[Halloween Fics] - THREE
THREE
Leon still woke up in the dark sometimes. It was always on cold nights, always on nights where the moonlight was hard like a blade and twice as sharp. Suppressing a shudder, he got out of bed and reached for his jacket on the chair beside his bed. His feet slid into his boots without even touching the floor and he was glad. It would have been like ice.
Sneaking out of Merlin’s house wasn’t an easy task - there was almost always someone awake and listening - but Leon was long-practiced in the art. Gunblade in hand, Leon slowly opened the front door and left.
The bailey and construction site were strangely devoid of Heartless and Nobodies. Leon felt disappointed and even slightly annoyed. He would have liked to have something to distract himself. These dreams were getting worse and worse.
“Hey Squall. You’re not gonna just use a sword as your weapon, are you?”
The teasing voice belonged to Braig, one of King Ansem’s assistants. Squall looked at the sword in his hand and then over at the intimidating one-eyed man. The twelve year old hadn’t felt uncertain about his choice, but now he did.
“…What’s wrong with a sword?”
“Well, for starters, they’re completely unoriginal. Every sucker and his dog’s got a sword.” Braig walked over to where Leon was standing in the doorway of Radiant Garden’s armory.
Squall looked down at his sword again, then back up at Braig.
“Then what do you suggest?”
“The best kind of weapon is a gun.” Braig gestured to his own arrow-rifle, which hung from his belt. “Ansem has some in here. Why not pick one of them?”
“But a gun’s only useful in long-range combat. What if I have to fight someone hand-to-hand?” Squall turned and followed Braig into the armory, his expression doubtful.
Braig grinned a shit-eating grin. “You just have to get good enough to not let them get close.”
Squall stubbornly remained standing in the doorway. Braig laughed.
“Okay okay, how ‘bout this?” From off the wall, he lifted a most peculiar looking weapon. It looked like a sword fused to the barrel of a handgun, or a handgun sprouting a blade.
“What the hell is that?” Squall looked at it distastefully.
“What does it look like, stupid?” Braig wasn’t one to mince words, even with children.
“A… gunblade?” Squall finally put his sword aside and walked over to Braig and the gunblade.
“There you go. You named it.” Braig dropped the weapon into Squall’s hands. “Best of both worlds. Can’t go wrong.”
Squall swung the sword once, practicing slashes in the air. Then, without pause, he swept it up and aimed at Braig. He had expected the gunman to at least flinch, but Braig simply laughed.
“No good aiming that at me, kiddo.” He ran his fingertips lightly down the flat of the blade as he grinned at Squall. “I’m already dead.”
There. A shadow creeping along the ground. Leon stood still, waiting until it rose up. A single shot between the glowing, yellow eyes was all it took and the creature became nothing more than a pink heart floating upwards purposefully. Once, he had wondered where the hearts disappeared to. Now, jaded by years and mileage, he no longer cared.
Smoke trickled lazily from the barrel of the gunblade, but Leon wasn’t cliché enough to blow it away. He watched as it floated up and dissipated in the cold air. Thoughts weighed heavily on his brooding mind as he walked. Few other Heartless appeared to interrupt his thoughts, much to his annoyance, so he walked aimlessly. Leon didn’t even notice where he was until the shiver than ran up his spine told him that he was at the postern.
Leon stood still, looking out over the deserted platform. It had always looked like this, even back when Hollow Bastion had been Radiant Garden. A secluded, wide expanse of space where few people ventured.
A pile of shells clinked on the ground around Squall’s feet. He frowned at the target that he’d mounted up against the low wall that circled the postern - it was irritatingly free of holes. His aim was wretched and continued to be wretched despite the fact that he’d been out in the cold and dark for hours, practicing.
“Hm… Maybe I should have told you to stick with the sword after all.” Braig was suddenly leaning against the wall in the dark, watching Squall. The smoke from the cigarette in his left hand snaked upwards and around his head like a halo. The boy looked over his shoulder at Braig, an angry look in his young eyes.
“Shut up.”
“Hey, at least you’d be able to hit shit with the sword.”
“Shut up. I’m trying.”
“You’d better try harder or whatever you try fighting is gonna eat you in like two seconds.”
Squall ignored Braig and lined the sight of the gunblade up with the target. He concentrated his hardest and pulled the trigger. The bullet veered off and flew off into the dark, nowhere near where Squall had intended. He glared off after it, then whirled around to face Braig, who was clapping in a slow, mocking way.
“Beautiful. You only missed by ten feet that time. I’m proud, kiddo.”
He turned away again, bitter and angered by the assistant’s smug words. There was a chuckle from the man leaning against the wall.
“Aww, don’t be a little bitch, Squall.” Braig pushed himself away from the wall, flicking his cigarette to the ground. “If you’re gonna be like that, I’ll show you.”
Squall couldn’t even protest before Braig was right there beside him, taking the gunblade from his hands. He stood straight, hardly looking at the target as he put another cigarette to his lips. Six loud bangs later, there were six smoldering holes in the target, all clustered around the bullseye. The boy watched with no small amount of envy as Braig lowered the weapon and walked over to peer at the target.
