Souvenirs from Fantasyland

phoenix_fiction @ 2007-08-08T18:17:00

2007-08-08T22:22:08Z

Contrary to the utter lack of posting on my behalf, I have not disappeared off the face of the planet. At the beginning of July, I was asked to participate in something for a convention. I spent all of my free time during the first three weeks trying desperately to make what was required of me. Thus the lack of a finished chapter 11.

I have not been completely lacking, however. Now that the convention is over nad there isn't another in sight for a long time, my free time has returned. I've been working on an archive for Embers and Ashes that isn't quite finished yet. It will be soon, over the next week or so. Once it is, I will be posting chapter 11 to it.

WitS Chapter 11 Status Update

2007-06-24T22:15:04Z

Just a quick update to let everyone know that I'm working on Chapter 11 right now. There was some unforeseen family stuff yesterday that kept me away from the computer for most of the night, so I only managed to get one page written. I'll be working on the chapter for the rest of the night, and if I don't get it finished, tonight, it will be sometime this week. I've got Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to work on it. I anticipate having it posted on Friday at the latest. Though more realistically, I see finishing it tomorrow night, letting it sit, and then posting it Wednesday after a chance to edit it.

I just wanted to assure everyone that it will be this week.

phoenix_fiction @ 2007-06-20T06:38:00

2007-06-20T10:41:18Z

Barring another unforeseen power-outage like I had last night, Chapter 11 of Written in the Sand will be out on Sunday.

My interest in the story, and the fandom in general, has been revived. I may start writing other stories. Or at least, other short stories for E&A. I started writing a Christmas one last year that wasn't finished in time for Christmas that I'll be posting this year.

E&A Archival Info

2007-04-26T22:00:01Z

In preparation of the end of WitS and the work on subsequent installments of E&A, I am going to be moving the entire story onto this journal. Upon completion of this project, which may take a few days/weeks as time permits, I will be deleting the stories stored on fanfiction.net and my crappy Angelfire website. This journal will serve as my website, at least until such a time as I learn HTML, get Frontpage again, or pay someone to make a website for me.

For easy access, all parts of E&A, separated by story and chapter, will be listed here.

Also, I will be backdating this entries, so friendslists don't get cluttered.

Any questions, drop me a comment.

WitS Chapter 10

2007-03-11T23:09:42Z

Chapter 10 of WitS has been posted to ff.net and my Yahoo group.

phoenix_fiction @ 2006-12-03T17:32:00

2006-12-03T21:32:06Z

Title: The Source of All Disaster
Fandom: Saiyuki
Pairing: Vaguely Sanzo/Gojyo
Rating: PG-13 for bad language. Lots of it.
Notes: This thing has been sitting on my computer for two years. Why? I don't know. But I got tired of it sitting there and decided to post it.
Summary: Some lessons, no matter how often repeated, are never learned.

Why, why couldn’t Sanzo ever keep his goddamned mouth shut?

Just once, Gojyo thought irritably, as he peered warily through a gap in the brush.

Just one day without the bastard insulting someone into trying to kill us. Is that really too much to ask? Considering that their patron deity for this whole stupid venture was none other than Kanzeon Bosatsu, Gojyo figured that yes, it probably was. Yet, as much of a fucking idiot as Gojyo felt that Sanzo was, he still winced in sympathy as the youkai backhanded the monk hard enough to spin him around and knock him to the ground.

Over the course of the nearly four years that he had known the man, Gojyo had lost track of the number of bad situations that had been exacerbated by the simple matter of Sanzo opening his mouth and delivering a particularly venomous, scathing insult at exactly the worst possible moment. After countless skirmishes with infuriated youkai and humans alike, Gojyo reached the conclusion that Sanzo’s mouth was far more dangerous than his gun could ever be, although he’d be damned if he’d ever say so in his presence and contribute to the bastard’s already over-inflated ego. However, like any truly dangerous weapon, it was a doubled-edged thing that had the tendency to wound the bearer almost nearly as much as those against whom it was wielded.

At least the monkey isn’t here to watch his precious sun get the piss beaten out of him, Gojyo thought in sarcastic relief, slinking ever closer to the two combatants. If they could even be called combatants anymore. Gojyo’s eyes narrowed. Sanzo was lying awfully still and if he strained his eyes, he could just make out the red trickle leaking from the corner of Sanzo’s lips, could smell, beneath the stench of unwashed youkai body, the sharp tang of blood. Shit. Gojyo hoped that it was just a split lip. Almost there.

That was the problem with having your name travel ahead of you like wildfire. Not only did they know what you looked like, they had also heard about the easiest way to incapacitate you. And all of the fights and near-misses in the world weren’t about to penetrate the insufferably stubborn, overblown pride of Mr. High and Mighty, who just couldn’t possibly condescend to listen to anyone every once in a while and not wander off alone in strange places.

So now Hakkai and Goku were busy with the band of youkai that had attacked the town, undoubtedly under orders to create a diversion, while Gojyo got the miserable task of skulking through the damn forest in the middle of the damn night to rescue one virulent, ungrateful, holier-than-thou pain in the ass from the band’s leader. So help me, if this is over that goddamn ‘eat a Sanzo, gain immortality’ bullshit again...

After what seemed like hours of trudging through underbrush, feeling strand after strand of his hair get entangled on branches and ripped out of his scalp, Gojyo was finally within the shakujou’s striking range. The uncomfortable, disgruntled part of him wanted to make a fight out of it, wanted to attract the youkai’s attention and work off some of his irritation. But the rest of him was too tired to go through the effort and there was something about the motionless way Sanzo was just laying there that was making him uneasy.

Gojyo was walking forward, clicking the crescent blade back into place at the end of the shakujou, before the youkai’s head had finished rolling. “Sanzo?” he called as he approached, hoping that the man had just been feigning unconsciousness.

No answer.

“Son of a bitch,” Gojyo muttered under his breath, kneeling down next to the fallen monk and feeling for a pulse. It was there, faint and erratic, but at least it wasn’t the halting, sluggish beat of a heart about to shut down.

Thankful for that small favor, Gojyo started taking inventory of Sanzo’s injuries. The most obvious was the large bruise already forming on the side of the man’s face where the youkai had hit him. Then there were the myriad cuts and scrapes one would expect to find on someone who had taken a wild flight through an overgrown forest in the middle of the night. There were bloody rents in Sanzo’s forearm, marks that Gojyo recognized as the work of youkai claws. But no other outward sign of injury, nothing that would explain the blood leaking from Sanzo’s mouth.

“Hey, Sanzo!” Gojyo laid a hand on Sanzo’s shoulder. “Come on man, wake up!”

No response. Not even a groan when Gojyo gave him a gentle nudge. Where the fuck is Hakkai when you need him? There was no help for it. If Sanzo wouldn’t wake up on his own, Gojyo was going to have to move him. And if that blood was an indication of some kind of internal injury… Why do humans have to be so goddamned fragile? And why can’t he ever just shut up?

“If something breaks in there, you’ve only got yourself to blame,” Gojyo told the unconscious man with a scowl, his hands hovering uncertainly over Sanzo’s body as he tried to work out the best way to pick him up without aggravating any possible internal injuries. “If you had just kept your big mouth shut, you wouldn’t be in this goddamn predicament in the first place. And I wouldn’t be out here in the ass-end of nowhere, trying to lug your lousy carcass back to that dump of an inn. If it’s even there anymore, now that your headless buddy over there got all of his damn friends to drop in. Why can’t you ever just-”

“Shut up.” The cold command, uttered in a voice barely above a whisper, stopped Gojyo in mid-rant.

“You awake?” Gojyo asked immediately, eyeing Sanzo’s face suspiciously. “Or was that just a reflex?”

Ever so slowly, Sanzo’s eyelids rose over eyes that glittered black in the moonlight. He gave Gojyo a long, hard stare before he asked sharply, “My gun?”

Gojyo rolled his eyes. The guy could be holding his guts in his hands while he bled to death, and the first thing he’d ask for would be the location of his gun. “I don’t know. I was a little too busy saving your ass to worry about your gun.”

“Idiot. Find it.”

Why had he been worried about Sanzo again? Gojyo mulled the thought over in his mind as he stood up and began searching the surrounding area for the telltale gleam of silver. Oh yeah. Because I didn’t want Seiten Taisei Son Goku to pound my ass into the ground for letting him die. After a few more minutes of searching, Gojyo found the gun in a clump of weeds and took it back to Sanzo. “Here.”

Sanzo started to sit up and reach for it, only to stop abruptly, his mouth twisted in a grimace of pain. Glowering at Gojyo as if the whole situation was his fault, Sanzo sank gingerly back down onto the ground.

Fuck. “What hurts? And don’t you dare tell me nothing,” Gojyo warned, as Sanzo immediately opened his mouth to do just that. “If you’re fine, get up, take your damn gun, and let’s get the hell out of here. But if something hurts, tell me what it is so we can figure out how to get you back to town without making it worse. Save your pride for when you can afford it.”

“One broken rib,” Sanzo answered easily, as if the thought of concealing his injuries had never crossed his mind. “Maybe two.”

“Wonderful.” Checking to make sure that the safety was on, Gojyo shoved the gun into his waistband, ignoring the glare Sanzo shot his way for not returning it. “Which side?”

“Left.”

Gojyo nodded, moving over to Sanzo's right and crouching down next to him. "You want to do this quickly or slowly?"

"Quickly."

Shifting until he was crouched by the top of his head, Gojyo slipped his hands under Sanzo's shoulders. "Ready?'

"Do it."

Gojyo had him upright and on his feet before Sanzo had the chance to reconsider. Had it been Gojyo with the broken ribs, he knew he’d have been cursing and complaining the whole way. But not Sanzo. Oh no. That would mean that somewhere in the boarded-up, abandoned reaches of that place where a personality ought to be, Sanzo was actually human. On the heels of that humanity would follow the unhappy discovery that there were feelings in there too. And everyone knew that Genjo Sanzo did not possess anything that even tried to masquerade as a feeling.

So it came as a surprise when, as Gojyo let go of his shoulders and started to take a step away to give him some space, Sanzo slumped backward into his hands again. “Sanzo?” Gojyo craned his neck in an attempt to get a glimpse of Sanzo’s face as the man’s head lolled back on his shoulder.

This isn’t good. Sanzo’s eyes were closed, his face was ashen, and his lips were slightly parted, a fresh speck of blood at the corner of his mouth shining in the moonlight. “Hey, Sanzo!”

“Stop...yelling...”

“Look,” Gojyo started, knowing that he was going to be fighting a losing battle but unable to see another way around it. “If you-”

“I’m fine. Let’s go.” It was a blatant lie, but the fact that Sanzo wasn’t making any attempt to move away from Gojyo’s support belied his bravado.

“Yeah, right.” If it had been Hakkai, this would have been so much easier. Of course, if it had been Hakkai, he would have been healing himself already. Had he not already been injured, Gojyo would have been sorely tempted to just knock Sanzo unconscious and carry him back to the town, even if that meant he’d be risking a view into the barrel of a gun in the morning. As it was, Gojyo found himself being forced to resort to subtlety. “Look beautiful, I know how hard it must be to pull yourself away from me, but Hakkai and Goku are going to be worried if we don’t get back soon and really, I don’t want to be the one who has to explain to Goku that I stole your affections away from him.”

