go on and post me on ur tiktok story... just know I'm watching... always watching.... forgotten belongs to those accounts over there in that corner of shame....
Casper x reader (any gender) childhood sweethearts au PLEASE IWANT TOOTH ROTTING FLUFF 😭😭
(I'm a writer myself but uh I have a book to write and i have 2 days to write 11 pages, 4 character designs and 2 about characters relationship chart I'm definitely cooked TAKE YOUR TIME LOVIE MAKE SURE TO DRINK WATER AND EAT WELL 💞💞 /Also THANKYOU SO MUCH FOR THIS AND YOUR REN RP ACC WE LOVE YOUUU)
Bound to you
Pairing: childhood sweethearts!Casper x GN reader
(Well my take on it haha)
Warnings: no use of y/n or reader, no specific pronouns
Summery: you and Casper have known each other since you were both young. This causes some feeling to uprise, who will confess first? :3
Note: haha soooo sorry this too so long!! I was genuinely trying to cook and school got in the way. I hope you like it m so sorry if it’s ooc it’s been a while since I’ve played a date with death sigh… I HOPE YOURE BOOK IS GOING WELL!! Ty ur so sweet 💜💜
You were always destined to die. Well… that’s what he told you every now and then. Not to scare you, of course..just to make sure you were careful.
In the end, he knew he would have to collect your soul. That was inevitable.
But why was it so hard?
You clung to him like a leech that refused to let go… not that he really minded it.
He loved your company, even if he constantly complained about it. Why would he ever admit that, though? It felt ridiculous to him. Someone like him… a grim reaper… caring for someone like you?
Casper couldn’t deny it anymore,he had a massive crush on you.
Well, how could he not?
For as long as you could remember, he had always been by your side.
It didn’t seem strange at first. When you were little, your parents brushed him off as nothing more than an imaginary friend.
“Mom, look! Look at what Casper’s doing!”
“Yeah… that’s nice, sweetie…”
But as you grew older, their concern did too. Eventually, you stopped talking about him altogether, not wanting to worry them.
Still, as you grew… he grew alongside you.
⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔꒰ ᧔ෆ᧓ ꒱⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔
Now, you weren’t going to lie to yourself anymore.
Being around Casper made you feel something you had never felt before..this tight, fluttery feeling in your chest, like your heart didn’t quite know how to act around him.
You’d get nervous for no reason, your thoughts tripping over themselves.
It was strange. You didn’t like it.
Of course, it had to be love! that’s what the internet said anyway… and who were you to argue with that?
So the two of you stayed like that, quietly longing, silently hoping one of you would finally say something.
Which brings you to today.
Nothing special was supposed to happen. It was just another ordinary day, same routine, same quiet comfort.
You sat at your desk, lazily scrolling through your laptop, while Casper had claimed your bed as his own.
But today was different.
You didn’t know it yet… but Casper did.
He couldn’t keep it in any longer. no matter how much he tried.
He had to tell you… even if he knew he might regret it later.
“Sunshine…”
No response.
“Sunshine?”
Still nothing.
“SUNSHINE!”
“HUH- SORRY!” You spun around quickly in your chair.
He pouted before sitting upright on your bed, clearing his throat.
“May I have a word…?” he asked nervously. A faint blush dusted his cheeks.
You pretended to think about it, resting a hand on your chin as if you might actually reject him. “Hmm… I don’t know…”
“Are you planning on trying to kill me again?”
“I might… if you don’t let me speak.”
“Hm.”
“Please,” he sighed.
You broke into a grin. “Of course you can..I was just messing with you.”
He shook his head, mumbling something under his breath.
Then he took a deep breath.
…
…
..
.
“I have… unfortunately developed feelings for you,” he muttered quietly.
You blinked at him, confused. “Wait- what did you say?”
He repeated himself, somehow even quieter.
“Um… can you speak up, Grimmy…?”
“I LIKE YOU!”
He shouted it this time, turning away immediately and crossing his arms, refusing to meet your eyes.
Then he heard it.
A giggle.
A small one at first… then more.
“I like you too, Casper.”
“…WHAT?”
He whipped around, completely stunned.
“I gave you so many signs!”
“I fear you have not…”
You rolled your eyes, standing up and walking over to sit beside him.
“Well, now you know. I do like you, Casper.”
His face burned as he fanned himself slightly. “Don’t say it so… stupidly.”
“How was that stupid?!” you scoffed.
Then, without warning, you leaned in and pressed a quick, soft peck to his cheek barely even touching him.
“Enough!” Casper shot up instantly and rushed out of your room, slamming the door behind him.. not in anger, but pure embarrassment.
You let out a quiet laugh, returning to your desk. Just as you looked back at your screen, a message popped up.
He left a trail of red behind him. When you first saw him, you believed it to be the last time. The flowers he left in his wake a tell tale sign of a soul both lost and doomed. And yet, here he was, very clearly alive, albeit a little quiet.
Disconcertingly so, if you were being quite honest. He stared right at you too and you couldn't help but shift in your seat.
"You're uncomfortable." He stated the obvious in a deadpan voice. However, the way he laid his head to the side reminded you of a confused dog.
"Ah-" you bit your lip to suppress a needlessly hasty explanation.
"Hm?" He furrowed his eyebrows as he let out the sound.
"It's just," you smiled nervously, "I've seen you before. That's all."
He hummed in understanding. "And?"
"I, well," you broke off. "Your flowers are pretty," you murmured then, finally gaining the courage to tell him.
His eyes widened.
"What flowers?"
Now, it was your turn to lay your head to the side. He couldn't help but liken you to a puppy. Though a puppy seldom smiles as beautiful as you did in that moment. Then again, he wasn't quite sure when he last had seen a puppy.
"What do you mean?" You let out a breathless laugh. He flinched at the sound. "Lycoris radiata. They bloom where you go. Have you not noticed?"
He shook his head.
"Only death remains where I tread."
Your smile disappeared and he realised that somewhere deep within his chest he longed to see it again.
"I know. But I'm not sure if it's their death that follows you."
That brought a smile to his face.
"Really?" Your breath hitched when you saw the pure happiness in his eyes. "I hope you are right."
You looked to be his reaper. The way you seemed to follow him wherever he went may have been uncanny to some, though, to him you were the comfort one seeks in bed with one's love.
He thought your beauty a fleeting wind cutting through hearts to let them wither in dust. Your eyes held warmth so dear to him, they might set him aflame eternally.
Your touch, however, he thought would be his undoing, if ever you should deem the time to be right
It was in a lonely world he met you again. Snow crunched beneath your feet, the setting sun the background to your portrait.
"It´s been a while."
You turned, surprised, but then your lips spread into the sweetest of smiles at the sight of him.
"How have you been?" You walked towards him.
"How are the flowers?" he asked instead.
You hummed, and he watched you take a few steps around him.
"They are as vibrant as ever," you told him, finally looking up again.
He grunted.
"What are you doing here?"
You laughed.
"And you?"
Many seasons pass before an immortal is deemed ready for sleep. He did not at first notice your unchanging body. Your eyes always more experienced, more mature, than the last time, only one night in his bed did he realise that fifty years had passed since your first meeting. And yet, your steps were as youthful as ever.
Jing Yuan would certainly adore you, but the thought pierced through his heart, though he did not understand why.
He saw you again in a bamboo forest, waiting for him. Your hand reached out to him; however, you hesitated and so he did not take it. He sat down and together you watched the rise and descend of the golden sun.
He did not know you, yet he couldn´t help but want to. Once, he had dreamed of your lips laid softly on his eyes, tickling his lashes. He had awoken with terror striking his heart.
He had even thought of the feeling of your hair between his fingers. Only rarely did he think of your fingers on his skin. It would make him shudder in distaste every time - this truest of impossibilities.
Still, your touch he thought would be his undoing, if ever you should dare.
Could I possibly ask for some fluff with Reaper and Echo?
Maybe the two of them are just cuddled together and are enjoying each other's company as they're hopelessly in love dorks who can't get enough of soft snuggles.
Okay so I'm like... strangely proud of this one? ?o?
I wrote it at 6:42 at night lol
I'm so tired but I'm so proud of it too! Or maybe I'm just tired. Lol.
Hope you enjoy Reap being gay for like 10 minutes.
Being Echo's datemate, wasn't the easiest thing in the world for Reap. It wasn't that they were hard to handle, or that they didn't love each other, no! Not at all. Reap knew that Echo loved him, and Echo knew that Reap cared for them as well.
The thing that made it hard, was the fact that Echo's magic levels were so low.
It made it so sometimes, if they weren't careful, anything could make them almost dust. Echo went through a lot of pain and was almost always tired because of the low magic levels. More often than not, Reap would have to give them a bit of his own magic while being careful not to give too much. Don't want to accidentally make a child, you know?
That was, funnily enough, the reason that they met the first time. Reap's job was to collect souls and help people pass on, mostly ones from abandoned AUs. Echo's was one of those, sort of. It didn't work out exactly how Reap expected.
He was so happy to have Echo with him though, it was like... he had someone finally.
He had a partner before, it just didn't work out exactly that well, and he had been frightened to get into a relationship again because of that. Echo often would say that they were going to die anyway, why should they even bother trying?
They both got through it and ended up together.
Reap has almost never been happier.
Plus! When they're in the Anti-Void, as Echo called it, Reap could touch Echo without worrying about killing them! They don't need to sleep while they're in there, which is also nice, but Reap didn't really need to sleep anyway. Would be kinda weird if the reaper did need to sleep.
Even if they both didn't need to, sometimes Echo would like sleeping. They said it was relaxing, and it helped stopped the pain. Whenever Echo fell asleep, he would use that time to give them some of his magic. Reap, honestly, wished that he could do more but he was fairly sure that that was the only thing that he could do.
He felt... oddly selfish.
Echo was his datemate, and he loves them but he was selfish. He knew that he should have ended it by now, not their relationship but Echo's life. They had been through so much, and Reap ending it would be mercy but he couldn't bring himself to do it.
Death has gotten attached to someone hanging on by a thread. As long as he didn't do it himself, Echo would continue to balance on the thread. It frightened him, more than he would like to admit.
What the hell was he supposed to do? Reap knew that if he asked Life, she would tell him that life begins, so it can end. It's supposed to happen to everyone and nobody can stop it. It's an endless circle and he should know not to try to change it because if he tried, things would become unbalanced.
He didn't care.
He knew that he needed Echo, and Echo needed him!
As he was thinking about that, he felt the familiar feeling of something stirring in his arms. He realized that he had been letting out a stronger surge of magic causing him to tense, his bones locking just a tad and he lightly nudges his skull against Echo's skull “You okay?” he mumbles, his voice soft. Echo didn't like too fast and too loud sounds when they first woke up.
Echo looks up at him, their one eye socket slowly opening, blinking a few times. The other eye was covered in a glitch, something that they couldn't quite control. "Hm?" they breathe out slowly, and rests their head down again mumbling "Good... 'm fine" they sounded so tired. No matter how much sleep his datemate gets, they were still so tired.
"I'm glad" Reap lets out a soft laugh, and rests his skull on top of his datemate's, petting the top of their skull with the tips of his fingers.
He loved the fact that he could touch people nowadays, or at least just Echo. It was something he couldn't wrap his head around!
Echo looks up at him a little, and chuckles rolling their eyeshine "keep cuddling me like that and y..you're gonna be the death of me"
"Oh haha" Reap says, looking down at them. He didn't have any eyeshines, just black sockets. He presses his teeth against the top of Echo's head in a sort of kiss, the best a skeleton can do. "You sure you're feeling good though? I got distracted giving you some magic while you were asleep, might have given a bit too much"
"I feel fine, relax" Echo's, very slightly annoyed, voice comes out and they slowly sit up stretching their arms above their head. Reap hated seeing that cut on their chest, the blood always coming from their mouth. Hated seeing that stupid damn scarf.
