said no more speeches?" He asked.
"That wasn't a fucking speech, it was a sentence." I snapped. "And it's just because it's driving me fucking insane to see you all pathetic and shit."
"'M not pathetic."
"Could've fooled me. I've never seen you more pathetic in my entire life, and I've fucking sent you to the hospital before so I know what I'm talking about."
"You really are an asshole." He huffed.
"And you really are a chickenwuss." I said. "You're supposed to be a prince, for Christ's sake. Suck it the fuck up, man."
"Seifer…"
"If you fucking give up, that's the end, dumbass. Nothing anyone else can do will help you if you don't keep fighting with us."
"But what if…what if fighting doesn't do anything?"
I snorted. "If there's one thing I've learned after kicking your ass over and over again, it's that you're fucking persistent. And eventually, even if it takes you a hundred tries, you get the one up on me and kick my ass. Don't you fucking dare stop being the stubborn little piss ant you are now when it's actually fucking important."
"I think there's a speech hiding in there somewhere."
"God, shut the fuck up."
He let out a laugh that almost sounded like a sob, and I curled my other arm around him, too, as he fisted his hands in the material of my coat.
"It's gonna be okay." I said.
I wasn't sure if I was trying to convince him, or me.
End Chapter Seventeen