#enderfic

Most of the other kids don't understand why Dink spends this much time in the library. Sometimes they shuffle close, to see if maybe he's found something interesting, some font of strategic brilliance that they had overlooked. They always leave disappointed; there's nothing that catches Dink's interest that's interesting to anyone else.

Actually, that's untrue. What Dink reads would be terribly interesting to anyone who let themselves admit that they needed it, but this is Battle School, where recognizing a desire to be home again is a cardinal sin. So Dink sits alone most days on this end of the library, scores of old novels loaded onto his desk, searching for a whiff of home, the scent of something that tickles his memory.

Some days he reads about children, and it makes him angry. Some days he reads about the past, and it makes him determined.

And some days, just some days, he reads this-- ancient novels about people and romance, subjects that carry him far away from here, then flit away, leaving him sitting at his desk with lead in his shoes. He knows he doesn't understand it, at least not the way those people with their boots on the earth do. In this he is a child, and he knows it.

Still, he thinks he gets it, at least a little, in his way. When he catches Petra in the corridor and they both pause. She throws him a quip and he bears it with easy humor. She has to be strong, Petra-- the least he can do is to ensure she doesn't need to puff up and be even stronger around him. He wants to; wants to make it easier on her. Wants to be someone she wants to spend time with. That, he understands.

It's nothing like the novels. And yet he starts to notice it more and more around him as he reads. It makes sense, in a messed-up sort of way. They are like children, but not. They are like adults, but not. Somewhere in the in-between spaces, they make their own funhouse-mirror versions of all the things that children do, that adults do.

He notices it in Petra and himself first. That's not hard. After all, he's involved.

He notices it in Alai and Ender second.

Quite literally, as a matter of fact. First, there's Petra, practically slamming him up against the bulkhead because she's so angry. They took one of her best toon leaders, she says, in-between expletives. They took one of her best toon leaders early. Now she has to reorganize her army, because she relied on this toon leader. The teachers are clearly trying to sabotage her.

Dink lets her rage at him, his hands held up so she knows he's not a threat. "I know," he keeps saying. "The teachers are rotten, they're screwing us over," he says. "You're right," he repeats, ad infinitum.

Finally, she relaxes. "Kuso. I'll figure this one out."

"You will," Dink says, knowing full well that's not the way you're supposed to talk with a rival. He's supposed to put her down. Well, not today. "Who is it, anyway?"

She runs her fingers through her short hair and tosses a pointed look down the hall, towards the game room. That's where Dink spots them: Ender and Alai, Alai bent over a launchie game, the outline of Ender's head and part of his face visible just a few inches away.

That's pain on Ender's face, Dink realizes with a jolt. He's not sure what to do with the information.

"That's rough," he says, dragging his attention back to Petra.

"Spare me your pity, Meeker," Petra mutters, but one of her hands is rubbing at her arm, a breach of posture he almost never sees in her.

"You're graduating in, what, a month, though?" he says. "You'll be okay. There's only so much the bastards can still do to you."

She takes that better. "Of course I will, dullbob," she says, swatting him over the head. He lets her.

When she leaves, his eyes dart back towards Ender. Alai's already gone.

---

Alai walks the corridors for a long time.

He knows he's being watched, but he doesn't much care. Rat Army's Meeker isn't going to do anything to a simple soldier like Alai, and eventually he'll have to go back to sleep, rest up for another day of training.

So does Alai, actually. But he knows he'll be distracted if he doesn't let this seep out of him now. That's why he wanders, repeating old words over and over in his mind, begging empty space for guidance. Ender will have a hard enough time ahead of him, without knowing he's sent Alai adrift without an anchor.

Except that's the nice way of looking at it, isn't it? Even with this self-inflicted hurt, he's still trying to come up with pretty excuses. Half-excuses: there's truth behind the thought, but it's overly simple. The real truth is that tomorrow he will wake-up, and his commander will order him to train, and this time he will have to imagine Ender's face behind the helmet of their enemy. He'll be trained to rain bolts down on Ender's head. He knows it. He knows it as well as he does the voice in the back of his mind that keeps telling him not to show his throat to someone who might cut it.

He doesn't want to think of Ender like that, but he does. Now one certainty has gone out of the world, and he finds himself grasping for another. The oldest one, deep in his heart, a ball of unconditional love that he can surrender to, that will never be his enemy.