He wished that it would go away.
Of course that was just a wish! He would never, and I mean never, do anything to get that scarf to go away himself. It was the last thing Echo had of... of... he couldn't even say it.
"Are you okay?" Echo asks causing Reap to tense up. He looks up at his datemate, wondering how he should answer that.
No, I'm not okay. I hate the fact that you're going to die one day, I'm going to have to be the one to take you, to kill you. Life would go on for him but not for you, and he hates the idea of that.
"Of course I am, why wouldn't I be?" he laughs a little, and sits up putting his arms around Echo's waist pulling them closer, bonking their skulls together "Just thinking about how cute you are~" he purrs.
Echo tenses a tad, and huffs turning their head away "Shut up" they murmur, while leaning into the bonk shutting their eye socket.
Reap didn't care what the world wanted him to do, what nature told him to do... as long as he could help it, he wasn't going to allow anyone or anything to take Echo away from him.
He wasn't often selfish but this time, he was going to keep what he wanted and nobody could stop him.
Pairing: mShenko | Tags: Canonical Character Death, Grief
Post-Alchera.
This is a stand-alone scene from a larger work, but I’m very fond of it, so I’m posting it on its own.
~
Captain David Anderson stares out at the repair crews moving around the Presidium. Here, from the safe retreat of his office, it doesn’t look so bad. Scaffolding covers the damaged bridge. Debris still floats in the lake, turning the serene blue water a murky brown. The air circulators have almost cycled out the smell of soot and burnt alloy, but a trace of it still lingers. If he leans out far enough, the tip of the relay Shepard had barreled through using nothing but an M-35 Mako just four weeks ago is barely visible on his right periphery.
He doesn’t lean. Just as he doesn’t look at the datapad in his hand. Hearing the words come out of Joker’s mouth was enough. Seeing the helmsman’s face was enough. Anderson had remarked once to Shepard that he’d like to be there the day someone wiped the smartass off Joker’s face.
Shepard had snorted. Not me, sir, he’d said. If he gives up the smartass that probably means I’m fucked. I’d prefer my pilot remain an asshole at all times.
Shepard had been right, of course.
Anderson wipes a thumb across the corner of his eye. It’s all right. No one here to see.
They came back around for another pass, Joker had said, in a voice that was dull, dead, about as far a cry as you could get from the insubordinate ass who’d gone off on the stand in Vancouver just two weeks ago. Shepard had to be to blame for that display. Politics had never been his game.
We lost gravity right as he shoved me in the pod. Momentum from the blast…kicked him the wrong way. I didn’t see what happened after the door closed, but I didn’t need to. Drive core implosion doesn’t leave much to the imagination.
Anderson’s fingers grip the datapad harder. No. It doesn’t. That doesn’t stop his mind from filling in the blanks anyway.
All Shepard’s training. All the hell he’d put himself through to earn that N7 designation. There couldn’t have been a person more prepared to live through the Normandy’s destruction. And in the end, the realities of space had still won.
At least it had probably been quick. Probably.
The door to his office hisses open. For a moment, Anderson expects it to be Shepard. It should be Shepard. That son of a bitch has been putting Anderson’s heart in his throat since he was fourteen years old, but he’s never had the audacity to actually die. Hell, the kid had taken a reaper to the face and shrugged it off.
Kid. Shepard hasn’t been a kid in a long time, maybe never really was to begin with. But to Anderson, some part of Shepard would always be that fourteen-year-old with the thousand-watt grin and a glimmer in his eye that usually meant Anderson’s heart was about to leap into his throat. The smile had faded over time, but not that damned glimmer. He’d last seen it right here on the Citadel, when he’d stood up from the table at Flux Casino with plans to steal the Normandy right out from under the Council’s nose. And Anderson had helped him do it.
This can’t be how it ends. It can’t.
A voice speaks up behind him, crisp, formal. “You wanted to see me, sir.”
His expression tightens, but he smooths it out before he turns around. Lieutenant Alenko stands just inside the door to his office, shoulders straight, hands clasped behind his back, chin in the air. Anderson can’t shake the feeling there’s an empty space next to him.
Probably because he’s never seen Alenko without Shepard.
Kaidan Alenko. Damndest thing.
Who do you want on your marine detail? Anderson had asked, after informing Shepard he was being transferred off the Myeongnyang and onto the Normandy.
You’re asking me?
I’m naming you XO. If there’s someone you want, just say the word.
Alenko.
Anderson hadn’t had a chance to blink before the name was out of Shepard’s mouth. Not another N. Not someone from the special ops teams Shepard had run when Anderson could pry him out of Captain Oseguera’s hands. He wanted the biotic from the ‘Yang.
Hackett was the one who’d argued for assigning Alenko to Shepard’s detail five years ago, when the dust from Torfan had finally settled. Anderson had thought it would be a mistake. Alenko’s file showed he could keep up with Shepard, sure. But Alenko embodied the kind of idealism Shepard would chew up and spit out.
If we’re going to put his mind right to get back on the front lines, he needs an anchor, Hackett had replied, with that calm, ice cold demeanor that has won him nearly every argument he’s ever been involved in. Alenko will do the job.
The old man had been right. Shepard didn’t get close to people, and that was before Torfan. But he’d gotten close to Alenko. Hell, Alenko probably deserves most of the credit for bringing Shepard back from the brink. Because after Torfan, Shepard had indeed been on the brink.
Alenko might be the one on the brink, now. There’s a look in his eye that Anderson recognizes, and it isn’t a good one.
“Sit down.”
Alenko shifts his weight. Not the sitting kind, then. Not today. Anderson’s going to take a wild guess that Alenko hasn’t stopped moving since the Marrakesh picked him up.
He sighs and remains standing, giving the lieutenant silent permission to do the same. “I thought you’d like to know we’re working with the elcor to get a salvage team to Alchera. We’re hoping they find the Normandy’s black box data. Be nice to get some clues on what the hell happened out there.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hm. Brick wall is not Alenko’s usual MO, but that’s sure as hell what he’s talking to right now.
“Joker finished his debrief an hour ago,” Anderson goes on. “I assume you’ve heard his version of what happened.”
More shifting. The uncomfortable kind. Shepard’s done it more than a few times in Anderson’s various offices over the years.
“I haven’t, sir.”
Anderson takes a good, long look at him. He’s spent fifteen years worrying about Shepard. It’s never occurred to him to worry about Alenko.
“I see.” He exhales through his nostrils. “The Normandy was attacked by an unknown vessel. Whoever they were, Joker says they came out of nowhere. Shepard got him into the escape pod, but the ship lost gravity. He…well.”
Alenko stares straight ahead, silent. Anderson looks for a tell, but he only knows Shepard’s.
Alenko isn’t Shepard.
If this conversation is going to be one sided, Anderson needs backup. He moves to his desk, fishes a bottle out of a drawer that’s already half empty after being new just yesterday, and pours two glasses. He pushes one of them across the desk. Doesn’t occur to him until after the fact he has no idea if Alenko drinks scotch. It’s just one of the things Anderson and Shepard always agreed on.
“Have it if you want it,” he says, not up for bullying the lieutenant into a drink. “This is off the record.” He swallows half of his in one go, then heads back for the balcony. A few moments later, Alenko joins him, hands empty, still avoiding his gaze. There’s a chip in the brickwork, though. Not much, but something in his eyes wavers.
Yeah. It might be time to worry about Alenko. Losing two ships in the span of four weeks would do a number on anyone.
Except he doesn’t think it’s about either the Myeongnyang or the Normandy.
Anderson leans on the railing, gazing out at the wreckage of the Presidium. He takes another sip from his glass. “I’m sorry. I know he meant a lot to you.”
It takes Alenko so long to answer Anderson thinks he isn’t going to. But then some of the starch fades from his shoulders.
“He did.”
Anderson side eyes him. Had it been Shepard standing next to him, he might press. He could get Shepard to open up if he was careful enough. Sometimes.
But this isn’t Anderson’s business. And his own grief certainly isn’t Alenko’s business. But while most of the galaxy is preparing to mourn Commander Shepard, the soldier standing next to him might be the only person he knows who’s grieving for Sam. He swirls the remaining liquid in his glass.
“He was the most reckless SOB I’ve ever met,” Anderson says, watching a hanar drift along one of the intact pathways below them. “I’m pretty sure half the shit he pulled over the years was just to piss me off.”
Alenko raises an eyebrow ever so slightly in surprise, but doesn’t turn his head. “He’s always at his best when the plan goes to hell.”
“Since he was a kid,” Anderson agrees, not missing the fact that Alenko had referred to him in the present tense. “First time I ever laid eyes on him he was four. He’d wandered away from Daniel on Arcturus and he called in the cavalry to look for him. You know where I found him?”
Alenko shakes his head.
“In a fountain, playing with a model ship. I asked him what the hell his spaceship was doing in the water. He said, ‘I’m about to find out.’”
Alenko’s mouth curves in a brittle smile. “I didn’t know you knew him that young.”
“I doubt he remembered,” Anderson says. “His father and I were good friends. I dropped in on occasion while he was growing up.”
Before Shepard was a soldier. Before he was the Butcher of Torfan or the Savior of the Citadel. Back when he was still Sam, all knees and elbows, so desperate to please he couldn’t sit still.
Anderson still misses that kid.
“He said you kept an eye on him when they shipped him to Ares Station.”
Anderson huffs. “Told you about that, did he.”
Alenko nods, resting his hands on the balcony railing.
Then Shepard had indeed trusted Alenko. Only a handful of people knew about Ares Station and Guthra Tulak. Shepard had been one of five kids sent to biotically train with the krogan, and the only one to realize any potential.
Leave it to the Alliance to come up with a program even riskier than BAaT. Leave it to Hannah Shepard to volunteer her own kid to be part of it. Anderson always wondered if Sam knew about Hannah’s role in Ares, and how hard Daniel fought to keep it from happening.
To Hannah, Sam was a legacy. To the Alliance, he’d been a tool with astronomical potential. Someone had needed to look out for the actual kid. Daniel had tried, but.
Losing Daniel still stings. What would he have thought about his Spectre son?
Hell, Anderson knows exactly what he’d have thought. He would have feared this day, this ending, with every breath he took. He’d wanted anything else for Sam. Anything but this.
And Anderson had helped him become everything Daniel was afraid of. Hell, what choice did he have? You couldn’t dissuade Sam from anything. Once he was target locked on something there was nothing you could do but get as many obstacles out of his way as possible and hope for the best. So that’s what Anderson had done. Mentored him, advocated for him, taken a few hits behind the scenes on his behalf and cleared the path as best he could. Maybe you couldn’t take the target out of Sam’s sights, but you could guide his aim to make sure he hit it dead to rights.
“He’s come a long way since then,” Anderson says, wincing when he realizes now it’s him who can’t let go of the present tense. “I wish I’d been at the inquest. From the secure feed it looked like he put an entire roomful of admirals on their asses. Would love to have seen it in person.”
Alenko stills, expression frozen in place like a mask. Whatever nerve Anderson just touched is a big one, so he steers the conversation in a new direction.
“Though what I really wish I could have seen is what he found to gripe about being stuck in atmosphere. The entire time he was in Rio for ICT, he never once complained about the work. Wouldn’t shut up about how much he hated humidity.”
The fragile smile returns. “He hated going down a well without a hardsuit.”
“Know what almost kept him from qualifying for N1?”
Alenko shakes his head.
“Bugs,” Anderson tells him. “Not twenty-hour days, not hostile terrain, not crawling around in the mud without food or sleep. It was the bugs that damn near washed him out.”
