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phykios · 4 years ago

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honesty and promise me, part 2 [read on ao3] [co-written with @darkmagyk]

Goth isn’t really Annabeth’s scene—hasn’t been since she was twelve, hiding in her room and blasting Evanescence or Avril Lavigne so she didn’t have to spend quality time with her brothers, or even talk to her stepmother at all—but Percy had insisted. She could almost picture his pathetic, baby seal-eyed face as he wheedled and whined at her over text, until she eventually (not at all reluctantly) gave in.

She’s only known him for a few weeks. It’s a little embarrassing how quickly her willpower had crumbled.

Thalia, for whatever reason, had decidedly not been game, even when presented with a large, post-bartending hangover coffee as an opening salvo. “This is a bad idea,” she had said, glaring at the sun so intensely that, were it not for her thick, black sunglasses, she probably would have vaporized it.

“We don’t have to go.”

“No, the show will be great. Pluto’s Daughter is great,” she said between sips of her too-bitter-to-be-real black coffee. “You and Percy, is a bad idea.”

“Protective of your baby cousin?” Annabeth asked, raising an eyebrow, her eyebrow ring awkwardly bumping up against her hair, sorely in need of a shave. She was thinking of getting a second ring. Her mother had once told her that they were the epitome of trash—but Thalia had two, and they looked so badass.

She scoffed. “He’s not the baby.”

“Then there’s no problem.”

Thalia narrowed her eyes, really considering Annabeth. Annabeth’s own eyes had been described more often than not as storm clouds, dark and heavy. If hers were storm clouds, then Thalia’s were lightning, electric blue, piercing, beautiful, and dangerous, with a temper to match. “Before you started seeing him,” she said, “I’d have said that you’d eat him alive.”

Annabeth smirked. “I have done no eating yet.”

“Ugh,” she rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, now I’m going to be honest with you. He’s going to eat you alive—and your self-esteem is never going to be able to recover. Honestly, I shouldn’t even let you two within ten feet of each other.”

She scoffed, taking a long drink of her own coffee, black but with just enough sugar to make it bearable.

As if a ballerina would ever intimidate her. A fucking ballerina.

The conversation hadn’t exactly ended the way either of them wanted, but Annabeth was still going to keep fucking Percy for the time being, and Thalia was going to let herself be dragged to the damn concert.

The night of, the bar has a line, but Thalia alternately sweet-talks and intimidates the bouncer, and he lets them in. Having tended bar for any place that would take her and not put her on the payroll, Annabeth assumes that she just has dirt on everyone in the service industry in New York City, so they skip a lot of cover charges, and get a lot of free drinks.

It's fucking crowded inside, too, packed to the brim with sweaty bodies and heavy boots. Just another day in paradise.

Thalia glances at her phone. “They’re at the bar, up front?”

“They?”

Thalia doesn’t hear her, apparently, just wraps her mesh covered hand over Annabeth’s wrist and pulls her through the crush of people. Annabeth has her eyes peeled for Percy’s typical blue hoodie or orange muscle tees, thinking that they would stand out like a sore thumb in this place, but she can’t see a goddamned thing.

Now, punks aren’t exactly known for their radical use of color, but this was another thing entirely, a sea of black and lace and leather. Looking for his black hair is a waste of her time. “So many bad bottle jobs,” she murmurs.

Thalia pauses for a second, frowning at her. “What?”

“Everyone here has decided that they just had to dye their hair black. How original.”

She is silent for a moment, squinting, then looks away. “I see them, come on.”

Her blunt nails dig into Annabeth’s arm as she yanks her even harder.

There, at the end of the bar, a tall guy stands, dressed to the nines—the nines of this particular scene, anyway.

He looks kind of familiar: curly black hair in a sharp undercut that Annabeth definitely admires, extremely tight, black skinny jeans that leave nothing to the imagination and really went out of style with My Chemical Romance, a t-shirt with a skull on it (because goths, obviously), and a leather jacket, covered in patches. She spots the Italian flag, several for Pluto’s Daughter and a handful of other bands, a pride flag, a couple of music notes, and one that says, “Not gay as in happy, queer as in fuck you.”

“Annabeth,” says Thalia, “you remember Nico.”

Annabeth blinks. The last time she’d met Nico, he’d been wearing a three-piece suit that had cost as much as her rent. Now the hand she shakes has black fingernails and a skull ring, leading up to a face with eyes lined heavier than either Thalia’s or Annabeth’s, with a septum ring and a line of studs up one ear. “Hey.”

“Where’s our prima ballerina?” Thalia asks as Nico offers her a glass of something brown.

Thalia likes—and cannot often afford—expensive booze, which means that Nico must be paying. Unwilling to be caught in another embarrassing little social snafu, Annabeth tries really hard to remember what it is that he does. Hadn’t he sold his soul to some law firm or other?

“He went to consign himself to a slow and agonizing death,” says Nico.

“What?” Annabeth asks, glancing between the cousins.

Thalia rolls her eyes. “He means Percy went out for a smoke. Nico doesn’t approve.”

“It’s bad for you! This is not a controversial topic,” he says. “I don’t like that he does it, I don’t like that he got you to start, and I’m not going to like it when I go to both of your funerals. But I am going to tell you I told you so.” Then, seemingly as if to undermine his point, he throws back the rest of his own drink, holding up the empty glass to the bartender. “Another,” he calls, “Godfather, if you please.”

If drinks were on Nico tonight, maybe Annabeth could use the cover of the goth crowd to order a glass of red wine instead. It would certainly be a nice change of pace from the shit-ass beer she sucks down on the regular.

“There he is!” Thalia calls, bursting into applause. “The hell took you so long? Wardrobe malfunction?”

“Yeah,” she hears Percy’s voice. “Someone stole my best pair of tights.”

Turning, Annabeth is suddenly very glad she hadn’t yet ordered a drink, because then she would have dropped it, spilling it all over not only the dirty bar floor, but also her second favorite pair of boots.

It’s definitely Percy, but she never would have spotted him. Having gone to a dozen or so shows with her and Thalia so far, he had always dressed pretty consistently in baggy jeans and whatever stupid dance pun t-shirt Annabeth hadn’t pilfered already to wear to breakfast: very normal, and just a little bit out of place for the goth/punk scene.

Tonight, he is not dressed like that.

She can’t focus on everything all at once, so she starts with his too tight t-shirt, with the logo for Pluto’s Daughter splashed across it, like the artist had taken paint and hurled it at the fabric from a mile away. Ripped and sleeveless, she can see every single ridge and line of his biceps, his forearms, his shoulders, even a bit of his decolletage. His pants are black, per the unspoken dress code, and baggy, but he has belts wrapped up and down his legs, emphasizing the size of his muscular thighs and calves. And that isn’t even the worst part. Neither are the studs in his ears, or the black liner around his eyes.

The worst part is the blue lipstick painting his mouth, making his eyes pop, making his troublemaker smile look that much more depraved.

The worst part is how that blue lipstick will almost certainly be all over her thighs by the end of the night.

Thalia’s advice was never going to win out, but now it has no chance.

Despite being dressed up like the goth ballet prince of her dreams, the hero of an angsty, middle school novel Annabeth might have dreamed up instead of paying attention in class but had been too embarrassed to ever write it down, he smiles at her, cheery and bright as ever, kissing her so deeply her mouth must turn blue. In the corner of her eye, she sees Thalia and Nico exchange a capital-L look, one that Percy can’t see, because all of his attention is focused on her. She doesn’t know what that means, but she’s too far gone to ask.

Percy moves away, still close, still oriented around her, but she has to clasp her own hands together to keep herself from reaching out and pulling him back to her, biting her tongue, rubbing the ring along the inside of her teeth to keep from letting the word “please” escape her lips.

She doesn’t think she’s ever been so instantly taken with any guy—ever. Not even the almost one night stand her sophomore year was college, nineteen and fresh-faced and totally unprepared for the heartbreak that would follow. Last time, Luke had suggested wine to help her get over her mystery man, so that’s what she orders now, taking too big sips and ignoring the slight concern in Percy’s too pretty eyes.

It’s all packaging, she thinks, packaging designed to make the product more desirable. Basic marketing and design. She knows him, and she knows what he can do with his teeth and his tongue and his hand and his dick. She recognizes it, sees it coming, so she won’t be affected by it.

“I didn’t know you were coming, Nico,” she says, wrangling her thoughts together. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Never miss a show,” he says.

“Flew back from London just for it,” Thalia says, bumping him with her shoulder.

“I flew back because my business trip was over,” he corrects. “…But I did take the redeye so I’d be here on time.”

Percy beams at that, so hard she can actually feel it. “Anyone else joining us I should know about?” Annabeth asks.

It’s so weird to look at them all together—all dark hair, strong jaws, cheekbones carved from stone, sexy and just a little bit intimidating. “Any other cousins, maybe?”

Nico glances at Percy, suddenly apprehensive. “Actually, Percy,” he says, “I’m pretty sure I saw—”

“Perseus Jackson!” A whirlwind of blue-green silk assaults her senses as a woman sweeps over to them, headed straight for Percy, almost knocking Annabeth out of the way, wrapping him up in a hug and ignoring everyone else. “How’s my darling little brother?”

Percy awkwardly pats her on the back, shooting a grimace at the rest of them. “Uh, hey, Kym. I… didn’t know you’d be here.”

“It was a last minute thing, I had a free night for once in my life and was casting about for something to do, you know how much I hate not working, and I thought I’d come by and support our dear Hazel.”

Nico raises an eyebrow. “Since when have you been into goth rock?”

It’s not an unwarranted question. She looks wildly out of place here, in her sleek, silk dress and the scent of Dolce and Gabbana’s Light Blue coming off her like waves, in sharp contrast to the sea of ripped jeans and sewed up shirts that surround them.

Kym, again, ignores him. “Mojito, Perseus? I know it’s your favorite.”

Annabeth’s eyebrows shoot up past her hairline. Percy? Percy half-a-cider-no-thank-you-I-don’t-care-for-any-more Jackson likes to drink mojitos? “Ah—” He grimaces, trying to extract himself from her grip, “no, thank you—"

“Oh, you’re no fun anymore.”

“I just don’t like to—”

“Well it’s not like this place will have any rum worth drinking anyway,” she sniffs.

Thalia rolls her eyes.

“Here, take a selfie with me.” Her phone is already raised, thumb poised for action.

“Kym, come on—”

But she pulls Percy close, shoving his head against hers, mouth already pouting. Thalia sighs, turning back to the bar.

After a moment of refusal, Percy sighs too, giving into his fate, and mustering his best vogue for the camera. They make an odd pair, her with her perfect Instaglam and him with his blue lipstick and smudged liner, but with the two of them pressed together like this, it’s easy to tell that this Kym is another cousin. Same eyes, same brow, same inky black hair, she looks exactly like Percy, only whiter.

Satisfied with her selfie, it’s only then that she notices Annabeth staring at her. “And you are?”

Percy sighs, rubbing his eye. “Kym, this is Annabeth. Annabeth, this is my sister Kymopoleia.”

Kym does not reach out her hand. “And what do you do?”

Thalia, from nowhere, slings an arm over Annabeth’s shoulder, whisky in hand. “Nothing that would interest you, leech.”

“I’m an architect,” Annabeth offers.

“My friend studies at Bartlett, in London. Did you go there?” Kym asks.

“No,” Annabeth says, biting back an automatic retort about Bartlett’s global ranking in Forbes. Ninth in the world, not even top five.

Kym curls her lip a little, like she knew what Annabeth would have said anyway. “What have you designed? Anything I would know?”

“She designs community gardens and stages for festivals.” Thalia says.

“Oh, so not a real architect, then.”

“The Man doesn’t have to approve of something to make it real. No, her name isn’t on file in some state office. She’s an anarchist architect.” Thalia says. Annabeth bits back a line of her own retorts.

Kym sniffs again. “Thrilling.” Then she turns back to Percy, writing her off entirely. “Perseus, it was lovely to see you again—will you be coming to Santorini this year?”

“Depends on my rehearsal schedule.” The words sound very rehearsed. He’s said this exact phrase a lot.

“Well get that sorted out! You know how mother likes her itineraries.”

He nods, beleaguered. “As soon as I can, promise.”

“See that you do.” Then with a final kiss on Percy’s cheek, off she flounces, disappearing into the dirty, grungy crowd, leaving silence in her wake like the wreckage after a storm.

“Okay,” says Annabeth.

Percy sighs, turning to the bar to order his own drink.

“Sorry about that,” says Nico. “If I had known she was coming, I swear I would have told you.”

“You can’t just go around saying the word ‘cousin,’ Annabeth,” says Thalia, returning to her own space. “It’s like Beetlejuice. Say it three times and you summon one of Percy’s douchey relatives.”

“They’re your relatives, too.”

Thalia scoffs. “Barely.”

“Oh yeah?” asks Percy. “How’s Hercules?”

“Hopefully dead.”

“At least he doesn’t show up out of the blue in wildly incongruous places,” Nico points out.

Percy takes a pull of his drink, and Annabeth does not watch his neck as he swallows. “Yeah, what was up with that? Since when has Kym been into goth rock?”

“That’s what I said!”

“She’s planning something,” Thalia mutters, glaring angrily into her drink. “I don’t know what it is, but she’s planning something.”

“So, I’m guessing this isn’t usually her scene?” Annabeth asks.

“Art is her scene,” Thalia replies, gesturing widely, nearly smacking someone in the shoulder. “The whole of the New York art world.”

