▹modest mouse || satin in a coffin
Are you dead or are you sleepin’?
Are you dead or are you sleepin’?
Are you dead or are you sleepin’?
God, I sure hope you are dead.
It wasn’t strange to L-Elf that A-Drei had built up so much anger from his presumed betrayal. No, it seemed to be the most natural thing to him, but rather it was the forgiveness and acceptance that was so easily given that he could not understand.
The entire situation with this alien race, these Magius creatures.. he had never once thought he could convince so many that his body had been stolen and his hands had been forced to commit a deed he was loathe to be a part of, yet somehow he had been part of an entire nations awakening to their influence.
If he wasn’t one to take his own fate into his own hands he would have called it destiny.
"My prophecies may not be little more than dreams, A-Drei."
"I merely strive to make such dreams come true." It didn’t entirely mean that he hadn’t put as much thought and calculations into them as possible, however. A certain understanding of those around him and their actions and reactions was undoubtably needed in order to succeed in any of his predictions. "And perhaps there will be fortunate circumstances where you will achieve your ultimate dream… or perhaps you will create those fortunate circumstances. The pieces play a role far beyond just one player’s judgement, after all."
The other’s words elicited a laugh from him, their closeness making the sound all the louder as his words were spoken into A-Drei’s ear. "An invitation now is it? And if I asked would you extend one your most esteemed royal highness?"
L-elf was the only person A-drei considered a friend, a best friend. He would forgive him time and time again, even if he did not entirely understand the situation in it's entirety. As long as L-elf wanted it, he would give it to him on a golden platter. He would give many things to and for the other.
And this, A-drei was certain, is love.
With any other person he would get angry, he would hold his grudge. But with far more passionate feelings of upset-ness. He would come off far more rigid, and his words sharper than ever, were he truly angry with someone else.
Not with L-elf, however.
A click of his tongue,"Whether I get the throne or not, I will make Dorssia into a respectable country again," it would just make things so much easier and less likely of causalities if he were obtain the thing he had been stripped of from basically birth,"I'll make it so that even you will be able to say with whole truthful pride that you are a Dorssian, L-elf,"
.... What.
This was just L-elf playing, was it not? L-elf was just trying to embarrass him for some old time sake. A little odd though considering none of their squad was around to laugh along with him at A-drei's fairy dusted face. Or even the sound of his heart beating fast enough to break out through his own chest cavity. What a cruel joke.
But A-drei was more than willing to call him on his bluff.
"Of course, such a soldier like yourself deserves to have the most roomy seat available,"
For a moment he only looked at that glass eye, shining blankly at him, it’s lavender hue that was strange and dead and he only hoped that he would never see the other eye reflect such a thing.
Enough had been lost, and it was far past the time for sweeping away the rubble and building upon new foundations.
L-Elf had moved on from dreams and goals now that he was living them, fighting for their fruition, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate the here and now and those who were alive to experience it with him.
Violet eyes regarded the other with something akin to amusement at those words, a smirk crossing his lips before he drawled out, "Cockpits in general are made for one pilot. No matter how much I attempt to distance myself it would only hinder the both of us and cause discomfort." He tilted his head to the side, the glint of enjoyment in his eyes from playing this teasing game.
"In fact, were I closer I suspect it would be even easier for you to focus on hauling both of these hunks of metal in, as your leg space would be freed." His body was pressed closer, face blank in a professional mask with only the slightest intent to help shown. It really wouldn’t do for them to be stranded with less than appealing rations and hardly the space to stretch out between the two of them.
"No matter what side of the table we are on, it seems that we will always have the same end goal." "You could even refer to it as our own prophecy." While A-Drei did have slightly better movement available to him now, there was no denying that L-Elf was quite purposefully making a nuisance of himself, pressing one of his thighs against the other and even crossing one leg over to partially extend over both of their laps.
