Work Text:
So much has changed. And still, you are fortunate:
the ideal burns in you like a fever.
Or not like a fever, like a second heart.
- Louise Glück, “October”
---
Every once in a while
Your thoughts drift back to Bodhum,
the Hanging Edge, or Palumpolum:
The rainbow radiance kissing away a mother’s lingering wish
Made futile by death, and a hometown washed sunset orange
Cheeks and soul burning with inescapable rage, a tearless child
Freefalling in a daze. But defying a blistering death Snow
Cushions the harsh earth through an enveloping embrace,
And all the hearts and silver-colored tears settle their case.
---
You end up not being the one to break the news of Serah’s death to Snow. It’s a good thing, you tell yourself, nervously examining the state of the world’s chaos using the wall-sized monochrome screens on each side of you; if you’ve learned anything about yourself over the past twenty-seven (five hundred?) years, it is that you are terrible at saying goodbyes, and even worse at not running away from grief. You are just glad that he’s alive, really, at the end of all things; losing both Serah and Snow would be a clear sign for all that the world is truly going to end, and you aren’t willing to give up just yet.
He shuffles into the control room with those downcast eyes and you immediately reach out to him, hug him, tell him how happy you are to see him again. A tiny part of you that you’re not proud of notes that it’s the first time Snow has lost someone dear to him (partially) due to his hero antics, and all of you alarmingly note Snow’s internal collapse, how even as he’s leaning against you, he’s become a decrepit house after an earthquake. The foundations of what makes Snow Snow have failed in spectacular fashion, and even as you had once passionately hated those very foundations with every fiber of your being, you’re not sure you want to see the remnants of Snow’s supernova.
Hell, not a C’ieth, you realize with a pang, as he squints up at you through bloodied tattered clothes and more bloodshot disoriented eyes, anything but a C’ieth.
“Hope,” he says, without tone or power or much of anything behind that voice, “why did you ask for me?” It’s neither accusatory, nor a rejection; only pure despair and bewilderment, waves of suffering swirling in the undercurrents. “Don’t you have better things to do with your time, with the Academy and all?”
What’s the worth of saving the world if I’d still lose everyone I love? You think a bit (okay, very) bitterly, holding your breath as you sneakily scan Snow’s brand and realize with a relief that it’s not actually close to critical. What had Light said, back in the day? That one’s just too stubborn to die. “Someone’s got to lay it on you for –”
His eyes flash and darken, as if something has just dawned on him. “Come on. Tell me about Serah. It’s just the same as your mother, isn’t it?” He crumbles then, shaking, struggling to get out of your hold. “It’s my fault and I accept all of it. Come on, Hope, punish me. I deserve to die.”
You suppose if you were Light you’d have slapped him in the face, beaten him back into his senses, told him everything about how it’s a cowardly thing to do and how Serah still needs him wherever she is and just, you can’t die, not when you’ve promised her and promised me and I’d hate to see you die alone. But you’re not Light and even she’s gone into the despair of crystal eternal and there’s a dull ache in your chest, a futile wanting to put people back together burning faintly behind your eyelids. People die and people leave, Snow. Don’t run to join those people. The world is lonely enough as it is.
“I’m unarmed, Snow,” you tell him, ignoring the visions of Nora’s sweet smile or her terrible jokes or just how crumpled she had become under all that rubble, instead throwing your arms around Snow’s monstrously huge torso in an attempt to pull him back up. “No one is going to die today. Least of them you.”
Snow laughs, a terrible, tormented sound not unlike the shrieks of the ancient Oerba C’ieth, and your teeth clench together. “Are you kidding me? You were willing to do it at Palumpolum, but you can’t bring yourself to do it anymore?”
You kick him then, not bothering to dial back the force multiplier in your Academy boots, and he yelps in pain, staggering back several steps. “Stop talking about my mother. I’m not going to kill you.” Giving up on actually pulling him up, you bring his face closer to yours, forcing him to look into your green eyes of the dead. What was intended to be serious and angry comes out half coarse. “Survive, Snow. When people are dead, words are useless. All we can do is to survive. They’d have wanted you to survive. They did everything they could to make sure everyone’d continue to have a future, you included, so do something to honor their wishes, damn it!”
The light in his eyes dims. You see the beginning of tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. He’s stubbornly resisting again, though. The man knows nothing but resistance. “Give me something to do, then. Let me do something for them. For the world.” He blinks furiously. “I’m sorry, Hope.”