Looking back around to the half-lit bar full of badly dressed goths, she thinks maybe calling this the “art world” might be a little bit generous.

“She’s kind of like an art world barometer,” says Percy. “Wherever she goes, the critics follow—like little baby ducklings.”

“Too bad she’s a fucking snob about it.” Thalia tosses back the rest of her drink, slamming the glass down on the wood, signaling for another with a toss of her head.

“Shame she has such good taste,” Nico muses.

“She has such good taste!” Despite her bravado, Thalia is absolutely a tiny bit of a lightweight, the whisky already going to her head, slurring her speech just a little. “Whole fucking family’s so goddammed good at art.”

“Not the whole family,” says Percy, shaking his head. “Kym can’t make art, she just appreciates it, like Jason. And Triton can’t do either.”

Annabeth has never seen Thalia so much as draw a picture or pick a song at karaoke, but she had been left out of Percy’s little list. In all Annabeth’s years of knowing Thalia, she never even thought that it had bothered her. “I mean,” she says, “if you like art, you could—”

As one, Nico and Percy both shake their heads. Insistently. Violently.

Staring at her empty glass, Thalia doesn’t notice. Nico replaces hers with his half-finished one, and Thalia drinks without missing a beat. “What about you?” she turns to Annabeth, blue eyes wide. That’s another thing that the cousins all have in common; their eyes are a variety of colors, but they’re all the same wide, almond shape, made more pronounced with heavy, grungy liner. “Got any artistic cousins?”

“No,” she says, wondering how little she can get away with saying. “I only have one, and he’s not.”

Everyone stares at her.

She capitulates, just a little. “His partner is an artist,” she offers. “Alex is a sculptor.”

Percy looks at her, half-smile on his face. “What does your cousin do if he isn’t an artist?”

His question makes it sound like there are only two types of people in the world to him: artists and non-artists. Given that Annabeth had been sketching buildings since the time she had the dexterity to hold a crayon, it might be true. “He’s in med school,” she says, “fourth year, at Harvard.”

“Ew.” He wrinkles his nose.

“Okay, smartass,” she says, “you talk to your podiatrist like that?”

“You still fucking that med student?” Thalia asks Nico.

“Dating him, actually.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Dinner,” Nico says. “Sometimes lunch. This is going to shock you, but you can actually spend time with the people you sleep with, and even develop feelings for them.”

They glare at each other for a long moment, then, as one, turn and glare at Percy.

“No,” he says, “I am not getting in between this.”

Nico, somehow, glares even harder. “Come on, you’re—”

“I’m not talking about this,” Percy says, his face a hard mask, lips set firmly in a frown.

For the first time ever, it occurs to Annabeth that this ballet dancer could be scary if he wanted to be.

That is… so not a problem.

The cousins continue glaring at each other, the family telepathy practically brimming with unspoken pasts. A part of her really, really wants to hear where it’s going. She wants to know what Percy’s feelings are on romance, just to make sure that they are on the same page. Casual sex, fun nights, the occasional concert—that’s where they are now. If the arrangement is going to change, she’s going to need to know about it.

Then, the lights flicker, dimming. A roar takes over the crowd, and when Annabeth can see again, Pluto’s Daughter is onstage.

There’s no introduction, no greeting, the band diving right into their first number, an intense, high-octane whirlwind of drums and bass and screaming. Percy screams right alongside them, hands raised and jumping, Nico and Thalia close behind, every unintelligible lyric learned by heart. Even Annabeth can’t help but get swept up in it, her typical aloofness melting away into the crowd.

It really is a great show.

“That was amazing!” Annabeth is almost breathless at the end of it. Her throat feels raw, like sandpaper, her cheeks aching from smiling.

Percy hands her one of those little plastic cups of water, knocking his own back like a shot, wiping his mouth with his knuckles. “Aren’t they awesome?”

“I had no idea you were such a fan,” she says. “Your Spotify Wrapped must be a mess.”

“I like all music,” he replies, glib. “Even rap and country.”

“Oh, how well-rounded of you.”

“But Pluto’s Daughter is special,” he says. “You know the drummer is my cousin?”

“Very funny.”

“No, really,” says Percy. “Hazel is Nico’s half-sister.”

She blinks at him. “You have too many cousins.”

He just laughs, throwing his head back. “Tell that to our parents.”

Whatever else he might have said gets lost as a small bundle of leather and fishnet emerges from the crowd, launching herself at Percy. “You came!” cries the drummer for Pluto’s Daughter--Hazel. “Oh, I’m so happy you came!”

In stark, stark opposition to how he had been Kym, Percy swings his little cousin around in a big hug. He probably has close to a foot on her, even in her black platform boots, their broad smiles so uncharacteristic in such a dour crowd. Annabeth hadn’t been able to get a good look at her up on stage, but now she’s flush with adrenaline, her dark skin glistening with equal parts sweat and glitter, baby hairs escape from the artful crown of bantu knots, septum ring shining in the dim light of the bar.

“Of course I came,” says Percy, somehow still hugging her. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Ms. Hazel Levesque!” Thalia crows, well and truly wasted. “There’s my gal!” And she rushes over to join them, almost bowling them both over.

A truly affectionate Thalia is rare, like a four-leaf clover or snow on Christmas. It does happen on occasion, if she’s gotten enough sleep or enough to drink, but the moment is usually fleeting, meant to be treasured, kept close to the heart. Annabeth can count the number of times Thalia has been sweet to her on one hand--never cruel, or mean, but just… brusque. Sarcastic. And yeah, sometimes mean, but never in a demeaning way. Just in a Thalia way. It’s one of the many, many things she loves about her.

The only downside to affectionate Thalia right now is that it leaves her alone with Nico.

She doesn’t not like Nico, she just doesn’t really know him. He’s swaying a little, not dangerously so, just vibing to the noise and the booze he’s already had.

“Hey,” he says, lurching over to her. “Got a question for you.”

“Okay?”

“I was. Working on those permits. For your show.” He waves a hand. “Whatever. You know that stage set up for that show in the West Village last winter?"

The first time she had met Nico, Annabeth and Thalia had been helping out one of her friends with their outdoor theater, and had needed a little legal assistance with getting the venue all squared away, as they were technically trespassing on some private property. It was nice to flex her creative muscles, though. She didn’t always get the chance these days.

She nods. “Yeah?”

"Your New York State architect license was on the paperwork."

Annabeth's blood runs cold.

Swallowing away her anxiety, she takes another sip of her water, hoping he’s too buzzed to notice. "What, was I supposed to try and impress Kym with my license?"

Nico snorts. "God, no.” Taking another sip of his drink, he goes to hug his sister, and Annabeth quietly berates herself for not taking care of that sooner.

Yes, her license is still on file with the state, because it’s so much more convenient to leave it like that, rather than let it lapse and reapply every time she has to do something bigger than a birdbath in a tiny community garden, and being registered still means she has access to the network and can apply for certain grants and it always looks good on her portfolio and she didn’t think the two worlds would ever collide, especially not in a place where Thalia, of all people, would ever find out--

“So,” says Percy, sidling back over to her. “Working on anything good?”

She blinks, the spiral of her thoughts coming to a screeching halt. “Huh?”

“Any cool projects on the docket?”

Projects. Right. “Sorta in between projects right now,” she says, tapping her fingers against the bar. “I finished up that community garden a couple months ago, now I’m just… waiting for the next thing coming along.”

He nods. “I feel that. The precarity’s a bitch, isn’t it.”

“Totally. Almost makes you want to work a 9 to 5 just for job security, right?”

“Absolutely not,” he says. “Wouldn’t give up ballet for the world. I could never work in an office; sitting for so long might actually kill me.”

It might--even now he can’t help but move, shifting around on heel to toe and back again. Everything about him is about movement. Even an office where everyone was on their feet, like hers had been, wouldn’t have been enough for Percy Jackson, she thinks.

“What about you?” he asks. “How would you fair in an office?”

“Been there, done that,” she says, before she can even think it through.

“Really?” She sees him scan her. Normally when he does that, he’s thinking of her without her clothes on, but now, she’s pretty sure he’s thinking of the ink that runs up and down her legs, and how that might all look forced into some sort of pencil skirt.

"Once upon a time,” she says.

“Was that before or after you decided to become an anarchist architect?”

Long after she decided to become an architect, but before anything about an anarchist crossed her mind, though her freshman Poli Sci professor, or maybe that sophomore philosophy TA, would probably argue that she isn’t actually an anarchist now. “Before,” she says. “I once tried to be very very different.” Tried and failed, oh so very spectacularly.

“How so?”

She looks at him for a moment. There are layers of mystery that need to be upheld. But she can’t spill her life’s story to Percy after only a few weeks of knowing him, no matter how easy and disarming he may be. She isn’t that girl anymore, and she doesn’t want people to know she ever was. Especially not these people: Thalia, Percy, Nico, even Hazel, who she hasn’t properly met. She can see, standing here, how very genuine and clear they are about themselves. They probably have actual skeletons in their closets, real, agonizing pasts, so much worse than her own.

She doesn’t want them to know she had an honest to god debutante ball. Murder would be vastly preferable. But still, Percy’s eyes are so bright, even in the dark light. His smile is so non-judgmental.

“I used to dream about adding to the skyline,” she says, eventually, “designing something so cool and so fresh that even after I died, everyone would look up and they would know my name.” For a second she thinks he might actually understand. And then she remembers Kym, and his utter distaste for his own sister, whose friend had only managed to get into Bartlett. “But I realized that kind of ego wasn't going to do me any good. And office work wasn’t going to take me anywhere I wanted to go.”

That bruise to her ego still stings, on occasion. That, and the loss of the only thing she’d ever wanted as much as something permanent. They were separate dreams, really, but two years ago, in that little Upper East Side café, they had seemed like one and the same. Failing so spectacularly in one had felt like she might as well throw in the towel about the other.

Percy in blue lipstick, eye liner, and a very tight shirt makes her think it might have been the right choice.

Maybe.

Possibly.

Assuming she never got another call. Though after that award she and Leo got earlier this year…

No, she reminds herself. She shouldn’t dream big anymore. She wasn’t going to get there, and she had to be ok with that.

He smiles, lopsided, sympathetic. “I know what you mean. Like, after so many amazing dancers, you have to be crazy to think that you can add something to the canon, something that’s never been done before. But here we are.”

“Here we are indeed.” She clinks her glass against his, and they drink.

He finishes with a long gasp, licking his lips.

“Wanna go be somewhere else?” she asks.

“Damn right I do,” he says, grabbing her hand, lacing her fingers together with his.

An hour or so and a few orgasms each later, they lie side by side on Percy’s bed, soft and sweaty.

“So your sister is kind of… intense,” Annabeth says.

Percy snorts so hard, Annabeth can feel it vibrating into her. “Yeah. That’s a word for it.”

“What was it like, growing up with her?”

“Oh, I didn’t grow up with her. I grew up here with my mom; she grew up in Athens with our father.”

“In Athens? Cool.” She’d done a study abroad in Rome, but she’d never made it out to Athens like she had wanted. Too much Pantheon, not enough Parthenon. “Have you ever been?”

He screws up his face, thinking cutely. “A few times. They’re not… great memories, exactly. In retrospect, it’s nice that my dad wanted me to feel included, but bringing his mistress’ kid on the annual family vacation to Santorini probably wasn’t his brightest idea.”

Annabeth’s eyes shoot up to her hairline. “Wow.”

“Kym was actually always pretty cool about it,” he continues, thoughtfully. “She likes to pretend she’s this ice queen alpha bitch type, but she’s got a secret soft spot. And my dad’s wife eventually came around--she even sends me a birthday card each year. My half-brother, though.” Percy blows out a breath. “He’s always been a douchebag.”

Dropping a kiss to his bare shoulder, she squeezes him. There’s a story there, but she knows better than anyone about not wanting to talk about bad family relationships. Percy likes Kym, though, and that makes her safe territory. “Tell me more about Kym. You said she was some kind of art collector or something?”

“No, she’s not a collector.” Percy bites his lip, considering. “It’s kind of hard to explain. I guess you could say that she’s, like… a professional socialite?”

Annabeth sits up, squinting down at Percy. “Are you trying to tell me that your sister is a courtesan?”

He sputters, completely taken by surprise, choking on his inhale. After thirty seconds, Annabeth is afraid she’s going to have to try CPR, before Percy starts to calm down. “No,” he wheezes, coughing. “No, she’s not a courtesan.”

“So, what does a ‘professional socialite’ even do?”

“You know, she… socializes.” Percy waves a hand in front of him. “She goes to parties, meets people, facilitates meetings--she socializes.”

Annabeth frowns. “What does that even mean?”

“I literally don’t know how else to explain it to you.”

“What, is she a spy?”

He opens his mouth to argue, then pauses. “Not… technically.”

“Not technically?”

“Think more corporate, less political.”

Okay, now she’s even more confused. “Huh?”

Percy sighs. “My dad runs this big shipping company that does business all over the Mediterranean. Pretty much the whole family works for him in some way: Triton is some kind of assistant executive, and Kym and my step-mom do, you know, outreach or fundraising or whatever.”

She’s silent for a moment, collecting the information presented to her. “Is this some kind of mob thing?”

He grimaces. “Maybe we should change the subject.”

“Is your dad a mob boss, Percy?” Objectively, she knows that the mob is a terrible organization responsible for many different types of atrocities, but honestly, the idea is kind of exciting, Annabeth hooking up with the secret lovechild of a mob boss. It’s romantic and sexy in a film noir kind of way.

