Seeing in the Dark #2

Part 1 

“My,” the villain said. “You’re a mess.”

The hero turned their head away, breathing hard. Their fingers flexed, itching to – but – there was no power. They had no power. The reminder never stopped being gutting.

The villain hadn’t spoken in any particularly mocking way, though maybe that would have been better. It was simply a statement of fact: the hero was a mess. Facts, the hero had decided, were a brutal offense. They would have preferred silver tongued half-truths and outright lies.

“Shouldn’t you be in the infirmary?” the villain asked.

The hero headed for the small sink attached firmly to one wall, not allowing their fingers to tremble. Ice cold water gushed out the faucet, washing away the blood on their hands. They splashed more water on their face – wincing, glad, at least, that the cold was in some way numbing.

“The guards—”

“—I don’t need to go to the nurse. Not over a few bruises and a bloody nose. I’m hardly dying.” The hero’s shoulders braced. “Drop the topic.”

The villain’s head tilted in the hero’s periphery vision.

“Do you want to tell me what happened, or would you like me to ask around and figure it out myself? The first one is infinitely easier and stirs the pot of this hell hole less, but I’m fine with the second.”

The hero squeezed their eyes shut, and wondered if there was any point whatsoever telling the villain to drop it a second time. Of course, they could shut up and say nothing. They turned the tap off with a jerk, wiping the water off their slightly cleaner but throbbing face with the back of their sleeve.

They’d dealt with the villain enough, as an enemy, to know how stubborn they were. Refusing to say anything would just make it into a thing and draw even more curiosity.

“Clearly,” the hero said through gritted teeth. “I got in a fight.”

“How’s the other guy?”

“What’s it to you?”

“People know our history.” The villain shrugged, a deceptively casual picture sitting on the bed, a book still open in their lap. “If you go off being all heroic and beating the crap out of the other inmates, you should know I’ll—”

The hero swallowed.

The villain stopped, catching even that small gesture. Their eyes narrowed.

“You should know,” the villain finished, softly, “that any pity I have for you does not extend that far. Start shit – get hit.”

The hero felt raw, exposed. They moved for the ladder up to the top bunk, figuring up there, at least, the villain wouldn’t be able to observe them quite so transparently.

The villain shifted their hands so that their fingers curled around the rungs from the other side, to make it difficult for the hero to climb up without touching.

The hero froze. Their fingers flexed again, no less useless, more so even because the villain was once again pointing out what they had become. They glared at the villain through the ladder.

The villain raised their eyebrows.

“The other guy is fine,” the hero snapped. “So move.”

Something flickered across the villain’s eyes.

“…You didn’t start it?”

If the hero had started it, the other guy would not be fine. They both knew that. Maybe the hero didn’t have teeth, but…well. One didn’t fight monsters without learning some tricks, however much the hero didn’t like to use them.

“Why would I start a fight in here? As you have so kindly pointed out, I’m outnumbered.”

“Maybe you lost your temper.” The villain’s gaze was searching. “You’ve already lost your freedom. You’re a prickly little thing at the moment.”

The hero’s stomach churned.
“Move your bloody hands or find out.”

The villain did not move their bloody hands.

The hero couldn’t just hold still, it was entirely too much like losing. They reached for the rung above the villain’s hand, preparing themselves to stamp on the villain fingers if they tried to grab hold.

The villain didn’t.

The hero disappeared onto the top bunk again.

Neither of them spoke further on the topic.

The next week, the hero turned up in the cell with a split lip and aching ribs. They once again made their way straight to the sink to clean up, feeling the heavy weight of the villain’s gaze tracking their movements.

“Tell me who,” the villain said.

“They’re fine.”

“I’m not asking for them.”

Well, that notion, along with the admittance of the villain’s pity late at night, the knowledge that they may have heard some of the hero’s nightmares even if they didn’t comment, was unbearable. What a terrible intimacy sharing a single room was. The hero gripped the edge of the sink hard enough to hurt, hard enough that if they had their abilities, the whole thing would have come off the wall and crumpled with the force of it.

