[fic] Kingdom Hearts 2, "Somebody"
Somebody
Kingdom Hearts 2
...Iunno, spoilers for details on 'nobodies'? AU/Speculation, really.
Not really worksafe.



.1.

Ela really wants something but most of the time she has a hard time putting what that is into words. Technically, this is a perfectly satisfactory life. She raises the axe.

She brings it down. Wood splinters. She picks up the two sides, hefts them. They'll fit in the fireplace just fine. The smoke from her chimney can join the smoke spiralling up from the other chimneys in this town. She gets a splinter and raises her finger to her lips.

"Hey," a voice says. She looks over. One of the boys from town. She narrows green eyes at him speculatively; he's had an interest in her for months, she recalls, mentally sorting through the organizations of data she's been throwing together in her spare time. When she feels like it. "Isn't that a bit of a rough job for a girl?"

She curls her lip up to bare a row of teeth. "Gee, I don't know," she drawls. "Let me check."

When she brings the axe down again it embeds halfway into the stump she was using as a chopping block. She ponders it exaggeratedly, shifting from foot to foot, wiping her hands off on her trousers before stroking her chin with great concern.

"No," she drawls finally, sarcastic. "No, I think I've got it covered."


.2.

The trouble is that there's nothing to do here, maybe. She heads down to the inn, never mind that she's underage, gets a scolding from the master, waves it off with a hand and orders juice instead. No point causing trouble.

She begins her usual game as she nurses her drink: listening. Her head is full of facts -- none of them important, of course. Nothing important happens here. But hell, the Mayor may be oblivious but she knows the name of every man and the two women who've slept with the Mayor's wife. People talk too loudly. She talks loudly to match them, when people talk to her, but she watches what she says.

Sometimes, she considers doing something with this information. If she dropped a hint to the Mayor -- no, not even a hint, if she arranged (and, how easy it would be to arrange it; these idiots are like playing pieces on a board; upright only until she knocks them down)... if she arranged for him to find out about it on his own, what would happen? The store's owner is one of the men, and the town needs a store; what would the Mayor do to him? Is it worth finding out?

A man slides into the seat beside her, slings an arm around her shoulders, slides a beer in front of her. She glances aside to see interest in his eyes. "Why, hello," she says.

"Hey, sweetie," he says. "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

She curls her fingers around the stein's handle and smirks at him. Honestly, she's not fond of this part; it's annoying. Not like guys that drunk are any good anyway. But it's got its advantage, and her body's a tool. Might as well be a tool. She could probably let it go, but what the hell would she do with herself then? Better plan it out. Better make these choices with the sharp-edged awareness that she is the one doing this. Deliberation. She might get something out of it.

"Aww, I don't know," she tells the store owner, playing up a disgusting girly softness in her voice, watching to see if he catches on how fake it was. "Guess I just don't have anywhere better to be, yet."

"Oh yeah?"

"Wanna go somewhere else?" she asks, and rises, one hand in her hair, hip jutting out.


.3.

After, she heads over to the fireplace naked and sits and stares into the flickering flames, knees drawn up. She slides one hand against her body, cradles a breast, wonders what she's really done to deserve this.

The contentment of the body makes her heart fill warmly despite her simmering anger and she sighs, lets her head fall forward to her knees, and calls herself a few names, because really she's looking for something else. Power. Commitment maybe. She's not sure. Not this.

She's not some pretty princess to earn herself a happy ending, but she wants much more than this kind of life.


.4.

Heartless. They've heard the term before. Rumours coming into town from no apparent source. She knows. She's looked. Heartless. Creatures made from the darkness in people's hearts. Roving. Attacking. Emerging from the shadows.

They're not supposed to exist.

"Oh fuck no," she mutters, and heads for the town square, her axe heavy in hand. She's split apart a few shadows with it, but they're forming after, following. In the sky a great void has opened and it's pulling everything up. "Fuck--"

She's grabbed and hauled back. She tries to swing; a human hand catches her arm, wrestles the axe away. "Ela, Ela." She doesn't recognize the voice and she peers back at the man who's grabbed her. Something about the panic, the thundering of her heart is overwhelming her and she curses it. Too weak. She knows the guy, has seen him about town, exchanged a few words, but she can't even remember his name. She folds her hand over her chest and tries to breathe, hear around the labouring panic of her heart.

She's afraid, she thinks, and inside her chest, her heart squeezes.

"Let me go," she says. "I've gotta get out of here."

"There's nowhere to go," the guy says. "Stay here." He takes her axe. "I'll fight."

"What the fuck, give me back my --"

"Hey," he says, and gives her a smile. "Don't worry. I'll protect you."

She stares as he vanishes out the door and as the shadows close in her heart seems to catch fire. "Motherfucker," she shouts after, hoarse. "You goddamn--" There's no weapon to hand and when she gropes out her hand touches slippery-dark skin, yellow eyes peering at her. She wasn't supposed to be here to begin with. It wasn't supposed to end like this. She'd find a way out. She was supposed to have found a way out of this town and found -- something. This wasn't the world she wanted this wasn't the place she wanted, this wasn't even the goddamn body she wanted, all soft curves and accessible and looking like it needs to be protected so that motherfucking assholes take her fucking axe away from her--

Their hands on her and she tilts her head back, opens green eyes as wide as they will go and thinks it's good this place will be destroyed. She hates it, she hates it, she hates all of it and if she has to go so will they.

And then darkness.


.5.

He wakes naked from a nightmare and groans at himself before the disjoint hits.

This is wrong.

He's not sure who he is but the memories he's got aren't his own. Can't be his own, right? Makes no sense. He runs his hands down over the hard planes of his chest, over his narrow waist, strokes a finger down his cock. Yeah, all there.

So what's--

Before he can even fully form the thought he's aware of the absence. No drive. He woke with the memory of hate from that dream but there's none of it inside him. He puts his hand to his chest and is motionless, waiting.

And waits.

And waits.

When he doesn't actually feel anything he lets his hand drop and laughs. Can't get something for nothing, huh? he thinks. The laughter is good in a way -- echoes something inside him, and so he lets it ring out, tilts his head back, laughs until tears find their way from his eyes, slide down his cheeks, burn up and evaporate from the heat of his body.

The laughter stops as quickly as it began. No point carrying it on; it's not coming from anything.

"Well," he drawls aloud, and combs his hands through red hair, pushing it back from his face. "Much as I'm sure I'll shock the impressionable ladies if I go out there like this, might as well get going. Somebody's gotta know what's going on around here -- right?"

And when he finds that somebody, hell, who knows what he'll be able to do with himself then?



==end==




I blame playing with name rearrangements and admiring Axel's hourglass figure at the same time. Whut. Those are some fine childbearing hips you got yourself, Axel.