“No, he just--does some light smuggling. I think.”

“How does one engage in ‘light’ smuggling?”

“Okay, so his business is totally legitimate, but he may also smuggle art on the side. Or oil. Or both. I don’t know and I’ve been told never to ask.”

And she thought her family was weird. She tells him as much. “That’s wild.”

“Honestly? That’s not even the wildest thing about my family.”

She flops back down on the bed, already exhausted. “Percy, I don’t know how many more revelations about your mob family I can take.”

“They’re not part of the mob!” He laughs. “But,” he smirks, looming over her with a familiar desire, “I can neither confirm nor deny that I had to swear a blood oath to the family when I turned eighteen.”

Rolling her eyes, she still easily submits to the heady feeling of his lips on hers, tilting her head back as he travels down her neck. “Okay, I did not sign up for any Don Corleone bullshit.”

“But you’d make such a great mob wife. Though we would have to kill the rest of my immediate family.”

Annabeth giggles, only partly at the ticklish feeling of his lips between her breasts. “I’d help you kill your douchey half-brother any day.”

He glances up at her from her belly button, long lashes fluttering. “That is legitimately one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. Full disclosure, Thalia has already called dibs.”

“That’s fair.” Then she pushes his head down further. “Now get to work, Godfather.”

#IT'S ALIVE #my fic #percabeth #pjo #the rivalry ends here #honesty and promise me #darkmagyk #we took a detour to 15th century europe but we're back babeyyy

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lo-55 · 4 years ago

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Shattered Chains of Fate Ch. 5

Heart Breaker

(Spoilers for Fate/Apocry[ha Inheritors of Glory.

Also Achilles is Gay and you can’t change my mind)

Mash was turning out to be a real heartbreaker.

Right outside of Alcatraz and they’ve been accosted by Fergus and Diarmud, who is a Lancer her and not a Saber like Ichigo was used to. Not only were they now fighting two servants, but Fergus had the gall to propose to Mash.

Which is how Ichigo ends up breaking all rules of a holy grail war and he, the master, stomps over to their opponents and punches Fionn on the head as hard as he can. He would have done more damage to the brick walls but he thinks he gets the point across because -

“She’s a kid! Don’t go proposing to someone like that you goddamn creep! I’ll kick your ass!”

Medusa has to catch him in her chains and forcibly drag him back to the group while he threatens bodily injury to the opposing servant.

“And for that matter stop being a dick to Diarmud! Asshole!”

“Well now that’s a foul mouth. Are all masters like you?” Fergas rubs his head, looking unruffled and honestly? Ichigo’s pretty sure he just broke his damn hand. Totally worth it.

“There are no other masters,” Ichigo scowls. The ground rumbles as a whole army of celtic warriors crest the hill. They’re caught, between the sea and the army and the servants. And to top it all off, there’s a crack in the sky. Along with the ring of solomon, a jagged smile rips through the sky and crawls with dark teeth. A monster crawls out and Kyo grimaces.

“If you keep releasing your reitsu like that, you’re going to summon a whole army of them here,” he said frankly. Ichigo stares at him.

“Huh?”

“You didn’t even notice, did you?” Kyo looks him over, something thoughtful in his eyes. “I suppose you wouldn’t. You’re only human, isn’t that right?”

“Uh yeah. Just human.”

“Master,” Cu elbows him, “It’s time to fight.”

“Right,” Ichigo turns to the living and clenches his fist in front of his chest, his command seals burning against his skin. “Let’s take them down! Rama, show us what that sword of yours can do!”

“Yes!” Rama helfts his blade and fire erupts, scorching and hot. He grins, a king and a warrior at one and-

Throws it like a frisbee.

Ichigo stares, mouth open, as it rips through the enemy like an overpowered saw blade. That was on fire.

“So that’s his Noble Fantasm, huh?” Ichigo runs his fingers through his hair. He can feel it draining his mana, but he could probably stand for it to be released a few more times before he collapses.

“Okay,” Ichigo focuses on the battle again, his mind whirling. Two lancers, and they have one Saber, one Berserker, on Lancer, one Rider, one Shielder, one Caster and Ichigo himself. Lancers were weak to Sabers, and strong to Archers, which they don’t have.

He can work with this.

“Mash, get ready. Cu, you too,” he keeps his plan quiet, his directions firm and the world focuses down to this point, this battle. Diarmund and Fergus are stronger than them by far but Ichigo will not accept defeat or failure. Together, they can drag victory out of their jaws.

By the time the fight ends he realizes that Kyo is staring at him intently. Ichigo scowls at him in return.

“What?” he asks irritably.

“I was just wondering… What on earth is happening here?”

“Huh? It’s a holy grail war,” obviously. But the ghost just stares at him, and Ichigo realizes that he’s going to have to explain. About the singularities, about the incineration of humanity. About the end of the world that they’re trying so hard to prevent.

By the time he’s done, Kyo is pale and his mouth is drawn tight.

“That’s- that’s insane! If the living world ends, so will the worlds of the dead!”

“Oh yeah?” Ichigo hums. “That’s fucked up. But, we’re not gonna let that happen. Even if our assination attempt failed, we’ll just have to meet them head on.”

“You say that like it will be easy,” Rama comes to his side and looks vaguely in the ghosts direction. “The truth of the matter is, even with all of us, our chances at winning are still going to be slim.”

“So?” Ichigo crosses his arms over his chest. “This isn’t our first rodeo. We’ll win. We have to.” He says it like it’s simple. And to him, it is.

“If that’s the case,” Kyo eyes Ichigo speculatively. “You might want to suppress your Reitsu. How you still have it when other people are eating it is beyond me… You’re like a fountain, still bubbling up even as everyone drinks from you.”

“Couldn’t you make a less weird analogy?” Ichigo frowns at him. “And how do I do that?”

“What do you mean ‘how’? You take your reitsu and draw it into yourself.”

“... I have no idea how to do that.”

“Well, if you don’t figure it out you’re going to keep attracting those monsters,” he nods towards the fading corpses he’s left after his fight. Ichigo recognizes the dust they leave as a type of magic ingredient. Void dust. How weird…

“Fine then. I guess until I figure out how to do that-” Ichigo grabs the ghost by the wrist and starts dragging him towards the east. They need to find Robin, fast.

“You’re coming with us.”

“Sorry but, uh, who the fuck are you?” Ichigo asked when he finally regained consciousness. “And more importantly why the fuck are you in bed with me?!”

Which is a sentence he never thought he’d have to say. But here they were. Because fuck everything.

Instead of answering him the man, one of Urahara’s associate’s if he remembered, started shouting right next to Ichigo’s ear for ‘Tenchou’. Whoever that was, Ichigo planted his foot into the man’s chest and shoved him viciously off. A twinge of pain shot through his back, but he pushed past it. He was well on the mend, and he’d always healed fast.

He closes his eyes and takes a breath. The coldness of Rukia’s energy inside of him is gone, and he’s only a human once more. A human with high reitsu, but still a human nonetheless. What had happened?

Ichigo looks up when a more familiar face walks into the room. Urahara.

“You shouldn’t move around too much. Your injuries could still kill you.”

Ichigo snorts derisively. “Not at this point. If I was gonna die, I already would have. You were the one who saved me, right? There was someone else there too, another kid about fifteen-”

“He’s fine,” Urahara interupts. “I fixed him on the spot and he left. In fact, he asked me to take care of you.”

“Huh? Uryu did?” Ichigo can’t help the start of a smile. “I knew he liked me. He was just in denial.”

“He also said, ‘the only one who can save Rukia is probably Ichigo’.”

“Ah? That’s a lot of faith,” Ichigo crosses his legs under the sheets, staring down at the wrinkles in them. Uryu didn’t even know everything he could do, everything he had done. No one alive did and he was starting to regret it. To save Rukia though… How was he going to do that? “I’ll have to find a way to Soul Society… And, I couldn’t do it on my own. I wonder…”

He didn’t have enough mana to keep a servant around full time. Normally the holy grail maintained most of them. And during his tenure at Chaldea Chaldea’s system had managed about eighty percent of the upkeep. He definitely didn’t have the mana for a summoning, which took more all at once than just having a servant by his side. Otherwise, he’d have called someone to his side ages ago.

It didn’t help that he didn’t really have any catalysts. Almost everyone he’d ever summoned had been pure luck. And now he had nothing of any of theirs. Waver might have something, but still.

Would he even be able to take his servants into the afterlife? Or would they be drawn back to the throne of heroes?

What about Ereshkigal? Where was she in all this? The age of gods was over, and they had faded from the earth, but was she toiling away in the afterlife? Trying to bring beauty to Kur?

“I should have asked Rukia…”

“If it’s any consolation, I know a way into Soul Society.” .

“Do you?” He wasn’t even remotely surprised. No, this guy seemed like someone who would know a way to traverse dimensions.

Ichigo made a private vow to never let him anywhere near Merlin.

“I do,” Urahara was giving him a strange look from under his mask, but Ichigo was too tired and in too much pain to care. The only thing that mattered was saving Rukia. Once he figured out how to get there, he could set about figuring out how to get his servants too. If Renji and Byakuya were any indication, he should be able to make it with most of his closest allies. Assuming he could summon them.

“Alright. And what do I have to do to get you to tell me? I doubt you’ll do that for free, even if she is a regular of yours.”

“Oh my, do you really have such little faith in me?”

Ichigo just gives him a look, and the airy smile starts to fade.

“Alright. The condition you have to meet is simple. Starting now, for ten days, you have to train with me.”

Ichigo cocks his head. “Do I have that much time? Rukia’s supposed to be executed.”

Urahara breaks down the timeline for him. A month, he has one month to get strong enough to beat Byakuya without Rukia’s powers to help him. Ten days to train, seven days to get there, and thirteen days to save her. There’s something else going on, Urahara has no need to help him this much, but he’s learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

There’s definitely something going on here that he doesn’t understand. And Urahara is using him for something else. But…

‘A scumbag who will do anything to win.’ That was what Roman had called Merlin. And this man, his eyes are just the same. Willing to do anything to win. To win what? He’s missing something big. Had Rukia had something important to him? Was she more than just a customer?

So far, Urahara has done nothing but help him. So Ichigo has no reason to distrust him.

“Alright. How do you plan on training me? With weapons? Or magic?”

“Shinigami call it Kidou,” he says helpfully, but Ichigo knew that already. “And if you must know, I plan to restore your shinigami powers.”

“That’s not possible. Rukia’s powers are gone from me now. I can’t feel them anymore. It’s not cold like it used to be.”

“Cold? I see. So you could feel her zanpakuto the entire time. That’s quite impressive.”

Ichigo just shrugs. “If you say so. I was only a demi-shinigami, so it’s only natural that I can’t feel her power inside me anymore.”

“A demi-shinigami? I’ve never heard it called that before. Substitute is the proper term.”

“I don’t really give a shit. The point is, I don’t have those powers anymore, so there’s no way to ‘restore’ them.”

“That’s true. Perhaps I should have put it this way. ‘I will make you into a shinigami in your own right’. Without Rukia’s powers. Only your own.”

Ichigo freezes. Because what? How will that even work?

“My own power.” He repeats. He’s never-

The concept is so foreign. Never has he fought only with his own power. It’s always been someone else's. Mash’s, Cu’s, Medusa’s, and the dozen other servants that have fought at his side. Rukia’s power, snow through his veins.

To fight with just his own power… To go toe to toe with Byakuya and Renji using his own strength.

Is it even possible?

“Aren’t Shinigami dead?”

Urahara is strangely quiet.

“Yes. They are.”

“So for me to be a shinigami, you would have to kill me.”

“Yes.”

He’s honest, at least. “Give me a day to consider it.”

A day to talk to Waver, a day to try and summon his friends, a day to decide what he’s going to do. Because Servants run on Mana, life energy, and if he’s dead-

Will he ever see any of them again? Will he ever dream of Merlin again? Will he be able to keep his promise to him, and break him out of his prison at the end of time?

“Of course. Go to school, have some time alive. Then come back tomorrow, and give me your answer.” It sounds like Urahara thinks he already knows the answer. And maybe he does, but Ichigo needs a while.

He leaves an hour later, wrapped up like a mummy.

* *

Ichigo is a time traveler. He is in the middle of time travel right now. So, it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that alternate timelines, along with time travel, are a thing.

That doesn’t mean that he expects to be pulled into one in the middle of an already difficult singularity. He’s still not one hundred percent sure who is one his side, if anyone is besides the three he’s come with, but Nightingale seems to be willing to follow him, and Rama as well. And Liz is here, again, and as much trouble as she can be she’s still pretty reliable in a pinch. And Kyo was at his side now too.

So there’s a few people on his side, and he’s glad for them, but the american’s are a pain in the ass and the celts are trying to end the world, and he’s had a hard enough time falling asleep when an honest to god dragon appears before him (in his dream, he thinks) and whisks him off to a castle and a city and an alternate timeline where apparently Fuyuki never even happened and instead a bunch of giddy millenials (or whatever the fuck their names was) stole a grail and fought a saint and now inside the grail the war is starting again.

Which - what?

How is this even his life?

But the dragon turns into a human, and then there’s a sorta-centaur trying to teach them how to fight and Achilles is so. Very. Gay.

“A chariot isn’t meant for just one,” and a cocky smile and Ichigo is pretty sure he wants to punch him. But he takes his hand instead, stands at the head of the chariot with one arm buffering him on each side and they fly.

