Work Text:
This is the story Xander Matthews would like to tell.
He wakes up one morning to the news. Chariton, first few victims. He rings up the address— tells his mum that it’s not safe— it doesn’t matter, finals don’t matter, he’ll come home and help pack everyone’s things. They’ll go somewhere else, it doesn’t matter where. Just anywhere that wasn’t there.
But this is not what happens, because Xander Matthews is not a good son, not a good brother, not a good person.
This is what happens: Xander Matthews lives. Xander Matthews aces his finals. Xander Matthews has nothing.
This is the story Xander Matthews would like to tell.
He doesn’t really believe in his talent as the Ultimate Rebel— it’s likely just a show of publicity. He only does what he thinks is right.
But he does believe in power structures, what real strength a title can hold.
Institutional fact: He is a student at Hope’s Peak, the brightest of hopes and the dirtiest of underbellies.
Social fact: He is the Ultimate Rebel, with his steel-toed boots and flaming red hair. People like him fight.
Brute fact: They tear his eye from its socket and he can’t save Mai.
This is the story Xander Matthews would like to tell.
He’s a good kind of friend.
And he likes Teruko Tawaki, in her clumsiness, in the awkward ways she shows she cares. She looks at his scar and doesn’t look away.
He would like to say that he fought until the end, that he died as he lived— but this is wrong.
Because this is the truth: he is not a good victim. He does not fight, he sees the note and does not fight the compulsion, gives in— because the truth is that Xander Matthews has always been weak.