Drabble: Refraction
Title: Refraction
Word Count: 450
Rating: G
Characters: Axel, Saïx
Notes: One day, I will stop writing these two - but that's not today :) Written for challenge 246 - Remembrance, in kh_drabble
Refraction
They sit on the high wall of the churchyard, like two apathetic crows surveying the consistent comings and goings of people traffic. Axel's in no hurry to return to base; Saïx is just bored.
"They're grave robbers, aren't they," Axel clarifies. He isn't afraid as such - no capacity for that - but he'd like to know these things in advance.
"They're not body snatchers, if that's what you mean." His voice is as light as the wind that it dots across, his face slightly despairing. (Because Isa has always had to reassure Lea, even though their stupid schemes and dares were always his ideas.)
He scrutinises the grave robbers' habits, deciding they behave like excited pigeons spotting a slice of mouldy bread. They rip the grave to shreds, scrambling for value and worth. When Big Ben strikes three in warning, they glance up from their work for a second, rethinking, and then they resume. The act is tasteless, sordid to watch, and it might explain the bitter taste in his mouth. He thinks he might be staring at himself, that this desecration of picking at a body laid to rest is what's happening behind his ribs, that what he is witnessing is the distorted, refracted ray that is the extension of himself.
"Are we not going to stop them?"
"Should we?" Saïx turns, a fluid movement of his neck. "Did you know the guy?"
"No," Axel concedes, and adds, "This sort of thing wouldn't have been too far down our road."
The corner of Saïx's mouth twitches. (Because Isa did that by reflex, never certain if situations deserved a smile or a frown.) "Which part - the grave robbing or stepping in to prevent it?"
Now it's Axel's turn to issue the look of a hapless friend. It doesn't require too much a stretch of the imagination to picture himself at a grave spot, unmarked by a headstone or settled soil. He can imagine daring Isa to dig in his arm until his ear is pressed to the damp earth. He can imagine Isa complaining about the dirt down his front. He can imagine every tone to their voices, every gesture, every expression, every smell, every feeling - as clear as the skin thin surface of a glassy pool, that it's almost as though he's remembering it, and it becomes difficult to draw a line between memory and dream.
"Hey, Saïx," he says after a half hour. (Lea wouldn't have approved of that cloud of silence.)
"What is it?"
"What do you think - are we grave robbers or body snatchers?"
Saïx - who typically has a bitter answer for everything - lets the question hang as Big Ben announces half three, and he just shrugs.
Word Count: 450
Rating: G
Characters: Axel, Saïx
Notes: One day, I will stop writing these two - but that's not today :) Written for challenge 246 - Remembrance, in kh_drabble
Refraction
They sit on the high wall of the churchyard, like two apathetic crows surveying the consistent comings and goings of people traffic. Axel's in no hurry to return to base; Saïx is just bored.
"They're grave robbers, aren't they," Axel clarifies. He isn't afraid as such - no capacity for that - but he'd like to know these things in advance.
"They're not body snatchers, if that's what you mean." His voice is as light as the wind that it dots across, his face slightly despairing. (Because Isa has always had to reassure Lea, even though their stupid schemes and dares were always his ideas.)
He scrutinises the grave robbers' habits, deciding they behave like excited pigeons spotting a slice of mouldy bread. They rip the grave to shreds, scrambling for value and worth. When Big Ben strikes three in warning, they glance up from their work for a second, rethinking, and then they resume. The act is tasteless, sordid to watch, and it might explain the bitter taste in his mouth. He thinks he might be staring at himself, that this desecration of picking at a body laid to rest is what's happening behind his ribs, that what he is witnessing is the distorted, refracted ray that is the extension of himself.
"Are we not going to stop them?"
"Should we?" Saïx turns, a fluid movement of his neck. "Did you know the guy?"
"No," Axel concedes, and adds, "This sort of thing wouldn't have been too far down our road."
The corner of Saïx's mouth twitches. (Because Isa did that by reflex, never certain if situations deserved a smile or a frown.) "Which part - the grave robbing or stepping in to prevent it?"
Now it's Axel's turn to issue the look of a hapless friend. It doesn't require too much a stretch of the imagination to picture himself at a grave spot, unmarked by a headstone or settled soil. He can imagine daring Isa to dig in his arm until his ear is pressed to the damp earth. He can imagine Isa complaining about the dirt down his front. He can imagine every tone to their voices, every gesture, every expression, every smell, every feeling - as clear as the skin thin surface of a glassy pool, that it's almost as though he's remembering it, and it becomes difficult to draw a line between memory and dream.
"Hey, Saïx," he says after a half hour. (Lea wouldn't have approved of that cloud of silence.)
"What is it?"
"What do you think - are we grave robbers or body snatchers?"
Saïx - who typically has a bitter answer for everything - lets the question hang as Big Ben announces half three, and he just shrugs.