Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s a cold and desolate cavern Kain leads Lightning to take refuge into for the night.

It’s jagged and damp and musty and as hollow as she feels. Hollow and pointless, her mind drones on. And even though they’ve found a broad space where they won’t feel trapped or suffocated, she finds that she hates the emptiness of this even more.

Heaving, Lightning sighs and crosses her arms, staring up into the shrapnel-sharp stalactites that stick out from the cave ceiling. She imagines that they’re as empty as she is. Completely void and without purpose or understanding of why they’re here, they simply are.

Still clutching her arms, Lightning feels whole regiments of goosebumps surface under her bird-boned fingers. It’s so fucking cold. But it’s not just the cold that makes contradictory warmth boil under her hard-veiny neck and wrists. It’s this strange place that edges her out even more. That and the fact that Kain just had to be with her on a shitty day.

A truly shitty day indeed. She rubs one of the countless crimson lacerations around her stock-still body. Stroking her left arm, the one she touches is oozing blood through a gaping maw of flesh. The warm and sticky liquid finds escape through the ripped, raven-black leather of her humerus-length arm glove. It actually makes her feel better, this sensation. There’s something about the warmth of it, the way it taints her freezing fingers with passion and feeling over numbness, that makes her feel not-hollow.

She risks a glance at Kain. He’s perched on a rubbly edge that overlooks something big and spacious she can’t see. Another vacant thing, probably.

Inhaling sharply, Lightning wonders why it’s so hard to remember her world. To understand the fuck-up of a mind she’s got. To comprehend why she’s gotta play a god’s game to know who she really is. To even understand the incomplete memories that flash through her mind almost every fight.

Out of impatience, she claws her flesh, cuts deep into her arm’s wound like its nothing. The resounding pain burns and skin dents. It feels good, tangible and it’s something she thinks she can rely on to keep a steady sense of herself, but— but it’s not good enough, dammit.

Whenever she thinks she’s made sense of herself, the memories, whether they’re ones she’s seen before or not, resurface. And whenever they do, she loses whatever little sense of herself she’s built up every damn time. They make no sense, leave her unfilled and purposeless. It’s stupid, hopeless, she thinks.

When she tightens her claw-like grip on her arms yet again, she waits for the satisfaction of the pain to keep her stable. But the pleasure never comes this time. It leaves her unsated, only warms her with pure hatred this time around.

“Dammit,” she says through gritted teeth. With nothing else to take her rage out on that’s within the realm of reason, she kicks away at the uneven, hard ground. The scuff of her boot heel sends a harsh echo throughout the blue and soulless cavern.

“If you seek fulfillment so much, perhaps you would be better off throwing yourself into battle. Though, I admit, I too would love to knock some sense into that hard head of yours.” Kain’s voice is steady and bold. There’s something about it that always cuts her concentration off in the middle of whatever she’s doing to think about him. She can’t stand it.

Of fucking course, he just had to chime in. Unfolding her arms, she clenches her fists. Merciless nails dig into the leather of her gloves, pulling away at covered skin.

“Shut the hell up, Highwind,” she responds, stepping toward him. “You don’t know crap about me. Drop the act.”

Kain shakes his head, the shadowed edges of his helmet twisting. He stands as she comes to his side, his spear stabbed into the cavern ground.

Lightning realizes the edge they stand at isn’t high at all. Ultramarine water laps just some inches below it, and she sees that it’s a wide pool of it that he’s been gazing at.

They stand next to each other, slender and flawless silhouettes outlined by the kaleidoscopic lights of the scattered crystals around them. For this moment, they are still. For this moment, they simply are.

“Not minding your tongue already, my foul-mouthed lady?”

Lightning clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Whatever, Highwind. Just don’t pull crap out of your ass and act like you’ve got a point.”

Even as she looks down into the water, into the reflection of the person she’s supposed to be —the one who should know everything about herself—she can feel Kain’s dark eyes trace her. Unrelenting and harsh, they keep scanning her, so she decides to look at him. The two read each other, share an exchange that only eyes can.

She knows he’s tired, from how his violet eyes unclench in some sort of understanding; from the undeterred slouch in his shoulders and the red scars that shine through the hollows of his armor. She feels the exact same way, and she knows that he can see that in her features as well.

Kain finally speaks again, and when he does, his tone is the same, but Lightning notices that he’s not standing so straightly or proudly as he was before. “You crave fulfillment, but that is not all, isn’t it? Tell me what troubles you.”

Lightning sighs. For a second, she actually thought he’d stop digging at her. That he would call it quits and leave her alone.

“None of your business.”

She can sense the smirk he makes. And although she tries to hide her annoyance, it’s betrayed in the instinctive scowl she makes. “Ah, my favorite response of yours. But come now; what bothers you so much that you require a coping mechanism to get over it?”

