I don't want no shelter, no calm --
He was roaming before he caught up with himself -- hunting or fleeing from something but he didn't know what. He just had to move. Pieces of memory were coming in and coming together, but too slowly, much too slowly. He had a name, maybe, he thought... but he didn't really think; he mostly was, and something drove him on. He was vaguely aware of the endless halls, but it didn't matter, though he also knew that this was a lie and something was wrong with him. He he had a name, but something felt wrong.
This wasn't normal. It would pass. It had passed before, hadn't it? Had there been a "before"? One voice said yes; another voice disagreed. The memory of this latest death was returning piecemeal.
... Latest death? He wondered at first if he was imagining things. He wondered, but it wasn't time for that. Time was leaping and curling and shying away from him, cutting out parts and forcing him to jump ahead without any idea of how he got there, but he went along with wherever he found himself. The pieces weren't fitting, but something drove him further and really, maybe it was just that simple?
There were things coming -- things coming back that he didn't want to come back. Things he knew he'd tucked away so he'd never have to think about them. He didn't want them, but he couldn't stop them anymore than he could put the rest together. So what did it matter? He wouldn't think about it. He wouldn't think. He --
He still wanted to fight. It wasn't the desire to attack -- well, no, of course it was. He wanted to kill, so he did.
There were Akuma here, and he picked them off one after another. He hunted them down and tore them apart more quickly and more viciously than they could tear at him. He bled, but they were cut and eaten away from the inside and some stayed as metal carcasses while others exploded and he was alive, alive, alive with fury and joy and no one would take it away from him.
He found himself almost caught underneath one monster when he wondered why he'd think anyone could take it from him, but it --
A shambling beast with too many appendages and a mouth of razor-teeth where there shouldn't be, clawing and catching, much too cold with every wing it rips and takes in --
Didn't matter. It didn't matter, but what was that thing? When did that happen? Where had he been? He tried to push the thoughts aside again.
It was only when his minor injuries caught up and reminded him, giving him pause, making him look around --
A hand reaching toward him, and a whistle. "Most of your comrades would have turned to dust by now not being able to stand any of the virus at all. But yet here you are wanting another round."
Something was wrong. He turned, recognizing the hall behind him, and starting walking. The scrapes and bruises he had now weren't a problem at all, but what had happened then? When was that? Who had he been talking to?
What disjointed thoughts he'd had broke apart when he stopped in another empty room, and enough of those pieces snapped together to remember. This room was familiar: a lavish guest room, with wood floors, a tall ceiling, and large windows that let in dim moonlight. A bloodstained couch sat near the room's center.
This was where he'd died. This was where he'd died.
Really, he was getting to be awful at this "life" -- No, no, no. He pushed the thought down with a horrible, sickening feeling. It wasn't his thought. It wasn't his memory, but it had slipped in when he couldn't tell the difference. When he'd still been too close to -- death, he supposed.
He walked to the couch and stared, overwhelmed. His own memories were still drifting back, whether he wanted them to or not, and he beat down every one he didn't recognize as his own. It wasn't hard once he had a foothold in -- well -- himself, but there were too many memories coming at once without the dampening of time.
He bent down, picking up a coat lying nearby. What was it doing here? It wasn't his, and when he'd been here last, there'd been...
He threw the coat back to the floor and called up a swarm of butterflies to devour it.
He'd kill him. He'd kill him. He'd kill him. His chest ached, and he rubbed his breastbone while he paced and watched his butterflies tear the coat to pieces. What a complete fool he'd been...!
(I'm not like them, hissed another memory, and he beat it back again. Good God, nothing like this had happened since he first got -- something, but he couldn't remember yet. He had to hope the blasted things would calm down again once his own memory was restored. The source wasn't even there anymore, was he?
The distraction took his fury down a notch, although he was still smoldering.)
He hated the man for killing him. He hated himself for letting that one get anywhere near him. He hated these memories that weren't his. He hated too many memories that were his. He hated his Innocence. He hated his whole situation, and goddammit, he hated that he didn't have a drink in his hand right now.
