And hence an idea for a Rockman/Roll fic turned into a rather depressing Blues/Roll one…no thanks to the Doctor Who finale last night which left me teary-eyed. I hate my wandering hands sometimes…they do not know the meaning of pragmatic.
'I made my choice a long time ago and I'm never going to leave you. So what can I do to help?' - Rose Tyler, Doctor Who 2006.
"Blues…"
It's not fair, he reflects. Nothing ever is…and according to his beliefs it really should be. Or rather it was always the beliefs, the decisions of another that affects him, pulling out the thread of his life and shaping the path he treads. But he would never question the crossroads or unravel the answers. It was never his place to do so.
He pauses. A hand reaches up and under his shades, almost guiltily feeling the fake water that gingerly reaches down and over his cheek. Tears. As real as he wants them to be. Except he doesn't know what he wants. Not anymore.
Which way should he go? Which fights should he win? Which enemy should he rip to shreds with a well-timed sword? Who should he crossfuse with?
No one will ever give him his answers. Silentio evermore.
He's the one who supposed to keep his tongue under lock and key. Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir. He's all he was programmed for, to obey, protect, live…in a manner of speaking.
Only she doesn't seem to think so.
"Blues…"
She reaches out to him again.
He wishes she would shut up, wishes her kind eyes would stop leaking sympathy and that she would just go away. He doesn't belong in her airy-fairy world of stories with happy endings and pink dreams of silly girls with idealistic expectations.
She has never had to fulfil an order in her life. Commands yes, but ones always attached to someone accustomed to light and pretty smiles, generous brown eyes that seek out warmth and truth. Quite frankly, he's always preferred the cold, blue variety. At least then you could actually see where you stood, a dusky silhouette framed in irises that tried to pierce through your hopes.
Thank God her own are stuck in the neutral territory of green. At least then he doesn't have to toy with the concept of light and hyperactivity branching out in a web that caught his Enzan-sama. He could murder a Hikari right then.
Life must be having a joke with him, he decides. It steals away the words of the boy he has worshipped for years and gives him the monosyllabic speech of a girl who never shuts up.
"I can help…please Blues…"
"LEAVE!"
It bursts outs violently, wretches and strips away what little sound he usually unleashed and echoed outwards into a terrifying explosion of screaming. Spit flicks out, slender whips of transparent cruelty and rage that itinerates moments after it is born. And he is terrified by his own volume of emotion.
She backs away, mouth stretched out by a combination of fear and shock. Now it is her turn to have her sound ripped away like no tomorrow.
As soon as the words die and are lost to all but memory, he regrets their utterance. He looks at her a little too sadly, worried for her sake as hurting the innocent is one moral that is a part of him as much as he can call his own. It is far more than she deserves.
Roll trembles, palms upwards and clutching onto thin air, buckling under her chin as she watches him. The hurt is readable in her eyes, her body posture, everything. And he has given her nothing in return and continues to do so.
Her mouth seals shut without a whimper, worn out with determination and a sort of stubborn pride she has inherited from Meiru's company. And she turns, blonde streak of platinum whipping round with a form of fury that should belong to someone older than she is, as she runs off, burying the vibration of her sobs into her chest in order to spare him another burden.
But he knows. He always does. And his face twists in grief. She doesn't deserve this anymore than he does.
And so he sighs, tuning out the sound of her rejections that cloaks him with reproach and logs out.
He hopes he hasn't hurt her too badly.
ooooooooooooooooooo
The mounds of hospital blue does nothing to soothe his mood and angry thoughts. It lies up, down and around, creasing into all the nooks and crannies of Enzan's mummified shape. The mound shifts as the breathing gives it movement, the friction sending erythematic thumping of starch woollen hairs breezing up against tender skin.
There are images of cause, blue-tacked up against the walls to drown out the oppressive silence that the doctors liked to force upon the unwell. Cards, drawled messages spanning their plain insides with impish gel-pens and biro. The clichés etched inside never really impressed Blues.
At least Netto had bothered to invent his own. It was careless, crayons sprayed outwards over a full A3 sheet that he had refused to bend in half as tradition predicted or demanded. Blues still didn't have a clue what the lines of criss-crossed rainbows were supposed to represent though.
There is a rumble and the material shifts to reveal cracked eyes and floppy hair. Blues smiles, raising a hand in greeting which in turn is intercepted by a nod. Then there is nothing.
