The story was discontinued in my head for a LOOONG time because it had gotten to the point where I was just screwing around and the plot had long since run away. I'm currently reworking it.
This came to me at three am and hasn't left me alone. It's smack in the middle of everything, so I don't expect you to understand what's going on, just enjoy it.
(Also, the narrator's name is never said. I don't know why I decided this, but having her name included just felt...wrong. So don't go hunting for it; it's not there.)
x(X)x
She closes her eyes and inhales the salt air, but it’s not home. The air is too cold and there’s too much wind that isn’t being penetrated by the sound of a thousand gulls over head. It isn’t home and there’s no Skye and Hikaru to throw her in the water like they do every year on her birthday, even though the sun is half consumed by the water and the day is almost over.
“I guess I’ll just have to do it for them,” She murmurs. Olette gives her a strange look as she bends down to tug off her boots.
“What are you doing? The ocean won’t be warm until July.” Olette reminds her, but she doesn’t listen. She’s running head first towards the waves, ignoring their shouts at her heels like the cry of gulls that’s painfully absent and she’s trying to find any semblances of home in this godforsaken town that’s so far from what she loves yet so close to forgetting.
Stray wants her to remember, but she doesn’t know what. She doesn’t know if it’s how to be strong, or how to fight, how to let go of the things and people she’s come to cherish in this pit stop town. What she does know is that every day the walls she’s trying so hard to keep strong are crumbling and she’s turning soft, she’s forgetting there’s a world outside of this little town and that world includes home and every day she’s going a little bit more insane.
She ignores the prickle of pain from the water washing over her feet that’s so much colder than home as she wades into the ocean, diving headfirst into the oncoming waves. And for a moment, with the salt stinging her eyes and the current pulling at her body she’s home. She’s home and she’s about to kill Hikaru and Skye, and maybe even Mana, if she took part this year, for throwing her in the ocean like they do every year on her birthday, and maybe her parents are standing on the ledge that separates the sand from the cobblestone, shaking their head at their children’s antics. Or maybe they’re at home, still cleaning up from dinner and getting her birthday cake ready and enjoying a few moments of peace while their three troublemakers are out of the house.
She wonders briefly what happened to her parents, and Hikaru and Mana, and why she hasn’t wondered this before. She knew what happened to Skye, and most of the time she wishes she didn’t. But she doesn’t know if they made it off the island in time, or if the darkness sucked them up before they got the chance. Axel was never really clear, and getting an answer out of Stray was like pulling teeth. But Stray’s life with them is long past, so maybe for her, remembering is pulling teeth. She doesn’t know.
Again it hits her how much she doesn’t know, and how much Stray is hiding from her. What is going on in the world that demands she stay confined to this middle-of-nowhere town? And why hasn’t Axel found her yet? He said he’d always find her, but maybe it’s become too much for him, too. Maybe he’s moved on with his life, the way Stray does (and doesn’t) want her to move on with hers. She doesn’t know.
She’s ripped from her thoughts as Olette and the others pull her from the ocean, and it occurs to her that she’s running out of air. They drag her to the shoreline, Olette’s high pitched hysteria and Pence’s loud panic sending her mind swimming as her lungs gasp for too cold salt air. Part of her wishes they’d just left her in the ocean. If there were any way she’d like to die in this damn town it’d be in the ocean, six tram stops away from a rundown little house where Hayner’s childhood rival is crashing on her couch. What would it be like to drown, to return to the salt of the earth and cease to exist? She doesn’t know.
What she does now is that it’s her sixteenth birthday, and her parents and siblings aren’t here to celebrate it, the next tram back to town isn’t until seven am tomorrow morning, and her friends are probably going to get grounded for coming to the ocean with her on a school night. Maybe it’s enough for now. She knows it never will be.
x(X)x
They end up getting a ride home from a guy who works at a gas station. He’s on the older side of life, pot bellied and grey haired, and judging by the number of times he uses the rearview mirror to look at Olette, she thinks the only reason he was so willing to give them a ride was because he wants to get in her pants. He’s smart enough not to try, with Hayner in the front seat (because it’s a “man’s duty go keep girls safe”) and her and Pence in the back; she doubts he’s afraid of getting his ass kicked by a group of teenage punks, but there’d be too many witnesses if he tried anything. Instead, he makes meaningless small talk about the lure of the ocean and how he always wished he’d learned how to surf.
