Two
Chapter Two: Decretum
Whatever energy he'd had from the previous day was now gone, and it was replaced with a numbing sluggishness that ate away at his insides.
He felt calm, however; his fear had been washed away over the course of the night, and he felt more in control over what was left of his life. It was almost relieving to know that he felt more like the cold teenager working in Yan's shop a month ago.
Almost, he mused, but there was something that stopped him from believing that. Too much had happened for him to like his previous self more.
Avis had forced himself to wake up early. He'd slept in intermittent bits and pieces; he would fall asleep for half an hour before waking up in a cold sweat, but he'd gotten a good, straight three hours just before daybreak.
It was four-thirty. He was sure that all his—no, it hit him that Heliolisk was dead and all he had left was Klefki and Doublade—Pokemon were still asleep. Hell, he knew that Lillian followed her sleep schedule to the smallest detail, and she would wake up no earlier than eight.
The event from yesterday had frazzled them more than they admitted.
"This is a complete joke," he muttered under his breath. The girl had forgotten to close her door, and he lingered outside her room for a few seconds before dipping his head. "My life is a complete joke."
Why did she have to do it at the worst possible time?
A deep breath escaped his lips as he counted to five, forcing himself to step away and threading his cold fingers together to stop them from trembling Any form of attachment wouldn't help him when he was going to die soon.
I'm already screwed, then. The self-deprecating comment made him smile against his will. I was screwed a long time ago.
He had half a mind to wake the girl up; to tell her every single bit of the story that he'd left out, to satisfy the angered question she'd thrown at him days before—if I don't know what happened to make you this way, how am I supposed to know what to do?—and tell her that he couldn't think about his feelings for her because he was going to be dead.
—but that would be stupid. It would just hurt more in the end, and he'd had to deal with enough. He just had to hope that he could keep that mindset until he reached the castle.
Grabbing an apple from the platter on Lillian's dining table, he took a deep breath—the cold air was harsh, but it brought relief to his suffocating lungs—and walked out before it was too late for him to turn back.
When he was outside the door, he paused.
"I'm sorry," he said to the house. "It was nice knowing you."
Goodbye felt too concrete for him to say.
§
His right shoulder throbbed as he walked, but he couldn't complain about it.
"It's hot..." he muttered, pushing his hair back with his good arm and wiping off the sweat that had started to collect. "That's right. Summer's started, hasn't it?"
Naturally, he was answered by silence. He was in the middle of nowhere—though, that wasn't the most accurate; he'd walked on the same path a few times before—and there was no one but his sleeping Pokemon to accompany him.
Avis' final destination would be the castle. That had been decided a month ago. He did have, however, two places to visit before that, and it was why he was setting off two days before the deadline.
Should I give up on finding his place...? The thought graced his mind like a gentle breeze passing through. After all, I don't even know if he'll be there. He changes houses far too often, and it might end up being pointless.
He reminded himself that he was already halfway there. Besides, his life had always been kind of pointless, and if dying was the only way he could have any use, he—
Avis stopped there. It wasn't any use wallowing in self-pity.
A small sigh escaped his lips as he reached the inn. It was the most logical place to go to; it was where he had always gone to, after all. He had no idea how someone like his friend had managed to stay in such an open place, one where he could get arrested any minute—but knowing him, he'd probably threatened every one of the staff.
"It's good to see you again, Fabio."
The guy was in the same room as before.
He'd had his suspicions ever since Lillian had shot him that look. He knew that the older boy could take care of himself; Fabio was easily one of the most capable people he knew, but something told him that things had changed since then.
I should have pressed Lillian more. The girl had given him a vague answer when he'd asked about it—oh, well, torture does a lot of things to people's minds—and she hadn't spoke about the issue after that.
That was what had worried him.
"Didn't you say that staying in the same room was a bad thing?" he sighed, pulling a chair over to the bed and making a bad impression of his friend's voice. "The government is always after people like me, y'know. That's why I get a different room every day. You really do know nothing about our world, don't you, Avis?"
Fabio jolted a little at his name, and Avis was a little confused at the older boy's reaction for a second, but he realised that he'd let it slip. Out of all of them, he'd been left out of the loop the most, and he felt a little bad for that.
