A/N: yes, before the story! ONOZ. I don't wanna muck up the awesome ending by chucking a boring old note down there. This story was heavily influenced by a song called "The Teacher," by Big Country. If you haven't heard it, give it a listen. It's beautiful. If you want a grand dose of WTFery, watch the video.
Sadly, nothing and nobody in Squenix-land belongs to me.
He never seemed like much in the beginning. Scrawny kid, big mouth, crap tactics and no taste for doing things right. Couple years of trying to ignore him in training turned into a year of fighting over paperwork and policies- why they stuck us in the same fucking office, only the gods knew. The higher-up decision to partner us turned into a good couple years of fighting day in and day out over any-fuckin'-thing we could think of. Then we ignored each other again.
Don't get me wrong. We make a hell of a team, when we can suck it up long enough to finish our assignments. After that, it's every man for himself. I can't stand his methods, he can't stand my rules. We don't even drink together... which is why I find the image of him sitting expectantly on my bed with a twelve-pack of Gongaga Gold- the best shit we can afford in our line of work- a little upsetting. He holds up a hand when I ask him to go to his own room and try to pass.
"Not so fast, dude. Got a bone to pick with ya. Well, not a bone, really. Had some words with a higher level an' we figger it's high time you an' me have some words too. Whaddya say, bro?"
Higher ups want us to rub elbows, huh? Tell him I got plans, told yeah- the same plans I have every Friday night, sitting at home with my dick in my hand or getting shitfaced in my respective bar. Splendid plans. Not like he does much better. Touché. Whatever. It's not like we work tomorrow anyway.
Why I'm folded into the passenger seat of his shitty little car with a twelve-pack in my lap, only the gods know. Breeze feels good, though. The silence is comfortable, for once. There's no undertone of nitpicking, trying to find things to say, and after a while, I stop wondering why I'm here. It gets to be a good feeling, and before I realize it, we're driving the shitty strip of highway along the coast toward Junon. I don't bother asking. I just hope the car can take it.
"You swear by Leviathan, right?" he inquires conversationally.
"How did you know?"
"Seen yer tattoo when you's drunk an' shirtless 'round the house." To my stare, "Y'never talk, dude. Gotta learn about ya somehow."
I look back out the window with a sigh.
"Some o'that back home was a li'l white lie," he eventually offers with a sheepish grin. He laughs at my sudden defensive expression and waves his hand at me before running it through his hair. "Higher ups don't always mean ShinRa t'me, man. I had a dream th'other day. Kinna dumb. Wanna hear about it?"
Oh, for the love of... "...sure."
He tells me about finding his old house in the slums and tending garden with some old man in a bathrobe. He tells me the man had a filthy mouth- worse than his, which I find hard to believe- and a heavy fist. They brawled in the garden until the man threw him onto the roof. He tells me about their conversation full of vague references and booze and ridiculous demands. He tells me how the old man told him to take absolutely nothing for granted, and stops when I snort. His grin is tolerant and he stares ahead, tapping his fingers on the side of the car and humming to some kind of music on the radio I never would have taken him to be a fan of.
When I'm done bitching about how now is a GREAT time for him to go hippie on us, he continues. He tells me how the old man said there's a reason to take some things for granted and not others. Told him there's a reason he thinks in sketches and I think in lines. Wait, I was in this dumbass dream? Well, not directly. He shrugs and quiets down. I don't know whether I'm relieved or annoyed.
We never hit Junon. He goes off the road and parks at a cliff, dragging the beer off my lap. When I finally wrench myself out of the car, he leaves the radio on and heads to the edge, plopping onto it like it's just another patch of ground, like the sea down at the bottom isn't gonna rip him apart on the rocks if he falls. Like he isn't gonna fall, even if he jumps.
I perch uncomfortably on the other side of the case, glancing down. It's not the height that makes me queasy- we've jumped worse on the job. It isn't the waves that make me feel small and dizzy. It's the distance from them. I don't hang around on the coasts often, usually hit with a feeling like this. I don't realize I'm leaning forward to close the distance until his hand grabs my collar and hauls me backward. Strong little fucker.
He nods to the sunset and hands me a cigarette. "I get the same way sometimes. S'why I like the city- keeps it outta my sight." We light up, and I figure he's talking about some kind of jumping suicide.
"...It's not like that," I explain. "I don't wanna off myself. I just..." but that's as far as my brain will let me go.
"Wanna be in th'water?" He smiles at my cautious nod. "I wanna be in th'sun."