... One of those, at least, he could remedy. He was far too sober for this.
He found himself in the smoke hallway again before he knew it.
This couldn't just be called the smoke hallway anymore, not truly. It looked as though someone had tried to bring in the feel of a new, expensive train -- the kind of train he'd only ever seen after joining the Order. The smoke walls glistened, trying to emulate the sheen of metal and lacquered wood, and gained the barest trace of color -- of what could have been browns and greens and golds, if he could only focus without all of it fading back to gray. There were more doors down the hallway, but at regular intervals now, even though every last one was locked and all the windows were still that endless black.
He pressed a hand against the wall; he still couldn't feel the wall as such, but as long as he touched it, he could feel the rumbling of a train just pulling from the station and hear the faint sounds of a chattering crowd.
Of course, he wasn't moving, and his double didn't seem to notice as he leaned against a locked compartment door. The hall fell still and silent again as he pulled his hand away.
His double had changed as well. He was no longer much of a double; if they had been brothers, they could have been mistaken for twins, but they both saw the differences were clear as night and day. The figure was dressed entirely in a rich black, even down to his gloves. His eyes were different -- sharper, but flat. Knowing, but dead. Everything about him had a leaner, hungrier look, even though all he was doing was standing there with his arms folded casually across his chest and watching Tyki expectantly.
The biggest change was his presence. Tyki had recognized it before, but not thought much about it; when it resonated with the ghost of what was in his hands, his heart dropped and hardened. (Or something like a heart. It was still so hard to feel anything, and while he didn't want to stay so still anymore -- he'd had enough of death -- he wasn't sure he wanted this place to change from the almost-respite it had become.)
"You already knew about me," said the smoke figure, quirking an eyebrow more for effect than out of actual surprise. "Should the change really surprise you?"
Tyki tried to speak, but the hall hadn't changed that much yet.
The figure laughed, shaking his head a little. It was patient, the reaction of someone who'd dealt with difficult children many times before and expected to do it many more times again. "It doesn't matter much what you think of me. I'm partly you, after all."
Just barely, thought Tyki. The figure wasn't completely him, or even the Other Tyki. Not really.
The figure uncrossed his arms and spread his hands. "I'm the closest you'll find to him -- especially now, hmm? These are his memories and his voice... Even so, if I was him, wasn't it that you'd want to kill me -- again?"
At the deep scowl thrown his way, a wide smile flickered onto the figure's face, and he continued after smoothing it out into barely a quirk of his lips. "It doesn't matter to me what you think of anything at all. But then, that's another thing you already knew. I shouldn't have to repeat it all to you."
It was true, of course; the part of the figure that made his wrists thrum sympathetically even here had never cared for what he thought. That didn't mean he liked the idea.
"I've more than done my part. I've been waiting on you this entire time, as you well know."
Then the figure was in front of him and taking hold of his wrists. Tyki tried and failed to jerk away. The contact was painful; the subtle thrum grew to a hot sandpaper buzz, burning and scraping from the inside.
"You had a choice. You made that choice of your own free will, and when things are calm, you still lose your way?" The figure set his mouth in a hard line while he paused. "Just what am I going to do with you?"
Tyki managed to twist his wrists out of the figure's grip this time, and took a half-step back -- before lunging at the figure and wrapping his hands around his throat.
He was done; he was tired of this game. He didn't want the memories of the man he'd decided not to be (months and months ago, but had it only been that? It felt much longer). He didn't need his Innocence dressing up in a dead man's face to tell him what to do and where to go. He didn't need any part of himself anchoring foreign things to the corners of his mind.
The figure was dragged to the ground and Tyki squeezed as hard as he could.
There was an instant of fear on the other man's face, but only an instant.