They’re lightning in the sky, all divinity and invincibility and power. They mow down the opposing faction like they’re cutting down grass instead of heroes from ages past and Ichigo knows at once that as soon as he can he needs to find a way to summon this hero.

Even if it meant dealing with bad flirting. And his weird aversion to fighting with women. And his stupid, cocky attitude.

Ichigo can work with a lot of things. Plenty of people (mainly Kiyohime) are already trying to get in his pants. What’s one more person? Especially such a powerful rider.

Powerful Rider.

And that puts mental images in his head that he did not need, thanks all the same. He can’t look at Achilles for a full three hours afterwards.

The dragon, Seig, turns out to be a homunculus, created by the Young Millennials or whatever as a sort of battery to power their mage craft. Which is beyond fucked up, and Ichigo privately vows to strangle any of the ones he meets.

On top of that, when he wakes up the next morning there’s a little kid at the edge of his bed, covered in scars, not wearing any proper clothes and calling him ‘mommy’ and Ichigo decides then and there that alternate universes are more trouble than they’re worth. This kid, he's met her before. Jack the Ripper, and she calls him 'mommy', again.

“I’m not even a girl damn it!”

But the kid’s persistent, and cute in a really creepy way, so Ichigo can’t really do anything besides constantly telling her not to call him ‘mommy’. But that works as well as trying to get anyone else to use his given name instead of ‘Master’.

They end up having a picnic in a garden hosted by a berserker and a Saber he’d met in london. There are a lot of people he'd met in London here. The little girl, Jack, the Saber, Mordred, and Fran too of course.

They didn’t recognize him. Why would they? These were memories of servants, and technically they’d never met Ichigo at all being from another timeline. And only existed in the dream he’d been having for like three days.

He was going to make his head hurt if he kept thinking of all this.

They fly to the Hanging Gardens, and take their owner onto their side. Ichigo is starting to get used to the idea of beating someone’s face in and them being his friend afterwards.

Together, they finally reach the center of the chaos. A mad man who had turned himself into a servant before being killed. Darnic Prestone Yggdamellenia. One of the people who had made and tried to kill Sieg. Ichigo has to fight not to strangle him when he offers to fulfill the wishes of all of his friends. Bribing them with what they want most, if they only surrender to him.

It’s Achilles who steps forwards.

“I hate to break it to you, but I’m gonna have to pass. I woudln’t really be a hero if I went along with you now, would I? We’re meant to live life to the fullest. If we stumble along the way, that doesn’t invalidate what happened before the fall, or after. And reproduction or now. Servant or not. As long as I’m still me…”

“I’m not doing anything a real hero wouldn’t do!”

Mordred scoffs at Ichigo’s right. “For once, you carrot looking weirdo, we’re on the same page.”

“Carrot looking weirdo?!”

“I can’t exactly say I got the cleanest hands around here, but there’s still no way I’d side with you! Even I’d feel gross going along with your plan, asshole.”

They each step up, one after the other. Denying their dreams, denying immortality, for the sake of staying true to themselves. What is a dream worth if you lose yourself along the way?

They fight. They fight against the castle, they fight against themselves, they fight against reproductions that will not quit spawning, one copy after the other until even Mordred is nearing exhaustion. But they do not falter, they do not stop.

And in the end, they are saved by a vampire. The Gardens collapse and the dream has to end, but before they leave, they say their goodbyes, their thanks.

Achilles even goes so far as to pull his orange sash off and drape it around Ichigo’s neck like a scarf that matches his hair.

“You know, it’s kind of nice,” he says, his smile half cocked. “Even though this is the end of our time together… When I was alive, I never could relax after a battle because I knew there was always going to be another one on the way right after. But now…”

“I’m satisfied. We won, and there’s no civilians around so we didn’t have to worry about massacres or any other atrocities. That’s nice. Oh, and Hektor’s not around! That’s good.”

Hektor. The one who’d shot him down.

“You must hate him, huh?”

“Not exactly,” Achilles frowns, “But if you ever summon us at the same time, I’ll find a way to get around it. We’ll work it out, we just have to think positive. But,” he shakes his head, “That’s not what I really want to say.”

“Then just spit it out already,” Ichigo orders. Achilles grins at him.

“I’m trying to say, I hope you summon me again. It’s been fun fighting alongside with you! So if you ever find yourself in a tight spot in Greece, just call for me and I’ll come running no matter when or where you are. And that’s a promise!”

Achilles grins at him, and disappears in a cloud of gold glitter.

When Ichigo wakes up, the scarf is still around his neck, and Kyo is staring at him like he’s grown a second head.

* * *

There’s a cat across the street from his house.

Not his house, but the house that is his and not his families. The one that is empty, and not meant to be lived in. It’s… hard, to be around his family. To be around people who don’t understand war and pain and loss and trying, trying, trying, and still losing so much even if you win in the end.

There’s a cat across the street from his house and a plain brown package on the doorstep.

Ichigo pauses, the keys in his hands, and turns to the cat. Pitch black, with gold eyes. It trots across the street towards him, neatly avoiding the only car coming along, and Ichigo kneels down in front of it. He offers his hand, and the creature gives him a dainty sniff.

It doesn’t have mana.

Any mana.

That is… not normal. No mana but reitsu. A soul in a body?

“Oh. Are you a familiar?” he runs his fingers along the crest of the cat’s head, scratching carefully behind the ears. “You’re not Wavers. Or anyone’s local. Are you from the Mage’s Association?”

Ichigo stands and moves to the house, picking up the box on his way in. The lock turns with a click and hums with magic before it let’s the door swing open.

“I hope this isn’t a bomb,” he says idly. “That would be a really sloppy way to assassinate someone, don’t you think?”

How mad must he look, standing on his doorstep and talking to a black cat.

To be fair, the cat seems to nod at him before making his (?) way into the house. A discrete glance and Ichigo changes his assessment. Probably a her cat. A lady cat? Did female cat’s have a particular name? Like a bitch or a cow or mare?

He shuts the door firmly behind him and makes his way into the kitchen, where he sets the package on the table. He puts a kettle on to boil water and pulls out a small carton of milk from the fridge for his impromptu guest.

Ichigo does not have a familiar. He had been lent Fou for a long, long time but he’d never had one of his own. They’re an extension of their master, an extra eye and ear and, Ichigo privately thinks, a way to battle off loneliness.

Mage’s are strange creatures.

Typically, they only have one or two children. An heir and a spare, no more. And even then, only the most promising of the two is taught the family mage craft and given their magic crest. Mage’s are viciously protective of their secrets and their magic, even amongst their peers, and Ichigo has seen the life as lonely.

Ichigo, contrarily, is a pack animal.

He’s no chatterbox. He’s not bubbly or outgoing or honestly all that talkative, but he thrives on other people being nearby. They give him purpose and drive, they strengthen him.

That might be why he’d clung so hard to Rukia Kuchiki.

She had given him power, yes. Power to fight on his own, power to save his family, and for that he would always be grateful. But she was also a warrior, a survivor, and something in her was jagged and fierce. She was a survivor, even if he didn’t know what of.

She was, just a little bit, like him. In a way that no one else he knew was.

Ichigo was alone.

He had his friends. He had his family but they didn’t understand, they couldn't understand.

They wouldn’t understand his sudden need to sit with the door in plain sight and the window’s far from his back. They wouldn’t understand the abrupt change in his priorities list, that put ‘survive’ on top of everything else when it used to be ‘take care of the girls’. They would not understand the sudden feeling of weightlessness that comes from stepping out from under the weight of the world for the first time in years and loss that came with that same victory.

He has no servants. He has no Romani, no Da Vinci. No Mash.

Ichigo is utterly alone.

He is alone, and Rukia had alleviate that in a way that even Chad, his best friend, his partner, couldn’t.

War has alienated Ichigo from the very people he fought in it to protect and doesn’t that just fucking figure?

Ichigo stands in the kitchen, watching the cat finish her milk.

“I’m going to bed,” he announces. Maybe Merlin will have some ideas.

He completely forgets about the package that is hopefully not a bomb.

* * * *

Ichigo is getting sick of all of their potential allies trying to kill him at first.

It seems like every time they turn around someone wants them to ‘prove their worth’ or test them in battle or something equally annoying. It doesn’t help that this is scathach and the second she showed up Cu started acting like a totally different person.

And by that, he means he’s jumpy like a beaten dog and ramrod straight like a student on the shit list.

And, she can totally see Kyo.

Even if all she does is throw him a wink that had him bristling.

She’s… bewildering. She’s fierce and vicious and Ichigo is very glad she’s not the enemy. She’s one of the only people he’s seen that might be able to go head to head with Cu Alter and win. Instinct tells him that she’s dangerous, that she’s darkness in a way that threatens to draw him in. He can see, in the way they move, in the way they fight, how she might be Cu’s mentor.

The queen of the shadow lands, and doesn’t that have Kyo’s attention?

“That fool,” she looks to the east, “That pitiful fool. I’m sure he’s only this way because of the wicked queen’s wish. He found one thorn unbearable. To be covered in them must be torture. He must he out of his mind, burdened with a thousand.”

“But by paying that price, he has surpassed even me. They say an idiot without hesitation is strong, don’t they?”

A warm hand lands on Ichigo’s shoulder and he looks up, to his Cu, his faithful watchdog, his Caster. “All power has their price, Master. Think about the weight of a sword before you draw it.”

All Ichigo can do is nod. What is he meant to say to that? His heart hurts for the Cu so alike and so different from his owns suffering. He didn’t ask for his position anymore than Ichigo did. But, he will not hesitate when he has to fight him. He needs to win. He needs the grail.

If he doesn’t win, he’ll never see his friends again. He’ll never see his family. His father, his sisters. They’ll all be gone. And he won’t let that happen, no matter what kind of sympathy he might have for the enemy.

“Right. We should get moving soon. Before the enemy catches up with us.”

It still doesn’t sit quit right with him.

“You’re troubled,” Kyo notes, falling into step with him.

“Yeah,” Ichigo can’t deny that. “Each one of these wars gets more and more complicated, and each time the people we face are stronger. I feel like I’m trying to pull apart headphones from my pocket sometimes.”

“...excuse me?”

Ichigo ends up explaining to Kyo, and apparently to everyone else too, how headphones work, what a cell phone is, how they work (and honestly all he knows is there’s satellites and that brings about a whole other conversation) and by the time he’s exhausted his already limited understanding of radiowaves and electric currents they’re in the desert and Scathach wants him to fight a pack of wyverns off with his bare hands.

He (somehow) manages not to die, and he suddenly understands Cu’s attitude towards his teacher.

* * * * *

“Do you know-”

“I’m in a dream, Merlin,” Ichigo interrupts him before he can even get the full sentence out out, and the mage cocks a brow in question. Ichigo sits up and leans on his shoulder. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“My, your life never is dull. Why don’t you tell Merlin all about it?”

“...Are you going to start talking in third person if I do?”

“No. You’ll probably hit me.”

Ichigo manages a wan smile. “You know me so well.”

Ichigo does end up telling him what happened with Rukia. About almost winning but getting his ass kicked and his borrowed power ripped away. And Urahara’s offer to kill him.

“If I die, would I even be able to see you again?”

Merlin cocks his head. “Well. If you’re asking me what happens after you die, may I remind you that I am one of the least qualified individuals to answer that question, being an immortal. If you had more time I would suggest you make a trip to scotland, or even greece. Places where the afterlife have been reached in the past. But, I suppose that’s out of the question.”

“He said I have a month before she’s executed.”

“You’ve done more with less time. ”

“And significantly more backup.”

“True. You could always ask that Quincy boy to give you a crash course in your mother’s powers. Although…”

“What?” Ichigo narrows his eyes at him.

“This man said he can give you Shinigami powers. I doubt that they’re something that can just be taught. Like mage craft, I’ll bet it has to be inherited, or brought on by mutation. Perhaps it’s only a lingering spark from your little friend, but in any case, I don’t see why you’d need to die. You’ve projected your soul out of your body a half dozen times before.”

“This isn’t ray shifting. And even if it was, I don’t have Chaldea or a coffin to help me.”

“No. But I suspect that the answers are somewhere inside of you, instead of merely with this shady shopkeeper.”

“... like you have room to call anyone shady. “

Merlin laughs, a soft breath on the wind.

“No, I certainly don’t. “

He’s still staring at Ichigo.

“What?” It makes his skin crawl when Merlin does that. When he seems to read Ichigo like he’s a book. Easy to flip through and find the information he wants.

“That’s not all that troubles you, is it? I know you’re not afraid of dying, but you’re hesitating. You never do that. “

“It’s just like I said.” Ichigo draws one leg up to his chest. “If I die for real, I don’t know if I’ll ever see you, or any of the others again. I don’t have enough quartz to summon someone to help me, and if I let Urahara do what he wants, it might not matter. I can’t summon my friends if I don’t have any mana. “

“But if you don’t, another friend might die. Quite the dilemma. “

“You could stand to sound a little more torn up about it!”

“Huh? But I don’t even know the girl! Besides, you’re not exactly weeping yourself. “

Ichigos mouth shuts with a click and he looks away, his stomach turning. Merlin isn’t wrong. He’s not crying. He’s not even panicking.

“... Ichigo?”