The edges of an angry answer begin to shape her lips, but then she remembers that he’ll never give up. There’s no point in rejecting his advances. And just as she knows this, she’s well-aware he does too.

Stiffening, she gazes on at the exhausted, battle-worn expression of her reflection. The water’s surface constantly moves in small waves, distorting it without a care in the world. She folds her arms again, tightens her hold on the cuts and bruises, hopes the agonizing trick will work this time. Or rather, she’d like to imagine she can hope at all in the terrible hellhole that Dissidia is.

“I don’t know who I am. Nothing about me makes any goddamn sense, and I’m probably never going to understand who I am—what I am.” She thinks of the brand on her chest, the curse she imagines it’s infected her with.

Kain simply hums in acknowledgment, but Lightning knows he’s still smirking. She’s scratching deep into her arms again, into multiple wounds this time. It hurts. It hurts but she knows this is the best bet she has at dealing with the endless frustration of everything right now.

“Do not waste your time thinking of such things, then,” he starts, bringing his hands to her arms, making her gaze at the sooty, exposed part of his mostly obscured face. “Just accept yourself.”

For someone with a biting persona, Lightning finds it strange that his actions are gentle, that the way his nails trail over her arms’ lacerations are warm and not empty, caring and not painful as hell. That she suddenly can’t find it in herself to smack his arms away, to call bullshit on his response. That he’s somehow managed to prove her own ideas wrong again. That she just believes and decides to just be.

He untangles her crossed arms, turns her toward him, and just brushes them with his careful fingers. It’s a different kind of warmth from what she’s familiar with, soft and slow-moving.

And it’s better than nothing, she decides, looking back out into the water.

“Maybe I should do that,” she decides to say, even if her words are somewhat betrayed by the arousing, faint-but-still-there tenderness in her voice.

“But you already are.” The deep intonations are all-knowing. One part of herself wants to wipe them out. The other part wants them to last forever.

For the first time in god knows how long, Lightning feels the edges of a smirk control her lips.

“Maybe you should take your own advice," she replies, stepping away from him and facing the pool below her.

She unbuckles her thigh bag, kicks off her boots without a care in the world, tosses Blazefire Saber and the holster off to the side. The clatter the blade makes is clean, invigorating to her battered mind. Submitting to an impulse, she leaps into the water and her whole body goes underneath its surface.

Beneath the waves, she opens her eyes. Peering through the damp blueness, rainbow-lit crystals shine in her peripheral view, and she swivels her body around with unbridled grace. Though she’s a slave to water, caught in the bounds of pressure, the mini flips and twirls she performs only make her feel free. Around her, like the twist of a ribbon in the air, red fabric spins and shines, mimicking every spin, every dance.

Inevitably, she resurfaces, taking loud breaths. It’s so, so cold and the water sways everywhere around her as she keeps herself afloat; but this time, she feels purposeful; warmer than she needed to be.

When she looks up, she sees that Kain’s finally throwing off that helmet of his. It dawns on her that she’s rarely seen him unmasked, and when he jumps, she realizes he’s still wearing the rest of his armor. He’s crazy.

Water careens right into her face when he hits the water, makes the strands of pink hair that normally rest on her shoulders slip to her back. Through a curtain of dripping bangs, she makes out his soaked ash hair; the somewhat tired pride that his expression bears. Now that she can see him more clearly, it doesn’t take her long to see just how expressive he really is.

A smooth hand traces her spine, curves around her waist, and his movements have an expert grace to them that she almost refuses to believe. Water waves pound against her perception and hearing, but she simply gazes into his eyes and wraps an arm around his neck.

Above them, the stalactites and bumpy ceiling light up and glow, the way the stars of the universe do when evening arises. They’re ardent and aquamarine, and the walls of the cave around them brim with the same sort of light. Idly, Lightning thinks of fireflies, of the way they scavenge the inky-black darkness, lighting the way for all to watch upon. They’re so bright.

Lightning spares a glance into her rippling reflection. It’s smirking, easily readable. When she sets her hawk-sharp eyes back on Kain, she almost wishes he’ll never let go of her.

“I never told you,” she begins, unblinking.

“Never told me what?” He leans in closer, brushing his sharp nails across her chin.

“Thanks, you smartass.” She presses her water-softened lips against his. The faint blood of his bruised mouth touches her lips, but she savors the taste. Moist with water and blood and whatever else, it’s salty. Bitter. Perfect.

There’s a pleasure she gains from this that fills the void in her chest, makes it hundreds of times more bearable. And even though she doesn’t quite understand why his warmth satisfies her so much and not her own and still doesn’t quite understand who the hell she was before, she thinks she’s starting to understand what she wants right now.