#iwry

design concepts for chapter 19's cover:

scattered early illustrations (i was rereading archie sonic at the time you'll have to forgive me the echidna oc)

Chapter 19: Prince of a Failing Empire

What...

[pic – hands....are clean?]

What in the world...what the—

[pic – mirror mirror on the wall who's the most SCARLESS of them all]

What the fuck?? What the...fuck...

[pic – touch the blank spot on your face]

“Good morning, champ!” Odd cheered as he entered the bathroom, towel slung over his shoulder. I gaped at him, “Today's the big day!”

“Wh...wh...,” work, mouth, work, speak, “What?”

Odd's laughter filled the bathroom to the groans of the other, still-sleepy boys, “Don't tell me you forgot! Are you kidding me?”

My hand slipped on the edge of the sink and my stomach turned inwards. Odd seemed nonplussed and started to whistle. I heard the showers going but there wasn't the rest of the buzz that usually comes with the morning rush to get ready for school.

“O-Odd...,” I murmured, “What's...wrong with me?”

He turned and cocked his head, “Apparently a lot, if you forgot! Humph, grumpy-pants, I'll let you figure it out for yourself. At least it'll be a nice surprise!”

“N-No I mean...,”

I looked back to the mirror. Smooth. Scarless skin.

“My face...,”

“Uh, what about it? Got a zit? Haha!”

I stared hard.

“...Nevermind.”

Odd didn't seem to notice and he was gone. I got dressed and walked outside. Simple, plain, normal movements. People didn't seem to look at me one way or the other. Rather, they did, but only because I was the one looking at them in a weird way, not the other way around. I shivered. It felt like a horror movie, but it was so normal, was normal supposed to feel like this?

“Hey,”

I nearly jumped out of my skin, spinning on my heel to see her there. Her. Yumi. Her jacket seemed bigger than normal, or maybe she just looked...softer in it. Still there were studs on her shoulders that shone in the mid-morning light. She looked nervous, occasionally biting her lip. I noticed then that she had firmly stuck her fingers into the joint of her elbows, keeping herself from gnawing on her thumbs as she usually did when she was anxious. Hence lip-biting. Win some, lose some. My face fell, and I tried to sneer at her, like I usually did, but the sneer wouldn't come. It couldn't come. All I could feel was an awkward smile on my lips which made my heart beat faster.

“Uh,” I grunted. Yumi smirked, still shy. Why was she like this?

“I missed you.”

Oh god, oh god not one of these, not again, not this—

“I missed you, Ulrich.”

I staggered.

Ulrich.

Ulrich.

Ulrich!!

My hand went up to my cheek again, pristine, perfect, scarless.

“Wh-What did you say?” I gurgled, “Wh...What did you call me?”

“Ulrich...? Are you alright?”

“N...No, I...,”

[pic – she embraces him]

I stiffened. How many days? Weeks? Years? Four? Four. Four years without me. Four years without her. I missed her. I missed this. Just...being here with her. As a friend, as anything. Close. So close I had begun to believe there wasn't a word that had been invented to describe the relationship we had.

Close. So very, very close.

“Yumi...,”

“I missed you so much. Ulrich, god I've missed you.”

Pain welled up in my chest as her grip turned tight. Tight but not painful. She started to tremble, I steadied her by grasping her arms. Yumi pulled her face away from my chest and stared up at me, her eyes never straying to the cheek that should've been marked, that should've had the scar. No, all she wanted to see was me, and all I wanted to see was her gazing at me without any hatred.

It had been my fault. But god I missed this and I didn't realize it. And then I started to feel guilty. And then she held my smooth cheeks, and then she kissed me.

[pic – exactly that]

And then she kissed me.

[pic – bre you are going to hate yourself for drawing so much kissing]

“Ulrich,” she was speaking in a whine now, a sad, desperate little whine that only constricted the pain in my chest. I was pulled closer. I missed her. God I missed her.

And she missed me.

And I wanted everything to stay like this so badly.

[pic – more kissing I hate you bre I hate everything]

So, so badly.

It had been a nightmare. Reese Anders was a nightmare.

[pic – getting a little passionate there]

Please.

“Ulrich,” she gasped again. And again. All she could say was my name, my name, over and over and over in a steadily rising sense of urgency. She said it so much that it stopped hurting to hear her say it the way I thought it always would, and I kept begging her in my mind to never stop saying it. Ulrich. Ulrich. Ulrich.

Ulrich.

Ulrich.

Ulrich!!

REESE!

[pic – wake up from that near-wet dream]

“Yo, you okay there, buddy?”

Sweat plastered hair and clothes alike to my skin. I couldn't yet tell if I was hot or cold—maybe I had been flashing between the two. At first I could barely move, which shot waves of panic through my body that forced a spasm. Odd flinched involuntarily.

“H-Hey, whoa, it was just...a dream, I think. Just...you know...,”

A dream? A dream.

[pic – noooo]

Of course it was a dream.

“Just wanted to make sure you were okay. Didn't sound great.”

I shot him a look that would've killed a cockroach then turned, wrapping the blankets so tight around me it hurt. Necessity demanded it; I could feel the build up behind my eyes, stinging and unwelcome. Spend another minute looking at Odd, looking at the scrawny, wild teenager he had become, and I wasn't sure I could hold everything back. Fortunately, it didn't take long for Odd to give up on getting a coherent answer from me, and when his breaths began to have rhythm I allowed myself to cry.

Even though it was just harsh, hitched breaths in a fetal position, it counted as crying. There was nothing else it could've possibly been.

~~

Dawn broke. The birds sang, groggy students found their way to the showers, cars in the city started to move, and the school bell readied itself to ring. I laid awake in bed, no different than the day before that, and the day before that, and every day before that. Nothing was different.

Nothing would be different until my feet hit the floor.

Odd woke up late, as usual, and though everything was going as routine as it normally did, he seemed to sniff the change in the air. He wouldn't stop glancing over at me. Part of me wished he could just dismiss it as the shock of finally becoming a warrior, but he knew better than that.

What an awful feeling. Odd knowing better.

His voice was cordial but too soft. It was never like Odd to walk on eggshells like this. Was my demeanor that different?

I didn't want an answer.

Back in Germany school days would end up fading to the background as my mind set on autopilot. Especially if it was after a bad night—everything became gray as it was a matter of the physical body getting through the day and nothing else. It was the only way to find comfort when I was in pain.

I wanted the same to happen here, but there are some wishes that couldn't come true.

[pic – blank reese on a bench]

[pic – blank reese in class]

No matter how hard I tried.

[pic – struggling to go back to blank in cafeteria]

Worse, it felt like everyone's eyes were on me. I tried to pretend I wasn't acting different, but when I was staring ahead instead of glaring, ignoring instead of snapping, and most of all, when I was pretending that Yumi didn't exist instead of antagonizing her...

[pic – she sat down next to him]

When neither of us acknowledged this...

A white noise of buzzing gossip filled the schoolyard. It would be impossible to believe that every voice was whispering about me, but I had a habit of thinking about the impossible. If dreams were any indication.

And then, in between classes. Yumi had been heading in the opposite direction.

[pic – passing by]

She didn't say a word.

I felt like throwing up. Throwing up because my stomach did a cartwheel the likes of which I hadn't felt since I was thirteen. I staggered on my feet, pushing into some random kid I barely remembered from way back then. I didn't realize I had stopped cold in my tracks until Aelita's hands pressed on my shoulders.

“Reese!”

Jarred into reality, I awkwardly stumbled in the direction Aelita was pushing me. Face after face of kids passed by like schools of unidentifiable fish. My shoulders hit cold stone as she pushed me against a pillar, trying to act as though she just wanted some affection from her boyfriend. But she was too focused on the crowd, making sure they paid us as little mind as possible. Hiding me away from all of their faces.

When the rush of students became a trickle, Aelita finally looked up at my face. She was breathing heavily. I'm not sure I was breathing at all.

“Reese,” her voice was urgent, maybe even annoyed despite the hushed tone, “Reese, what's going on, what happened?”

I stared at her.

“Reese...,” Aelita tried again, annoyance turning to pure worry. I felt like stone, and because of that I felt unnatural when I started to move. My lip quivered and my vision blurred.

“Is it her?”

Aelita was smart. Really damn smart. True that it wouldn't take an Einstein to figure this shit out, if you knew me. But Aelita—there was something else about the way she was smart. Something about how she understood without asking. Something about how she trusted me more than I trusted myself.

[pic – oh god here comes the waterfall]

[pic – complete flooding]

I couldn't stop it. I couldn't even tell if I had tried or had just let it happen like some fucking idiot. It rushed over like a wave, overtaking me from the gut upwards. Before I knew it my textbooks had crushed my feet and my hands were desperately trying to dam up the tears.

“Oh...,” Aelita cooed, pain lacing her voice, “Oh, Reese...,”

I cried. I cried and cried and cried. Everything was painful. Each breath, hiccup, and tear—it was all in pain. I wanted to be small, wanted to hide myself away and disappear. Maybe just for a little while. Maybe forever.

But I wasn't small. Aelita's soft hands on my chest reminded me of that. And when her hands moved to my sides to pull my aching sternum to her ear, there was no way to even pretend that I had ever been small.

“It's okay, Reese,” No, it wasn't, “It's okay.” She rubbed my shoulders, soothing or at least attempting to soothe. I blubbered, tried to speak, as if there was a way to explain away all this stupid crying in some sort of cool, collected manner. Aelita was quiet save for the occasional hum, trying her damndest to radiate compassion as she let me sob. The gloves on my hands were soon soaked through, tears trickling down my wrists.

Face pressed to my chest, Aelita finally asked the question I was dreading.

“Reese, what happened?”

Something snagged in my throat and my voice cracked, “It wasn't supposed to happen,”

“What?” Aelita whispered, her fingers clenching at how I sounded. I shook my head.

“It wasn't supposed to happen. And it did. It wasn't supposed to happen but he was there—and I—and Yumi—,”

Aelita's hands moved from my shoulders to my collar, gently pressing me further against the pillar in a way that was somehow comforting.

“Hey—wait, Reese, I don't understand,” she said, “You're going too fast. Slow down, tell me everything.”

I shut my mouth, bit my lip, and tried to force myself to calm down. Immediately I could tell it wasn't working. All it did was build up each sob so that when it was finally released it was ten times louder and less human than it should've been. I knew that Aelita had some sort of right to know—no, more like I wanted or needed her to know. But this didn't just happen to me, it happened to Yumi as well, and I had no right to tell what she probably didn't want me to say. The darkening of her face if she found out I had tattled everything appeared in my mind and I physically recoiled, much to Aelita's dismay. Maybe Yumi figured that Aelita would find out eventually, but it wasn't fair...it wasn't fair...

All I could keep saying was “This shouldn't have happened.”

Frustration lined her voice, but still Aelita kept calm as she kept me against the pillar, “Then what did happen?” She shut her eyes and made a small noise, recanting her words, “What did you want to happen?”

“I...,” I felt myself shrink, deflating with the realization that I couldn't envision that night happening in any better way. The reality that imagination couldn't patch or paint over my raw memories, not even in the slightest...

Over the enfolding sense of disillusion I felt a twinge of jealousy over Vivi. Maybe it was just because she was six and she was allowed to have a talent for imagination, but I yearned for a way to erase and replace what I couldn't change. Even if it was just in my head, it would make my mind a better place to live, even though nothing could make it okay.

“I don't know,” I quietly wailed, “I don't...God I don't know...,”

Aelita exhaled, pulling away to stare at me. Her face was solemn, sympathetic but, ultimately, unable to help. I tried to shake out of it, to look back at her, meet her gaze. My eyes felt red and puffy, nearly swelling up to the point where I wouldn't be able to see whether my hands were in front or not. Tears continued to trickle out, constantly a reminder that things had changed and nothing I had done had prevented any of it. I breathed, trying to follow Aelita's lead.

“I—I think I love her again...,” I blurted, and then, with what I just said stabbing me in the gut, I shook, renewed sobs exploding with each heave of my chest. Fear gripped every part of me, eyes widening as I stared past Aelita, trembling and coughing.