“It’s. It’s pretty fucked up. But when she showed up I was relieved. For the whole tone between Chaldea and her I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the next disaster. Like I was gonna get a call saying there’s another singularity, or someone else was trying to end the world. Going to school? Eating dinner with my family? I just felt lost. I didn’t know what I was doing. I don’t even remember what I wanted to do when I graduated anymore.”

“But then Rukia came. And I fought hollows but they’re not strong enough to give me a real challenge. And then she was taken and everything is just-“

“Clicking into place. It’s horrible, but it’s been so long, I don’t remember how not to fight anymore. I don’t know how to not be at war. And this… this choice between life and death. This mission to save her. It’s almost comforting. Isn’t that fucked up?”

A warm hand cups his cheek. Long sleeves, heavy with the smell of gardenias, brush across his shoulder.

“Ichigo,” Merlin begins, his voice strangely genuine. “Whatever happens, I know that you’ll figure it out. And that eventually, you’ll find your place. You always have one more crazy idea, one more play, one more chance. Once you get your friend back, you’ll figure out how to be human again. Or, something close to it. In the meantime, you can always find me here. I can’t exactly leave.”

Ichigo is so struck by Merlin, if all people, being candid and complimenting him that he wakes up catching flies. But, he at least has an idea on what to do now.

* * * * * *

#bleach #bleach fanfiction #bleach/fate grand order #Kon bleach #Merlin Fate/Grand Order #urahara kisuke #Ichigo Kurosaki #BAMF!Ichigo Kurosaki #Ichigo Kurosaki is Ritsuka Fujimaru #Urahra Kisuke #Achilles #Achilles Fate

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queenslasharchive · 6 years ago

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Fathoms Below

Features: Anderson’s Little Mermaid and Jolly Sailor Bold by Disney

Merry Christmas!!! @matcha-maru

“Upon one summer’s morning,

I carefully did stray

Down by the Walls of Wapping,

Where I met a sailor gay.

Conversing with a young lass

Who seemed to be in pain,

Saying, William, when you go

I fear you’ll ne'er return again.”

Brian woke up, when he felt a small hand tug sharply at the end of his curled ponytail.

It was his one vanity, sea-foam green in color and always intricately braided back with ribbons and sea-glass or fragile shells, anything pretty and decorative that the strands could hold. Currently it was tossed over one shoulder, long and thick as a fist.

And the next time that little hand reached for his braid, he caught it deftly without a second thought, thanks to the inborn reflexes of an apex predator, quickly recognizing the rough callouses from holding a drumstick on the pads of the fingers. Along with the gnarled little scar on the thumb web, a memento from a bad run in with some fishing-line when they were children.

“Angel, why the hair? Why must you always go for the hair?”

He didn’t even need to look over, or even open his eyes, to see his lover pouting in bed beside him, their love-nest illuminated by the foggy window, torrential rain was falling outside, the smell of Roger and rainstorm was heavenly, better than any of the scented candles Freddie would drag in and light up in the flat.

For the ambience, darling!

The delicate hand he still held by the wrist, twisted into a familiar vulgar gesture.

“Yes, Roger. I love you too,” He yawned, showing all his teeth, naturally asserting dominance over the boy he’d loved for just about all of his life.

“Brimi, you’ve been sleeping forever.” Ah, yes, the bitching to remind him that his lover was eternally five years old.

He grunted an affirmative, he had been sleeping forever.

Roger could have said a million other things and Brian would have happily agreed for five seconds more peace. The only thing that spurned his wakefulness was the heavy weight that Roger laid on his chest. A wrapped parcel.

He blinked open his mismatched eyes to see the blonde looking at him with the most impish smile, biting at the corners of his mouth in excitement. “Happy Anniversary, Ariel.”

Inside was a book, but not just any book.

It was a beautiful copy of Anderson’s fairytales, the kind with a fat embossed cover and words that seemed to come off of the page, pictures etched by hand, from old ink-wells and feather quills.

“Rog, its beautiful.” He gasped, it practically took his breath away. He didn’t even mind the silly nickname. “Would you like me to read you something?”

The devilish blonde nodded into the guitarist’s narrow pigeon chest, like that was what he’d wanted all along, his ear resting just over Brian’s heart, lulled by the sound of the beat as his current pillow was so often lulled by the lapping waves of the sea.

Sometimes Brian wondered how it was possible to love someone so much. To be happy to watch your heart live outside of your body. To be resigned to the fact that you would never, ever be enough for them. That you would never ever deserve them.

“Far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, and as clear as crystal, it is very, very deep; so deep, indeed, that no cable could fathom it: many church steeples, piled one upon another, would not reach from the ground beneath to the surface of the water above. There dwell the Sea King and his subjects…"

Rog snored a little in his sleep, snorting like a piglet, and Brian couldn’t keep the fond smile off of his face.

‘“When you have reached your fifteenth year,” said the grandmother, “you will have permission to rise up out of the sea, to sit on the rocks in the moonlight, while the great ships are sailing by; and then you will see both forests and towns.”’

Bri slowly slipped his own thick red bracelet off his wrist, a small clunky chain, with one hand and squeezed it tightly until it was a thick red blanket, one that he tucked securely around the both of them. His cohuleen druith. His soul. The mark of a Merrow. One who would always belong to the sea.

“At last she reached her fifteenth year. “Well, now, you are grown up,” said the old dowager, her grandmother; “so you must let me adorn you like your other sisters;” and she placed a wreath of white lilies in her hair, and every flower leaf was half a pearl. Then the old lady ordered eight great oysters to attach themselves to the tail of the princess to show her high rank.

“But they hurt me so,” said the little mermaid.

“Pride must suffer pain,” replied the old lady.“

Then as if he’d thought better of the change, the blanket melted away, until it became a sold tiny ring that nearly fell into the crevice between them.

Its base was a twisted circulatory system, redder than the most glittering garnet, deeper than the most ravishing ruby, all of the tendrils curling in towards the center, where an enormous creamy white pearl rested.

Pearls that size were only found in the deepest, darkest and most treacherous parts of the sea. No mortal bride would ever have a pearl that big. No one but his Roger, who deserved so much more than Brian could ever give him.

He slipped it onto Roger’s hand as delicately as he could, kissing the blonde halo of hair that he had known for most of his creation.

“Happy Anniversary, my prince.” My love.

-X-

Freddie asked how they’d met once, as he and Deaky had sat huddled on the couch.

Brian and Roger had been wrapped around each other as always, lying on the floor in a heap, practically nose to nose. Simply existing in each other’s presence as they were wont to do.

“You know what I’ve always wondered? How did you two meet, darlings? Was it love at first sight? Lust?”

Instead of rolling his robin-egg eyes, Roger had flashed that same wicked gremlin grin of his.

“At the beach when we were kids. So I’m not sure I wanted into his trousers quite yet.” His voice turned wistful as his tongue peeked out of the corner of his round lips. “Although it certainly didn’t take very long.”

All joking aside, Roger had only been five years old then, running rampant in Truro, the tiny little fishing port that it was. Small, homely.

He had known his way around the stones and rocky shoals of the local beaches like the back of his hand, even back then. And so was often left to play there alone.

The feckless child had wandered too close one day however, just after a storm, a frightening squall, when the beach was fraught with debris and danger, the shoreline was slick and the waters dark and murky.

Hiding the remnants of ships smashed to bits, and he likely would’ve died on the jagged rocks that peppered the wide-open breaks, if a long webbed hand hadn’t stopped him in his descent.

The hand had belonged to an older boy sitting up on the aforementioned rocks, who had managed to snag the back of the untucked and oversized school uniform shirt that Roger wore, with his predatory reflexes.

Having done so, only seconds before the blonde would’ve met an untimely end in the watery depths below.

Fathoms below.

Roger had whimpered softly at the sensation of it all, sniffling more so out of shock than fear, as the youth gently placed him into a little dip, an alcove on the rock’s side.

“That wasn’t very smart.” Brian had sighed, clucking over the bright red blood that welled up from a small gash on the young drummer’s knee.

Running on the slopes like a little fool.

Rather lacklusterly, he’d mopped at it with the corner of the bright and violently red hoodie he wore.

But Roger had paid no mind at all to his battle wound and was far more interested in gawking at his odd-looking savior.

Brian, long before he had introduced himself as being so, long before his name even was so, with his long wet hair that hung in tangles around his round face and trailed far down his back, green of all things, was certainly a sight for sore eyes.

His hair was green like the seaweed that stunk in the hot summer’s sun and washed up in clots on the sand.

His pale hands were webbed between the first-knuckle, as were the toes on his flat feet, and his shining eyes were strange.

Two completely different colors, one was the beautiful blue-green color of splashing sea-foam, of playful days spent in the surf, the other was so dark blue-violet that it was like the sea during a tempest, fierce and frightening, a warning to all who dared come close.

Rog had cried out then, not at Brian’s odd appearance, but because the salty water pressed into his aching knee stung like St. Elmo’s Fire.

He flinched away from the tsking youth, who hummed a soft apology. “It’s a natural disinfectant. But you’ll want your Mum to take a better look when you get home.”

Roger’s Mum had always been a special kind of woman. (It was she who would adopt Brian as her own, when he finally came from the water and chased her cruel husband away).

An inquisitive girl even as a grown woman, full of freckles playing peekaboo on her exposed shoulders and impossibly red tresses that curled up and around her like the embers of a dying flame.

As a child she’d so eagerly swam with the seals that basked on the shoals of the beaches, near her sleepy little village home.

And would often nap on the sunbaked windswept hills near the cliffs, once the day’s play was done.

As a little girl she’d believed in the old stories and songs that permeated everyday life there, like an invisible presence, a gentle fleeting touch of old.

At night, she listened for the banshee’s wailing cries, and tried to catch a glimpse of a dullahan on his glossy black steed. She could recite the tales of Lir’s Swan Children and the Tuatha Dé Danann who made their home in Tír na nÓg, the land without time.

But above all else, Rachel, whose Gaelic name was Muirín ‘born of the sea’, was a child of the surf and sky.

It was her second home and her father often joked, fluffing her red curls with his calloused hands of fishhook and twine, that she would marry a Selkie and have half-seal babies one day.

He was wrong.

The man she married was a cruel cold man of the earth, who treated her like silt beneath his boots and little more than a dirty maid.

Yet she bore him one son, born with his sandy locks and her face.

She would run into the crashing crystal blue surf with her baby boy perched on one hip and he would shriek and cling to her curls with joy. And eventually with the years, he grew to be big enough that they could run in and jump out together.

The man she married slowly stole the life from her body, the song in her soul.

Eventually she simply collapsed on the beach outside their cottage in the middle of the night, crying desperately, desolately into the sand.

Screaming for something, someone, begging.

The pockets of her dress were loaded down with cowrie shells and other heavy island debris, her long red curls rocked with the waves of the ocean that swallowed her up. Swirling, twirling russet-red.

But she didn’t drown. Her son was not left without a mother.

She woke up with a mouthful of sand and a pair of vivid mismatched eyes just inches away from her own.

He stayed.

So she was unafraid of leaving her child unattended in the surf.

Muirín Taylor was a woman who grew up with the spirits of Ireland dwelling safely in her heart.

She was unfairly hurt and wronged by a life that she shouldn’t have lived in the first place. The poor girl eventually gave up and forgot the old ways of her once vibrant world, but they never forgot her.

When she cried, the ocean listened.

When her son cried, the ocean listened.

Brian sat on his rocky perch and waited, listening.

Then the little drummer boy noticed that the red hoodie was all that the older boy wore.

“Where are your clothes?!"

Brian had simply shrugged, tossing back his hair and batting those unforgettable eyes.

“I don’t need any underneath the water.”

Roger still hadn’t picked up on the strangeness of it all. It would be years still, before he saw the bloody red tail that could cut through the surf like butter, the scales far sharper than daggers that glittered in the moonlight, the predatory teeth and slitted eyes, made for tracing the movement of appetizing prey. The true apex predators of the deep.

"You live in the water?"

Brian had nodded.

"On a boat?"

The mismatched eyes creased slightly when he frowned, and then he’d just shaken his head to the contrary.

"No, not on a boat.” An obliging smile graced his wind-chapped lips as he finished the makeshift bandage. “You should be heading home though, this place is not safe for your kind, especially not for one so young."

It was far more than the suggestion that his soft tone alluded to, it was a warning.

Now Roger may have only been a child then, but he was a child who knew the sound of angry voices and the touch of violent hands.

Perhaps even better than the gentle and soothing ones that he had always craved. His father was not a patient man, and he felt even less inclined to give favor to a son who had still shown no promise at anything of value.

Roger had been beaten senseless many times, and for an instant, he feared that the boy on the rocks with his too-sharp teeth and strange eyes may do the same.

As if Brian had been the same sort of monster that Roger had come to fear.

Then, just as he was standing once more, hunger pangs hit him sharply and his stomach let out a growl that just wouldn’t be stifled.

He was mortified, sick, by the loud sound and flinched away, wrapping his hands tightly around his concave middle and waiting for the angry hands and yells that would often follow such rudeness.

But none came.

Only the gentle concerned eyes of the boy Brian was, who seemed to realize the true extent of the younger child’s plight before him, within the same breath.

Webbed pale hands helped Roger to sit down once more.

"Sit. Stay."

Twin orders, that would most assuredly be followed, before Brian stood upright, balanced in a single graceful motion and dove into the frothing waters below.

Roger thought he saw a hint of something red and shiny, perhaps even a fin, but it soon left his field of vision before he could see properly.