“There are a few people still stranded below in Academia,” you say as softly as you can, trying to smile. “They’ll be doomed without a hero to try to save them. I’ll give you equipment, maps, people – just don’t lose yourself down there. I’m expecting you to come back.” You rise. “Eat up before you go. The cafeteria on the sixth floor still offers the NORA special, and I’ve made arrangements to get you a permanent room here in New Cocoon.”
---
Snow makes the same comment for what must have been the 452nd time on the first official transport down from New Cocoon. He’s chaos-tanned and armed to the teeth with bright pink Last One loot, and if what you’ve heard is correct, the man has absolutely demanded (as emphasized by your coworkers and assigned guards) to come with you on your maiden trip to the world below. You’ve barely settled in the airship and fleetingly noticed that he’s lost a tooth and half an eyebrow when he throws his hands up in pretend despair. “The Academy’s version of the NORA special absolutely sucks.”
You make a face. “Take it or leave it, Snow. Or make your own. It’s been several hundred years. The recipe’s been changed and damaged. We just can’t get some of the ingredients we need anymore, or I’d try to make you some myself.”
“I tell them that I used to be NORA’s boss, but those fuckers don’t believe me.” Snow sighs dramatically, reaching into the supplies to take out your lunchbox. The airship is descending fast; soon the features of New Cocoon have become a pale blur, a suspended and chaos-infested dream chessboard that’s a shadow of the Cocoon you used to remember. The familiar curves and lines, the lights, the graviton cores: you can’t help but stare longingly at your planet from the small window.
“You still haven’t explained it to me, Hope,” Snow says, gazing at you sympathetically but with a look that says who bullied you, I’ll go beat up their ass, “Aren’t you – weren’t we – all about fighting against the Fal’Cie? Why are you going down there?”
“Well.” You don’t turn away from the window to look at him. Truth be told, you’re not sure you’re brave enough to turn this lost child’s face towards him. You’ve done your part but I’ve failed at mine. And to get this far, I’ve already done things I’m not proud of. I don’t know how many more of those things I’d have to do before I can get us anywhere. I don’t know if you’d still want to care about me. “We’re running out of time, and people are afraid. We have to go… so people will follow.” A short pause. “I’ve done this before, with the evacuation of Academia.”
You can almost feel Snow fidgeting in his seat and trying to make his words sound calculated and concerned. “You look upset.”
Shit. “Really?” You mount a silent prayer to no God or Fal’Cie in particular before finally turning to beam your 10,000 lux smile at him. Some part of you is screeching inside. It’s Snow. It probably won’t work. “It’s probably the stomachache. Something from the conferences not agreeing with me. Happens all the time. Did I ever tell you about that one time –”
Snow scowls. “Don’t bullshit me, Hope. I’ve seen you upset when you were fourteen. You look like the way you looked at me before you decided to throw me off a building. Who are you planning to throw off now?”
“Just the two of us. Like nothing’s changed.”
“I can’t take a fall that big, okay?” He pokes you above the nose and right between your eyes, making you flinch. “You can be honest with me, Hope,” Snow says more quietly now, sincerity burning like a flame in his earnest eyes. Shit. “Let me be a good friend for once. Or just like, some kind of older figure that you can trust.”
“Biologically speaking, I am now older than you.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
I hate this, okay? I hate every single part of this, from the decay to the lies and helplessness. We should have been able to do something. I should have done something. This terrible dying world shouldn’t be the true timeline.
“Just sad that I was too dumb to consider the chaos’ possible erosion effects on New Cocoon’s shell,” you reply, letting the words drop. Snow narrows his eyes. You calmly fold your arms and watch with a habitual liar’s satisfaction as Snow considers his options and grudgingly gives up on pursuing down that particular explanation.
“Hmph. Get some rest, then. It’ll be a while before we get to the frontier station.”
“You’re not going to rest?”
“Got a few calls to make,” Snow ponders, already looking up a list on his phone. “Gotta receive the Director like royalty.”
“That’s not like you. The Snow I knew didn’t like plans.”
“The Snow you knew also wasn’t being assigned five expedition teams a day, either. I wonder who has been behind all of that…”
You raise your hands up to surrender. “Fair enough. But please don’t go overboard. I have to be back by early evening.”
