Author's Note:
Wow. So, this is actually me, here with a chaptered story.
Be... kind. This is my first attempt at a real story, so we'll see how it goes.
I wrote it a bit ago, I've been sitting on it for a while. So, it might be slightly smooshed. No worries, though.
You might dislike the premise, but give it a chance. I do think it's fairly interesting.
The prologue was originally a crazy one-shot, but I just kept writing. And... well. Here's what happens.
I'd really love to know what you think about it, but fact is, I'll just post it, regardless of people's liking it or not liking it. xD
It can be rather confusing. Sorry 'bout that. xD If you have any questions, just let me know. I think you can enjoy it better when you know what's going on. 8D
I'm aware it's not amazing. I do think the writing gets better as I got older, edited, etc. Just, please please please pleeeease trust me when I say that it does indeed get better than this—I simply don't have the time to give this a total rehaul.
I s'pose this could be rated M, but I doubt it. I'd just put a disclaimer out for attempted (note the attempted) rape-slash-assault-slash-molesting-slash-whatever you want to call it. If it bothers you, I'd suggest you don't read. (Honestly, there's nothing very graphic.) And there's some censored cursing. Like. Once. Or something. So it's a definite T.
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters. Except for him.
Note: Different writing style than usual. If you see grammatical errors, they're probably supposed to be there. But you can lemme know about them anyway.
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Divine Intervention
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i. the sunshine never comes.
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push you cross that line,
just stay down this time.
hide in yourself,
crawl in yourself...
you'll have your time.
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I swear. I didn't think—I never imagined—I mean, all I know I said my life was boring, and I know I inferred that someone—as I shook my fist at the sky—should do something about it, or something, but honestly—I didn't think—
I didn't think.
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I hiccup and sniffle, sending a glob of snot rolling down my throat.
"T-thanks, Reno." Sniffle-choke-sob. I hate my noises, but I can't help it. I also can't blame him for looking weirded out. I would be. I am, actually.
"Yuffie…?" So tentative—unlike his personality, usual habits, and anything else about the (ex?)Turk. Choke-sob-sniffle. "Yes?" I cough into my napkin. His eyebrows pucker together—even they don't want to continue his current thought process. "Urm. Just thought you might want to tell me—y'know, if anything's up. I mean—you're a tough palooie (what does that even mean?)—I don't see you crying a lot. So I figure something must be up." Brilliant deduction, Einstein. "So, just wanted to know if you wanted to spill—something other than snot and tears, of course." Too late for that, Buster. You got snot on you if you want it or not.
"N-no. You'll-you'll-you'll…" I trail off. What would he do? I don't know. But after all he's done, I can't imagine him condemning me for this. Heck, I can't condemn me for this—how could he?
"You won't un-understand." I finish, unsure of my own words.
His eyes widen, and I immediately know what he thinks by that little, 'ohhh' he let out.
What he thinks, of course, is completely wrong.
"And no!" I say too fiercely, worrying my napkin in my hands. "No! It's not—it's not… 'womanly issues.'" My voice is much too loud for the confined space, and the words, the lie "womanly issues" mocks me with every echo. Luckily it only lasts for a couple seconds, before I'm distracted by his eyebrow cocking. It speaks loud and clear, although he doesn't say anything; it says, "Oh really?"
Well. No, not really. It is a womanly issue, I suppose—but I know what issues he's thinking of, and they're certainly not my real issues. And if he's actually thinking of my real issues, I'm going to punch his lights out for actually considering something so low of me.
Not that I am that low, even though it is my situation—I swear, I'm not so low—I don't really know except that I know that this is not my fault. I didn't do anything to deserve this—I know this. This. Was not. My. Fault.
Was. Not.
Was not, will never be.
My mind scoffs. But how could it not be? Only such a wicked, wicked girl—I let out another rafter-rattling howl, and hugged myself, rocking back and forth.
Whatever I was crying about before, the non-reason—it's certainly gone now.
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I tend to watch people go by a lot, just wondering. Wondering what it would be like if they were in my position. I know I'd go over to them, absolutely, completely, totally, and help them out. I'd give them a get-out-of-jail free card—I'd rub them on their back and let them bawl. I wouldn't walk by, definitely not. I'd see the unshed tears in their eyes and—Oh, Leviathan. Doing it again—right. Sorry.
