#listor

Or perhaps, once one begins, there are only endings.

“Listor!  Listor, help me!”  Bishin thrashes against the chains tightening around him, the gleam of toge-power in his claws fading with the contact of the treated iron.

“Please don’t make things any worse for yourself than they already are, Bishin.”  The words are ice in Listor’s throat, too compact and too cold, and Bishin’s eyes widen in a now-familiar expression of shock and fury.

“You—you traitor!  You traitor, Listor!  You traitor!”

The mecha—one of Doctor Traum’s, hastily brought out of the lab in response to Bishin’s refusal to obey direct orders, and the subsequent breakdown—begins to drag Bishin down the hall in the direction of the holding cells, and Listor closes his eyes as Bishin’s shouting breaks down into wailing—Harry’s name, mostly, and imprecations against Listor, and the mecha, and the future in general.

President Kurai stands next to him, book in hand.  Closing his eyes is all Listor dares to do.  Anything else—a word said out of turn, a finger lifted the wrong way, and he will land in a cell right beside Bishin, and then where will they be?

“I’m sorry it had to go this way,” the President says, voice soft.  The words sound genuine enough—even if it would buy him back everything he’s ever lost, Listor couldn’t say if he believes the man or not.

He opens his eyes and stares at the floor.  Leashes back the toge-power glimmering around his own palms, then wills his hands to unclench and hang loosely at his sides.  The President is still watching.

This only happened because we didn’t stop the Precure back then.  The wouldn’t have happened if we had stopped time sooner.  Bishin will understand eventually—I’ll make sure of it.  He tests the replies and discards them, one by one.  Too self-effacing.  Too judgmental.  Too presumptuous.

“So am I,” he says as the last echoes of Bishin’s voice fade away, the sobbing and snarling lost to the dim halls.

On the other side of the room, Doctor Traum tsks and adjusts his hat.

“Well, he’s so young still.  He’ll understand in time,” he opines.  Then he chuckles, humor skating over darker depths like an insect skimming the surface of a stagnant pond, and casts Listor a sideways glance.  “Not too much time, one hopes.”

Traum on one side, Kurai on the other—it had been the same back at the beginning of all this, and since then, it’s just been one ending after another.  The loss still throbs inside of him every day, but with a decreasing frequency as time carries him farther and farther away from happiness.  Listor doesn’t have to school his face to blankness.  There is nothing to express (nothing left to express) but determination.

“The less time it takes, the less time he will have to suffer,” he says, and leaves his head bowed as he turns to face the President.  “Preparations for opening the branch office are underway.  I’ll have a report for you by the end of the day.”

“Dependable as ever,” George murmurs.  He reaches up and presses his hand to Listor’s cheek—a lingering pressure, gentle but more intimate than has ever been earned.  “Soon enough, Listor.”  And then he draws back, putting the proper space between them, and says, almost off-handedly.  “An eternity without end.”

---    ---    ---    ---    ---

Criasu’s record-keeping in the 21st century left much to be desired, but such was the impact of the loss of ever-present cameras and ubiquitous android assistants on employee work ethic.  That, at least, was the only conclusion Listor could draw from months of vaguely drafted incident reports and fragments of video captured from Doctor Traum’s creations.  

He’d been through most of the information already, a research binge that had lead him to Wakamiya Henri.  Annoyingly, Listor couldn’t truly blame the Precure for that failure—the boy had barely turned an ear to them at all before he turned Listor down.  Approaching Daigan had been a stray thought that came maddeningly close to working, if only the fool could have dodged the purification attack that ended the battle—and, perhaps, if Papple’s eye had been less sharp.

And where was that sharpness when she worked here? Listor thought, swiping forcefully through another responsibility-dodging report from Criasu’s erstwhile section chief.  

Criasu had too many “erstwhiles” now, with Doctor Traum the latest and by far the worst loss, not least because he’d taken with him any explanations for the half-constructed devices that filled his poorly-organized lab as well as access to all of RUR-9500’s memory banks.  Listor had specifically saved that data externally before wiping the android’s programming to avoid exactly this sort of knowledge gap, and then Traum had gone in and encrypted the lot of it.  

At least the reports she wrote were thorough, if difficult to sift through for the sort of information Listor needed.  RUR-9500’s ability to parse interpersonal connections back then had been stunted at best, and that was what he was looking for, evidence of connection.

Don’t pretend you know how I’m feeling, Listor! Bishin yelled in his memory, accompanied by a fresh jab from a headache brought on by too much time spent staring at a screen.  Listor winced despite himself and splayed his fingers over his temples, sitting back in his chair—  

—back into the warmth of someone else’s presence, as President Kurai rested his hand on Listor’s shoulder and leaned in to examine the computer screen.  Listor locked his jaw closed around the undignified breath that threatened to burst out of his throat and, when he was certain he had his face firmly under control, looked up to assess George’s mood.  

The anemic blue of the display discolored the man’s white coat and accentuated his pallor, but the current day’s smile sat calmly on his face, for the time being serene and relaxed. His eyes flicked neatly down to Listor, who straightened incrementally under the regard.  

“Working late again?” George asked him, light-toned.  

It had once been the case that Listor rarely saw the man outside of the corporation’s central observation room, but access to the past-world seemed to have awoken a streak of curiosity in him.  He’d ceased his forays into the city, thankfully, and for a while after the restructure, Listor had thought things would go back to normal.  Lately, though, he’d taken to wandering again—though at least he wasn’t leaving the building anymore.

“Yes, President.” Listor nodded briefly.  With slow care, mindful of the history between George and Doctor Traum that no one else in the company knew, he went on, “With—recent events, Criasu Corp’s need for new employees has only risen.”  

“Do you think so?” George asked.  When Listor remained silent, waiting for a follow-up, he lifted his eyebrows into a questioning curve.

Listor absorbed the question and George gave him an encouraging smile, crossing his arms over the back of the chair and remaining silent.  

“Gelos’s methods are growing more extreme, and Bishin’s work has been erratic ever since his return,” Listor reasoned.  “I can’t be away from the company for as long as one of our field agents, and as it now stands, we—have no others.”  He faltered as George continued to stare at him, stare as if trying to commit his face to memory for some later recounting.  Unease raised the hair on the back of Listor’s neck; he fought the urge to run his hand back over his nape.  

“Yes.”  George finally looked away, his smile fading into a distant melancholy.  “You’re right, I suppose.  As usual.”

“…I’m sorry for the doctor’s loss,” Listor hazarded.  “I know the two of you were close.”  

George shook his head. “I can only blame myself,” he said with a soft sigh.  “This has all taken so much longer than anticipated.”  

Another stab of pain, another memory—his and Harry’s first few months at the main branch as field agents, united, ignited, by the promise of eternal happiness.  If only they had managed to freeze time back then, before the illness, before Harry’s resolve failed.

“Yes, President,” Listor said aloud, unable to keep the hardness out of his voice.  His neck was beginning to feel the strain of sitting half-turned to face a man standing over his shoulder.  

George looked down at him again, briefly assessing, and then a wistful smile washed over his face.  

“I’m only keeping you longer, aren’t I?  I apologize, Listor.  It has been somewhat lonely in my office of late.”  He reached down to give Listor’s shoulder another squeeze.  “I appreciate how hard you’re working.  I’ll follow your example and get back to it myself.”

And then, at last, he turned away and walked out the door, his even footsteps retreating down the hall.

Listor wrapped his hand over the place where the President’s had lain, pressing his other arm against his midsection, where the unease had slid down his spine to coil cold as coin in his belly.