A laugh escapes the lieutenant. It’s a rusty sound. “That…doesn’t surprise me.”
Anderson smiles at the memory. “He got over it. Made it through, like he always did. Wish I’d told him more how…proud I was.”
“You meant a lot to him,” Alenko says, so quietly Anderson almost doesn’t hear him.
The lump that forms in Anderson’s throat takes him off guard. “He had a way of affecting everyone he ever met. I forget sometimes it could go the other way. He made it so easy to think he was fine on his own.”
“He wasn’t.”
Alenko’s stare remains fixed on the view from the balcony. Not many people saw the side of Shepard that needed anyone. Even Anderson only saw it on occasion. Alenko was so far from the kind of person Shepard would let his guard down in front of, but clearly he had.
If we’re going to put his mind right to get back on the front lines, he needs an anchor, Hackett had said. Alenko had done the job, all right.
Problem was, it looks like that had gone both ways.
Anderson draws in a breath. Might as well get this over with. “I called you here to ask if you would speak at the memorial.”
It’s going to be a spectacle, the likes of which Sam would have hated, but the Alliance sure as hell isn’t going to be denied their PR opportunity.
Alenko shifts his weight. He’s so damn still. Shepard would be pacing the room until Anderson wanted to strangle him.
“Is that an order, sir?”
“A request.”
“Then I respectfully decline.”
Anderson finishes his drink. “Can I ask why?”
Alenko’s grip on the railing tightens. “The Alliance cares about the symbol. I cared about the person. I can’t give them what they want.”
Anderson can’t help but wonder what the lieutenant would have to say. Shepard was so many different things to so many different people. What, exactly, was he to Kaidan Alenko?
Why Alenko? Anderson had asked Shepard back on Arcturus, the Normandy’s hull gleaming and new out the shutters.
Shepard had thought a long time before answering, like there was too much to say and not enough words to say it.
Because he grounds me.
The older Shepard had gotten, the rarer it was to get glimpses of Sam. Sometimes Anderson wondered if Sam still existed, or if he’d been swallowed up by the mantle everyone demanded he carry. But that answer had come from Sam.
“Ok,” Anderson tells Alenko. “I’ll hand it off to Hackett.”
“Why not you?” Alenko asks, looking in his direction for the first time.
Anderson gazes down at his empty glass. Twenty years ago he might have thrown it against the wall just to watch it shatter. Nowadays he thinks too hard about the mess it would make, and being the one who has to clean it up. “Because I cared about the person.”
Heavy silence settles between them.
“You should take some leave,” Anderson says. “You’ve more than earned it.”
“I’m fine,” Alenko replies, but that haunted look is back.
Soon enough you’re going to have to stop moving, son, Anderson thinks. After Torfan, Shepard had hit the same wall Alenko is cruising right towards. But Alenko isn’t Shepard, and he isn’t under his command anymore. All he can do is give him a hand if he asks for it, and from the looks of it he isn’t going to ask.
Not that it would matter. Anderson’s got no anchor to give him that could replace the one he lost.
“Just think about it. And get some sleep.” He gestures towards the door, freeing the lieutenant from further torture. While Alenko makes for the exit, Anderson heads for his desk and the untouched glass. No sense in letting it go to waste.
Alenko pauses at the doorway and looks back over his shoulder. “Rain.”
“I’m sorry?” Anderson asks with a frown.
“You wanted to know what he found to gripe about on Earth. It was the rain.” He looks away without waiting for a response and walks away.
That empty space Anderson thought he’d been imagining when Alenko walked in feels even larger, now. Yeah. Shepard sure knows how to leave a hole in people.
Neku’s been shot and Shibuya is threatening to go the same way as Shinjuku, but just because the first Game is over doesn’t mean they’ve forgotten how to play.
Or: Neku deals with a nightmare city and his most annoying (and mathematical) partner yet; Shiki and Joshua commit an escalating number of illegal moves, Beat and Eri hunt down a stray Reaper, and Rhyme watches and waits for the counter-attack. Shibuya refuses to go down easy.
Fandom: The World Ends With You | TWEWY
Warnings: references to past canonical character death, self-esteem issues, vague descriptions of an apocalyptic event (Shinjuku at the moment of Inversion, etc), and Joshua, again. Please let me know if there’s anything I missed.
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AO3 Link is here!
Previous chapters are here!
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part five: joshua
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Joshua opens his eyes to a wasteland.
Beside him Shiki Misaki has fallen to her knees in the dust and dirt, hacking up half a lung; Joshua politely gives her a moment to collect herself like the very considerate and understanding person he is, and steps forward, scanning their surroundings with a frown. Empty streets filled with white dust that clings to his hand like snow; the air smells of nothing, devoid even of the stench of smoke. A low fog has settled over the city, so gray and dense it could be mistaken for a storm, the buildings vacant shells and the roads worn smooth and featureless. It’s more than a ghost town—it’s a city hollowed, its heart destroyed, and Joshua frowns momentarily, picking up his phone, fiddling with the settings.
For the first time, no call goes through. “Interesting,” Joshua decides, and tugs at one lock of hair, twining the strand around his finger.
“W-what is?” Shiki asks, and Joshua tilts his head and snaps his phone closed. Her breath catches. Ah, she’s noticed the city. “Where are we?”
“Shinjuku, I believe,” Joshua says, and even though he’d guessed as much the sight makes him frown, disgruntled. Joshua’s always liked a good Game, but this one promises to try his patience. “Well. What’s left of it, anyway.”
Her eyes scan the wasteland, expression faltering. “That’s impossible,” she says, though she seems half-convinced already. Quick to adapt, isn’t she? Maybe this partnership 2.0 won’t be so boring after all. “That’s... how could this be Shinjuku?”
“Inversion,” Joshua sighs, and when Shiki’s brow furrows at the term he giggles and waves his hand. “A UG phrase. The RG and UG have merged here. The planes have gotten all tangled together—too many frequencies at once.” And, actually, liable to give Joshua a headache. He misses Shibuya’s song already. Ironic, considering his plans for it just last month. “Noise manifest in the RG, reality gets unstable...”
She’s pale. “And this is where Neku is?”
“Mm-hmm.” Joshua shrugs. “Unfortunate, isn’t it?”
“Yeah...” Joshua blinks at her, but Shiki has already stepped away, looking up and down the empty street. “I don’t understand. Where are all the people? And the stores...” She peers into a shop window and blinks fast. “Huh?”
“Oh?” Joshua steps up beside her, peering through the window, and then leans back, hands in his pockets and eyebrows raised. “My, my. That’s certainly something.”
The shop is empty. Not just devoid of people, but of anything—the mannequins stripped featureless and bare, even the fake features wiped away. The hangers hold nothing. The stands are empty. Even the picture frames on the wall, the art and decor put up just for flavor, have become hollow, the frames undecorated, the pictures turned to white noise.
Joshua lifts his hand, curious, and presses it against the glass. Against the blank slate of the store, he and Shiki and the colors they wear seem almost like a spotlight. Shinjuku is grey and cold around them, featureless and repetitive. Scrubbed clean of any life at all.
Joshua takes his hand back, frowning outright now. “Hm.”
“That’s so creepy,” Shiki says, drawing back a step. She shivers. “It’s like... anything that would have stood out, or anything that would have meant something...”
“A clean slate,” Joshua agrees, and rests his chin in his hand, thoughtful.
Shiki looks away, apparently unable to keep looking into the empty shop for long. “Is this... normal?” she asks, squinting up at the sky, like if she tries hard enough she’ll be able to see the sun. “For, uh... Inversions?”
Joshua giggles. “I have no idea.” It’d be a delightful mystery, if the situation weren’t so dire. He sobers. “This is the first time I’ve seen it myself. Though, I will admit...” He casts a glance at the sky, too. His eyes narrow. For a moment, there in the clouds... hm. “This doesn’t quite match up with the stories I’ve heard.”
“Creepy,” Shiki repeats.
“Quite.”
She rubs at her arms. “...Let’s go look for Neku.”
Ah, yes. Neku.
Joshua looks back at the shop, no longer smiling. His reflection in the display glass is pale and dim, faintly opaque. As if he isn’t quite there at all. He rubs at his arm, and wonders what Shiki would say if he told her Composers weren’t meant to stay outside of Their city.
Well, what’s done is done—he’s agreed to this, after all, and her reaction probably won’t be all that entertaining. Shiki Misaki, Joshua thinks, is too accepting. Adaptable to an annoying degree. At least Neku had a few moments of wanting to strangle someone before he compromised.
How funny, he thinks. The memory almost makes him want to smile, except he doesn’t feel like laughing at all.
In the dusty glass of the shop window, his own expression looks strange to him. Joshua turns away. He shakes his head and tugs at one bang, then drops his hand and sighs. “Yes,” he says, light. “Works for me. Lead the way, dear.”
She frowns at him, and he smiles back at her uncertain side-eye. And as Shiki picks her way across the city, and Joshua trails after her, he curls his hands to a careful fist, feeling the quiet tremor in his fingers with every step away from Shibuya, and cheerfully pretends that it hasn’t started after all.
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It doesn’t take long for the first problem to rear its head. Ten minutes into the Game, Joshua and Shiki encounter their first Noise—and unlike how Noise are supposed to act, this one attacks on sight.
Joshua would suspect Taboo Noise, but no: normal Noise, just ten times more bloodthirsty. Shinjuku is getting more bothersome by the minute.
It takes a moment for them to work together—Joshua is back to summoning beams of light from his cellphone; Shiki apparently likes using her stuffed animal to rip the opposing side to shreds—but in the end, they sync up rather well, if Joshua is any judge. The Noise are nothing but static by the end. Joshua is half-way pleased. He’s missed this.
Shiki doesn’t look nearly so happy, however. At the end of their most recent battle, she kneels in the dust with the cat toy in her lap, staring down at it almost despondently. Joshua weighs his options, sighs, and goes to stand over her shoulder.
“Is this going to be a problem?”
“Maybe.” She opens her hands, glumly; Joshua looks down and tilts his head. “I forgot. Mr. Mew has a ripped seam. He’s fine for me to carry him, but...”
On second look... Joshua can see it. He presses his lips. “I hope you don’t expect me to do all the work,” he warns, coolly. “I hate working up a sweat, and this endeavor was your idea, Shiki.”
If she’s bothered by the over-familiar use of her first name, it barely even seems to register. Then again, she did offer. “Maybe I could stitch him up?” she wonders. “But I don’t have the right thread... I was going to buy some tomorrow...”
Joshua frowns at her, but Shiki isn’t even looking at him, mumbling under her breath. After a moment, he sighs—and reaches out, picking away one of the pins she’s clipped to her cardigan. He turns it in his hands, thoughtful. “Do you have any idea how you control him?”
She glances at him, startled, then looks uncertain. “Eh...”
He giggles, and flashes the pin at her. “Groove Pawn,” he tells her. “It’s a form of psychokinesis. You didn’t know?”
“Really?” She glances at the stuffed toy in her hands. “It always felt more like Mr. Mew was just doing his own thing.”
Interesting. “Maybe so, but without you to provide guidance, it wouldn’t be nearly as effective. It could be that your familiarity with the medium creates a stronger control of it... less direct commands, and more obeying of the implied commands—what you know you need?” Joshua tugs at his hair. “Hmm. You made him, yes?”
“Mr. Mew?” She hugs the stuffed animal to her chest. “Yes. Why?”
Joshua’s getting an idea. He smiles. “And your clothes?”
“I made those too, but why...?” She trails off, eyes widening. “You think—?”
“Worth a shot, isn’t it?”
She studies her sleeves, frowning slightly, considering. “I don’t know...”
