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Post by Hawk on Jul 8, 2011 20:58:20 GMT -6
Songs and Artists: Untouchable by Taylor Swift and Bobble Head by Erin McCarley
Belial had many memories involving the ocean. Of course he did, given his travels from and back to his place of...origins, and his years upon years of existence. It was one of the few things that stayed constant as the world perpetually changed.
One of the first was being trapped below deck for what seemed like ages before the inventions of modern transportation, waves beating against wood that seemed startlingly fragile. That had been a harrowing few weeks. And he could picture with startling clarity the glimpses of the coast he saw during his tours in the war, much as he could with any number of grisly things from those few years. If he closed his eyes, he only had to think of it to see the waves lapping against the untouched sand, all colored grey by the perpetual fog. The dour image was one of the best he had of his time as a medic.
But, as he stared out at the sunset on this particular night, one particular memory was fresh in his mind. It involved a west coast stretch of sand late at night in the 1970s. Belial didn't even know which state he'd been in, only that it was the last time he'd seen the ocean. But the location wasn't what really mattered.
A little boy - couldn't have been more than ten years old - had had a hand stretched up toward the sky. Pushed onto the very tips of his toes, he was reaching as far as his small arms would let him, trying to reach even farther than that as he stretched his little muscles to the edge of their capability.
And - because he'd been confused as to what he needed, what he was trying so hard to get - Belial had walked over and kneeled down next to him. Given a nod to the boy's parents, something he hoped would reassure them as to his relative harmlessness. Then he'd turned his attention to the boy, who was now regarding him with an open expression, wide blue eyes blinking questioningly. Unable to hold back a smile at such an innocent expression, he'd said, "Do you need some help?"
A twinkle had danced through cerulean at the question, and Belial had never seen someone nod so emphatically. Resisting the urge to laugh, he'd set a hand on the child's head, mussing his hair up affectionately then pulling it back to his side as he'd said, "Okay, okay, I get it, just tell me what I need to do."
Putting on his best no-nonsense face, the boy'd nodded once more, puffing up with self-importance in the overdone way that only a child can manage and amusing Belial all over again. Then he pointed upwards, the man's gaze following closely behind. But, he could see nothing. Eyes returned to the boy, confusion seeping into his expression as he murmured, "I can't see, what is it?"
The boy's answer was a cross little pout, hands going to his hips in a way that he must've learned from his mother. Belial remembered being unable to resist chuckling that time, reminded of the many times he'd received that exact pose from Mia. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he'd forced out between laughs, hands raising in an apologetic gesture.
"'s okay," was all that the boy said in return, hands moving off his hips and up into the air, a silent plea to be picked up. Appreciating the boldness of this child that he had just met, he glanced over at the boy's mother for approval. Was vaguely surprised to be met with a long-suffering smile and an eye roll. This obviously wasn't the first time the little adventurer had made a new friend.
Slowly - leaving ample time for the boy's parents to object - Belial had lifted his arms and held them out to the boy, a silent offer to fulfill the child's silent request. It'd earned him another grin that almost hurt, it was so bright. And then Belial's hands were holding the boy tight, and they were rising up and up and up. But the boy had no eyes for Belial anymore, too focused on the infinite darkness above them. Even high in the air with no solid ground below his feet, he was stretching, reaching his little fingers into the air as far as they would go. Even as he grinned, Belial could feel the confusion settling creases into his brow as the boy made wanton grabs again and again, as if trying to catch something...
"It's the stars," came a subdued feminine voice from behind him. Aiming a surprised glance over his shoulder, he caught the eye of the boy's mother, who had since approached them. Giving him the weary but entirely pleased grin that only a parent sports, she nodded her head up at the sky, gaze raising to the heavens as she continued. "He wants a star. That's what he's reaching for--"
Movement nearby startled him out of the memory, just enough sound to make it obvious it wasn't a part of the nature around him. Already almost sure he knew the cause, he only tilted his head slightly - just enough to catch a flash of scarlet in his peripheral vision before returning his gaze to the endless ocean and quickly dying light.
"Trying to hide from me? Because you must know by now that'll do you no good." The words were said good-naturedly, which was a relief considering who they came from.
Mia was a woman as tied to him as one person could be to another, and had a nasty habit of using it against him. Never as much as he deserved, but also much more than most would understand. He could feel the muscles in his shoulders constricting as she sat down next to him, but even as they did a part of his mind was unwinding, relaxing as her familiar aura wound around and through him. A grin rose to his lips - genuine, for once - at that juxtaposition being one of the other few constants in his life.
A quiet huff drifted across the scant inches between them. "What's that for?"
"Nothing," he said, not wanting to disturb the relative peace between them. It'd been like this for days, since they'd arrived on the coast. 'An escape,' Mia'd called it, framing it by talk about how she was tired of the weather in the city and the men who all seemed the same, talking up a change of scenery and the opportunity for a genuine tan.
He hadn't been fooled, though. If she was offering a vacation and taking him with her, it wasn't for the surf and the sun. And especially not in the spring. If she was taking him somewhere in the spring, there was no doubt it was intentional.
"You were thinking of her, weren't you?" The words pushed through the silence that had fallen between them, and were almost neutral in a way that surprised him.