Snow doesn’t answer – probably is cheekily pretending that he hasn’t heard, knowing him – and you roll your eyes. I was too hopeful for my own good and you’re too idealistic for yours, you muse with a cynical smile, before collapsing sideways into your seat to sleep away your regrets.
---
At night, the Warren respires in chaos and shadow; the endless ladders, alleys and blocks of faded paint remind you of the schizophrenic mess that had been 500 AF Academia, and you are a little lightheaded when you finally reach the open area, where Snow’s leaning against a chair and Noel’s promised to (eventually) show up. The blond man waves at you before handing you a drink. You have just enough time to show your gratitude and open the bottle before he wraps his arms around you from your back in his awkward version of a hug.
“This visit is for Noel, isn’t it?” You ask between tiny gulps, glancing around for any potential signs of monsters. Although you haven’t expected the exact kind of drink Snow has gotten you, you haven’t failed to notice that it tastes remotely (but miraculously) like something out of first century AF Palumpolum.
“Yeah,” Snow answers proudly, pumping his fists together several times in succession and looking an awful lot like the Snow you first encountered in Cocoon. “You know the guy. He’ll never get out of his self-loathing hellhole again if we don’t convince him that we don’t blame him and that there are still things that he can do.”
You mean, kind of like what I did with you, although you took way less time to get over yourself because you’re better at hiding your grief? “Lower your voice, Snow,” you scold, shooting a dark and (you hope) annoyed look at him. “You don’t know who could be listening.”
“Yeah, yeah. Can’t be worse than the Earth Eaters I had to fight the other day. I swear, it’s going to take forever for us to clear that path. Say, how’s the drink?”
“How did you even get your hands on something like this?”
“I’m based in Yusnaan now. The entire industry’s about drowning out your agony and stress with drinks. That thing any good?”
“Snow, stop binge drinking the New Bodhum version of it. I don’t think even you can handle that much liquor. Isn’t your l’Cie brand complaining?”
---
You first see Snow in a suit in the freshly built and lavishly embellished Augur’s Quarter, (very reluctantly) attending his own formal appointment as the guardian of the Fal’Cie manufacturing plant. Grinning, you walk up to the man and tell him that he looks good. The response has been the sourest grimace you’ve seen in over five hundred years.
“Shhhh,” you whisper to him with a near-perfect straight face nearly two hours later between the passing of cutlery during the banquet, “you’ll get used to this politics thing. You’ll see.”
“Hope,” he begs, and you admit it amuses you in the most terrible way to see Snow torn up over things like political intrigue and suits. “At least your uniform is, like, borderline practical.”
“Suits can definitely be practical. You fight a lot with your l’Cie magic, anyway. Why would a hero be inconvenienced by a suit?” You pat him gently on the back before biting into a piece of bread with suddenly increased enthusiasm. “It’s Yusnaan, Snow. Bread and circuses. Can’t blame the people for wanting to indulge and forget, and it might do you some good, too.”
Snow looks at you suspiciously. “But don’t you live like some kind of saint? Zero girlfriends, zero vacations, zero parties unless it’s formal business –”
You laugh, a short, dry sound. “Can’t have everyone doing bread and circuses, right? I think I’m finally getting somewhere with my research.” The lie comes all too easily now and it’s making you uneasy. “Soon we’ll be done with all this chaos stuff. Flushed out like it’s never existed.”
Snow whistles in genuine admiration and appreciation and somehow that makes you feel worse. “You tell them, Hope.”
“Throw us a party when we make it, won’t you? You’ll be the only one with any access to any partying materials.” Your wink returns you a magnificent fist bump under the table, and you sudden know with a sinking feeling that said party probably won’t happen for at least another century.
---
The day you hear about Snow being injured is the day you sweettalk yourself out of two (urgent, they insist) conferences to visit him. He’s all sprawled out on an embroidered Yusnaan hotel bed, drifting in and out of consciousness, but when he hears you approach, his eyes snap open.
“Gods, not now,” Snow complains, shivering violently and trying to sit up as you try to count the number of things in his body that just shouldn’t be there. “Hope, this is embarrassing.”
“I thought you’d be less inclined to die if I show up. Now stay the fuck down.”
“You wish.” He winces when a physician extracts something from his leg, and again when some kind of Mandragora root-containing potion is applied onto his stomach. “Seriously, though – go back home, Hope. I’m not going to die today.”
