Friends Never Say Goodbye

Original



“Ryshar… you can’t keep doing this,” Yami said softly reaching out to steady his old friend. Ryshar stood in one place, but even so he was swaying slightly—obviously drunk. He had always been one to turn to the bottle in desperate and hard times. The last few years had been the hardest Ryshar had ever endured. He had lost his best friend. His lover. His Mathais. Even after three years it hadn’t become any easier.

Yet instead of trying to cope, to move on, to be happy he had turned his pain inward. His fix for his broken heart was to drink himself death. The day would come soon when he wouldn’t wake up. With each sip he took, each burning and disgusting sip that made his eyes water, he prayed that it would be his last.

Goddesses… did he miss him. How badly he missed that bright smile, those pure eyes, that magical laugh… He missed how that stupid redhead had always managed to make him smile. Ryshars heart seemed to miss a beat and for a moment he was hopeful that it was giving out. It gave a few more painful thuds and resumed its steady rhythm. Ryshar sighed harshly in disgust, tilted his head back and took another long draw from his whisky bottle.

“Damn it, Ryshar… Give me that,” Yami made an effort to take the bottle from his friend, but Ryshar shoved the other away with his forearm. After losing the support Yami had been giving him Ryshar reached out unsteadily for nothing in particular. He swayed heavily to one side and toppled over. He sat there, head hung, folded onto himself like some wounded animal ready to be devoured.

The softest of sighs escaped Yami’s lips and he slowly knelt next to his friend. His hands, though cold were gentle and soothing as they found the others shoulder. Ryshar began to shake and he let out a terrible noise that sounded like a sob but seemed so much more pained, so much more vulnerable than that.

“It’s… not. It’s not worth it.” Ryshar was saying, his voice a slur. Yami had to strain hard to understand him. “I can’t… not without him… It’s not worth it.”

Yami felt his heart tighten and he bit his lip to try and force back the tears that were suddenly trying so hard to slip from his eyes. It was a losing battle and when he blinked hot tears slid down both cheeks. Yami cleared his throat and wiped them away with his sleeve. “Come on, Ryshar… You can come stay with Kaelin and I… We’ll help you. I’ll help you.”

Ryshar shook his head fiercely, “No. I don’t want that… I don’t want it.” His weak and uncoordinated hands reached out to grip the grass and swaying dangerously he attempted to stand. He fell over twice before Yami reluctantly reached out to help the white-haired man to his feet. Ryshar blinked his golden eyes slowly. He stared hard at the cabin he and Mathais had shared. They had lived together for years and years… Mathais had been the one to save him… to pull him from those frozen streets in Stardome… to give him a chance to live—a chance to make something out of his life, that had, up until that point, been a life of a slave and nothing more. Mathais had lifted him from that despair… He had given him something to laugh and smile about… Something to strive for… A happiness that had been shattered and lost the day those blue eyes had closed forever. Ryshar could still remember how Mathais had died with a smile on his face, laughter still on his tongue…

Ryshar jerked his arm free from Yami’s hands and stormed towards the cabin, “You think you can mock me?” he screamed, shaking the bottle in his hand threateningly. Yami swallowed thickly, not at all liking the sudden sinking feeling he was getting. “You think it’s funny, huh?”

Ryshar reached into his pocket and it took Yami a moment to realize it was his cigarette lighter he was pulling out. The demon made a quick beeline to his intoxicated friend, “Ryshar, what are you doing? Put that away.”

For being so drunk, Ryshar moved surprisingly efficiently—almost like he had thought of doing this a million times. He jerked the sash from his waist and stuffed it hard into the half empty bottle.

“I said stop it.” Yami said sternly, grabbing for the makeshift Molotov. “You’re drunk, Ryshar. You—“ Even inebriated, Ryshar was far more stronger and at this point increasingly more aggressive. With a fierce shove he pushed the demon away and Yami stumbled back. It was enough of a stumble to give Ryshar the time to light the end of the sash and throw the bottle. “Ryshar!” the cry fell on deaf ears.