Enzan has lost all his words now.
ooooooooooooooooooo
She starts, stares straight upwards towards a figure that she never wished to see again.
It smirks at her and she stiffens, her muscles freezing her into a lockdown of fear. She has tasted near-deletion too many times to make a mistake now. And she refuses to be silenced.
Her neck curves upwards showing no mercy, a clear line of silken porcelain to the lion's den. She is no warrior. But she is a talker.
But this time the communication exists only in the air that ripples and strains under the spark of death's promise. Only one will survive to spread the tale.
She doesn't want to die. But she doesn't want to keep her tongue in check either.
It lunges forward.
ooooooooooooooooooo
Enzan's fingers raise upwards in a clumsy start at sign language. It is a new skill, poorly tested and one subject to criticism. Blues never has a sharp retort in line, he merely lets the practise unfold in the quiet dampness of the room.
He notices an uneaten croissant and cringes, wishing there was a mark of brunt crumbs instead.
But even now Enzan is mastering the speech of hands, weaving aristocratic fingers that love to hold pencils and run over the trimmed keys of a black keyboard. It is a dance that knows the fight for survival, a struggle to exist in a world that has marred him all his life. He will learn to talk in a way business has never succeeded.
Blues understands perfectly. He likes to fight without words as well.
ooooooooooooooooooo
Lines. There are lines running all over her that are not supposed to be there at all. But she ignores them, forcing herself to move, duck and roll with energy she does not have. What enrages her the most is that the other is actually enjoying this.
It runs and shudders alongside her, a jab there, a poke here. Slowly unravelling her from the steams. The weapon flashes with the ice of unfeeling silver that forces words down their throats and chokes them out the other end. She has never seen anything coated in so much red before.
Enzan's red.
The monster crashes into her, swings her legs off the ground that offers stability and chances, watches her scrabbling for a hold against the choking green daggers. It renews a legendary grip on her throat, squeezing back angry speech that bubbles forth.
How tiresome. What a strange little girl to come looking for her, almost asking for death.
Roll gasps, letting her fingers well up against the devil's advocate and dig into the keeper of her captive words. She will not die as a choking fool. She came here to talk and beat back the quietness unduly done to Enzan.
"Liars get their tongues cut out."
Slur's eyes narrowed as fingers strut, burring themselves into her new toy's neck, bleeding data flurrying away from the pressure.
"That boy had been lying for years…lying is one of the seven deadly sins of your one of your human holy scriptures you know…I do believe in taking other cultures into account when destroying evil on a world."
The powerful navi smiled, her voice taking on a cool edge that glittered with steel and oozed of sophistication.
"I also think the punishment should fit the crime, don't you? All this time Enzan has lied to himself…that is the worst form of deception, don't you agree, little girl?"
Roll snarled as her eyes flashed venomously, before she flopped like a puppet, her limbs taking on a paralytic quality.
Slur raised an eyebrow at this apparent defeat before she buckled suddenly, her mouth arching in shock.
Roll's eyes narrowed triumphantly.
"Go to hell."
The green and white navi stared at her in a seemingly incomprehensive manner before following Roll's uncharacteristic leer down to her chest to see a sharp jagged streak of pink entering through her body and striking all the right places in her vital mainframe.
She gazed upwards to see Roll's right hand clutched within a spasm, a single burn reaching up her glove and staining it black. A slim sheen of smoke was wafting up from it. It took Slur all of three seconds to realise that the navi before her had struck her down with a single heart slash attack…a slash with only one heart that had continued all the pink navi's focus and power.
It was a bull's eye.
Roll chuckled.
"Now who's lost their words?"
Slur dropped her, pulling furiously at her gaping wound in disbelief. She had been slain…not by the legendary fighters of Rockman and Blues, not even by Forte, but one of their lowly healers! No…this couldn't be…
Roll smiled grimly as she heard the demented cry float past Slur's lips as she started to become nothing more than a memory.
"Now that hardly seems fair…Enzan-san wasn't even allowed to scream when you claimed his tongue…" she murmured, eyes clouding over with the power loss.
oooooooooooooooooo
Blues shakes. And curses. It really, really isn't fair, he tells himself.
Even now, she's still smiling, still trying to help him. The words are become a mantra, her own personal atria to the doom that will one day engulf her.
Really, what other way could it have happened?
He can smell her, the stretch of the navi that has tried to bring a halt to the speech of their planet, attempted to undo all that they hold dear. He can see a pink sting on the bare tiles, flooding every inch of a blurring female, more dead than alive. He does not need to see to know who has been murdered.
