Published: December 21, 2010.
Revised: August 25, 2010

Summary: "So, just like this. I'm being selfish, as always.. You should be proud of me." Was it so wrong to fear losing someone you love?

Genre: General/Drama

Rated: T+ (With descriptive death and gore)

Pairings: None.

Disclaimer: I don't own squat.

Warning(s): Spoilers. Near's actual name is used.

"The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive."
-Robert Heinlein

Cry Me a River

Leukophobia , he's learned, is the fear of white. Nate River looks at the boy in the vanity with an intense fixation, and not for the first time, he thinks he is abnormal. He is so much more smaller than most boys his own age, but he's already accepted the fact that he has always been fragile. He hardly minds that detail anymore, so he's staring at his head of white.. white, and then to his newly reddened, flaky skin.

It was a self test he's made, a rather stupid one, now he thinks, because everywhere stings and burns painfully, and he has never felt more humiliated in his entire six year old life. Still, he ponders on why he hadn't lasted outdoors as long as the other children in the kindergarten. Nate still hasn't decided whether he likes the odd feeling of summer warmth that hits him when he's outside, and he hasn't decided if he wants to play mindlessly as the other children do.. if he knows how to, that is.

It was just a thought.

Just a test.

Nate says so to his mother, but she ignores him, still clicking her tongue disapprovingly while she rubs cooling Aloe onto his sun burnt skin. "What were you thinking?"

He is annoyed. Hadn't he spent the entire minute explaining to her? Nate never likes when his mother treats him like he'll break. It is degrading, uncomfortable and honestly, he will even say suffocating. His eyes narrow as his mother's head lingers above his right shoulder, a sad look gracing her features. "Nate, please don't stay outside all day anymore."

She is babying him again. Why does she have to remind him of his mistake? He has learned his lesson. If he is less competent and more defying, then maybe he will ignore her. But being the good boy he is, he nods slightly, and she smiles like she's never been so happy.

It always makes Nate feel so guilty. His mother deems him precious, like a pearl that comes with every hundred oyster, or whatever proverb he has not thought to bring up. He knows his mother thinks he doesn't understand what's happening with his family, but Nate understands.

His father deems him an oddity, saying how he'll never be man enough to face the world when Nate grows older. Saying how Mother needs to stop keeping him from the world. Mother disagrees. His mother disagrees with a lot of what Father says lately, and they argue, and fight, and argue.

But Nate has not seen his father for almost a fortnight now, and Mother cries sometimes.

Nate doesn't recognize what seems to grab at his heart, but it hurts and aches so much more than his burns. His small hand reaches the place where his heart beats strong, and he holds it tight. Emotion, is it? Nate hates it, because it gripes and meddles with his train of thought. He sometimes wonders why he can never show his inner turmoil clearly.

Behind him, he hears his mother chuckle humorlessly, and he only wishes to know how to say he is sorry, because it is there, right on his tongue..

Nate shakes the figure lying underneath the dark sheets gently. And he doesn't know why he is doing this, because there is no logic. He is always so good with logic, but he fails at so much more important things he knows exist outside the small, imaginary box he always curls in. Nate knows this too, and as much as it bites at him, he remembers a voice saying weakness is what makes people human.

It reads 2.09 on the digital clock on the bedside table, and the moon resembles a Cheshire cat's gleeful smile. But it isn't as domineering, Nate thinks, because the stars are out, and they glow with the moon brightly.

"Nate? What on earth are you doing up at this hour?" the familiar voice asks him groggily. The dim light of the sky only lightens the more striking part of her features, like the long tresses of stark white hair to the piercing pair of blue-gray eyes. Nate doesn't say anything, like always, but he quietly climbs into the bed, diving under the covers and curling his body around the warmth.

Finally, he speaks. "I've been thinking, Ivory."

It is always so ironic to see the name fit her so well, because she is like him, only no one, not even father ever insults her, because father thinks she can make up for all his mistakes in life. Because she is a genius, they always say, because she can do so much. Father wants to push her into success so he will be rich. Ivory, her name, Ivory River. She is his sister.

Nate feels her fingers thread in his hair, pulling and twirling and curling, and he sighs in content. He likes to think that no one else can calm him by this simple act as well as she does, because she's special, and Nate thinks this with complete and utter conviction.

"I've been reading.." he begins, "On inheritance. I don't understand why we look so much more different than mother.. and father as well."

"Ah," she says, shifting her position to lay on her side, so she can see him clearly. "You've been thinking too much again, love." He protests slightly when she unthreads her fingers from his hair to begin fiddling with her necklace. A habit, he deduces, when she's uncomfortable, or when she is thinking. "But don't question it; we're definitely their birth children."