All in all, Gojyo thought as Sanzo snarled something unintelligible under his breath and jerked away to stand – albeit unsteadily – on his own. That worked pretty well. I’m going to have to remember that. Hit on him and slip in a little innuendo about the kid’s attachment to him. That he had escaped not getting shot for such a comment purely by virtue of the fact that it was taking all of Sanzo’s willpower to remain conscious was something that Gojyo chose to ignore.

After another long pause that fooled Gojyo not at all, Sanzo started walking back down the path. Picking up his shakujou, Gojyo trailed after him. And then, as he knew he would, Sanzo stumbled.

“All right, you’ve made your point,” Gojyo told him, slinging Sanzo’s right arm over his shoulder and placing his left hand on Sanzo’s hip, far enough away from the broken ribs to not cause him more pain. “Come on. I won’t tell anyone.”

Without the usual acerbic grumbling, Sanzo leaned his head against Gojyo’s shoulder and submitted to the aid Gojyo was offering. The easy acquiescence, not the mention the unconcealed vulnerability, told Gojyo in no uncertain terms just how bad Sanzo’s injuries actually were. Shit. They’d only gotten about a dozen feet down the path before Sanzo gave up entirely and passed out.

Heaving a long-suffering sigh, Gojyo propped the shakujou against a nearby tree trunk and picked up Sanzo, trying his best not to jar the other man’s wounds. When he was satisfied with his grip on the monk, Gojyo reached out with the arm that was hooked under Sanzo’s knees, grabbed the shakujou, and awkwardly juggling them both, started off in the direction of the town.

What a night this turned out to be, Gojyo mused, thinking back to the bottle of beer he had been about to open, only to be interrupted by Goku barging into his room, yelling about Sanzo being missing mere minutes before he had heard the screams of the other patrons as the youkai had attacked. No booze, no cigarettes, no hope now of finding a pretty girl to spend the night with. Thanks a lot, Sanzo.

Gojyo glanced down at the top of Sanzo’s head, fighting back a sneeze as the night breeze blew strands of Sanzo’s hair into Gojyo’s face. This really was your own damn fault, Sanzo. You knew one of us would show up to help you out. Why you felt the need to open up your damn big mouth, I don’t know.

A memory tugged at the corner of Gojyo’s mind, some long-forgotten thing that he hadn’t thought about in ages. Something someone had said to him once… Gojyo reached for the memory, only to feel it slide elusively from his grasp. Damn. What the hell was it? A little more concentration and he managed to snag a corner of it. It was some kind of dumb saying. Something about how all of the problems in the world could be traced back to someone opening their mouth. Tired as he was, Gojyo felt a smile spreading across his face. It was probably Hakkai. It sounds like something he would say.

~ Five Hundred Years Earlier ~

“Oh, Kenren...” Tenpou sighed as he took off his glasses and rubbed wearily at his eyes, already feeling the beginnings of a throb in his temple that signified the onset of a particularly aggravating headache. Why me? Why do I have to be the one to deal with this? But it was a question to which he already knew the answer. There wasn’t anyone else who could deal with it. “Should I even ask?”

Kenren shrugged negligently, not bothering to break his slouch in the chair. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

The throbbing increased. And that, very neatly, summed up the problem with Kenren. If it seemed like a good idea, the general was already halfway through its execution before the thought ever crossed his mind that perhaps he ought to think it over first before acting on it. If such a cautionary thought even did cross Kenren’s mind. It probably drowns in the alcoholic haze before it even gets the chance, Tenpou thought irritably.

“How drunk were you?” Everyone knew about the general’s love of alcohol. All Tenpou needed to do was come up with the perfect combination of the right words in a soothing tone, and chances were good that he could calm Konzen down.

“I wasn’t.”

Oh for... As interested as he was in combat and field tactics, Tenpou was not predisposed toward violent behavior himself. But now, as he stared across his desk at the bemused, slightly baffled countenance of the general, very clearly reading Kenren’s confusion over why it was such a big deal in the first place, Tenpou found his fingers twitching with the desire to throttle him.

“And what exactly was Konzen’s reaction to this?” Tenpou could always tell how much damage control would be required to avert disaster by the severity of Konzen’s reaction to a given irritation.

Kenren scratched his forehead, still not showing even a hint of concern. “Well, you know that pole-axed expression he tends to get whenever something happens that just refuses to fit into his view of the way the world should be?”

Tenpou nodded. Konzen tended to have that expression a lot. Especially whenever someone tried to strike up a conversation with him. So far, so good. It was sounding like something he could salvage after all.

“Right,” Kenren continued idly. “Well, then reality invaded his little fantasy land and he started screaming at me. I think the only thing preventing him from hauling off and punching me was that all of his yelling brought the kid running.”

Tenpou felt the uncharacteristic urge to bang his forehead onto the desk. The headache got worse. If Goku was involved… “What happened?” He couldn’t in all honesty say that he really wanted to know.

“Not a whole lot,” Kenren confessed with another shrug. “Konzen caught sight of the kid, stopped in the middle of his tirade, and stormed off in a huff.”

That, at least, was a relief. “Have you spoken to him since then?”

“I passed him in the hallway a few hours ago, but he snarled at me and kept walking.”

Tenpou rubbed at his forehead again. “So you came to me?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I figured you-”

“You made a mess and now you want me to clean it up,” Tenpou snapped, his tone coming out harsher than he intended.

Kenren blinked. “Are you mad at me?”

“I’m not...” Tenpou trailed off with a sigh, mentally counting to ten until the irritation passed. He really didn’t like to lie. “I’m not angry with you. I just wish that you’d think about the consequences of what you’re doing a bit more than you do.”

“I think!” Kenren objected with wide eyes. Whether he was intentionally trying to look like a puppy that had been cruelly kicked or if Kenren was truly hurt by the comment, Tenpou wasn’t certain. But knowing the general as he did, Tenpou rather suspected the former.

“Then tell me what you were thinking, to do something so incredibly stupid in the first place.”

“I was bored-”

“Kenren!”

“-and you were busy,” Kenren continued blithely, as if he had never intended to leave it at that. “So I went to see what Konzen was doing.”

“Which was?” Tenpou prompted when Kenren trailed off.

“The usual mountain of paperwork. I offered to help him-”

Suddenly the catalyst for the incident became crystal clear in Tenpou’s mind. “Tell me you didn’t-”

A slightly guilty grin formed on Kenren’s lips as he interrupted in his own defense, “Hey, it wasn’t my fault the wind blew the papers off his desk.”

“No, but I’m sure it was your fault that you opened the window.”

Never one to admit when he had made a mistake, Kenren rallied quickly. “Why he needs to keep that damn office so stuffy is beyond me! I mean really, I know being comfortable just goes against Konzen’s world view, but still, it wouldn’t kill him.”

Tenpou scrubbed at his forehead, the throbbing ache sharper than before. “All right, so you made a mess of Konzen’s office. That still doesn’t explain why you-”

“He started yelling at me,” Kenren cut Tenpou off quickly, recognizing the warning signs of a lecture about to commence. “And after I apologized for it and offered to help him clean up, too. I just wanted to shut him up.” He shrugged, and then added with a grin, “And it worked.”

“Until he started yelling at you again,” Tenpou pointed out dryly. Of all the things he had been expecting when the general had walked in with a sheepish smile on his face and asking to talk – between Tenpou’s vast imagination and his long familiarity with Kenren he had been prepared for all manner of things – he had not been expecting to hear that the man had done something so colossally idiotic as to kiss Konzen.

He probably should have seen this coming. Kenren had a knack for knowing how to irritate a person, knew exactly what to do and what to say elicit the maximum amount of outrage for the minimum amount of effort. And Tenpou had to admit that Konzen’s attitude was an irresistible trigger for Kenren’s contrary mischievousness. Annoying him, Tenpou could understand. But to deliberately do quite possibly the only thing that would throw Konzen into a real rage, Tenpou had thought that Kenren possessed more sense than that.

Pushing his glasses back up along the bridge of his nose, Tenpou steepled his fingers and gave Kenren his most severe stare. It was a satisfying sight indeed, to see the hilarity in Kenren’s eyes wilt away. “May I impart upon you some obviously much needed advice?”

Kenren sighed, hunching his shoulders like a child trying to ward off a lecture. “You know you’re going to anyway. I don’t know why you bother asking.”

“The mouth is the source of all disaster. Try to remember that.”

Kenren stared at him. “Hey, he was the one who-”

“Kenren.” Tenpou was having none of it.

“But I-”

“Kenren.”

The general glared at him. “Fine, blame it on me.”

Tenpou rolled his eyes. “How long have we been friends, Kenren? How long?”

“Forever,” Kenren grumbled under his breath. “So why you’re taking his side...”

“Because I know you, Kenren. And yes, I know that Konzen can be a little...” Tenpou paused, trying to find the most inoffensive word he could for his long-time friend. “...difficult at times.”

“‘A little,’ my ass.”

“But I also know that you can’t resist picking at him,” Tenpou continued on with determination, refusing to be sidetracked. “And I know you know this was your fault; you wouldn’t have come to me like this if you thought it wasn’t.”

“You’re right,” Kenren admitted then, shaking his head ruefully. “It was my fault.”

Tenpou looked at him suspiciously. “But...?”

“No, I mean it. It was my fault.”

There is no way I could have possibly gotten through to him.

“I shouldn’t have stopped when I did,” Kenren smirked at him. “It was just too early. Five more minutes and the only noise he would have been making would-”

“Kenren!”

~ The Present ~

“Sanzo!”

Oh, here we go. The wash of relief Gojyo felt upon seeing an uninjured Hakkai and Goku come running out of a still standing inn started to ebb into the more familiar annoyance the moment Goku opened his mouth and started yelling.

“Sanzo! Are you okay? Sanzo! Gojyo, what’d you do to Sanzo? Hakkai! Do something! Sanzo, wake up! Sanzo!”

Why is it that no matter what happens, I’m always the one who gets blamed for it? Gojyo sighed and, lacking any free hands, nudged Goku with a foot. “Get out of the way, monkey and shut up, before you have the whole damn town out here gawking at us.”

“Gojyo’s right, Goku. Please try to keep it down,” Hakkai interjected quietly, taking the shakujou from Gojyo’s unresisting hand as Goku opened his mouth to start screaming in earnest at Gojyo. “We don’t need to draw any more attention to ourselves than that fight already has, and Sanzo’s hurt pretty badly. He needs to sleep.”

The guilt trip worked. Goku’s mouth snapped shut, although he proceeded to glare bloody murder at Gojyo as they trooped back inside the inn and up to the two rooms the four of them were sharing. Hakkai led the way into the nearest room, leaned Gojyo’s shakujou up against the wall, and helped him put Sanzo down on one of the beds.

Between the two of them – Hakkai politely but firmly told Goku to stand back – they managed to get Sanzo undressed enough to take stock of his injuries. The nasty purpling bruise slowly engulfing the entirety of the left side of Sanzo’s torso made Gojyo wonder if Sanzo’s “maybe two” had been a conservative, highly optimistic estimate.