“I love her again...?!” I squeaked, terrified. Oh, oh Reese. This. This was not supposed to happen. This was the last thing you wanted to happen.

You know that.

It wouldn't be a lie to say I reveled in the fact that I didn't feel anything for Yumi anymore. I'm not sure if that made taunting her easier, but I'd like to say it did because now the thought of throwing her under the bus and laughing was the most heinous crime I could think of to do to her now. Hell, each match against Yumi was probably me gloating about how much I didn't care for her now. Strutting about like I owned the place because I foolishly thought I owned myself. Ha. Hahaha.

“Fuck...!” I squeaked again, unable to bring it any power to make it a shout. My voice cut off and I buried myself again, fingernails digging into my scalp as if they would find salvation there, “No...!!”

“Reese,” Aelita soothed, “Reese, it's okay. Feeling things is okay. Trust me. Whatever happened that brought...this along...I don't blame you for it, and I won't. Okay?”

My eyes snapped to her. What she said reached my ears but my crazed mind fixated on only a few precise words, shaken up in my shitty brain and coughed out. A thought hit me that I hadn't considered before, staring at Aelita while I was on the verge of a panic attack.

It took watching my father hurt Yumi in order for me to love her again.

That was it, wasn't it? It was the catalyst. It brought this all back around to where I didn't want it to be. Guilt seized me and nothing was working properly anymore. I heard Aelita said that she didn't blame me for it, but as far as blaming myself...

[pic – losin' it]

“H-hey!” Aelita struggled to help support me as I all but tried to give up in that moment, “Reese, it's okay! Reese! Reese...,” Over and over. Reese Reese Reese. Even I was calling myself that in my head, chiding and lecturing. Last night's dream echoed, but it was like I could no longer recall Yumi calling me Ulrich—as if she had always said Reese and I was just remembering it wrong in the first place. Reese, Reese...

“Reese...,” Despite everything Aelita still somehow seemed calm. Petting her hands through my tangled hair, she helped me balance myself back on my feet, taking a deep breath. She let the silence be for a while, occasionally slipping her lip between her teeth to bite in worry and thoughtfulness. The far-off sound of Jim's whistle made her blink a few times, and she sighed heavily.

“Can you make it to class?”

I stared at her dumbly, and she concluded for me, “Okay. Go up to your room, I'll think of something to tell Ms. Meyer.”

She bent down, pulling my fallen textbooks into a pile to hand to me. Frankly I'm surprised my numb arms reached out to take them from her. My stare was blank, ceasing to follow her as she started to move out of my vision.

“I wish this would stop,” I muttered.

“Class?” Aelita gave a fake smirk, “Sorry, for as much as I can do on Lyoko, I can't—,”

“I wish I would stop,” I interrupted as if she hadn't even said anything. Aelita stopped, mid-sentence, mid-step, and turned to contemplate me with a worried expression that she was trying to hide.

“I mean...,” Aelita struggled to say, “You...you could, you know...tell. You know. Tell at least the rest of them.”

“That's not the kind of stop I meant.” I whispered.

[pic – aelita scared and staring at him]

“Please text me while I'm in class,” she whispered back, “Please come out to meet me after class.”

I turned my face away. Aelita had no choice but to leave.

I did the same.

~~

What I wouldn't give to never see her again.

Funny that when I first left four years ago it was all so painful. Repelling meant pain, not relief. Now it was the opposite: repel from her and there was relief, there was peace. Well, peace in a way that I could pretend that nothing had changed because if I let my mind wander it became haunted and full of dread. Full of dreams. I tried to stop myself from dreaming, but that never worked. I tried to turn the dreams to nightmares, to have something awful to feed off of in hopes that I could turn our relationship back to the way it was; always warring, always fighting, full of hatred.

It was so fucking futile I didn't believe for one second that it gave me any hope. But still I tried.

God I tried.

I just wanted to leave her behind. Move on with my life. Get away.

[pic – remember when reese was angry and scary well thats not him anymore]

And all that had happened was that she infiltrated my mind. I don't even know if she was aware of what was happening to me. I was all so caught up in everything I don't even know...I'm not even sure if I could tell if the same thing was happening to her.

[pic – neutral yumi]

She looked...normal. Almost terrifyingly so. Like nothing had happened, to the point where it was like she was pretending that my presence didn't exist or that I didn't affect her. I knew her better than that; I knew she had buried the events of that night to deal with later on her own time, to not show her struggling to anyone else. She had had enough time by this point to put it all behind a mask. Nothing could bring her down, really.

But then, nothing seemed to cheer her up either. Not for Odd and Aelita's lack of trying, even Jeremie too.

[pic – memories of laughing fit]

Thanks, Ulrich. You really know how to cheer someone up.

[pic – his hand over hers]

Nope. I'm not even going to try.

I'm just going to...disappear. If I couldn't get rid of her, then it would be better to get rid of myself—at least of the premises. Get out, go away, clear my head in the woods for a bit, as I always did. The woods always helped. The woods always would help.

No matter what awful things happened between the tree trunks.

Desperation fueled me, but I tried to force whatever panic it induced to the back of my mind. Peace wouldn't come if I was too desperate to find it, after all. Sure, it was a lesson I was still struggling to learn—but Aelita helped a lot, taught me the way the doctors told her how to breathe so she wouldn't upset her heart too much, talked about how the aftermath of a seizure always made her feel and though it was exhausting it was a strange sort of calm after the storm, even if it had been scary.

Breathe, Reese, breathe.

That's right. Keep calling yourself Reese. Do you even know what that means anymore?

“Anders!”

[pic – FALCON PUNCH]

[pic – what the FUCK JUST HAPPENED TO ME—it was me, william!]

Pure shock covered up the initial pain. Then it stung. Then I felt it grow hot with blood. I gingerly touched my face, barely aware that my fingers were trembling from being shaken so bad. Confusion soon turned to scorn and I furrowed my brow, twisting my body so I could better see William. Fuck, he had come out of nowhere. Well, rather my brain was too preoccupied to have any semblance of focus on anything but...

“What the fuck,” I gurgled, rage boiling up my throat. I didn't even do anything this time, I swear! Fuck, I haven't even really done anything in like two weeks! I nursed my aching jaw, stumbling onto my feet as William stared me down, “Jesus Christ, what was that for?!”

William's eyes gleamed as he tightened his fist. I narrowed my gaze, trying to discern what he was doing as I curled my body, ready to dodge at a moment's notice.

“Don't play dumb. The whole school has seen it.”

My knuckle brushed swelling, heated skin, and the heat transferred to it. I closed my fist, ready to retaliate—but something in me softened my grip and I bit back the urge to fight, to beat his shit to pieces. I was too fucking tired and had no time for this.

“Seen what.”

“You,” he glared, accusing, “You and Yumi.”

My heartbeat quickened—two issues of Milly and Tamiya's gossip paper had come out and hadn't had any pictures of us, but I guess I hadn't actually read anything. Did...something get out? I grit my teeth, and William took this as confirmation of his suspicions and continued.

“Yeah, that's right. Everyone knows something's up, except I know Yumi the best. She wouldn't just bow down to shitheads like you.”

“Who the fuck said she bowed down to me?” I snapped. William rolled his eyes in disgust but I kept talking, “What, did she send you after me?”

As soon as the words left my mouth I severely doubted them. The way she had talked about William that night, and the...complacent way she had been treating me recently...There was no way she had confided in William and made me out to be the bad guy. That was something I expected from Sissi back in the day—hell I didn't even know or suspect Sissi would do that now, and that was saying something. But still, I had to make sure. I had to know that she wasn't double-crossing me or took advantage of what I had told her, even if one look at William made me sure she hadn't done anything of the sort. Sure. But not sure enough, apparently. Fuck my head.

“She's too fuckin' proud to say anything, and besides, I know you fucked her up,” he scoffed. White-hot anger stabbed like needles down my spine. No, that's totally fine, William, just bypass Yumi and go straight to me, it's so much easier to beat the fuck out of me and try to make yourself the hero than getting in a public argument with Yumi for the same result, isn't it?! The whole school didn't see me as anything but a fucking asshole, and with this recent development with Yumi every kid had their eyes on me, just waiting for me to make a move. Even William. Especially William.

Except William apparently had gotten tired of waiting for me to abuse Yumi's existence in front of everyone else and decided to take up the mantle of knighthood behind the scenes. No one needed to see St. George slaying the dragon so long as he came back with the dragon's head, right?

What was the dragon really doing, anyways? All this dragon wanted to do was crawl into a cave and die. I don't have time for this fucking bullshit. I shoved my fists into my pockets, ground my teeth to revel in the awful noise they made, and swallowed the anger with a harsh breath.

“Why don't you fucking ask Yumi?” I glowered, “Leave me the fuck alone, Dunbar.”

I turned, desperate to just get away to some quiet part of the woods. Hell I wouldn't even mind finding myself at the creepy Hermitage. Worst comes to worst I could always use the passage to the sewers to slip away unnoticed if William tried to follow me there. Although leading William to one of our places was probably not a good idea, it was still something I could turn to as a last resort.

William's hand clamped onto my shoulder and spun me around. I jerked, trying to shrug his grasp off.

[pic – another punch to reese's face]

“Yeah, motherfucker,” William panted, “That one was for Yumi. And so will be the next one. You're not going anywhere.”

[pic – blazing anger]

For Yumi?! Really?! Yumi can and had protected herself against me multiple times without a second thought! She won our fucking sparring match, she won my training session, she kneed me straight in the balls, she fucking pressed me up against a couch and choked me, who the fuck did William think he was defending?! Yumi wasn't even here, and if she was, god, I could just hear her voice, loud with anger and disgust! I was sure of it—but even if I was wrong, I knew that Yumi wouldn't ever want someone else to rally and fight her battles for her. Gurgles turned to growls and I stared William down. Anger blazed in me, but I still didn't really want to fight.

Funny, that. I didn't want to fight.

Once upon a time I wouldn't have hesitated to come at William fists swinging, in the name of Yumi's honor, for my own pride, whatever the reason. But here, now, even though William threw the first punch, all I wanted to do was fucking leave, still.

Actually, maybe it was because William threw the first punch that I didn't want to fight. Or maybe I just didn't want to be a part of this anymore than I already accidentally had. Fuck, I wasn't trying to be a part of anything! Shit! Leave me alone! Leave me the fuck alone!!

[pic – another punch and reese goes swinging backwards]

“Man, you're a pansy motherfucker, I would've thought you'd at least do something. Jesus, what are you trying to prove? The whole school knows what you are, so why even try to hide it?”

I cupped my hands over my nose as hot blood spilled out. There had been a hard crack as William's knuckles smashed into my face. I tried not to cry out to save some shreds of dignity and ending up choking on blood going the opposite direction of my nostrils. Breathing loud and harsh, seething hot air through my teeth to work through the pain, I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to focus on anything but William as he spoke.

“How'd you do it, Scarface?” he asked, squatting down to taunt me, “How'd you get her on her knees? A soon-to-be former ex-boyfriend would like to know.”

[pic – you broke my beautiful nose]

Three strikes and you're out, Dunbar.

[pic – reese socks william in the gut]

You wanna keep using the metaphor to get Yumi on her knees, you heartless fuck?

[pic – fight club cringes]

I was on my knees first.

[pic – williams def takin a beating now]

I was pinned to the ground on my back first. And Yumi decided to get on her knees instead of push me down further.

William's yelp was cut off as my elbow slammed into his cheek. I followed up with two punches right in the sweet spot my elbow made. He tried to fight back in the only way he knew how; brawling and swinging without discipline. Even if he managed to hit me it was like he was hitting a brick wall; the dragon had been taunted into retaliating, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do to backpedal and explain his mistake. Blood and spit flew between the two of us as we fought, a goddamn mess in the middle of the woods. This would all hurt in the morning, but for the time being the only thing I could feel was the righteous anger as I pushed William back.

Some part of me was surprised that I didn't enjoy it the way I thought I would.

There wasn't anything but instinct, some sort of animal way of trying to fend off a predator. I wanted him gone—out of my goddamn life. Not dead just gone. Send him off to a different country for four years or more, I certainly wouldn't miss him.

