Mega Man Fan Fiction ❯ TENACITY (Zero/X) ❯ Breakdown ( Chapter 3 )

CHAPTER THREE:

 

X couldn't be more relieved when the door shut and they began the walk home down the hall; still holding onto Zero tightly. It was silent for a while, but without looking down to him, Zero ended up speaking, the only line of conversation on their way back.

“He can't hurt you anymore, X”.

X looked to Zero, wordless and with a strange, strained, expression to his face. He stopped himself from crying when a smile came to his face. He rested his head against Zero's arm he was still clinging to, sighing to himself.

 

 

X dreamt over the events the past week had presented him with. He woke up not to the memory of the rape incidents, but instead Zero's words. He rubbed his eyes, trying to get his head on straight. He still seemed confused, trying to get his head to function right; caught somewhere between harsh reality and the dreams that plagued his sleep.

He looked up when he felt a hand run through his hair. X had figured out he was sleeping in Zero's embrace now, he couldn't read the blonde's expression though. He had no idea what to say, where to start. Memories flooding his head. How he was attacked, thought he was okay, Zero promised him he was safe after all. Then he goes out on his own and gets attacked again. Being drugged…and then his breakdown. Biting his lip X's bemused look darkened. A painful understanding taking over.

 

X felt tears fall down his face again. He pulled away though when Zero went to wipe them away. X shut his eyes, not wanting to look as he whispered arduously:

 

“Liar…”

 

He didn't look back to see what response he got before he attempted to get up. Feeling weak as he stood on his own. He went to the other side of the room to dress himself. Not looking back as he walked out to go get something to eat. He didn't know if Zero had followed him yet or not. Or if he'd made him angry by his accusation before. X was so stupidly spaced out he forgot how bad things got if Zero was angry. How much he could get himself hurt if he got on the older reploid's bad side.

 

But X suddenly stopped. Staring ahead to nothing. The tears coming back full force. His knees went weak and he fell down to the ground again, sobbing. Every memory in his head agonized him. He was too busy stuck in his own head to notice Zero standing in the doorway behind him watching him as a wretch on the ground.

 

It was true; he said Sigma couldn't hurt him anymore. Yet he let his guard down and allowed X to go out on his own. And look what that resulted in. Just got careless, he mused, scornfully. He didn't have anything to say to X, though he doubted anyone would have better luck trying to talk to him right now anyway. So he left him there on the floor and walked ahead nonchalantly, sitting down to eat, trying to ignore the cries the brunette was failing at muffling.

“You gonna get up yet?”

He didn't get a reply, rolling his eyes again at how hopeless X was. He ignored him the rest of the morning. He later went back to the bedroom to get his armor, knowing he had to head out.

“I'm going out X, don't you even think about leaving; I'm locking you in to make sure of that”. Again, he got no reply, but that didn't faze him. X was aware of the door closing and the sound of it locking, but didn't get up, strenuously crying out still.

 

 

***

 

 

Zero was happy he didn't walk in to Sigma when he headed to the receptionists' office. The ladies there were always flirtatious; not that he had any interest in them, doubt they'd be any thrill. He asked them for a form, they looked at him a moment, but by his aggravated look didn't press to ask why. He walked away, deciding to go back and see if X had pried himself from the floor yet, or maybe exhausted himself to sleep from crying so much.

 

“Zero, can I have a moment”, he turned at a T-section of the hall, seeing Dr. Cain walk up to him. The old human paused, waiting till he was sure he had Zero's attention. Not noticing Zero put a hand behind his back to hide the form he had. He noted for the old doctor to continue.

“X is your student, so I figured you know more about the situation; the 17th Unit has some concerns since he hasn't shown up to any training session and when a mission comes up you've had to explain a reason for why he can't make it”. He paused; Zero was wordless and unfazed. Not that he expected him to be very forthcoming. “Is there anything serious going on?”

 

He could've told the whole darn story. But he doubted it'd do any good unless it came from X. He waited a moment, thinking of a round-about way of replying.

“He's just been in a bad head-space”. Was the simply reply, leaving Cain pondering. “Give him some leave time and he should be back fine again; might even be able to get him up to A-rank soon, he's been improving a lot”. Zero had to add some sort of sugar onto his otherwise blunt response; otherwise he'd get ridiculed more on the matter.

“Just make sure it's nothing too serious. Otherwise he should see the medics”.