"Not directly, no," he replied, surprised again, this time by his own honesty. "I was thinking of... Well, of stars, I guess."
"The sky doesn't generally get that kind of look on your face, Bellsie."
"No, but it's unattainability does."
They were words that could've brought their calm to a crashing halt. Mia wasn't stupid; she knew that what Belial wanted wasn't a group of pinpoint lights that decorated the night sky. But he was running high on energy, still humming on what he'd pulled from the last-call bartender with a kind disposition and a sad lack of self-esteem that was entirely baseless. And so instead of inciting panic, it birthed an awkward silence.
It stretched on for minutes and minutes, long enough for the sun to sink entirely beneath the horizon. Darkness had a firm hold on the sky by the time a reply drifted quietly over to him.
"The reach'll kill you someday, you know that." The words startled him. They were so unlike her; she shied away from oblique references, always dealing in the actual facts of a situation. He'd been berated more times than he could count for his ample metaphor use, she hated them so. That, and the words just brought back into his head the vivid image of that boy, feet swinging in midair as his hands stretched into the sky...
It only took a slight shift of weight to lean himself against Mia, to rest his head against her shoulder. He expected her to tense, possibly shift away, but she stayed as she was, continuing to look out at the twilit sky. All the apologies in the world, every sugar-coated lie he could spin, none would ever be enough to cover the truth they both knew that statement held. So he just remained silent, which was an acknowledgement of its own kind.
And as they sat there looking out on the countless stars reflected against the waves, he couldn't help but wonder with some measure of solemnity when exactly humans learned to stop reaching for the impossible. And why he'd never learned that particular skill himself.
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Post by Hawk on Dec 4, 2011 0:25:56 GMT -6
[[My own, slightly-more-morbid-but-I-still-like-it take on the odd 6x6 ship Ri and I've built from playing Reach. Just in case you were confused by lack of names, or general context of any sort. >3>;]]
Song: Ghosts and Glass (Piano) Artist: Halo Reach Soundtrack
"...What's next?"
The words broke the silence that had existed between them for what felt like forever. Since they'd sat, and then eventually laid back against the metal-plating floor surrounding the Onager Magnetic Acceleration Cannon. Couldn't have been more than an hour or so, but each minute seemed to stretch into forever without incessant comm chatter, or the ratatatat of machine gun fire with occasional punctuation by the crack of a sniper rifle. Were it not for the occasional hum of an overhead Phantom or low-flying Banshee, B312 could close his eyes and almost imagine that there was no Covenant, or war to be fought. Imagine that he was back in training, running one of the trial simulations. 'Locate an enemy cruiser, disarm it through whichever means you deem necessary, and escape undetected.' Just him, alone in the wilderness of Onyx, on one of the many practice missions they'd ran SPARTAN recruits through.
Except this wasn't training. And he wasn't even sure if there was a war to be fought in the first place anymore. Unless that AI they'd passed along to held one hell of a powerful secret, he had a feeling in his gut that the human race was lost.
Just as lost as the two of them.
"I think you know."
"No, I mean..." She paused, and he could picture her eyes squinting up at the sky through her visor, searching the air for the words she wanted to say. "I'm talking about what's next. After..." He saw a hand raise into the air next to him, blue metal gleaming as it made a sweeping motion through the air, as if trying to encompass everything. "This. Once it's over, what do you think comes after?"
He shifted against the metal at his back, plating creaking against steel. "I don't know."
"I asked what you think," she replied. Always so stubborn. He found the ghost of a grin itching its way onto his face at the thought, there for as undeniable moment before it was wiped away by the reality of their situation.
He cleared his throat and murmured across the couple feet of space between them, "We live on through our actions, even after-"
"I know the company line as well as you. 'Spartans never die'..." She recited myth put forward by ONI with no small amount of bitterness, before sighing. "Great for recruitment posters. But you know that isn't what I'm talking about."
Shifting again, as if enough movement could force a change in subject, he replied, somewhat flippantly, "Another battlefield, maybe. What else would there be for SPARTANs like us?"
"Now you're just humoring me."
He had no response for that, because it was more or less the truth. The conversation, it's subject matter, it brought to mind images of hundreds upon hundreds of faces, every dead comrade and enemy and civilian, all compounded into a twister of mental negativity that made his head ache and left a bad taste in the back of his mouth. He didn't think about what came after, because, frankly, he'd always made it a point not to think about anything but the here-and-now in the first place.
"Well?"
Trying to curb his frustration, he replied, "It's death. After death, we're dead. And before it, there's no way of knowing what comes after it, so what's the point in speculating about it?"
"Is that what you really think?"
Unable to brush off her pestering anymore, a small growl worked its way out of the back of his throat. "Honestly? I don't 'think' anything about what happens after I die. I hope that there'll be something else, something other than overshields and ammo clips and death everywhere I goddamn turn, but I accept that it isn't likely." He paused, then added in a quieter tone, "And I hope that all of us SPARTANS died for a reason. But that's looking less and less likely, too."