“Hakkai?” Goku inquired softly, looking from Sanzo to the healer.

“Go downstairs, find a large bowl, and fill it up with warm water. While you’re down there, find something clean to use for bandages,” Hakkai interrupting, looking away from Sanzo long enough to pin Goku with a somber stare.

Goku nodded seriously, cast one last glance at Sanzo, and hurried out of the room.

“Is it that bad?” Gojyo asked quietly, when he was certain Goku had gone beyond earshot.

Hakkai shook his head. “He’s had worse. I’m just tired. We suffered some minor injuries in the fight earlier, and I haven’t had the time to rest properly. I thought it would be easier to concentrate if Goku wasn’t here causing a distraction.”

“Are you all right?” Gojyo looked searchingly into Hakkai’s visible eye. I didn’t even ask how you were. The gods know what was happening while I was tracking Sanzo’s abductor, and I never even asked. “If it’s not life threatening, it can wait until-”

Hakkai gave him a patient, gentle smile. “I’m all right, honestly. But Sanzo’s in pain. Would you really want him to suffer just so I can take a nap?”

Yes, Gojyo thought obstinately. Sanzo’s a dick. “Hakkai, I’m-”

But Hakkai just shook his head, understanding evident in his eye. “Just take care of Sanzo’s things while I heal him.”

Recognizing the dismissal for what it was, Gojyo picked up the sutra, smoothed out some of the crinkles it had sustained during the fight, and rolled it up. I wonder what would happen if it got ripped. It made the world, right? So would the world fall apart? Or can’t it be destroyed in the first place?

It was an unnerving thought. So much of their mission depended on keeping the sutra safe, but if something happened to it along the way, then what? There were so many people out there who kept trying to take it from them, they had been in so many fights, and the instances where Sanzo had been injured were almost too numerous to count. What if some knife wielding youkai stabbed Sanzo in the back and tore the sutra? Was it imbued with some kind of divine protection? Or for all its power, was it still just a scroll?

Gojyo turned the sutra over in his hands, idly picking at an edge. It felt like such a fragile thing. But he had seen it vanquish powerful youkai that they themselves could not. He had watched it bind Goku in full Seiten Taisei mode. And it had survived their journey thus far without a nick, without a tear, without even a smudge.

Raising his head, Gojyo surreptitiously glanced around the room. There was Hakkai, bent over Sanzo, chi manifest beneath his outstretched hands. There was Sanzo, a human, surviving yet another set of wounds that would have killed a lesser man. And there, quietly opening the door was Goku, a fairly normal looking young man who just happened to be centuries old and born from rock. And me – something that’s been forbidden to exist by the very gods that sent us on this little field trip in the first place.

Gojyo looked back down at the sutra. All of us are more than what we seem, more than what we probably should be. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that some creepy old scroll is, too.

“Gojyo?”

“What?” Gojyo blinked as he came out of his reverie, looking up from the sutra and meeting Hakkai’s eye. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. Everything all right?”

The smile that turned up the corners of Hakkai’s lips, though wan, was sincere. “I’ve healed the severe injuries. He’ll be sore when he wakes up, but he shouldn’t be in any real pain.”

“How about you?” Gojyo could see the lines of fatigue scrawled across Hakkai’s features.

“I’m fine, though I have to admit that I’d like to go get some sleep,” Hakkai paused, looking as if there was more that he’d like to say.

“What?” Gojyo prompted.

“Um... well...” The smile became sheepish as Hakkai ran his hand back through his hair. “I was wondering if you’d do me a favor.”

“What do you-” Gojyo grimaced as Hakkai’s meaning became clear. “Oh shit, man. Can’t you ask for something else?”

“Now Gojyo,” Hakkai began, holding up his hands placatingly. “How bad can it be?”

~ Five Hundred Years Earlier ~

“Konzen?”

For a moment Kenren thought the other man was going to ignore him completely. But then, after a moment’s pause, Konzen slowly raised his head, violet eyes leaving the stack of papers in front of him to glare with glacial coldness at Kenren. The man’s moods were too mercurial to indicate whether his pointed silence was a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes, it was far better to get screamed at by Konzen than it was to be on the receiving end of his silence.

“I just wanted to talk to you,” Kenren told him quietly, remaining unobtrusively in the doorway in an attempt to convey his willingness to respect Konzen’s personal space. That Konzen tended to define his personal space as anything within a twenty-foot radius made it rather hard to respect completely, but Kenren wasn’t going to give Tenpou an opening to complain that he hadn’t tried. “But if you’re busy-” See, I’m even trying to be considerate of your time. I ought to get a damn medal for this. “-I can come back later.”

Konzen’s eyes narrowed, but he remained silent.

Wonderful. It’s going to be one of these. Lucky me. Kenren hadn’t risen to the rank of General of the Western Army by accident; he had played this game against Gojun, Li Touten, most of the rest of the army, and the Jade Emperor himself. As good as the great Konzen Douji undoubtedly was at it, Kenren knew he was better.

Deciding that not being told to go away was enough of an invitation stay, Kenren stepped inside the office and closed the door, noting the flash of anger in Konzen’s eyes, the way his face tightened forbiddingly. Suppressing a sigh, Kenren leaned back against the door in as non-threatening a manner as possible. “I thought I’d spare everyone the opportunity of hearing my dressing down,” he offered lightly, trying to find an opening to start the conversation.

“What do you want?” Konzen asked flatly.

Kenren held up his hands. “I just wanted to talk. Honest. Look, I won’t even move from this spot unless you say it’s all right.” Even that small gesture of surrender to Konzen rubbed him the wrong way. But Tenpou had done more than his share of the work to repair the damage Kenren had done, and though it galled him to do it, Kenren knew he owed Tenpou this much.

“Talk, then.”

“I wasn’t trying to insult you, Konzen.”

That Konzen had been expecting some kind of grudging apology – badgered out of Kenren by Tenpou – was confirmed by the way his eyes widened a tiny fraction. Not much, but considering he was going up against Konzen’s pride, that small movement was tantamount to an exclamation of surprise. Just because I act stupid doesn’t mean that I am, Konzen. You of all people ought to know that what we pretend to be isn’t necessarily what we are.

“What were you trying to do, then?”

“Make you shut up,” Kenren answered honestly, holding up a hand to forestall the outraged insult that he just knew was coming when Konzen immediately opened his mouth. “Maybe I took a liberty that I should not have, I can concede to that. But my intent was never malicious.”

Konzen shut his mouth slowly as he scrutinized Kenren’s eyes. Look all you want, Konzen. You can’t find lies where there aren’t any. Konzen must have found some sign of Kenren’s sincerity, because after a few silent seconds, there was a nearly imperceptible relaxing in the tension on his face. “There are other ways, Kenren.”

Cocking his head to the side, Kenren raised an eyebrow skeptically. “You would have stopped screaming at me if I had asked you to?”

Konzen glowered at him, apparently opting not to dignify the question with a response.

Kenren laughed, shaking his head. “Exactly. And as much as I’d like to sometimes, I wasn’t going to hit you.”

For a moment, Kenren thought Konzen was going to take offense to the comment. But then the blond rolled his eyes, and as Kenren watched, the rest of the tension drained out of him.

“You owe Tenpou a great deal of thanks,” Konzen murmured after a moment, his own backhanded way of letting Kenren know that he was willing to let the matter drop.

“Does this mean that I can move now?” Kenren asked with a lopsided smile.

“So long as you refrain from touching me,” Konzen replied automatically. He glanced down at the papers on his desk and added sharply, “And the window.”

Kenren was already halfway across the room before the echo of the words had died away. Konzen was a touchy, moody, uptight pain in the ass, but for some bizarre reason, Kenren was reluctant to lose the unlikely friendship that had developed between them. He still couldn’t really explain it himself, still couldn’t make logical sense out of what it was that he had felt that day in the square, when Konzen had taken responsibility for the three of them and the riot that they had almost caused. The only thing that Kenren knew with certainty was that some fundamental aspect of his life had been irrevocably changed that fateful day.

“Am I really that bad?” Kenren asked teasingly, leaning a hip against the side of Konzen’s desk and smirking at him. The smirk died on his lips when Konzen gave him a serious, piercing stare.

“I’m not one of your women, Kenren,” Konzen said quietly. “I’m not another name to add to your list of conquests. I won’t let you use me like that.”

I get used enough by everyone else.

The unspoken words hung between them, more poignant for not being said than if Konzen had bellowed them from the roof of the palace.

“I would never use you, Konzen,” Kenren found himself saying, the glib tone replaced with veracity. Konzen held his eyes for a moment longer. Then he tilted one of his shoulders in a little half-shrug and looked away, leaving Kenren to stare at his profile, partially hidden by the fall of his long, golden hair.

In the future, whenever he found himself looking back on the moments of their lives, Kenren would always recognize that precise moment as when it had all made sense.

~ The Present ~

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Gojyo sighed, finding himself torn between a bout of self-pity and irritation. Why is it always me who gets stuck with the shit jobs? A moment’s contemplation and he decided to settle for the self-pity. ‘Gojyo, get the supplies. Gojyo, watch the monkey. Gojyo, you didn’t get the right supplies. Gojyo, take the monkey with you this time.’ And now I get this.

It just wasn’t shaping up to be a good morning. Granted, for Gojyo, being awake to experience the morning was always a bad thing. But this morning was taking a turn for the worst. First it had been the craving for a cigarette that had lured him out of his already piss-poor sleep. Then there had been the various aches, pains, and cramps that had assailed him the moment he was conscious enough to feel them all, as his body told him in no uncertain terms that it did not appreciate spending the entire night sitting on the floor with only the door to lean against for support.

Playing babysitter hadn’t gone over well when Hakkai had politely suggested it last night, and it wasn’t going over any better now, with a fully conscious, pissed off monk glaring at him from the other side of the room.

“Babysitting your dumb ass,” Gojyo retorted finally, having moved past the self-pity and becoming firmly entrenched in irritation. Not that I expected any thanks or anything. After all, it wasn’t like I had anything else to do besides haul your ass through the wilderness.

Sanzo’s eyes narrowed until Gojyo started to wonder if he could continue to see out of them. “Where’s my gun?”

Gojyo held it up. “Where you can’t reach it. I’d like to get out of here without getting a hole in my head, thanks.”

“Give it to me.”

Gojyo rolled his eyes. “I guess that means you’re feeling better.”

“Now, Gojyo.”

Everything in him wanted to tell Sanzo to come get it if he wanted it so damn badly. But the moment he opened his mouth to say so, an image of Hakkai’s disapproving stare flashed through his mind. Gojyo scowled. Damn it, Hakkai. I have you nagging at me enough as it is. I don’t need you nagging when you’re not even here.

“Stop the stupid looks and give me my gun.”

Gojyo blinked, realizing that Sanzo was still glaring murderously at him. It just wasn’t worth the fight. And everything was always a fight where the great Sanzo was concerned. “Yeah, whatever. Here.” He tossed the gun to him, resisting the temptation to aim for Sanzo’s big head.

Sanzo caught it easily and opened the chamber to look at the bullets as if he thought Gojyo might have taken them. When he looked back up again his lips twisted into a frown of irritation, as if he was surprised to find that Gojyo hadn’t left the room. “Get the hell out of here,” he snapped, clicking the chamber back into place.

