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Description
Death.
Number XII.
13
Unlucky number
BAD NUMBER
NO
Massive change
Enormous upheaval
QUESTION YOURSELF
Change your outlook
There is a recovery.
And it will be a glorious sunset,
Of blazing beauty.

The Tower.
Destruction.
Devastation.
Irreconcilable, earth-shattering occurrences,
That bring down your flimsy,
Carefully-constructed,
House-of-cards life.
This is the tower that Jack built,
AND HERE IS THE NIGHTMARE TO CRUMBLE IT.

How can you tell which is which?

   Two Guards, two men, two uniforms. Two rifles, four shoes, forty fingers and toes, assuming the other one had all of his and no extras. Hayner liked the counting. He liked to think it kept him sane in a world gone mad.
   Two women in red habits, white wings reflecting the light so brightly, covering their faces, their heads. Two red and white blobs with no voices, no eyes, no pretty smiles. Because they weren't allowed to. Handmaidens were above and below everyone. They were magical, mystical, fertile. They could have children. But they were still women. And no woman was equal to a man in this world. And Hayner didn't like that.
   He remembered he'd once had a friend, a girl. A brunette. With two bright green eyes and perfect teeth and a smile that made his knees go wobbly, even if he didn't like her that way, as they used to say.
   He wanted to see her. He wanted the old days back. He missed his lover so very much… Sometimes he considered ending it all, but there was always that hope that his beloved was still alive. But what if he was? What then? He knew that if he saw Seifer again (only God knew what he'd be called now) that they would both be killed. He wouldn't be able to stop himself from… Well, whatever they did, be it a kiss or merely a hug or even more than either, they would be labelled as Gender Traitors and be put to death on the Wall.

   Oh God, he missed Seifer.

He remembered that once, Olette, his lovely brunette friend, had been into Tarot cards. He remembered having Death, the Hanged Man and the Tower read in his long-sight fortune. He'd freaked out at Death but after Olette had patiently explained that it could just mean a drastic change, albeit one you could recover from and see things as the Hanged Man; from a different perspective, he'd calmed down and laughed at his own silliness – it was only a pack of cards anyway.
He wasn't really sure he believed in them until one day, Seifer had slammed him into a wall and… He couldn't think about that here. He could get shot just for getting hard seemingly randomly. Well, Seifer had done something and he'd done some things back, too – he hadn't realised that the bad boy in the beanie, who'd always been his rival, was the one thing he wanted most.

   Well, looking back, Hayner was pretty sure that was his 'Death' card. And after that he was the Hanged Man – seeing things differently, being in love with the man who had once been his worst enemy. So was this his 'Tower'?
   He couldn't help but wonder. His entire way of life had been removed from him, his life had come crashing down around his ears. One piece of rubble, two dead bodies. One beautiful blonde with gorgeous blue eyes and one tall, skinny redhead with the mischievous smirk. Hanging from the Wall with bags over their heads and purple signs around their necks saying GENDER TRAITOR. They hadn't been careful enough, and Hayner had cried silently that night in his bunk – he could recognise his best friend and his best friend's boyfriend (they'd always joked that he was his brother-in-law), even with bags over their heads. Three pairs of eyes; the two Handmaidens and his fellow Guard. Four broken souls, he was sure. Five lampposts that he could see. Six rounds in a pistol. He wondered if it was a sin to play Russian roulette. Maybe. It was gambling.

   I miss you, Seifer. Goddammit, you fucking bastard. You can't just disappear like this. You're all I have left. The memory of you is all that keeps me going any more. Please come back. I'm breaking in half here, baby.

   It's amazing how little it takes for a human to adapt to fit a situation. Soon, it becomes normal. It became normal to see those red and white creatures walking around in pairs, always in pairs, and it became normal to see the bodies of Jews and Gender Traitors and Foetus Murderers and Politicals on the Wall.

   Eventually, it became abnormal to hear the word 'Mayday' said. Eventually the resistance became strange. He wanted to be a part of it, but he was afraid.