When the older boy returned it was with four fat fish being tossed up onto the rock-face, before he climbed there as well. Green hair flying haphazard with the wind and his red hoodie sticking to his skin as if loathe to leave it.

Three of the still-quivering fish were pushed towards Roger, while one was seized by Brian himself and a mouthful of flesh torn away, revealing shock-white bone and dripping entrails.

He swallowed the chunk whole and even licked his lips before foisting the messy carcass into Roger’s hesitant little hands, as if expecting the child to do the same.

Abject horror was plain as day on the little one’s face.

"Oh.” It seemed to dawn on the older boy then as well. “You cook fish."

The blonde child nodded vehemently, and was quick to hand the masticated fish back with a grimace.

Brian reclaimed it with another little laugh, devouring the rest with a terrifying speed and ferocity that almost brought back Roger’s original fear, or would have, if it hadn’t been belied by the funny faces the green-haired beanpole kept making to assuage them.

He then softly instructed the younger boy on how to hold the three fish all at once, to transport them safely back to his family.

Roger and Rachel would eat well for one night at least.

The odd youth guided the tiny boy away from the broken rocks and back onto the dry land.

And surely would’ve left right then, but Roger, as if expecting such an escape, had hastily seized a small webbed hand within two of his own.

“What’s your name?"

Brian had paused for a moment, before almost sighing the word, ”Muirgeilt.“ Sea-wanderer.

"That’s a pretty name… But I can’t really say it properly. Do you have another one? I’m Roger Meddows Taylor.” So proud of it. Like he'd practiced saying it aloud with conviction.

A small sad smile graced the elder’s lips.

"It is very nice to meet you, Roger. You can call me whatever you’d like.”

”…If I come back tomorrow, with a name, will you be here?“ Pleading eyes.

Brian turned his head slightly, angled towards the ocean as if called by some silent siren song. One hand touching the place where Roger’s blood had seeped into his red hoodie.

"Yes, I will be." Forever it seems.

And he was.

“Yeah.” Brian smiled, years upon years later, slowly eskimo-kissing the love of his life, who still rested in his arms. What a wonderful thing, to be able to hold one’s whole world.

“At the beach when we were kids.”

-X-

“My sailor is as smiling

As the pleasant month of May

And often we have wandered

Through Ratcliffe Highway…

My heart is pierced by Cupid

I disdain all glittering gold

There is nothing can console me

But my jolly sailor bold.”

#maylor #deacury #submission #au #brian: merman #relationship: established #fic #secret santa gifts

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theliterateape · 6 years ago

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"You’ll Never See His Like Again!": Revisiting Comics Legend Stan Lee’s Best, Most Literary (and Vastly Underrated) Story, The Silver Surfer (1978)

By Jarret Keene

Stan “the Man” Lee is dead, but his creations are alive, pouncing across theaters, game screens, and t-shirts with equal parts vitality and sorrow. Today, Spider-Man and Thor and Captain America and Black Panther and so many others dominate our media landscape to a degree unthinkable 40 years ago when my father bought me The Silver Surfer graphic novel from a B. Dalton inside Tampa Bay Mall.

Back then comics (22-page floppies) were relegated to a single spinner rack in mall bookshops, a gimmick to draw kids into the store so their parents felt obliged to pick up garbage Sidney Sheldon’s thriller Bloodline. But The Silver Surfer didn’t fit in a metal rung; instead it was displayed amidst the regular literary trade paperbacks. Today it is vaguely praised on obscure blogs as being among the very first efforts to push comics into the realm of the literary epic during a brutal moment in the history of the comics industry. Staggering inflation, a crushing 1977 (and then a 1978) blizzard, and rising paper costs nearly sank DC Comics. Marvel, though, endured such challenges with Stan Lee’s relentless cheer, his grace under pressure, his courage to always try something new when everyone else cowered, caved.

In the late 1970s, the U.S. continued to fall apart. There was the ongoing energy crisis, serial killers like Ted Bundy lurked in every shadow, the Jonestown mass suicide played out like a dress rehearsal for a larger and more diabolical event, toxic waste burbled in landfills adjacent to pleasant neighborhoods, and Soviet Russia rattled its nuclear saber. You wouldn’t know this from reading Marvel Comics, every issue offering a column called Stan’s Soapbox, wherein Lee waxed passionately, positively, and with the eloquence of a poetry-reading pitchman, about what was forthcoming from “the House of Ideas.”

Today Marvel is an idea-resistant shell of the company Lee built and oversaw, a house of ideology teeming with dour, OMG-chirping social-justice superheroes (gay mutant Iceman, lesbian Latinx warrior America Chavez, Muslim teenager Kamala Khan a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, female cancer-stricken Thor). Instead of debuting new characters, the current editorial team is content to reverse race and flip gender of, and add a dash of disability to, classic characters. In its prime, though—and starting in 1961 with the first issue of Fantastic Four — Marvel excelled at depicting authentic outcasts who felt a fierce responsibility to protect even those who hated them, feared them, wanted them dead. Lee’s characters — which he co-created with Jack Kirby, the artist who visually defined comics for an international audience — didn’t nurture wounds of identity and grievance; they waged their internal battles on a mythic scale. In the same way Oedipus confronted the ignorance of his birth, in the same way petulant Achilles struggled to overcome his narcissism, so did hapless high school reject and science nerd Peter Parker combat his own teenage doubt and ego and feelings of inadequacy.

Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962) containing the debut of Spider-Man, is arguably the single greatest and most important comics story ever written, its 11 pages defining not just the Marvel superhero but also the last half-century of U.S. comics. “With great power comes great responsibility” wasn’t merely an inspirational and moral slogan; it was also a metaphor for American exceptionalism, which could only result in senseless death (like, say, the murder of Peter’s uncle, Ben) if not applied toward just and proper ends. Parker is spoiled, his own worst enemy. He’s a purveyor of fake news, taking photos of himself in action as Spider-Man and selling them to the Daily Bugle to cover the cost of college tuition. We love Parker for his flaws, though, and for his commitment to overcoming them. We cherish his humanity even as we’re thrilled by his brawls with violent predators like Kraven the Hunter, bulky crime boss Kingpin, hideously armed Doctor Octopus.

The Silver Surfer isn’t human like Parker. The Surfer is carved from the “doomed messiah from beyond” mold a la Superman (or Beowulf or Jesus). But he isn’t adopted as a baby and given a Midwest upbringing. He is a silver-skinned alien riding a floating board, arriving on Earth to determine if it’s suitable for his planet-eating master Galactus. Lee and Kirby made a wise choice in never pinning down the exact size of this god of interstellar death, who, like the Surfer, was first introduced in the pages of Fantastic Four #48–50 (1966). That three-part story is a must-read, yes, but then, a decade later, Lee and Kirby collaborated on a 100-page retelling of the Surfer-and-Galactus saga, only this time the superheroes were removed, leaving just the god and his fallen angel. The result is a romantic, philosophical, and artistic statement that outstrips everything else Lee and Kirby collaborated on prior — which is saying a lot. It is also the last major work either of them would produce for Marvel, or for any company thereafter.

Today Marvel is an idea-resistant shell of the company Lee built and oversaw, a house of ideology teeming with dour, OMG-chirping social-justice superheroes

The Silver Surfer was published by arrangement with Fireside Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster in New York known for publishing a famous chess book. Based on a Kirby sketch, the cover is by artist Earl Norem, known for painting the covers of men’s adventure magazines and more than a few Marvel mags (like Savage Sword of Conan). Indeed, the painted cover gives the book literary gravitas. The interior art is all prime Kirby, with eloquent inks by Joe Sinnott, colors by Glynis Wein (first wife of the late Len Wein, who created Wolverine). The Silver Surfer is a feast for a comics-lover’s eyes; my battered copy still radiates visual power. But it’s the heartbreaking story and dialogue that set this effort apart from anything else in the history of comics and in the bibliography of Lee and Kirby.

Here the protagonist must choose between living forever to serve a devourer of worlds, or else die alongside eight billion earthlings to be rejoined with the obliterated love of his life, lovely and golden Ardina. In The Silver Surfer, Lee gives us a hero who sells his soul to the devil so as to thwart a holocaust and save a populated globe. He only meets a few dozen — many of who attack him physically. But he understands their potential to grow beyond their limitations. It’s not a story in tune with the 1970s, that post-Vietnam, post-JFK, post-Watergate era during which Marvel delivered dark, humorous characters like Ghost Rider. No, this was something else entirely.

The opening splash page is the closed fist of the planet-eater: Behold! The hand of Galactus! Behold! The hand of him who is like unto a god. Behold! The clutch of harnessed power — about to be released! The tone here is elevated, serious, Lee is writing in a style that evokes the Old Testament of the King James. The second page is a splash, too; in it, the mitt of Galactus opens and from it erupts the Surfer, who “streaks through the currents of space — ever-seeking, ever-searching — for he alone is herald to mighty Galactus.” The image is the visual distillation of an artist’s self-confidence, his arrogance. After all, doesn’t every artist believe himself to be God as he manipulates his characters, his images, to suit his imaginative fancy? It’s also a breathtaking rendering of a big bang, or a biblical birth of the universe, without a benevolent designer in control. Here the god of the universe is a destroyer.

The universe seems endless and infinitely alluring to this mysterious star-wanderer, who yearns for his own homeworld, Zenn-La, lost to him forever for reasons Lee doesn’t initially explain, but we presume Galactus ate it.

The Surfer enters the atmosphere of “a verdant sphere” unlike any he’s seen before. Soaring high above the streets of New York, he doesn’t hide from view. He is fascinated by the fear in the eyes of people, noting “how it is always the young who are the first to accept — and to trust.” He sees a woman who reminds him of Shalla Bal, a woman the Surfer loved on his own world. Haunted by her memory, he pursues this woman through the alleyways of Manhattan while imagining a conversation with this Shalla Bal lookalike. We learn that, years ago, the Surfer sacrificed his mortal body to Galactus to save Zenn-La from destruction.

Finally, the woman abandons him to his painful recollections… and then Galactus suddenly appears in a whirlwind of crackling energy, ready to devour Earth.

He congratulates the Surfer on a job well done and articulates in excruciating detail how he plans to sate his appetite: “Here shall I drain the gently rolling seas. Here shall the bountiful land yield to me its gift of life.” It is an impending act of reverse creation, a backward Genesis. But the herald of Galactus isn’t having any of it. When the Surfer fails to convince his master that the price of eight billion souls is too high, he lashes out at Galactus with “the power cosmic,” using it seal the destroyer in a concrete cocoon. It doesn’t hold Galactus for long. Disgusted, the world-eater blasts the Surfer from the sky, cursing the herald to live amidst “the dunghills of man” for a spell in order to ponder his mistake. Then Galactus disappears.

The Surfer recovers from his fall, then disguises himself by altering his appearance to resemble a male fashion model from a billboard. He wanders the city with admiration for its denizens until muggers approach him in Central Park. The Surfer shoos them away with a pyrotechnical display, then pledges to walk around without hiding his identity; concealment did nothing for him anyway. Meanwhile, we witness Galactus gorging on a planet in another solar system. Sated, his thoughts turn toward his missing herald. What can Galactus do to make the Surfer submit? The world-eater’s counsel, a sniveling Master of Guile, advises Galactus to provide the Surfer — our alien Adam — with an Eve, someone to betray the Surfer’s heart.

And so beautiful Ardina enters the picture. She sneaks the instantly smitten Surfer beyond Earth’s atmosphere, and they share in the pleasures of the spaceways. Floating now on a patch of green ringed with bright flowers in a neighboring galaxy, our hero is tempted to give up his standoff with Galactus. In the same way Dido tempted Aeneas to give up his destiny to found Rome, so does Ardina begin to entice the Surfer to submit to her — and by extension Galactus. He refuses, says he’s willing to die to save Earth, and so Ardina leads the Surfer on a journey into human darkness. “You will perish for a worthless cause,” she warns. She shows him “brutal images, a morbid montage of heart-rending scenes filled with carnage and strife.” Domestic violence. A child killed by a hit-and-run driver. A mass execution. Bombed ruins of a once-thriving city. The Surfer is jarred but not dissuaded.

And then something interesting happens: Ardina, designed to coldly seduce the Surfer to make him betray his convictions, ends up feeling a warm love for him.

So much so that when the Surfer, driven mad from having set foot inside a suburban home where the walls seem to be closing on him:

The ceiling — almost touching my head! No room to move! No place to soar! I see no sun — no sky — no endless reaches of rolling space! Wherever I face — wherever I turn — I am surrounded by smothering objects! Shelves and books! Pictures, clocks, and lamps! Chairs and drapes and shuttered windows! But where is the sky? Where is the cold, crisp touch of rolling space? Where are the hills, the seas, the nourishing stars in endless profusion? Without them I perish!

Interestingly, the aspect of humankind that nearly causes the Surfer to surrender his mission is man’s stultifying existence inside tract-housing boxes.

Troubled by the experience, the Surfer races to escape Earth’s atmosphere. Riding bitch, Ardina screams: “The barrier! You have forgotten the barrier!”

The Surfer falls to Earth while Ardina re-materializes before Galactus inside his giant space vehicle. She admits she has failed. She confesses her love for the Surfer. Displeased, Galactus recalibrates her cloned body for one last mission. A mission that involves shattering the Surfer’s heart.

Meanwhile, the Surfer continues to be attacked by various humans. He is shot at, shackled and hammer-smashed, then the U.S. military blasts him with an ultra-sonic cannon, which nearly kills him. Ardina consoles him for a moment, kisses him, telling the Surfer she is with him and by his side, even after death. Which is when Galactus dissolves her into dead particles using a matrix-drone.

