Jason's (now Valentine's) Flat, Brighton, Saturday Morning Fandom Time / Midday UK

[palestshadow]

Valentine
It wasn't denial if there was no way it could be happening, right?

If you asked Valentine, that was very much the case. Granted, he didn't have a tower these days, but that didn't change the fact that he was a Very Important Man. He'd seen the end of the world, once. He knew what it looked like, and there was no bloody way that he could go through it again. After all, it had all crumpled up and disappeared bit by bit, burned in a wastepaper basket and leaving him trapped in a deep blackness that was nothing but void.

But that hadn't been the real world. And this world wasn't a hundred drawings taped up on a wall. This was the world on the other side of the windows. It couldn't be folded up and tossed away.

So, Valentine figured, somebody ought to inform the ocean, which he used to have a lovely view of through the window of his flat, that it wasn't supposed to be gone like that.



Naminé
Naminé was fading out. It was as though the color itself was leaching from the world. She had taken to wearing white again, and the girl who stared back at her in the mirror seemed paler every day.

Every time something moved in the corner of her eye, she expected to see a Heartless, mindlessly chewing on the scenery as a world died. Every time a star twinkled and faded out, she thought of Traverse Town, where those stranded without worlds had landed. Every day, she wondered how much time was left.

Naminé had fought it the only way she knew how. She had gone back to her sketchbook. She drawn the buildings and people who had gone missing, one after another, and tacked them up onto her walls. The baker whose name she had never learned. The cathedral whose spire she loved to watch in the distance. No matter how she drew, nothing returned.

It was an empty ritual, now. She knew she didn't have the power to re-create what was gone. Maybe she was only creating a memorial for the lost. It was a daisy chain, but the last one out would have no one to draw their own likeness.

When she saw Valentine's face, as he glanced out the window, she did not have to ask what was wrong. She knew. The only question was a matter of detail. Perhaps she asked out of curiosity, then.

"Which is it, this time?"



Valentine
"You probably don't want to know," Valentine shared, managing to sound a little less calm about this whole thing than he'd been as bits and pieces had started disappearing over the course of the past month. "I don't suppose you have room in that world of yours for a replacement ocean, do you?"

It was a world, damn it. Valentine didn't care if her drawings didn't bring back the restaurant that he worked at, didn't bring back apricots or that little marketplace that sold the curry he liked so much or rollerskates or any of it. She was drawing them, putting them on a wall, creating a world. He should know. He'd come from one nearly like it.

Well, maybe a little more exciting. Her world was essentially Earth all over again, after all. No sphinxes or fish that swam through the air for Naminé, nossir.

"I was just thinking, perhaps it could use one, is all."



Naminé
The ocean. Kairi had grown up on the beach; after they had reunited, she-they had stood on the sand dunes and felt the cool air. It was sandcastles she had built with Valentine, before he had left her that very first time, and a drawing of the beach which pulled him from the ether. That pier …

That pier had been the site of their own reunion, when Kairi had given her her body back, and when Valentine had lost his mask.

Somehow, it seemed needlessly cruel for the void to take the ocean.

"I'll draw one," she said, but there didn't seem to be any weight to her words. More fading. She glanced at her hands, wondering if she was going to see through them. Just like in the Castle …

"The world is ending," she said, "isn't it?"



Valentine
Of course it was.

"That isn't to say there's no way out," Valentine replied, a little too quickly and absolutely refraining from actually answering the question if he could help it at all. "We just have to find the right window."

It was a window they needed, right? Or was it a mask? They were fresh out of masks, out of faces. They didn't have proper faces here, at least not in the sense that Valentine was comfortable with them, and even after his time at Fandom and his time here, it took a little extra effort looking at Naminé to pick out the worry in her own.

"The end of the world doesn't have to be the end, remember."

He didn't dare look out the window. There was no way he'd be able to remain calm if he saw that great emptiness where there used to be a sea that stretched on forever.

"We just need a plan, that's all. And you happen to be with a Valentine, love. One of the greatest planners in the world, after all."

Possibly one of the only ones, at this rate.



Naminé
Naminé held a hand out, flat, and willed the familiar purplish-black ring to materialize in front of her. Naturally, it failed to comply. She had stopped being a Nobody once she joined with Kairi; when she had left Kairi, she had been her own person, and people couldn't travel through darkness. Only desperation had led her to try at all.

The worry in her maskless face was now losing to despair. She chided herself for that. She ought to be grateful. She and Valentine both were cosmic accidents, beings never meant to exist. They had been granted life, and allowed to be here, together, in Brighton for three years already. It was three years more than they might have ever hoped for. At least she had experienced life as her own person. At least she had shared her heart.

He was right; it was too early to give up. "I could draw a window," she suggested, before offering him a wry smile. "I have but one tool in my arsenal. I fear I am not a versatile part of this plan."



Valentine
Well, that was a nice thought, at least. Right? Valentine's lips pulled into a deep frown, even as he muttered under his breath, "Well, onwards and upwards, then."

Or... gonewards, or whateverwards.

"There doesn't appear to be much street left," he noted, "or I'd suggest we try to find our way to a Causeway I used to wander across, every now and then."

A pause, and then he glanced her way.

"I don't suppose you have a self portrait in you, perhaps? And an especially dashing one of me to go with it? With a proper face, of course." A beat. "Easier to draw, you understand."

Yes. Yes, that was why.



Naminé
That earned a smile from Naminé, and a genuine one at that.

"A boy, a girl, and a beach," she said. "We'll mail it to someone. Fandom would be best."

All things considered, they could write "TO: FANDOM" on the envelope and nothing else, and she had a feeling it would still end up in the post office. Her picture to Riku had gone through with only his name.