~*~*~*~*~*~

   He didn't know how long it had been since the Days. That sudden day when Olette called him, crying, saying she was frightened and she'd been fired and her card wouldn't work and did he know what was going on. He, Seifer and Pence had all rushed over to her place and they'd all watched the news report together. Women were no longer employable. They could not use their bank accounts without a man to access them. That night, Pence had finally proposed to her – he'd had a special dinner planned and everything, later in the month, but she wouldn't be able to afford to eat without her money so it would have to be now. So the next day, they had a drab little ceremony for all the wrong reasons.
Yes, they loved each other, but they had married out of necessity rather than in their own time.

At least they didn't get split up when everything happened. Olette was now an 'Econowife', as far as Hayner knew, and Pence was still married to her. Thank God neither of them had been married before, or it would be void.

~*~*~*~*~*~

   God, he missed Seifer. He missed the way the older blonde would shyly take his hand, unused to PDA. He missed the way he'd wrap his arms around him so tenderly after they'd made love. He missed the whispered 'I love you's and the late-night movies, and the fighting that always led to mindblowing making up. He even missed their teenage years, when they'd hated each other with such a passion that it was hardly surprising when things flipped. Oh God, he missed him.

   One Wife, two Handmaidens, three Guards, one priest hanging on the Wall. Hayner stared up at them and sighed. The Handmaidens must have been Politicals; they didn't hang signs around the necks of the women. The Wife must have killed, or tried to kill, a Handmaiden. That was pretty much all they could be executed for. Things were going mad. Public executions, bodies on display, women being made to be objects. Walking wombs. It was so very Medieval.

~*~*~*~*~

   Hayner woke up in his bunk, his face wet. He'd been crying in his sleep. Once, he would have been embarrassed and irritated with himself. In another 'once', he would have had a warm, willing body to turn and snuggle into, large, gentle hands to wipe the unconscious tears away. Not now. Now he was alone, and sick and tired of it all. He wanted to go home. Back to that horrible flat, with its peeling walls and mouldy cornices, back to Seifer and Chuchu, the sneezing cat, and Sam the upside-down fish. He wanted to go home, dammit!

~*~*~*~*~

   The next week, the Guard had been changed. He was now stationed with a tall blonde with blue eyes, and it made his heart ache that it wasn't the tall, blue-eyed blonde he longed to see. Two blondes, two blue eyes, two brown eyes, seven visible scars, none the right one.

   It was this painful resemblance to his lover, Hayner thought, that had Hayner replying,
"Yes, it is." To the new Guard's quiet,
"What a beautiful May day…"

   He had entered the Resistance.

   Maybe this was Death. Maybe it was not the end of all things. Maybe it wouldn't destroy him as much as he thought it would. He was doing something, at last. He had seen with his own eyes the black van come for one of the Handmaids, seen her willingly step into it, heard the near-silent whisper that it was Mayday and not the van that would take her to her doom. He wasn't stupid, though – that could all be a ruse, but somehow he thought it was true. He'd caught sight of the girl hurrying across the lawn once, in the depths of the night, going to a Guard's room, staying. He knew she had been breaking the law. But apparently that Guard was also a Mayday operative. Maybe she was safe now, in Canada perhaps. Maybe even England.

   If only he could believe that Seifer was too.

   In the end, he threw all caution to the wind and trusted Sam, his fellow Guard, and supposed member of Mayday, enough to ask if he'd met anyone called Seifer. When asked, he explained he was his lover. This could get them both killed, but he'd do anything to see Seifer again.

~*~*~*~*~

   News. One piece good, one bad. Seifer was alive. He was a Guard. He wasn't part of Mayday and would not respond when it was whispered to him.

   Oh thank God, he's alive. A part of Hayner screamed. But a smaller part whispered, what if he's been Conditioned?

   Eventually, after about a month, Hayner was repositioned up north, which was a relief – it was sweltering in that uniform in the summer.

   It was a shock. He had walked into the barracks and he swore his heart stopped. There he was. He couldn't let it show, couldn't stop dead, couldn't speak, couldn't run to him. Their eyes met and there was a small spark of something in those aqua eyes, quickly covered up and it shattered his heart. But then Seifer absently ran a hand through his hair and rolled his head slightly to the right, quickly showing five fingers before replacing his cap and walking casually away.