She ignores the old man’s chatter as she watches the scenery flash by, carrying her closer to a house that could never be home and further from the salt air and the only thing like home she has here. Olette leans over and asks what she’s thinking about, but she only shrugs her off. She doesn’t want to be as close with Olette as she is, or with any of them, but she can’t bring herself to cut contact, either. The only thing worse than being in a town you don’t like is having nothing to distract you from it.
Hayner, ever the tactful one, leans back towards the other three and asks if she was trying to kill herself out there. The old man sputters, confused, but they ignore them. Olette scolds Hayner for being rude, but Pence restates the question, earning a glare from their mother hen. She only tells them that she can hold her breath for a long time, and they shouldn’t have worried. Hayner lets it go with a sullen, “That’s not what it looked like”, and they fall silent for the rest of the ride.
The old man (“Please, call me Caspin”) leaves them at the tram station in the center, telling them it’s late and they should get home quickly before driving away. Olette is like a little kid who missed dessert, rushing towards the usual spot to grab her bag and urging them to do the same. Hayner doesn’t listen. He’s in enough trouble already, he says, ten more minutes won’t make a difference. Pence, ever the momma’s boy, is rushing along side Olette. She and Hayner walk together, taking their time through the empty streets that are even sleepier at night than they are in the day. She has no reason to rush; there’s no one at home waiting to scold her for missing curfew. Seifer might bug her about where she’s been, but Hayner doesn’t need to know that. He’d probably attempt to verbally demolish her for housing his “arch-nemesis”, but she doesn’t really care; he can’t beat her in a fist fight, and she’s always been better with words than him, even if she doesn’t use them much. She wasn’t here for witness the beginning of the rivalry, and personally, he’s not even her rival to begin with and whatever is going on between the two of them is a little childish for high schoolers. But Hayner doesn’t need to know that.
Instead they amble back to the usual spot in silence, Olette and Pence long gone. They rummage through the dark for for their school bags before parting ways, Hayner giving her one last half-calculated glance. She ignores it until he speaks.
“You really weren’t trying to kill yourself, where you?” He asks, already trying to convince himself of an answer she hasn’t given. She can’t blame him; he’s been happy in his tired little town all his life.
“You sound like Olette.” She tells him, and it’s true. Olette, for all her scolding on tact and niceties, does press for answers to horrible questions after everyone’s left, even if she does it carefully. She assumes that Olette must think it’s okay if they’re alone, because then she isn’t putting someone on the spot. She can’t help but smile at the comparison. Big, bad Hayner and shy, careful Olette.
He chuckles. “Yeah, I know I do. But still. Why the ocean? One minute, we’re fine at the clock tower with our ice cream and the next you’ve got us rushing towards the last tram. If...If you really were trying to kill yourself out there, why make us come with you?”
He’s got a point to everything he’s saying, which is rare for Hayner; he’s the king of rambling about nothing. She doesn’t meet his eyes, even if he could see them in the dark, but she smiles.
“Because the ocean feels like home.”
x(X)x
Nothing has changed in her run down little house when she returns. The sliding door lock is still broken and there’s still no electricity. The only proof that Seifer has moved from his post on the couch are the extra dirty dishes in the sink and a fresh cup of tea in his hand. He gives her a tired glance as she quietly lets herself into the house, his hand gingerly touching the head-wound from his mother’s frying pan, as if it’s healed in the last ten seconds he hasn’t touched it.
They don’t say anything. She drops her bag on the island counter and starts cleaning the dishes. It’s not like she ever does her homework anyways; what’s the point?
“Where were you?” He asks from the other room. She can’t tell if he really cares or just needs something to break the silence with. He’s funny like that; he’ll spend all day tormenting Hayner and the others (but mostly Hayner), yet he needs some sort of friendly contact with her when she comes back. She wonders if it’s because she’s seeing him at his weakest.
“We went to the beach,” she tells him, drying a bowl she can tell he used to for soup earlier. She doesn’t mind that he helps himself to things in her house. It makes less work for her in the long run.
“Isn’t it a bit cold for swimming?” He asks, and there’s something malicious in his voice. She doesn’t take it personally. She’s come to notice that Seifer in general is an aggressive person, whether he intends it or not. His voice is closer now; he’s come into the kitchen.
She feels him touch her hair, trying to run his fingers through the salt sticky locks. “No wonder you look like shit.” He’s softer now, his voice less malicious and more teasing. She wonders if anyone else ever hears his voice like this, or if it’s just her.