“You already knew I had enemies in here,” the hero said, which was the understatement of the century. “This is hardly a surprising outcome.”

“It is, actually.” The villain rose to their feet. “Given I would expect the guards to protect their precious hero. At least unless it’s me they’re dealing with. And once, maybe, you may have been stupid enough to get yourself cornered alone with no witnesses, but this is…mm. What count are we on? Three times? You’re many obnoxious and irritating things, hero, but you’re not stupid.”

The hero looked down, forcing their grip on the sink to loosen. They whirled as they felt, more than saw, the villain step across the narrow space towards them. Their back hit the sink just as the villain stopped in front of them, bracketing their arms on either side of the wall before the hero could bolt or the ladder.

“Jesus,” the hero said. “Back off.”

“I told the others not to hurt you after the first time. To leave you to me.”

The hero’s heart stuttered, their breathing going shallow.

They knew the villain had implied the first night that they weren’t going to do what they should, that they weren’t going to leave the hero to rot, but they hadn’t thought, hadn’t expected…

The villain raised a hand, and it took everything the hero had not to flinch away, but the villain still didn’t break their informal promise not to touch. They didn’t have to. The villain’s hand beneath the hero’s jaw, the threat of contact, was enough to make the hero instinctively turn their head so the villain could inspect the damage.

“Back hand with a ring,” the villain murmured.

The hero pressed their lips thin, sucking on the wound even as it stung, even if it was already too late to hide that conclusion. They avoided the villain’s eyes.

“The guards did this to you. Not the other inmates.”

“I’m not some criminal in need for your protection.” It came out raspy. It came out like ‘please, don’t’. “I’m not one of yours. Why would you—” They couldn’t finish.

They had seen the villain moving around the prison; even inside they were like the king of their realm. Bad things happened to the people who crossed the villain’s lines, and while there was often no proof that it was the villain, well…

Few people had so distinctive and creative a flair for cruelty.

“No,” the villain said. “You’re one of theirs. And yet.”

“Step back.”

“The guards are roughing you up. You’re locked in here, with me. What happened after you caught me?”

“I said, step—”

“Answer the question.”

The hero shook their head, searching for some blank spot on the wall to fix their gaze upon. Something that wasn’t the villain who knew them, perhaps, too well.

The silence settled heavily between them. It crushed the hero’s chest.

“You caught me, and they decided they didn’t need you anymore, is that it?” the villain pressed. “Or they decided anyone who can match me, who can beat me, must be dangerous?”

The hero said nothing. They had considered those possibilities, but it was only a possibility, and didn’t quite fit. Most people, knowing the two of their reputations, wouldn’t then put them in not only the same prison, but the same cell block, the same room. It was asking for trouble somewhere along the line. Maybe if the villain had killed them the first night, or shown some vague sign of making the hero suffer it might be understandable, but…

But the villain hadn’t.

They were often scathing, and there was occasionally that malevolent glee in their eyes, but they hadn’t been cruel.

Somehow, that scared the hero more than any violence. Because if the villain wasn’t cruel, wasn’t evil, wasn’t a black and white and bad guy…what did that mean for everything else?

“You look as scared as when they first locked you in with me, like you don’t know what I’ll do with you.” The villain smiled, mirthless. “Lift your shirt up.”

“What?” The hero felt dizzy.

“Lift your shirt up so I can see. Unless you’d like me to do that for you.”

The hero closed their eyes, briefly, but did as bid. Anything to keep the villain’s hands off them.

The villain whistled, low, at the bruises.

The hero dropped their shirt back down like they’d been burnt, face hot.

“See, the guards,” the villain said, still not moving back. “They love finding an excuse to try and prey on the rest of us. It makes them feel strong to have power over the boogeymen they’re so terrified of out there in the real world. But you…” the villain clicked their tongue. “They should love you. Unless they believe in your guilt? Think you’re more than a bit like me?”

“I’m in here with you, aren’t I? Why would I not be guilty?”

