pairing: schneider x gen!reader
summary: you and schneider were childhood friends but you two lost contact after her and her family moved to the states. Now, several years later, you moved to Chicago during the Golden Age of America, hoping to finally land your big break, and are reunited with your long lost best friend schneider.
“Ahh, Y/N, you know you’re really bad at this. You should try to be more careful” Schneider said, her eyebrows rising in amusement seeing you desperately clinging on to a tree branch in an attempt to pick off the oranges from the tree.
You tightened your grip around the branch, your breath hitched at the thought of what would happen if you let go. You gulped hard as you looked at the ground beneath you, even though everything inside of you told you not to, that it was a bad idea, and that it would only frighten you more. And yet you couldn’t help but doing so, for your curiosity always got the best of you.
You supposed that’s how you ended up in this situation right now, your body dangling off a frail branch that could easily break at any moment in a lousy attempt to pick off some oranges from the highest tree, when a simple ladder would have suffice just fine.
"I am being careful, I'm not going to fall...AHH!" Just as you were saying that you weren’t going to fall, you leaned into the branch a bit too much, causing it to break off from the tree and taking you with it.
“Y/N!” Schneider ran towards your still body that laid on the hard ground. You groaned in pain as you tried to lift your head up, but it only made matters worse. Still, you attempted to flash Schneider a small grin to ease her worries, even if meant ignoring the pain that was making your sides ache.
“I guess I spoke too soon” You groaned. “W-when is your sister coming back?” Gripping onto your sides as you spoke.
Seeing as you were okay enough to crack jokes, Schneider let out a sigh of relief, and wrapped her arms around your back, as you got back on your two feet.
“Sorella mia should be back any minute now, just hold on a little longer, okay?” Schneider answered, making sure that you were alright.
“Tell me, why do we need to pick oranges off the tree again?”
“Mamma and Papa said it’s donations for the church. I thought I told you this?” Schneider replied.
You gave her a solemn nod. The pain was starting to lessen by the minute, but it still hurt when you tried to do quick movements.
“Oh, right, right…” You mumbled.
The church is a big part of your life, it’s where you were baptized, where you met Schneider and all your other friends, where you first met God. Safe to say that the church holds a special place in your heart, filled with memories and joyous laughter, so when the high priest asked the community for food donations for the needy, you immediately jumped at the opportunity.
“I guess that fall really did a number on you huh?” Schneider teased, giggling to herself when you turned bright red.
“Hey! I didn’t forget, I just didn’t remember!” You shot back, instantly regretting the words that came out of your mouth once you heard how contradictory it sounded.
Schneider let out a laugh at your defense, and while you felt like you should have been mortified that the laughter came at your expense, strangely enough it didn’t. It was as if the sound of her laughter quelled you from becoming more embarrassed.
And as you looked down at her, her face scrunched up from laughing so much that tears were starting to fall, and how her arms were still wrapped around you, even though you could no longer feel the pain, and were perfectly capable of standing up on your own two feet without assistance, for some reason, you didn’t want her to let go.
You always had an attachment towards Schneider, whether it be because of her personality, her charm, or her charisma, you weren’t quite sure. What you were sure of though, that these one-on-one moments between you two, moments where she wasn’t pulled away by her older sisters or parents, moments where the teacher couldn’t intrude, moments where the other kids at school couldn’t interrupt, moments where even the church, —a place where you felt safe and loved— couldn’t come in between you two either, were your favorite moments with her.
“I’ll race you back to the church! Loser has to tell Suora Mia that we didn’t get any of the oranges!” You shouted before sprinting off, not paying attention to Schneider’s cries of protest.
“Ah, wait up Y/N, I’m coming!” Schneider shouted, running close behind you, not wanting to be left back behind. Even after being lectured by the nuns once you reached the church, the laughs of sheer joy and glee you two shared was something that you’ll never forget. Forever engraved in your brain is this joyous day, where the only thing that you had to look forward to was orange picking, and you couldn’t have had it any other way.
The smell of alcohol and smoke filled the air of the speakeasy, along with laughter of businessmen in their haughty suits. The dim lighting gave the bar an atmosphere that you were sure you didn’t belong to.
Nevertheless, you were smacked right in the middle of it, with nowhere to go to escape, in hopes you would get even just a smidge of taste of what the ‘Greatest Country in the World’ would feel like.
“Why am I here again?” You thought tirelessly to yourself, as another fight between two drunk bastards broke out next to your table.