Now Galactus asks the Surfer to again join him in scouting the universe for other edible planets. It’s the only way Earth can be saved. The command is agonizing, for what Galactus offers is a living hell. To save Earth, the Surfer must cast off death, the ultimate escape and the one chance he has at being reunited with Ardina. But as the Surfer himself says: “Never was there a choice!”

The curse of immortality at the cost of true love is a familiar idea in ancient epics. The sea nymph Calypso offered Odysseus eternal life, but he refused it in order to be with his wife Penelope. But the Surfer has no options; he can’t be selfish enough to die and thus doom the Earth. What makes him a hero is his refusal to surrender and his willingness to embrace the agony of existence, of enslavement. He must deny himself every exit for humans to live on until they hopefully change themselves for the better. They must have a chance; the Surfer and Galactus give them one.

The Surfer returns to the gauntlet of Galactus, disappearing within the destroyer’s fist.

✶

In this story, there is no Fantastic Four. No cameo appearances by Lee and Kirby. No clever narrative captions. Just the purest narrative of a hero fighting for an ideal, for the steadfast belief in our ability to one day rise above our petty evils, our arrogance and wrath. Lee wrote so many masterpieces of comics literature, but this one is his best because it best speaks to the principle he and his characters lived by: Never succumb to nihilism and despair. Never forget that we are similar in our anxieties and weaknesses, and that our individual identities matter less than our collective aspiration to improve our world and the lives of the people who inhabit it.

It’s a moral stance that today remains obscured by Internet social-justice frothing and the political insanity of being ruled by a reality-TV star. But the embers of Lee’s views are there for anyone to ignite and carry forward. Make no mistake: the world is poorer now without Lee. As the blurb on The Silver Surfer ’s back cover announces: “You will never see his like again!” We can, however, always see Lee’s passion and his love for humanity — for life! — in the work he and Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and others left for us to enjoy.

Lee didn’t need to die for our sins. He endures, and so will we.

Never was there a choice.

Jarret Keene is an assistant professor in residence in the English Department at UNLV, where he teaches creative writing and ancient and medieval literature. His fiction, essays and verse have appeared in literary journals such as New England Review, Carolina Quarterly, and the Southeast Review. He is the author of several books and editor of acclaimed short-fiction anthologies. He is currently working on a critical biography of comic book legend Jack Kirby.

#Stan Lee #Silver Surfer #Marvel Comics #Comics as literature #Silver Surfer First Appearance

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modernart2012 · 7 years ago

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Distant Places (All These Things I’ve Done)

@sumigakure Halloween Event 2017

Prompt 15: This Town Isn’t What it Seems

Prompt 12: Character finds out they’re a Supernatural Creature

Word Count: 15944

Rating: Mature

WARNING DESCRIPTION OF PANIC ATTACK

On AO3

“Here we are Kakashi.” Sakumo sets down the final box in the gekkan; the rest are stacked pathetically, clinically in neat rows across part of the length of the hall. His son looks around silently, moving ninja quiet around the room trailing Fluffy and Pakkun behind like mismatched lion dogs from the front of a temple made flesh. His heart constricts heavily in his chest, everything about the scene painfully wrong. The neat and orderly boxes, the pervasive ringing silence, the way his genius son was simply nonverbal and constantly huddled in his mother's oversized scarf. Chiasa should have been here, should be laughing and teasing and failing to parse out her own handwriting on the boxes even though the boxes were always mislabeled and it wouldn’t matter which one was opened first anyways.

He breathes in deep, slow and even like the military had taught him when he was in basic training, like the therapists taught him when the world was too overwhelming and threatening to drown him alive, and tries to let go. Chiasa had probably befriended all the dogs (or wolves, or foxes, or hyenas, or whatever canine she stumbled across) on her way through the Earth God’s Halls, leading a massive pack to the Lady of Death to await judgement and reincarnation. Four Almighty, she’d probably act as advocate for the dogs to be reincarnated into better lives, fight the Lady of Death herself. It wouldn’t help any to clutch desperately at her soul with his regrets; she deserved to go in peace after so long without, deserved better than to be tethered to this world to turn into a vengeful ghost instead of journeying on to the next life. He has things to focus on here and now, does not have time to dwell on the past and what is irreversible. Breathe in 4, breathe out 7, and turn to the future.

“Kakashi, would you like to light the flame?” The lamp had been the only item he had carried outside of a box, the thing he had Kakashi place first in the shrive alcove by the fireplace in the living room. It should have been the first thing done, the flame lit and the prayers of blessing sung while smudging incense and lavender through the house, but Sakumo hoped the Fire God would give them a pass. Funerals and mourning were in there on the list of the Interdictions, right, where allowances were made for not strictly following the ceremonies and rituals? Kakashi nods, and barely touches a finger to the clarified butter soaked wick before it sparks up and burns true. Sakumo takes out the jasmine incense Chiasa had loved, and lights a stick to place inside the incense holder, then passes the item to Kakashi. “Once round the house, in all the rooms, and round the garden too. You don’t have to say the prayers, thinking them is fine,” Sakumo is quick to add that last bit. The therapists said Kakashi would speak again when he wanted to, and to not add pressure of speaking before Kakashi was ready on his own. Three deaths so quickly, one right after the other, deaths of people they were both close to; it was a lot of grief to process no matter how long ago it happened, and it didn’t harm anyone to let his son work through it like this. Kakashi nods and goes off, still trailing Pakkun like a vigilant shadow. Fuzzy settles down in the hall with a quiet boof, and he softly pets her cloud white head before getting on with his tasks.

He’s just getting done with scrubbing down the still and sweep of the front door when Dai finally gets there. “Sakumo!” He’s enveloped in green and toned muscles before he can think about it. “I’ve missed you, my old friend.” Sakumo doesn’t answer, the words are unnecessary; he loosens the tension of his frame and hugs back. Clings to the solidness of Dai and the easy affection he offers, the warm port in the storm of his emotions churning like the wine-dark sea. Sakumo’s suffused with gratefulness; it was a good idea to move to the new Ranger station here with Dai, even if the job was technically to watch over some academic as they handled ... something .

It’s above his paygrade to worry about, anyways, since all he needs to know is that the government is very interested in making sure whatever the project is is kept quiet and delivered to the military upon completion. It’s a stable, relatively non-dangerous position that means he can stay with his son and process the most recent loss, that of his wife without worrying about being shot by the enemy. Especially since his senses have been going haywire recently. Sakumo can smell that Dai had an oat kale banana almond protein shake this morning, had hugged someone who smelled like him yet subtly different and someone not - Gai, most likely, then Hisako- and paused somewhere with a lot of minerals. It bothers his nose, and Sakumo has to pull away to sneeze several times in quick succession to clear out his sinuses. Dai, of the same school of thought as their late C.O., whacks him heartily on the back, “There, there, get it out of your system.” Because sneezes originated in the chest and needed to be gotten out like a cough, according to Old Butsuma Senju - he had treated his lung cancer the same way, and died of it, the crotchety old bastard. As if summoned, Kakashi materializes at the base of the stairs, gaze unwaveringly on Sakumo and shifting on his feet like he wants to drift closer but doesn’t know if he should, if he would be welcome. He'd begun hovering over Sakumo at the slightest indication of illness too, but Sakumo didn't mind. He knew he'd do the same, probably would with the chill of the fall setting in given Kakashi’s penchant for catching colds.

“Come on in Dai,” Sakumo offers, slowly making his way down the hall towards the kitchen, only pausing to ruffle Kakashi’s hair. Kakashi pushes up into the touch momentarily, then brushes by to retreat into the living room. Fuzzy turns her head just so, creating a depression where Pakkun can trip himself into, curl up snug and warm in her fur, and such that she can keep an eye on Kakashi. She’s never been trained in childcare, just picked up on it naturally, instinct running high when Kakashi was born and has kept up ever since. “I’m sorry, we don’t have much yet, I have yet to make it to the grocery store, but I can make tea?”

Dai waves him off, “Don’t worry about it; I’m here to help you unpack and settle in.” Dai pushes a slim emerald green box tied in black ribbon across the corners. It rattles ominously, probably amythest, a piece of amber, malachite, black jasper, and beryl - stones for healing, for strength, for emotional cleansing and stability. Good stones for mourning, good stones for the shrine, to remember by. “Hisako is going to bring Gai and groceries later today, so let’s try to get at least the ground floor cleaned and set up.” Of course Dai would bring a traditional gift, and of course he would make nothing of it. Wouldn't even repeat the ritual phrases because Dai knew Sakumo hadn't found any comfort in them the first time with his father, or the second with his mother-in-law, or the third with Chiasa. It was uncool to do something when you know it wouldn't help. Didn't go with his nice guy aesthetic. Sakumo swallows down a choked sob, inhales for a count of 4, exhales a count of 7, and focuses on the task of setting up a house.

“I was hoping to scrub down the floors and refinish them, at least while the floors are bare,” Sakumo offers in return. Dai will hear what he isn’t saying, that he’s restless and needs the physicality of labor to keep himself here. Dai’s not a stranger to Sakumo’s bouts of depression, of his techniques for self-care and processing emotions, been on the receiving end of his need to clean and organize many different times in their long friendship. Wallowing has never done anything for him, and right now he could use a distraction from the awful grasp of sadness rolling around his skull.

Dai nods after a moment of careful consideration. “We’ll need to put up an iron horseshoe over the door first - local custom - then we can go to the hardware store for scrubbers, wood stain, and wood wax. The Doctor’s lab is right there, so I can introduce you then as well.”

Sakumo hasn’t heard of the iron horseshoe superstition in anything but faerie tales, “You’ll have to appraise me of all the local customs, then.” It’s been years since he last heard one of those stories; Kakashi had quickly and effectively demonstrated his disdain for anything lacking in canine characters in stories as a child, and once he had figured out how to read, well, it was hard to lie about which characters were dogs when Kakashi could figure it out with a quick glance at the page. Dai strikes his signature ‘nice guy’ pose, and Sakumo hopes there’s a guide, if Dai is striking his pose of ‘working hard and showing results’. Maybe the locals are just really old-fashioned and uphold long-dead ancient traditions?

The hardware store has eclectic ‘home security’ and ‘home improvement’ sections, an anachronistic array of modern and old items that constitute some value of security or improvement from salt lamps and iron to seals and normal electronic security measures. Sakumo wisely doesn't comment, because he's here for the foreseeable future and making enemies with the hardware store is a slippery slope to having the whole town against you. Local business owners are the ones to be in good with, especially in small towns out in the forest. He's looking forward to a long continued relationship with them, and his life.

He leaves Kakashi, Pakkun, and Fuzzy on the porch of the Doctor's office, a repurposed house, because while he doesn’t want to leave his son with only canine care (as excellent as it is), taking his son into an active research lab is probably really low on the scale of Do’s and Don’t’s of parenting. Dai grins broadly, then raps loudly on the door. It’s scaled in iron, and the window boxes were full of primroses. An interesting choice of decor, but eccentric academic types were wont to be ... eccentric. Idly, Sakumo wonders about the forest that seems to mix so closely with the town, like the buildings were built in little pockets in between trunks and roots, almost something out of a high fantasy setting. Seriously, this looked like something out of the Lord of the Rings movies.

“Hello, Hunter. It’s been a while.” Someone somewhere has stomped all over Sakumo’s grave, given the shivers crawling over his spine. He knows that voice, and still has flashbacks to that time in Yu no Kuni, with the absolutely crazy people being chased by two known wanted hitmen trying to ransom them. Of course he would run into one of them, that was just his luck.”You’ve aged well. Very well.” Fuzzy is standing, hackles raised but not growling. Those piercing, assessing eyes that have only grown more alluring and more bright with time finish perusing Sakumo and flit over to the corner. “And Wolfy too. Hello, Wolfy. How are you?” Fuzzy whines, high and confused, but still poised to move. The Doctor makes no move to touch Fuzzy though, which Sakumo has to begrudgingly give him props for knowing better than to touch a conflicted and scared animal.

The pale, golden-eyed one leans languid in the doorway, long hair tied back into a high ponytail and there’s a smirk that screams mischief to Sakumo. His first thought is beautiful , second breathtaking , and third is oh no . He tenses, ready to move - ready to flee - because he distinctly recalls a decade ago as being a massive FUBAR SNAFU even for the Rangers. An International Incident, more wreckage than the World Wars, and sexual harassment by a minor. The only saving grace had been finding out their targets had been taken care of by some academic type via experimental seal.

Dai is either ignoring the awkward or exhibiting restraint - “So you’ve met Dr. Benzaiten before Sakumo! That’s great!” - or he’s oblivious. Sakumo sighs, and tries not facepalm. “This makes things so much easier!” Sometimes he has to wonder how Dai even made it into the Rangers, given the branch’s clandestine activities, but then he remembers that Dai is a hand-to-hand specialist who’s managed to take on people who were bullet- and magic-proof and win.

The good Doctor snickers. It’s not mean, or at least it’s not at haughty and demeaning, but honestly amused, “Doctor Orochimaru Benzaiten, PhD. You must be the new Ranger assigned here.”

Sakumo notes that the good Doctor doesn’t offer his hand to shake, or give any form of pleasantry. It might be hard to face someone you’ve perpetrated a crime against, he supposes, even if it’s a decade later. “Major Sakumo Hatake, Army Rangers. I am assigned here, yes, specifically to you.” It might be petty to restrain himself from minor pleasantries as well, but mirroring is a form of politeness. In like, Uzu no Kuni, or something.