His frank statement was met with silence, one that stretched through the seconds and into minutes. One that he thought would possibly go unbreached for the rest of the time they had left, and that made him regret his harsh words. Not the truth in them, but his frank, almost angry delivery. He was almost to the point of apologizing when she broke the silence first.
"I think..." she began, quietly enough that he almost couldn't make out the words before she cleared her throat and started again, "I think there's a spark in each of us, an energy that makes us who we are, that distinguished us from each other. My mother used to talk about it, too. Back before..." She didn't complete the thought, but he could easily fill in the rest. All SPARTAN-IIIs were war orphans; the circumstances that led to their eligibility were always grim.
He took a breath to apologize - maybe for his snappishness and maybe now for her past, too, he wasn't sure - but was silenced as she went on.
"Anyway, we each have this... this light of individuality, and I've never been able to accept that a shot from a plasma cannon or- or a stab from a beam sword can extinguish that. Sure, it can wring it out of our bodies, but energy like that... It doesn't just disappear. Jorge and Carter, Kat, all those people we grew up with on-base on Onyx, they can't have been here one minute, and then suddenly, in a second, just gone forever..." He couldn't see her face, wasn't sure, but he could practically hear tears threatening in her voice on that last word.
So it surprised him that, when she began speaking again, she sounded so calm and collected. "I've always loved the stars, you know. Ever since I was a kid. There wasn't much light pollution on Eridanus II, so I'd sneak out all the time, just to stargaze. Tried to count them once."
"That's-"
"Impossible, I know. But when you're five, you like to think anything's possible," she said, with what sounded like amusement.
He found himself tilting his head to look at her, but her helmet still faced firmly upwards. Gazing up in search of those tiny pinpricks of light even now, maybe.
Her tone took a nostalgic turn as she continued, "So many of them, and yet there are still new ones being born every second..." He saw her reach a hand slowly up, stretching towards the sky, then close into a fist. He'd remembered doing that back when he was young, trying to catch stars in his hand. Hoped she was remembering a similar memory.
As her hand sank silently back down to her side, he saw her head cock slightly, a sign he'd learn to mean she was considering something. "...You know, if I could choose where I go next, when my energy escapes my body, I'd love to be the spark that ignites one of them. The stars, I mean." She paused then, maybe waiting for him to object, but as the silence stretched she continued on in her quiet, thoughtful way, "No more wars. No more hate. No more UNSC-issue guns and MJOLNIR armor..."
"No pressure to succeed, or impossible goals," he added, quietly encouraging her to continue.
"Mmhmm. Just space, and billions of years with nothing to do but pass on light to the infinite number of planets around me. A long, easy life." She finally turned to look at him then, eyes shining with tears only partially visible through the sheen of her helmet's visor. "Wouldn't that be great?"
B132 wasn't a man of many words, but he knew beautiful ones when they were spoken. And so, when she finished, he didn't say anything in response. Knew he wouldn't be able to stretch his own cynicism to create a dream of his own that measured up to hers.
Instead, he reached a hand across the metal grating, and gripped hers tightly. A show of thanks for all the memories they'd shared, of support for whatever lay ahead. Regret that it had to end this way.
And, above all, hope that her wish just might be granted for the both of them in another few hours, when all was said and done.
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Post by Hawk on Mar 1, 2012 1:44:05 GMT -6
[[Right, been fiddling with this for around a year now, so posting it more or less so I can mentally declare myself done with it. Meant for it to progress more than it did, but I'm so damned dedicated to staying in-character, and these boys were so dedicated to never clearing up misunderstandings... *sigh* Anyway, much chess allusions and terms ahoy.]]
Song: Sing for Absolution Artist: Muse
Suzaku had never liked chess, never been good at it. He’d outright scoffed when Lelouch had led him into a room with nothing but a table, two chairs, and a game board.
A mirthless smirk was the only response Suzaku got from the man he'd once counted as his closest friend as he walked over to the board. Placing his hands on the back of one of the chairs, Lelouch leaned against it and their eyes met. Suzaku had to resist the urge to look away, and wondered if the minute wince on Lelouch’s face whenever they looked at each other like this was the result of a similar urge, or a reaction to Suzaku’s own.
Suzaku was the first to break their shared gaze, eyes diverting to the side as he breached the silence. “This is what you wanted to show me?”
The former prince's smirk just sharpened at the words, and he pulled out the chair he was holding, gesturing to it and then walking around the table to sit at the other. The idea of doing what the man commanded made Suzaku’s jaw tighten at the sheer…wrongness of it, but he bit down the distasteful comment that itched to worm its way out of his mouth. He was no longer a Knight of Britannia, much as his instincts tended toward the contrary. Instead he nodded minutely and walked over to sit in the chair, absently wondering if this was some kind of test of his ability to follow orders, no matter their apparent insignificance.
A quick perusal showed him to be on the white side of the board, with Lelouch heading the black. Of course, Suzaku thought. He'd seen Lelouch slip an obsidian king out of his pocket, one covered in scratches and worn from use, and roll it between his fingers when he was thinking. It was like his own version of a comfort blanket, Suzaku had begun to think. And how fitting, for the traitorous Prince of Britannia to find comfort in a symbol of darkness and power.