“Try it,” Joshua cajoles. “Your pins will work here. The one nice thing about the merge between planes is that the Noise frequency isn’t needed to activate the pins. Lucky you.” Which is perhaps the only advantage they have in all this. But, regardless.
Shiki looks uncertain, but one last glance at Mr. Mew and her jaw firms. “Okay. I’ll give it a shot.” She rises to her feet, hand outstretched, and takes a breath. “Here goes!”
Silence. Nothing happens.
Joshua spins a strand of hair between his fingers. “...Have you considered—”
Thread cuts through the air like a whistling blade. Shiki screams.
Joshua, for his part, blinks over at what used to be a wall, and whistles through his teeth. “Wow,” he says, honestly impressed. “That’s going to be incredibly useful. Nice to see that you can pull your own weight after all, hm?”
Shiki doesn’t appear to be listening, but then, that’s little surprise. Her cardigan has been unraveled up to her elbow; the loose thread of the sleeve has reached long past its actual length and cut apart the air, slipping through stone like a hot knife through ice.
It’s like a net, Joshua thinks, and circles her, intrigued. It really is something. If she concentrates the threads, and focuses the force onto one impact point, she could cut right through the core of a larger Noise. Even the net of thread could cut apart quite a few of the smaller Noise, too... my, he thinks. Could she catch one? Fascinating.
His musing gets cut off by the loud, creaking groan of breaking stone. Shiki’s eyes go wide. Joshua looks up, startled, and steps back just in time to avoid a bit of rubble falling on his foot, as the building Shiki hit creaks, tilts, sways, and then ultimately tips back and falls apart into a burst of dust and debris.
Silence. Joshua stares. The building just behind the first, now walled off with ruin, also creaks, and then caves inward with a crash.
“Oh my god,” Shiki says, eyes wide and horrified behind her glasses. “Is that okay!?”
“…It’s fine,” Joshua says. A beat. He considers the rubble. “Well, maybe.”
There’s another pause, almost thoughtful. A wall on a third building goes loose and spills out onto the road. In the distance there is the sound of falling rocks. A small pebble rolls from the pile, taps Shiki’s shoe, and then falls sadly on its side.
Shiki covers her face.
“Useful, anyhow,” Joshua decides.
“Maybe this was a bad idea…” Shiki sighs, rubbing at her face. Then she lifts up her head— and at last seems to get a full look at her unraveled cardigan, because she blanches, and holds out her arms in horror. “Oh, no, my sleeve! I spent days on this!”
“I’m sure you can put it back.”
“Oh, you think?” She takes a breath, focusing again, and Joshua watches with interest as the thread pries loose from the rubble pile, pooling together and re-weaving back into the cardigan. Shiki peeks one eye open. “Did it work?” Pause. “It worked!”
Joshua claps for her. “Well done.”
She beams, then seems to remember who she’s smiling at and visibly falters. Joshua giggles at her. What a face!
“Um, thanks.”
“No problem at all.”
She tucks the stuffed cat in her arms, hugging it close as if in comfort, staring down at the ground. She bites her lip, then shakes her head and exhales hard. “I… never mind. I guess we should keep moving.”
He gestures. She looks at him for a very long moment, then nods and takes the lead, walking down into a small back-alley street.
Joshua follows leisurely behind her, one hand in his pocket and the other fiddling with his phone. He tries to place another call, but isn’t surprised when it fails once again. Well, he’s glad to still have the camera, at least, though he’ll have to be careful of its use. If he could find Shinjuku’s Room of Reckoning… though unfortunately, he has no idea where the Composer of Shinjuku might be located.
Hm.
He fiddles with it some more, as they walk, and the rest of the day passes by in routine—travel, fight the Noise that converge on them, move on. Joshua gets more in-tune with this new partner, and finds to some delight that their attacks mix well. Shiki is focused, direct, and methodical, as expected of her talent as a seamstress; she attacks her enemies one hit at a time until it falls, and then moves on to the next. Matched with Joshua’s habit of just blasting a general area and catching as many Noise as possible in the light, it covers a lot of ground. He flattens the ones he can without frying his phone—and she, in turn, picks off the stragglers.
After one such battle, Joshua touches to the ground and turns to smile at her, far more genuinely than before. He can say this for Shiki Misaki— in addition to being a living wrench in the works of Joshua’s plan, she’s also just a genuinely talented Player.
“This might just work,” he tells her, cheery, and toes a line in the soft dusting of ash lining Shinjuku’s streets. “I’ll admit, I had my doubts.”
She glances back at him, looking more confused than offended. “Then... why did you agree?”
“Hm.” Joshua tilts his head. “Why indeed?”
Silence, for a moment. Shiki’s expression flattens a little. “Okay. So you’re not going to tell me.”
It’s a little cruel, maybe, but this girl’s already thrown the first stone, back in the Shibuya River; really, this should be expected. “What makes you think you deserve the answer?”
His word choice is deliberate, and Shiki, of all people, sensitive enough to catch the subtext—her steps stutter, and she tugs the stuffed cat closer. “I... I didn’t mean it like that.” She eyes him again. Her fingers tighten. “You’re rude.”
He shrugs. “It’s an honest question. Really, Shiki, you haven’t changed much at all, have you?” He eyes her. “Wanting recognition is all well and good, but don’t go expecting it from me.”
She falters, steps stuttering in the dust. Joshua keeps walking, humming lightly. She doesn’t follow. He turns around. “We don’t have much time to waste,” he chides. “If you could, Shiki...?”
“How did you know that?” Her voice is tight. “How did you—”
“Composer,” he reminds her. “It’s my Game. I put in the entry fee requirement in the first place, you know.” Not for the reasons she probably thinks, but then, Joshua’s never claimed to teach kind lessons. “And you were Neku—my proxy’s—partner. Of course I kept an eye out.”
“Of course,” she echoes, a little hollowly. “So—so you know...”
That she is jealous? That she wants to be more than herself? That Shiki Misaki wants to be popular, and important, and at the center of it all? That she wants so much for herself she came to seethe at others who she thought stood above her?
Joshua knows a lot of things people wish he didn’t know.
“I do, yes.” He considers her, and sighs a little. She’s stepped on his toes, so to speak, but Joshua can relent where need be. “If it’s any consolation, you have changed.” Neku’s choice hadn’t been the only factor influencing Joshua’s unintended change of heart regarding Shibuya, though Joshua is never going to admit that out loud. “If this Game had an entry fee, yours would no longer be yourself.”
Green is a good color for Shiki Misaki. She’s still envious, even now. But it doesn’t fester in her anymore. She has come to learn her own strengths, started to realize her own Imagination— the value of herself. And Joshua will never, ever say it aloud, but he can admire that, a little. If all the world is secret gardens, then hers is finally growing again, no longer crushed beneath her own heel.
Shiki looks down like she can’t decide whether to be happy or offended about his words. Joshua shrugs and turns away. “It would probably be that ‘friend’ of yours,” he continues knowingly, and grins, a little wry. “Or maybe Neku?” The idea of Coco’s plot getting upended by something as a simple as an entry fee makes him snicker. “What a plot twist that would be, hm?”
“W-what?” And then her head snaps up, eyes wide behind the lens. “Wait, oh my gosh—entry fees— I completely forgot—” She stops, and visibly rewinds the conversation in her head. “There isn’t one?”
“Thankfully.” People really aren’t meant to play the Game more than once; Joshua shudders to think how much of Shibuya would have vanished if Neku’s fee had been taken again. “It’s more than the RG and UG merge. Whatever Game we’re playing...”
Shiki looks stunned. “There’s no Reapers.”
“Did you just notice? Well, anyway. That’s right. No Reapers, no walls, no mission mail...” Joshua frowns a little. “I’m... a little uncertain if anyone’s in charge of this Game at all.”
“What about that Reaper girl? Coco?”
“Let me reword. No one official, at any rate.” He leaves it at that, but deep down, Joshua can’t deny he’s getting uneasy. There is too much off—too much lack. A Composer encroaching on another’s territory is a heinous crime, and bringing an illegal Player with him? Even with his powers limited by sheer virtue of being outside Shibuya, that should have warranted some interaction, if nothing else. But no— instead they have been walking undisturbed, the city silent as a grave.
The Music gone.
It’s as if there is no Composer at all, Joshua thinks, but then—how is that possible? If the Composer were killed, both power and title would transfer to the killer; if the Composer were captured... well, the city still wouldn’t be like this. The power would live on and the Music continue. But this... what has happened to Shinjuku...
For once, Joshua can honestly admit he has no idea what’s going on. It’s kind of annoying.
“Either way,” Joshua says, with finality. “It’s not for you to know.” He smiles at her. “May we get moving again?”
And just like that, her hackles are back up. Sigh. “I’m just trying to be nice!” she snaps back, fierce. “Though I’m not sure you deserve it.” Her voice lowers. “You’re as bad as Neku was. We’re partners.”
“That’s a bit rude,” Joshua says, amused.
“Still. We made a pact. You could at least act like it. We have to work together!”
Joshua stares at her, a little disgruntled; Shiki crosses her arms and tilts up her chin and glares right back. For a moment Joshua considers pushing the issue, or perhaps ignoring her and continuing on anyway... and then, just as quickly, his annoyance fades, dull and tired. Joshua looks away first.
Shiki Misaki, Neku’s first partner in the game. Neku has learned a lot from her. And Joshua, though he is still only just able to admit this to himself, has learned from Neku in turn.
Joshua sighs heavily, the sound as loud as he can make it, and lifts a hand to his hair, tugging at the strands. “Oh, fine,” he says, only a little sullen, because he has learned something from his time playing his own Game and to pretend otherwise is probably beneath him, or something. “If you really want to know, I’m beginning to suspect this Game doesn’t have a Composer at all.”
Shiki looks a little stunned. Possibly she never expected him to admit anything; Joshua tries not to feel too offended about that. After all, if this were a month ago, she’d be right. (If this were a month ago, he wouldn’t have accepted her deal in the first place— but that’s not important either.) “Oh,” she says. “...Oh. Someone—someone killed Shinjuku’s Composer?”
Joshua clicks his tongue. “Not quite,” he says. “Killing the Composer wouldn’t cause an Inversion. Neither,” he adds when Shiki opens her mouth, “would kidnapping, or anything else of the like. This city has no Music. It’s silent. It is…” And this Joshua doesn’t like to admit, because the very idea is enough to make his skin crawl, but it’s the truth: “It’s as if it has no Imagination at all.”
“Um,” Shiki says. “Which is... bad?”
“You remember that storefront?” he asks her. “Yes, it’s bad. Imagination is what the entire UG runs on.”
“Oh. Oh.”
“Exactly.” He huffs, irritated. “Unfortunately, whatever happened, I’m rather in the dark. This event has very thoroughly erased any clues left behind.”
Shiki frowns, looking thoughtful. “Is there a place for Shinjuku like there was for Shibuya? A river?”
“Of sorts. I don’t know where it is, though.” Unfortunately. Joshua likes mysteries, actually, but it’s a bit more fun when there’s actual clues to follow.
“I remember the Noise around the river were pretty strong. The station underpass in general, too. Like they were just drawn there…” Shiki holds the stuffed cat in both hands, looking down at it. It’s almost as if she expects the cat to talk back to her; Joshua stifles a grin. “I wonder if we could ride on them.”
Joshua blinks. Backtracks. “On. The Noise?”
She looks a little red, but shrugs. “I mean, could we?”
He almost laughs, but then he makes the mistake of thinking about it. With the thread… and, well, Joshua understands the Noise better than anyone else, so…
There’s a long pause. Joshua looks over to the Noise, far off down the street. He thinks about it some more. And it is with great regret when he says, at last: “Mm. Better not.”