The thought suddenly made me sick and sullen. Wishing, actually wishing that on someone. Just for thinking it, I should've let William get a few free punches in. I slammed William against a tree, fists twisted into his jacket as I glared at him. He coughed, I spat out blood. Regaining himself, William began to kick and snarl at me. My glare became a stare, and the sullen feeling seeped into my bones, replacing the adrenaline. I didn't want to be there. I was so, so done.

[pic – totally not gay]

“I would've thought...,” I rasped, deep, “I would've thought you'd be the better man for her.”

It made sense in my head. Even back when I was Ulrich, blinded by jealousy. Jealous because William seemed so perfect next to me. Tall, dark, handsome, had a network of friends outside of Kadic that he did things with, cool, suave, knew how to talk to girls...He had his fuck-up moments, sure. There is no way in hell Yumi would ever see past him figuring that she was just like any other girl, but those were mistakes that could be fixed, unlike my mistakes. William was perfect, with a perfect life, probably with a perfect future. Just enough bad boy to be alluring with an (annoying) idea of what was the right way and the wrong way the world worked. A go-getter. Of course he'd always be the first to confess his feelings, and I was afraid that Yumi would just go for him simply because he would do everything right—according to his plan anyways.

I would've thought Yumi would've wanted that. I would've thought he'd be the better man if only because he'd at the very least try to be her man. At least try to be with her, stay with her and comfort her like I couldn't, wouldn't, because I was too stupid and insecure to face potential failure. I was scared of her, William wasn't—ergo, William was better.

“Better what?” he barked. I loosened my grip on his jacket. His eyes grew wide for a second, then he dropped his jaw open.

“Holy shit...you actually like her?!” William exclaimed, his voice screaming victory even though I had beaten him, “Holy shit. Holy shit. Are you fucking serious? You?!”

Hunching my shoulders in a lame attempt to hide myself in the collar of my jacket, I tried to skulk away. William's voice, interspersed with cruel laughter, only grew louder the farther I got.

“Really? I can't fucking believe it. You? Do you think she'd ever go after you?! Yumi fucking Scarface, that'll be the day you'll never see! You're fucked up, Anders! You're so fucked up the scars don't even do it justice!”

[pic – ouch...]

“Keep walking, Scarface! And if you ever go near her again the newspaper will love to hear about what you did to her!”

[pic – walkin']

I didn't even do anything this time...

I guess I wasn't paying attention to where I was going, but my feet certainly had an idea of where I should be. My face throbbed, swollen and hot. Blood was slowly coagulating, becoming sludge in my nose and around my busted lip. Breathing through my mouth as I walked, I alternated squeezing my eyes shut too harshly and blinking rapidly to force the pain into the background. I tried not to think about what William said.

Tried.

There was something weirdly appealing about one of my eyes swelling shut. Rather, I wished that both my eyes would swell shut so I'd stumble around the city blind for a while. Close off some senses, just...just exist in the lowest form possible. The lower the life form, the less processed thought it had, right?

I didn't...I didn't even do anything this time.

That's what I kept wailing to myself, but the wail was quiet, almost inaudible. In a way I didn't believe it, because if I thought hard enough I could think of all the ways it was my fault. There were so, so many, after all.

Yumi fucking Scarface. I wanted to vomit at the thought. After what had happened? To think that Yumi could ever see me in such a light was stupid, not hopeful. And as for me, looking at her...I felt dirty. The kind of dirty you can't wash off of clothes. A bruise you don't remember getting but now it hurts like hell and you won't be able to get rid of it. Something had viscerally changed. I could name it if I wanted to, but, fuck that. To have her reciprocate my feelings—I wouldn't wish that on her in a million years.

And if you ever go near her again the newspaper will love to hear about what you did to her! I knew what William thought I did to her, and the worst thing about that thought was the knowledge I could do that. Easily. Even if Yumi defended herself and fought me off, the hideous taste of what was intended to happen would stay with her forever. That was easy to know. The real question was, would she fight against the rumor? Did she even know that this was possibly one of the rumors running around? (Considering William's mouth, if it wasn't a rumor before, it'd be a rumor now...) No, stupid; the realer question was would I even care...? Do I care?

I guess it's not like I thought too far ahead into my future enough to really contemplate my reputation outside of...this. Whatever the hell this was.

You're so fucked up the scars don't even do it justice!

[pic – periwinkle's]

It was hard to believe in justice in the first place.

My feet approached Periwinkle's front door, my mind following them complacently. I reached up behind the old porchlight, fishing the key out of the metal latticework. Technically I wasn't supposed to be here this late, but to jump a little too far from that simple thought, I wasn't supposed to be a lot of things. I briefly wondered if this would count as breaking and entering, or if Periwinkle would even file it as such, but that thought was in the background as my hands turned the key and the satisfying sound of an old, heavy lock clicking comforted my ears. I opened the door and stepped inside. Autopilot.

The foyer was dark. I didn't quite know what time it was, but for sure Vivi was supposed to be in bed, and if Vivi was in bed Periwinkle wasn't far behind. The old woman didn't do much outside of the orphanage, which was both a blessing and a curse. I was going through the careful motions to gently shut the door behind me when I smelled smoke.

Cigarette smoke.

Something was off.

As the door shut I blinked my one working eye rapidly. Down the hall a singular lamplight from the living room shone through the archway. I must've not noticed it right away due to the black eye. I took in a breath, sliding my feet forward on the old rug that ran down the hallway. The pounding in my chest resulted in a resurgence of heat and pain in all of my bruises. As I moved, ever so steadily, I tried to think of what to do. Should I say something, ask if anyone's there? Should I turn around and phone the police, without even knowing what was going on?

I swallowed blood and saliva, and crept forward. The arrhythmic creaking of a rocking chair was the only indication that someone was still alive, still moving. Pausing just before my face hit the warm light, I gathered whatever courage I had and peeked into the archway.

[pic – periwinkle's thousand yard stare and a cigarette]

“Mrs...Mrs. Periwinkle?” I breathed. The only acknowledgment I got was a blink; she still stared out past the lamplight into the dark window panes. Tapping cigarette ashes into a dusty tray, she drew in a lungful of smoke and let it release over a long period of time. Normally there should've been a sense of relaxation to breathing that deeply, but nothing about her changed.

I stood, filling the archway with my shoulders and beaten face. She still didn't look at me.

“Did you ever wonder why I let you near her?” Periwinkle broke the silence. Her voice was raggedy, making me feel her age for the first time since I ever heard it. I stood, quiet, letting the old woman speak. The question didn't exactly catch me off-guard, but it was not something I was prepared to hear. Of course I had wondered, but I tried to not let wondering get in the way of what I had been given. Given. A rock formed in my throat. Vivi. Where was she.

Periwinkle tapped the cigarette again even though there were barely any new ashes since the last time she tapped it, “Every other time she would run away the person who brought her back would bring her back in tears, screaming. The girl didn't know where she wanted to be, all she knew was that either option was something she didn't want. Then you come along, and suddenly she doesn't want to leave you.

“It was a risk. You could easily break her arm, hold her down; throw her in the woods near Kadic injured and alone. God knows why you were walking around the city that day when you live in a boarding school. Perhaps your after-school activities were less than favorable. I called Kadic Academy about you. Did you know that?”

I stared at her, busted lips pressed together. No. No I didn't.

“A gruff man answered the phone, said he was substituting for a sick secretary. He told me the other students didn't like you, but you hadn't yet done anything of note for detention or otherwise. I let you come back. And you did. You kept coming back. Week after week. Loyal, even when you had no reason to be. I told you to not come here after dark, to leave before evening. Yet here you are.”

My throat throbbed and my head swam. Shit. It was after dark. Was this her ritual, after Vivi had been put to bed? Stay up in the late evening hours, seeing if I would come around and let myself in for whatever fucking nightmarish reason she could dream up? I pressed my hand against the archway, fingers trying to dig into the drywall as I opened my mouth to protest. First William, now Periwinkle—first Yumi, now Vivi. I didn't really mean to come here tonight, didn't mean to intrude or hurt Vivi, I was just—I was just lost, just look at my fucking face, I don't have a place to go! Anything, anything to make Periwinkle believe that I wasn't trying to hurt her! I swear, I swear I'm good!

A sound left my throat, and Periwinkle kept talking as though I wasn't struggling to say something.

“What a curiosity that you chose tonight...,”

The old woman still hadn't looked at me this entire time. I sucked in a painful breath, waiting for her to bring the hammer down on my head. She took a long drag of the cigarette, snuffed it out, lit another one. I glanced at the tray, finally realizing that the corpses of three cigarettes laid there.

I didn't even fucking know Periwinkle smoked.

“Vivian's mother came back.”

A freezing hand closed on my chest and the only vision I had blurred, readying for the news that this was it, Vivi was gone, someone had come and taken her and I hadn't been there and I didn't know and she was just fucking gone.

“Were you to show the slightest sign of harming that girl I could've had you tied up so tightly you'd never see the sun the same way again. Her mother—for example—I will not let her near a child again.”

I couldn't listen to her. The icy hand tugged at my heart and I instinctively cocked my head towards the second floor, where Vivi was supposed to be resting. Vivi. Vivi Vivi Vivi. She had to be there, she had to be safe, I had to check up on her! I started into the room, hellbent on racing through and up the stairs, tearing the bedroom door off the hinges if I had to just to make sure she was there, she was safe. Periwinkle hadn't mentioned where she was, and if she was gone, and if what I thought she was saying was true...

The old woman sighed and finally deflated from her rigid stance, mottled skin and rickety bones struggling to find comfort in her failing body. The hot blood in my veins stopped to let me take her in, her weary oldness that betrayed her constant facade of a crotchety hardass.

“Mrs. Periwinkle...?” I said again, slowing to a creep. Her eyes were shut in pain, physical or emotional I couldn't tell.

[pic – kneeling in front of her]

When she opened her eyes they focused on me, grayed and thick from their previous, unknown color. I couldn't tell what she was feeling, if she was okay, if there was something she was holding back from telling me.

“I am old, and I cannot do this anymore.”

I glanced just behind the old woman to where the staircase inevitably was. Keeping my mouth shut but feeling my throat tremble, I looked back to her, trying not to overthink.

Periwinkle regarded me, actually regarded me for a moment. Still she didn't seem to notice or care about the puffy bruises and blood that had already dropped in globs on her carpet. She blinked.

“Vivian—Vivi is upstairs.”

Relief washed through in a heavy hot breath that seemed to take part of the pain with it and I moved to stand up and leave that exact moment. Something stopped me, though, and even though I had turned to face the hall to the staircase like a compass pointing cardinal north I couldn't move any further. Vivi was upstairs. Vivi wasn't going anywhere—and if she was going to run away again she would have already done so. Inhaling, exhaling, I looked back to Periwinkle. She had not moved, even to watch me leave.

Curiosity overcame me and I knelt down in front of her again.

Her chair continued to creak with no steady rhythm. The cigarette that was barely halfway done was snuffed, and without a second thought she lit another as though she hadn't just wasted half of one. She did not take a drag, simply let it burn over the ashtray, tucked into her knobby knuckles. Smacking her parchment lips together, she began to speak again.

“She was the last. She had to be the last. I don't care for children like I used to. I cook. I clean. The roof stays over their head. And that's all I do.”

There was a matter-of-factness in her voice that I was used to hearing, but what I wasn't used to was the pain. If all of the pain I was feeling in that moment, the blood, the bruises, the broken fucking nose, was ground into a paste and put into a pill, a bottle of those pills would equal what I was hearing from Periwinkle in that moment. The harsh vault doors had opened, and all I saw was a frail, overworked woman receding into her worn rocking chair. She laid her head back against the faded cushion of the chair and sighed.

“I'm too old,” tears clouded her voice, “And that child knows it. And I know it. She needs to go, because I can't care for her the way she needs to be cared for. I don't love her. I can't love her. I'm in pain every day and I know I can't keep this up. I've known for a while. Then you came along...,”

Periwinkle stopped rocking and righted herself to see me again, “And you were everything I couldn't do. Alone, I bet you couldn't tell a toilet from a sink,” she snorted, yet I didn't take offense as she became soft and pained again, “Alone, I wouldn't help Vivian—Vivi, from one year to the next.”