“What? No thanks for saving your life?” Gojyo asked with feigned surprise, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t recall asking you to save me.”

A part of him had been expecting Sanzo to say something like that, but Gojyo still felt a flicker of annoyance at the words. “What the hell was I supposed to do, then?” he demanded sarcastically. “Let you die?”

“Everyone dies, Gojyo.” How Sanzo managed to make everything he said sound like an insult, Gojyo would never understand.

“Not everyone goes looking for it though, Sanzo.”

“Get out. I won’t tell you again.”

Snorting in disgust, Gojyo stood up to leave the room. I don’t even know why I bother trying to talk to you. You’re such a fucking hypocrite. Gojyo froze, his hand hovering above the doorknob. I’ll be damned... “I finally figured it out,” he muttered under his breath.

“Now what are you babbling about?”

Gojyo turned back around to face Sanzo, who was looking at him with a mixture of impatience and irritation that was starting to turn to anger. “You. I finally figured you out.”

Sanzo stared at him coldly. “You’re an idiot.”

“You’re a hypocrite,” Gojyo shot back, refusing to be baited. “You talk an awful lot about living for yourself, but it’s all just talk. You’re not living for anything. You’re just waiting to die.”

“Am I really?” It was phrased as a question, but Gojyo knew Sanzo wasn’t really asking. His tone had taken on the edge that it always got right before he shot someone; it was a warning that to continue was to wager one’s ability to dodge a bullet against Sanzo’s unerring accuracy.

“Yeah,” Gojyo answered him anyway, a gambling man to the very end. “You are. I used to think it was because you were fucked up in the head. And you are. But that’s not the problem. You’re just scared. You’re so damned scared of getting hurt again because of whatever happened to you that you’ve stopped living.”

Sanzo had gotten to his feet. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he hissed through clenched teeth. Sanzo wore anger the same way Hakkai wore his polite, optimistic smile: it was a mask, carefully designed to conceal what was really going on beneath the surface. This time it wasn’t a mask.

Gojyo shrugged indifferently. “You could be right,” he conceded, not the least bit concerned about the dangerous glint in Sanzo’s eyes. “Can’t say I know enough about your past to make an accurate assumption.”

“And it’s none of your business.”

“Course not,” Gojyo agreed, flashing him a sarcastic smirk. “’Coz that’d mean you’d have to consider us friends. And after all the shit we’ve been through, all the fighting and traveling and sleeping and eating together, you can’t possibly do that.”

“I don’t want friends,” Sanzo sneered at him.

“Right,” Gojyo shot back snidely. “I forgot. Caring will kill you.”

“Yes,” Sanzo retorted venomously. “It will.”

Sometimes, Gojyo just wanted to punch him. This was one of those times. “So now you’re just run away like a coward, and never care about anything again?”

Sanzo glared at him.

“And I suppose you don’t care about any of us either, right?” Gojyo pressed, feeling his own anger start to rise. More than his pompous, infuriatingly sanctimonious attitude, it was the way Sanzo always made him feel worthless that Gojyo hated the most. It was one thing to get substandard treatment from the upstanding and gods-fearing populace. It was quite another to be on the receiving end of derision from an immoral, shitty excuse for a monk.

“No. I don’t.”

“Oh, really?” Somewhere in the back of his mind, Gojyo knew that he should turn around and walk away. Leave the bastard alone to stew in his self-imposed misery and not waste another thought on him. It was nothing more than he deserved. But Gojyo was a man of many contradictions and an equal number of flaws, one of which being the inability to leave well-enough alone. Ever since he could remember, Gojyo had possessed the instinctive ability to know exactly what would make a bad situation worse. In fact, he could even turn a perfectly happy moment into a catastrophe with very little effort. Usually all it took was one casually spoken comment, or an action of very little consequence. It was like a compulsion; he knew he should not do whatever he was about to do, but he could never quite manage to talk himself out of it.

He didn’t even bother to try this time.

“You could’ve fooled me,” Gojyo added and stalked across the room, purposefully crowding into Sanzo’s personal space. “I’ve heard you,” he leaned closer to hiss in Sanzo’s ear. “I’ve heard you cry out the monkey’s name, Hakkai’s, hell, even mine, when you thought one of us was dead. What was that, Sanzo, if you don’t care? How many times did you risk your life to save one of ours? Why go through the trouble of pulling our asses out of the fire so many times? Why risk your life to save us? You keep pretending you don’t give a damn. Go ahead. But you’re not fooling anyone.”

Suddenly the gun was between them. Sanzo’s eyes were cold as his finger tightened on the trigger. Gojyo laughed and leaned forward until the muzzle was pressing into his chest.

“Go ahead, Sanzo. You’ve been pulling that fucking gun on me since the day I met you. Shoot me. Here and now. Go on. I’m not stopping you. Go ahead and fucking shoot me.”

“Get the fuck away from me.”

“What’ll take, Sanzo? Huh? What’ll it take to make you shoot me?”

Sanzo’s lips parted in a hateful smile. “You’re not worthy of sullying my bullets, you pathetic mongrel.”

The barb hit, just as the smug bastard undoubtedly knew it would. Gojyo grabbed him by the front of his not-so-holy robes, intending to hit him, injuries be damned. He ended up jerking him forward and kissing him instead.

It wasn’t one of those sappy, romantic affairs he always heard village girls giggling and sighing over. It was hard and fast and dominating. To get past Sanzo’s considerable array of defenses, it had to be. And then it was over, lightning-fast and leaving them standing there staring at each other in silence. Sanzo’s eyes were slightly out of focus, his jaw was slack, and his pale face held the beginnings of a flush. Gojyo wished there was a way to capture the moment; he’d never seen the blond look so dumbstruck.

And then, true to form, he pressed the issue.

“Guess you’re not going to shoot me after all,” Gojyo observed brightly, giving Sanzo a cheeky grin.

Sanzo’s eyes narrowed, confusion giving way to the sort of intense focus Gojyo never liked being the recipient of. His mouth snapped shut and settled into a firm, unbendingly cold line. The flush disappeared as if it had never been there.

Oops.

Sanzo blinked.

Then he pulled the trigger.

phoenix_fiction @ 2006-07-31T20:17:00

2006-08-01T00:18:36Z

Title: In the Shadow of the Moon
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts II
Rating: G
Disclaimer: So very not mine.
Note: Yet another almost finished thing I found cluttering up my computer
Summary: A Nobody dreams...

Sometimes late at night, when the shadows have lengthened and the moon has long since passed beneath the horizon, the shattered fragments of his memories return. They are like ephemeral phantoms, flickering into existence, trailing their tattered edges across his mind in a maddening caress. Long enough to recognize. Never long enough to contain.

In the beginning, he had attempted to ensnare them. Strategy and stealth were skills he wielded with abandon in this life and, though he could scarcely recall it, the one that had come before. They always came to him in the deepest part of the night, when his mind was free to wander beyond the trials of the day. And so it was there that he lay in ambush, in the night that was his domain. Long after the castle had fallen silent, he remained awake, pacing the length and breadth of his chambers, waiting with the patience of the wolf. Often the wait was in vain. On rare occasions, it was rewarded.

The memories came. Tantalizing images. Half-remembered sensations. Echoes of what it was to feel. He caught them one by one. Clung tightly to them as they ghosted by. And when he tried to look upon them, to uncover the secrets they held, he found himself grasping only emptiness. The memories slipped away, faded from his mind as if they had never been there. In their wake, he knew only that he had known, however briefly, what it was he could no longer remember.

In his twilight existence, not even the comfort of hope could be his.

Time passed. The waiting ceased. Even a wolf understands defeat.

Sometimes late at night, the shattered fragments of his memories return. And Saïx turns away from them. They do not matter. They are not real.

What use has a wolf for dreams?

Story Listing

2006-07-30T15:12:53Z

Because I'm lazy and don't like scrolling back through previous entries, I've compiled a list of all the stories I've posted on this journal. It's sorted by fandom and linked to the appropriate entry. I'll be updating this list as I post new stories, and to make it easy to find, there is a link to this entry on my journal's sidebar.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Waiting

What If

Fake

Scars

Final Fantasy VII

Aftermath

Comes the Dawn

Once Upon a Time

Get Backers

Precious Things

Harry Potter

Embers and Ashes

Fine Lines
Prologue: The Best Laid Plans...
Chapter 1: It’s A Small World After All
Chapter 2: A Matter of Coincidence
Chapter 3: Should Have Known Better
Chapter 4: The Pink Flamingo
Chapter 5: Trust
Chapter 6: It’s The Little Things You Miss
Chapter 7: Bearing The Burden
Chapter 8: The Party’s Over
Chapter 9: Things Said In Anger
Chapter 10: Last Minute Preparations
Chapter 11: Not To Question Why
Chapter 12: Another Year Or Two

Shades of Grey
Chapter 1: Home Sweet Home
Chapter 2: Overdue Conversations
Chapter 3: Being Human
Chapter 4: History Repeats Itself
Chapter 5: The Harbinger of Reality
Chapter 6: A Ripple, Once Begun…
Chapter 7: Of Dungeons and Dragons
Chapter 8: Paying the Price
Chapter 9: Just This Once
Chapter 10: Having Faith
Chapter 11: Do Not Go Gently
Chapter 12: The Calm Before the Storm

One Moment
Prologue: More Weasleys
Chapter 1: Something To Talk About
Chapter 2: A Hint of Normalcy
Chapter 3: To Catch the Snitch
Chapter 4: These Little Surprises
Chapter 5: The Memories That Sustain Us
Chapter 6: The Breaking of the Storm
Chapter 7: Fear and Lies
Chapter 8: Desperate Times
Chapter 9: Echoes in the Silence
Chapter 10: Hall of Broken Dreams
Chapter 11: Those Left Behind
Chapter 12: Dying of the Light

Written in the Sand
Chapter 1: Potter’s Field
Chapter 2: To Throw A Stone
Chapter 3: A Promise Made
Chapter 4: Against All Odds
Chapter 5: Necessary Sacrifice
Chapter 6: In the Care of Magical Creatures
Chapter 7: Standing Witness
Chapter 8: Answers
Chapter 9: All Things Fair...
Chapter 10: Through the Glass, Darkly
Chapter 11: Day of Burning
Chapter 12: If the World Should Perish
Chapter 13: A Promise Kept

What You Leave Behind ~ Coming Soon ~

Worlds Collide ~ Coming Soon ~
Part 1: Picking Up the Pieces
Part 2: There's a First Time for Everything
Part 3: Til Death Do Us Part
Part 4: Meet the Snotloys

Common Ground ~ Coming Soon ~

Sins of the Father ~ Coming Soon ~

That To Which We Cling ~ Coming Soon ~

The Gathering ~ Coming Soon ~

Erosion ~ Coming Soon ~

The Story of Our Lives ~ Coming Soon ~

Bonus Stories ~ Coming Soon ~
The Summer That Never Happened
Untitled Christmas Story

Insanity

Never and Always

Kingdom Hearts II

In the Shadow of the Moon

Saiyuki

The Source of All Disaster

phoenix_fiction @ 2006-07-27T07:15:00

2006-07-27T11:16:26Z

Title: Comes the Dawn
Series: Final Fantasy VII, post-AC and DoC
Characters: Rufus and Vincent, with a guest appearance by Reeve
Rating: PG
Warning: Here there be yaoi implications. And angst. You've been warned.
Summary: When one empire falls, another must rise.
Author's Note: This is a story I wrote - belatedly - for my friend shahni's birthday.