"Sorry I didn't tell you earlier," he breathed. "There were a lot of things going on at that time and I couldn't do that."
The teenager next to him was uncharacteristically quiet. The sarcastic humour that he'd tried to break the tension with hadn't worked, and neither of them were laughing.
"I—" Avis dipped his head. He wasn't too sure of what he was doing; he didn't know how to deal with these types of situations. Aiden would have been a far better fit for the situation—but his mind screamed guess what, idiot? He's dead!
"I heard a bit from Lillian, you know." He dropped his gaze to the floor. The hazy look in his friend's eyes were too much for him to deal with. "About what happened to you. I'm sorry no one was there for you."
And as much as he'd changed—as much as he wanted to make it up to his friend for all the times he wasn't there—he couldn't. It would be cruel for someone on his deathbed to become a crutch for someone.
(He knew that Fabio didn't deserve not having a crutch at least once in his life.)
There were several more moments of tense silence before the teenager glanced down at him, feline eyes lacking the grace that they once possessed, and that very fact made him more than a little sad. He'd looked up to the mercenary in a sort of twisted way before; sure, the boy was immoral and annoying, but he was more mature than most on the inside.
"Can I touch your hand for a bit?" Fabio finally asked, his tone containing some of his old, businesslike touch, and he almost flinched—
Fabio might have been a heartless person, but he'd never used that tone with him before.
Not knowing what else to do, he held out his left hand, unsure whether to hold his arm out like he was gearing up for a handshake or like he was ready to have his fortune told, but he was told that it didn't matter when a pair of hands grasped his palm.
The older boy's hands were larger and coarser than his; they were littered with marks, ranging from tiny scars from his odd jobs to a long, fresher one that he wasn't going to ask about—but the more important thing was that they were trembling.
"Alright, I'm done." The blonde let go of him and offered himself a sad, withdrawn smirk. "I just wanted to confirm that I wasn't hallucinating or anything. That...that happened a lot."
He was still confused, but he accepted the explanation either way. Avis wasn't very sure what to think of the situation as a whole.
"I could never dream of the warmth of someone's touch," Fabio admitted. "I needed to make sure that I wasn't going to wake up in the Hoenn base again."
The mercenary had never been so open with Avis ever since they were children—ever since he found him half-dead in an alley and brought him to a hospital—and as much as it warmed him, it was like a blast of icy air that shook him a little at the same time.
"Besides," he added with a hint of his old, insufferable personality, "Your hands are nice, so don't worry. You've hardly done a day of hard labour in your life."
"I came all this way here because I was concerned, and this is what I get?"
Fabio let out a tiny laugh, and it felt wrong, because the only type of laugh that came out of his mouth tended to be the mirthless, hollow kind when he was having fun with one of his victims.
He supposed that if he—if he—had more time left, he wouldn't have minded hearing it more often.
"You only pretend to be pissed off half the time." The blonde's words were muffled with the sigh that accompanied it. "For all the complaints you have about Aiden being too soft, you're way too kind sometimes."
That caused his breath to hitch.
"Fabio," he started, and he hated how he was being way too open with a friend when he'd refused to talk to Lillian—"Why do you think I'm nice?"
"What?" The older boy blinked at the sudden question. "If you weren't, then you would have left me to die that day, right? If I were you, I would just have, y'know, take care of me by putting me out of my misery. The hospital wouldn't have even crossed my mind."
The mercenary's blunt words made him smile against his will. "It's not the best thing to be compared to you. You basically screw the law over for a living."
Fabio's face had regained its earlier impassive state, and the both of them stayed quiet for a few seconds before he had the courage to speak up again.
"I'm sorry," Avis breathed out—his hands were the one trembling now, and shit, even his breath was warbled. "I came here to apologise to you and try to make everything up to you, but now you're the one comforting me."
"Something happened, didn't it?" The sigh was even more apparent in his voice now. "I recognise that tone."
He didn't make any move to console him further—and he didn't expect anything, because Fabio wasn't about kind words, but he also didn't shift when he felt Avis burying his face in his shoulder, staying that way for a few long moments and not getting up.