Suzaku could feel the dredges of a smirk of his own toying with the corners of his lips at the thought, one lacking in any real amusement, and quickly clamped down on it. As he did, words carried across the board to him. "I hope you don't find the choice of colors insulting, but I thought you could use the advantage." A glance up at the young king revealed him to be wearing the shade of a grin, words spoken so softly that they were almost a whisper. "You do remember how to play, don't you?"
He wasn't sure if the question was a taunt or said in earnest, but Suzaku seized his G1 knight and slammed it down two squares forward and one to the left with much more force than necessary, regardless. "You've made it impossible to forget," he murmured back, tagging on an almost-growled, "Your Highness" at the end.
It earned him a bitter chuckle, and a cryptic, murmured comment. "So you choose to lead the charge as well, hm?"
The words made no sense to Suzaku, and Lelouch must've read it on his face. After removing his hand from the D7 pawn that he'd moved a space forward, he waved it a couple times dismissively. "Not a parallel you'd appreciate."
Not doubting his words, Suzaku moved a pawn of his own. The game progressed slowly from there, a sort of easy but uncomfortable silence settling over them as it did. Pawns were felled, and Suzaku got into a tight spot with his rook at one point, but he had the sense that he was at least holding his own.
Which, he knew, was no small feat. Lelouch was a top-tier player of all intellectual games, with chess at the forefront of his mastery. That fact had been hammered into his mind time and again. As the moves progressed back and forth in their current game, Suzaku couldn't help but reflect on the many times he'd witnessed the man's mastery, re-examine every time he'd sat across the board like he was now, or played spectator to one of the countless times Lelouch had made a mockery of a Britannian noble with an overbloated ego. Back when he'd still appreciated his closest friend's driven intellect.
Back before he'd begun to use it against Suzaku himself. Or at least before he'd known, before that mask had cracked in half, and cracked his sanity along with it.
His skill had lost much of its appeal by then.
So lost was he in his thoughts, Suzaku almost missed the opening when it came, miraculously: Lelouch had carelessly placed a knight in the path of Suzaku's queen. Suzaku couldn't hide the look of satisfaction that crossed his face as he pulled it off the board.
"You've improved."
The words startled him as they broke through the wall of silence that had grown between them.
"Improved, but not mastered." As Lelouch murmured the words, his fingers lifted a bishop that Suzaku hadn't even noticed and charted a clear path straight across the board, right at his queen. Lelouch cleaved it down in one clean blow, swiping it off to the side with one hand even as he set his bishop in its place.
Once upon a time, this would have been the point at which Suzaku grinned over at Lelouch, complimented the move even as he laughed at his own failure. But now, he didn't look up or let loose any sound. He simply stared at the board for a good few seconds. Green eyes analyzed the placement of pieces, attempting to mentally chart backwards their last few moves.
Each of his turns had seemed innocuous enough, just shifts across the board and a traded set of lost pawns. It was only when Suzaku analyzed the moves together, instead of simply analyzing each individual stroke, that the true masterpiece of the deception Lelouch had created became clear. Moves to draw attention away from the location of the bishop and what now played as obvious bait for a trap stood out to Suzaku clearly, and all yet a minute too late for his revelation to matter at all.
Always one step behind, that's what Suzaku was.
Out of the corner of his eye, Suzaku noticed Lelouch shift and glanced across the board. Amethyst eyes met his own, narrowed in scrutiny. Or maybe curiosity, but Suzaku had long learned it was safest to expect the worst from Lelouch. Whatever the intention, the king leaned forward, propping his chin on one fisted hand. "You see now, don't you?" He followed the words with a vague gesture at the board, but Suzaku understood what he was asking regardless; whether he could track the intricacies that had once so entirely eluded him.
"Yes, Your Highness," was his only reply, monotonous and entirely devoid of emotion. And purposefully so.
Something in Lelouch's eyes shuttered at the forced formality, and then he shifted away, leaning back in his chair. "Your adherence to the formality newly forced upon us is... surprisingly consistent. Congratulations."
The dull tone with which the praise was delivered underscored the words, practically outlining them as false. Suzaku was tempted to reply with a, 'Thank you, Your Highness', but resisted. Just because he was bitter didn't mean he also had to give in to pettiness. He chose to focus on the board instead, on the turnabout that had just taken place. "Your knight..."
"A sacrifice of circumstance, not an accident. Something had to draw your Queen into the trap."
"So, instead of looking for another method, you decided that a trade was most effective."
"Not perfect, nor even ideal, but chess isn't about getting everything you want." Lelouch's eyes gained a certain depth to them, an almost morbid darkness as he continued. "It's about finding the most efficient path to victory."
"So you're saying that knowingly sacrificing pieces is a necessity?" Suzaku wasn't sure quite when it had happened, but his tone - once clinical, the epitome of detached - had taken on a frustrated edge. Maybe because he wasn't sure what they were talking about anymore, either of them.
Or maybe he hadn't known what he was talking about when he started, but he knew now that he sure as hell wasn't asking about the finer points of chess anymore. At some point that colorless queen, prone on the side of the board, had changed from a game piece into a reminder of their bitter past. And the black knight...
Lelouch must've sensed it as well, because there was a long, pregnant pause before he responded. And when he did, the words were much quieter. "Pawns, yes."