“Are you enjoying the celebration?”

Surprised at the sound of the unexpected voice but unable to show it in the presence of so many people, Rufus did nothing more than turn his head slightly so that he could look up at Vincent out of the corner of his eye. “I had not thought you were going to be in attendance tonight,” he said quietly, not wishing to attract any more attention than they were already receiving.

Though they kept a respectable distance, the other attendees to the inaugural ball had been surreptitiously watching him since he had entered the hotel. It had been eight years since the destruction of Midgar, but the people of Gaia were still uncertain about what to make of Rufus Shinra and his place in the new world. There was no denying his commitment to the reconstruction effort; a majority of the funds required to build Edge – and repair the many damaged towns and cities – had been put forward by him without any request for repayment, and his Turks were frequently seen performing tasks of menial labor that not so very long ago would have been well outside the scope of their duties. But Rufus was still the owner of the wealthiest, most powerful company in the world, and a few years of good deeds had not been nearly enough to erase from the minds of the people the memory of what Shinra had done to the planet.

His presence this evening had caused quite a stir; Rufus could see it in the sideways glances shot his way when it seemed as if he would not notice, in the whispered conversations that cropped up around him, and in the heightened tension that fell across the room like a hush whenever he moved among the crowd. They were waiting, but for what, Rufus had been unable to surmise. Some sort of attack, most likely. A well organized assassination and subsequent declaration of his intent to reinstate his power over them all. Perhaps it was because he was older now, or maybe he had grown more cynical than he had thought. Either way, Rufus found the whole ludicrous suspicion – for that was undoubtedly what was being bandied about – oddly amusing. As if he had spent nearly a decade trying to rebuild the world just so he could sink it into ruin again. The overestimation of his power was undeniably flattering. The underestimation of his intelligence, however, was rather disappointing.

Now that Vincent had appeared at his side, the murmurs rose to a dull roar and the sideways glances were discarded in favor of outright staring. Rufus supposed that such a reaction was to be expected. After all, the former members of Avalanche had risen from ordinary heroes to legend in the years and intervening crises following the fall of Midgar. And Vincent Valentine, much to the man’s chagrin, had surpassed even Cloud Strife’s prolific status – the combination of his mysterious appearance and his tragic past at the hands of the Shinra Corporation had served to cement him as the universal favorite. To see him speaking so casually to the man many still considered to be the source of all evil was an unbelievable and wholly remarkable event. What a pity they cannot see more than this, Rufus thought, in an oft-forgotten place where the last vestiges of a twisted sense of humor lurked. I fear they would be scandalized, to see their precious hero partaking in such disgraceful company.

“I thought I would surprise you,” Vincent responded softly, the corner of his lips quirking in the smallest of smiles. “And my offer to take his place allowed Tseng to take the night off.”

One pale eyebrow rose. “Tseng requested the evening off?” Rufus repeated in disbelief, a tendril of unease slithering down his spine.

In all the years of having known him, Rufus could not recall even one instance in which Tseng had asked to use any portion of the stockpile of personal leave he had been accruing since he had come to work for Shinra. The Turk had grudgingly submitted to taking the time necessary for his body to recuperate from the almost fatal injury Sephiroth had inflicted on him, but he had immediately dismissed the suggestion to take a few days off after being tortured by Kadaj. Personal leave was a security risk, Tseng had informed him coolly, and he would not put Rufus’ life in danger for the sake of a few extra hours to lie in bed. The ensuing argument had hit an impasse as soon as it began, and Rufus was left with no other recourse than to drop the matter.

Dull though he knew it had to be, only the most catastrophic of emergencies would have prevented Tseng from missing a night of standing silently at the president’s side like an overanxious mother hen and glaring at anyone with the audacity to come within five feet of his charge. “Has there been…” Rufus’ worried voice trailed off as understanding dawned, and a rare, genuinely happy grin flitted briefly across his lips. “I never thought to see the day. Does she know?”

Vincent shook his head. “Before he contacted her, Tseng made up a rather transparent story about needing to check the security systems in one of the hotels downtown. Though it is well-known for the romantic atmosphere of its restaurant, Elena seemed to have fallen for the ruse.”

Undoubtedly because she expects a proposal from Tseng to come only in her dreams, Rufus thought with a trace of good-natured amusement. Tseng and Elena had been dancing around the issue of their feelings for one another for as long as she had been a Turk. With the world perpetually on the verge of collapse, it had seemed as if the dance would continue indefinitely, which to Rufus was the most undesirable of outcomes; there was only so much mooning about he could be reasonably asked to tolerate. It was a relief to know that it would be out in the open now, and that he and the rest of the Turks could stop pretending to be oblivious to it.

“Perhaps I ought to clear tomorrow’s calendar so that they do not feel obligated to come to work,” Rufus mused, smirking up at Vincent before glancing out over the crowd once again. It was ironic, how so innocuous a night could mean so many things to so many different people.

To the people in this room - and to Tseng and Elena - it was a night of beginnings.

The years of hard work and dedication had paid off for the World Recovery Organization. Originally formed to aid in the reconstruction and protection of the planet following the devastation Sephiroth had inflicted on it, the WRO had grown from a small, almost underground militia to a major political force with governmental leanings. As its membership soared, so too did society’s support until the head of the WRO was nominated to lead not just the organization, but the also the world and its people. To many, he was the ideal candidate; intelligent, resourceful, charismatic, and trusted by the masses. As an executive of Shinra, he had witnessed firsthand the depths to which humanity was capable of sinking. Yet, while such a sordid start would have ordinarily precluded him from the public’s trust, the fact that he rejected his employer and went on to become one of the famed members of Avalanche served to absolve him of any negativity his past could have leveled against him. Despite his protests that he did not wish to assume the mantle of political leadership, the debates raged on until he was persuaded to accept the responsibility that the citizenry wanted to lay at his feet. And on this night, Reeve Tuesti was inaugurated as the first elected president of the new world.

There had been a great deal of speculation that Rufus, through the Shinra Corporation, would move against the WRO to block Reeve’s ascension to power. Many feared the outbreak of a global war; the WRO had the support of the people, but Shinra possessed the most resources, and the people believed that if the two factions clashed, they would irreparably shatter the world. But when the nomination came, no objection was voiced from Shinra, and in a show of support that alleviated some of the general concern, Rufus himself met with Reeve in congratulations.

Were it not for the gravity of the situation, Rufus would have found the whole thing to be extremely comical. As it was, he had to resign himself to adopting a somber mien whenever he was out in public so that no new rumors of his maniacal plans to rule the world would start cropping up. Eventually, and Rufus hoped that it would be sooner rather than later so as to keep the idiocy to a minimum, everyone would realize that his diabolical plans extended only as far as ensuring that his supply of tea – cultivated in the more inaccessible regions of Cosmo Canyon – never ran out. There was also the experimental cognac in the cellar that he was trying his hand at aging, but best not to alarm the populace too much.

“Rufus!” The enthusiastic exclamation jolted Rufus out of his musings in time to see Reeve bearing down on him an instant before the newly elected president clapped an overly familiar hand on his shoulder. That was one of the many problems with Reeve; he seemed to believe that personal space happened to other people. “And do my eyes deceive me, or is that Vincent Valentine himself come to the join the party?” Reeve turned to Vincent with the sort of wide, open smile that had never come easily to Rufus.

“Good evening, Reeve,” Vincent greeted his former teammate politely, inclining his head in a short bow before giving him a small, comradely grin. “Or would you prefer President Sith?”

Reeve laughed, and much to Rufus’ relief, turned his tactile attentions on Vincent by slapping him heartily on the back. “Only if you’re not going to object to me calling you Vinny, old friend.”

Long association with the man allowed Rufus to correctly interpret the pained cast that Vincent’s grin suddenly developed. Nonchalantly feigning an itch, Rufus ran a hand over his mouth to hide the bemused smile he wasn’t quit able to discourage. It wouldn’t do for the gala’s attendees to see him smile; it might alert them to his diabolical scheme of trying not to laugh and that would just throw the whole building into a panic.

“Ah, Reeve,” Vincent began, sounding as if he were searching for an elegantly diplomatic way to tell his friend that further utterances of ‘Vinny’ would result in a swift punch to the face. “Perhaps in light of our shared experiences, we can dispense with formalities.”

“Formalities?” Reeve echoed, with the same kind of smirk Rufus had seen all too often on Reno when the red-haired Turk was preparing to play a particularly embarrassing practical joke on Elena. “I can’t quite recall when we were on a formal basis. Seems to me I remember this one time, during a stop at Costa del Sol, when…”

As the conversation turned to fond recollection about their days in Avalanche, Rufus took the opportunity to slip away. They deserved a private moment alone before the crowd got over its collective awe and descended upon them in hopes of getting a picture or a kind word that could then be carried back to friends and family like some sort of trophy. Making his way out of the ballroom, Rufus chose a hallway at random and started down it, welcoming the chance to get away from the wary eyes that followed his every move and the bright lights that had made him feel uncomfortably exposed.

Not too terribly long ago, attending social functions and playing whatever roles happened to be required came as easily to him as breathing. And though he would never admit it, Rufus had actually looked forward to the occasions that granted him the excuse to display his mastery in the art of verbal jousting. But what had once been a reprieve from the monotonies of never-ending paperwork had now become an onerous trial he knew he would soon fail. It was no longer a simple matter to stand before an audience and project the appearance of total control, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to speak and act for extended periods without betraying himself. Only his considerable strength of will and his stubborn refusal to reveal his weakness to others allowed him to continue as if nothing had changed.

This evening had been no exception. Long hours of standing around, mingling, continually walking from one end of the hotel to the other, and more standing around to listen to Reeve’s drawn out, frightfully dull speech had taken their toll. And as cutting-edge as the hotel’s environmental controls were, there was only so much that could be done when the attendees numbered nearly seven thousand. It was a very large hotel, but it was not that large. Hot, tired, and feeling the start of the aching that now occurred whenever he was forced to be on his feet for an extended length of time, Rufus was in need of a moment’s respite.

You have gotten old before your time, he chided himself, irritated at his inability to ward off the fatigue that he was still unaccustomed to feeling. Soon you will be confined to that gods-accursed chair again. Happening upon a door that led outside onto one of the many terraces lining the face of the building, he stepped outside into the cool fall air and walked over to railing. Leaning against it casually, as if to do so was purely a matter of choice and not a necessity to remaining upright; he looked out across the city that had never come to feel like home, despite nearly a decade spent living in it. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but Edge was a symbol of the new world and he was a decaying relic of the one that had been destroyed. Turning away from the multitude of glittering lights, Rufus moved to the corner of the terrace and looked to the southwest where there was nothing but emptiness.

To the people he had left behind inside the hotel, this night was one of beginnings. To man who was once the ruler of an empire, it was one of endings.