Mr. H would never let him live it down. Also, less importantly, “While stronger Noise tend to gather around the Composer’s place, it’s not exactly a homing beacon. It won’t lead us to the Composer.”
Disappointing, though.
Shiki hums, but seems to accept that, tapping her finger to her chin. “Then maybe...” She trails off, brow furrowing. “If not the Composer, we could find where it all centered? Like the Inversion? It had to start somewhere, right...?”
She sounds uncertain, but Joshua straightens up. He’s not entirely sure the issue of Shinjuku’s Composer and the Inversion are so directly linked, but if one mystery can’t be solved, it stands to reason they should move on to the next. “It must have.” He tilts his head, then grins. “Ah-ha. I have an idea.”
“What is it?”
Joshua is already on his phone, flipping through the settings. When she approaches, he generously doesn’t shoo her off. “Here,” he says, and tilts the screen to her. The idea has emboldened him; his foot taps lightly on the ground. Finally, a place to start. He has no doubt they’ll run into Neku on the way there, if he gets this right. Neku usually finds himself in the center of a disaster. “A while back I had a few... adjustments made to my phone. I never did remove them. This camera can take pictures of the past.” He waves the phone at her, grinning outright now. “Pick a direction, dear.”
Behind her glasses, Shiki’s eyes are wide. She claps her hands in front of her face. “Oh! So if the Inversion started somewhere, we can see what direction it came from?”
Her excitement is rather charming. Neku never got nearly as involved in the everyday mysteries as Joshua did; this response feels pretty gratifying, honestly. “Exactly! I’m impressed.”
She giggles, a little. “This is so exciting. I feel like I’m in a detective movie.” She spins on her heel, stuffed cat swinging from one hand, finger tapping her chin. She points down a random street, a once-main road turned hollow. “How about there?”
“As good a place to start as any, I suppose.” Joshua snaps the photo—he already knows the time they need, thankfully. Shiki leans over his shoulder; Joshua eyes her briefly, then sighs and lets it go. He opens the photo.
Oh, how fun. White light, the buildings crumbling, terrified people beginning to fade out... but it is vague, source-less, and impossible to tell the direction from which it’s coming from.
Shiki blinks at it, though, her eyes flicking from photo to the ruins and back again. “Oh, I know that building! Isetan department store… I went with Eri once.” She frowns a little. “Hmm. So we’re near the station?”
“Valuable info, but not quite what we were looking for… Well, two more photos left.” Joshua tilts the camera. “Choose wisely.”
“Uh... well, if we’re near the station, um, maybe the government building? Oh, where was it…” Shiki squints down a street. “There?”
Joshua snaps the photo, then sighs. Shiki frowns too. He’ll give her this much: she’d been right about the direction; he can see the tip of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building and even some of Park Tower, but beyond the vague reddish light and screaming people, nothing indicates the epicenter of the event. Tsk.
“Last one,” Shiki checks, and at Joshua’s nod, worries at her lip. “Hm...”
Joshua considers it. His finger taps against the case. After a moment, his eyes flicker up. He’s never known Shinjuku too well, even when he was alive; he’d stayed in Shibuya most of his life, and then the entirety of his afterlife. “Have you been to Shinjuku before?”
“Well... once or twice. Not as often as Shibuya. Uh, mainly around the station. Why?”
He frowns at the screen, not really seeing it. “Can you guess where the center of the city might be?”
“That’s...” She trails off. Her brow furrows. “Um. Maybe? One second.” She takes a deep breath. “Er... where’s Shibuya from here?”
This, Joshua could answer in his sleep. He is so aware of the city it nearly dizzies him; he smiles to hide the sudden tremor in his arms. Ah, it really does set in quick, doesn’t it?
“To our right,” Joshua says lightly, and cheerfully ignores the headache spiking behind his eyes.
“Okay.” She bites her lip. “Then... from there, to... and then turn left... by Golden Gai, maybe…?” She trails her eyes across the ruined landscape and finally settles for a direction slightly north-east from them. “There? I think. It’s hard to tell, with the buildings all... you know.”
“That’s good enough,” Joshua decides. He lines up the image. Then he pauses. For a moment he frowns. And then, not entirely sure why, he lifts the camera, taking in not just the street and the buildings but also the sky, high above.
He takes the shot.
His fingers tighten. His smile widens, but there’s no joy in it at all. “Bingo.”
“Yes!” She looks at the photo. Her eyes go wide. “...What?”
The photo is exactly what they need, but neither is it a welcome sight. The distant high-rise of the buildings is turning to dust and ash. People are cowering in the streets, covering their heads. A pale white light, tinged faintly bloody with red, shines out through all the streets with a piercing glow.
And high above, settled in the sky like a brand, the Reaper’s skull bears down on the city, blood red and burning bright.
“Interesting,” Joshua murmurs, and thumbs the phone off. “I believe we just got our first clue.”
Shiki bites her lip, then seems to shake herself. “We know where to start looking, now. So that’s good.” She brightens, a little. “And Neku’s sure to be there! He gets in too much trouble not to find it himself.” She’s smiling outright now, and pumps a fist to the air, triumphant, turning to Joshua with delight. “We did it!”
He giggles at her enthusiasm, and her smile falters, falling awkward and flat. Her eyes catch on his face and she seems to remember who she’s talking to for the first time. Her smile fades. Her fist lowers.
Joshua considers her, shrugs, and turns away to mess with his phone. His hands are still annoyingly shaky from earlier. He doesn’t speak. Shiki doesn’t say anything either. The silence stretches.
When it’s clear she’s not going to break, Joshua sighs again and closes his phone, looking down at the case briefly before tucking it back into his pocket. “You really don’t like me, do you?” Joshua muses, and tucks his hands in his pockets. “What stories Neku must have told you, I wonder.”
“He told me enough.” Her voice is quiet again. “But you already knew about that.”
He hums, not really answering. Another silence. This time, Shiki looks away.
“I can’t forgive you,” she announces, apropos of nothing, eyes on her stuffed animal. She hugs it close. “Which sounds silly, doesn’t it? Considering you never did anything to me. But even if Neku does forgive you, one day, I don’t think I ever will.” Joshua keeps his eyes on the skyline, and half an eye on her; he sees her fingers tighten. “I don’t know why you did it, and even if I did, I don’t think I really care.”
Something hardens in her voice. Joshua waits, patiently, for her to finish. “Your point?” he prompts.
Her jaw clenches, and for the first time she seems truly angry with him. “You hurt Neku. You hurt him— a lot. I remember that much. He was crying. I’d never seen him cry before. You did that.” I’m aware, Joshua thinks. Her eyes are fixed on the ground, now. “And you hurt him after it was over, too.”
Joshua frowns, briefly, the barest flicker of an expression, and Shiki looks up and smiles at the sight, an expression that is half-hearted and small and not very happy at all. “Yeah. I figured you didn’t know about that one. Neku doesn’t either, I don’t think. But he— he wanted to see you again, you know? No matter my feelings on it, that’s still true. Maybe he just wanted to hit you, or yell at you—um, maybe he just wanted answers?” She shrugs. “Maybe all three. But he did want to see you again. Whenever we meet up, he’s always getting distracted, looking for someone else. And I’m not stupid. I can guess.”
He has stayed silent thus far out of some amused hope of getting this out of her system; now Joshua is regretting that. There is something ashy on his tongue, settled cold in his throat. He takes a thin breath and exhales it slowly, like a test.
“You never came,” Shiki says, simply, a little harder. She’s looking at him, Joshua can tell, but he keeps his gaze turned away, fixed on the sky. “Maybe you meant that as a kindness? I don’t know. That doesn’t really matter either. Because it hurt him either way.”
Another pause. Joshua closes his eyes, opens them, and then finally looks back at her. She glares at him—not angry anymore, not really, just stubborn, stiff and holding her ground. He considers her.
“I don’t think you’re a bad person,” Shiki says, at last, reluctantly. Joshua raises an eyebrow at her. She huffs. “Which kind of makes it worse, maybe. But I don’t. Neku doesn’t either, otherwise he wouldn’t be trying so hard.” Her chin lifts, determined. “You probably aren’t sorry for what happened. You’ll probably never say it; it’s not really my business. But Neku’s trying. I don’t know why, but he is—and you know, if nothing else, you could stand to try too.”
Joshua doesn’t say anything. She’s caught him off-guard with this—of all things, this is not what he was expecting her to say. And maybe that is Joshua’s fault. Hasn’t he learned this lesson already? Isn’t that why Shibuya’s still standing? They lost the Game, all of them, Neku and Shiki and the Bito siblings; they lost the game, but they had changed his mind. They had surprised him. They had changed him in turn too, even if Joshua still doesn’t quite know how to admit it.
“Just a thought,” Shiki says, hotly, and this time she’s the one to turn away. “I don’t know if you even… N-never mind. This was stupid, I told myself I wouldn’t— let’s just go.”
How silly. All of his little asides, and yet this is what riles her up. It probably shouldn’t surprise him. She’s broken into a Reaper’s Game just for the chance to help; likely Joshua should have seen this coming. It’s still annoying, though. Why has he agreed to this again?
But he doesn’t move. He feels weary, and strangely drained, and he pinches at the bridge of his nose with a quiet exhale. Hah. He could say he’s still not sure why, but then, that would be lying, wouldn’t it? And while Joshua is rather good at lying to himself, he prefers not to make a habit of it.
He thinks, once, he would have been angry at this. He’s not sure what to make of the fact he’s not. He’s not sure what to say at all, actually—and isn’t that funny? That doesn’t happen often either.
Mostly he just feels tired.
Joshua watches Shiki walk away, and lingers there, at the edge of the sidewalk. His gaze draws back, turning away toward Shibuya; he looks past the ruined buildings to the streets that are His and His alone. He taps his fingers against his thigh. Trying, he thinks.
But there is no time. And so Joshua pulls his gaze away, and leaves Shibuya and his thoughts behind him.
a continuation of this delightful concept, featuring double entendres galore, a dark and stormy night, and yet another goddamn ouija board.
“Okay, Krav!” says Taako. “Here’s the dealio!”
The avant-garde clock hanging from their wall displays 12:32—that’s his best guess, anyway, as it consists entirely of two nearly translucent spindles and twelve brightly colored circles. One of the spindles stands nearly upright, and the other is inching tentatively past blue, so 12:32 it is. Its quiet ticking is the only sound that occupies the space, apart from Taako’s own voice. Lup and Barry are still out, wherever they are, which means that for now Taako has their apartment to himself. If they burst in while he’s attempting to summon the manifestation of Death himself, well, it won’t be the strangest thing they’ve walked in on him doing.
Admittedly, their cramped family room isn’t nearly as atmospheric, unless fairy lights and the kitchen’s dim glow count as mood lighting. The storm rages persistently outside, soaking their shallow balcony and lashing against the sliding doors, and he supposes that’ll have to do for now. He’s propped a broom between the door and the wall, bracing it closed, just to be safe. That’s about as much preparation as he’d done before he had set his sopping wet bag on the sofa, unzipped it with a flourish, and retrieved his prize.
Obtaining this particular ouija board had taken some actual effort on his part. He’d ventured into the thrift shop’s back room with a very reluctant cashier, shoving aside dust-covered boxes and bins full of sequined bodysuits, holding up his Stone of Farspeech to shed light over towering shelves. The one they’d found hadn’t even come in a box. It was draped in spiderwebs and sitting next to a DVD copy of an interpretive jazz workout, which he’d pushed aside with one acrylic to get to the board and its planchette. The cashier had recoiled, surveying it with a wrinkled nose and slightly watery eyes. “Are you—” He’d sneezed and nearly sent his glasses flying. “Are you sure? I mean, if you’re all hung up on this spirit-summoning thing, I’m sure we’ve got some haunted dolls or somethin’ around here that would do the trick—”
“Hey,” Taako had interrupted, brandishing the planchette at him. “Who’s the paying customer here? Yes. Correct. I know what I’m about, son. Ring me up.”