She grabbed her sketchbook and sat down. "I'll hurry," she promised, "but you can't rush great art. Especially not handsome faces like yours."



Valentine
Aha! See? There was nothing to worry about, then. If Helena could create an entire world with a pen and a few sheets of paper, there was no reason at all why the two of them couldn't survive the end of the world in a world all their own, created by Naminé's own hand and kept safe by someone in Fandom who would understand just what a few lines on paper meant to the both of them. Valentine broke into an easy grin, leaning over her shoulder with no concern whatsoever for personal space, and watched her work.

"Make certain you get my eyes right," he announced. "I have particularly fetching eyes."

Pinholes, with his proper face. But very expressive ones, damn it.



Naminé
Valentine was perfectly welcome in Naminé's personal space; she happened to like the scent of his aftershave.

"I like both sets of your eyes," she said, distractedly, as she dashed out a line. "The expressive ones on your proper face, and the poor replacements you've had ever since. They do add a dash of color, you know. Your previous ensemble lacked it."

The sketch was not to her usual artistic standards. But it didn't need to be perfect. It only needed to be them.

"One boy, one girl, one beach," she announced, folding the sketch over so that she could write "FANDOM" on the outside in large blocky letters. The paper could be its own envelope.



Valentine
"Lovely," Valentine decided, making a point to drawl that word out as much as possible, just because he knew she liked it when he did. "So now, we leave it up to the post, and there won't be a thing to worry about."

See? Important men often had wonderful ideas like this, even when they were devoid of towers entirely.

He held out his hand for hers, looking rather pleased with himself indeed as he led her toward the door.



Naminé
Naminé shivered, as she always did when he said "looooovely." He did it on purpose. She never minded when he did.

She opened the door, turning to ask Valentine if they perhaps should have lunch -- which was a silly question. Valentines always wanted lunch, except when they wanted dinner, breakfast, or a snack -- but the question died in her throat when she saw the hallway.

Or rather, didn't.

The carpeting extended a foot in front of the door itself, and the walls not much further to either side. The space ahead was a dark, swirling mass, gray and black. There was no hallway. There was no Brighton. There was nothing. No, Nothing.

She slammed the door shut again with a shaking hand -- as if simple wood could save them -- and noticed that the room had gone dark. The view outside every last window had been replaced with that same ominous storm. There was nothing left.

It was only then that she realized that the Nothing had ripped the drawing clean out of her hand, before she had managed to shut the door. It was gone.

So was their apartment complex. So was Brighton. And soon …

"Valentine," she gasped, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his chest. She couldn't look. She couldn't watch. She just hoped that whatever-this-was wouldn't tear her from him before they both disappeared.



Valentine
Oh. Oh, that was not good. In fact, that was very much ungood. Rather the opposite of good, really, and Valentine's arm reached up and pulled her close even while his brow furrowed and his breath caught and he looked up to watch the walls begin to fade to black.

At least it wasn't crumpling, he supposed. Or burning. Burning the world in a wastebasket was a horrible way to go.

"I'm not about to bow out so easily," he murmured, his free hand reaching into his pocket (he always did have a fondness for very deep pockets) and pulling out his phone. "So it'll take your drawings. So what. We made our mark, didn't we?"

His thumb dialled the number of a friend he hadn't spoken to in years. Pick up, pick up.

"We'll just have to make certain that somebody else makes a mark for us, that's all. Everything will be fine, you'll see."

Ringing. Ringing. Voicemail.

… Well, then. If it was going to be that way, Valentine was going to leave a message, thank you.

"Jamie? Jamie bloody Madrox you answer your phone this instant!" A pause. "Or this one. Hell, I'll settle for this one, if you please."

Well. That wasn't working, and now there was no wall on the far end of the room.

"Suit yourself, then. It's the end of the world all over again, you know. You think you'll be ready for it when it folds up around you a second time, and hah, as if it ever gets to be old hat, really. I mean, one day, there you are, a very important man, with a job and a flat and the most wonderful woman in your arms, and the next, there's no bloody wall and there's nothing beyond it, either."

There was a moment's silence, as he ducked his head and wrapped his arms around Naminé a little more tightly, still.

"But what sort of man would I be if I let something like this get me down, right? I've come back before, after all. Naminé, too. Though, dare I ask how your artistic talents are, these days? I would be... terribly appreciative should you decide to pay the both of us homage on canvas. Maybe with some fancy oil paint or charcoals or ketchup..."

It was a perfectly valid artistic medium.

"Look, Jamie, I'm going to let you go. I have about ten more seconds to appreciate being a very important man with a very important woman in my arms, and I fully intend to spend that time kissing her until we're both about as breathless as we've ever been. Onwards and upwards, right? Right. Goodbye, Jamie."

And he hung up.



Naminé
Naminé was reaching for the phone before he even hung it up, right around the time that he explained how he hoped to meet the end of the world. She took it from him and tossed it aside. What did it matter if it were to be destroyed, now? Nothing that was left did matter.

"I love you," she said. She didn't give him a chance to reply. He didn't need to. He had said it first, and often. She had been the one who had taken so long, scared that she didn't have a heart with which to feel. She did, and it was his, and she wanted him to hear it one last time, now, to make up for how late she had started saying it at the beginning.

Besides, that would cut into the time they had for all of that breathless kissing he had promised her, and a very important man would never lie to the very important woman in his arms.

They were alive, they were real, and they were together. They had this moment; moments were all anyone ever had, in the end.



And then there was Nothing.

(Preplayed with the phenomenal importantman, whom I have missed writing insane amounts of pretty narrative with zomg! ♥ ♥ ♥)