So does our era end, Rufus thought as he stared in the direction Midgar. And the new one begins. His eyes could not pierce the velvety darkness that lay like a shroud over the former city, obscuring the wasted ruin that had not yet been rebuilt. But in his mind, resurrected from the exquisitely detailed memories that had been carefully stored away and were more accurate than the existing photographs, he saw it as it had been. For the first time since its destruction, as he stood alone in the midst of what would later be hailed as the largest celebration of the century, Rufus gave himself over to the past and walked once more down the streets of the only home he had ever known.

In order to avoid succumbing to the despair that had attempted to overwhelm him, Rufus had forbidden himself from indulging in the luxury of reminiscence. His world had crumbled to dust, and he knew that lingering in what could never be again would have killed him. So he had turned his sight toward the future and trudged ahead with grim determination, refusing to look back. But now, sensing the past reaching out to claim him, Rufus saw no harm in remembering. Soon, very soon, he would be just another tattered memory that would slowly fade away.

Weary though he was, Rufus would have stood there until dawn forced reality to intrude on memory. There were some things more important than physical comfort. But it had been many years since he had last faced the world alone. Less than an hour after he had gone out onto the terrace, Vincent materialized out of the shadows behind him and without a word, joined him at the railing.

It had happened slowly, in increments so minute that they were barely recognizable as what they were. It had not been the grand gestures, as would have been assumed by others had they known. It was not in the saving of his life or the lives of his people. It was not even in the act of fighting by his side. Those were the actions that had created a friendship, an understanding and a sense of camaraderie where none had been expected. Instead, it was the glance of an eye meeting his own without contempt. It was the touch of a hand that sought to gain nothing from him. It was the weight of a presence at his back that was not born out of duty. It was all of the subtle, intangible things that had created a lover.

In the crimson eyes of the one who had the most reason to hate him, he was not the spoiled brat who had once owned the world. He was not the fallen ruler of a dead empire. He was a man; one that made many mistakes and harbored a great number of regrets. A man with thoughts that, while occasionally ignoble, were still sound and worth consideration. A man with feelings that made him more than just the hand that signed paychecks or the image of a bygone era. Just a man, important not for what he was, but who he was.

“What are you thinking?” The question was barely above a whisper.

Rufus did not take his eyes from the place where Midgar once stood. “That I could not have left this world in more capable hands,” he responded softly, smiling without bitterness.

“Rufus...”

“He can be abrasive, I know,” Rufus blithely continued, pretending that he hadn’t heard the note of alarm creep into Vincent’s voice. “And his penchant for adopting the persona of a robotic cat at the first sign of trouble is a bit disturbing. But I am not blind to his compassion and his commitment to this world. He will rebuild it in a way that I never could, and it will be the better for it.”

“You give yourself too little credit,” Vincent admonished quietly, sounding as if he wanted to say something else.

Rufus shook his head. “The world needs to heal, Vincent. And to do that, it must move on. There are too many scars, too many mementos of suffering lingering on long after they should have disappeared.” The trace of irony in his voice was unintentional, and though he tried to mute it, the way Vincent shifted beside him told Rufus that he had not been successful.

“Don’t,” Vincent said sharply, putting his hand on Rufus’ arm and twisting him about so that they faced one another. “There is no guarantee that-”

Rufus met Vincent’s eyes and gave him a lopsided grin. “You know,” he interrupted conversationally, as if they were discussing something as trivial as the latest hire for the secretarial pool. “At first I was rather put out about the whole thing. To survive countless assassination attempts, an explosion, the end of the world, and an impromptu dive off the side of a forty-story building, only to be told that an idiotic experiment initiated by my equally idiotic father had slowly been killing me all of my life was really very vexing. So much for all those high-handed notions of my own immortality,” Rufus muttered with a sigh of mock exasperation.

Vincent was opening his mouth to speak, but Rufus would let him have none of it. It was a conversation they had had frequently since his diagnosis of mako poisoning. A few injections given when he was too young to remember them, kept secret and later forgotten when the one responsible for them met an unfortunate end in a tragic subway ‘accident’, enough to make a person nauseous but not nearly enough to cause lasting harm if they did not continue. No one could have predicted his body’s unusual reaction to the foreign substance; there had never been a case of cellular degeneration progressing so slowly for so many years. By the time it had been discovered, in the year following his contraction of the Geostigma, a cure was impossible.

His eyes drifted toward the hole in the skyline. “Our time has passed,” Rufus whispered, speaking to himself, to his city, and to Vincent. “I know this now, and I accept it. We cannot go back. We should not go back. We had our day, and now that it has ended, all that is left to us is to retire into the night with dignity. The day that will follow belongs to others, and I am content to know that the future has been given into the hands of those more suitable for its care than I.”

Vincent said nothing, and for a while they stood together in silence. The understanding that they shared often made words irrelevant, and in those cases where they were not, what needed to be said had been said over the course of the last eight years. So deep was their connection that Rufus suspected they could go without speaking for the rest of his rapidly dwindling life.

Looking into the distance as he was, Rufus did not see Vincent move, but he felt the shifting currents of air seconds before the former Turk’s arms wrapped around him and pulled him back against the other man’s chest. “And what of those who cannot sleep; who must remain awake through the long night and all of the days that follow?” Vincent inquired, his breath ghosting over the shell of Rufus’ ear.

Though it was voiced in the unassuming tone of curiosity, the question was born of suffering. It was the pain of being left behind, of watching another loved one return to the Lifestream and knowing that he would not be permitted to follow. It was the fear of eternity, of never finding surcease from the loneliness. A lesser man would offer a sympathetic hand and the well-meaning assertion that in such a long life, there would always be others. Rufus was not a lesser man. There would be no other Lucrecia Crescent. And there would never be another Rufus Shinra.

Laying his right hand atop the claw, Rufus twined the fingers of his left hand around those of Vincent’s right. “You will continue on,” he answered truthfully, knowing that there were no magic words he could offer to ease the pain. Leaning his head back against Vincent’s shoulder, Rufus glanced at him askance. “And when you tire of wakefulness,” he commented with a smile, “you will open one of those bottles aging in the cellar. It will not taste as well as it should, being opened prematurely, but you will fill the glasses anyway. And for a time, we will be together again.”

Vincent rested his chin on the top of Rufus’ head, and when he sighed, Rufus could feel it as much as hear it. “However small and fleeting the comfort, I suppose it would not be wise to discount it.”

There would be others, of that Rufus was certain. Some would be small, and others large. But they would be enough to carry him through the deepest part of his grief. And then, without the burden of guilt and the bitter sting of regret, Vincent would heal.

“I will not truly be gone,” Rufus told him evenly. “For thirty years, I poured all that I am into the Shinra Corporation. As long as it exists, in one form or another, so too will I. And soon it will pass to you.”

In spite the situation, or perhaps because of it, Vincent laughed. “And if I wished to gamble away all of its resources at the gaming tables of the Golden Saucer?”

“Then you would do so in the company of my ghost,” Rufus informed him lightly, glad that Vincent had chosen levity over solemnity. “And, lest you believe that to be an enjoyable way in which to spend time in my presence, let me hasten to assure you that I would take great pleasure reminding you, ad nauseam, of what a terrible gambler you are.”

“In that case, I would be better off using it to pay for the construction of a monument to Reeve.” If it were possible to voice a smirk, Vincent would be doing a fine job of it.

“I should hope that you have the good taste to include on it a plaque, containing the transcript of one of his speeches,” Rufus returned dryly. “After all, it would be a shame to deprive future generations of such a fine example of riveting oratory.”

Vincent had never asked why Rufus had chosen him as his successor. His only response to the news had been a raised eyebrow and noncommittal exhalation of air that was far too dignified to be called a snort. He did not ask now. “I still cannot fathom what it is you wish me to do with it,” Vincent said after a short pause.

Rufus shrugged. “I have no desire one way or another; I merely wish you to do with it as you please. Aid Reeve in his endeavors, conquer the world, build an island fortress off the coast of Wutai, or commission a ridiculously expensive statute dedicated to the wonder of cats. The decision is yours. Only...” he trailed off, not quite certain how to express the one request he possessed.

“If you asked it of me, I would pull the moon from the sky and extinguish the light of the stars,” Vincent said gravely, without exaggeration. Though he had no idea how such a thing could be accomplished, Rufus knew that somehow, in some unfathomable way, Vincent would find a way to make good on that declaration.

He was dying, the fragments of his life slipping through his fingers with increasing speed as his body surrendered to the damage being wrought within it. And yet here in this moment, standing before the wreckage of his world, enfolded in the arms of an extraordinary man that he had never expected to love as much as he did, Rufus was finally at peace. “Watch over them, Vincent,” he requested soberly. “They are the closest thing to a family that I have ever had, and I want them to have all that they deserve and all that I was never able to give them. Peace. Happiness. And a world without fear.”

“The Turks will want for nothing,” Vincent vowed without hesitation, needing no clarification as to whom Rufus was referring. “They will prosper. And they will be happy. I promise you that.”

“Then I am content,” Rufus announced gratefully, “and can leave this world without fear.”

“Stay,” Vincent whispered, his arms tightening around Rufus as if such a simple gesture would be enough to ward off death’s approach. “Please. Just a little while longer.”

“Until I can draw breath no longer,” Rufus promised softly.

It was enough. It had to be.

Soon the dawn would come. And together, they would greet it when it did.

phoenix_fiction @ 2006-07-27T07:14:00

2006-07-27T11:14:54Z

Title: Once Upon a Time
Series: Final Fantasy 7
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Tell a kid a story...
Notes: I was challenged to write a children's story involving Rufus and the Turks. Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.

“So one day, our hero Reno an’ his good buddy Rude were out takin’ a walk, right? An’ it was all, y’know, sunny with the big puffy clouds an’ the birds singin’ an’ the rainbows. An’ they were out walkin’, talkin’ bout the things they did the day before, like work an’ sh-stuff, an’ they’re thinkin’ bout stoppin’ in one of those fancy restaurants for some... ah... burgers an’ ice cream, right? An’ right when they’re crossin’ the street to go inside, the phone rings! Rude doesn’t wanna answer it, but since Reno’s a hero an’ all, he can’t very well ignore it. It could be somethin’ important. Like an earthquake. Or a... a fire where he’s gotta run in an’ rescue people. So he answers the phone an’ it’s the Prince of Edge, right, callin’ cuz the Princess has been kidnapped by a dragon!

“Reno an’ Rude are like knights or somethin’, y’know? Workin’ for the Prince an’ protectin’ the Princess. That sorta thing. So they forget bout the ice cream an’ the balloons an’ they run down the street to the castle. It’s right in the middle of Edge, so they’ve gotta run pretty far an’ dodge cars an’ pedestrians an’ old ladies with little yappy dogs that try to bite them! But they escape the old people an’ Avalanche an’ they get to the castle in record time. The Prince is standing outside, lookin’ like he’s gonna cry.

"‘Oh, Reno! And Rude! Whatever would I do without you!’ the Prince says, wavin’ his arms around all panicky like. ‘You simply must rescue the Princess! I would go myself, but the evil B-er, Witch is lurking around at the outskirts of Edge, waiting to put a curse on me so that I will forget the Princess and fall in love with her instead!’"