"Meeker," he says. "Is there any reason you are breathing down my neck?"

"Is that how you address your own commander?" Meeker seems somewhat amused. Alai is not, but he matches the expression with a lazy smile anyway.

"Only when his back is turned."

"I figure you won't be calling Ender sir any time soon either," Meeker says, "So I'll let that one slide."

The name drop is deliberate. It doesn't take a Battle Schooler to notice it. Alai ignores it. They have no business sharing weaknesses, him a soldier leaning away from the light, Dink a seasoned commander with brown-brown gleaming off his face, the black buried in the shadow cast by his nose.

"Is there anything I can do for you, sir?" Alai asks, drawing it out, making it sloppy.

"I'm sorry," Meeker says. "I'm sorry this is what they make us. I'm sorry this is what we've got to turn it into. Don't let it go, okay? Don't let them win."

There is something about the way Meeker says these words that makes Alai feel faintly uncomfortable, as if caught in an act he didn't realize he was putting on. Again, his mind reaches for the white-hot core of himself. It cools him down.

"Sure," he says, saluting Meeker with naked impertinence. He knows Meeker will take it in stride, but push no further; otherwise he wouldn't have done it. It's not wise tempting those who want undivided power, you have to ply them until you can shift the balance subtly-- Bernard taught him that a long time ago.

And Meeker is the opposite of Bernard.

As expected, Meeker just shakes his head and chuckles. "You've got a lot of attitude for an emossin' brat who doesn't even have his own toon yet," he said. "Look, I'm just saying. Don't let them take everything you are. Winning the game's not worth it. Okay?"

Alai meets him with a blank stare. He came here because he needed silence, not assurances.

Meeker lets out a sigh. "This is crazy," he mutters. "We're all crazy." But he pulls away and passes Alai by, leaving the point by the wayside. Now there is breathing room again. Alai inhales deeply. He places his hand over his heart and releases the breath.

One, two, three, four. Allah is with him. He has lost not the anchor, but a door.

In that very moment, the lights go out.

---

He spends the night in his bunk, recounting every step of his conversation with Ender. It is not Alai's way to do it like this-- he chooses his philosophy and then lets the chips fall where they may, no regrets. But Ender has always been a different case, driving him to impulse, then to rationalize it retroactively.

Meeker is right, he thinks. We're all crazy. But I'm the craziest, because it's almost 0500 and I haven't slept yet, and we've got training in two hours. Instead I'm sitting here thinking about Ender. What's this thing whispering into my ear? It must want me to lose - there's no time for these matters here, no space.

What calms him eventually is thoughts of his mother. Sitting by his bedside, making him recite his prayers quietly, secretly. The quran has a prayer for everything, and now he's grateful for it. Even if he can't sleep, even if he can share his experiences with no one in this school, at least he can speak.

When the lights flicker on, he has to blink away the glare. There is a fuzz that wraps around his head. Sleeplessness, he knows, but the knowledge doesn't make it any less unpleasant.

He slips out of bed before any of the others stir. They'll all be heading to the showers soon, but Alai has no interest in it. Let him be groddy and tired today; it matches his mood perfectly.

Instead he walks back into the halls that he wandered so late last night. It's not so far from here to the barracks newly assigned to Dragon. Alai knows the way because there aren't many unused doors here, so it's a simple matter of subtraction. Once he's there, though, he's not sure what to do. Behind that door are dozens of boys he's never met.

The barracks of other armies aren't technically off-limits, but custom says that they should be. The absurd thought of knocking occurs to him for just a moment, his fist lifting up and hovering in mid-air, but then he thinks better of it.

He steps away instead, continues further down the hallway as if that had been his intention all along.

"Are you stalking me?"

It is the work of years of watching his parents and then his teachers move gracefully that keeps Alai from startling. When he turns, it's in one fluid motion, his awareness of his companion's identity clear on his face. Alai has often been surprised, but he has rarely been caught in the act. It's one of his few great weapons.

"I thought I'd come see how badly you'd wrecked your shiny new barracks already," he drawls.

Ender smiles at him, but there's restraint in it now. Alai can see it clear as day.

"We haven't started smearing our excrement on the walls," Ender says. "But it's a near thing."

"You should hurry up with that," Alai says, "It'll help cover up the smell of your unwashed hordes."

"Oh, they're washed," Ender says, "I made sure of that."