The ouija board now sits indolently on the coffee table behind him, looking for all the world like someone’s pathetic idea of a Scrabble game. For all the fanfare surrounding its existence, it isn’t terribly relevant right now. Taako jabs a thumb in its general direction as he taps his foot impatiently, staring down the far wall.
“Been a hot minute, hasn’t it?” he says, smirking at the cracked plaster. “I don’t usually call so soon after a first date, but wouldja just look at that—” This time, he swivels around for dramatic effect and gestures widely to the board. If possible, it’s even more depressing than the last one, with a lengthy crack across one side and dismal, fading letters. “As luck would have it, I found another one ’a these just lyin’ around, gathering dust. Sure looks like it’s lived, a, uh… a full life, but I’d bet it’s got a couple more summons in it.”
Taako turns his gaze back on the wall and reaches out, crooking a finger invitingly. “So, what d’you say, reaper man?” He grins, wide and full of anticipation. “Come ’n get it.”
He waits, propping himself on a heel, for a good several seconds. The rain beats against the windows, and a rush of wind thoroughly rattles the trees below their apartment, but it’s muffled from where he stands at the center of the family room. Otherwise, everything is quiet. If he strains his ears, he can just barely hear the clock ticking.
12:34 by now, surely.
A low, barely-perceptible breeze passes through the room and ruffles the hem of Taako’s skirt. Like a gaping wound in reality itself, the air splits in two, parted by a blade that trails black, gauzy smoke. The space crackles with arcane energy and makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. However much of a sucker Death really is, he thinks, there’s some seriously powerful magic at work here.
That is kind of his jam, though.
It takes a moment for the main event to make his appearance, but when he does, Taako isn’t disappointed. If anything, a vaguely irritated Kravitz is even more gorgeous. His gaze snaps to Taako almost straightaway, which to be fair is what most people tend to do in his vicinity, and a tiny frown creases his brow. His smooth, perfect brow. Taako notes with amusement that Kravitz’s cravat is just slightly off-center, and as soon as his lips twitch in a tiny smirk, Kravitz catches his heel on the rift and nearly stumbles. He rights himself as Taako snickers behind one splayed hand.
“Well,” he says. “Didn’t mean to trip you up, handsome, but I gotta say I’m glad I did.”
To his credit, Kravitz covers his surprise with a smooth and extremely impressive eye roll. If that isn’t an attractive quality in a guy, Taako doesn’t know what is. “How long has it been, exactly? An hour? Two?”
“Already counting the hours we’re apart?” Taako clicks his tongue, only half-trying to stifle a grin at his own quip. “I mean, that’s a little whack, my dude, but—but if that’s how you roll.”
“You know that isn’t what I—you know what? Nevermind.” From where it sits in his hand, Kravitz’s scythe dissolves, and the rift phases out of existence behind him. Someone on the outside could have mistaken them for two normal people standing in a living room, having a normal conversation. To be fair, that’s what Taako intends to do, although he isn’t feeling particularly attached to the normal bit. He notes the gold embellishments on Kravitz’s vest as the reaper continues, still looking altogether extremely vexed. “Look, I’ve already made one too many house calls tonight. If you don’t mind, I’ll need that ouija board so I can be on my way.”
As he says so, Kravitz steps forward as if to make for the coffee table, but Taako slides easily between them. “Oh, not so fast, fella,” he says. “You and I have got some business to conduct.”
He’s rather proud of how easily his interference forces an Emissary of Actual, Literal Death to stop in his tracks. Kravitz sighs. “Business regarding what, exactly?”
“No need to be so formal,” Taako drawls, and lowers himself to perch on the table’s edge. He crosses ankle over ankle and looks up at Kravitz through dark, heavy lashes. “It was kinda… uh, kinda rude of you, wasn’t it? Just dropping in, scarin’ the shit outta everybody, and swingin’ right back out with no explanation?”
Kravitz arches an eyebrow. The undersides are highlighted faintly with gold, which would have made Taako weak in the knees had he been standing. “You don’t seem terribly intimidated.”
“I,” says Taako, “am an excellent thespian. Now, c’mon.” He shifts and tips his head toward the ottoman adjacent, and Kravitz follows his gaze uneasily. “Y—You said it yourself, right? Tough workday? I’ve got some questions, you got all the answers. Sit down, take a load off, and I promise I’ll go easy.”
He can’t resist a smirk, then, because it’s far too easy to get double entendre with this guy. That’s got to be a good sign of some sort.
Still, rather impressively, Kravitz lets that one roll right off him. He shuffles awkwardly to the ottoman and sits, fluffing his mantle out behind him, and Taako watches the feathers ripple and shudder in response. Now that they have less than a foot of space between them—gods bless this apartment’s tiny floor plan—he can make out their iridescent shine, among other things. Kravitz’s subtly pointed ears, for instance, and the golden cuffs that cling to their tapered edges. Or the way his coat sits a little too snugly around his shoulders, as if it isn’t quite well-tailored enough to contain perfection. Or how briefly but noticeably his eyes flick to the curve of Taako’s lip, then dart away without any indication that he’d been looking to begin with.
Sometimes, Taako decides, actions really do speak louder than words.
“Alright,” Kravitz says, and Taako forces his attention back in line. “You said you had… uh, questions?”
“Well, yeah, no fucking kidding. You’re Death. I—I mean, I think we all confronted our mortality tonight, literally. You can’t expect me to, uh, to just take that in stride.”
But Kravitz is already shaking his head. “Emissary,” he says. “That’s different. There’s no such thing as Death as an entity. It’s more like… like a law of the universe that we, uh, enforce.”
“Law enforcement, huh?” Taako purrs. “Never woulda pegged you for the officer type, but I could see it.” He imagines Kravitz in the polished uniform of the Neverwinter militia, brass buttons and jaunty cap and all, and has to bite down on his lip. “Yeah, I could deffo see it.”
He’s getting off track, but hell if Kravitz doesn’t make it easy. “Anyway. Emissary. Seems a tad too important for making house calls, hm? Don’t—don’t tell me we were something special.”
Kravitz’s mouth twitches. “The only thing you’re special for is using a ouija board. Do you know how outdated those things are? I think they were popular when I was alive.”
Well. That’s new information. “Okay,” says Taako, and lets his gaze dip to Kravitz’s chest, trying to ignore the flattering fit of his vest as he scrutinizes it for a rise and fall. Sure enough, he can’t make anything out. “So that makes you—”
“Immortal,” says Kravitz, at the same time Taako says, “Dead.”
He tips his head. “Well, yeah. That too.”
It says a lot about Taako that he immediately wishes he had paid more attention to Lup and Barry’s Thursday morning is-it-really-necrophilia-if debate. He can’t even recall the consensus, which had been reached with a few contentious glances from nearby professors. Once again, it’s up to him. “Okay, then,” is all he says. “That explains it.”
Kravitz blinks. “Explains what?”
Maybe it’s a little brazen—okay, scratch that, it’s incredibly brazen, but it’s also after midnight and Lup’s residual impulsiveness is starting to rub off on him. Taako shifts forward, and it’s not like there was much space between them to begin with, but now their knees nudge together when he leans in. He swears he hears Kravitz’s breath catch in his throat (which makes this even better, because the dead don’t need air, do they?) as he reaches up and thumbs over Kravitz’s cheek, and sure enough, a chill rockets up his arm and leaves goosebumps in its wake.
“This,” he murmurs, and they’re close enough now that Taako can make out thin, feathery eyelashes and the hint of a shimmer across Kravitz’s upper lip. “You… you’re Arctic, my man.”
Taako can make out his own heartbeat in his ears, thrumming with want and begging him just to edge a little closer, to kiss the life back into this beautiful man. He swallows, reins it in, and sits back with a brisk pat to Kravitz’s thigh. “Well! Mys—uh, mystery solved, I guess. Def—” He’s never hated his stutter more than he does right now. “Definitely dead as a doornail in there. But that means—I mean, if you die, you don’t just… automatically become an emissary, huh? What is there, some kinda lottery? An internship program? Application process?”
Kravitz stiffens. Taako can tell when he’s touched a nerve, and not the good kind, either. “Ah… no. I was a special case. Still am, I guess.”
“Seems kinda fucked up that someone would just decide that for you.”
He shrugs a little helplessly. “It might be, but I’m grateful. I get to spend eternity doing work that matters. Barring having to go after the occasional idiots who decide to mess around with a ouija board.”
His tone is so pointed that Taako can’t help but snicker, although he chokes back his amusement before it morphs into full-on laughter. “Yeah, okay, you got me there. That one’s on Taako, ’kay? Totally wasn’t tryin’ to break up your… whatever it is you even do in the astral plane. They got wine and cheese over there? You strike me as a wine and cheese sesh kinda guy.”
A wry smile breaks across Kravitz’s face. “I prefer brandy, actually.”
“Brandy! You’re chock-full of surprises, huh? See, I’m a cocktail man myself, but I’m also—I’m open to experimentation, if you catch my drift.” He grins, and the way Kravitz’s eye twitches suggests that he does, indeed, catch Taako’s drift.
“Anyway,” he says, looking very much like he’s trying to keep another smile at bay, “we’ve gotten off track. I have some questions for you, too.”
“Who, moi?”
“Yes, toi,” says Kravitz drily. “I don’t care what you told me, ghost summoning isn’t just a fun Saturday night time-waster. There’s got to be a bigger reason you went to the trouble of digging up a ouija board from gods know where.”
Taako bats his eyelashes. “Can’t a guy summon Death without having any ulterior motives whatsoever?”
With what is apparently a fair bit of effort, Kravitz fixes him with a deadpan—ha—stare. “Honest answer? No. Never. And I already told you, I’m not Death.”
“Yeah, but it rolls so well off the tongue.” He leans back on the heels of his hands, returning the stare in full. “So you seriously wouldn’t believe me if I told you that it was all for shits ’n giggles? Like, it’s gotta be for some nefarious—I mean, c’mon. My dude. Do I look like a necromancer to you?”
Kravitz opens his mouth, evidently with the intent to respond, and stops short as his eyes snag on the folds of Taako’s off-the-shoulder blouse. Entirely impractical for the weather, of course, but all of a sudden Taako is extremely glad he’d worn it. He pulls his shoulder inward and lets one sleeve slip just so, and it must have the desired effect, because Kravitz suddenly purses his lips like they’ve gotten very, very dry. “Well?”
“You—no,” he says, and gives himself a tiny shake. The feathers covering his mantle perk up and cockle as he does so, and weird factor aside, it’s actually one of the most endearing things Taako has ever seen. “No, I’ll admit you don’t. But appearances can be deceiving.”
Taako thinks of his sister’s absolute maniac of a boyfriend, and says, “Okay, yeah, that’s fair.”
That earns him a suspicious glare from Kravitz, and he sighs. “Y’know, I’d give you my word, but we both—we know that means jack shit. So I guess you just gotta be willing to trust ch’boy on this one.”
The speed with which Kravitz’s expression drops is almost hilarious. “I really do, don’t I?”
“If it makes you feel any better, handsome, I give you full disclosure to keep an eye on me.”
Kravitz starts to reply, trips over the beginning of whatever he’s trying to say, and releases a long sigh instead. “You think you’re very charismatic, don’t you?”
“Just above average,” says Taako. “Wink.”
He chuckles in the way people chuckle at gods-awful jokes, which is to say, more than a little guiltily. Manifestations of Death have no business being this inadvertently charming. “I believe it’s your turn for a question.”
Taako scoffs. “When did we start taking turns? Last I checked, th—that isn’t the way an interrogation works.”