You glare at him and make call after call for the best physicians, the best elixirs and the best room in town, and Snow simply watches you amusedly throughout it all with drugged eyes and layers of bandages. It’s several hours later, deep into the night when you’re about to doze off next to him, when he finally speaks up. “Director Estheim, aren’t you going to make a few enemies for showing this controversial man this level of favoritism?”
“You should look at yourself in the mirror, Snow,” you reply sleepily, hoping that you’re not going to roll into a bowl of nasty potions (or worse, Snow himself) in the middle of the night. “Your hair aside, you haven’t given me a reason to not show you favoritism for hundreds of years.”
Snow promises to get a haircut (“just one!!”) just for you.
---
You are tired to the bone when the fireworks finally begin and Banquet Maitre D’ shows you the table. Snow’s already seated, drumming gloved fingers on the redwood and gazing wistfully up at the spectacle, and as you pour yourself a glass of water and silently watch the ice cubes rise to the top of the glass, you realize the atmosphere’s grown too suffocating to still be comfortable. You decide to attack first, lest you unwittingly give Snow an opening. “How’s the manufacturing plant?”
“Same old, but tensions are rising,” Snow admits, just a tiny bit stiff on his signature crooked grin. “Dunno why some people run around with those massive egos. Beat some sense into a few and talked some into the others.”
You smile understandingly as if in an antagonistic conference (since when did this become automatic, you remember scowling more in the past, at least to yourself) and cast your eyes down onto the menu. Snow’s eaten through one and a half Yusnaans. Perhaps you’ll just take a quarter portion of what Snow is going to order. “And got away in one piece?”
“You bet.” Snow flashes a big hero’s smile at the server. “Twenty Bacchus’ Brews, please.”
You nearly choke on your glass of water. “Snow.”
“What? Should I get forty?” Snow’s face is too goddamned innocent. Since when did Snow learn these kinds of games? “Drink with me, Hope. It’s a holiday. Let’s celebrate.”
“I thought you were going to be an actual good friend and let me off easy for a night!”
“Drink with me,” Snow commands, “or I’ll start spilling all your embarrassing childhood secrets. Your Yusnaan fangirl club is downstairs spying on us. Your choice.”
You groan out loud as you rub the dark circles beneath your eyes with your hands. “Snow…”
“I’m not a man if I can’t drink Director Estheim under the table,” Snow vows to an audible gasp from the entire restaurant crowd (and you suspect two more crowds under the balcony), and you promise yourself that he’s going to work a desk job for the next decade.
---
That night at the Banquet of the Lord, when the last star (Bhunivelze, you whisper all too loudly to yourself) has finally disappeared from the sky and the last serving chocobo girl has been sent off, you confess to him your secret.
“You are drunk,” Snow observes, laughing and coughing until he’s fallen off the chair and can’t find the balance to climb back up, “or you’d never admit it to me for another ten hundred years.”
“I hate you,” you slur as you try to pour yourself another glass with shaking hands, heat and tears dancing in your eyes and flaming your throat. There isn’t anything yet on your face as far as you can tell, but you’ve lost track of time and there’s a part of you that wants to just go to sleep and never wake up. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
“Now, you don’t mean that,” Snow pulls his wounded puppy face, falling back to lean against the railing until he’s almost comfortably stretched out. You sorely want to do the same but getting there requires coordination you no longer have. “You are just miffed that I guessed it before you told me.”
“Suuuure. You knew. You always knew. Of course.” Perhaps if you drink enough of these things you would actually pass out and not remember a single thing. Is your tie still in place? Is that the last thing you should worry about? I regret everything. I may really need someone to understand me on this, but it’s not really something that I can be proud of or truly own up to, and Snow already has enough Farron pain of his own. “I miss her, Snow.”
“She’s still alive, fool,” Snow drawls, in a voice too cheerful for the topic, and you vaguely hear him shuffle towards you. It’s the only sound in the building – he must have urged everyone else to leave – which can only mean that you look like an utter shipwreck. “Now stop that, you look like you’re about to puke, cry, or both.”
“Get off. I can take care of myself. I have to take care of myself.” There’s a giant weight on your chest and a familiar noise in your ear; Why are you sinking, and why are you remembering? In front of you a giant crystal throne towers and there’s despair in her face, despair in your face, one lone chaos sensor hissing the death of the world and thirteen Yeuls murmuring to you that you shouldn’t be there. You ignore them and reach up for her, hammering at the crystal the way you’ve seen Snow do it, the way you’ve seen Snow fail at it, the way –
“Ironic, isn’t it? At the end of the world there’s just you, me, Noel, and Sazh. Heartbroken men every one.”