“Hm. Not bad considering I was shooting with my right hand.” He wiggled the fingers on his left hand while grinning at Squall. “I’m left-handed, you know.”
Squall walked over to him and wordlessly took his gunblade back. One day, he’d shoot that well, he promised himself. Braig watched Squall with amusement in his eyes. So determined. So fiery. So… delicious.
And so silent too, as Braig pushed him against the wall and pressed their mouths together. He struggled, but Braig had decades of experience and a hundred pounds of muscle on him. The gunblade was wrenched from his hands, almost as violently as his virginity was taken a short time later.
Leon pressed his lips together, afraid to show his memories even to the emptiness around him. No Heartless were appearing here, so there was no point in staying, he decided. The only choices were to go back through the construction site or to go through the corridors. The corridors usually had plenty of Heartless to kill, so Leon headed in that direction.
The other sections of the castle were still under excavation and even the parts that had been mostly restored had a drafty, half-complete feel to them. Leon had walked the path so many times that he knew just where to sidestep the piles of rubble that littered the floor, even in the dark. Even here, there weren’t any Heartless appearing. The only thing lurking in the shadows were Leon’s own thoughts.
“Your aim’s still off, kiddo.” Braig’s laughter rang like a harsh bell in Squall’s ears and echoed all around the tall cylindindrical room that housed the lifts. Squall had chased the madman here and now Braig was leading him into a dangerous game of hide-and-seek among the shifting gears and cords. “You’ll never catch me that way.”
Years of abuse at Braig’s hands had finally broken Squall. Braig couldn’t have been too surprised when the boy had seized his gunblade and turned against him. In fact, much to Squall’s horror, he had looked amused.
“…” Squall ducked behind a column, trying to ignore how his pulse was hammering around the edges of his vision. Braig was a few levels above him. Maybe if he could find some cover and get a clear shot…
Squall tightened his grip on his gunblade and dashed out from behind the column and leapt nimbly up to another level. He breathed heavily as he crouched, hoping that Braig hadn’t seen him. His eyes were narrowed, intensely focused and searching for a flash of black.
There!
Braig was standing on a level high above him with an arrow rifle in hand, looking over his shoulder. Squall brought the gunblade up and fired twice in quick succession, aiming for the hand that was holding the arrow rifle, then at Braig’s chest. Both bullets found their mark. The arrow rifle clattered to the ground of the platform amid a spray of red. The gunman toppled forward off the platform and plummeted down, far to the floor below.
It took a few seconds before Squall was able to breathe again and then his breaths came in harsh, ragged gasps. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to catch his breath and still his pounding heart. After a minute, he stood and walked slowly over to the edge of the platform and looked out over it. He couldn’t see Braig’s body, but that was only because at this height, the floor was nearly completely obscured by other platforms, rigging and the lifts themselves. But that didn’t matter. He’d done it.
“Hey Squall!”
Squall’s heart froze in terror and his eyes snapped down. To his horror, Braig stood atop an ascending lift, an arrow rifle in his non-injured hand. A bloody grin distorted his features.
The shot came before Squall even had time to register it. There was just a bang and then a searing pain between his eyes. Squall fell to the ground, writhing and clutching at his forehead in agony. Blood poured down his face and covered his hands. He was only vaguely aware of the fact that he was screaming.
“Missed me missed me, now ya gotta kiss me.”
Braig stepped off the roof of the lift just as it came level with the platform. It continued to rise as he walked over to the boy and crouched down beside him.
“Good shot, Squall, but I’m left-handed, remember?” Braig held up his un-injured left hand with a smile. “And you missed my heart by a mile. Grazed my shoulder. Oooh, lemme see where I gotcha.” He wrenched Squall’s hands away from his face and examined the wound that his arrow had caused. A diagonal gash, right across Squall’s forehead and between his eyes. Upon seeing it, Braig smiled.
“Oooh, you’re gonna have one hell of a scar, kiddo. But that’s okay, ladies love ‘em. You’ll be the most popular kid on the block.” He ruffled Squall’s hair, getting blood in the brunette tresses. “Good thing you didn’t move or else it would have gone right into your eye. Lucky for you I’m such a good shot, huh?”
At this point, a whimper escaped Squall’s throat and he struggled to get away from Braig. The older man held him down forcefully, smiling into his face.
“Oh, not yet. I just can’t let you walk away, you know. First of all, you’ll have to promise me a few things. Understand?”
Squall nodded shakily. His head throbbed so badly that he thought he was going to faint.
“Goodie. You gotta promise not to tell anyone about this, especially not Ansem. If I hear that you’ve whispered anything about anything to anyone, I’ll come and get you, Squall. I’ll hide in the dark when you think you’re safe and I’ll cut you into little pieces.”
Squall began to shake. Blood poured into his eyes as he stared fearfully up at Braig, who now smiled and straightened up.
“I knew you’d understand.”
~
Crossposted.
I hope you enjoyed! Comments are very much appreciated.