The bottle exploded in a brilliant scream of flames. Whisky sprayed across the wooden porch in flaming island that quickly spread into oceans as they greedily began to burn apart the dry wood. It hadn’t rained in weeks. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

Yami moved quickly, lifting up his hand to conjure a spell to douse the flames but Ryshar came at him suddenly. The demon stepped back turning to the other and tried to dodge the fist but he wasn’t quick enough. Ryshar caught him on the side of the face and Yami did his best to back up but Ryshar launched himself onto the smaller man. The two toppled over into the long grass and Ryshar pinned the other to the ground.

“Ryshar, get off me! You don’t know what you’re doing, you idiot!” Yami snarled, jerking his body about and trying to twist from the other man. Even though Ryshar had lost nearly thirty pounds during his depression over the years, he still weighed far more than Yami. It was like fighting against something inanimate—something that just took blows like it never hurt.

Yami finally stopped struggling and turned his head towards the cabin he, Mathais and Ryshar had once shared—but ultimately it had been the home of his two friends. Ash began to drift away and Yami squinted against it as it landed on his face and hair. He blinked it away from his eyelashes and then looked to Ryshar. The golden-eyed man was watching the home burn too. His face was twisted with emotions and he looked almost like he was regretting what he had done. After several minutes the cabin was completely aflame. The cabin began to creak and moan and finally the northern side gave in with a hiss and flare of orange embers and billow of smoke. The room had once served as the kitchen… Yami could remember the first time he had seen it…

Ryshar slowly sat back, still straddling the demon below him and smiled slowly. “It can’t haunt me anymore,” he said faintly, shaking. “Every time I touched something… I remembered him… His clothes… His books… His god damn ship models that he so obsessively collected.” It was all gone now… There were no more memories for him to hold in his hands and cry over. Not anymore… It was gone.

Ryshar tried to stand but ended up falling backwards onto his rump. He simply sat there and refused to watch the flaming cabin anymore. The ash was settling on them like some thin sheet of gray snow. Yami stood slowly, noticing how the fire was starting to spread further than the cabin. The damage had been done… it was time to end it.

The demon raised his left hand closed his eyes, “Beloved seas, gods of the depths, I summon thee and your endless oceans… Be gone, firestorm… Be gone and be at peace.” It was hardly a whisper in which he spoke and he was so advance of a sage that to utter the spell had been ridiculous. He had said it anyways… to the break the awkward silence perhaps.

With a hiss the flames were doused by a sudden and violent downpour of rain that seemed to conjure from no where. When the flames were out it smelled of burnt wood and seawater. There was a long painful silence.

Yami turned to his slouching and silent friend, “Ryshar, you’re coming home with me.”

“No.”

“I can’t leave you here,” Yami said sharply.

“You can’t fix me,” Ryshar replied quietly, spent.

Yami sighed, “Ryshar… He wouldn’t want this. He wouldn’t—“

“—what do you know of what he would have wanted?” Ryshar snarled, fists clenching at his sides as he turned his enraged face to the other. Yami tilted his head down slightly, meeting the others gaze evenly. “You left us.” Ryshar continued bitterly, “You left us with barely a thought. With the shittest of all goodbyes. You left as if we didn’t mean anything to you. So how dare you tell me what he wanted. How dare you.” He was crying as he spat the words out and Yami could only stare, startled, at how foreign those tears looked on his usually stoic and strong-willed friend. It was the worst Yami had ever seen him.

“Ryshar,” Yami said gently, “I have always been your friend whether I was nearby you or not. I am as much your friend today as I was all of those years ago. That’s why I can’t watch you do this to yourself… You’ve suffered enough.”

“Not enough…” Ryshar muttered softly, pulling his knees up and resting his forearms on them. “Go away. You can’t fix what’s not broken. I don’t want your help. I don’t need your help.”

“You’re killing yourself, Ryshar,” Yami said plainly, his voice flat. The wind suddenly picked up, blowing ashes into their faces and twisting their long locks in the air. Yami squinted against the ashes, but Ryshar seemed to not mind the stinging dryness. “I can’t watch you die, Ryshar.”

Ryshar dropped his head, shaking it. “Go home, Yami. Go home to your family. I don’t want you, your friendship or anything you have to offer. You’re dead to me. You have been the day you left.”