"You can't be serious," he said, dully, and it was Tyki's turn to laugh. It didn't matter that no sound came out, and that the lungs he didn't truly have burned with the effort in the still-airless corridor. (Of course he was serious; he was always serious -- or maybe that was never. It hardly mattered these days, didn't it?) It was sickening, just how much and how little the figure looked like that man at once, and he wanted to squeeze until the figure's eyes glazed over and his body went limp; that was all the reason he needed.
There was nothing he could do to hurt the figure, though, who elected to simply lie there looking bored and annoyed until the buzzing sandpaper scraping out his own smoky bones forced Tyki to give up. He hadn't expected anything different.
"I could have killed you for that," said the figure, as casually as though he was remarking on the weather. It wasn't a threat. It was only close to a fact, for as close as one could get to killing in a dream, and as much hell one could put another through with just the mind for it.
And of course, that was close enough to death, but how could he be too easily frightened by it when he was fresh from making its acquaintance?
He was tired of the figure wrapping itself in dredged-up shreds of the Other's memory. It wasn't entirely himself, or the Other, or Freeroll; why did it exist? He'd made his devil's bargain already, hadn't he? What more did he have to give?
"What do you think?" asked the figure, eyes a little too bright. He didn't try to move from where Tyki still had him pinned. "You're still fighting the wrong battle, as much as you say otherwise."
Tyki leaned forward and wrapped his hands around the figure's neck once more but didn't squeeze. With a thrill running down his spine, he realized there was the barest trace of air in the hall. At the same time, the sound of a train barreling down tracks grew louder and louder, making it hard to hear.
"Maybe," whispered Tyki, just barely able to make a sound but putting as much force behind his words as possible, "you should --"
But the train suddenly roared in his ears -- going off the tracks -- metal shearing, people being thrown and screaming --
Except it wasn't a train, he realized, and --
And --
And then it was quiet again. Tyki was crouched on the floor with his hands clamped over his ears, but there was nothing to hear except a ringing left over. The hall had returned to the way it was before, all smoke and no air and (almost) no train. He slowly sat up and looked at the figure. What the hell was -- no, he thought he knew, and he didn't need the figure's condescension.
The figure's eyes were still too bright as he sat down cross-legged next to Tyki, resting his chin on a hand. "I'm here to help, as you don't seem to have noticed. And what were you going to say? 'Maybe, I should'... what?"
Tyki narrowed his eyes. The figure knew what he was going to say; he always knew, and going by the small smirk that lit up his face for a moment, this time was no different.
"If you think I should disappear," said the figure, "then do something about it. That's what I've been telling you to do this whole time. I can't put it any more simply." Another pause. "I suggest something useful this time."
There was a pause, and Tyki watched the figure dust off a sleeve. (Just a pretense, they both knew; there was no dust here.)
"I don't think we're going to get any further tonight, do you?" It was a rhetorical question. Tyki didn't mind; as far as he was concerned, there was nothing more to talk about.
The figure watched him for a moment, sighed again, and everything began to dim. Tyki felt like he was slipping into sleep again.
(Was that even possible? In his drowsy state, he didn't particularly care.)
The hallway drifted apart into darkness, but instead of nightmares, there was simply nothing.
The light in this new room was dim, but bright enough to find the iron-and-glass liquor cabinet by, and the bourbon kept Tyki company at the bar. It was otherwise empty there.
The cold deck of cards he'd been given by the Other Tyki sat in front of him, spread out in a half-finished game of solitaire. It had been sitting in one of his pockets when he'd checked. It wasn't that he was bored; he simply needed something to do while he thought, and he'd come to a conclusion.
The figure had been right about one thing. If he wanted his double to leave, he'd have to take matters into his own hands.
... Granted, he had no idea where to start, but just making that decision was enough for the moment. He may not have had all the time in the world, but it wasn't as though he had a deadline, either. He'd go at his own pace.
He brushed one hand over the other. He wasn't exactly going back on any deals he'd made, was he? He just had to take this much for himself.
(Thinking that felt like waking up from a long, fitful sleep.)
He'd take this much for himself, and then...?