And after I promised me that I wouldn't keep going on. Darn.
That makes total broken promises of mine to me two: I swore that I'd never annihilate my enemy in Rise of Nations again—down to the last building and citizen. I'd only slightly conquer them, leaving them their livelihoods and just their lives in general.
And I had actually believed me on that one—what a sucker I am!
I shiver in the chilly November air, pulling my oversized black wrap around me. (So what if it engulfs me in black, woolish material? It's comfy.)
There's something funny about familiarity. Something weird about the kinship I feel to the people who don't know me, but the people I've seen walking this route each day. Why do they go where they go? What are they doing here? What are they going through? Most importantly, are they rich, and is so, where is their freakin' wallet?
But more important than all that stuff, is the warm, fuzziness I get when I see him go by. That tragic, sacred kinship of aloneness that binds us, even though he doesn't know it. Except that I don't see any fear in him, but that's all I see in me—a scared, alone little girl. We've actually met eyes a couple times. I wonder if he wonders about me like I do him.
I wonder what it'd be like, one day, to actually talk to him.
And I know how ridiculous it is to think about people you don't even know, but I've always had a vivid imagination, and I need some way to pass the time.
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My life has taken too many breaks, I decide, as I resolutely scrub, scrub, scrub the glasses. But so has my mind, I also decide, and I don't know what I'm doing here, I don't know why I'm here at all, and I don't know what possessed me to go look for a job. Must've been ****** logic.
After all, gotta learn to support myself, right? Right? Wrong.
But that's beside the point. So what if I may have lived some of my life mooching off of my father and my country? That is so obviously over now, and I don't regret it, and I don't wish I had some wonderfully steaming hot dumplings right now.
To punctuate, stomach growl. Stomach gladly obliges, and I glance at Sir Boss. He glances up at me, cocks a nearly white but blonde eyebrow, and glances back down at his papers. I frown, but I try. "Sir? It's been nearly five hours, and I'm really hungry. Can I take a break?"
He sighs, and I honestly can see, deep down, he's not such a bad person. He's just misguided. Heck—I need to eat too. "Look, just finish the dishes, then you can go home."
Would if help if I told him I had nowhere to go?
Would it help if I screamed it?
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"I can do all types of work. Really. I just need a room for the night—I'll do housekeeping to pay for it—really. Anything." I mentally ticked this off the list—I said "really" too many times.
Maybe it's the desperation in my eyes, or the oversized, stretched-out black wrap I'm wearing, but the Angel gives me a sympathetic look, and hands me a key. "Room 38."
I nearly cry with relief.
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I wake up the next morning, shake a spider out of my hair, and open the curtains. The blocky mass of Edge greets me with a slap to the face and a witchy cackle. "Lovely." I mumble, turning to my first duty.
The shower is passable and workable, and I'm clean and fresh and starving in a matter of ten minutes. The tooth brushing is a bit harder—I honestly don't want to put that foul water anywhere near my mouth, but eventually I decide that I can't afford a cavity, and I brush them.
The Angel downstairs merely laughs when I ask her what she wanted me to do. "It's a gift." She responds.
I literally could kiss her—not that I'm into that sort of stuff—with her angelically white smile, and those piercing green-blue eyes. What is she doing here? She should be a supermodel, or a benevolent Mother Teresa. Nevermind that she's wearing pink—I never really liked the color—right now, she is my favorite person in the world.
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"No. Reno, I'm not accepting your charity."
"Then ********, Yuffie, get a job!"
"I have a job!" I hiss, hugging myself harder, "******* two of them!"
Silence. He runs a hand through his hair. "Then why'd you ***** come here?"
"Because," I have nowhere else to go. "Be-because," you're the only friend I have, "because… I'm pregnant and I'm lonely and maybe I might l—"
I stop and glance at him and frown. He's gaping. I knew this was the wrong time.
"What," he says, his words careful, "are you talking about, woman?"
