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No one said this would be easy, but Dist thinks, this is too extreme. The chill creep through him, the familiar sting now foreign on his adult body. It frustrates him, because he is born here dammit, the cold shouldn’t hurt him. So he pretends the wrongness of it all doesn’t unsettle him as he carries the last of the weapons. The Jade gang, scrambling across the world, seemed to forget about the weapons. A mistake he took advantage of immediately, snatching up the catalysts. Even if it made him seethe, he acknowledges that being overlooked by Jade has served him this time.
Dist huffs, shifting in his chair as he arrives at the seal. He looks up, looks at the mass of Ice. Dist swallows, feeling overwhelmed. Belatedly, he wishes he had written a letter- something to draw Jade here, witness their teacher’s revival together. Even if he is a horrible, no-good traitor, he deserves to be here too. Or maybe, he thinks bitterly, Dist shouldn’t have had to do it alone. All those years toiling in academic pursuits and here he is, armed to the teeth and skinny as a bent nail.
It does not take long to start his machine, to use the weapons. Dist is clever like that, doing his best to primp himself one last time.
Nebilim is as wonderful as she ever was, gliding down like an angel and he doesn’t fight the tears. He is grateful, incredibly grateful to be alive suddenly. That she is alive, that Jade is alive, a lifetime of loneliness ending now that they can all be together again-
She is not his teacher.
It all happens so fast, that Saphir almost does not realize he is about to die.
But he does, and it is excruciating.
So many times death has rejected him, like he is a repulsive immoral leech. He always took a ironic pride in that, that not even death could take him (could want him). But now he realizes he had never actually been touched by death, not like this. Saphir remembers the feeling of his hair being stroked gently with these hands ripping into his flesh. The warmth that spread through him when she praised the tiniest of stitches on a torn sleeve. Saphir is humiliated as he scrambles away, shreds of his suit clinging to him. His bare collar against the snow is wrong, wrong again he is no longer a boy. He is older, he is stretched skin thin and pulled, pulled even more as bloodied nails dig in and pull.
The howl he lets out makes him feel pathetic. (He is not listening.) He clings, tightly onto the monster burrowing her fingers into his arm. He is horrified, distantly, at how parts of him are being peeled away. (He is not listening.) He cries into her shoulder, his remaining arm grip around her back. He feebly tries to kick against her body but she is not pliant as she was when she playfully danced with him as a child. Instead her foot shifts slightly, deceptively, before coming down at such a speed and strength that his lower leg is broken instantly. (He does not want to listen.) The pain is different, but just as immediate as the flowering of blood on his arm.
“Saphir? Pay attention now, please.”
Saphir snaps his head away, bright cherry red as the class giggles at him. From them all it’s horrible, they’re all horrible. But the professor is smiling indulgently, and Saphir feels his heart break at the happiness that brightens in her eyes when he looks at her. He is not used to the feeling, does not know how to react to someone being happy to see him. He is so grateful she is his teacher.
“Saphir.”
He watches as the professor is tightening the tie on his shirt in front of the mirror. She is close behind him, and this is the third attempt at a proper knot. Saphir does not want to wear the tie, sensitive as he is- but it almost feels like a hug, and Saphir has always wanted one, a hug just his own. A part of him thinks, as the professor fumbles with a knot simpler than any equation, that she is not used to giving one either. She pauses every now and then, holding him gentle as if he could break. He is grateful they have each other.
“Saphir, look...”
He is used to frustration. He knows he is a mess, emotions running rampant in his body and he keeps his shame private because he is unreasonable. Jade has said something cold but unlike normal the Professor looks frustrated in a horrible, human way. He thinks this is it, this is when she stops caring about Saphir and he will have to settle for being pitied or tolerated again. But instead the professor sits back on her thighs, and whispers, in a way he is deathly familiar with, “I’m still new to this, I don’t know how to make this better. I want to be good, Saphir. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
The agony doesn’t actually end, but the monster intertwined in his gore does stop. He doesn’t know if he is still alive, he doesn’t know why he said it. But he is monster, and he is hit with the fear he will not be so easily forgiven. So he does, because he needs to know its possible to forgive someone and be forgiven. He wills himself, as always, to be moved by love. Remembers stomping out snow with Nephry at the Balfour house. Trying to push Peony, laughter and bickering circling the air. He thinks about Jade, killing him at the Tower of Rem and realizes very easily he is not easy to love. He did not move on and now he can’t move on. He does not move, but she lowers herself so close to him, broiling fonon energy washing over his remains. The weight of her shin shifting the bone and flesh of his thigh into the crackling ice.
He hears the ice crack under him.
He thought it was bone, but he sees the fear in her eyes as the cold wraps around them. The familiar feeling of sinking below the ice is too much. He wants to be grateful to be alive again. He wishes he was a child again, so he can be in pain but feel the illusion that things can get better. That he won’t hate his aching body when it grows old, that his friends will suffocating but comforting warmth around him, uneven knots against his neck. The professor’s body surrounding him, thrashing against the pull of the ice darkness. The fonon machine, sparking and malfunctioning. He did not think ahead to make it waterproof and for once his short sighted pursuit does good to the world.
He doesn’t know what he does, but he feels her shift into nothingness around him. She is a replica, she and his dream is made and unmade in an instant. Saphir is hit by the hysterical thought, that Jade isn’t going to find his body. Because he stopped looking back at Saphir and Nebilim ages ago, changing into a person that did not need Saphir. It’s not a change he welcomes, but he thinks for the first time, that he is grateful to be alone. That Nephry wonders and worries but ultimately assures herself he is fine. That Anise will forget him until she needs repairs for Tokunaga, and will find someone suitable because she is a good child who takes care of her things. He hopes Peony doesn’t name another rappig after him. He is glad, selfishly, that Professor Nebilim died before seeing him like this.
He is grateful for one fulfilled wish in a life of broken promises, as the ice shifts into place above him.
(Years ago, Gelda is shaking, wondering what to do with this silly boy. He went under the ice, the children said, unaware of how horrifying this situation is. He was freezing, his tiny hand engulfed by her large palms. She rubs at the blue nail bitten hands, willing him to feel her there and be at peace. She is still not used to the feeling, the daunting sensation of guarding lives so fragile. He is not like Nephry and Peony who are deeply familiar with the feeling of being loved. Not like Jade, who has never wanted for love at all. She is scared to see how easily love spooks him. But she promises, right then and there, that she will never let him feel alone again. The children chatter, stammering but ultimately not acknowledging the boy who was not in the room. Gelda has to figure out what to do about him.
But for now, as she is holding Saphir’s hand, she is grateful for the closest thing to having forgiveness when she feels the tiniest curl of his fingers around her palm.)