"But you sacrificed your knight, not just some pawn. What about the others?"
Suzaku noticed the young emperor's hand had strayed to his pocket. Probably fondling that damn chess piece of his. "Losing more powerful pieces is an inevitability as well."
"...Every loss is planned, then?" His voice cracked as the words forced themselves out of him, and he was frustrated by how much pain he could hear lurking behind his own words.
Lelouch kept his eyes on the board, gaze steady, but Suzaku noticed the almost imperceptible flinch of his shoulders. When he spoke again, his cadence was even, but Suzaku could hear feeling rumbling behind his words, rising as if to meet his own barely-contained emotions. "Sometimes, pieces are...lost by accident. Captured by the enemy if you're careless, lost from the board because of your own foolhardy oversight." Suzaku saw his gaze slide down to the side of the board, and fix for a moment on a piece - the white queen, it seemed, but why would he regret his own success? - before looking back up to meet Suzaku's emerald gaze with his own once again. "You have to know how to compensate for this, how to make up for your losses. You have to be able to adapt, to alter your plans instead of letting your mistakes distract from your endgame."
Suzaku made no effort to hide the disgust in his tone as he replied, "And that is how you've made yourself a master of this game."
"I've learned to win through first losing even more, just like everyone does."
"And playing on a grander scale."
"...Yes, it would seem that's true." The admission was devoid of pride, and that startled Suzaku. Lelouch had always been nothing if not prideful. But, as he studied him now, it struck him in that moment how much the young king seemed anything but. He looked aged, tired. Too small for the dressings of royalty that draped over him, and too weak to rule a nation, much less the world.
And yet...
A barely perceptible shake of his head dismissed the musings as foolish. Reaching a hand forward, he gripped a bishop of his own and slid it forward to H5 and, in a biting, short tone, muttered, "Check." It was a token move, taking advantage - if you could even call it that - of the opening made by the prince's movement of his bishop, and one which Lelouch easily resolved by sliding it back into place right beside his king on his next turn. But it served its purpose, severing any further conversation as the game continued on.
The game progressed in silence for the next hour or so, in fact. The silence startled Suzaku at first, so unusual when in the company of one who drew attention foremost with his eloquence, and reveled in that attention once he had it. But the undisputed leader of the current world just sat there across from him, expression blank. Or shuttered, more accurately. At one point, Suzaku almost became as wrapped up in deciphering the emotions running behind Lelouch's eyes as he was in the game.
Until Lelouch looked up, that is. The minute their eyes met, a jolt ran through Suzaku - some mixture of guilt and fury, and a handful of other emotions he couldn't even begin to identify. The considering look that he'd been directing at Lelouch had transformed instantly into a glare, and had been met with violet eyes going from shuttered to completely closed off. From them on, he'd focused entirely on the board, eyes never straying from it.
And the better for it, because without anything distracting him, it seemed to Suzaku as if he was almost... Well, if he didn't have years of experience that would convince him of the contrary, he felt as if he was almost on even footing with Lelouch. For every piece of his that was stolen from the board, he seemed to take one in return. Mistakes that wouldn't even have caught his eye in the past screamed off the board as glaring errors, and ones which he was quick to jump on.
As the game wound down, and they each had seven pieces left, and then six, Suzaku spared a thought to how odd it was that they were playing this close. As much as he wasn't the naive boy that had entered Ashford Academy full of optimism and hope, he'd never profess to be a genius either. And the man he was playing against was nothing if not absolutely brilliant. The statement wasn't a compliment, but an inarguable fact. As they dwindled down to four pieces on Suzaku's end and three on his king's, the feeling of...wrongness pervaded his budding excitement at success. He couldn't be doing this well, not on his own. Not unless it was on purpose, to prove a point. Not unless...
As if reading his thoughts, a hand reached out to hover over the board, and then Lelouch's fingers - ones that would put an artist or musician to shame with the delicate grace that emanated from every move they made - landed on his king. Slowly, he slid his personal totem forward one. Right into the path of Suzaku's white knight.
Inexplicably, all the joy that Suzaku should have been feeling at forcing the man's forfeit was erased. Discomfort took its place, began to roil in his chest.
"No." The word forced itself from Suzaku's mouth, unintended. As if betraying him, one of his own gloved hands stretched across the table, pushed at the base of the black king with his index finger, sliding it back to its former place.
"It's not your right to move my pieces," he replied, smooth as you please, and pushed the king forward once again.
The act just served to frustrate Suzaku further. This time, he reached over and pulled the king entirely off the board, clasping it in his hands even as Lelouch huffed indignantly. "And it's not within the bounds of rules to make the move you just did. So choose another."
"Life isn't chess, you know. Sometimes, you must make your own rules."
"And this isn't life, it's just some stupid game. A stupid game that has rules."
Lelouch gave him a pitying look in return, one that made Suzaku's insides churn. "You must understand by now that this is about much more than that."
And, with just those few words, Suzaku's insides went from churning to sinking. There was no denying the obvious metaphor Lelouch was trying to weave into existence now. But, the inevitability of it just made Suzaku want to deny it all the more, practically tripping over his own words in an attempt to get them out. "It's one of the most basic rules of chess that a player can't place himself into checkmate."