He grips hold of a quavering hand that flinches slightly with the passion of one who has condemned herself with her soul. He's starting to realise why Rockman used to mutter so mutinously about her stubbornness.
Her eyes are dimming and he fears the worst. Which is why he suddenly hugs her, forgetting personal boundaries or even to support her gently. He tries to breathe in the fading presence of this girl who was worth so much more than he ever thought she could be.
She was so, so silly. He was so, so wrong.
People are always leaving him, he reflects, Enzan's mother, even Enzan on numerous occasions. Once when he was a sweet boy with a heart big enough to fill with friends and again when he slotted in that cursed dark chip. He sometimes wonders if he really did lose the real Enzan all those years ago.
"Slur was right…the seven deadly sins…revenge was one of them, right? Look what's it's done…"
She's choking on an act that he should have done. He tells her this and she laughs. It rips his guts out.
"No…the world needs a little red…"
She does not move to touch him. She does not need to.
But she smiles with those same eyes he is beginning to hate and tells him it's alright, alright, alright…
How could he ever have thought green was a harmless colour? It's poison, as she has condemned him with the guilt of her generosity.
He should have known better. For he has dealt her a wound far greater than anything he has ever bestowed upon anyone before. It was not meant to happen like this…wasn't Rockman supposed to save her?
Fuck. Why can't her dreams shatter, her ethics loosen and uproot when she stares death in the face? Why does she cast such kindness upon him when he has shown her nothing but indifference? Why can't she hate him with her last breath?
Because she is nothing like the shallow fangirl he first made her out to be all those years ago at the Grand Prix. How the years have changed them…
But still she tells him it's alright, alright, alright…when it's nothing but a big sham.
He lets a hand run down the single strip of hair she has been cursed to deal with. He does not mind the flat imprint it leaves behind in his palm. He does not know how to comfort a young dying girl but she seems oblivious to his fumbling actions and smiles on all the same.
But it can never be the same.
This is the second time he's killed a girl, he thinks idly. Silk was the first, now this creature he feels himself getting unnecessarily attached to. Rockman's puppy. It doesn't matter how many times he's told afterwards how it's not his fault…he will know otherwise.
He hates liars.
It's alright, alright, alright…she endlessly repeats herself, a cycle of untamed breath that shouldn't exist. And now that she's going to be gone soon, he thinks that now he's actually started caring about her as more than a navi that just needs to be saved. He cares now that she's just pink, floating away from his hand into particles that stream within a bleakness she doesn't belong too.
She belongs to the sound.
He will squander his vocal cords to give her the chance she sold out for his sake. How he mourns her for it. It must be the dark soul inside him that wants to patch her up and make her hang onto his arm senselessly.
Her grip is dizzy, it has crept up unoccupied onto his upper arm and he stares down at it in puzzlement. Her hand is so small that he could place the entire world inside it with all it's petty hating and sneering lies. His own hand is too big and strong…he would crush it without thinking. Hers is dainty enough to cradle it and nurture out the goodness.
She croaks now, sputtering with the words that die invisibly on her lips, pure patterns that he had wished to stop…now he thinks he hates her for not continuing. He's such a hypocrite. Now he wants her to lie to him.
She's not his everything, she's not alright but she's saved him from the one thing Enzan never wanted him to become. She prevented him from choosing. And so maybe everything will turn out okay after all.
Expect it can't possibly be okay and alright and everything in between because the cost is too much for him to bear and she's in the pain he should be wearing.
No one told her to do this. No one asked her to do this.
And that makes him respect her all the more. Now that he can't have her he thinks he's never wanted anything more in his life.
And so he bends down and croons in a voice that has sent a shiver down the spines of his many adoring fans.
"Everything will be alright, alright, alright…I'll make everything okay. You just rest now. Shh…I'll look after everything. You'll be alright."
He hasn't got a clue how though. But she doesn't need to know that.
And then she sighs and something breaks and cracks inside him. Except that she's the one who's broken up really, and she escapes from his spaced out arms in segments. And he can't contain her. Or himself.
It took only one girl to bring the walls crashing down, walls that have lasted for years. And he really thinks those years should have belonged to her.
Everything will be alright, alright, alright…
Except it won't.
(insert sad face here)
Because Roll may not be a strong fighter, but she is a smart one. Crud, she really is like Rose Tyler...it's taken me this long to see the similarities between the two characters.