"...Ifrit?" I guess, seeing as how he... well, he doesn't swear by Ifrit, so much as use the names of some of Ifrit's body parts in vain.
"Nah."
He talks. I listen. We drink. He makes a hell of a lot of accurate guesses about me, and every time I wonder how he knows, it's the same thing: it's easier to think when you're open. It turns out the case on my lap was halfway for show, even though he says it was because there was no room in the trunk. That would be because there's more in the trunk. He must have been saving up. A case a month, apparently, for the last four. So much for priorities. What else are we gonna spend it on, retirement funds? Touché. Heh, whatever.
I should pitch in for this shit someday, then. I squint at the moon on the water. I don't remember the sun going down. He says if you drink enough, the sun never goes down.
The more I drink, the more sense he makes. Even without the beer, I'd be somewhat impressed. Well, without the beer I wouldn't be listening. Mental note: listen once in awhile when sober. Do I read? Sometimes. My mother ever read to me? What kind of question is that? A curious one. He says I don't have to talk. He knows I'm not comfortable with it.
He talks. I listen. He tells me about his dreams, his family, his beliefs. How his sisters used to read to him when he had nightmares and make him tell them stories. He pauses when I chuckle. I don't know why I tell him that I never went to sleep as a kid without being read to. He thinks it's just as funny and won't leave me alone.
"Awww, li'l Rudy wanna bedtime story?" he coos, laughing and ducking when I make to punch him in the head. "Needa go seepies, huh?"
"Fuck you."
"Nah. Yer too uptight." It settles into silent camaraderie again until the moon disappears. Can't see anything when the moon's gone until sunrise.
"...so tell me a story."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah."
"Huh." He stretches out, pointing his toes over the cliff to the horizon. "Y'into mythology?"
"Eh."
"Yeah. Functions an' all. Figured. Y'gettin' mythology anyway." He lies back on the ground and holds his fists up in the air, yawning.
"Fine by me."
"Th'Endurin' Heart. Yeah." I make no sound, figuring he's got to start sometime.
"In th'days afore the Gods was harnessed by bonds t'Man an' Civilization, they ruled the planet as cycles an' selves. They upheld th'elements with pride an' glory. There's a place in every element bleedin' into another, creatin' a chain of dependence. Every God sought counsel with every other, just's every aspect o'nature did th'same.
"Gods met alla time to plan an' schmooze, an' some gods were closer together'n others. Coupla those'ns was the masters o'fire an' water, the Phoenix an' the Leviathan- the constant of change an' th'flame that never wavered, up...holded... held by the 'ternal calm and claimin' by judgement. Leviathan an' Phoenix would meet where some volcano always spilled into th'ocean, to speak o'memories an' futures an' stuff. Every time they met, they'd feast on th'fruits of their labors an' trade gifts. An' every century, they'd pass a li'l bauble 'tween'em so that one, an' again th'other, would be more powerful. Takin' turns, like. They knew the power o'balance and th'need for change."
It's interesting to watch him get into it. He starts waving his hands like a mad Del Soli grandmother. For some reason, it takes me some effort not to wipe the drool coming down the side of his face.
"A young god was born fulla pride and envy, Kjata- son of Ifrit an' Shiva, 'prentice of Ramuh. He saw one o'these meetin's and got pissed. He saw no need for power in th'spirit of fire when he could be th'strength of it, or power in the..." He pauses to take a drink, finish off his cigarette and cough. "...spirit o'water when he could make it solid an'deadly. Kjata hunted the Phoenix an' stole the gem from his heart, leavin'im dead in Odin's garden. Kjata would be the new power. He'd rule the old Gods.
"Odin found th'shredded bird and yelled at his son Ramuh with rage. Ramuh got pissed off too, an' ashamed. While Odin worked on restorin' t'Phoenix the power o'change, Ramuh set t'find his apprentice. Th'willful boy-god was trapped in a cave 'gainst th'sea, 'cause Leviathan threatened to crush'im on the rocks if he ever saw'im. He was pulled out by Ramuh, an' bound for Odin's judgement."
Reno pauses for a breath, sits up and plays with his lighter, eyes flickering in the little fire. He decides on another cigarette and offers me one, too, lighting them in the same swipe. It's obvious that most of his words are practiced, even where his lingual tang seeps through.
"Odin wr... wrested the trinket from Kjata, an' turned him to a beast: and not th'creature with beauty given t'the beast-gods he'd wronged, nor those older than he, but th'form of a pig, so's the power he had would be regarded with juss' a smile by any he tried t'overcome. Kjata spoke, but his words was only degraded grunts: an' he ran from his trial in shame, and hid himself in the forests tended by the Titan, who cared not for th'affairs of his fellows but for the earth."