An almost silent scoff was the response it earned him, "You know that's not the-"
"And quitting during the endgame hardly gives you a fair estimation of my skills-"
"Suzaku." The use of his name, the weighted tone with which Lelouch said it, made the words he was speaking dry up in his throat. They'd hidden behind titles and honorifics since the formation of their uneasy alliance, always referring to each other by their rank or in the vaguest of terms. Everything between them had been vague, and now, suddenly, Lelouch was using his name like they did back when they did homework together and shot the breeze about their futures. He was talking about the end of his life like it was nothing more than the end of a chess match - nothing more than an unfavorable ending to an elaborate game. Suzaku had built up elaborate mental armor against this man over the last year, but this match had been chip-chipping away at it, creating crack after crack, and if it didn't stop soon...
Oblivious to Suzaku's thoughts, the young king soundlessly reached into his pocket and pulled out his black king, the one that he almost always kept on his person. And, with one swift move that king now stood where the king in Suzaku's hand had before. Right in the path of his knight. Then he looked up, and his eyes were serene, but sharp as daggers as they cut across the table. "This is where the king moves next. And no amount of objections on your part will change that. So accept that reality, and make your move."
And that was it. Those words stabbed right through his carefully constructed mental defenses. Even as they drifted across the board to Suzaku, a distant part of him was surprised by how much they cut into him. The man sitting not two feet from him played a part in every, every, every terrible thing that had cut gaping wounds into the last two years of Suzaku's life. He'd taken away from him love and safety and home and friendship and trust and so many innumerable ideals.
But, he was also his best friend. He was the closest thing Suzaku had to a brother. He had no doubt that nobody - man or woman - would ever know him inside and out as well as Lelouch did.
But, as much as all of that mattered the most, none of it mattered at all. Not in the end. Not when it came time to end it all.
And there was only one person who'd been given the power, and permission, to bring that ending.
Reaching his hand across the board, Suzaku lifted his piece in his hand, paused for only a fraction of a moment before swinging it into the battered king. Both of them looked on as it tipped over, rolled forlornly over a couple squares before coming to a permanent rest.
Then he looked up, into Lelouch's eyes, even as relief at his compliance flooded into them. The subservient monotone was long gone, emotion roiling through every word as he said, angrily, "Each side in a war isn't manned by pieces. And people don't get captured, they get killed." As punctuation to each sentence, he threw the chess pieces still gripped firmly in his palm at the wall, first the knight and then the king. Watched as Lelouch flinched once, then twice, and rightfully so. Then went on, "And it doesn't matter what purpose they served or why they were sacrificed, because that doesn't change how dead they are.
"And there is no winning, because if there's one thing I've learned, it's that in real life, everyone loses."
He didn't have to look up to know that the words had left his former friend shell-shocked; his silence was enough to convey that. So, he pushed back his chair, stood, all the while adamantly not meeting his friend's, enemy's, only ally's and future victim's gaze "Next time you want to play chess to assess my skills, it'd do you well to remember that behaving like that is what got y-" Suzaku could feel himself choking on the words, and so rephrased, "Got the black king into checkmate in the first place." Then, with a more forceful shove than intended to the back of his chair, he turned away from the board and stalked toward the door of the room.
To this day, he wasn't sure whether he actually heard a quiet, "Sorry," whispered across the space between them, or whether he'd just imagined it. He wouldn't put it past his mind, to try to afford Lelouch more of a heart than he often displayed. For a while, he'd hoped it was real, a sign that his friend was still in there somewhere, buried under all the lies and hubris.
He ardently hoped, now, that it was imaginary. Wasn't sure if he'd be able to live with himself if it wasn't.
Regardless, it had made him turn around in the doorway, just for a minute. Take in Lelouch's now-slumped posture, as if all of his grace had drained away from him the minute he wasn't being watched. Saw him reach over, towards his king, only to see his fingers freeze halfway to it, flinch slightly, then drop to the table. Felt his anger soften even as he saw Lelouch's fingers clench into fists. Watched as something began to come over his face, like watching a clay mask as it slowly cracked and fell away, revealing the real face underneath.
But then, Lelouch noticed him, still there. And, just like that, the mask mended back together even as he looked on, was just as it had always been within fractions of a second. Then he pierced Suzaku with that amethyst gaze that frightened so many others, but just left him feeling even more empty than he already was. And he said, "You're dismissed, Knight of Zero."
And the words might've been a command, but the tone... It was so heavy, so tired, so familiar... With a start, he realized it reminded him of himself. Practically every word he said that wasn't schooled into monotony carried that exact same weight.
It was a parallel between them, nostalgic of the days when it was the two of them, walking across Japan, just them against the world. They'd both sounded tired then, too. Always much too tired for their age, much too old ahead of their time. As children, they'd borne the weight of countries. Now, together, they carried the weight of the world on their shoulders. Teenagers, carrying the lives of billions of people in their two pairs of hands. It made him long for the days when it simply felt like it was the two of them against the world. Before it actually was. Made him miss his friend. Before he could stop himself, he murmured, voice heavy as it always was, this time with regret, "...Lelouch-"
"I said, you're dismissed," cut across whatever he would've said next. Clipped, regal, left no room for argument. And, just like that, the moment was shattered. Had been foolish to start. This wasn't the end of a game of Pretend, nor the start of one. The two of them would never be the friends that they once were.
