happilyeverbeginning | Growing Closer

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Growing Closer - Lien-da & Elias

Back home, Lien-da only drank casually, and only when there was good news. She didn't enjoy the feeling of being drunk, as it was a state that left people weak and helpless. But now there was no 'back home', and she believed she would never know true happiness again.

So she was swallowing down her fourth glass, and not even bothering to taste what was entering her mouth. What she wouldn't give to forget everything. She couldn't even have the mercy of death in this wretched place. It was torturous.

She was unaware if anyone was coming near her, but didn't care about this either. She looked into her now empty glass, noticing how in the messy reflection one eye was blurred, and was reminded of her twin brother. He'd gotten killed before knowing his whole race - his whole world - was gone.

"You win again, brother." She muttered before demanding a refill.

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Elias stared at the boot that was moved into his face. He was sorry for so many things. He was sorry she was trapped like he was. He was sorry he was trying to forget his family, his wife, in a drunken night of passion. He was sorry he ruined the mood. He was sorry he was pathetic. Despite how sorry he was, he wasn't about to do this. His hand came up and grabbed her boot. His eyes met hers and that fire was back.

"I won't lick your boot." His grip tightened on Lien's boot to keep it where it was. "I know what you want. You want power. Power over me and everything else, because you have none now. Your power back home was an illusion and now it's gone completely. Just like mine." He leaned in and took her calf in his hand. Elias bent down and kissed her knee.

"I won't lick your boot, but I can maybe give you some of that power back." Elias looked up at Lien-Da again. "What do you want of me now?"

Temper tantrum it was.

"I told you what I wanted, you disgusting little brat!" She sneered, and made an attempt to kick at him despite him having a firm grasp on her foot. "Don't pretend like you know anything about me! We could have just had some fun, but no, you have to be moral about it, don't you? You make me sick."

She clenched her hands on the bar. "If you knew even half the things I've done, you wouldn't look at me like that... you'd want me dead."

Elias had thought she might try to kick but it still surprised him enough for it to hit. He gripped her boot enough to at least slow down the kick but it landed in his chest and made him almost stumble. He stared at her as she threw her fit. Yet these was something very telling in her words and in the way she spoke.

"I wouldn't want you dead." He said and thought perhaps giving in would help her. Yet feeding that ego couldn't be a good thing. Feeding that need for power wouldn't help. He kept a hold of her leg but his eyes were on her face. "You're the one person I have left who understands me, and I'm the last person who understands you." He said softly.

"You're right. Neither of us know the other and can't pretend we do. But we understand each other here and now. We both understand the pain. Why don't we help each other forget? Isn't that what we both want?"

She tried to kick him again, nearly foaming at the mouth. The anger she'd been suppressing for so long had finally come out. Whether this was good or not was left to interpretation. "I am not going to let someone who dares say he understands me get to come inside me!" Now instead of demanding sex of power, she wanted to fill him with the same hatred that ran through her veins.

She leaned forward. "I killed my own father to get closer to my rightful seat of power. I killed the whore he slept with. I wiped the memory of my half-breed sister so many times she had no idea who she was. If my idiotic brother hadn't gotten himself blown up, I would have killed him too. I had my own people killed just to hasten myself to the Legion throne." She narrowed her eyes. "There is no man, woman, or child I would not have strangled with my own hands if it meant true rule."

Elias held her foot more firmly this time. Fool me twice, and all that. He watched as the rage bubbled to the surface and overflowed. Any hope of moving forward with the night was over. Perhaps it was for the best. He listened, his face hard as she recounted her sins. She was a monster, perhaps. She had done things against her family and her own people for her quest for power. She had done horrible things to others and joined Dr. Eggman.

Yet, in the end, only one thought came to mind.

"And now? What does it all mean for you now? Now that none of it, none of your choices, ever happened? What does it mean now that you don't exist?"

Lien stopped kicking.

Flashes of memories came back to her.
I killed my own father - Luger carefully picking up his little girl, as if afraid she's break like porcelain.
I would have killed my brother - Kragok gently holding his twin sister's hand as they watched their mother's funeral.
I had my own people killed - Legionnaires who had risked their lives for her, who had faithfully served her, men women and children - children who had lost their families like her -

All of them dead, and what for?

"SHUT UP!" Without warning, she launched herself at time, intending to strangle him where he stood. "SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!" Was she even aware of the tears running down her cheeks? "I AM NOT WORTHLESS! I AM NOT USELESS!"

Elias stared at her. She went so still and rigid. He felt horrible for asking but it had to be done. Their pasts meant nothing now. Not to the others here. Not to anyone here. No one would ever know unless they told them and in truth, they couldn't. At least, he couldn't. He didn't want to hurt anyone. He didn't want to hurt her. He reached up slowly. He wanted to brush one of her dreadlocks out of her face and wipe under her eyes. He could see the tears forming.

The kind touch wasn't delivered though. She was on him in seconds, too fast for him to react. She went toe-to-toe against Knuckles and other Freedom Fighters. She was faster than he was. Those hands wrapped around his neck and he gasped as she tried to strangle him. Elias's blue eyes widened as she screamed at him, crying as she tried to kill him. He gasped and reached for her hands, trying to pry them off.

"You...are...not worthless..." he gasps with what little air he had. Dammit, his knees felt weak. She was stronger than he thought.

It wasn't so much she was choking Elias in her mind, she was attacking the reality that had come undone. Attacking all the bad choices she had made, and those that had been made to her. It wasn't fair, not a single day of her life had been fair.

"Shut u, shut up, shut up..." She repeated it over and over, like an endless mantra that would summon peace into her skull. But her grief overwhelmed her, something she had not allowed since she was a child. The tears she tried to ignore became hard, choking sobs, and her grip on Elias' throat weakened. She closed her eyes, damning herself and damning Elias for doing this to her. "Just... stop talking..."

Elias gasped when he felt her grip weaken. He gulped down air as he listened to her. The sorrow in her sobs hurt even him. He could feel them in his chest. All of those horrible things she had done for power and now it was all meaningless. None of it mattered. He didn't speak, at least. He didn't need to say anything more.

Instead he wrapped his arms around her and tried to pull her into a hug. He rested his chin on her shoulder and just started to pet her. She didn't need anymore pain. She didn't even deserve more pain. She'd suffered enough.

If Lien-da could 'see' herself, she'd be humiliated. How dare she cry like some whipped child, how dare she do it in front of a lower species! She wanted to kick herself in the ribs, for being so thoroughly inept. She should rise above this, shove him off, make sure he never told another soul what he saw.

But, by Chaos, she was just so tired. She had no energy for hatefulness and spite and superiority. She felt as if she would never stop crying, laying down into a sorrowful heap on top of him. Let him do what he wanted. She didn't care. Why couldn't she be erased with everything else? She buried her face into his shoulder, her body shuddering.

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Growing Closer - Lien-da & Elias

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