That was the question that kept you up at night, and whilst you knew the answer to that question was the rising economic boom, but for the few years that you have lived here, were undoubtedly the most lonely and depressing years in your life. With no family, no friends, no one to share a meal with, what good can money do if there’s no one to share it with?
At one point in your life, you were somebody. You had people, a community of people, that you cared for and cared about you, sure money was tight at times, but you were happy, you were loved.
Now nine years later, you’re at The Walden, the most prestigious speakeasy in all of America, sitting in between a drunk, a bastard, and a tramp, hoping that somehow, someway, you’ll find someone, anybody, to spend an evening with, but instead the only thing that’s been keeping you company is the whiskey drink in front of you.
As you were about to fall down a rabbit hole of unwanted thoughts, a sudden voice them. You looked up from the table, you saw a lanky pale man with short black hair and glasses starting to present the ‘appetizer’ of the night, as he calls it.
What was his name, Forget Me Not, was it? Truthfully, you didn’t know much about him or The Walden for that matter, other than the fact that he dabbled in arcanum, something that you weren’t a big fan of either.
“Let’s welcome our fighter of the year! The defender of the undefeated honor of knocking out ten consecutive arcanist and human challengers!”
Your jaw dropped to the floor once you saw the woman who was presented on stage. She was short and petite, was holding a pistol in her hand, and was wearing a loose fitted feather dress that reached her waist. She looked so similar to your childhood friend, Schneider, that you had no doubt in your mind that it was her.
But what stood out to you the most was her eyes, it no longer held the same innocence and childlike wonder that it had before, no, it looked like the light was taking out of them, leaving nothing but a playful look in her eyes that was deprived of any real feeling or soul behind, the eyes of a tiger daring it’s prey to come forward.
You hadn’t seen Schneider since that fateful day at the Orange Farm, where you climbed a tree and fell from its branches, in a lousy attempt to show off. But that was before everything changed, before the War ended, before Schneider and her family left Sicily, before hunger and poverty broke out in your own home and community, before the rise of arcanum and arcanist.
“The fate of this challenger would be chosen, we let the spotlight decide”
Too engrossed in your own thoughts, you failed to register the rest of Forget Me Not’s sentence, let alone the shining spotlight that was looming over you.
“The spotlight has chosen, we have a winner”
That seemed to snap you back into reality, finally noticing the bright light above you. Amongst the hundreds of eyes that were staring at you, seizing you up, sneering at you in full contempt and disgust, or were cheering you on, your eyes gravitated towards one person and one person only.
“Hehe, long time no see, Y/N” Schneider chuckled unlike you, she looked completely calm about the whole ordeal, dare you say, even amused at the sudden turn of events. It was the same kind of amusement she had when you stubbornly climbed up a tree, only this time, it lacked the warmth it had when she was younger.
When you finally regained the ability to speak, you asked desperately. “Schneider, what’s going on? What’s happening?”
There was so many questions running through your head, so many things you wanted to say to her but were never able to. But most of all, you just wanted to know why.
“It seems like you two are already acquainted with one another, how delightful! That makes this much more easier” Forget Me Not commented. You felt your skin shiver at his words. Just what exactly did he mean by that?
“But for the people who don’t know, let’s get the introductions out of the way. Here we have, Schneider, the defending champion of last year, and a human from Sicily, Y/N”
The crowd cheered once he was finished but you couldn’t help but feel sick once he was done, just how did he get your information? There was so many questions going through your mind, most of them spawning more questions than answers.
“I do wish we reunited in different circumstances, but fate has spoken. I do hope once this is all done and over you can have it in your heart to forgive me, okay, Y/N?” Schneider said in faux innocence. Though her words seemed sincere, nothing about her tone or her expression sounded sincere or kind at all. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
Your stomach dropped at the implication of her words. Was she seriously going to kill you? Sure, you two hadn’t seen each other in a decade, but at one point in both of your lives you were inseparable. Conjoined at the hip, as your mother would say. Has she really forgotten about the time you two spent together or does she simply not care?
The sadistic smirk she wore. And the way she was taking such great joy from how uncomfortable and confused you were told you everything that you needed to know.
The person before you was not the same person that you knew all those years ago. What exactly happened during the past ten years that caused her to drastically changed? Was it her family? The mafia? Arcanum? The Walden? The church? You don’t know, and as she pointed her gun at you, firing bullets directly towards your chest area, you realized that you’re never going to know.