“So Reno an’ Rude get their swords an’ armor an’ guns, cuz you can’t go fight a dragon without guns, an’ they leave the castle, promisin’ the Prince they’ll fuc-beat u-kil-slay the monster an’ the Witch too, right? Cuz she’s all evil an’ stuff an’ Reno remembers the time he got stuck in the chopper with her for five hours an’ she tortured him somethin’ awful. There’s lotsa monsters outside Edge, comin’ outta the ruins of Midgar, cuz it’s all haunted now an’ scary. But Reno an’ Rude are like the world’s greatest fighters, right? So they kil-uh... take care of all the snakes an’ bears an’ they even run into a vampire! But he’s not match for them an’ runs away cuz violence is all bad an’ not somethin’ ya wanna do. Ever. Kinda like smokin’ an’ drinkin’ an’ swearin’ an’ fuc-ah... gettin’ too friendly with people.

“But finally they get to Midgar, cuz dragons like to live in haunted places, an’ they’re confronted by the Witch!

“‘You’ve gone far enough, you warriors of light and truth!’ she tells them, holdin’ out her hands an’ gettin’ ready to put a curse on them. ‘I won’t let you prevent the Prince from falling in love with me anymore! The dragon I’ve tamed will eat the Princess, and then he shall be mine! And you will both be dead before you realize that the only way to stop it is to ask it not to eat the Princess!’”

“The Witch wasn’t very bright, tellin’ Reno an’ Rude how to stop the dragon an’ save the Princess, but that was what they were countin’ on, cuz y’know, hurtin’ peoples’ bad an’ all. So Rude sneaks up behind her all stealthy like, an’ she’s so busy gloatin’ an’ daydreamin’ bout the Prince that she never notices an’ Rude knocks her out. Once the Witch’s outta the way, Reno an’ Rude hurry into Midgar.

“They fight all kinds of ghosts an’ mutants an’ spiders, an’ finally they make it into the center of the city where the old castle used to be. An’ there’s the dragon, about to eat the Princess! So Reno an’ Rude run over an’ start shootin’ the dragon. But it’s a dragon, right? Got them scales an’ claws an’ spiky things. So the bullets are just bouncing off it like crazy! But it stops tryin’ to eat the Princess, which was the point all along. Got to create a diversion, right? Distract it so they could get close enough to talk to it.

“Once they’re close enough, Reno asks the dragon not to eat the Princess. An’ cuz that’s what the Witch told it to do, it stops an’ lets the Princess go. So the Princess runs up to Reno an’ gives him a kiss, right? Cuz that’s what Princesses do when they’re rescued by heroes. An’ besides, Reno knows that the Princess has got the hots for him, Prince or no Prince. So Reno an’ Rude take the Princess back to the Kingdom of Edge an’ the Prince is so happy to see them an’ have the Princess back that he gives Reno an’ Rude a raise an’ a week off of work. An’ to celebrate, Reno an’ Rude go back to that place with the really good dr-burgers, an’ have a party.”

Story concluded, Reno glanced down at the kid he was supposed to be entertaining, feeling rather proud of himself. For not having had any preparation – or warning that this mission wasn’t “protect Reeve’s kid” and was instead something along the lines of “babysit Reeve’s kid while everyone else goes out to some highfalutin dinner party” – Reno thought that he’d done a good job. There was action. There was adventure. There was a hint of romance. And there was even a lesson thrown in there about not doing all of the things Reno did on a daily basis.

But the kid – whose name Reno had already forgotten and was referring to as Cait out of deference to Reeve’s creative past – wasn’t looking at him. In fact, he seemed to be awfully interested in something going on behind Reno. Suspecting that there was an assassination attempt in progress, Reno whirled around quickly, combat scenarios flashing through his mind. He’d reached for his gun and had it leveled at the doorway before he’d completed the turn, but one look at what was standing behind him and the gun drooped, dangling from a suddenly lifeless hand.

Funny... Those assassins sure were looking nice now.

For a second, Reno maintained the futile hope that his impromptu storytelling session had gone unheard. But that hope guttered and died as he catalogued the evidence arrayed before him. Elena was glaring at him as if she were willing him to die some hideous death, and knowing her, she probably was. Tseng was looking blanker than usual, which meant that he was fuming. Rude was staring at him, and though Reno couldn’t see his eyes behind the shades, he knew his partner well enough to know that they had narrowed. Rufus looked paler than normal and his right eye was twitching, indicating that he’d passed through mildly annoyed and was well on his way toward lethally angry. And Reeve was standing behind them all, looking as if he were trying not to laugh.

No. They had heard every damn word.

The goodbyes that were exchanged between Reeve and the others were good-natured, as if nothing had happened and Reno didn’t exist. That didn’t bode well at all. Shinra’s corporate policy for dealing with problems was to ignore them until they went away, usually by force and at the bottom of the ocean. Reeve’s apologetic smile and hand on his shoulder as Reno walked out behind the rest of them only served to reinforce the fact that he was in deep shit. Even the guy who had a robot cat for an alternate personality pitied him.

It was only when they were out in the hallway and far enough from Reeve’s apartment that Rufus stopped walking and turned back to regard Reno with icy eyes. “While I would enjoy having the opportunity to assign your next mission, I shall defer that responsibility to the Prince.” The falsely conversational tone, coupled with the emphasis on the last word, made Reno wince.

The shit was getting deeper by the minute.

Tseng and Rufus exchanged a glance. It looked so much like two weary parents preparing to chastise their wayward child that Reno had to work at keeping the smirk off his face. He did, however, give in to temptation and glance at his partner, who was in the middle of shifting his weight to his other foot impatiently. When Reno looked back at his superiors he realized why, and though he knew he was about to get his ass handed to him – most likely not figuratively – he still couldn’t help rolling his eyes. Once they started looking at each other, it was like the rest of the world disappeared. Hell, Reno suspected that it could explode and they wouldn’t notice or care. It was the kind of behavior that led to his secretly harbored belief that the reason Rufus had been caught unaware by the Weapon’s attack on Midgar was because he’d been too busy mooning over a picture of Tseng to see the big-ass fireball headed his way.

Reno was preparing for a long wait when either Tseng got a cramp or the old guy shoving past them on his way to his apartment jostled them out of wherever it was they went when they got all googly at each other. If they were normal people, it’d probably be some kind of kinky sex fantasy, but since they weren’t, he figured it was somewhere painfully boring, like a room where they could sit next to each other and read without being disturbed. Amateurs.

Yet when Tseng finally drug himself back to reality, he bypassed Reno completely and focused on Elena. A yawning pit opened in Reno’s stomach. He wouldn’t dare...

“Elena,” Tseng began in a deceptively bland voice that wasn’t fooling anyone, “I was wondering if you might be amiable to taking a trip to Cosmo Canyon tomorrow. I received word that a shipment of particularly valuable textiles was ready and it is imperative that we retrieve them immediately. However, much to my dismay I will not be able to accompany you due to a poorly timed survey of Junon’s harbor repairs. Perhaps you could take Reno?”

“Of course, Tseng,” Elena responded in a simpering voice that was undoubtedly fifty percent genuine. “I’d be glad to help out.” And as she turned in his direction, she smiled a slow, predatory smile that reminded Reno uncomfortably of the late Dark Nation.

Fuck. Tseng was such a bastard.

phoenix_fiction @ 2006-02-13T21:47:00

2006-02-14T03:00:40Z

Title: Never and Always
Fandom: HP
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Obviously, these characters are not mine
Warning: Post-HBP, here be spoilers
Notes: Written for the_con_cept's naughty_newyear fic exchange.
Summary: When the war is over, there is one last battle left to fight.

It had all come down to this, then.

He had known that it would, there was no other way for any of this to end. After all, one does not commit the most grievous act of betrayal without needing to the pay the price. All he had left to wonder was the manner in which it would occur. Would there be questions, achingly torn from a throat weary of seeking answers that were never given? Would there be curses, speaking more plainly than tears of the pain of shattered dreams? Would there be silence, nothing more than the burning of emerald eyes consumed by grief and hatred? Or would there only be two words, whispered in the tones of one who has lost yet another surrogate father?

What is there, at the end of it all, to say to the one responsible for the deaths of so many? Through inaction, he had let them die; through petty rivalry, he had driven his former tormentor to recklessness; and through the deliberate decisions made in a situation long-slipped from his control, he had uttered the killing words. From you I have stolen all you would call family. I cannot part the veil, nor can I undo the past. Apologies change nothing, and I have none to give to you.

The game had gotten more complex in the days following his flight from the castle. There were too many pieces on the board now, too many players all struggling toward the same goal. The world, as vast as it was, could only offer so many places to hide. And those places were unreliable at best, with each side having magic at its disposal.

For the love that was never meant to be and the one I did not ask for, I have done as I was bidden. Let this end where it began. I have long since lost interest in this game.

So he waited, when he could have run. He stayed, when he could have fled. And when at last the time for confrontation came, he looked unflinchingly into the eyes of the one who had come to kill him.

“Snape.” The word was a snarl, infused with eighteen years of an inordinate amount of anger, frustration, pain, and sorrow.

“Do learn from the mistakes of others, Mister Potter,” Severus said mildly, his voice cool and disinterested. “The Dark Lord failed because he attempted to bore you to death with his melodramatic declamations. If you have come to kill me, shut up and get on with it.”

“How dare you?” Potter hissed, sounding as if he was attempting to communicate in Parseltongue instead of some other more understandable language. He took a step forward, for what purpose Severus had no idea. Avada kedavra could be accomplished from a distance as easily as from close proximity.

“As age and experience increase, so too does one’s daring,” Severus returned, as if this was nothing more than another day in the classroom, answering a litany of redundant questions posed by total idiots. Really Potter, this charade has grown tiresome.

“I’ve had enough of your sarcasm,” Potter replied, slowly coming ever closer. Yet still, there was no sign of his wand.

"Amazing,” Severus shot back acerbically, fully allowing the distaste he felt to infuse his tone. “Just as I have had enough of your ineptitude and your inability to properly finish that which you start.”

“I’ve come to finish this,” the younger man returned with quiet purpose, stopping his advance when he was about a meter and a half away.

It was an empty threat, and Severus knew it. There had been occasions, during the last year, when it would have been relatively easy for Potter to find him. When Potter had known where he was, when all it would have taken was one Apparition for the dead to have been avenged. Each time the opportunity came, and each time Potter let it pass. But the Dark Lord was dead now, and all of the battles had been fought. All, save one.

Now there were no more excuses.

And Severus, who had grown so weary of so many things, simply wanted it done.

“Your performance thus far has been disappointing, Potter,” Severus told him with a sneer. “I could have killed you five times over already. Really, I would have thought the leader of Dumbledore’s Army to be more focused than this.”

The barb struck home, as Severus knew that it would. Potter went rigid, as if he had been struck. The color bled from his face as his eyes began to burn with a cold fury.

“Why, Snape?” Potter practically screamed at him, finally taking out his wand and brandishing it as if it were a sword. “Tell me why!”

Severus lifted one thin eyebrow, unperturbed by the outburst. “It would behoove you to grow up, Potter. Only children beg for why.”