Alai chuckles, but it sounds hollow to his ears. This is awkward, and it hurts, a burn in his chest he wishes to blame on nasopharyngitis. So he acts on impulse, his hand shooting forward to touch Ender's. The familiarity should make him feel better; Ender's automatic response doubly so.

But it doesn't. It can't. They are soldiers on two sides of a divide, no matter how much he wishes they weren't, and he must not be discouraged from following the script.

"Meeker told me you were going crazy without me already," Alai says, grinning.

Ender looks like he wants to say something, then opts to say something else instead. "I'm doing okay."

It neither continues the familiar patter of their old back-and-forth, nor does it offer any kind of truth. Alai's grin goes nowhere, but inside, he stumbles. "That's what they all say, and then they fall over, begging me to come back."

Ender's gaze drops back to their hands.

Just for a second, but it's enough. A jolt of pain tears through Alai's chest and he's not sure if it's his or Ender's. He doesn't know what to do with it. His mother taught him to adhere to his duty, for that was what was asked of him. His duty is clear here, but his heart is not.

"I should get back to my army," Ender says. There's a funny undertone in his voice. Alai realizes he hasn't said anything in at least a minute and they've just been standing here, staring at each other like strangers, like the opposite of strangers.

He slips his fingers through Ender's. Impulse again. Always with you, Ender. Ender, who looks startled, but then hides it. It's an invisible wall Alai has seen before, a wall pointed directly at many of their students, miles of distance, miles of protection. And if he chooses not to lie to himself, then he must choose to acknowledge that he's seen the bricks come in well before now, and he helped put them there, because he knows what will be asked of them.

"Meeker's right," he says. "This is pretty crazy." He doesn't know what else to say. He hopes Ender does.

"I think we're done here, Alai." Ender's voice is soft. There's nothing to find in his tone now: Alai can hear the bricks coming in there, too.

"I don't," Alai says. "I don't think we're done," he clarifies. "Just got to win this one. And lucky us, that's what you're good at."

Except he only gets about half of that out of his mouth-- because Ender's mouth is on his cheek, the opposite cheek, the one Alai didn't kiss when it was his turn. "I'll beat them," Ender whispers. Then he pulls away, adds: "But we're done. For now, we're done." He doesn't sound happy. He doesn't sound sad. He sounds... he sounds exactly as Alai did, when he said his own goodbyes to Ender.

It stings. He wonders if it's revenge.

Except it's Ender, so it can't be.

Ender slips past him back into the hallway. Alai watches him leave, though it's pointless. There's no sign of the boy from this angle. There's just the legend, his head held high and his shoulders squared.

"Fada’aa rabbahu annee maghloobun fantasir," he whispers very softly under his breath, then starts walking, blindly, again. He walks a long time.

--

Petra's leaving in three weeks. Dink reminds himself he won't be around for much longer himself, and that it's stupid to spend too much time thinking about it. It's the books that are making him linger - all that talk about boys and girls and longing gazes-- he had to toss Romeo and Juliet off his desk because the asinine tragedy of it all made him vaguely ill. Who'd be that stupid? You'd think lovers would prefer each other alive.

There is a faint thud in the seat next to him. "So, Meeker," Alai says casually, "What you reading now? Dao? Giáp? Hannibal?"

"Austen," Dink says dryly.

"Who'd he beat?"

"Pride and prejudice," Dink says, cheerfully this time, and endures the odd look Alai sends him. "You should give it a shot." His eyes darted back to his desk. "'It sometimes is a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him.' I should convince someone to tell Petra that. It'll brighten my day."

Alai snorts. "You're slated for another game in a couple of days, and you're reading stories about romance?" he said. "You have unique ideas about training."

"Who cares about training," Dink says. "Haven't you heard? They're starting to screw up the games. Soon I'll have as much to do with my army winning as I do with the rotation of the earth. When I'm done playing, when they're done with us, I want to know how to be a bonafide real human being. So I got to look at how everyone else does it. You should too."

"You ever think there's something rotten about all of this?" Alai says, his face molding into a wan smile.

"Every day," Dink says, passing his copy of Pride and Prejudice on to Alai's desk. "But I can't let it eat me. I don't want to wind up like Petra and Ender, all swallowed alive by the game. Someone's got to know the right side up."

"And you want to be that someone."

"And so do you," Dink says, "Whether you want to admit it or not. So read. It's good for you."