More often than not, A-drei did his best to cover the damaged eye socket with his hair. Before, it had naturally fallen into place as a curtain, so it wasn't too sudden of a change for those around him. It still stung though, it stung every time he had to remove and replace the glass eye. It stung him physically, and mentally. To remember the hurt he felt when he'd thought it'd been L-elf himself for so long to take it away from him. Even now, knowing it had been Haruto, it still pained him. To think of how much of an angry grudge he felt towards L-elf's apparent betrayal. How blind he'd been in so many more ways to not see what was actually going on just from the one man army's actions.
His glass eye served him as a reminder for how much of a fool he'd been before.
Out of shame is why he chose to nonchalantly do his best to cover it more assuredly every now and then. Covering it was just harder to do so when he had no choice but to pull his hair up.
"I don't make prophecies, I just make wishes. It's just a coincidence that a prophecy of yours happens to collide with a dream of mine," not that A-drei was being a pessimist, he just did not wish for himself to become too hopeful for things on the Dorssi end.
"Although there's the chance that all of my wishes might have more chances of becoming realities if this Dorssia reset goes well, I'll have my candidacy for the throne restored. I'll have a chance to be the emperor and restore Dorssia to what it once was," there were still many other candidates for the throne, even with the magiuses being picked out. ( Only due to that the person was no longer the person who had been born into this line of royalty. ) One that had had his title stripped of him still had slimmer chances than the rest.
A-drei was placing all of his hopes in the hands of his dear homeland.
Going back to the more enjoyable, and lighter, side of the conversation A-drei just couldn't help the short snicker that escaped him,"If I didn't know any better, L-elf, I'd say it sounds like your just waiting for an invitation to sit in my lap,"
It was perhaps a calculated move, joining his old squad mate on such a venture, but L-Elf was nothing if not determined and entirely willing to step back into his past in order to make his dream -Liselotte and Haruto and so many other’s dream- come true.
It helped that A-Drei had been a close friend until his body had been used to attack and injure him, and even then somehow the other Dorssian was capable of forgiveness and an impeccable understanding of L-Elf once he had been exposed to the astonishing truth. There were many other’s who would not so willingly accept the creations borne from the Valvrave’s, the shattering affect they had on their current world, but A-Drei had taken it in stride and accepted what L-Elf and the other’s were so desperately trying to do once the facts were fully laid out for his remaining eye to see.
There would always be regret that his hands and body had deprived his old squad mate of his vision in one eye, buried deep within him where he forced the feelings he had never believed he had time for. Feelings like the moment when he gazed into a member of his squad’s eyes and shot him point blank, and began paving a road for himself full of bloodshed and stolen lives.
L-Elf was a meticulous being, and when the best had been a cold-blooded killer he had risen to the challenge, wanting to be more and gain enough power to achieve his goal of freeing Liselotte.
Either way, it was an almost welcome reprieve to be with one of the few living people who did not gaze at him with dark suspicion or fear, and so here he was, with a junked Annihilator being hauled back with A-drei’s mech and both of them sitting together in close quarters. "It is hardly any trouble to help you, and this exercise promotes wellbeing and alliance between our forces."
"…No matter the state of the equipment when we are finished with it." On the record that is. Off the record he was finally spending time with someone that didn’t make him want to shoot them, a miracle considering the political battleground he had been yanked into as another informed spokesperson (or more accurately the main strategist and tactician for their army).
"I understand, your highness." His knees jostled against the other’s as he shifted to find a more comfortable position.
Some might find it astonishing to find that the former prince actually trusted few and considered even less his friends. ( What with his friendly smile, undying loyalty to his homeland, and the willingness to put his life on the line for a fellow Dorssian soldier. ) A trait attributed to his dreams, his wish, of wanting to have his very own revolution for his once admirable country. Those few who he did consider his friends, he had an endless capacity to forgive them. Especially his best friend, the one he'd been close to since they'd met. A-drei wanted nothing more than for L-elf to be his right hand, and left eye, but he would not even attempt to hold his friend back for such a selfish reason now that he knew what had been going on truthfully.
"Of course. I'd like to see you at a negotiations meeting, L-elf. It will be weird, however, to see you across the table from me, haha,"
Ah, how refreshing to hear that 'nickname' leave L-elf's lips again. Once or twice, L-elf had still called him that respectfully during his rebellion, but there had been underlying feeling of.. something not good. A thin layer of something sticky that made A-drei cringe.