Periwinkle sank. It was strange, to hear herself correcting Vivi's name to what she wanted to be called, what I and everyone else should call her. Normally the old woman didn't give a shit, didn't even pretend to. I continued to gaze at her in strange awe. She still didn't give a shit, not out of strictness or cruelty but because she fucking couldn't.

Couldn't give a shit about Vivi like I couldn't give a shit about myself.

Yet she still cooked and clothed Vivi, she still sat here as a sentry against unwanted and dangerous people. Dangerous like Vivi's mother? I found myself looking at the staircase again.

“Go.” Periwinkle muttered after a while, “I haven't heard her make a peep since her mother came two hours ago.”

I stared at her. After a while I gave her a small dip of my chin in respect. Periwinkle's loose wrinkled face scoffed at me, dismissing it. I stood up to go to Vivi's room. Once I passed out of her vision Periwinkle finally brought attention to my beaten face.

“You look like hell beat you to the ground. But I suppose when kids have the misfortune of having hell find them over and over again they eventually find each other,” she grunted, “Vivi does not know that was her mother. You'd do yourself many favors by keeping that a secret from her.”

My shoulders blocked the light in the archway as I moved into the hallway and up the creaky stairs. Second door to the left. I hesitated, my hand dwarfing the ancient knob. A glob of blood hung at the rim of my nostril. I sucked it up, shuddering as it hit the back of my throat and slid down, cold and slimy. Steeling myself and swallowing, I shut my eyes before opening the door.

“Vivs?” I called, cautious. The room was dark. Faint light from the street struggled to break from behind the curtains. The sheets of the bed Vivi liked to sleep in were rumpled and empty. There was no way to tell if she had simply refused to make the bed that morning (a common occurrence) or she had clambered out in a crazed rush to hide. I crept into the room, keeping it dark.

“Vivi, are you here?” I stood in the middle of so many empty beds, nothing answering me. Each window was closed; nothing indicated that she had run away again. Somehow that was less reassuring than it should have been. I would not have blamed her for running; in fact I almost wish she had.

[pic - check under the bed]

Nothing. I sat back on my heels and let out a low, hurt breath.

The closet door creaked. I turned my head. For sure it had been shut before, but now it was slightly ajar. Standing up, I quietly walked over and pulled it further open.

[pic - there she is]

[pic - relief and pain]

Oh god.

I squatted, bent knees pushing the threshold. For a while I was quiet, though not because I was unsure of which phrase from the list of false comforts I should pull out of my ass to say. This kid damn well knew it was all bullshit. Moreso I didn’t say anything because I knew I shouldn’t, knew I had no reason to pull her out of her sanctuary so soon. My chest hurt, burned as I gazed at her in what was probably compassion.

“I’m here."

Soft. Assured. Definite. Kind. How the fuck could someone like me say something like this, in this way?

"I’m here.”

Vivi turned, curling her legs even further into her stomach, looking at me expectantly. I had figured she would scoot aside to make room for me, but it seemed she barely wanted to move in her catatonic state. Carefully, I crawled over her to the other side, nestling between the wall and her small body. The hand-me-down, donated clothes that hung from hangars were too small to even brush the top of my head. I tried to relax, tried to ignore the dull throb of pain in my face coupled with that horrible sinking emotion. The one where I knew I had done all I could, and it had all still gone to shit. Such absolute shit.

Vivi nudged into my side. Ignoring how sore I was, I forced my muscles to try and be a cushion for her. Anything, anything to make up for it.

She nudged me again. I swallowed a gasp of pain and looked down.

[pic – a really shit plush]

I opened my mouth but no sound came out. She offered it...whatever it was, to me.

[pic – a really SHITTY plush]

“Did you make this, Vivs?”

I more felt than saw her nod.

“Periwinkle help you?”

Another nod. I considered it for a moment.

“This is...this is kind of amazing, Vivs.”

“It's yours,” she croaked.

[pic – you what]

“Mine?”

Vivi shifted, unsettled, “For the sweater.”

Oh. Oh...

I wrapped my beaten hands around the lump of fabric and stuffing. Making a quick mental note to ask Aelita what the best way to clean blood out of fabric was, I inhaled, stuttering on breaths. The swelling and bruises around my face became a dam of tears that I had to keep at bay. Vivi already knew that things were bad, she didn't need me to break now when she needed me.

“Thank you, Vivs,” I earnestly whispered. Tucking the plush into the curve between my stomach and my hip, I reached my arms around her and pulled her close.

“There's a woman who yells. All she does is yell. Mrs. P gets angry but she doesn't yell.” Vivi finally began, face buried in the canvas of my jacket. I squeezed lightly, remaining quiet for her, “Sometimes I want to listen but I already know what she wants. Mrs. P tells me to go to my room and not come out when she's here.”

“How...,” I rubbed her shoulder, “How often does this happen?”

Vivi shrugged, “Dunno.”

Quiet. She shifted uncomfortably and hid the lower half of her chin in her knees, making her next words mumbled.

“She always comes back.” Lost and unsure, Vivi stared, catatonic, at the dark corner of the closet opposite us as her small hands kneaded her pants, “Always...,”

Quiet again. It was hard trying to figure out if it was the kind of quiet that needed to be so, or if she was waiting for me to break it for her. On one hand, the quiet had a soothing effect. After such violent incidents, the both of us were finding (a little bit unexpected) solace in the cozily enclosed space. But at the same time, keeping what happened in the dark felt...wrong somehow. Maybe not wrong, but something that could potentially erupt later in horrible ways if left unchecked and unspoken.

Not that I really wanted to tell a six-year-old girl about what had just happened to me. Sure she could see it, even hear the winces through my teeth and blood-clogged sniffles every so often. I mean. I could tell her. Tell her anything and everything. Some part of me wanted to, not because of any ill-intentioned desire to traumatize her, but more like I wanted her to be a confidant. Someone I could tell and teach everything to, watching her grow under my guiding hand. Or something.

But she was six. I was seventeen. I had a duty to not overfill her with knowledge she shouldn't have, had a duty to not treat her like an equal, because she wasn't. I loved her, I think. Yeah, I loved her like a sister, and I wanted to protect her from everything and show her everything at the same time. But I couldn't do either, not to the fullest, at any rate, no. No. Protecting her from everything would alienate and constrict her. Showing her everything would force her to grow up too fast.

I already knew what it was like to grow up too fast. I couldn't do that to her. I wouldn't.

For the moment she didn't ask about the blood and the bruises. She accepted the scars as if they were an intrinsic part of me—like I wouldn't be me without them, but in the most innocent way possible. I guess it could be called blind acceptance, but that seemed too harsh and derogatory a term. She didn't want me to be different towards her, and I wasn't going to be. I was going to be Reese.

The questions would come eventually. And until then I was just gonna be Reese.

[pic – siblings]

“Are you scared?” I asked her. Vivi straightened up and puffed her chest out, trying to make her voice strong but it was still wavering.

“I'm not afraid of anything!” she boasted, but quickly deflated into my side, “I'm not scared...,”

She swallowed air and dug further into me, willfully ignoring my involuntary wince of pain for the sake of her own comfort. I didn't care, clutching the plush closer to me.

“I just...don't want her to see me. I don't wanna go with her. I don't want what she wants,” Whether or not Vivi could articulate reasons beyond 'because I don't want it' was something I left up to question. I shifted my arm, allowing her to burrow further if she needed to despite the pain.

“What do you want, Vivs?” I asked, soft and open. It didn't take long for her to come up with an answer.

“Wanna go to school. Go to school and have friends, like you.” Well, friends was such a complicated term for me, especially right now, but I could see what she was saying. She wanted an expanded life. She wanted what she liked to think I had; freedom, friendship, security, an easily destined future. Something simply different than...than knowing that she needed to be adopted and it was taking too long, different than knowing there were people that wanted her that she knew she didn't want in her life.

She was absolutely scared. She had every reason to be.

“I know you're not afraid of anything,” I murmured, “I'm not either. But...,”

Vivi adjusted her position, perking her head up to hear me better.

“I think I'm scared.”

She stared at me, the wheels in her head furiously turning to calculate what I said into something she could understand and accept. An encroaching wave of frustration twisted her small face and she gripped my jacket and plowed her face into me. I let out the strangest, strangled cough of pain, akin to some obscure bird call that catches hikers off-guard. Of course she didn't seem to care, and to be honest, yes it hurt, but I didn't either.

“No you're not,” Vivi protested, “You just said, you're not afraid of nothing and you're not!!”

“Urgh,” I failed to fight off the wheeze in my voice, “I think...what I mean is I can't be afraid. Gotta keep going, even though I don't even know how I'm gonna get from point A to point B. D'you understand?”

“No!”

That was more a refusal to understand than whether or not she actually did, but whatever.

“I'm afraid of a lot of things,” I confessed as she continued to worm her way against me, causing me to squirm and wince and push the words out in between shrill gasps and spitting too-hot saliva, “But they're things I should be afraid of, like—like m-monsters,”

“Mrs. P says monsters don't exist!” Vivi continued, extremely indignant. For a moment I saw her (through blurry vision) pull her head up and glare at me, right before burying herself again. (Thank god the closet wall was at my back because I'm sure she would've flattened me into a fetal position. Against me: William, 0; Vivi, 1.) From the depths of my jacket I heard a confused, possibly betrayed sob. Yeah, this was too painful on several levels. I tried to pull Vivi away from my side to get a firm but gentle grip on her shoulder, but she shoved my hand away. I persisted, she shoved me away again. Pressing my palm flat against the wall, I heaved deep breaths to try and regain myself and blink the spots away from whatever vision I had left.

“No,” I had to breathe through my teeth as she clamped down her hands like a vice on my side, “No, monsters exist. They just...don't look like you think they do.”

Finally she released me, at least partially, and looked up again, still somewhat hurt and absolutely baffled by what I was trying to say (really I didn't know what I was saying either) but ultimately too curious for her own good. Wrapping my arm around her shoulders again, I let out a garbled sigh of relief when she didn't push me away and began to speak.

“They look like...you and me. And Aelita. And Odd. And Mrs. P. They look just like us, some way or another. And to some people, they aren't monsters, not at all, but to others, they...are.”

[pic – memories]

“Some way or another...,”

Vivi adjusted herself, sliding her legs out so her feet stuck out from the door frame of the closet and rested against me in a much less aggressive way, her round eyes turned up towards me in growing wonder. I hadn't realized I paused until I shook my aching head. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, talking to her so candidly like this. It was a possibility that I was developing a concussion—at the very least I could fall back on that if I came to regret this later.

“Listen, I...,” Memories kept flooding me, memories of twisted emotions—fear, disgust, anger, and a continuous yearning to flee. I looked down at Vivi, meeting her eyes. Inadvertently I smiled. Couldn't help it. It was probably for the best, too.

“You got a good gut on you,” I poked at her sides, and she squealed, biting her lip to try and stifle her giggles. She tried to furrow her brow to look at me disapprovingly—tried. I simply poked her again, gently. Spittle flew from her mouth in her failed attempts to stop the giggles before they happened. My smile grew wider as my voice softened more, “Listen to what your gut says. It says you're hungry, then eat something. It says you're tired, then go to sleep. It says you're scared...then be scared. And get out, run away from what's making you scared if you can.”

“I'm not—,” Vivi sputtered, but fell silent and guiltily stared across my chest to the darker corners of the closet. The canvas of my jacket wrung in her small hands as she turned the confusing words around in her head until she finally whispered, “I just don't wanna be scared...,”

“It's okay to be scared, Vivs. If I can be, then you can be too.” I whispered, trying to sound strong. Big tears, glistening in whatever light they could squander, rolled down her round cheeks and dripped off the bottom of her chin.

“What're we supposed to do, then?”

I brushed a thumb over her wet cheek, wiping a tear away and resting my head against the wall. The best my face could do for a smile struggled to show as I gazed down at her. Actively ignoring the hollowness digging deeper in my gut, I felt a tired warmth seep into my chest and I closed my eyes.

“Get up tomorrow, I guess. And the day after that. You know. Keep going. Run if you have to.”

“Are we running?”

Despite how badly my ribs ached, I leaned down and kissed the top of her head before pulling her under the protection of my injured bulk.

