Seeing in the Dark #3

Seeing in the dark - $3
Part 2

After the villain ‘talked to the guards’ (whatever that entailed), life in prison got very quiet. No one came after the hero anymore, figuring them under the villain’s intimidating protections, but no one talked to them either. Not the guards. Not the other inmates. No one.

They wouldn’t stop the hero from sitting down at a table with them, but sooner or later they would find an excuse to disperse, or switch languages to something the hero didn’t know, or in some cases they would ignore any comment the hero tried to make outright. The hero supposed they deserved that.

No, not supposed. It was impossible, listening to so-called bad guys and lesser villains talking about getting home to family or friends if they were ever so lucky (with the slight strain in their voice, that made it perfectly clear that no one who get sent to where they were, was so lucky) not to feel something squirm in the pit of their belly.

They reminded themselves that villains, bad guys, were just that. Everyone had soft spots and nuances. It didn’t make what they had done less immoral.

Still. The overwhelming grey of it fogged the hero’s brain. They’d known it would. It was why they’d never wanted to look, why they’d been so blind as the villain put it, as if to look at their foes too directly was to stare Medusa right in the eyes.

Was that the point of it all? What, to throw them into the graveyard of the lives they’d ruined, so they could see how all the skeletons stared back with the hero’s own face?

No one talked to them. None one touched them.

The hero felt, increasingly, like a ghost as the days turned into weeks turned into months until it had been half a year since the hero first arrived.

They started to think, then: what if there was no grand greater scheme, no plot, no rescue? What if, like all good old-fashioned monsters, they really had been hurled aside to rot? To be entirely forgotten? Not important, not the centre of the story, not anything.

Terror kicked them airless.

And…

“What the absolute hell?” The villain’s fingers closed around the front of the hero’s top, shoving them back against the cell door hard enough that the hero’s head knocked against the unforgiving concrete.

…they started a fight.

The hero sucked in a sharp, dizzy breath. The villain wasn’t touching skin, but for the first time in months, they were close enough that the hero could feel the heat radiating off of them. The aliveness of them.

“What?” They tried an innocent, goading smile.

The villain’s eyes narrowed, dangerous.  “Don’t even try it. I should gut you,” they said. “I told you what would happen if you laid hands on one of the…” The villain stilled, even more deadly, as the dazzling cogs of their brain whirred. They looked down at their hand, fist pressed against the hero’s sternum. They let go and the hero –

The hero’s fists clenched, itching to punch, to do something because –

“If you want my attention.” The villain’s voice was coolly mocking. “You could put on your grown-up pants and talk to me. We do share a room.”

Even the villain, their villain, the terrifying bane of their life treated the hero like a mundane irritation to be tolerated. Shielded, in the way the villain looked out pitying for everyone in the prison, but not…it wasn’t because the hero was special, and of course it wasn’t because they were special and deserved special snowflake treatment compared to everyone else, but…

The hero’s face flushed, a humiliating raw mixture of loneliness and need, and they’d never felt so pathetic.

They’d never thought they cared about the public side of being a hero, of people being happy to see them, of thinking of them as someone great and powerful and kind. Yet. Without it.

Maybe that was why they’d been blind, not just because it hurt to look, but because if they didn’t look, they didn’t have to lose the one thing they’d been good at.

The villain sighed, perhaps seeing the stricken expression on the hero’s face.

“Sit.” They pointed at the bed.

The hero opened their mouth, only to stop at the way the villain jabbed their finger, warning. Meekly, they sat.

“I’m not your therapist,” the villain said, standing in front of them. “I’m not your manic pixie dream villain.”

“I know.” The hero looked away, gaze landing on the ladder.

“If you run, lie, or evade I will just let you go.”

It was a little horrifying that the villain knew exactly what to say to freeze them to the spot, and even more horrifying that it worked. The hero wound their fingers tightly in their lap.

“Nod if you understand.”

“I’m not a kid,” the hero snapped, but nodded.

“Tell me what you want.”

“I knew you’d hit me.”

“Except I didn’t.”

“Only because you –“ The hero glowered at the villain. “You know, you never used to have a problem decking me.”

“And you want to re-live the good old days?”

“Yes!” The hero said.

The villain’s eyebrows climbed higher.

“No,” the hero said, with a huff. They buried their head in their hands, biting down on their lip. “I just – it was really stupid.”

“Oh, I’m glad we both appreciate that.”

The hero tensed, even if the jab was probably deserved.

The villain sighed again.

The hero dropped their hands, and the two of them eyed each other.

“Would you like a hug?” the villain asked.

“No!” The hero’s face burned. They shot, panicked, to their feet, and…of course, the villain, the bastard, stepped politely back and out of the way. With that malevolent glee.

The hero stopped. They willed the villain to ask again, or step forward, even if they were jeering. Even if they were enjoying seeing how far the hero had fallen.

The villain said nothing.

The hero squeezed their eyes shut, braced themselves for something horrible, and nodded. “I – yeah. That. Or – I don’t know – just – I –“

The villain didn’t drag them into a hug, but they carded their fingers into the hero’s hair. It was a light touch and it hit the hero with more of a whallop than even the villain’s fiercest blow. Their knees nearly buckled.

“I think,” the hero said it, finally. “You were right. It’s easy to be the hero when everything is going well. When it’s not…”

“That’s not exactly what I said.”

“Being powerful, being in control, is things going well. But that’s not the only thing you were right about. You were…whatever you are out in the world, in here…”

“I’m not a hero, don’t pedestal me into one because I’m capable of showing you some small smidgen of kindness.”

But even that seemed the right thing to say.

“This isn’t you,” the villain said, after a long moment. “Don’t get me wrong, I do think you lash out whenever you feel vulnerable or whatever bullshit, but…” The villain’s grip tightened in their hair. “In your heart, it’s not you. You don’t start shit with other people, certainly not unprovoked. Not in my experience.”

“You mean I don’t when I’m on top and get the warm fuzzies from being magnanimous.”

The villain clicked their tongue. “Don’t be self-pitying, it’s annoying.”

“I’m not – I –“ The hero glared at the villain again, hyper-conscious of the villain’s hand in their hair, of the final thudding proof that they were powerlessness, and of the fact they weren’t stepping away.

“You have a choice in how you behave,” the villain said. “They’ve decided you are a monster. A bully. Whatever have you. You've had a little taste of both. What do you want to be?”

Anything other than invisible.

The villain’s lip curled, some savage kind of smile, perhaps recognising the unsaid sentiment.

“I thought you weren’t my therapist,” the hero muttered.

“I’m not,” the villain said, and for a second, they seemed content to leave it at that. They petted the hero’s hair like one might warily stroke a slightly feral dog. “I…understand what you are going through. I know what it feels like to have everything you believe in, everything you thought was true, everything you fought for, not be what you thought it was. What, you think I became what I am thinking I’m the bad guy?”

The hero cringed. If they’d thought that once, and they had thought that once, it had bene crumbling bit by bit for as long as they’d known the villain.

“I think,” the hero said, barely above a breath, “that maybe my side were the monsters all along.”

“No.” The villain’s features were unreadable. “Your side were just never any better.”

They stayed like that for a long time.