   Five minutes, the room to the right. Assuredly the toilets. Hayner's heart restarted, making up for lost time by hammering his ribs so hard he swore the other lackadaisical Guards could hear it. He strode over to the empty bunk and dumped his bag. He started to unpack it to fill time, before stretching and turning to go through the door to the lavatories.

   He sat in the end stall (these must have once been girls' loos – there were no urinals), fidgeting nervously for the next minute until e heard the door swing open.

   Five quick footsteps, two shiny black boots under the door, eight frantic heartbeats.

   Then the door to his stall was opened and swiftly closed and locked, he was standing on the seat so anyone walking past would see only one pair of shoes, and they were kissing, arms wrapped so tightly around each other that Hayner found it hard to breathe. Maybe that was just the sheer feeling of intoxication that Seifer's presence brought about in him after so long being apart.

"God, Seif, I missed you." He whispered into the taller blonde's ear.
"I love you, Hayner."

~*~*~*~*~

   And then the dream faded. He had asked about Seifer but there had been no reply. Not yet. He was losing hope. He hadn't been repositioned either – he was still stuck in that hot, horrible town in that hot, horrible uniform.

   Three pigeons, two Guards, two Handmaidens. One. Black. Van. Two men in black, jumping out of the van. One flash of fear, two flashes of light, sudden blackness.

Somewhere inside a blonde man, a child was crying and crying as though its heart had been torn apart, wanting and wanting and wanting for someone to hold him, someone he loved and needed.
'Seifer…'

~*~*~*~*~

   Two mornings later, it was the Men's Salvaging. They were held much more often than the Women's Salvagings. Hayner stumbled up onto that little wooden platform, sent a sad smile and halfhearted wink at the film camera, looked at the sky longingly, wished he could fly as free as that seagull, attempted to stand tall as that horrible white bag was placed on his head and secured around his neck, as the sign reading 'GENDER TRAITOR' was hung around his neck, tried not to break down and cry as something else was thrown over his head. He gave one hiccupping sob before there was the short sensation of falling, and then nothing.

This is the Tower you've built so carefully,
Out of cards and spit and glue,
And crafted with love and care,
Here comes the Nightmare,
And it is stunning.

Who was it you loved so deeply?
So strongly…
It was earth-shattering.

Description
Death.
Number XII.
13
Unlucky number
BAD NUMBER
NO
Massive change
Enormous upheaval
QUESTION YOURSELF
Change your outlook
There is a recovery.
And it will be a glorious sunset,
Of blazing beauty.

The Tower.
Destruction.
Devastation.
Irreconcilable, earth-shattering occurrences,
That bring down your flimsy,
Carefully-constructed,
House-of-cards life.
This is the tower that Jack built,
AND HERE IS THE NIGHTMARE TO CRUMBLE IT.

How can you tell which is which?

   Two Guards, two men, two uniforms. Two rifles, four shoes, forty fingers and toes, assuming the other one had all of his and no extras. Hayner liked the counting. He liked to think it kept him sane in a world gone mad.
   Two women in red habits, white wings reflecting the light so brightly, covering their faces, their heads. Two red and white blobs with no voices, no eyes, no pretty smiles. Because they weren't allowed to. Handmaidens were above and below everyone. They were magical, mystical, fertile. They could have children. But they were still women. And no woman was equal to a man in this world. And Hayner didn't like that.
   He remembered he'd once had a friend, a girl. A brunette. With two bright green eyes and perfect teeth and a smile that made his knees go wobbly, even if he didn't like her that way, as they used to say.
   He wanted to see her. He wanted the old days back. He missed his lover so very much… Sometimes he considered ending it all, but there was always that hope that his beloved was still alive. But what if he was? What then? He knew that if he saw Seifer again (only God knew what he'd be called now) that they would both be killed. He wouldn't be able to stop himself from… Well, whatever they did, be it a kiss or merely a hug or even more than either, they would be labelled as Gender Traitors and be put to death on the Wall.

   Oh God, he missed Seifer.

He remembered that once, Olette, his lovely brunette friend, had been into Tarot cards. He remembered having Death, the Hanged Man and the Tower read in his long-sight fortune. He'd freaked out at Death but after Olette had patiently explained that it could just mean a drastic change, albeit one you could recover from and see things as the Hanged Man; from a different perspective, he'd calmed down and laughed at his own silliness – it was only a pack of cards anyway.
He wasn't really sure he believed in them until one day, Seifer had slammed him into a wall and… He couldn't think about that here. He could get shot just for getting hard seemingly randomly. Well, Seifer had done something and he'd done some things back, too – he hadn't realised that the bad boy in the beanie, who'd always been his rival, was the one thing he wanted most.