Potter crossed the space between them so quickly Severus barely saw him move. He did, however, very easily feel the point of Potter’s wand dig into the flesh of his throat. “Tell me why, goddamn you.”

Severus studied him through narrowed eyes, unconcerned. There had been a time, little more than a year ago, when freely allowing himself to be threatened by Potter would have been inconceivable. But there was also a time when one old man had been invincible and the world held the promise of absolution.

In a single moment, the world could change. In a year, it had.

If an answer was all that was required to finally end the game Severus had been playing for nearly three-quarters of his life, then for the first and final time he would provide it. “Because he asked it of me.”

That was obviously not the answer that Potter had been expecting, judging by the way his eyes widened and the pressure with which he was holding the wand to Severus’ throat suddenly abated. It would be easy, so incredibly easy, to swat the wand away and disarm him. To send him away, to kill him, to make him forget; it hardly mattered which option Severus chose. All that mattered was that the boy – no, he was a man now; for all that he persisted in acting like a sniveling prat – would go away and leave him in some modicum of peace.

Yet that was the rub, the conundrum for which there was no solution. There was no peace to be found. Not from the world, which would never forgive him for depriving it of the greatest wizard who had ever lived. Not from his colleagues, who would never forgive him from betraying them and taking from them a man they held in the highest of esteem. And not from himself.

Especially not from himself.

“What are you talking about?” Potter whispered, his voice unsteady with some emotion about which Severus cared not at all.

“I should have thought it obvious,” Severus replied, feeling the first twinge of anger since the confrontation began. “Perhaps you ought to be thankful for how everything turned out. I doubt you would have been able to graduate with this mediocre showing of intellect.”

“I was there!” Potter burst out, jabbing the wand into Severus’ throat as whatever internal conflict he had been muddling through resolved itself. “I was there that night, you bastard! And he did not ask you to kill him!”

“Quite obviously you were not, if that is the delusion under which you are currently laboring,” Severus retorted, his patience fraying with each jab of the wand. This was becoming entirely too much. Do what you came here to do, or by all the gods, I am going to finish this myself. One way or another, it would end tonight. Perhaps it would be some sort of poetic irony, were his to be the hands that brought the game to its conclusion. If it was, Severus decided to appreciate it later.

“Yes, I was!” Potter argued. “I was under the invisibility cloak! And I heard-”

“You heard precisely what it was that you wanted to hear!” Severus snapped, patience gone. “You are so busy building up your villains so that you continue to have someone to prove yourself against that you have forsaken reality. If you have come here to kill me, then do it. Stop pandering to your misguided sense of drama and kill me. But if you have come looking for a monster to vanquish so that the guilt you feel will lessen, get out of here and stop wasting my time.”

Potter blinked, seemingly caught off-guard by the vitriolic tirade that Severus could no longer hold back. “I... What?”

“He sacrificed himself so that Malfoy would live, you unmitigated fool! He knew the Death Eaters were coming, just as he knew that the boy had no desire to utter the Killing Curse. Do you know what it does, Potter? Do you have any idea how it twists you? How each time you say the words, they come easier and easier, until it is more difficult to refrain from speaking them than it is to generate the hatred necessary to power the spell? Albus knew, and he wanted to protect that boy from becoming what the Dark Lord wanted him to become.”

“And what was that?”

The desire to backhand the brat was almost overpowering. “Me.”

Potter was shaking his head. “That can’t be true. You killed him. Without hesitation, without any remorse.”

Somewhere, deep within the confines of the dungeon in which Severus had buried his emotions, something snapped. Disregarding the wand still held to his throat, Severus grabbed a fistful of Potter’s shirt collar and jerked him forward until they were practically nose-to-nose.

“You know nothing of my remorse,” Severus snarled viciously, his voice barely above a whisper. “You believe you lost your replacement for Black. But that is all you lost. You did not lose the only one you could dare call friend. You did not lose the one person in this world who looked you in the eyes, without fear, without mistrust, without contempt. You do not possess a monopoly on pain, Potter. Nor do you know what I live with each day of my life.”

They stared at each other in the ensuing silence, Potter frozen by the gods only knew what and Severus by the rage he could no longer contain. Rage at the blood he could never wash away. Rage at the old man who had asked the impossible of him and so doing had taken away his ability to choose. And rage at the thrice damned Boy Who Lived for never knowing when to quit, for never leaving well enough alone, and above all, for constantly throwing every transgression Severus had ever committed back in his face.

“We cannot all be you, Potter,” Severus continued derisively, as if there was truly nothing worse in the world, fully aware that his tone was at odds with his words and not giving a damn. “We cannot all be picture perfect examples of hope and light for the rest of the world. Some of us must be the darkness that everyone fears so that your hands are not sullied by the deeds that must occasionally be done. The world is an ugly place, Potter. And if you would open your eyes for once in your godsdamned life, you would see that.”

Thoroughly disgusted now with the whole sorry affair, Severus shoved Potter away, turning his back and stalking over to one of the windows lining the opposite side of the room. As much as he had known that this particular conversation would at some point need to take place, Severus had to admit that it was not proceeding as he had thought – as he had hoped – that it would.

“Why would he care about someone like Malfoy?” Severus heard Potter murmur from somewhere behind him. Whether he was addressing the question to himself or to Severus was unclear.

“Because unlike you, Albus was always cognizant of the larger picture,” Severus answered anyway, his voice sounding tired and more than a little peevish to his ears.

“What picture did he see?” The question sounded sincere, not something spit out in anger or frustration.

“That every life is worthy of being saved, if it is at all possible. And that sometimes in order to save that life, those whose time has passed must make way for those whose time is drawing nigh.”

“Had his time passed?” Again sincerity.

Severus did not immediately answer the question, instead turning his eyes to the landscape beyond the window’s glass. It was vaguely reminiscent of what he had seen, once upon a time, when he had looked out from any of the windows in the castle. Trees stretching to the horizon, mountains rising beyond, and in the distance, the sparkle of sunlight on water. Had the choice to stop here been deliberate? Severus could not remember, but he suspected that it might have been. He had been so many places, in a such a short amount of time, it was hard to distinguish them all from one another.

The decades seemed to lengthen behind him, as easily distorted as a shadow. How a period of time could at once be so incredibly long and so unbelievably brief, Severus could not understand. The memories were piled up before him, too many for life so long, so short, as his own.

“Yes,” he said finally, looking for something beyond the mountains that he could not have named if asked. He could not see it, but he felt it out there, lying just beyond his sight.

“Has yours?” It was a tentative question, uttered in a voice that seemed afraid to speak. How quickly fury melted away.

Severus felt the corner of his mouth twist. After a moment, when he had schooled his countenance into something like bland indifference, Severus turned slightly so that he could look Potter in the eyes. “Long ago.”

“It doesn’t have to,” Potter said softly, after a short pause.

Severus’ lip twisted again, this time into a thin, sardonic smile. “You need to make up your mind as to what you are doing here. It is not possible to accomplish both life and death.”

“Isn’t it?” Potter asked, and in his eyes Severus saw a glint of stubborn determination.

“Now what stupidity are you on about?”

“You don’t need to carry him with you anymore.”

Potter was attempting to be cryptic. Unfortunately for him, he was not very good at it. “Some ghosts can never be exorcised, Potter,” Severus told him, his hand unconsciously straying toward his forearm. “They leave marks that we can never erase.”

The other man gave him a wry, lopsided smile as he tapped a finger against his forehead. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

Given the option of sighing or rolling his eyes, Severus chose the former. “Why do you bother with such nonsense?” Something had changed. What it was, Severus could not begin to fathom. What happened to your vengeance? After all this time, I was rather looking forward to it.

Potter shrugged, as if knowing why he did anything was a mystery even to himself. “Because our father is dead, and we are the last. None of the others would understand.”

Unbidden, Severus’ lip curled in a grimace. “You are no brother of mine, Potter.”

“I wasn’t saying that I was,” Potter replied, smirking slightly. “And anyway, your nose is a lot bigger than mine.”

“What in the name of hell has that got to do with anything?” Trust Potter to say something truly idiotic apropos to practically nothing.

“Genetics.”

“If you have a point to all this, perhaps you could hurry up and arrive at it,” Severus suggested wearily.

“I’m not going to kill you, Snape. I don’t think I ever was, tell you the truth,” Potter shook his head before reaching up to brush his disheveled hair out of his eyes. “I wanted to, but more than that, I wanted to understand. And now I think I finally do. You can stay here, if you want, hide beneath all the memories and the guilt until it eats away so much of you that there’s nothing left. Or you can leave and start over.”

“I have started over once before,” Severus cut in. “I have no interest in doing it again.”

“No you didn’t,” Potter was quick to respond. “You played for a different team, that’s all. You never put the Death Eater to rest. Everything changed last year for everyone, not just you. We were forced to become different people, and maybe that’s bad and maybe that’s good. But that’s just the way it is. You’ve got a choice that the rest of us never had. You can keep him alive and let him kill you, or you can kill him and finally be free once and for all.”

Of all the stupid, overly optimistic drivel he had ever heard, Severus believed this to be the worst. His would-be killer transforms into his would-be savior, and suddenly the entire world is right again. Severus snorted. Not bloody likely.

“He wouldn’t have wanted this,” Potter spoke again, making a gesture that encompassed the room, the situation, and themselves. “Every life is worth saving, even when we think that they’re not. Remember?”

He had allowed himself to walk into that one. “Look Potter…” he began, trying to find the words to explain. It is more complicated than that. I am not you, I never was, and so I cannot fit in this new world as you can. We do not all possess the same possibilities as you. And even if we did, I myself have no desire to try.

“It’s easy to lay down and die, Severus,” Potter said seriously, ignoring him. “It’s harder to keep going, when the path becomes overgrown and tangled. But you’ve come this far. Are you really willing to stop now, when you’re so close to where you were trying to go?”

“You have no idea where I am trying to go.”

“Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. Life’s unpredictable like that.”

“Potter…”

“I’ll give it a month,” Potter said decisively. “If I haven’t seen you, I’m coming back. If you’re still here, I’m dragging you out, kicking and screaming if that’s what it comes down to. If you’ve run off again, I’ll come find you. We’ll play the game until you stop being so damn stubborn. If you open your eyes, you’ll realize that there’s something out there. And it’s not as ugly as you think it is.”

Severus stared at him. “Why would you do this?”

The grin Potter gave him then was something he had seen many years ago, on a face long since swallowed by time. “Because one day you’ll realize that we’re family. And families do stupid things for each other.”

“You are not-” Severus began, only to trail off as Potter abruptly Apparated away. “-my family…”

For a long time, Severus did not move from his place by the window, staring vacantly at the place Potter had occupied for a span of time as long and as short as his life. Perhaps that is what I have always been doing, he thought as he finally looked away.

The game never ended. Not really. It just changed with the turning of the world, becoming what it needed to be when it was needed. It had existed for the entirety of his life, an onus he loathed, and he had played because he had no choice.

In an instant, Potter had turned the rules inside out, and so doing, had given him a choice.

Looking out of the window again, at the scene that was so similar and yet so different from the place he had once called home, Severus felt the beginnings of smile twitch at the corner of his lips.

This was a game he would win.