And so, Suzaku bowed. Said, "Your Highness." Then he turned and exited the room without another glance back.
In his long life, he never touched a chess board again.
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Post by Hawk on May 26, 2012 0:17:43 GMT -6
Song: Bulletproof Heart Artist: My Chemical Romance
Shepard knew she should be steamed after a chat with the Illusive Man. He's demeaning enough, treating her like some sort of child. 'Go do this,' he says, and expects her to fly off across the galaxy at the wave of his hand, never mind what she had been doing prior to his summons. She should have clenched fists, or maybe slam down a hand on the comm console just to get him to shut up. She should be positively boiling over by the time his smug, obviously pampered ass fades from her digital view.
Except she isn't. Angry, that is. If anything, she's the opposite. There's a certain delight she gets only from talking to him. Not in a conventional way, no, this delight stems from inciting the exact opposite feeling in his cryptic ass. She doesn't yell, or belittle him, but instead needles at him at precise right moments. And she gets a little buzz of adrenaline every time she signs off to the sight of a frown marring the man's otherwise worry-free face.
Because she knows she put it there. And Shepard knows that -he- knows that she's the one person that he needs to control, but that his billions can't touch. Hell, five of those billions already have, and she remains firmly outside of his pocket, and far beyond his influence.
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Song: Summertime Artist: My Chemical Romance
"Fucking useless!" The frustrated whisper sliced through the dreamy images floating through his mind. Shepards, mostly. Angry Shepard, running through the battlefield and sniping down everyone in her path. Commander Shepard, with an iron will and a voice laced with steel. Shipmate Shepard, always there with a quiet one-liner and a laugh at all the right moments. The Shepards he'd been imagining - remembering, really - began to float together in his mind, and before he knew it, they'd combined into just one. One that was flushed from battle, red hair tousled just like it always became after she went ten rounds in hell and still came out the victor. And she was glaring something fierce. Right at him.
That was about the time when he realized it wasn't that the Shepards had joined; he'd just managed to open his eyes. Passed out on the battlefield. Some battle-hardened warrior he was.
"'Archangel', my ass." Seemed she was on the same page he was. "Garrus Vakarian, get yourself back up and into this goddamn fight right now!"
It was around then that he noticed there was a rather sizable gash out of the side of his armor. And a rather sizeable gash in his flesh along with it. One that Shepard was currently applying a rather unnecessarily large amount of Medi-gel to. So, that would explain the hallucination-Shepards. Blood loss really was a bitch, he thought, inwardly wondering if that was indeed a correct use of the idiomatic human expression. English wasn't exactly rocket science at its core, but when it came to slang-
"Garrus!"
Caught drifting off again, it seemed. "Sorry, Shepard," he murmured, a belated offering that, yes, he was indeed conscious. At the words, she abandoned her study of his wound, gaze instead rising to meet his own. And he'd seen her gaze blaze like fire on the battlefield, burning into their opponents. He'd seen them ice over in conversations, shooting glares that froze people in their place. He'd seen them roil like a storm, calm one minute, then deadly the next. Hell, every detail he'd learned of human facial expressions over the last few years had mainly been through observing the woman in front of him.
But in all the time he'd known her - after facing down Reapers and Collectors and Thresher Maws - he'd never seen fear in her eyes. Not until now, that is.
He'd opened his mouth - maybe to crack a joke, maybe to apologize, he wasn't sure - when he noticed it. Without thinking, Garrus shot his hand up, taking firm hold of the back of Shepard's head and pulling her down and against his chest, lightning quick. His other hand reached behind her, lifting the assault rifle from her back and, without even blinking, he shot off an entire clip into the Collector that had snuck up behind them. Not even twenty feet away, and it's weapon - a Collector particle beam - had already been raised when Garrus had brought it down.
It'd been just a couple seconds away from taking its own shot. If he'd come to any later, had been a little less observant... Well, that beam would've sliced through them both. Wouldn't have taken more than a few seconds for both of them to be dead.
A quick scan of the room revealed no enemies nearby, though the ringing of sniper rifle rounds in the distance spoke to the promise of more further on. Shepard must've sent Thane ahead while she stayed behind to revive him.
"Now who looks like an ass, huh?"
He hadn't necessarily said it as a joke, but when she started silently chuckling, he couldn't say he was surprised. Even joined in with a few of his own, ones that trailed off into a couple quiet coughs as the motion made pain stab through his still-healing chest.
A quiet huff worked its way out of Shepard's throat, caught somewhere between amused and concerned. "Nice to know that even a bullet to the chest won't dampen your sense of humor," she said, running her omni-tool over the chest wound one last time, applying the last gel needed to seal off the wound. Then she leaned forward, resting her forehead against his own for just a moment. "All joking aside, thanks for having my six, Vakarian," she whispered, and he was reminded of her cabin, of those few perfect moments where, for just a little bit, it felt like just maybe the universe wasn't made up of darkness and crime and death. That maybe, just maybe, there was a little room left for hope, too, if he just learned how to keep an eye out for it.