“I think we're trying to.”

Vivi was quiet, kneading my jacket like a cat for comfort.

“G'night, Reese.”

“Yeah. G'night, Vivs.”

I love you.

[pic – them sleeping in a pile in the closet]

//////////

((Cannot seem to find if I ever sketched this out but Ch20's cover concept was Jeremie's glasses underwater beneath a XANA storm above the factory))

Chapter 20: Perfection in Pride

“Well, you won't take the advice I want to give, so in the meantime, why don't you just avoid William like the plague?”

“Gee,” I muttered, rolling my eyes, “Thanks. Will do. I totally wasn't planning on that.”

“Don't lie,” Aelita glanced up in her mirror, looking at my reflection in a fairly stern manner, “You were planning on clocking him the first chance you got.”

“Yeah!” I retorted, as though I hadn't just sarcastically implied I didn't want to do that, “Before he clocked me out first!”

I scoffed, loud and clear for her to hear, but I glanced down at her plush blanket poking between my fingers as I sat on her bed. Wait. There was something I was distinctly missing, and if I didn't bring it up Aelita would let it slip away like it was my own damn fault. (Well, it would be, but, whatever.)

“Wait. What was your advice, then?”

“Oh? Well if you're actually considering on taking it, then be my guest!” Aelita grinned at me in a way that was wholly unsettling before her smile dropped along with her voice into something far more serious than I was prepared for, “Tell Yumi.”

The plush blanket was about to become a lot less plush by the time I was done choking it.

“What? No. Fuck no. Why the fuck would I do that? What? What?!”

“I don't know,”

[pic – aelita standing up to face him, she's getting dressy for something]

“You two just seem so close as of late, after all,”

I stuck my lower lip out in a disgruntled pout, making sure that Aelita knew it was directed entirely at her and her actions even though she was the only other person in her room. Chagrined, and not exactly able to hide it in front of Aelita, I leaned back and tried to seem casually arrogant.

“What, you jealous or something?”

Aelita traced arcs on the floor with her socked feet as she approached me, her voice comically sultry, “Oh no, Reese, I know you'd never cheat on me. You know I'm such a good kisser!”

[pic – snrk]

I snorted, the both of our acts dropping immediately with short but genuine bouts of laughter. I laid back onto her bed, arms stretched out, as she turned around and continued rummaging around her drawers for accessories.

“Man,” I slapped a hand to my face and dragged it down, “Apparently I'm a good kisser too, y'know.”

“You? With what practice?” Aelita shot as she snapped punk-ish bracelets on. I snorted again, but instead of laughter it became a pained, embarrassed wail.

“Okay, I don't know about now—but, jeez, you weren't even on earth for a lot of this,”

Aelita was nothing but fire and sass today, and it took her all of nanoseconds to respond, “Oh, sorry to hear that coming to earth cockblocked you to this day.”

“Yeah, you keep stealing all the girls,” I shot back, kicking lazily towards her. She snorted too, but it was a little reserved even though she was smiling, “No, okay—ugh, I had to...bargain a lot. To um. Get Sissi to do things for us. Like uh, get Yumi out of detention.”

“Wait, alright,” Aelita paused in the middle of brushing her hair, turning towards me again, “I know you bargained with Sissi, but kissing her? With the way she was back then?”

“It was my only option!” I protested, “We ran out of time and I had to think fast! It was just down payment, I didn't want to date her for two months and have to pretend to do that all the time!”

Aelita raised an eyebrow, still fucking with me, “Alright, Casanova.”

Back to brushing her hair. I grumbled to myself, unfortunately recalling that exact month of being dragged along to places I didn't want to be with people I didn't want to be with. Movies I didn't want to see. Sissi's elbows always dug into my side when we held hands at the theater, and I could never tell if it was because she didn't know how to be tender or if it was because she was constantly reminding me that I was on thin ice and I had to pretend to enjoy myself. Man, and I thought pretending to smile hurt back then. Look at me now.

Anyways, both during and after that Sissi started trying to find excuses and 'accidents' to get me to kiss (read: smash lips together) her in the most roundabout ways possible. She tried to coax me once, saying that my lips were soft and sweet and that it really felt like I knew what I was doing. That, unsurprisingly, still haunts me even though she meant it as a compliment. As far as I'm concerned, I put nothing into kissing her unless I really wanted something out of it, like getting Yumi out of detention. Thinking back on that, it was creepy. It was creepy then, it was creepy now—and considering that I only had Sissi's words to go on, I guess I didn't really know if I was a good kisser or not, because it's not like I was going to believe her for a second.

“Hey,” I asked, resting one leg on the other's knee and folding my hands behind my head. I counted patterns in the ceiling, feeling lazy for the first time in a while, “What did you mean by 'with the way she was back then'?”

Aelita was quiet again, and it felt like it was the same quiet that cut her laugh into a snort when I joked that she had been stealing girls. Keeping focused on the ceiling but losing my count on the patterns, I listened intently as Aelita kept brushing and styling her hair.

“Well...you remember how she bullied me when I first got to Kadic,” she started slowly. I shrugged, assuring her that I did. She ran her brush through exactly five more times before she continued, “After you left it got particularly bad for maybe two months. She was devastated, and she took it out on us, as if we weren't also hurting. But because we were on the same floor, and at the time our rooms were right next to each other...I got the brunt of it. I had to start twisting my schedule; sometimes I'd wake up an hour early so I wouldn't see her in the showers that morning, sometimes I'd take the risk in being late to class or skip breakfast all together to miss her. Even when she calmed down and started to ignore more than antagonize, I kept avoiding her. At that point I had gotten used to it, so there was no harm in keeping it up. I must've been doing it for close to a year, and one day...I woke up early and I felt weird. Something different, and not good different. I stumbled into the shower late, so I was there the same time Sissi was.

“I remember getting in the shower and turning the water on. The next thing I knew I was in the infirmary, wrapped in towels. They told me I had a seizure, I hit my head, that a doctor was on the way to talk to me, figure out if it was an indication of something more. The start of problems, in other words.”

She set her brush down, staring at it like it was a mirror instead, “When they finally released me, and the others escorted me upstairs, and once I was alone in my room, I heard a knock. It was Sissi. She was the one who heard me fall in the shower. She dragged me out, while other girls froze in terror. She wrapped me in towels and told the others to get help. I asked her why.”

I sat back up, staring at the profile of Aelita's face.

“She snapped 'I don't know' and slammed my door shut. But she didn't say anything to me after that, even when I cautiously let myself be around her more. About a year ago, I was starting to realize that what Jeremie felt for me and what I felt for him were two different things. And I was trying to figure out why I wasn't able to see what he always talked about with literally anyone. One day I heard Sissi crying in her room so I knocked on her door. She was crying over being rejected, or maybe she broke up with her boyfriend; it was really hard to understand her. But at some point she hit her pillow and screamed that she wished she didn't like boys anymore. Before I could stop myself, I said 'oh'. You know the kind...the oh where you involuntarily say too much. Sissi stopped, and we stared at each other. Like she had just realized she had let me in. I started to get scared, because all I had done beforehand was google that 'why don't I like boys' you teased me about, and I didn't know what to make of the results—after all, they all had scary stories of coming out. I didn't want to think that was me.”

[pic - ...]

“We didn't say a word, but Sissi seemed calm and opened her door for me to leave. She hasn't...said anything since, not pertaining to that. She doesn't look at me weird when there's another girl at my door, but—,”

“But if it's a guy at your door, she makes a big fuss,” I finished for her, “Believe me, I know.”

Aelita smiled, a little pained, but it was clear that her pain was in the process of healing, “I think I hate that I tricked you into fake-dating me, sometimes. Like, it wasn't fair, you didn't know.”

“Yeah well,” I scratched the back of my neck, ruffling the end tufts of my hair, and grimaced, “It's not like I don't know what it feels like to trick people, huh. Besides, I don't really care that you did. I'm alright.”

Aelita still didn't look back at me, her voice darkened and sad, “Alright that I'm stealing all the girls?”

[pic – hey whoa]

“Whoa, hey now, that was a joke, I didn't mean—,”

“I know, I know. I just...have no one to talk to about this.”

[pic – aelita in foreground reese in bg]

Oh. Right. I felt guilty that I hadn't realized that sooner. Even if Sissi did know, and there's no evidence to support that she really did, I felt weird about anyone confiding in her over—literally anything. She might have changed for Aelita and everyone else in the group, but all I remember were her dirty tricks, betrayals, and bullying. It would be best to play it safe, close to the chest.

Funny that I qualified as close to Aelita's chest.

“So...which girls, exactly, have you been stealing?”

[pic – REESE I SWEAR TO GOD]

“Reese! Shut up!! Let's see you talk this big on Lyoko, you two-bit sonic boom!”

I heard every word over my laughter, and each word just made me laugh more. Aelita pulled the pillow she used as a cushion for the back of her chair out from behind her and flung it at me. It did nothing to stop me, but I did welcome it and propped it up behind my back as I leaned back against the wall. Watching her struggle to glare in frustration at me, I crossed my arms and smiled.

“Oh, that's right, you love me too much to be stealing girls.”

“You are really testing that love right now, Mr. Anders,” she huffed, ignoring me as she fixed her hair until she was satisfied. Picking at her nails for a bit and staring at them as if she could change the color she had applied an hour ago, she stood up and began crossing her room, pulling boots out from the back of her closet (perhaps hand-me-downs from Yumi) and flipping through what little she had for jackets and vests.

“But...no, to answer your question,” Aelita quietly said all of the sudden as she pulled out a short, bleached denim vest. A few studs had been jarred loose. She sat on the floor, crossing her legs, and began to fix them as she spoke, “No, there haven't been any girls.”

I cocked my head to the side, “Really? Wasn't that Emily in your room last winter?”

“Well, yes.” Aelita then yelped and shook her hand, sucking on a few fingers that had been pricked and pinched by the back of the stud she was fixing, “Yes, that was her. I have a thing for glasses.”

“Do tell.” I leaned forward, resting my chin in my hands. Aelita smirked with a glance up at me as if to say of course Jeremie left her with something to be attracted to.

“It's just that...no one stays. That's all.”

My smirk dropped to quiet concern as I watched Aelita bend the spokes of the studs back into place, her fingers red and sore. She lightly shook the vest, then laid it out flat, smoothing the studs and looking forlorn.

“Whether they're all just 'experimenting', or they don't know who they are yet, or they're too scared, or it was all fake to begin with—no one stays.”

“Princess...,”

Aelita bit her lip, hard, until I couldn't see the color anymore. At the very least she hadn't applied lipstick yet, if she was even going to. But even though she was biting it I could see that she was quivering from her chin to her brow, her cheeks flushing red and her eyes watering as she tried not to sniffle.

“A-All it really boils down to is no one wants to stay. If they even could like me like that, they don't like me enough to try to stay.”

I opened my mouth to call her princess again, but nothing came out. Anything I could've said I realized she would have already thought of. Clenching my jaw, swallowing, and unclenching, I stared at my friend, barely able to keep it together with her shaking shoulders.

I had always been used to people pursuing me, I never gave any thought that it wasn't normal. Like, sure, I barely even thought about many of the girls who had schoolyard crushes on me (I didn't want to think, and at times it was a complete nuisance, I just wanted to be alone and I didn't reciprocate what they felt or thought they felt) but in my case it had always been a constant. Moving back to Germany did something to quell it, since I became the weird quiet kid with no friends that warranted a bubble of space around me. But I had almost never been actively searching for reciprocated feelings. They were just always going to be there if I decided to accept them—like I briefly did with Emily, far before Aelita came to earth.

But here, even if Aelita and another girl kissed, there was no guarantee of reciprocation. And here, I had no idea what that felt like. All I could do was look at the way my friend's face contorted like it was made of ash.

No one ever stayed. Not for her.

And I was the only one to know about this.

I slid down from her bed to the floor, placing a hand over the studs she had just fixed so she would look up at me.

“I know it's not what you're looking for, Princess,” I assured her lowly, “But, I stayed. Even after you tricked me or whatever.”

[pic – small aelita smile]

“The others are also here for you too, you know,” I said gently, knowing that it still didn't mean she would tell secrets to them.