She smiles at him warmly, cupping his chin so he will look at her straight on. "You have Mother's eyes, Nate."

But this isn't the answer he wants. He frowns, his own small hands timidly twirling her long hair. "Nothing from Father?"

"What?" she asks, biting her lower lip. "Nate, why do you want to know so much?"

He curls on her side again, fisting both her shirt and her hair tightly, but Ivory doesn't mind at all. He stares at the moon again, and thinks of what to say, because Nate has never been one for confessions or emotional spills, or even speaking to a person about anything before.

Nate trusts Ivory, a lot, and that fact itself speaks deeply, because he hardly even trusts himself. Ivory never judges him like everyone else does. She always sits and comforts him, and she listens to him when he speaks. Ivory is the only person he knows enough to care about.

"Because," he starts out slowly, shutting his eyes tight and tries to ignore how his heart aches again. "You are so good at everything you do. You know so much," he fidgets. "And.. I want to be.. just like you."

Much to his dismay, she stiffens visibly, and she exhales a breath of.. depression? He doesn't know. Nate has never experienced anything that can tell him what it is, and books can only tell him so much. "You don't, Nate." His eyes are wide when they search hers, but she looks away, continuing in a whispered tone. "You can be so much better than me."

"No," he insists. "I don't want to be better. I only want to be like you."

Ivory narrows her eyes at him, the disappointment evident in her expression, tone.. eyes.. "Knowledge is gold, Nate, but knowledge isn't everything." She sighs, looking away to stare at someplace outside the open window. "It helps you survive, not live."

"Father says I can never live right," he deadpans, pulling the covers over his head and he disappears underneath the sheets. "So I'll just survive."

She pulls the covers away easily, because he is so much more weaker. Fragile, and he hates it. "Don't listen to that man. You shouldn't waste your time believing him."

His sister is right, he grudgingly admits, but the war is far from over. "And you, sister? You let him push you and trample on you."

"Because I have to."

Nate shakes his head this time, earnestly saying the same thing that mother makes a point to say to her daily. "You don't have to do anything." And Nate sees her brows knit angrily, and Ivory- surprisingly childishly enough- refuses to look at him the entire night long, but he knows she isn't mad at him when she doesn't turn away as he nuzzles himself closer to her.

It is winter now.

He goes to preschool silently like always; sitting alone in a corner, occupying himself with puzzles that he has done and redone too many times to count. He is always bored, because he is easily ten times smarter than any preschooler, not that Nate wants to brag- it is merely a simple fact. Hardly anyone ever bothers him, much like he prefers, and the teachers have long since given up on calling for his attention in class, because here, Nate likes to think that he doesn't exist.

His mother, or even Ivory, will always be ready waiting at the schoolyard gate. And he expects them to be there all the time, because it is consistent, and routine.

But when he leaves his classroom, he lets slight shock mold into his features momentarily. There is no one at the gate. He sits himself on a swing to watch the children play while he waits, but soon, Nate thinks he has waited too long. Slowly, his schoolmates left, dwindling the number down to one; himself. As the teachers lock the doors, Nate tells himself to leave, because it is late, and they probably aren't coming.

He walks back stonily; face a usual pale white as the December breeze blows hard.

Nate reaches his home a quarter of an hour later, but the lights aren't switched on inside, so he walks to the backdoor only to let a cold sense of dread wash over him when he sees it forced open, the window beside it broken into mere shards. A hundred scenarios come to play in his mind. The most logical happens to be the thought of someone breaking the door down, if it had been locked to keep that someone out.

Who?

He doesn't know. He steps in quietly, flinching as he hears the glass shards grate against the tiled floor. Nate thinks he feels fear, because he can hear his heart hammering loudly in his ears, and he can only hope that Mother and Ivory are alright. But then the stench hits him like a ton of bricks. A strong stench that it makes him wrinkle his nose involuntarily, but he lets himself follow the odor.

A mistake. On the dining room floor, a body of a blond woman lies still, crimson fluids weeping through the numerous wounds that mars her. Mother? Her eyes are wide, staring at nothing, mouth open, like she is soundlessly screaming.. screaming.. She looks so.. butchered. So dead.

And wet trickles down Nate's cheeks, startling him even more. He's crying, and it shocks him, because he honestly did not think it would hit him that hard.

Because everyone dies.

But he thought.. he thought..

Not today. She wasn't supposed to die today.

His mouth went slightly ajar as he hyperventilates, and he wants to.. yes.. Nate wants to scream so badly. A hand clamps tightly down on his mouth before he can, and he finds it in himself to panic, because it is all he can do. His screams are muffled now, barely heard, and Nate wants so much to be able to fight back, but he is just too…

(.. dependent?) (.. worthless?) No, NO! He is supposed to say weak. He is weak, weak, WEAK!