"Odin set th'gem in th'ravaged heart o'the Phoenix in the presence of his son Ramuh, an' th'Phoenix smoldered down to an ash-dirty egg made of opal. Ramuh was told t'keep this egg in his smithin' fires for th'rest o'the century. He did so, still 'shamed that an apprentice o'his would cause such a ruckus, and tended th'fires faithfully an' untirin'ly. The grateful Leviathan sent th'rains to keep him from burnin' as he sat on his own anvil with the patience o'Time itself."
The beer's made him wobbly. The idea of letting him fall off the cliff doesn't please me in the least. I elbow the empty case out of the way and let him lean against me, smelling the cigarette ash and sweet breath while he rambles. The intimacy doesn't faze me by now. Maybe it's the booze.
"When th'Phoenix rose, he declared himself 'ternally grateful to Ramuh, son of Odin, an' he'd grant him a boon only's precious as his own life, an' nothin' less. He gave Ramuh a burnin' feather from his crest's an object o'boon an' disappeared to return th'gem of his heart to his coun'erpart. Ramuh wove the feather in his staff an' since vowed t'keep his element in a st... way where he'll never hafta... have need of his boon.
"S'ever been from that day there's fire from th'heavens an' water carries it without quess'ion, for th'Gods seek counsel with one another, and theirs's an eternal cycle o'selves beyond th'gems they give us fer boons of our own."
"The end?" I manage, eyes drooping behind my shades.
"Nah." He chuckles when I twitch, too tired to tell him to finish. "Never th'end. We see'em when we summon'em, yeah? S'only bits o'their elements. Gods got new ways t'hang out these days. S'never gonna be th'end."
"Yeah?" I don't understand most of what he just said, even when something in the back of my brain stirs to piece it all together.
"Yeah. Check it out, Rude. S'dawnin'. C'mon."
He sits up again and scoots to the edge of the cliff, still weaving. I make my way over and squint at it, flinching when he reaches for my shades.
"Hey, I-"
"Yeah, I know." His voice is different, quieter, further away even when he's right here. "S'not gonna hurt. Don't gotta see it with yer eyes, Rude. Juss' gotta take the curtains off yer brain. Truss' me."
I let him slip them off my face, immediately shutting my eyes out of habit. I don't see him up close, I don't feel a smile like a sun over my head. I don't see him leaning on my side until he pries my eyelids open.
"S'not gonna hurt." Everything's a brightening black into grey until I can see a flicker in his eyes without the lighter,without a mako boost. The aqua there is natural now, tinted a soft kind of grey with the coming dawn. "Lookit yer eyes. See those purdy eyes? S'not that bad, yeah?"
I can see white spots reflected in his blues- I could never be called an albino. Their eyes are pink, and the rest of me sure as fuck isn't white. Nobody's ever gonna know my mom's pet name for me was Opal when I was little. "'Course not," he assures me, and it's not crazy at all that he knows what I never mentioned. He's done it in arguments before, even in fights- punched where I was about to be and hit me anyway.
"Yeah," I murmur, finally turning my eyes to the sky ahead. I like how cold the air is. I liked seeing it weigh down and curl his stupid hair around the tips. I liked tasting it in my beer. I like how it fizzles away into heat where he leans on me, staring at the sea.
"Lookit that." I like how it sears me in the retinas when the sun comes up, but he was right. It doesn't hurt. And when I can see it, it's not with my eyes. I can see it with the water. It's the craziest fucking thing. It's warm, the minuscule squeeze of air between his arms and my neck. Nothing feels wrong or violating when his mouth finds me. It smells like ginger and oranges and beer. "Y'taste like tea," he snickers, sitting up in the corona of the sunrise.
"Huh." I've never been much of a talker.
"Y'get it, right?" he mutters hopefully, staring down at his hands as I sit up again underneath him to look out to sea again. "I didn't figger it out 'til I- I mean, you...?"
"Yeah."
And I'd get it again, I'd say it a million more times to see the sun caught in his eyes when he smiles. The locket he's got in my hand now, I wouldn't give it up for the world. It's just a little silver thing, worn grey here and there like the sky- that isn't what matters to us. I'll find a way to pretty it up before I have to give it back. And he's got me on my back again like he won't let go for the armageddon. I don't think I could let go if I tried.
And it occurs to me that if we jumped, if we took the cliff together and jumped right the fuck now, he wouldn't fall. And I wouldn't drown.