“And...that's what I'm afraid of, in a sense,” Aelita shrugged, swallowing, “I mean, the others stay too, you're right. But you know very well that I'm driving them insane with this—you and me. Especially Jeremie. I wasn't expecting it, but all this fake-dating you and I have been doing forced some of Jeremie's...colors out into the air, you know?”

She sighed, slipping the denim vest onto her shoulders. As she stood up I moved back up to the bed, watching her.

“Right now, he's...banking his decisions and actions on the idea that if you just weren't here, he'd still have a chance with me. He may be incredibly immature and stupid about it, but in his mind I'm still a possibility, right?”

I was afraid to answer, but I did so.

“If this is how he acts when I'm taken...imagine what he would do if he found out he never and no longer has a chance.”

Fuck.

“There's...there is a slight chance that he might lighten up, once he knew,” I spoke past the lump in my throat, made of the same ash that her facial expression was made of.

“Do I want to take that chance...?”

I took my time thinking about it, weighing the options first from Aelita's view, then from Jeremie's, and finally from my own. If it went badly, would the group split? If so of course I would be on Aelita's side, and if so the brief confrontation in the factory when I pushed Jeremie against the wall would turn into a daily all-out war. Splitting the group was the last thing we needed when our common enemy would always really be XANA, drama or no drama between us. For fuck's sake, just the simple act of letting me into the group split it down the middle enough; Odd and Aelita with me, Yumi and Jeremie more or less against me, even now.

Then I thought about all the time and nights I would spend with Aelita, more likely than not watching the back of her head as she sobbed and screamed into her pillows. I thought about the words she'd spew, calling Jeremie an idiot but moreso damning herself for being the reason for the civil war in the first place. Maybe Jeremie wouldn't do anything physically dangerous or harmful to her. Maybe.

But the fact that we had to have this conversation was harm enough.

I finally answered, “I wouldn't. This...isn't important for him to know. Not now. Maybe not ever.”

“Fuck...,” Aelita swore, then pressed the back of her hand to one eye, catching bubbling tears, “I used to be able to talk about anything and everything with him. With any of you.”

Stab. Twist. And it wasn't even me she was talking about.

Her phone buzzed. She leaned over her desk, picking it up and reading it without retracting. A small sigh that was disgusted but nowhere near the emotional intensity of the conversation we were just having left her, and she straightened up, replying.

“Christophe broke his collarbone body-surfing over the weekend, so he needs help setting up tonight—but apparently Jim doesn't know half of what he's talking about, so I guess I have to leave earlier than planned,” Aelita inhaled, recollecting herself, and made last-minute adjustments in the mirror.

“You look fine,” I tried to provide as she fussed. She didn't glance back as she pulled simple lipstick out.

“Shut up,” she retorted, “I will be the judge of when I look the way I want to look.”

“Oh-kay,” I gave in, standing up since she was going to be leaving soon. Aelita kept staring at herself.

“Going back to your room?” she asked.

“Dunno. Do you want me at the concert?”

She sighed, “Up to you. It's not like it's homecoming or prom or something. Just a three day weekend.”

I raised an eyebrow, “Odd is out on a date with Sam at the movies, Yumi is taking the time off to spend with her family, and Jeremie is being Jeremie. You sure?”

“Yes,” Aelita said flatly as she smacked her lips, “I'm sure. You do what you want—it just means that I let my friends do what they want to do, so if Jeremie wants to refuse to come to my concerts time and time again because he thinks it's a waste of time better spent throwing feathers at a brick wall to fight XANA, then so be it.”

“Has...has he ever come to one of your concerts?”

Aelita capped the lipstick and put it away, “No.”

[pic – ready for the show]

“He can't just say he's lonely, he always has to have an excuse of needing help with something or other. And he always makes a point to ask me about it when he knows I want to do the concert if there are no obvious interruptions, setting himself up for disappointment. Then, of course, he complains I've changed too much. To me, it'd be a nice change to see him at the concert but...That's fine. He does what he wants. And I do what I want.”

[pic – reese blocking her from the door]

“Just a sec,” I stopped her. She looked at me, expectantly. I took a thumb and brushed an eyelash from her cheek. Then I smirked, looking at the pained but staunchly independent person she had become. She was a long way from Lyoko, and by missing her growing up I got to appreciate how far she had come in my absence. I let her through into the hallway with a comical bow that she certainly didn't miss. Throwing my arm over her shoulder after she locked the door, I walked her to the stairs, still smirking.

“Sure you changed, but you're still a princess, no matter what Jeremie does.”

Aelita smirked back with a small chuckle, “See, this is why you're still him to me.”

“Hey now...,”

Aelita reached up and eased her hand around my shoulder, tilting her head into me, “You were the first to call me princess and you still call me princess.”

“Tch. Fine.” I accepted.

[pic – the two of them]

“Good luck out there, princess. Maybe I'll swing by,” I called down the stairs after stopping at the boys' dormitory floor. Aelita paused, her hands still on the railing as she turned to smile up at me.

“I'd like that.”

I waved and retreated back into my room.

~~

It was a hard choice. Odd was out for the evening, leaving me with some actual peace and quiet in my own room. But then, Aelita was DJ-ing for the concert, or at least half the concert, trading off with Christophe whenever she needed lest she accidentally induced a seizure. Pills could only do so much after all. If anything it just showed how much she was absolutely determined to keep doing what she liked doing, no matter who said what about anything.

Just ten minutes of rest, then. I didn't have anything particularly great to wear to the concert, but that wouldn't stop me from showing up anyways. Ten minutes.

[pic – jeremie SMASH]

I forgot that ten minutes was fifty in Jeremie-time.

“The absolute fuck, four-eyes?!” I snapped, “I—what the fuck?!”

“Where's Odd?!” Jeremie demanded, the only regards he gave me. Pitching myself up on my elbow, I dug a pinky into my ear. I'm sure it would ring for a bit, since the door slammed open right next to my head.

“He's out at a fuckin' movie with his girlfriend, why the hell do you want to know?” I kept the comment that Jeremie should've known from the get-go to myself.

“He's not answering his phone and there's a XANA attack!”

I grumbled, sitting up and swinging my legs over the side of the bed, grumpy despite the emergency, “Yeah no shit, he's at a movie theater.”

Jeremie huffed indignant and impatient, “I promised Yumi I would let her have the weekend!! She's been needing one for ages, I just can't call her instead!”

I squinted at him.

“Aelita literally just left early for her concert to help set up and probably hasn't even done anything yet.”

It was like flicking a light switch. Jeremie became rigid and pale with repressed anger, clenching his jaw and swallowing hard. Leaning forward and giving him an even more scrutinizing gaze than before, I raised my eyebrows to encourage him to speak his fucking mind.

“No.” he replied, curt and dark, “She's busy.”

If I really wanted to, I could've laid into him then—calling him every name in my book of swears, shouted things that I knew would deeply deeply hurt him since I used to know him so well; I could've really stuck a knife in his gut and watched him stare at me, dumb. But instead I opted for the other route, and smirked like a bastard.

“Well, guess that just leaves you with me, huh, four-eyes?”

He tightened his lips to a tight purse, a tell-tale sign that he was absolutely furious. But he held back his words and snapped his agreement. Apparently no matter how bad I was to him, it was not nearly as bad as Aelita.

Not that I didn't believe Aelita when she told me, but seeing his resentment first-hand was a little...staggering.

Einstein was too silent as he marched and led me through the woods and the sewers. Not once did he look back in my direction or hesitate as if he was contemplating to pick Aelita up along the way. Not once did he answer any of my innocuous questions—what's the attack, what is XANA doing, are you sure we can handle this on our own? Nope. Nothing.

Absolute silence.

That's what that feels like, huh.

XANA worked fast. By the time we reached the bridge the sky was dark and the clouds thick, moving with wind that blew my jacket horizontal as we approached the bridge of the factory. Part of me wanted to grab Jeremie's shoulder, lest his weak ass get shot off across the country. Instead I trudged forward, keeping my feet firm and planted as I stepped ahead of him to block the wind from his frame. Water from the river crashed and swirled, threatening to reach up and swallow us whole. An undercurrent from that would be a death trap for sure.

[pic – looking back]

“Should I hazard a guess this is XANA's doing, or is that too obvious?” I called back over the roaring wind as if he was a hundred paces away instead of just two steps. Jeremie, still struggling even though I was blocking half the wind, somehow managed to glower at me before gripping his glasses to ensure they didn't fly off and tried to push forward.

[pic – the bridge gets struck by lightning and crumbles]

[pic – jeremie falls away]

“Jeremie!”

[pic – no choice but to go in after him]

Even if it had been the smoothest dive in the world, hitting the water was like hitting a brick wall. Immediately I was shoved to the side more like a conveyor belt than a river, the current unwrapping my limbs and pinwheeling me forward. Fuck it hurt like hell, but I didn't have time to muse. If Jeremie had hit anything on the way down, or if a piece of the bridge had hit him, he was fucking dead. Boom. Just like that. He wouldn't even be awake to drown.

The water wasn't exactly clean to start with, and the harsh currents billowed up silt from the bottom making visibility poor. Goggles would've hardly helped. Coupled with the dark sky above, I had no choice but to stay under and pray I could find him.

[pic – water hazards make the tensest of scenes]

No. Shit. There was no way. Not without going deeper, into the point of no return. I flipped around.

Shit.

[pic - surfacing]

Shit.

I swam with the current, angling myself to scrape against the concrete embankment until my stupid hands caught onto the broken slab, slicing my fingers open. Unable to feel the pain from the sheer cold of the water and the panic in my chest, I pulled myself on shore, panting, heaving, ignoring the bright red flowing out of my hands. Pulling my sopping ass onto level ground, I turned and looked frantically at the chaotic water, lips shivering. Barely able to form words.

“Jer...J-Jer...,”

No. No. Just like that?! Just fucking like that?! After everything we had all been through, here or there, every close call, just to crash down all on a fucking split-second?!

“Jere...Jeremie...?”

All this for nothing?

No, there had to be something I could do, something else. There was always another way, Jeremie always believed so. I don't know what it would do, but I was already preparing myself to get up and fucking run as fast as I could to the factory to launch a return trip, activated tower be damned. Doing so couldn't have been as bad as having it happen with a clone still active.

But I was on the far, far side of the factory. The lab and everything else was under the main hall, and I wasn't even sure there was a way to get there from here. Surely not a time-efficient way, at that. No. No...

I stared at the shifting water, eyes blurring up.

What would I tell the others? Sorry, he just fucking fell in the river and died? Nothing I could do? Just let the guy who considered me his rival, no big deal!

Belpois.

Stern.

My foot slipped, rolling my leg to the side and making me feel pathetic. The more I sat there the less time I had to do anything about it, but then there was nothing to do about it. Gone. Just like that.

Cough.

[pic – Reese perks the fuck up]

Coughing. A choke and a gasp for air cut short by more choking and coughing. I scrambled to my feet, slipped on the wet concrete, ignored the scrape and started running. There, gripping a partially submerged drainage pipe, was a soaked blonde head of hair. Jeremie threw his head back against the current, desperate to keep it above water and try to breathe. My eyes widened as water crashed against his head and lapped up into his mouth despite his best efforts, and I slid down making sure to keep a death grip on the embankment.

[pic – grab him by the hair]

Jeremie wouldn't let go of the drainage pipe but his half-choked throat made it very clear that perhaps yanking on his hair wasn't the most comfortable of ways to rescue him. But I couldn't afford to care. Knowing XANA, the water would keep rising and the storm would worsen so long as he had one of us on death row. I glanced down the river at the destroyed bridge, wondering if the others had realized what was going on by now and were on their way.

“Jeremie, come on, you gotta get up!” I shouted over the roaring water. Jeremie coughed and spat, shaking his head in my grasp. There were several incredibly pathetic attempts at speaking before he finally managed to blurt, fully indignant and voice cracking.

“I'm stuck!”

Fucking...Of course.

“Stuck,” I said, incredulous, “Stuck how.”

Jeremie stuttered, struggling to fix it without my help, “M-My leg...,”

“Alright,” I looked at the monstrous torrent around the drainage pipe that must've been kicking Jer around mercilessly, “Alright, shit.”