Good feelings aside though, L-elf's position was not great at all. Out of impulse, A-drei quickly moved to re-position his own leg that had been knocked the slightest bit out of place. Were he a newbie, all these motions would have caused them to speed up all too suddenly.
"...Is there not room somewhere else for you, L-elf? We don't want to be stranded with two junked mech,"
Literally anywhere would probably be better for them right now.
Missions after missions, it seemed like it's just an endless stream of them lately. Not even a moment to stop and breathe for more than five minutes. It was maybe even okay to consider time to eat and sleep miracles with this onslaught of new objectives.
A never ending list of things to do seemed liable, however, when your country was under heavy lack of supervision. All the other countries shifting, even, from life-changing situations.
Even more so when all but one of your squad is dead.
With things submerged under such chaos, squads could not be re-assigned unless it just became absolutely unavoidable. Squads, and their members, needed to stick to their areas. The places they knew better than the other areas. Brewing other knowledge with the better knowledge was just not something they could afford right now.
Luck had seemed on A-drei's side, as L-elf had decided to accompany him as an old squad member. ( And still under his original status of a special Lieutenant of the Dorssia army. ) It didn't leave the former prince alone, with the unnatural silence in his headpiece.
It would have been detrimentally depressing were he forced to go out by himself right now.
"Thank you again L-elf for taking time away from your country to help aid with the clean up of mine," and no matter the hidden reason for his thankfulness towards L-elf, he still engraved this last time they'd work together like this into his brain,"I'm sorry that your Mechanized Annihilator was also not in it's top condition. Check ups for our equipment and soldiers have been very strained,"
Space pirates. Annoying little shits.
L-elf hadn't been hurt himself however, and it wasn't too junked that it would be trashed when he returned it to the hanger.
"Do your best to make yourself comfy until we get back," difficult, considering how much smaller the cockpits of these mechs were.
Already seated in the pilot's seat, A-drei finished tying off his hair so not to get it caught between plug suit and helmet, and slipped the before mentioned headgear on,"I'll try to make it as quick as possible while carefully hauling the other,"
It'd been months that they'd been holding off for the conversation that had not ended even a half hour ago. Duties called though, and the needs of their countries is what came first before their personal affairs like this.
It had started off terribly awkward, neither not sure where they wanted to begin... or should begin. If only it were possible to convey everything at once. Eventually, A-drei had been the first to speak up. Informing L-elf of what knowledge he'd come to gain about the girl...the magius who had driven the prophet to betray his own best friend momentarily. He knew that L-elf had loved her, that they had not met very often. How many times they'd come into contact exactly was unknown to him at first. He knew what she had been.
A-drei apologized for her death. It had been in his homeland that she'd been imprisoned. Of course he had no authority of his country any longer, for the moment, but he still felt the need to apologize to L-elf.
A-drei comforted L-elf, his best friend, for the lose of his love. Speaking words that made sense, and calmed the clearly emotionally agitated soldier. Expressing that she had surely been happy to go out how she did.
Liselotte died an honorable death.
Along with Liselotte, he offered condolences for the only other friend L-elf had had. Haruto is a hero, a boy who made good things happen sooner than either himself or L-elf could have ever hoped for safely.
It's just a shame he could not be here to see how far they would go.
Other branches of conversational topics transpired from there. The conversation going on and on, the two of them piecing together everything so that they could repair the slight cracks between them. What they planned to do, also....Protracted by every sense of that word, A-drei never would have guessed it'd would go on that long. Night time having long since swallowed up Dorssia. Never would he have ever dreamed it'd get so out of hand that they were arguing with each other even over certain parts.
In the end, A-drei still felt pangs in his body for L-elf.