 

Zero faked the formalities, getting on his way before any more questions could fly at him. When he pressed through the halls, a path usually naturally parted, no one wanting to get in his way. Especially when he seemed in a foul mood; like he was in now. He unlocked the door to his apartment and went back in, seeing X had moved from his spot on the floor to the couch, where he lay aimlessly. At least the crying has stopped, the thoughts left Zero wrongly smirking. He turned the TV off to get X to look at him, neither of them in a good mood; and ironically not wanting to put up with the other's disposition. Zero threw the form on the table.

“You're filling it out”.

X sat up, turning his head away and shook it to say `no'. Zero sat down next to him, X trying to hide the hurt look on his face.

“Fine, I'll fill it in, and then you sign it”.

“N-no…!” X weakly tried. When he moved to try and snatch the pen from Zero, he wasn't really thinking how it was a bad idea. Zero forcefully shoved X back, who then went quiet in submission. Zero was not someone he wanted to get into a violent mood. Sitting back into the lounge X put his hands up to his face crying. Somewhere in between his sobs he had begged the word `no' to Zero, who simply ignored it.

 

He watched Zero fill it in, wanting to tear it up then and there.

“It wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for you; this was just his way of getting at you, it's obvious how much you hate each other!” X didn't realize a moment he slipped his thoughts. Zero looked up to him in silence a moment, before quietly laughing under his breath at how stupid his call was.

“I saved your ass, now shut up. You'd have gotten attacked before then if I still forced you to take the daily reports on your own”.

“But you lied to me…you said he couldn't hurt me anymore!” X cried, insulted Zero had laughed at him.

“What? You can't handle someone screwing you ever once in a while? Grow a backbone or something, runt”.

When X didn't reply, Zero eventually shifted over to see X staring at him, a mortified look to his face.

“What's with that look?”

X bit his lip and tried to look away in his disbelief, but only ended up shaking his head. Tears formed in his eyes again and trailed down his face.

 

 

Zero was always just absolutely cruel.

 

 

 

“Sign it”, Zero ordered, offering X the pen. He looked to the form, back to Zero, and simply shook his head in refusal.

“You said it yourself, I can't protect you forever from would-be attackers. I'm not sticking around to hold your hand forever. So just fucking report it already, X”. Zero sat back, he was as irritated as ever. And a mentally unstable X was just plain annoying in his books.

“I'll make things worse if I do”.

“Then what? It's not like you can quit the Hunter's force either; you've got nowhere to go. So your options are suck it up or report it”.

 

In the silence that followed Zero picked up the report and stuffed it in one of the kitchen draws as he walked away, pulling a beer out of the fridge for himself. It was obvious what X's answer was. He kept sitting there alone.

“Hurry up and do something useful”.

X got up eventually after Zero pressed him. Both of them knew it was staying unresolved. Zero had moved to the other room to get rid of his armor, and following Zero's last words, X moved to the kitchen to start to make dinner. Thinking maybe by giving himself a task he could also distract himself from his own thoughts.

 

 

***

 

X was still in the process of making dinner like usual, seeing as the two rarely went to the cafeteria anymore anyway. Neither of them tended to socialize with any of the other Hunters; both outcasts, in that sense. Zero turned the TV on when he came back to the main room, flicking to the news X had figured by what he could hear. More Maverick attacks; they were in a rise, only the human casualties were doubling. The humans were aggravated at the Hunters for not doing their job properly. Funny, humans keep you till you either loose purpose or you irritated them by not doing what they wanted exactly how they wanted things. If Zero didn't enjoy the thrill of the fight, he wouldn't have stayed a Hunter. He didn't give a damn what happened to any of the humans; this was just a game to satisfy his bloodlust.

“I forgot to mention Dr. Cain pulled me over to talk early today”. Zero began, a tone to his voice. “The 17th Unit apparently went behind my back and complained about your absence to him”.

 

X didn't reply. He continued cutting up food on the board so he could finish cooking their meal.

“How long are you going to be AWOL on them for?” When X didn't reply again, he heard Zero snicker.

“Soon, okay?” X replied finally, trying to not sound irritated by Zero's attitude towards things, but failing.

“You won't file a report, so you're going to have to get over this on your own. You're the companionate type, right? Well they're talking about all those `oh-so-poor' humans dying more and more to Maverick attacks. And here you are being a wuss over someone fucking you. Mustn't be that bad seeing as you won't report it”.

 

That hit X hard. He turned around, he was actually annoyed to the point he was angry. He raised his voice.