She shrugs, placing a mug on the drying rack, and she feels his arms encircle her waist. She pauses, letting him hug her, inhale the sea smell that’s buried itself in her clothes. They stand like that for a long while, neither one talking. They’ve got an odd relationship, but somehow it serves them both. She fixes up the wounds his mother leaves behind and he stops her from going crazy in her too-small, not-her-home house, though she doubts he realizes it.
“They think I tired to kill myself,” she says quietly, one hand holding the arms against her stomach. His hands are a lot bigger than hers, she notices. Mana used to tease her about have small hands.
“Were you?” He asks, arms tightening. She can tell so much from his body. He’s tense; he doesn’t like the conversation, and, unlike Hayner, assumes the worst instead of the best. Maybe that’s the start of their rivalry.
“I don’t know.” She mumbles, staring at the sink again. He lets go of her waist and turns her around to face him. She can’t really see his face in the light, but she guesses that it’s annoyed, or angry. She never knows with him; his face never matches what he really thinks.
“How can you not know?” He’s incredulous. She doesn’t blame him. Instead she shrugs. Like Olette, she’s far too close to him for her own comfort, and she doesn’t like it. It makes her feel vulnerable.
Silence falls between them, the last of the summer light long gone, leaving them and the little house surrounded in darkness. When he realizes she’s not going to answer the question, he leans in and kisses her. This whole kissing thing is still a bit new between them, but she doesn’t mind it. Sometimes, when she closes her eyes, she imagines he’s Axel, that Axel’s here, and he didn’t forget about her. They’re a lot alike sometimes, which doesn’t say much for Axel’s character, but it’s true. She imagines Axel in high school would be a lot like Seifer. The only key difference she’s found is that Axel would make his own authority instead of wearing someone else’s.
Seifer is the one to break the kiss. At some point, his hands came to cup her face and he holds her eyes to his. “Where do you go?” He asks. Even when he’s quiet his voice holds an aggressive edge to it. “When you’re mind runs away with you. Where do you go?”
It’s probably one of the most personal questions he’s ever asked her in the last five weeks he’s been staying at her house. They’ve been dancing around everything in each other’s lives except for what physically there. She absent-mindedly thumbs the bandages on her knuckles from earlier; that was the first time he patched up her.
“I don’t know. After all, my mind is running away with me, isn’t it? I have no idea where it’s going.” He recognizes the dodge and drops the question. She’s good with words; they could sit her all night and she could answer his question a million times without actually answering it.
His hands drop from her face and sighs. She touches the bandage on his head carefully. It’s got to be rust red by now, even though the blood is old. “We should probably change that,” she informs him. He nods and steps back, freeing her from the sink. He sits at the island counter while she collects candles and the over-used medkit.
They don’t talk while she looks at his head. The cut itself is much smaller than they thought, but the surrounding bruise is huge; what can you expect from a frying pan? She dabs at it carefully with a damp cloth, cleaning away the last of the dried blood in his hair before applying more antiseptic and a new bandage.
When she’s done, he grabs her hand, slowly undoing the wrappings. The skin is enflamed, she assumes from the salt water. He presses his lips to the myriad of little cuts, as if it would magically heal them. She feels herself flush slightly, but doesn’t say anything. He kisses each knuckle before re-bandaging them, repeating the process on her other hand. She wonders if he thinks she’s crazy. She wouldn’t blame him if he did.
“I didn’t clean up the bathroom.” He doesn’t look up from her hands. “I wasn’t sure if you...if you wanted another round with the mirror, or something.”
She snorts. No, she didn’t want another round with the mirror. But knowing Stray, she’ll put her message up on another one in the house soon, so it’s inevitable. Stray wants her to see the message, not just read it, but see it in herself. She doesn’t want to.
“It’s fine. I’ll clean it up later.” She reassures him. She doesn’t want him near anything that has to do with Stray. She knows that’s impossible, because there’s no way he can have anything to do with her without having something to do with Stray, but that’s beside the point. The further apart she can keep them, the better.
She pulls her hand from Seifer’s, saying she’s tired. Without waiting for an answer, she leaves him, the candles, and the over-used medkit in the kitchen, finding her way to the stairs by feel. She may not like this hole-in-the-wall house, but she’s spent enough time in it to know her way around without eyes. She finds fair bit of irony in that.
She wasn’t lying when she said she was tired, but she had no intention of falling asleep. She shuts the door to the room she sleeps in (because it will never be her bedroom) and flops on the bed. She wonders how much longer she’ll be staring at this off-white, cracked ceiling, or how much longer it will be until she falls asleep to the pale blue and clouds of her room at home. She can feel her still damp clothes staining the sheets, sand working it’s way from her skin to the bed, but she doesn’t move. To be completely honest, she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care about anything anymore.