   Well, looking back, Hayner was pretty sure that was his 'Death' card. And after that he was the Hanged Man – seeing things differently, being in love with the man who had once been his worst enemy. So was this his 'Tower'?
   He couldn't help but wonder. His entire way of life had been removed from him, his life had come crashing down around his ears. One piece of rubble, two dead bodies. One beautiful blonde with gorgeous blue eyes and one tall, skinny redhead with the mischievous smirk. Hanging from the Wall with bags over their heads and purple signs around their necks saying GENDER TRAITOR. They hadn't been careful enough, and Hayner had cried silently that night in his bunk – he could recognise his best friend and his best friend's boyfriend (they'd always joked that he was his brother-in-law), even with bags over their heads. Three pairs of eyes; the two Handmaidens and his fellow Guard. Four broken souls, he was sure. Five lampposts that he could see. Six rounds in a pistol. He wondered if it was a sin to play Russian roulette. Maybe. It was gambling.

   I miss you, Seifer. Goddammit, you fucking bastard. You can't just disappear like this. You're all I have left. The memory of you is all that keeps me going any more. Please come back. I'm breaking in half here, baby.

   It's amazing how little it takes for a human to adapt to fit a situation. Soon, it becomes normal. It became normal to see those red and white creatures walking around in pairs, always in pairs, and it became normal to see the bodies of Jews and Gender Traitors and Foetus Murderers and Politicals on the Wall.

   Eventually, it became abnormal to hear the word 'Mayday' said. Eventually the resistance became strange. He wanted to be a part of it, but he was afraid.

~*~*~*~*~*~

   He didn't know how long it had been since the Days. That sudden day when Olette called him, crying, saying she was frightened and she'd been fired and her card wouldn't work and did he know what was going on. He, Seifer and Pence had all rushed over to her place and they'd all watched the news report together. Women were no longer employable. They could not use their bank accounts without a man to access them. That night, Pence had finally proposed to her – he'd had a special dinner planned and everything, later in the month, but she wouldn't be able to afford to eat without her money so it would have to be now. So the next day, they had a drab little ceremony for all the wrong reasons.
Yes, they loved each other, but they had married out of necessity rather than in their own time.

At least they didn't get split up when everything happened. Olette was now an 'Econowife', as far as Hayner knew, and Pence was still married to her. Thank God neither of them had been married before, or it would be void.

~*~*~*~*~*~

   God, he missed Seifer. He missed the way the older blonde would shyly take his hand, unused to PDA. He missed the way he'd wrap his arms around him so tenderly after they'd made love. He missed the whispered 'I love you's and the late-night movies, and the fighting that always led to mindblowing making up. He even missed their teenage years, when they'd hated each other with such a passion that it was hardly surprising when things flipped. Oh God, he missed him.

   One Wife, two Handmaidens, three Guards, one priest hanging on the Wall. Hayner stared up at them and sighed. The Handmaidens must have been Politicals; they didn't hang signs around the necks of the women. The Wife must have killed, or tried to kill, a Handmaiden. That was pretty much all they could be executed for. Things were going mad. Public executions, bodies on display, women being made to be objects. Walking wombs. It was so very Medieval.

~*~*~*~*~

   Hayner woke up in his bunk, his face wet. He'd been crying in his sleep. Once, he would have been embarrassed and irritated with himself. In another 'once', he would have had a warm, willing body to turn and snuggle into, large, gentle hands to wipe the unconscious tears away. Not now. Now he was alone, and sick and tired of it all. He wanted to go home. Back to that horrible flat, with its peeling walls and mouldy cornices, back to Seifer and Chuchu, the sneezing cat, and Sam the upside-down fish. He wanted to go home, dammit!

~*~*~*~*~

   The next week, the Guard had been changed. He was now stationed with a tall blonde with blue eyes, and it made his heart ache that it wasn't the tall, blue-eyed blonde he longed to see. Two blondes, two blue eyes, two brown eyes, seven visible scars, none the right one.