Kravitz regards him with lingering amusement in his eyes. There’s a warm but unmistakably sharp glint to them, and he’s reminded of Lup, ready and raring to burn spell slots just to prove somebody wrong. “If anyone should be doing the interrogating here, it’s me. You’re the one with the contraband.”
The universe can’t possibly pin this one on him. Everything about their situation—the setup, the exchange, Kravitz—it’s too good to be true. It’s precisely why Taako can’t bite back a smirk as he says, “Oh, so you prefer to take control, huh?”
“No,” says Kravitz, a little too quickly. To his credit, he doesn’t give much reaction other than that, although Taako notes that his dark complexion makes it near-impossible to discern a blush. Lucky bastard.
“Thought not,” he says. “I’m never wrong about that stuff. Okay, so… you—uh, you mentioned someone decided to make you an emissary. Who was the someone?”
Kravitz’s mantle fluffs around his neck. “Her Majesty the Raven Queen,” he recites. “She who presides over the passage of life and death and all governed by it. She’s my… well, employer, I guess, if you’re putting it in modern terms. And a goddess, of course, but you—I’m sure you already knew that.”
“She give you that?” Taako levels a finger at the mantle.
He glances back at it as if he’s just noticed it on his shoulders. “Oh. Yes, she did. It’s meant to be protective, but it’s also a… a mood detector, of sorts? Evidently it can react to what I’m thinking, but obviously I wouldn’t know… ah, sorry if it’s been distracting you.”
Taako wants to say You’re plenty distracting on your own, but he’s not that far gone. Not yet, anyway. Instead he says, “It’s cute, bird boy. Chill. Your turn.”
He sits back, because he doesn’t want to let on exactly how compromised he’s been by Kravitz and his ridiculous feathered cape. There are a thousand more jokes to be made in that vein—something about quoth the raven, among other possibilities—but all he’d been able to manage is It’s cute, bird boy, and the strangest thing is that he means it. This isn’t an off-the-cuff affection like the ones he’s so quick to dole out. No, Taako thinks, with a growing horror in the pit of his stomach, Kravitz is cute. He’s also snarky and dorky and very, very attracted to Taako, if he hasn’t been hallucinating all the cursory glances and small intakes of breath.
And the worst part is that if the flush of heat across Taako’s neck is any indication, he’s very, very attracted to Kravitz, too.
He can just imagine the look on Lup’s face when he tells her. So, he’ll say. Last night the boner squad and I summoned Death, and then I summoned him again to try and seduce him just for the hell of it, and, well, fuck, he’s actually amazing and now I wanna do it for real. How was your night? Knowing her, she’ll probably top his story with some outrageous tale of attempted resurrection and a car chase or two (with a ridiculously sappy rant about how much she loves her boyfriend thrown in for good measure), but not before she loses her entire shit at his expense. Taako’s blush flares hotter at the very thought.
Go big or go home, as the saying goes. He’s already home, which means there’s only one thing left to do.
“Okay,” says Kravitz, startling Taako out of his reverie. “Are you going to give me that ouija board?”
By the grace of whatever god is feeling particularly benevolent towards him tonight, Taako is able to make a seamless recovery. He pushes himself to his feet and puts a hand on his hip, looking imperiously down at Kravitz on the ottoman. “Depends,” he lilts. “You willing to work for it?”
To his surprise, Kravitz follows suit, standing up and immediately regaining the height advantage. Taako is halfway tempted to climb up onto the coffee table again, but there’s barely enough room for him to turn around—in fact, the cramped space between the table’s edge and the ottoman has them sandwiched right up against each other. Sure enough, a chill radiates through the fabric of Kravitz’s shirt. The resulting shudder that grips Taako’s body isn’t entirely unpleasant.
As a matter of fact, he realizes, it’s not unpleasant at all.
He really wishes he’d paid more attention to the necrophilia debate.
“Make me work for it,” Kravitz hums, and his voice and their godsforsaken closeness sets Taako shivering all over again. “And how would you do that, exactly?”
Taako forces himself to muster every iota of his usual bravado. It’s not much at the moment, but right now he needs every bit he can get. “I dunno if—if you’ve noticed, my man,” he says, and pointedly ignores the break in his voice, “but I’m a pretty smart cookie.”
“Mm. I, uh… I don’t doubt it.” He’s looking about as distracted as Taako feels, all attempts at intimidation forgotten, as some innate gravity coaxes them closer. Taako’s hands meet with Kravitz’s chest, sliding over the fine material and numbing quickly against the cold. He can’t possibly care less.
They’re inches away, and Taako just knows that any minute now, Lup and Barry are going to come stumbling out of the entryway and tell him to keep a lookout for the police. Or it’ll be Magnus and Merle, a little sloshed or a little high or both, begging him to reconsider his incredibly stupid plan. It really is stupid, Taako thinks. The plan, that is. But the plan also has him pressed up against an unfairly gorgeous man who seems just a tad punch-drunk on the moment, and he would be lying to himself if he said he doesn’t feel the same.
Taako is waiting for fate to kick down the door and flip him off when their lips meet. He’s not sure who initiates it and he honestly doesn’t care. All he has the capacity to care about is how incredible the icy thrill of Kravitz’s lips feel against his own, and the way they rock forward into each other in perfect synchronicity. He bares his teeth and tugs lightly because he’s earned it, and everything in him soars and burns with the gasp he gets from Kravitz in return. The moment is dizzying and so absolutely beyond anything he could have asked from a Saturday night—or a Sunday morning, he realizes, because midnight is a distant memory.
Everything seems a little distant, actually, when they part. Kravitz is staring at him, half-lidded and disbelieving, and Taako is sure he’s staring right back. He’s too lightheaded to do anything else.
Eventually he says, “Well, that’s, uh… that’s how we do.”
“I—you’re unbelievable,” says Kravitz, and he clearly doesn’t mean it to come out as breathy and dumbstruck as it does.
“Damn right,” Taako shoots back, and sidles out from between an Emissary of Death and the coffee table. “But I dunno if that was worth one whole ouija board.”
Kravitz’s eyes flare, bright and unnatural under the dim lighting. “You can’t be—oh, for Her sake.”
He cuts himself off and holds out a hand, and from his peripheral Taako catches the ouija board and its planchette disappearing in a plume of black smoke. They appear seconds later in Kravitz’s hand, and he folds them up and tucks them away with a huff.
Taako’s mouth falls open. “You could just—are you telling me—you could just teleport that shit the whole time and you didn’t—you didn’t just do it?”
“I don’t like to just magic my problems away,” says Kravitz, sounding wholeheartedly offended. “I wasn’t about to just—stop smirking, Taako, please.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Taako says, even though he’s never been less sorry in his life. He watches as Kravitz materializes his scythe, mantle tousled hotly around his neck, and only speaks up again as it starts to cut through the air. “H—Hey, hey, one more question?”
“Mm?”
“Just wondering,” Taako chirps, and winds his braid around a finger. “If I were, to, y’know, want to get ahold of some more astral plane contraband—”
“Do you want my frequency?” Kravitz interrupts.
Is he really that transparent? Taako gives a noncommittal shrug, like they haven’t just done something completely worthy of trading frequencies. “Sure, sure. If you’re down.”
Kravitz gives him an awkward smile and ambles over to attune his Stone to Taako’s. Their hands brush, because of course they do, and electricity shoots up Taako’s arm, making his skin tingle. He sucks in a breath and does his best to stay unperturbed. This is not the time to lose his cool. Not now.
No, he’ll save that for his sister’s return, when he tells Lup about how he not only flirted with Death and lived to tell the tale, but got away with Death’s digits and a Sunday morning to remember.
Title: Saint Lost
Word Count: 3050
Pairing: Ravus/Noctis & one-sided Ardyn/Ravus
Rating: M
Warnings: None
Summary: A Corpse Bride AU. In an effort to save his sister from the snares of an arranged marriage, Ravus Nox Fleuret takes it upon himself to volunteer in her stead to be wed to Chancellor Ardyn Izunia. What seems to be a steady arrangement instead devolves into a political ploy for power and for Ravus’ life to be forfeit among the dead. Yet, it is here where an unexpected ally might be his only chance for absolution.
Dead men tell no tales. At least, they’re not supposed to.
Something was wrong. Sorely, unnaturally wrong.
Sighting a small, unassuming puddle of water did Ravus scramble towards it and stare at what reflected back, almost overcome with shock.
Staring back at him was a hollowed left socket where his mutated eye had been, skin beneath rotted away and revealing the upper and lower rows of molars, his complexion was utterly papery and a ghostly white, but tough as tarp stretched over canvas and starched. Ravus’ hair was a shock of luminous white, more than it’d been alive. Though his uniform had remained intact, it was irreparably dull with age and grave soil, torn where the stab wound had been inflicted. Otherwise, he was stiff with preservatives, throat dry and thankful he didn’t need to breathe.
Suddenly, the hurt that had come in the last moments of his life welled fresh and searing, Ravus gasping as he clutched his chest and choked out a sob. There was no way of shedding tears, they all dried, fumbling for his sword as he cried out in mournful rage and began hacking away at the barren saplings spanning around the glen he’d awoken in, blind and cutting as they toppled and he stabbed into trunks and toppling trees with preternatural, inhuman ease.
“CURSE HIM! CURSE THEM ALL!” he roared wrathfully, tearing through the forest and snarling as he split trees and undergrowth, but he balked at the forest’s edge when he suddenly stumbled into a populous thoroughfare and stopped short.
Undead in various stages of rot, some completely skeletal, stared at him and he suddenly became self-aware and embarrassed at what a madman he must’ve appeared to them. Lowering his brandished sword and sheathing it, face stinging with his shame, he recomposed himself and tucked some errant hair behind an ear. Though the hurt lingered nebulously, he schooled his features gravely. Likely appearing more mournful than he was aware of.
Their frozen caricature suddenly resumed and they returned to their business as if it’d never been interrupted at all, save for the several who lingered.
“Lord Ravus, is that you?”
Ravus straightened hopefully at the voice, searching those who’d remained behind. “Maria?” The woman in question was there, skin blued but appearing almost perfectly intact—unlike him, he grudgingly noticed. “What is this place? Why are you here?”
She held her hands up in a placating manner, understanding. “Come to the tavern, Lord Ravus. It’s cold tonight and I imagine you’d rather warm up, hm?” Ravus furrowed his brows, but had to admit he felt the chill now. It was bitter, and stabbing. He supposed a lack of blood circulation would be responsible for that.
She led him across the town plaza where a proud statue general sat astride a sculpted horse, glancing at the sky, brooding clouds hanging slow and heavy over the horizon. It suddenly became raucous when he stepped inside, the undead from before engaged in the wild throes of a party.
“Drink, sir?” a headless waiter proferred, Ravus staring at the column of their neck offensively and nodding unconsciously. Taking the drink, he wondered: could the dead even drink? Shrugging, he downed a draft from the pint, head swimming and pleased to discover that, yes, they could. It was a pint of beer. Normally he’d shun the brew, but the circumstances seemed mitigating.
Ravus followed Maria, height and shade making him stand out perturbingly from the others. She took him to a corner of the bar counter that was unoccupied, perching on the seat and allowing himself to slouch for once in his life. The buzz certainly attributed for the lack of decorum, but with how it washed down the acrid taste of soot and dust, he continued to nurse the beer thirstily.