"So now I'm 'woman?'" I hiss again. Turn away; don't let his expression reach you. "It's not my fault." As I wait for his reaction—the explosion I know is coming—the world just seems to fall away, and I feel the weight of it shudder down on my shoulders.
"Oh really? How is it not your ******* fault?" I didn't know he could screech. I turn my very weary eyes to him. When did I get so tired? "No. It's really not."
"Look, if someone went and knocked you up—and you let them—" I frown, sniffle, and talk over him. "No. I didn't."
His demeanor changes suddenly—he's just got the implications of what he thinks is the case. "Oh. Oh, Yuffie—"
"Not-not that either."
"Then what…?"
"I didn't do anything. Honestly. I didn't." I ignore the fact that I'm crying now. "Really. I'm sor-sorry." Hiccup.
And the record sk-sk-skips, and we're playing a familiar song again.
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I wasn't kidding. I don't know what happened, but I swear—it's not my fault.
I didn't do anything.
How can this happen if I didn't ****** do anything?
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It's visible now—to me at least—that unavoidable bump that signifies the figurative end of my life as I've known it. I think I get it all now, what happened, and I have to admit, I'm seriously ticked, because the implications mean that I'm losing my mind, and that's never a good sign, but for the sake of my sanity, I'll pretend that it's possible.
So, then. Why me? Didn't You have some other poor princess to torment? One who preferably wasn't me? I didn't ask for this—I don't want this. Go force it on someone else.
I told my theory to Turkey—he called this 'delusions of grandeur,' but I swear to you, there's nothing grand about this.
I notice the looks in the street now, the disdainful glances, the feelings of relief as people realize, 'wait a minute—I'm better than her. Look where she is.' Or maybe that's just my imagination.
I spend a lot of my time sitting—on park benches, on curbs, on the cracked red vinyl seats of the cheapest diner, watching my gil disappear before my eyes, counting the meals.
Now would be some good time for that famous 'Divine Intervention.' But I have a feeling that it's "already happened." I don't think you get the same "favor" twice—but I certainly wouldn't ask for it. Not again.
Why shouldn't I blame You for this? It's Your fault, isn't it?
"Be careful what you wish for" suddenly has such a new meaning, it's sad.
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I step heavily onto the sidewalk, frowning, squinting. I don't know what I'm going to do.
I've lost my second job (like I could help it if I'm pregnant) and that means that my one job that couldn't support a smoking habit now has to support me.
The optimist in me has died.
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I can't stop laughing. Can't. Stop. They're glancing at me, sliding their meals away, and I see a man ready to approach me—probably to throw me out. (Throw the crazy girl out.) I can't help it. I can't stop. The absence of gil in my hand makes my blood run cold, the irony harsh and bitter, and my laughing scared and manic. It's the last meal for a death row prisoner.
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A sharp bang of metal on metal jerks me awake, and my back protests fiercely. I straighten slowly, my teeth gritted, and turn my squinted eyes to the bright light. "Nobody is allowed in the park after dark. I'm going to have to ask you to leave." His words are polite, but he sounds tired and biting and uncaring, as worn as me.
His baton is still in his gloved hand, and though through sickening habit I can imagine what damage could be inflicted with it, I can't help but plead—I have nowhere else to go. "Please, Sir. I-I can't go anywhere else. I-" hiccup, sniffle, "I just need to sleep. I'll be g-gone in the morning. P-Please, don't make me leave. I don't know wha-"
He grabs my arm so hard, I imagine I can feel the bruises form. "I don't care, Lady. Just make my job easier, and get the **** out of here." He almost forcibly drags me through the chain-link gate.
The gate shuts with a clang, and with a rasp of a lock, I know that though once I might have been able to scale it with ease, I'm stuck on the wrong side of what might as well be a mile-high gate. With a silent cry of frustration, I bang my fist against the metal entry (knock, knock, knocking on Heaven's door).
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How did it come to this? I wonder as I pull my wrap around me—as if tighter would warm me up. Am I going to die here? I wonder, a bit melodramatically, as I feel the cold start creeping up my calves. Why me? I wonder as I glance around for some sort of shelter, finding nothing.
Wearily, aching and shaking, I move to the curb and sit. My legs, clothed only in those stupid, stupid shorts—the only pair of pants I own—are frozen, but I think I might survive. (So long, so long.)