Slipping my feet along the concrete in hesitation, I tried to calculate how to wrench him free. Jeremie continued to cough and sputter, blind both from his lack of glasses and the murky water. How much did he swallow, how much pushed its way up his nostrils? How long would his strength last? Fuck it. There was no easy way to do this.

Taking care to secure my arm around the drainage pipe, I fell back into the water opposite of Jeremie. The river was colder than I remembered and I gave a cry of shock. Shock? Well if we didn't drown maybe we'd die of that instead. Thanks, XANA. I reached down, floundering until I felt Jeremie's shoe. To my dismay his leg was definitely stuck, but it was stuck beyond his foot—past his ankle to the lower portion of his shin.

“How the fuck,” I griped, trying to pull his shoe off. Jeremie didn't answer; I wasn't even sure he really heard me. Fine. Work now, complain later. The shoe came off and I let it be carried away by the current. Sucking in a breath, I ducked into the water to push against the flat of his foot. It wouldn't budge. Resurfacing, I gasped and looked across at him.

“Jer, Four-eyes, can you hear me?”

He coughed and spat water, “I lost my glasses, I'm not four-eyes. And don't—,” wave of water, choking fit, “Don't call me Jer.”

“Fuck off, Four-eyed Jer,” I snapped, “Also, this is gonna hurt.”

Jeremie redoubled his grip on the pipe despite my rampant desire to do exactly the opposite of what he wanted, lifting himself to try and visualize what was going on, glasses or no. Sniffing in neither approval nor disgust as I curled my leg, I took in a breath of preparation. Ducked into the water to line it up properly. Released.

I kick hard, no matter if it's out of or in the water. Jeremie's leg barely had a chance, jarred loose by the force of the kick. He screamed bloody murder, and I'm sure the roaring sound of water and storm drowned out a resonating crack from the bones in his leg. Water rushed into his mouth as he screamed, silencing him as his eyelids frantically fluttered and he slid limply into the river.

[pic – catching him]

I pulled him snug against me and kicked against the current to help bring the both of us to shore. Jeremie flailed, having clearly been shocked back to life as every time his mouth came above water he pierced my ears with screams of pain. Didn't matter that the river would inevitably fill his mouth to quiet him for my sake, he still screamed when he could. I would've loved to have called him a crybaby were it not for his one leg not kicking like the other. There was no way it wasn't broken—maybe even shattered. I grit my teeth and dug my fingers back into the concrete embankment, pulling us both flush against it. Summoning the last of my strength from the adrenaline that was quickly fading due to the icy water, I pushed Jer through the last of the current and up onto the concrete. He looked like an absolute drowned rat, and a fairly upset one at that. Uh. No hard feelings about breaking your fucking leg, right, Jer?

Out of nowhere, once the water was only to his waist, he started struggling against me with his puny arms. Scowling, I pushed harder to get him out faster, thus causing him to seethe through his teeth as he scraped against the embankment. Yeah, yeah, you hate me, whatever, I just saved your ass so just—

“I can do it myself!!” he screeched, swatting at my hands with more fervor than before now that everything but his legs were ashore. His nails clipped the skin of my arm, and that combined with his screech made me let go in shock, watching with wide dumbfounded eyes as he dragged his weak body onto the patches of grass beyond the concrete. Realizing I looked like an idiot, I hardened my expression and pulled myself up after him while he nursed his broken leg.

[pic – dang that really hurts there huh eh]

He was crying. I'm not sure if it was just because of his leg, either.

Deciding to let him have some semblance of decency, I looked out to the storming river, rain finally falling from the swollen, angry clouds. Neither of us cared much, already soaked and shivering to oblivion. Jeremie tried to hide the fact that he was crying, but there were cold sniffles and there were crying sniffles, and I knew the difference pretty damn well.

“You're welcome, by the way,” I said once I determined he had had his moment of privacy. Jeremie scowled, the expression looking painfully comical on his face.

“I can swim just fine. I didn't need your help!” He spat. I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah you were swimming just perfectly with your foot stuck.”

“You broke my leg!”

“I saved your fucking life! You're welcome!”

“If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have had to have had my life saved!”

I scoffed, waving my arms incredulously, “Oh, so, what, you're saying I struck the bridge with lightning?!”

“No! I'm saying we all would've gone to the factory and managed to get to Lyoko, together, and we wouldn't be fighting anything but XANA, which is how it should be!”

“Sure, yeah,” I sneered, “And then all four of you would've wound up in the river and for sure someone would've actually died.”

Scoffing again, I stretched my legs out to reach the edge of the concrete, which the water was quickly rising to meet, “But I do agree with you on one thing. If XANA's such a bigass problem, then yeah, that should be the only thing you're fighting.”

Jeremie mimicked my sneer, “Are you dense? Trying to be wise like that?! You're the problem! If you were gone, everything would be back to normal!”

Normal?

Right now, he's...banking his decisions and actions on the idea that if you just weren't here, he'd still have a chance with me. He may be incredibly immature and stupid about it, but in his mind I'm still a possibility, right?

If this is how he acts when I'm taken...imagine what he would do if he found out he never and no longer has a chance.

Do I want to take that chance...?

Or what Jeremie thought was normal?

My face darkened, and eye-rolling was replaced with threatening glares. Too bad Jeremie's vision was so fucked he couldn't see the intensity—which probably was a good thing, but I wanted him to feel how angry and disappointed I was with him. To the point where I could feel heat in my hands as my fingers curled inwards into fists to match the guttural darkness of my voice.

“Normal, huh,” I glowered, “Guess she wasn't the kind of normal you thought she was.”

“I know everything about her!” Jeremie was quick to defend, “Or I did, until you! Why she went with you, I'll never understand—and people agreed with me, until Aelita had a seizure and you helped her in front of everyone!”

“Uh,” I twisted my mouth, failing to see the relevance, “Fucking anyone would've helped her?”

[pic – JEREMIE YELL]

“I'm not just anyone!! I told you I could've saved myself and I would've! I'm a good swimmer!”

“Jer, you are not making any goddamn sense. I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”

His legs shifted like he wanted to stand up and tower over me to prove his point, but he quickly remembered that one of them was broken, so he had to settle for sitting in a pathetic puddle of muck-water and rain, pretending he wasn't adding tears to the mix.

“Her head! Her seizures! She fell into the pool during class and I had to save her!!”

[pic – a bad memory]

The seizure at the pool. I furrowed my brow in concentration, cocking one upwards after a moment and regarding Jeremie eye-to-eye.

“Alright. She mentioned that, but if it's so damn heroic of you why don't—,”

Oh.

Jeremie's wrecked expression said it all as it dawned on me. A return trip had to be launched. No one remembered his heroism, and when they went back in time Aelita was prepared and didn't fall into the pool unexpectedly. And since it happened in class, Jim would've been the one to tend to her and would've pushed other students away—which didn't happen the first time around because Jeremie was used to acting on his feet.

“Four-eyes...,” Despite the bullying nickname my voice had softened in sympathy, although not exactly losing the darkness behind it, “None of that was my fucking fault.”

Jeremie breathed through his teeth, bits of saliva and rainwater spitting out in time to his rising and falling shoulders, “It wasn't until you came here.”

“Again, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”

“Do you want me to just tell you why you screw everything up, or do you need it in chronological order and in list form?!” Jeremie snapped.

[pic – ugh for real]

“Oh, please.” I said, monotonous to Jeremie's obliviousness, “I'm so unaware.”

He opened his mouth as though he was going to start telling me all the ways I was fucked up, but the tone of my voice finally hit him and he shut it, glaring at me the best he could with his nearsightedness. Crossing his arms like a sulking child would, he turned away, pushing his lower lip out. I assume that it wasn't supposed to look comical, that it was supposed to be taken more seriously than it looked, but, y'know. Maybe I was just more of an asshole than I thought.

“If you're so aware why don't you do anything to fix it?”

“I don't know,” I mimicked him by pushing out my lower lip even though he couldn't see, my gaze sharp as Aelita still hung in my mind, “If you know everything about Aelita, why don't you fix any of the problems you have with her?”

Jeremie whipped his head back around, “That's none of your business—!”

His sentence ended with a small gckt of shock as I grabbed his shirt and whipped him far more forward than he was planning on. Face-to-face, I could see his eyes focus and him shudder in fear as I finally became clear to him. Not finding the need to bare my teeth, my voice came out smooth like the steel of a sword. Dark, cutting deep.

“Aelita's my girlfriend, fucker. If you have problems with her, you make it my business.”

I had no idea where any of that came from, why it came out so easily, or how I could create that tone of voice. It was one of those things where you don't realize your heart's racing until everything is said and done and things feel marginally safe again. An action drawn out of righteous fury that you can't control but it drove you to do the right thing as if it was simply instinctual. Jeremie froze in my grasp and I held him like that, breathing through my nose like brimstone smoke was curling out of my nostrils. It had truly been the first time any of my original friends had seen anything remotely resembling any sort of protectiveness over Aelita when she wasn't around—Odd included. Hell, I vaguely remembered telling Odd we weren't dating, just to avoid the subject so I wouldn't have to defend us together. This, however—this was a different matter.

Jeremie moved, more akin to a twitching cricket than a human being, and gulped before he finally gathered the courage to speak, “S-She's the one who has problems with m—,”

“You've got two options,” I continued, my tongue still steel, “Either you think of a way to rephrase that, or you tell me in detail what her problems are with you.”

He went silent, trying to contemplate. I was through being patient and tightened my grip on him until he made a pathetic little sound. He opened his mouth, then closed it. Opened. Closed it in a wet squiggly line that pulled towards the ground. Eyes pulling from me and dropping to the puddles of water in the grass, Jeremie bit his lip. Thought kept him from doing much else, and I watched his gaze slowly go down to his broken leg, then to the encroaching river, and finally to the far shore. He sniffed—crying again. I loosened my grip, regaining some patience. If I wasn't careful I would simply be intimidating the answers I wanted to hear out of him. That would put him in a position I'd been in far too many times to feel comfortable at the thought of inflicting that on someone else. Suddenly wary, I let him go completely. His ass sat back on the soaked ground with an almost inaudible plop.

[pic – staring out]

There were a few times where it looked like he was going to talk, where his face contorted in anger like he had found a fallacy in what I was forcing him to do. But after more thought it soon evaporated and he went back to simply staring out. Rephrasing his words into a different sentence was easy, but Jeremie had a penchant for taking the harder route. Plus, listing all of Aelita's grievances against him should've been working in his favor.

But every time he opened his mouth, it shut again. Rain continued to pour, turning into sheets. Soon we'd have to be yelling to be heard, so I kept my eyes on his mouth, counting the times he tried to speak but never did. Waiting.

“...No,” Jeremie mumbled after a while, ducking his chin down to his soaked shirt, “Nevermind. It doesn't matter.”

“You're goddamn right it doesn't,” I grumbled, “And trust me, the more you make it matter the more it hurts Aelita,”

“I'm not trying to hurt her,” Jeremie protested, wrapping his arms tightly around himself, “I've only ever tried to help her!”

“See, that's the difference between you and me, Jeremie,” using his full name made him flinch like he had been bitten by a horsefly, “I don't make fucking excuses when I hurt people.”

“You're wrong. The difference between us is you want to hurt people.”

“Sure,” I rectified, “That means I know when and how I hurt them, instead of telling them that I'm only trying to help and nothing else.”

I knew we were already freezing, but Jeremie considerably blanched at my words. My voice was soft, dangerous with the knowledge that I was correct, “Sound familiar?”

Jeremie dropped his face into his knees and over the rain I could barely hear him retort, “What do you know?”

“Apparently I know Aelita more than you do, now.” I brought my gavel down much more gently than I thought I would. I didn't have to be harsh to be so direct, because the pain I was causing—pain without harm—was clear to see in front of me as Jeremie squirmed, looking up at me with his blonde hair plastered over one eye and pouting lip collecting rainwater and tears alike. He tried to retort, fight against it, but he couldn't. He could only stare, with his blurry, practically useless vision.