“What's that meant to mea—OW!”

Instead of finishing his retort to Zero—which would've defiantly ended badly anyway—X jolted, realising the knife he was cutting with had just collided with his hand. Zero turned when he heard the crashing sound of X dropping it, where it bounced from the bench and crashing onto the floor. He got up when he saw X grasp at his hand.

X turned away when Zero got up to try and look at what mess X had done to himself. He was biting the inside of his cheek to stop himself from crying. But Zero took X's wrist and pulled his good hand away from the other to unveil his bloody right hand, still oozing from the accidental gash. He studied it a moment, and by the looks of it, the cut wasn't too deep, but it was still bleeding pretty badly. X was wincing not just in pain, but also from the mere sight of it.

“Stupid”, Zero derided with a leer. He moved away to get a bandage for it out of the cupboard.

 

Waiting for Zero to find it X looked down to his wound, and even though disgusted by it, for some reason couldn't rip his eyes from the sight of it; nor could he stop thinking about the pain it left him with. It took Zero touching his hand to pull it over to bandage, for X's trance with the wound to break.

“I'll finish making dinner”, Zero groaned after he was done, washing his hands to get X's blood of them. X sighed, moving away when Zero signaled for him to get out of the kitchen and out of his way. He felt like an idiot now. He looked to the tight bandage around his hand as he sat down on the couch. He just kept staring at it.

 

 

***

 

 

Trying to keep composed now, X decided it was best not to let out anymore verbal retorts to challenge what Zero said. After all, he was probably right anyway. He sighed. The next day was here and he still felt choked up. Zero had left early for a mission with the 17th Unit. He managed to get X out of it again, but X knew he couldn't keep this up much longer before people started to seriously question him. And he didn't want to give them the answers. He was home again today, and would spend it on his own. He didn't really have anything to do; and Zero had locked him in again so he couldn't leave. Not that he had any intensions of trying, locked door or not. The kitchen was still a mess; coated with the remains of dinner and breakfast. Deciding he needed to do something he figured cleaning it up would have to do.

 

When he went to wash the dishes, in the sink he saw the knife he'd stumbled with the day before sitting there, having been washed up now. He didn't know why, or for how long, he stopped to stare at it. He tried ignoring it, putting the rest of the dirty plates in there to clean up. X kept it up for a while till he was up to drying everything and putting it away. Emptying the sink, the last thing for him to pick up though…

 

…Was the knife.

 

 

X turned away, looking to his hand, taking off the old bandage that had ruined itself while the wound had still wept while he slept. It was still pretty ugly, the remains of the gash; although no longer bleeding. He threw the bandage away. He went back to the sink and pulled the knife out with the intension of putting it away. But he didn't. He pulled an apple from the fruit basket, not with the intension of eating it, instead cutting it. He couldn't even explain why he wanted to, he just did. Liking the forceful sound as it broke the pieces apart. It was strangely brain numbing, or at least worked better at blocking out his bad thoughts than the TV had.

 

Carelessly he pressed the knife's edge against his finger, lightly, but still enough to get a drizzle of blood, which he watched fall. He took the knife out of the kitchen and sat on the floor closer to where the TV was, although he's turned it off now. While he bled like that, he saw the pain everyone else had left him with bleed out of him as well. The pain was fore-bounding, so it numbed out the memories. He liked that. Which was the only thing that had him raise the knife to his wrist. Right now he was desperate.

 

 

X grimaced as he felt his stomach churn, almost finding it hard to watch himself as blood oozed out as he tore open a gash. He stopped, but attempted it again, pressing it down against his wrist and slowly striking across it, still unsure of what he was even planning to achieve with this in the end. But by the third time, it was a lot easier, so he decided to keep going…

 

 

***

 

 

The room had a strange smell when he walked inside. And even though it was night, the lights were out. X never went to bed until he got back, so Zero was curious as to what was different. And what he saw was defiantly not what he expected to find.

 

He saw the blood, he saw the knife…

…And he saw X…

 

 

 

“Moron!” he snarled, grabbing X's arms—avoiding gripping his wrists—to pull X away from himself, who struggled against him.

“Let me go!!”

The sound of Zero's fist against X's face followed. Planting X down onto the floor, giving Zero enough time to disarm him and throw the knife across the room. Pushing X down again when he tried to move.

“Fucking calm down!” X only sobbed though, crying uncontrollably now. He shook his head to say `no'. He tried pushing Zero off-of him. Kicking him in the gut to push him back.