L-elf would be staying the night with them, and it made A-drei feel safer knowing that he had at least one more night where L-elf would be sleeping on the same module with him again. Secure about their friendship. Guilt boiled up in the pits of his stomach, bubbling and popping. Upsetting the other contents of his stomach. On a threat of it becoming too hot, he'd made a smooth get out for an emergency trip to the restroom. Leaving L-elf to finish preparing himself for bed unaware of the feelings his dear friend was still experiencing. .
What A-drei still had not expected was the matter that L-elf was curled up incorrectly on his guest bed by the time he'd returned. Had he been waiting for A-drei to return?
....
With a parent like care, the former prince sat himself on the edge of the bed next to L-elf's dozed form. One of his hands hovering over him to gently shake him awake so that he could rearrange himself more properly for sleep. A-drei's hand was stopped short, however, by the weight of L-elf's head suddenly resting on his thigh.
A new threat arose inside of him now, not his guilt conjuring stomach pit, but rather his overly excited heart turning into a one way triggered bomb. It had been so long since they'd leaned against each other physically for support in a mundane situation. He missed it so much
Again those pangs returned. Memories of the past, but also triggering the recent recollections of just who Liselotte was.
"I could understand your pain, L-elf...It's an awful pain, unbearable.. it disillusions your brain and tries so hard to convince you that what happened didn't happen. Convince you that things can and will change and everything will be alright,"
At a low volume, he spoke words that he'd not have the courage to say were L-elf awake.
"My experience is not as permanent as yours...You are brave and admirable, L-elf, for still going on so headstrong,"
With a ghostly touch, his lithe fingers trailed over the apple of L-elf's cheek.
"I am not a prophet like you, L-elf,"
"I will protect you with everything that I am and have, I will not allow you to experience anymore hurt. This is absolute fact,"
"..Please allow me this, L-elf,"
"I love you, my dear friend. Let me by your side again,"
Still sore from their most recent fight, Mukuro had decided the night before that it was time to bring the battlefield to his turf. Hibari Kyouya's was a distinct mind, guarded but not with any skill, so it took mere minutes to plant a few strong nightmares. And the next morning, he sat in Hibari's chair in Namimori's Disciplinary Committee room, an illusion rendering him invisible as he waited for the prefect to show. Depending on how he handled nightmares, Mukuro could be having some real fun.
These seeds of volatile growth were not in anyway unfamiliar to the young skylark. They were drenched in the sticky aura that belonged to only one demon, one demon who was apparently playing the part of a sore loser.
Kyouya's dreamscape always remained unguarded, openly inviting the illusionists to do as he wish on that most interesting playground. Mocking and taunting Mukuro; It was as if Hibari was standing completely disarmed in front of the hell-bound man, confidently declaring with arms wide open that he could not tear him down. Even on his own damn turf.
...Just because Kyouya told himself that whatever wretched play Mukuro had to put on for him in his own favored theatre, did not mean that it remained 100% truth through and through. Outwardly, no, there was not a single sign that he had ever had those awful nightmares. ( Sans, maybe the light bags underneath his poor eyes. )
Within tho, he was exhausted. Mentally and physically tired. Emotionally, even. The nightmares that had plagued him that night had surely drawn out more emotion in his own sleeping self.
With hurried steps he'd made it into his office, beating several students and even Tetsuya on his way in. For different reasons varying from subject to subject, even if Tetsuya had been shown nothing more than a verbal whip and threats for crowding him far more than he could handle for his current mind.
After he'd made it in, door shut behind him, he could have sworn that he saw something in his chair. Staring directly at the common seat for a few minutes, his blurry eyes deciphered that there was nothing there. Despite the heavy air of disgust.
"......"
It's eerie, the feeling crawling up his back, but perhaps it's just the lack of peaceful sleep doing this to him.
With relaxed movements, Kyouya finally took his seat on one of the couches in his office. A hand touching his forehead, as he let out a long sigh. Work needed to be done to keep things in order around here. So that the discipline would remain uninterrupted.
He sat, toying now with the idea of taking the nap earlier than usual. Would it do him any good, was the question however.
Were the seeds still there in his sleeping mind, or had they shrunken up and died by now...?
With these thoughts, he'd never even noticed the throaty groan that had escaped him.
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