She lights another candle and stares at her handmade wallpaper. Images of home canvas the walls; Skye, Hikaru, mom, dad, Mana, Axel, even Stray, and in some cases, people from Stray’s life. She remembers them, foggy images and echoing voices that will never become crystal clear in her mind because they weren’t meant for her; they’re Stray’s memories. She’s not supposed to see them. But then, she and Stray were never supposed to meet.
She pulls out her sketch book from under the bed. Flipping to a new page, she starts to draw. The figures are small and shadowed, the largest and the smallest dragging a middle sized one towards a sunset ocean. The way her birthday was supposed to be.
As she draws, she marvels at how far her ability has come in the last year. Drawing was the only way for her to recreate the images in her head; Stray wouldn’t let her have pictures of home. She knows that no one is supposed to know where she’s from and pictures could easily give that away, but did Stray have no faith in her? After everything she’s done, after everything Stray’s done, does she really distrust her so much?
She shakes her head of those thoughts, focusing instead on the drawing in front of her. She smiles sadly at the image, adding texture to the sand. Absently, she scratches at the sand in her hair, relishing the feeling. She knows she’ll hate it in the morning, but right now, it’s the most comfort she can find.
She’s left new lines behind for color when there’s a tap on her door. It creaks open without waiting for an answer, and Seifer pokes his head in. She glares at him. “You know, Almasy, there’s no point in knocking if you aren’t going to wait for an answer.”
He’s a bit taken aback by his surname, she notices. She hasn’t used it inside the house for at least two weeks now, but he hasn’t been an ass for the last two weeks. “Well?” She’s impatient. She doesn’t like being interrupted when she draws. Not that Seifer would know that.
He shrugs, pretending to be un-offended. “You seemed upset.”
She mimics his shrug, turning back to her drawing. She can feel his eyes on her as her pencils meet the paper again, further bringing the ocean to life. She feels rather than sees him move further into the room, and she really wished he leave. He had the whole house to explore, can’t he leave this one little space alone?
“You drew these?” His question is more of a statement. He’s eyeing a drawing of her, Skye, and Mana hanging out on the roof. Just as it was tradition to throw her in the water on her birthday, on Mana’s they sat on the roof and ate Paopu shaped cookies Mana’s mother made. Oddly enough, they were banana flavored. Mana’s mother was the only one they knew who could pull that off.
She sighs, figures it’s too late to stop him now. “Yeah. I did.” She puts down her pencils, distracting herself by attempting to align them perfectly. Seifer continues to stare at her wall.
He frowns at a picture of her and Skye, arms wrapped around each other on a beach blanket. They set off fireworks that night, she remembers. “Who’s he?”
She continues to fiddle with her pencils, now staggering their height instead of aligning them. She tells him the boy is her brother. He doesn’t believe her. “He doesn’t look much like you.” She decides he’s jealous, and it annoys her. Skye is her brother. And even if he wasn’t, what business is it of his who she dated before she came here? She’s suddenly a bit glad there aren’t as many pictures of her and Axel on the walls.
“We’re half siblings.” She doesn’t elaborate. It’s really none of his business, and she doesn’t want to mix home and here. It’s hard enough not being there, she doesn’t need him making her think about it more.
“Where’s your quilt?” His question is abrupt, random. She frowns at the sudden topic change, meeting his eyes again.
“Downstairs.” She tells him.
Comprehension pulls his features together. She’s been giving him her quilt since the first day she patched him up. She never intended to stay in this town long, nor to have house guests. She didn’t have any extra blankets.
“Don’t you get cold?” She smirks at how he doesn’t thank her. It’s so very him.
She shrugs. Sure she does. But being cold makes it harder to sleep, so she’s okay with that. Sleep means she has no control over her mind, and she’s sick of waking up and wishing she could go back to a dream. Being awake is so much safer.
She can tell he’s bothered by the idea of using her blanket. He tries to give it back, but she won’t let him. She argues that he’s injured, he should take the extra comfort, and he gets mad at her for “assuming he’s such a chicken-wuss”. She retaliates that he’s her guest, and he’s got nothing for that. He just mutters, still angry, that she should take her damn quilt back. She doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything.
x(X)x
Holy snap, that was long. I hope you enjoyed it, even if it left you confused as all means.
Wander safely,
Arc.
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