   It was this painful resemblance to his lover, Hayner thought, that had Hayner replying,
"Yes, it is." To the new Guard's quiet,
"What a beautiful May day…"

   He had entered the Resistance.

   Maybe this was Death. Maybe it was not the end of all things. Maybe it wouldn't destroy him as much as he thought it would. He was doing something, at last. He had seen with his own eyes the black van come for one of the Handmaids, seen her willingly step into it, heard the near-silent whisper that it was Mayday and not the van that would take her to her doom. He wasn't stupid, though – that could all be a ruse, but somehow he thought it was true. He'd caught sight of the girl hurrying across the lawn once, in the depths of the night, going to a Guard's room, staying. He knew she had been breaking the law. But apparently that Guard was also a Mayday operative. Maybe she was safe now, in Canada perhaps. Maybe even England.

   If only he could believe that Seifer was too.

   In the end, he threw all caution to the wind and trusted Sam, his fellow Guard, and supposed member of Mayday, enough to ask if he'd met anyone called Seifer. When asked, he explained he was his lover. This could get them both killed, but he'd do anything to see Seifer again.

~*~*~*~*~

   News. One piece good, one bad. Seifer was alive. He was a Guard. He wasn't part of Mayday and would not respond when it was whispered to him.

   Oh thank God, he's alive. A part of Hayner screamed. But a smaller part whispered, what if he's been Conditioned?

   Eventually, after about a month, Hayner was repositioned up north, which was a relief – it was sweltering in that uniform in the summer.

   It was a shock. He had walked into the barracks and he swore his heart stopped. There he was. He couldn't let it show, couldn't stop dead, couldn't speak, couldn't run to him. Their eyes met and there was a small spark of something in those aqua eyes, quickly covered up and it shattered his heart. But then Seifer absently ran a hand through his hair and rolled his head slightly to the right, quickly showing five fingers before replacing his cap and walking casually away.

   Five minutes, the room to the right. Assuredly the toilets. Hayner's heart restarted, making up for lost time by hammering his ribs so hard he swore the other lackadaisical Guards could hear it. He strode over to the empty bunk and dumped his bag. He started to unpack it to fill time, before stretching and turning to go through the door to the lavatories.

   He sat in the end stall (these must have once been girls' loos – there were no urinals), fidgeting nervously for the next minute until e heard the door swing open.

   Five quick footsteps, two shiny black boots under the door, eight frantic heartbeats.

   Then the door to his stall was opened and swiftly closed and locked, he was standing on the seat so anyone walking past would see only one pair of shoes, and they were kissing, arms wrapped so tightly around each other that Hayner found it hard to breathe. Maybe that was just the sheer feeling of intoxication that Seifer's presence brought about in him after so long being apart.

"God, Seif, I missed you." He whispered into the taller blonde's ear.
"I love you, Hayner."

~*~*~*~*~

   And then the dream faded. He had asked about Seifer but there had been no reply. Not yet. He was losing hope. He hadn't been repositioned either – he was still stuck in that hot, horrible town in that hot, horrible uniform.

   Three pigeons, two Guards, two Handmaidens. One. Black. Van. Two men in black, jumping out of the van. One flash of fear, two flashes of light, sudden blackness.

Somewhere inside a blonde man, a child was crying and crying as though its heart had been torn apart, wanting and wanting and wanting for someone to hold him, someone he loved and needed.
'Seifer…'

~*~*~*~*~

   Two mornings later, it was the Men's Salvaging. They were held much more often than the Women's Salvagings. Hayner stumbled up onto that little wooden platform, sent a sad smile and halfhearted wink at the film camera, looked at the sky longingly, wished he could fly as free as that seagull, attempted to stand tall as that horrible white bag was placed on his head and secured around his neck, as the sign reading 'GENDER TRAITOR' was hung around his neck, tried not to break down and cry as something else was thrown over his head. He gave one hiccupping sob before there was the short sensation of falling, and then nothing.

This is the Tower you've built so carefully,
Out of cards and spit and glue,
And crafted with love and care,
Here comes the Nightmare,
And it is stunning.

Who was it you loved so deeply?
So strongly…
It was earth-shattering.