"Shh," his captor's voice whispers reassuringly, but he doesn't relax immediately, because he doesn't know what cruel person had done that to his mother. Calm, he tries to tell himself, because Nate is supposed to trust her. "He might hear you."

And there is the click of a gun from above them both, a man peering down the stairs with his pistol pointing straight at him, her, them, Nate doesn't know. The man is familiar, so familiar, and Nate cries a little more, because to know that he of all people had done this to mother, and is going to kill them both.. "Move away, Ivy," the older man tells her. "And I won't have to hurt you."

"Frederick," Ivory growls out his name like it is poison to her lips, Nate watches the interaction, frightened. She holds him tighter, to his surprise and horror, because Nate wants at least, Ivory to get out of the situation alive.

"No more 'Daddy', cupcake?" the man hums jeeringly, slowly descending down the stairs with his gun still aimed right at them. "I'm sorry I had to kill Mommy, but she really was getting in the way."

Insane, that man.

But Ivory bolts straight towards the back door and out with Nate's wrist in a tight hold, so he is forced to run with her. Behind them, another fire of the gun sounds, and the situation begins to finally sink in to him. Why haven't anyone done something about this? Did they hear this? Where on earth are the neighbors?

He notices grimly as they dart past trees, that Ivory's arm is leaking blood profusely down to her hand, successfully making their grip on each other difficult. Nate's breathing is harsh and tired, but he is not worse off like Ivory is. Nate is worried, he admits it finally. He's worried. He's worried.

And his mother is dead.

He admits he's scared.

And his father murdered her.

He'll even admit.. He loves his mother.

Too late. Too late. Too late.

Ivory grimaces as the cold smacks upon her, Nate notices, because he, at least, still wears his winter clothing, and she is wearing nothing more than her oversized white pajamas, and she's barefoot even, and it is storming. Storming, and Ivory isn't ivory, she's blue and bleeding red on white.

Patriotic? No. Nate thinks that God hates them both enough to mock them.

He's tired, but it is all he can do to run with her, but Ivory stumbles and leans against a tree as she groans in pain, shakily holding out her right arm and she presses two fingers into the wound. Ivory hisses, because when her fingers pull away, she's holding a blood-stained silver bullet. And Ivory cries a little.

Nate doesn't mind, because she's finally being selfish. He likes to think she realizes that she can't always bring enough shine to help them both, more to him, because Ivory has hardly ever cared about herself.

And then in the distance, the revving of a snow mobile alerts them, only getting closer by the second. The younger boy pulls on her unwounded arm and hurries her. "He's coming. He's coming." He hardly cares that he is repetitive and chanting, because he is coming closer, and they are still here!

"Nate," she breathes. "No, no. You go; run!" And Ivory pushes him slightly, to the direction that leads to the local park. "Just hide. Be safe. Frederick just wants me to go with him, that's all! He'll leave you alone-"

He cuts a person rudely, for once in his life, because everything is just different today, isn't it? Decide. Live or die? "I won't leave you, Ivory."

"It wasn't a request!" she seethes, those eyes of hers blazing brightly, like blue fire. She pushes him harder, and she falls forward on her knees, kissing his forehead ever so gently. "Be safe. Please."

Nate cries a little harder, because he wants to do what princes do for their princesses. Lay their lives down, because nothing else matters. Nate knows that even if he dies, Ivory will try to run and no one will find him, because Nate's life never matters to anyone..

But Ivory.

He takes a few steps back, slightly awed at how Ivory's usually serene and reclusive demeanor has shattered to.. this.. raw emotional being. The mobile was so much more louder now, but he does the most stupid thing he could ever have done.

Because I don't want to just survive. I want to live.

He holds his sister, eyes shut tight as he waits for the inevitable. Live or die? Live? Die? Live or.. Die.

And I can't live knowing you were taken away from me. So, just like this.

"I love you, sister."

I'm being selfish, like always. You should be proud of me.

Suddenly, she pushes him away.

BANG!

Screams tear the air. Screeches. And blood.

So much. So much blood.

Spattering.

Hold me close now. I can still hear you breathing, tell me now.

"N-n," breathe. Breathe. "Nate.." breathe. Breathe!

It is morbid.

The winter vehicle is crashed into the old, large tree, Frederick's skull is split open as his body lies unmoving on the ground and crimson stains the snow heavily, dying.. He is dead. And between the tree and the winter vehicle, blood begins dripping quietly, calmly, mockingly. Heavily. A pale, feminine hand reaching, stopping… falling..

A few feet away, Nate River screams.

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