Shattered Mind - A KDA male reader

007 - Considering what is left

Like people from a family reunion making themselves comfortable. Everyone knows who they are and all they have to say to you is 'You've grown so much, you won't remember who I was but I used to help clean your diapers'.

Funny. This is the best comparison I have to describe it.

"Where's Jinx at?" Ekko shoots a glance around the room.

"She went out back," Carter gestures to the open door.  "Should I go fetch her?"

He smiles at him, shaking his head with a chuckle, "Have a go at it. No telling what's going to get her to change her mind but have a slight tinge that she wants you to take the bait, (Y/N)."

I gesture at myself, "For what exactly?"

"Hard to tell," he leans back in his seat. "So you two been friends with him long?"

I leave them to have their conversation as I step outside to see Jinx hovering near the grill, she's resting against the railing of the deck with her elbows placed firmly on the top of the wooden railing.

She tilts her head slightly at me as she watches through the few strands of hair hanging in her face. "Don't look at me like that, feels weird coming from you of all people."

I cross my arms, "Weird? Know that I am not exactly a mind reader?"

"Bet losing it was easier."

I purse my lips, "I don't know who you are."

"Not your fault," she shrugs, then throws her head backward her gaze is now locked onto the starry skies towards the tall buildings in the distance. "Nothing's ever your fault," she scoffs to herself, "even if it sometimes feels like it."

"So you visited to tell me that?" I ask her. Her attitude towards me has shifted drastically.

"I'm frustrated," she answers. "With all the secrets you've kept up your sleeves the hardest thing I have ever done was figuring out what happened to you. Little bird chirped too loudly and then I caught wind of it."

Is this what is? Blaming me for being someone I didn't even know existed. I glance at the people in the living room talking to Ekko.

"You think any of your friends around here know who we are? Who your other friends are?" She laughs, "Oh hell it's not like I expect them to know or anything but I thought you'd at the very least have included them in your life, dummy."

Am I supposed to just take this? Or maybe this isn't what this is? Maybe another person taking out their frustrations over someone who died and is taking it out on a corpse barely living. Maybe this is exactly what this is.

I walk to the side of the deck, I rub the back of my neck as I defend my former self, "I love them like brothers but when it came to the rest... I felt like it was better to keep those close to the heart. Safer for everyone that way."

"Limelight scared the shit out of you, didn't it? One close call is all it took for you to think about every word. Even the teeniest tiniest of details would have gone through intense consideration before you ever said a thing."

I glance at her, "What if that close call is the reason I was in the ER?"

"I never blamed you."

"But you are, right now."

"Please," she pushes herself off of the railing. "If I wanted to blame you for something I'd rather beat it out. Well..." she gives me a nasty side-eye, "I do want to blame you and your stupid face for a lot of things."

"So I'm stupid," I pull my gaze away from her. "And before that?"

She doesn't respond for a bit, I try to spot her out of the corner of my eye but she snuck up on me to whisper to me, "Don't pick at my head like that. You aren't going to be happy to know what kind of person you were."

"One you hated," I turn around, she's terribly close to me.

She is now smiling up at me with a cocky look on her face. She folds her hands behind her back as she leans closer to me, "Soo much hate." She takes a step forward, I instinctively step backward but she grabs my wrist to keep me in place.

Our faces are incredibly close to each other. "I-"

She chuckles as she whispers to me, "I know what you are doing, (Y/N) (L/N). It's sweet but you wouldn't be able to tell the truth from a silly lie." She tilts her head at me.

"Caught on to that?"

"Hmm hm," she nods. "It's obvious. But... thanks anyway. I don't feel any better though."

I nod with a slight frown, "Sorry-"

She tugs me closer as if to steal a kiss. I don't know if it could classify as such but it was so quick and she created distance between the two of us even quicker. "I do now, just a little bit." She leaves me alone on the deck confused as she regroups with the trio on the inside.

Another question in my mind, but this time it sunk all the way down to my stomach and took my heart down with it.

If you had someone you grew up with all your life... would you expect them to share their life with you? Would you think yourself important enough to be a part of that? Would you think yourself important enough to be included in that?

Or is this beyond that?

Or am I a worse person than I am told to believe?

Or am I the bad guy because I had to decide to protect others? A decision the other half would have hated me for?

Jesus Christ, (Y/N). You've left me with more trouble than I am starting to think either of us is worth. Yet these people seem to rank you higher than I'd have expected to ever be on a list, you've left big boots to fill and right now I wonder if leaving them empty would be easier for all of us.

Or would I just be shooting myself in the fucking skull at this point? Walking out on everything "I" potentially loved.

"She gives you that much trouble you are stunned out here?" I lift my head to meet Ekko's gaze as he walks up to me with his hands in his jacket pockets. "Or just give more of a headache than any of us are willing to sit with?"

I chuckle, "She that bad?"

"Nah, not really. She was dead set on finding you though, I only tagged along because I wanted to see for myself if you are on your two feet." He gestures at my eyes, "Can see it though, you don't look at people the same way."

"Eyes give you away pretty quickly, doesn't it?"

"This case is special, but it probably counts for more than you think." I doubt that is the case, all I have been doing ever since waking up in that bed has been thinking. Thinking about the past, present, and the empty future in front of me.

"I suppose me saying, who are you, also plays a part."

"For sure." He takes a deep breath, "It's worth considering, ain't it? Where you will be going from here on out? Don't let them trick you into thinking you are already someone when the best thing the lot of us have to be is ourselves."

"Even if me and 'him' are two different people that the end of the day?"

"Cards might play the same, it might not even be a game of cards. Think it through, is this you? Or him? Are you him... or are you just you?" He stretches out his hand forming a fist, I bump my fist awkwardly against his and he stretches out that hand to pat my shoulder. "Simple, isn't it?"

"Can't get any more complicated than that?"

"Only way is up. We are down here here," he gestures that given the circumstances, this is as low as it gets. "To you, you are a nobody. To some of the people here, you are part of something, to others, you were their everything. Just depends if you want to play into that, that's all I wanted to tell you. Think about it."

I nod. "I'll probably be thinking about it."

"Best is to start over, kill him if you have to. In the end the real (Y/N) will show himself, just gotta decide what kinda man that is."