"Kindness doesn't come in one form," the older boy muttered. "Not everyone's going to be like your brother. Sometimes, people suffer and I do them good by giving them a good, old stab. You may not be able to see it, but you've helped me a lot. If it helps—I view you as a good friend."
"You always give the best advice at the worst times." Avis' voice was heavy.
"No one's given advice to me before," the blonde retorted. "How am I supposed to know what a 'good time' is?"
He responded with a muffled noise that was drowned out by the fabric of Fabio's shirt and a mumbled don't move. He felt bad for it; he felt bad for Lillian because she deserved to know just as much, but here he was crying out his worries to another friend.
"Sheesh." There was a hint of the same, breathless laugh in Fabio's voice, but it was tinged with an underlying sadness that both of them understood. "Stop trying to act so tough. You're a big softie underneath all that bite."
Avis' shoulders sagged at the comment. "Thanks."
The two of them didn't need to say anything else.
§
He was weak, but he felt alive—he'd been feeling like that a little more ever since an expiration date had been slapped on his life—but this time, he didn't mind it so much.
In the end, he'd be dying alone. Yveltal already knew everything about him, and he didn't give two shits about Xerneas. All his friends had seen through him at one point or another, so it didn't really matter after all.
That brought a fleeting moment of relief, but his back tensed up again as he approached the entrance of Terminus Cave.
"What are you doing here?" Kyurem hissed, and his blank yellow eyes glared at him. "Did I not tell you that you displeased me?"
A month ago, he would have done the sensible thing and ran. A month ago, he would have been intimidated by the draconic creature towering over him and how half the cave was coated in a sheen of frost.
The him from a month ago, however, had been lost along the way.
"Look, I know that you don't like me. I'm not here to see you," he snapped, trying to adopt as much as Fabio's brisk tone as he could muster. "You're a Legendary. Arceus has probably told you about what's going on, so just let me see Zygarde."
Kyurem narrowed his small eyes. "And why would I?"
"Because the both of us know that this is for the better good, and if you're Zygarde's friend, you'll let me through." Arceus, he wanted to cower, but he knew that any form of weakness in front of the creature would be a bad thing. "Please."
The next few seconds were dominated by stillness that was too out-of-place, and he didn't let his eyes wander away from the beast's own.
"Five minutes." The Pokemon's gravelly voice was reluctant, but it was permission, and he was going to take permission no matter what type it was. "If you aren't out before then, I'm personally killing you."
"Thank you for that." He took a step before remembering to bow his head in gratitude. He would have said more, but he wasn't about to waste any time when he was going in to meet a Legendary he had never seen before.
Avis didn't know what to expect of Zygarde.
The serpent-like creature glowered at him from the very back of the cave, the hexagons on his large frill being the only source of—dim green—light, and it was clear that he wasn't the person that he wanted to see.
Perhaps I should have gone as Aiden.
He dismissed that thought.
"I know that you were friends with my brother. I know you're still getting over your friends' deaths, and I'm not here to scold you for it," he mumbled, barely loud enough for the Pokemon to hear. "It's not my place to do that."
"Get out." Zygarde's voice was calmer than he'd anticipated, but it was also icy, and the hexagons flashed even brighter. "I do not wish to deal with you."
"No," he retorted—part of him wanted to take a step forward, but he decided that it was too risky and stayed where he was. "If my brother were to come back, would you stop the attacks? If I told you that I can bring your friend back, would it be fine?"
There was a deadly pause, and he feared for a moment that Zygarde would take the opportunity to blast him out of the cave, but the beast relaxed and it was how Avis could tell he was listening.
"I'm going to bring him back, alright?" It was the only sentence he could say with confidence. "So promise me you'll stop all of this."
§
uHHH THE FABIO PART WAS COMPLETELY UNPLANNED THE PLANNING FOR THIS CHAPTER WENT TO SHIT
HE WASN'T GOING TO APPEAR BUT I REALISED HOW MUCH I CRAVED PROPER AVIS/FABIO INTERACTIONS AND HOW MUCH I LIKE WRITING ABOUT FABIO IN GENERAL OKAY SPARE M E
THE LAST PART WAS SO SHORT BECAUSE OF IT AHAHA
Thank you guys so much for 7K reads and 1K votes!! :0 You have no idea how much this means to me <3
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