“What did you do?”

The hero’s jaw worked again, their attention flicking over the villain. The hum of the power inhibitors filled the quiet.

“Can’t you just let me rot,” the hero said, “and call it karma?”

“If it was karma, we’d be beating the crap out of you, not the guards.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t.”

“I know.”

“Mind games?”

The villain snorted.

“I’m not your business,” the hero said, a bit desperate. “Why are you pushing this? Surely this is great fun for you? Just desserts, and all.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Am I wrong?”

“What did you do,” the villain asked. “After you got me sent in here?” They shifted their hand, like the hero was a theremin to be played. Maybe they were because, once again, they moved, letting the villain tilt their head with invisible strings. Maybe they had concussion.

Their eyes met.

There had been no grand crime, nothing they could tell the villain, nothing neat that would satisfy. Maybe the villain already knew that because it would have been reported on, and the guards did still, occasionally, let the juiciest outside news drift in to the people who could afford to pay for it. And the villain could pay.

“You don’t know,” the villain said, after a long moment, with something almost like horror. “You truly don’t even know what you did wrong or why they’d put you in here with me.”

“I know why.” The hero shoved past the villain then with their shoulder, had to, but then there was nowhere to run. Nowhere that wouldn’t put them in another corner.

“Oh?”

“I showed sympathy,” the hero spat, “to you.”

They both lunged for the bunk bed ladder at the same time – the villain a half inch faster, blocking it with their body. The hero, near pinning them, even when they wanted them out the way.

“You asked what they were going to do to me? Finally stopped turning a blind eye?”

“I didn’t ask.” The hero could hear their voice beginning to crack, beginning to feel the careful strings of control snapping one by one.

“You, what, broke in? Stole information?”

“I thought.”

“…I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“I thought.” The hero recoiled, backwards, only to hit another stupid wall. “They must have known – seen it on my face, in my soul that I’m –”

The villain laughed. Scornful at first, and then – they stopped, staring at the hero.

“They can’t lock you in here for thinking. How would they even know?”

“Maybe they found a telepath I don’t know about.”

The villain laughed again, a bit strangled too. “How bad can your thoughts be to deserve this?”

“Treasonous.”

“And the guards?” The villain advanced forward a step, intent, no more hiding in the dark. They dodged back in the way when the hero made a dodge for the ladder.

“I’m tired,” the hero said. “I’d like to go to bed.”

“Tell me what happened with the guards.”

The hero shouldn’t crumple, shouldn’t crumble, they’d been the shield and the sword that had forced the villain back time and time again. They’d won.

They were so, so tired. Because the villain was right, they didn’t know what they had done.  They didn’t know anything. Their friends hadn’t got in touch, and they didn’t know if that was because their friends thought them guilty of some terrible crime, or because the prison administration were simply blocking any messages from getting through.

“One of the inmates laid hands on me,” the hero said. “And the guard went for them. They – they would have hurt them. Just for touching me. First day.”

The villain’s expression went rigid.

“I didn’t know you’d – I mean—” It had been before the villain got the word around for everyone to stay away, when the hero was still open season. “Well. I told them to stop. The guards. They didn’t listen and I—look. It doesn’t matter. The guards don’t like me anymore. Whoop-de-doo. They don’t like anyone in here.”

“You could have used their protection.”

“I don’t want their protection.”

“Because you’re an all powerful hero who can protect themselves?”

“Because protection,” the hero spat, “was never supposed to be people getting hurt because of me.”

“And now they think you’re a monster too, if they didn’t already.”

“I made people believe in me.” People hated to be wrong about their heroes.

“I always said they’d turn on you.”

“Congrats.”

They eyed each other from across the space.

“I’ll talk to the guards,” the villain said.

“Don’t.”

“You want to get beat up?”

“I don’t want your pity.”

“Mm, well.” The villain moved out of the way of the ladder. “Get over it. I protect all the monsters in here, it doesn’t make you special.”

And the hero…well. The hero had no idea what to do with that either.