Which might've been his mistake, in the end, given that keeping an eye out for Shepard's what had gotten him a hole in the chest. Oh, the prices we pay, he thought, and couldn't hold back an amused grin at his own thoughts even as he murmured back, "Anytime, Shepard."
Seemingly satisfied with the response, she stood and reached a hand down to help him up, which he graciously took. "Now, if I could just get you to put some of that attention towards watching your own back..." she added in jest as he stood up, giving his now-closed wound a pointed look as a grin broke across her face. And he reached over and shoved her lightly, and she punched him in the arm, and then they both smiled at each other before wordlessly heading forward again to catch up to the battlefield.
And he couldn't help thinking, 'Maybe this really will be the one thing that works out in my life, after all.'
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Post by Hawk on Jan 2, 2014 22:19:08 GMT -6
Song: Battlefield Artist: Jordin Sparks
As he slammed the door to the small MTV office he'd just stormed out of, his thoughts were already on how he'd explain this to Kiri. Because it'd come down on him to make it disappear. He always made the bad stuff disappear somehow. A compromising picture, a joking answer that was a little too easy to misconstrue, a choke moment in a concert, it all never made it big if he didn't want it to go big.
And he wouldn't want the interview Pheia had just abruptly concluded to go big.
It'd started innocently enough. Chit chat about the newest hair color, questions about the new stuff the band was working on. A bit about their live performance later in the day, teasers and all that shit. Lots of forced-laugh situations and let's-both-pretend-we're-saying-anything-when-we're-really-just-dancing-around-saying-anything-at-all moments. Just like how an interview was supposed to go.
But this interview had rules. You didn't get given the first interview after months of pointed silence from a particular band member without being given a few rules. The main two of which were to stick to the new material, and not focus the interview on the reason for said silence.
And she decided to break one of those rules.
He wasn't sure if it was purposeful. He'd never sat down and talked with her personally before, so maybe she was just fresh at the job and had let her personal curiosities color her question choices, regardless of the subject manner. But, one minute they'd been chatting about the style-changes between the band's first CD and their most recent one, and before he knew it, it had become an inquisition on his addiction.
Oh, sure, he could track the progression. He knew that she'd segued with, "Does the change in styles have anything to do with your recent change in, uh, 'habits'?", and that he'd laughed off the question like he'd been drilled to do, and had dropped some anecdotal joke or another.
But the questions just kept coming.
"You did just get out of rehab, right? The band has been rather hush-hush about it, presenting a solid front. That must be nice. Was the addiction recent?"
He'd managed a much more forced laugh and a, "No," at that. Honesty being one of the steps and all, had to keep on the straight-and-narrow. Hoped that that would be the end of that. But it wasn't.
"So, the drinking went back farther than that, then?"
"Did it have anything to do with the dissolution of your first band?"
"How about concert cancellations? Not all because of colds and extended vocal chords, hm?"
"Did your bandmates know about it all along? Some of them must've, you've known one or two of them since you guys were kids, right? Were they the ones that pushed you to quit? Was it someone in particular? Or did you realize it yourself? And, if so, what made you realize it had become a problem?"
She must've been pausing between questions, waiting for him to speak up before going on, but it didn't feel like it. They seemed to come at him rapid-fire, and by the time he'd come up with the perfect, unaffected answer for one, she'd be on to the next. She was moving at a hundred miles per hour in the interview, and he was stuck in the slow lane, just thinking, 'This wasn't supposed to happen. We weren't supposed to talk about this. I wasn't ready for this yet. I'm not ready.'
And then she'd put the nail in the interview's coffin.
"Where were your parents in all of this? We never hear much from them. Possibly because they're disappointed in your choice to be a musician?"
He'd been fixing her with a glare by then. He was certain he must've been. One of the ones he reserves for tabloid writers who've slandered the people he loves and closet haters who bully his fans and fame whores who would sell out their best friends for just one more step up the social ladder. But she just kept going.
"If not that, could it be because they'd gotten word of your recent addiction? Or, maybe they're alcoholics themselves?
"They aren't in the picture," he heard himself say. Didn't really feel like he was saying it himself, because the words were too collected to be coming out of his mouth.
"So you've shut them out, then?” The pause that came after that was definitely notable, and followed by another question, this time in a clearly judgmental tone. “A bit cold, don’t you think?"
That was about the time when he'd stood up, said a very resolute, "Fuck you," and smacked over the tripod holding her multiple-thousand-dollars worth of camera. Watched it lose a few pieces as it smacked into the ground, and then kicked it for good measure before storming out the door. Was surprised he'd lasted as long as he did, considering, but it didn't make him feel any better.
He pulled out his cell and sent off a quick, 'SOS. interview down in flames. kill it if you can. i'll explain later,' text to the soon-to-be very unhappy band manager. But Phe knew if he explained, Kir'd understand. After all, he knew the full story. He'd understand better than almost anyone why hearing just the word "parents" could send him into a tailspin.
He hoped, while retreating out to the car waiting for him, that this particular mistake didn't drag the band's career with him this time around.
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