“I-I just...,” he tried to protest, jamming a clumsy thumb into the corner of his eye to wipe tears away to be replaced with raindrops, “I wish she'd talk to me...,”

“Maybe you could try listening,” I answered gruffly. Jeremie's hand dropped into the muck, completely defeated. Everything that I had forced him to think about was raging behind his porcelain-still features. Fragility was Jeremie's claim to fame, I just wished it was only physical fragility instead of emotional fragility.

“I j-just...,” his voice was barely a whisper above the storm, “I want things to be the way they were...before all this happened. Happier. And not...Not this,” Jeremie pressed the heel of his palm against his forehead, folded into a loose fetal position, “Whatever this is, I want it to stop.”

Staring at him, I found my own vision crossed and blurred as if I was subconsciously trying to see where the boy had come from. See that scrappy nerd leading me through the sewers on a madman's expedition to an abandoned factory, see him turn to me to make sure I was still there, his chin scraping against a sweater his mom surely bought for him that he was scuffing up by being in such derelict places. See the boy that eagerly showed me Aelita's face for the first time on the monitor of a computer straight from science fiction. See the boy whose only goal was to get the girl out and shut the evil down.

Perhaps he had twisted himself in some way, but there must've still been that boy alive inside of him somewhere. I could barely see it, and I'm sure Aelita saw it too. That's what made her hurt so much, seeing him become this puppet of his former self. Fanatical over her, fanatical over his role in XANA's defeat, real world be damned. Real world be damned for him and whoever was in his crusade.

Good intentions pave the road to hell, huh.

I stood up.

“You want this to stop? Then do something about it. This XANA of yours attacks, you put a stop to it, right? Because if you do nothing, nothing will change.”

[pic – offering his hand]

“So? Wanna go save the world?”

Jeremie looked at my hand, then up at me, skeptical, “And? You're not really the inspirational type, what's in it for you, why even tag along?”

I gave the hardest glance at his broken leg that I know he couldn't really make out, and looked back at him, smirking, “C'mon, Four-eyes, what if you get attacked by a hairdryer and I'm not around? Not being able to walk aside, I wouldn't want to miss that for the world.”

He gave me a long, unbroken stare. Some rusty old wheels were turning in his mind, way in the back of it. Wheels he hadn't given a turn in quite some time. My smirk grew as I saw him trying to work out why what I said was making him think harder than usual. Strange to have a weird phrase blast you from the past, isn't it, Belpois?

He blinked, shaking his head. It didn't seem like he had come to the correct conclusion, or what I had said was too much of a coincidence to be a direct quote of something I said to him years ago, right before he showed me the factory—if he even remembered it as where that had come from anyways.

[pic – take my hand if you want to live]

[pic – slinging him around the shoulder]

It took some doing, walking Jeremie around the embankment looking for an entrance into the factory. He had studied the maps before, sure, but they rarely if ever came to this area. The longer we searched, the higher the river got. Finally we found a small staircase leading upwards and to a door that had long since been bolted and rusted shut. Setting Jeremie down on a stair, I kicked the filthy glass of a window until it shattered, nearly losing my balance in the process. I crawled in first, dropping to the floor and opening my arms to catch Jeremie. After a small threat that I would just drop him if he didn't hurry his ass up, Jeremie dragged himself over the ledge and ungracefully flopped over.

“Right, now what?” I asked, slinging him around my shoulder again.

“You're gonna have to be my eyes,” Jeremie muttered, just as happy with that prospect as I was, “There's two ways to get over to the other side: above the river, or below it.”

On cue, a clap of thunder rippled its way over head, shaking shards free from the broken window. It echoed and reverberated in the factory, the ghost of abandoned machinery singing in response. I shuddered a little, water dripping from my skin as I did so.

“Call me a pessimist,” I grumbled as I located a rickety staircase leading down to the ground floor and looking for faded signs for an entrance to a basement, “But I don't wanna have lightning strike us twice and fall into the river again.” Jeremie looked for a moment like he was going to agree with me with a small smirk, but he quickly hid it and swallowed the urge. I shrugged him onto my shoulders better and trekked onwards, finding the tunnel we needed.

Unfocused eyes occasionally glanced up at the scar on my cheek. Occasionally became frequently, until Jeremie was staring at me. I glanced over once. Very impolite of you, Jer, I was starting to feel self-conscious; especially with the hairdryer comment I made earlier.

“Keep staring and I'll have to start calling you No-eyes,” I warned, echoing down the tunnel that was becoming pitch black. Jeremie took a moment, pulling his phone out of his pocket. I assumed it had been waterlogged, but he must have had a special case or modification, because when he pressed the home button it flickered to life. Well. Wasn't surprising that this wasn't the first time they'd been tossed into the water. Without bringing attention to it he turned the flashlight on, shining down the long, damp tunnel. Once that was done, he again looked up at me.

“Nothing,” he muttered, “Just starting to see why Aelita likes you,”

[pic – let jer's body hit the floor]

I looked down at Jeremie, the flashlight from his fallen phone blinding one of my eyes. Frowning until it was almost a scowl, I watched him hiss and scrabble to hold his broken leg. Gingerly massaging the muscle above the break, he breathed through his teeth. Once he had gotten his shit together and was probably able to listen I spoke.

“I'm not doing this so you have a better impression of me,” I growled, low and waiting for Jeremie to glance back up at me before I continued, “This isn't for you, either. It's for Aelita. And only Aelita.”

Jeremie frowned.

“Capiche?” I asked. He looked down and nursed his broken leg more.

“Capiche...,” he answered after a while.

“Good.” I reached down and helped him back on up onto his good foot. Black dust and bits of mold clung to his wet clothes from the floor, and he struggled to brush it off as I started moving without his consent. Hopping awkwardly to try and meet his pace, Jeremie eventually gave up and resumed his position as a flashlight.

Neither of us said more than necessary as we navigated the bowels of the factory, Jeremie giving directions and me figuring out that describing what I was seeing was a much more difficult task than I was prepared for. Maybe it was just because Jeremie was so meticulous and specific, but even though we had a few hiccups we made it work without blowing up at each other. Once we were out of the tunnel I could dimly hear it start to collapse, water pooling at our feet. No time to lose. Einstein guided me to the console room, having me shut the flood doors before leaving him for the scanners.

Joint deactivation.

Alright.

[pic – forest sector]

I can do this.

[pics – reese foiling but not destroying a chimera via a net of vines]

[pics – jeremie guiding reese on joint deactivation]

[pic – reese + code lyoko]

A return trip launched. I found myself in Aelita's room again. This time, she told me what happened at Kadic. Water had began to flood the gymnasium, causing electrical shortages and sparks everywhere. They had to stack whatever they could on stage and start feeding people up into the rafters, knocking down lights wherever they could in order to avoid as many shocks as possible. I was incredibly thankful I wasn't around for that. Extreme heights over electrified water sounded like a less fun time than usual. Nothing seemed very different from a normal attack, with the exception that Jeremie and I had managed to work together to deactivate the tower. Aelita smiled at that, small, reserved, but a genuine smile. I put my hands on her shoulders.

“Hey. It was for you more than him. I promise I gave him a piece of my mind.”

“God forbid,” her smile softened, “Imagine Jeremie trying to pull half the shit you pull.”

“He was already tryin' to,” I smirked, “I mean, until the real deal shut him up.”

“Don't get too full of yourself,” Aelita teased as she already texted Christophe that she was coming down to help before he could ask for it, “You're only able to pull this off with my help, and don't you forget it.”

Before she opened her door to leave I pulled her into a hug that no one was allowed to see, “You know I won't.”

Next stop, Jeremie's room.

Maybe it was strange for me to do so, but it's not like I forced Jeremie to do anything he wasn't going to do. All I did was show up at his door and stand in the doorway, crossing my arms and staring at him. The concert started in one hour. He didn't have to go.

But I was going. For Aelita more than myself. There wasn't going to be a brighter opportunity for Jeremie to show that maybe he was willing to promise something more to her than just his wishes. It wasn't a guarantee that he would change, in fact it wouldn't guarantee anything.

So long as it made Aelita happy, even for just a moment, it was worth it.

[pic – the concert]

[pic – jeremie standing a safe distance from reese]

“It's loud,” Jeremie complained in monotone, “There's too many people.”

“Nobody's asking you to like this,” I said, watching Aelita perform on stage. A smile was on her face, one that the others rarely saw. A smile of passion in creativity. Homeliness she could only find within herself. None of us were qualified to be able to bring it out of her, but there was no harm in cheering her on when it did. I looked over at Jeremie, wondering if I needed to elaborate in order to get it through his thick skull. Colorful lights from overhead danced on his glasses, but looking just behind the lenses I could see that he was mesmerized by Aelita's presence on stage.

He swallowed, and I imagined his pride going down with it.

With a small, jagged and stuttering nod, Jeremie turned around and left. There was no way to know just how much he understood, if he even understood any of it at all. But at least he had seen it. I turned back to where Aelita was still on stage even though her song was wrapping up. She had picked me out from the crowd and was beaming at me in a way I didn't know she could.

She had seen that Jeremie was there.

Barely giving Christophe a nod of acknowledgment as he took over for her even though he was wrapped up in a brace, Aelita bounded off stage, weaving her way to me. Her hands clasped my arms and her eyes shone from the strength of her smile.

“You stick out like a sore thumb here, you know that?” she shouted over the crowd. I tensed up, suddenly awkward.

“Aw c'mon, I came here to see you, not to dance,” I tried to squirm my way out of it, but Aelita was too high on the moment. Though she let me go, she laughed as though I was joking.

“Well, I'm here to dance—so can I ask you to a dance?”

“Uh—,” she grabbed my hand and pulled me into the thicket of people.

“Don't lie! I know you used to dance!” she laughed back at me.

Well. She wasn't wrong, as usual. No time like the present.

[pics – dancin!!!!!!]

Oblivious to anyone else, we ended the night with the stragglers of the party, pleasantly exhausted and picking up enough of the pieces so that there wouldn't be so much of a mess for tomorrow's crew to clean up. Aelita (gently) hugged Christophe good night, and we escorted each other back to the dorms, hushed from sleepiness but smiling all the same. It had been too long since I had felt and accepted dim, warm happiness like this. Hell, it had been so long that it was more like I didn't allow myself to feel this way. From the warm, proud look in Aelita's eyes from seeing me in such bliss, that was probably the right assumption to make. I ruffled her already unkempt hair for a good night, and retired to my dorm immediately, flopping onto my bed to pass out without even checking to see if Odd had made it back from his date with Sam or not.

It was good.

~~

Waking up late the following vacation day was dream-like. The sun was warm but not hot, the breeze cool but not too strong, and the leaves were broad enough to cast mottled shadows in the sunshine. Despite how good the past day went, I had a need to avoid people. For once it wasn't even malicious or anti-social, I just felt tuckered out and I needed a day to rest—back in my forest where it wasn't night and it wasn't dark and I could just sit and doze undisturbed. Odd was halfway off his bed, face down and snoring from the poor position anyways—I was aching to get out and away and spend some time to recuperate in the fresh air.

I walked, mildly enchanted by the day and relieved that for once I was relaxed enough that I wasn't thinking about anything other than what was in front of me at that moment. Give it time, maybe an hour or two, and my thoughts would turn back on themselves, which meant that I had to savor the relief as much as possible.

Something too big to be a woodland creature scrambled and crashed through the undergrowth, struggling to stay on its feet. I swiveled on my heel, confused more than annoyed. I hadn't even gotten that far from the school grounds yet, I could still hear the sleepy buzzing of the courtyard if I strained my ears enough. In fact, it hadn't been too far away from where I had taken Vivi to talk with her soon after she ran to Kadic, crying and scared she wouldn't have a place to call home. (On the second rendition of the day, of course.)

The fact that that's what I recognized the place as became a sort of cruel irony as Vivi herself pulled her small body from the undergrowth. Blinking rapidly to clear the shock from my mind, I dropped to one knee, offering my hands for her to grasp and pull herself up, swinging her away from the courtyard if she was being pursued. Another crying spell? Why didn't she call first?

[pic – the kind of primal fear you only feel when you're in mortal danger :) ]

“Vivs—,”

WHUD.

My head exploded with pain and stars, lasting only the heavy seconds it took for me to crumble to the ground.