“Leave me alone!”

“God dammit, X, you effin—”.

“SHUT UP”.

Zero grabbed X off the ground, hitting him across the face again, but holding him so he didn't fall back.

“Talk to me like that again and you won't need the knife to get yourself killed!”

Zero let X go, who couldn't keep standing, and instead fell down in the mess of his own blood on the ground. Hollering.

“Fucking leave me alone! Don't stop me!”

When X retorted, Zero ended up kicking him, before he stomped X down. His cry out muffled as Zero pushed his head forcefully to the ground. Livid at him. Letting him go a moment, X only kept crying, now grasping at his wrists painfully. Zero watched X as he looked at his wrists again; being disarmed didn't stop him from gauging his own fingers at them.

 

Zero jostled him, pinning him to the ground with his own weight, protecting X from himself. He swore at him a while longer, trying to get to shut up from screaming. Both of them had gotten the mess of X's blood on themselves. But like always, the only way X stopped crying was when he exhausted himself. Zero figured he could let go of him and moved to just sit next to him. X just lay there, quietly sobbing, the two of them there for what seemed like ages. Zero left him when the sobbing eventually stopped. He picked up the knife as he walked to the kitchen, tossing it away with the rubbish, the thing was too tainted to use on food again anyway. He took the bandages and walked back over to X, prying him off the floor to make him sit up as he tended to his wrists. They were silent; X didn't even look at Zero. Maybe he finally had his thoughts together enough to figure out how stupid he was. And how by hacking into himself like that wasn't going to take away the two incidents he'd been through. But X was left to wonder if Zero got now how much it'd affected him for him to become so desperate like that.

 

Feeling weak, and a little dizzy because of blood loss, X relied on Zero to do all the work on his wrists. X cooperated, but the pain of what he did was finally kicking in, making him start sobbing again.

“Z-ze…ro…” he managed. “I'm sorry…I'm sorry…”

He didn't get a reply. Zero seemed more annoyed than empathetic towards the situation. He was too cold to actually offer X any actual comfort.

 

“Common”, he gruffly sighed as he got up. He took X's hand to help him up, wary not to actually touch his raw wrists. X let himself be helped to his feet. Zero leading him to the bedroom. He stopped to turn back to X, pulling the younger one's shirt off. He got rid of both their clothes—keeping their boxers on, at least—seeing at how wrestling each other out there had gotten blood on them just as much as the carpet. X shied away, not saying anything as he let Zero guide him; doing what he was told.

“T-this is your bed…” X weakly tired as Zero pushed him down.

“Obviously. But I need to know you're where I am, and not elsewhere cutting into yourself”. X sighed, it was strange at how Zero could show signs of some sort of care. He lay down and let Zero draw him closer to him. X at first felt awkward, especially with the lack of clothing between them. But he felt safe in Zero's arms, burring his head into his chest. For a first time in ages, X fell asleep peacefully, instead of exhaustion from screaming. Zero ran a hand through X's hair. Kissing the younger one's forehead before tightening his hold of him.

 

 

***

 

He knew it wasn't a dream, yet waking up it almost felt like one. But looking to the bandages on his wrists confirmed everything; although it seemed surreal, it really happened. Zero was still in bed with him, and seemed to have been waiting for X to wake up before getting out.

“…Morning, Zero”. X attempted a smile. Zero let X go as he sat up, unresponsive.

“Go make breakfast”.

“O-okay”, X replied, complying with the order as he got out of bed.

“Just because you wanna hack yourself apart doesn't mean I give you any special treatment”. Zero added.

“…”

“And after that, you can clean up the mess you made on the carpet, if anyone comes in here, that bloody patch is going to stir questions”.

 

X got dressed, left the room and headed to the kitchen to quickly get the two of them something to eat. He looked over his shoulder, it'd defiantly take a while to get that ghastly blood stain out of the carpet; it had started to stink too. He defiantly would have to get that done today before he got another rant from Zero.

 

 

 

 

-----

 

Author's Note: oh common, its obvious he'd try something like that! I mean, I know people who have attempted their life (thankfully unsuccessful, might I add, and they're better now) and it really is a sign of desperation. I hope I captured his irrational logic behind it. And yeah, Zero's kinda a bastard, he's not going to show “sympathy”, he's defiantly the violent type, which you'll see more of, I can assure you. Read on, the story picks up the pace soon!