The sun moves before I do, and I realize I've just spent my first night on the street. (Welcome to your new life.)
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He's too drunk—Please, God, help me—too drunk to notice, too drunk to care that the swollen stomach signifies something—God, please, please, please, help now—I can't move—pinned up against the harsh bricks, and—Oh God, please help me—I can feel his hands moving on me, searching through my pockets, and touching, touching (oh, God—help me), everywhere they're not supposed to be. My tiny roll of gil has vanished already and my shirt is ripped and torn and pulled down below modest, a result of his greedy fingers and my struggling.
The bitter night is mocking my helplessness, and I can't stop screaming through the hand over my mouth—Oh God, not this, please. Through the roaring in my ears—the combination of terror and my muted screaming—I can hear him saying something, the the raspy, whispery breath in my ear that promises horror and nightmares. The (oh-so) familiar mixture of tears and terror and panic is running down my cheeks, and I can't st-stop screaming. Oh God, please, please, please.
I feel the fire of his angry touches—pain where there's not supposed to be—"P-Please," I whimper through the foul hand whose fingers grab and stretch greedily at the skin of my face, but his pain is nothing compared to the panic as I feel his other hand—Oh God, help me help me hel—ripping, fumbling with the waist of my shorts—those greedy fingers touching exploring searching violating—God! Anything but this –
My teeth finally connect with his fingers, and both hands are gone, only to be replaced with a tongue of fire down my cheek as his fist connects with it. I'm stunned speechless by the pain, and I can feel my brain rattle in my skull (my poor brain). I hear him speak clearly for the first time, his voice seething with anger. "I wouldn't do that, precious, wouldn't want to make me mad, would you?" In a rough motion, he pulls something from his waistband, and the knife presses to my neck. I'm still pinned back but I cry out as he jerks it from my neck to my chest, ripping a hole in already torn material and scoring a thin, light slit of red. The rush of cold air to sensitive, broken skin freezes my thoughts and his hand is tearing at my last shred of protection. There's almost no room to breathe between us—God, please—his hand is touching and violating and, oh, the pain and God God God, no no! I struggle with my shoulders, trying to shake him and his livid, stinging touches off of me. His free hand slaps my face again, and the opposite cheek, bruised and bitter, meets the bricks behind me.
His hand jerks back down, and he pins my hip back against the wall as he probes against me, shifting his body. A hand roughly pulling my legs apart—God, God! No! It moves to my waistband and fumbles in the dark and blind for the button—my eyes nearly roll up into my head with fear, but all I can see those horrible eyes squint at me, and that slitted, cruel grin. "Don't scream," he hisses—my heart's pounding in raw, tender places as those fingers fumble the button of my shorts open, and –
But I can't help it; I open my lips to scream and have to bite it back as his mouth mashes against mine—and his body is too close—too close. And his hands—oh God—no no no. I try to inhale through his heavy, hot breath—his tongue, rough, cruel, rapes and chafes my mouth and he tastes like bitter alcohol and suffocating hate and fear. I heave a tight, hurting breath (good luck), and shake and scream against him—can't breathe I can't breathe. God help me.
And suddenly, I'm not there anymore—and I know it means something important in my brain snapped, but now I'm bent down inside, hugging myself, imagining that I could slide into the freezing snow and melt in the freezing heat. I'm melting in winter's freezing heat and hate, until I'm nothing more than pain and a torn black wrap and swollen stomach. It's almost a relief as the pounding, blinding fear invades my bruised mind, pushing out thought and feeling until I'm hollow. (Should'a known better.) I don't feel the cold as the air bites my naked, exposed chest (lie lie lie) and his demanding isn't ripping my raw, bleeding mouth to shreds (lie lie lie) and his knee isn't pinning my bruised, aching thighs apart (lie lie lie)—oh God, oh God, oh God, please—please hel –
His hand, ripping, tearing, hurting, hurting, hurting, in places that shouldn't hurt, places he shouldn't be—I I'm screaming against his open mouth—can feel his laugh against me, as his dirty, defiling hands—let go of me!—God please please please—pushes himself up against me, knocks my head back the wall and his mouth drops to my chest, his mouth leaving a trail of fire and pain and wrong—this is all wrong—"Pl-please—" I gasp, shaking-shaking-shaking, my body building into a shuddering crescendo of fear and fire.