Maria poised to seat herself, looking smaller than ever as she perched on the stool like a withered crow on a telephone wire. Letting her shawl slip off, she only ordered a water, nothing more. “This is the Land of the Dead, Lord Ravus. This where the dead go after death. In most cases, it would seem,” she began, taking tentative sips of her water. She glanced at him, Ravus’ raised brow urging her to continue. “The past two years...they’ve been difficult, my lord. After His Majesty interceded in saving your soul from limbo, the Lord of the Skies saw it as a transgression and took something dear to him in retribution. Our realm has fallen on hard times, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, Maria, dear, is that you? I almost didn’t see you!” a shrill, disembodied voice called that caused Ravus to glance sidelong, bemused, mid-sip of his beer. From the ceiling, a personable black widow made her descent and white brows rose at her personified features. Lucky thing he was well on his way to becoming drunk. “Who might you be?” she said towards Ravus, Maria answering for him.
“Miss Widow,” she smiled tensely, “let’s sup for tea another time. I’m afraid...now simply isn’t the time. This is—him.”
Black Widow caught herself, gasping into one of her appendages. “I see. So terribly sorry for interrupting, dear,” the arachnid apologized before making her silky ascent again.
“Talking spiders. Is there anything else I’ll need to desensitize myself to?” Ravus scoffed in disbelief after he lowered his pint, surprised to find it almost empty. Grunting, he slid it out for a refill. And why not? Anything to numb the piles of nuisances he was finding, alongside the grief from an unjust death. The skeletal bartender refilled it, Ravus drinking down a generous mouthful before sighing.
Maria seemed to suddenly become gloomy, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “Lord Ravus, you’re seeking answers, aren’t you? I’m afraid I do not know as much as I wish, but—perhaps you can speak with the Reaper King. His Majesty was the one who saw that you’d make it here intact.”
Ravus gulped down another mouthful of the beer, raking his fingers through his hair. “An enchanting idea, were I to know who this esteemed king is,” he groused icily, mind fogged and irritated. He was still surprised none had dribbled from the gap in his left cheek. “More so, why my miserable wretch of a soul was worthy of ‘saving.’”
Maria shifted uncomfortably in her seat, lowering her glass and placing a hand on Ravus’ forearm, a disarmingly familiar motion that saw Ravus soften. She’d been like a grandmother to himself and Lunafreya, after all. He couldn’t help but lower his barbs around her. “Maria, what happened to you?” he asked softly of her, a rare look of concern crossing his features genuinely.
Maria seemed to crumple in on herself, small shoulders shaking as she choked back a sob and covered her eyes with her hands, hiccuping some. “When I heard news of your—fate, my lord, I… It was too much. My heart, I felt it breaking, inside me— Astrals, why must it have been you?” Maria wailed quietly into her hand, unable to truly cry as the undead while Ravus felt himself freeze at the revelation.
Words froze on his tongue, paltry consolations as he could only move from his perch and inexorably take the grieving governess into his arms, heart constricting in his chest. “Maria… I am sorry. To have caused you so much strife,” Ravus murmured numbly, feeling his throat dry and misery sober him.
When he felt the woman gently push him away with trembling hands, likely thinking it selfish of her, she slipped him a watery smile. “Do not apologize to me, Lord Ravus. You’re here. We can be something like a family again, and perhaps we might make something of this new life.”
Ravus sat back upon his bar stool, unable to finish the rest of the half-empty pint. Though the festivities raged on, he was indifferent to it. He grew quiet, the lull from the spirits still causing his mind to swirl erratically. Small wonder he rarely had drunk much before. “This reaper king. Might there be any way of being granted an audience with him?”
“Oh, pick me! Pick me!”
Ravus started when he heard an unfamiliar voice within his skull, rearing back with his hand hovering over his cutlass.
Maria chuckled amicably, Ravus realizing she was staring directly at the empty eye socket. “My, Maggot. That’s no way to introduce yourself.”
Glaring at the empty socket, Ravus dug his fingers into the empty recess and extracted a dangling maggot, again with strangely human features like the she-spider from before. Dropping him callously to the bar counter, Ravus loomed imperiously over him. “Speak, worm. Lest I be tempted to pulverize you for invading my skull,” he grit with bared teeth, Maggot slithering over to Maria.
“Sheesh, tough crowd. Was he always this grumpy?” Maggot whispered to Maria, using his tail like a hand to secret such a remark. This only earned him another glare. “You remind me of someone I used to know. Same kinda fate, too. But she turned out alright. Guess not everyone gets gentle after going through a tough time.”
“Yes, because being murdered by the man I was to be betrothed to was merely a ‘tough time’,” Ravus seethed sarcastically, Maggot inching back in fear. The derelict pint was beginning to look attractive again.
“You’ll have to see Elder Gutknecht for that. He’s overseer of the Underworld, see, and nobody sees the King without his okay,” Maggot piped up, resuming the topic from before.
Ravus cast the maggot a withering stare, though sat back, resigned. “I wish to see him immediately. Without delay,” Ravus snapped at Maggot, Maria smiling fondly at the man so like her grandson despite his persnickety demeanor. With so much still unanswered, it seemed as though this was the only way in which he’d receive the clarity he sought.
Finding Elder Gutknecht was not nearly a difficult task as thought, Ravus requesting that he do so alone. He’d stood before emperors and kings, whole swaths of politicians. Whoever this sole man was couldn’t possibly be more intimidating than them. Entering was a simple affair, the domain unguarded. A foolish notion, but within the vaulted library where the elder resided, he stopped questioning this land’s mad logic.
Gutknecht leafed obliviously through his dense tome, not seeming to hear Ravus enter. Walking to where he stood in the center before the raised podium, starkly blanched against the darkened setting more than ever before, he cleared his throat. “Elder Gutknecht, I wish to request an audience with the king,” he spoke clearly, frankly, as a man of his former office should despite the inebriation still muddying his mind.
The elder undead huffed as he breathed in laboriously, despite no need to, adjusting his bifocals to lean in closer. “Eh? Might you tell me why you wish to see the king, dear boy?” he rasped almost inaudibly, Ravus almost concerned those thread-thick bones might snap by the next breeze.
Ravus sighed internally, salvaging through his mind for reasons. Trying to keep them roped together. “I was informed he personally...found my soul. I simply wish to learn the circumstances behind this, and nothing less.”
“Ah, so you must be the one causing quite the stir. You see, in many a circumstance, His Majesty would be too busy to easily seek an audience. However...” Gutknecht wearily lifted himself from his seat, bones creaking as he descended the stair. “You seem to be an exception. Your death caused quite a stir up above, and continues to do so. His Majesty still deals with the ramifications, even now.”
“Then you understand my plight. If anything, I should be the one who is expected.” The brittle-boned undead nodded blearily, as if he hadn’t really heard the Tenebraen.
Fishing through a disarray of books, Gutknecht produced what appeared to be a small scroll, glancing about warily as if they were being watched. “Guard this jealously. When you are prepared to visit him, open the scroll and merely read the last line of what’s written. Then, you shall find yourself within his palace.”
Ravus took the scroll, squinting at the worn parchment cinched by a dusty blue ribbon as if it were the oddest thing he’d ever seen. “So easily?” he said finally, the decorum wearing away. He watched as Gutknecht ascended the stair again to his podium, heaving himself to lean against it raggedly. Nothing was so easy.
Adjusting his bifocals on a nonexistent nose, the elder began scrawling absently on blank paper. “Perhaps—if you wish for there to be a challenge, hike somewhere obscure. Open it then. Whichever you prefer.” Ravus smirked at the old man’s bluntness, finding it more respectable than the doltish nonsense that seemed to infect these lands. Astrals forbid he ever succumb to their madness.
The sun left us behind that day.
For some reason, the words caused a pang in his chest he hadn’t expected. There was something familiar about it, and damnably so. But before he could dwell as to why, a violet miasma spilled and consumed him in a vale of fog, he squinting through it until a cold sweep of wind banished the plumes away. If he still breathed Ravus imagined he would cough, but instead he stared.
Before him did tiered dual stairs converge at a stone-carved, empty throne dominated by skeletal angels petrified mid-flight. They seemed to leap from the stony relief into stain-glass windows, marble floors so glassy in their sheen Ravus almost felt ashamed for his dilapidated state despite trepidation knotting in his breast. Torches flickered wide swaths of amber that flooded feet before them, providing some warmth to the otherwise vaulted tomb.
What truly jolted him was the figure that came from behind, Ravus wondering if he could pale further if it were possible.
It was Noctis who walked with all regality into the throne room, dressed in a black super-tunic with long sleeves and trousers, as well the boots he remembered when he died. Though, his face—still attractive—appeared stern and belonged to an unyielding, powerful man. The air past him was still warm, still present with a pulse that drove his instincts into yearning for a life he was cruelly bereft of. As if that first night with the traitor had just occurred, feeling places he thought dead stirring.
Unless it was the liquor’s fault.
When Noctis gazed upon him, it felt though he’d been pierced by arrows. It wasn’t the warmth he was accustomed to from their past, but a hollow want to embrace the other twitched inside of him, though his own body craved the heat of something living, of someone dear to him even if that might not be reciprocated.
“Noct— Your Majesty,” Ravus corrected himself, bowing crisply from the waist despite how harrowed this all felt. His mind was still fogged, fighting away inappropriate dalliances when none were to exist beyond conception here. But for how long would that remain?
That’s when he saw the sternness on Noctis’ visage seem to falter, something more sympathetic blooming. Grief, if he could name it. “Of all the people I’d think to see here, you weren’t among them,” Noctis said lowly, sounding low like a sussurus. It was too late for that. But Ravus’ heart stirred still, seeming to gravitate towards him.
“It’s been years since then. Since you died.”
Ravus’ lips pursed, nodding, brows furrowing as he felt the growing urge to look away in shame of himself. “Might I ask what happened, Noctis? Why is it I am hearing of you at war with the Draconian?”
“Not war,” Noctis interrupted first, shaking his head. It seemed difficult to speak of. “When I saved your soul from oblivion, where it was destined, I broke ancient laws. In retribution, the Lord of the Skies took the soul of my father in exchange. And we suffered for it.”
This sobered Ravus from nearing the king any closer. King. It struck such a strange chord for him, that the closest he’d ever had to a friend was this. “...My soul is not worth so much. I— My condolences for your loss.” The undead began to turn away, suddenly feeling very foolish. Noctis’ father, gone; and for what? Suddenly, the old hurts seemed so insignificant.
“I wasn’t thinking.” Noctis’ voice suddenly broke the silence, Ravus taking pause and craning to hear with a slowly disbelieving expression. “After I reaped your soul, hearing what would happen to it—I couldn’t allow it. So I seized it back, and let it go. ...I didn’t think it’d find its way here.”
Ravus bowed his head, lips pursing. He took small strides as he came before Noctis, unfurling his fist just slightly to caress along Noctis’ cheek, relishing in the warmth that had long been stolen from him. When Noctis didn’t shy away from him, Ravus’ touch lingered at the junction of his neck and shoulder, taking another step in and lowering his forehead until it touched Noctis’ receptive brow. They stood quietly like this for a long moment, Ravus losing himself in the scent of the king that was like in those dreams they’d shared together.
“Must we allow a bygone mistake drive such distance between us?” the former commander murmured earnestly, longingly, thumb rubbing small circles while their breaths practically coalesced together.
Ravus loomed closer, barely centimeters from his lips, theirs brushing together as they spoke and the closure was agonizing. “You love Ardyn,” Noctis suddenly spoke, hands on Ravus’ chest as he just barely motioned to push him away.
“How can I?” the taller demanded softly of him, Ravus taking one of those hands and holding it to the wound, his hand layered over Noctis’, the canvas jacket still torn where he’d been stabbed. Noctis didn’t recoil in horror, but his face fell, eyes sinking shut.
“I have to save my father, Ravus. I’m sorry.” With that, Noctis suddenly moved away, leaving Ravus bereft with only the memory of Noctis’ warm hands touching him and greedily committing it to memory.