There’s only one thing to say to that, and it’s so terribly hard to spit that out without letting loose the whole dam. It takes you a few ugly tries before you finally manage. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Snow reassures, and then lets out a rueful sound that’s half a laugh and half a snort. “This way you sound more like the boy I used to know.”
“I don’t want to be a child!”
“Not you… that time we had. When we still had sis and the girls, and then, when I had Serah? Even if just for that little while.” Snow’s arms clumsily clamp down around you and nearly knock you over. Someone’s singing a mournful ballad underneath you and down the street. “I miss them, too.”
“We’ll get them back,” you promise hollowly for what feels like the millionth time in your life before finally spluttering.
“We will,” Snow agrees, decidedly ignoring the mess you’ve made just to his side and squinting as if he’s just realized something totally revolutionary, “and if we get lucky – perhaps we can actually be brothers one day. Would you like that?”
It takes a full minute before what he means actually registers. All you can do is stare back at his frank face in shock. “It’s not going to happen,” you hear yourself croak defensively, although both of you know the true answer you can’t allow yourself to give is I’d love to be that, forever.
---
You are not sure how many times he has managed to find you; sometimes you’re convinced that you’ve successfully hidden your gradual (or rapid?) deterioration entirely from him, and other times you know he’s distraught that you’ve vanished without a trace and has been looking for you with every hour of his precious free time. The phantom runs on through the streets and the dunes, agile and carefree: she has eyes only for one man, and he’s already slowly falling apart under her hands.
“Come to me,” she bids and you follow; the trek is exhausting, and you can do naught but fall to your knees and pant when you reach the final destination, but you’d be damned if you still can’t keep up with her after a thousand years. This is better than confessing anything to Snow, in any case; you don’t feel like you can ever show your face to him again after running to him overjoyed and showering the man afresh with all the promises you'd not been able to keep for five hundred years, only to find out after the biggest catastrophe known to man that you will have to let him down.
“Are you ashamed, Hope?” The phantom taunts and you pull her roughly and desperately into your hold, eats her scorn up. The constant warmth and fragrance on her is all kinds of wrong but it’s laced with intoxication and you don’t want the truth, don’t know how to face the truth. The truth destroys you with every lie you’ve ever told and every researcher you’ve led to their death and you crucify yourself on it, dreaming of empty fallen stars, dead immortal children and –
Snow’s crushed face.
Did he actually find me? When… was this?
“I’ll let you rest, then.”
Snow closes the door gently with just enough worry and disappointment and you find yourself clutching the warmth of his trench coat to your heart like a lifeline, even as you can again sense the phantom closing in on you and prying the love of a brother and friend away from your feeble fingers. I’m sorry, you whisper into the darkness with a sadness that clings to you like the chaos that you can tell is starting to cling to his eyes, I’m sorry that you can’t save me. I’m sorry that I can’t save you. I’m sorry that we trust so much in each other’s humanity only to fall into despair due to that very same thing.
You are gone the next morning, a neatly handwritten note on the table:
Gone back to the Wildlands Research Camp. Don’t worry about me. – H
You don’t go back anywhere. You only enter the Ark.
---
The ark spins, fractures; all the clocks shatter upon sensing divine love in each of their cogs and your mind breaks, thoughts and dreams taking flight from the heart’s refuge as the final light within your Bhunivelze dies. The young man’s hand, though, still barely manages to press send; you’re obstinately human, if nothing else, and you’ll see this through, splatted with loss and shame and silver-colored tears.
A final message, written in the frenzy of a final hallucination given color by rose and ichor: you know who you’ll send it to, even as you can no longer picture his face. An idealistic voice. A voice that must go on to shield the world and aid the goddess you love, regardless of what you yourself will become.
“One day Lightning will return. But beware the fake Lightning.”
God reaches for you, repulsed but eager, drawn by the brilliance and alien nature of your light; in your final stand the last words scatter unsent into the wind, echoes in the ark that fade along with the last fragments of your sanity.
Thank you, Snow.
---
Somewhere, a blond man in a black suit slams a fist into the table.