The scream welling in my throat breaks loose—I hear fear and disbelief in the echo and in his furious growl, and he brings the knife up to my neck. I know with tangible truth that I am going to die if I don't do something. For a second, I feel myself relax, just waiting (wishing) for it—not even imagining the headlines, "Pregnant Good For Nothing Found Desecrated and Dead and Defiled in Unimportant, Deserted Corner of the Universe", but I'm suddenly caught by the conviction and the knowledge that it won't be just me dying if I let him.
He doesn't have a chance to cry out as I shoulder into him, knocking him back a necessary inch as my hand shoots up to his wrist. The knife is in my shaking, shaking hand before I realize, and his expression doesn't even change as it plunges into his gut. Blankly, he glances down at my hand, before his now accusing eyes lift up until his eyes are piercing me like the knife in him.
The blood is all over my hand, but I don't notice as an unfamiliar, feral scream tears from my throat and I pull the knife out and create a new wound in his chest. The pain registers on his face, flickering like a bad TV signal, before his eyes shut, and his weight falls to the concrete. I don't notice this, though as I fall to his chest, caught in a vicious, carnal rage, and scream and scream, and stab, and stab stab stab—those filthy hands, that rotting heart. Gory, fragmented puzzle pieces of the savaged mess of him and his bloody insides slowly pierce my mind and piece together.
The air is hissing ice and snow and tangling its claws in my hair and scratching down my chest and back before I finally yield, succumb, and rock back, covered in blood.
With a shudder, I drop the knife in the defiled, tainted snow (just like you), and pull my bloodstained, threadbare, ragged black wrap around my immodesty—numbly registering the pain and pain and pain. Winter's cold grasp is around my shoulders and chest, pushing me down, down, down. I surrender to its wants, and fall back to the bloody snow.
My heart won't beat, so the silence pounds, pounds, pounds for me, pumping blood and pain though my veins.
My ravaged body doesn't respond to me (move, get up, run away run away run away) and I wonder if I'm dying. The thought brings a stab of fear to my shuddering, palpitating heart (trying so hard to beat, give me a break) and the thought fixes in my head—I have to get away from here—and it drags me, shaking hand over hand, until my conviction is completely gone. I collapse, no strength left to glance around and see where I've heaved myself to.
I stay there, unmoving, and let the silence pound pound pound my heart.
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I recognize her when she walks up to me—but it's from a great, blindingly cold distance. I think I'm freezing to this curb.
She's wearing short-sleeves in winter, that pink dress a lovely monstrosity of the color-wheel, and a basket of impossibly alive flowers rests in the crook of her arm. (She's impossible) Her hair is braided and pushed back over her shoulder, falling down her back in a literally shining twist. It's beautiful—she's beautiful, but I don't notice—not really. I'm too busy not looking at anyone and clutching my swollen stomach. I feel the tired piercing my bones with every breath, and the aching in unfamiliar places, and the drained, emptiness in my core.
Her meandering path takes her to the gutter in front of me, and she leans down and looks me dead in my hollow, freezing eyes. (I'm dead, darling. You're wasting your time.) My heart shudders at the absence of judgment there, the lack of disdain. There's comfort, suddenly, in just looking in her eyes, just looking at another human being—not glancing away. Not lowering my eyes in shame. I'm just… seeing.
She extends her hand to me.
The soft, gracefully delicate lines of her gentle hands smooth and blur before my eyes.
Divine inter-freakin'-vention.
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urm.
yeah.
... well, I like it.
(it gets better.)
anyway, hope you enjoyed it (and might keep reading), etc.
-Latte
EDIT: JUST SO YOU KNOW, during that one scene, anytime the says "God" she is not just using the name in vain, etc., she is actually entreating for mercy. Help. Etc. Because if I need some name to shoot off for no reason, I'd use "Leviathan" etc.
Too many commas, 'etc.,' etc., but I'm sure you understand, get my point, etc.