Yami’s mouth tightened and he blinked away the hurt tears. It wasn’t true… It couldn’t be true… Ryshar was just so damn swallowed by his pain that he wanted to just feel it… to feel something. Yami couldn’t even imagine life without Kaelin. He choked by the sudden horrible feeling tightening his chest. How awful it would be… to lose the one you love so desperately…

Ryshar stood slowly, shakily. It seemed that the burning of the cabin had sobered him up some and he wasn’t so tipsy. He reached up slowly to brush back his white locks, but he did not take his eyes off the charred carcass that had once served as his home. “I probably won’t ever see you again,” Ryshar said quietly, swallowing thickly. “So I guess this is it.”

When he looked to Yami his eyes were far away, haunted and miserable. Tears streaked over the ash that had settled on his face, but they were simply dry trails now. His face was sad; filled with more emotions than Yami thought possible. Yet underneath all of that there was just a terrible sadness. It was the look of a man who had given up. A man who had set his destiny for one end and one end only; death.

Ryshar waited a moment for Yami to reply, but he didn’t. The half-angel turned away without another word and walked quietly down the trail. Yami watched him go, unable to say anything, unable to stop him. All he could do was cry—silent tears that hurt more than the words that he couldn’t say.

He had a terrible feeling that he would never see his friend again.

~*~

Seven months later….

~*~

Yami sipped his tea quietly as he read. He was sitting at a small round glass table, adorned with white trim and simple little white chairs. In the middle was a small vase of brilliant flowers Kaelin had put together from the garden. It was a bright day—a beautiful day.

“Excuse me, Prince Yami?”

Yami looked up, setting down his teacup and reaching up to pull off his glasses. A shy and rather nervous looking young woman smiled hesitantly. “I have a letter for you…” she held it out to him and he quietly took it, tilting his head curiously as he read the return address. It was from Eagle View, Ulufia. Yami couldn’t quite recall having known anyone from there.

“Ah… Thank you, dear.” Yami said absently. The woman bowed quickly and made her way back to her waiting carriage. The letter had been sent to the castle and Ankei had probably sent the woman to deliver it to his brother.

Yami sat back in the chair as he eyed the letter, trying very hard to wrack his brain. Finally with a sigh he opened the letter and unfolded it.

Dear Prince Yami,

It is with great sadness that I have to inform you that Mr. Mellow has passed away. He was found unresponsive in his room here at the Eagle View Inn. We attempted resuscitation but there was nothing we could have done. He appears to have died of alcohol poisoning. There was a note in his pocket addressed to you. It has been enclosed with this letter. I am very sorry for your loss. He will be missed.

With Regards,

Susan Chart

Yami stared blankly, eyes searching the letter wordlessly… He shifted the letter and a smaller tightly folded and weathered looking piece of paper fell from behind it. With shaking hands he slowly unfolded it. In very familiar and messy handwriting read:

Yami,

You never said goodbye that day, but I’m glad you didn’t. Friends never say goodbye. So this isn’t a goodbye. It’s a see you later. It’s a ‘we’ll meet again someday in the next lifetime’. I never had the guts to say it then, so I’ll say it now since you can’t rub it in my face. I love you, got that? I always have and always will. I didn’t mean what I said that night. It’s been bugging me ever since… But, whatever. You forgive me. And so now I have favor to ask of you. Next time you pass by the cabin plant us some flowers. Mathais always liked roses. I think they would look nice. I think he would like it too. So don’t fuck it up and make sure it’s done right. We’ll be watching.

See you,

Ryshar

Yami slowly let his hand rest against his legs and shaking he looked away towards the horizon. Tears stood in his crimson eyes and his mouth was twitching. A part of him was sad—so sad. Painfully sad. A sad that was hard to explain. And yet…

Yami looked to the letter again. The name “Mathais” had been written so gently, so lovingly and so perfectly. It stood out against the messy and careless handwriting.

…they were together now.

That was a good feeling.


[Ramirez]

<sub>A/N: Warning: Mild swearing.

This is a piece in the part of my novel that I have been meaning to write for about a month or two now. When I was listening to the Disney song (shut up, they have good songs!) the song "Friends Never Say Goodbye" from the El Dorado movie came on and I was like, "That's perfect!" And so in my mind I went through the whole leaving thing... and so I thought it was appropriate to write the aftermath of all of it. This does mean that I decided to keep the plot-line: Beautifully Tragic where Mathais dies.</sub>




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