The silence that stretches out after that is heavy, the Doctor eying him speculatively, Dai grinning and Kakashi doing his best to hunker down behind the still wary Fuzzy. A glittering purple head rises up from what Sakumo thought was the Doctor’s neckline - now he can tell the scaled bit isn’t a collar, it’s a live snake - and tastes the air. The Doctor strokes slowly over the viper-diamond head, contemplatively, like he’s listening closely to something no one else can hear. It stirs the air enough that Sakumo’s nose is hit with conflicting information: dust, chemicals, Dai, flower-scent, and the smell of dried scales. He sneezes twice rapidly, if only his damn sensitivity to smells would settle down already!

“Oh? Captain Maito, do see that Major Hatake is caught up on the local ...peculiarities. It will not do for a military man to be ... caught up in the local ongoings, after all. I’d hate to have something occur that can’t be fixed.” The Doctor slowly continues to stroke the snake’s head, sashaying his sharp purple eyeshadow and dangly iron earrings back through the door with a perfunctory snap shut. Sakumo tries to parse if that is a honest warning, or a subtle threat. It sounded like the Doctor is trying to say something important, but Sakumo’s missing most of the relevant puzzle pieces.

Dai smiles confidently, “I think Dr. Benzaiten likes you! He actually spoke to you instead of glaring, snarking, and/or trying to make you out to be incompetent.” Which might have something to do with their last encounter, where at least two out of the three things Dai just mentioned happened. Sakumo and Dai step off the porch, Fuzzy herding Kakashi and Pakkun along and bringing up the rear.

But, “Did he try that with you?” Sakumo’s willing to swallow his own reservations about the Doctor, especially because it’s his job to do so, but if the Doctor was mean to Dai for no reason, then he’s absolutely going to write back to Command and tell them about the Doctor’s nonsense. All of it. The previous incident was well documented, appropriately filed, and it’d just take a word to have the Doctor’s record black marked for sexual harassment.

Dai levels him a clear-eyed stare, the same one Sakumo had gotten before Dai had slapped sense into him when Sakumo had worked himself into a nervous wreck right before his wedding to Chiasa. “Sakumo, I wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t handle a sarcastic child. There are worse things out there than a snarky academic, you and I both know it.” He has to accept the truth of it though, the time with the Daimyo’s daughter was in fact the worst , not even for the treachery and number of bodies she created unnecessarily. A pretty, snarky academic really is nothing in comparison to having to toss still warm bodies into a volcano to hide the evidence. “Besides, we still have a house to clean. Lucky it’s small, right?”

Small, while generous as a descriptor, still means there’s a lot of scrubbing and cleaning to do. The last layer of wax barely dries before Hisako and Gai arrive, and then Hisako informs them that the rooms need to be repainted and anti-pest sprayed before they can even begin to think about living there. Sakumo thinks there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the bare off-white walls, but Hisako is as much a force to be reckoned with as Dai when she’s set her mind on something, so off they go back to the hardware store for paint.

It’s dusk and the town looks completely different. There are figures who pass by like shadows, build up in the streets, that Sakumo only gets glimpses of in the gaslight. Perhaps they are people who work normal jobs, and only just now get to complete their chores for the day? Brigadier General Senju often complained of that, when she was single, and so did many other single coworkers. Balancing getting off work tiredness and the need for food and other household chores was always difficult.

There’s a small platform in the middle of the central town square, front and center of a series of benches.Some people are congregated at the benches, talking softly, milling out patiently and with expectation. “Dai, what’s going on here.” Sakumo tips his chin in their general direction, trying to be discreet. Some of the shadows Sakumo could half see in the corners of his eyes raised the prickling feeling he’s always gotten when danger is near. Sakumo doesn't know what to call it, but there's a tingle in his spine that says something is off.

Dai flicks his eyes to the groups, to the various forms about, some hooded, some veiled, and murmurs sotto voce , “We have a lot of people who live in the surroundings, and this is the only town in a 50 mile radius to have a paved road to get in goods. They come in once or twice a week, but usually on days the Headman has announcements or open forum.”

“Headman?” Maybe Dai should’ve taken Sakumo to meet the Headman instead of the Doctor today; if things were this small town mentality, then the Headman was the man to meet first. The military tended to be formal about things like that after all, especially with military researchers based in backwoods places.

“Dr. Benzaiten. He’s the main person who fixes things, after the last Mayor’s gristly death,” Dai mistakes Sakumo’s look of alarm, “Oh, that was a long time ago. Really, before our time, back when the Doctor first came here with his teacher to do some research. According to the locals, there were a bunch of lightning and thunder storms, and other weird happenstances, but the Mayor ended up dead.” Dai holds up two different paint color swatches. Why in the name of the Fire God Dai thinks Sakumo desires blood red walls or forest green walls is a mystery for the ages. Sakumo holds up a pale silver grey color and a toasted wheat bread tan swatch. Dai vetoes them immediately with neon pink.

The man at the counter leans over, his full beard both glorious and intimidating in its sheer size. The urge to throw the regulation handbook at him is fierce, but civilian and hardware store owner . “Good riddance to bad business, uh. That Four-damned sonovabitch was up to his neck in the Twelve Hells’ business; he didn’t get nothin’ that weren’t already comin’ to him.” He draws his right hand across his eyes in a clawing motion, ripping off the glamour evil places over sight so that the person can’t tell right from wrong. Air God follower, then. Unusual for a hardware shop owner, but Sakumo wasn’t one to judge, since for all that the family name was Hatake he was sheer shit at earth magic. Much to his training sergeant’s eternal horror.

Dai shrugs, “It was noted that it could have been murder, but the overwhelming consensus was ‘Act of God(s)’ and left at that.” Because nothing said Bad Idea like investigating God meted justice. He presses the first three fingers of his right hand to his chest clawed, and drags away. No one needs the God’s Eyes on them for good or ill; God attention never ended well for anyone involved.

The bearded shop owner eyes Sakumo, “You the one who moved in on Old Woman Kayano’s place, uh?” He blazes on, before Sakumo can answer, since it’s either stamped across his forehead or the small town rumor mill’s been busily at work within less than 24 hours, “Earth God Bless her soul, she didn’t have a lick of sense the Four gave sheep, wouldn’t listen an’ got herself got, uh. Tell you what, that place needs more than a lick an’ spit shine, real fixer upper, I’ll give you the discount.” He quickly selects a series of colors from the proffered swatches, and mixes them. “You’ll want salt an’ iron nails too, uh.” The man nods knowingly, like this is the most basic thing Sakumo will need in order to repaint his house. “Headman’ll be ‘round later in the week to set them up right an’ show you how, don’t think nothin’ of it.”

Sakumo’s head is spinning with the rapid-fire information dump, plus the idea of letting the Doctor into his house, a place for his family, “Ah. My tha -”

The man slaps a hand over his mouth faster than Sakumo can blink, their faces drawn together uncomfortably close, “Right, up and forgot you ain’t got the run down quite yet, uh. Don’t go throwin’ around the ‘ank-thay ou-yay’ phrase or the like, some folks ‘round these parts are quick to drag that into a life debt, so mind. You’ll be fleeced of everythin’ you hold dear, uh.” Dai nods enthusiastically, so it’s either just this one person’s quirk or it’s an actual thing. Given the circumstances and Sakumo’s luck, it’s probably an actual thing, which meant - nothing good, Holy Fire God’s Flame. The man lets go but doesn’t end the eye contact.

“Are these people that dangerous?” He can’t say his heart isn’t beating faster in alarm, since this is precisely the sort of thing that ought to have come on the mission parameter memo, and not a ‘local customs to be assimilated to’ bullet. Life debts haven’t been a thing for the last 400 years! And even then, they were usually invoked when someone actually saved your life, or someone near and/or dear to you.

The man stares deeply into Sakumo’s eyes. And very slowly, with great emphasis, nods. Just once. Then he deliberately hits the total key on the register, letting the ka-ching of it processing echo in the space. “That’ll be $60.46 ryo, uh.”

Sakumo pays, and stumbles out under the weight of the paint tins. Thank the Four for whomever invented paint and primer in one, for the amount of paint carrying they’ve saved him. They walk quickly, facing forward, idly discussing what color ought to be begun first - Sakumo thinks the pale Iron blue needs at least one coat today, since it’s the most pigmented, but Dai thinks they should finish the halls and powder room due to square footage. The town square is still busy, with more people flickering as shadows around the edges. Sakumo can see the Doctor speaking emphatically with someone in a deep emerald cloak, clearly annoyed but maintaining socially required politeness. They pass close enough to see the cloaked figure - surrounded by other figures tense with barely leashed energy - and hear her clear wind-chime voice snap with relentless wrath, “If you will not find and be rid of the whore-begotten mongrel I will have to do so myself .”

The Doctor’s voice is cyanide sweet, dripping with venom and danger, “Lady, there are a thousand things you need to do yourself, but I caution you that this is not one of those things you should consider within your purview to act upon.” There’s a veiled threat in there, one Sakumo can read in the Doctor’s face more than the words - one that promises a painful reckoning if the woman finds and - given context, probably murders - whomever she’s deemed a ‘whore-begotten mongrel’. “Furthermore, you yourself were quick to claim you had ended that ‘mulatto half-breed’s existence’; are you saying that you failed to accomplish your own deed? My, my, Lady, which is it?” For whatever reservations Sakumo has from a decade ago, he cannot fault Dr. Benzaiten’s approach to handling this woman, who he finds less and less pleasant with each passing moment.

The woman snarls, “Watch yourself Headman,” but the rest of the confrontation is lost to Sakumo as he and Dai pass out of hearing range. Sakumo can still smell the group though, ash and smoke, fallen leaves, sunlight, moss and bark, and something acrid that burned. Something festering and fungal, waiting to lash out.

“Who was that?” He’s not looking for trouble, not really, but that was a clear and distinct threat and he’s got a sinking feeling that perhaps that is the sort of person the man at the hardware store was warning him about. He sneaks a look back, and the crowd has grown, the Doctor an unwavering pillar against their roiling, nearly unleashed rage, like a dark bulwark of light against the monsters in the shadows. He catches glimpses of fantastical outlines, antlers and twigs, and it must be something backwoods, small-society cultural to have such elaborate headdresses and accoutrements to their outfits.

Dai grimaces, “They live around somewhere, and show up sometimes. Usually to talk to Dr. Benzaiten, or make a bargain. I’ve never heard someone else give them a name, as a group, but they make everyone uneasy.” That Dai hasn’t discluded himself is a massive red flag - Dai did his best to get along with everyone, after all. “Now, to paint! Yosh!” He bounds up the front steps with vigor usually found in men half his age.

Sakumo sighs, and decides that he’d best concede the halls and powder room for painting if he wants any sort of sleep before going into work tomorrow.

Day two in town has it’s perks - namely, the coffee machine in Dr. Benzaiten’s lab, and the many tissue dispensers, because there are so many conflicting smells his sinuses ache - and the ability to ask questions. “Was there ever a reasonable resolution to the ... discussion last night?”

Dr. Benzaiten pauses in soldering electrical wires together, mouth hidden behind a sterile mask but his liquid gold eyes narrowed, evaluating, then widening. “Hold this.” He passes over a piece of quartz, milky white and occluded, gloves powdery still with nitrile. “You’re fire right? Or rather, lightning?”

Sakumo is taken aback.“Er, yes?” He’s not sure what his magical affinity has to do with anything, but Small Lords of Ash and Smoke, eccentric academics are eccentric and Sakumo has nothing to lose by indulging something so minor.

“Good, I need that charged. If you would.” His ponytail waves like a hypnotic onyx ribbon as he moves and maneuvers bits and pieces of electronics, wires, and various magical tools or various magical uses, and Sakumo idly wonders if it’s as soft and silk-like as it looks. “As to our... out of town friends, they are well aware that their previously overlooked ... activities are no longer so overlooked and have consequences.” Dr. Benzaiten’s eyes crinkle in what would be amusement if it weren’t for the dark satisfaction lurking in their depths. “Though that does remind me,” he fishes through a pile of papers offhandedly, before unearthing a pamphlet, “there is a guide to the general local quirks, especially in regards to our oh so friendly neighbors. Most of it boils down to ‘Don’t’; they have some ... antiquated ideas about equivalent exchange.”

Sakumo decides it’s not worth derailing the conversation to discuss if that’s a Fullmetal Alchemist reference. “Is that why everyone gives them a wide berth?” He hands over the softly glowing crystal, and watches the sinuous grace with which Dr.Benzaiten pops it into a device and pushes various buttons. The machine whirs to life, fan whirling and spinning buzz that Sakumo has to forcibly phase into white noise. Perhaps he should see a doctor again, his ears have started to become more sensitive as well.

Dr. Benzaiten tilts his head consideringly, assessing something of the readout, before shrugging elegantly, “Some people willingly interact, but their social norms are more strict than ours, and they often get themselves entangled in affairs well above their ability to handle.”

“And then you have to fish them out.” The man is a decorated academic and researcher with the best University in the Elemental Nations, he’s got little to no other reason to be a Headman of a sleepy - for a given value of sleepy, since apparently the neighborhood is full of people who consider murder fair play - hamlet in the backwoods - literally! Literature levels of murder in the wrong end of the Elemental Nations! - of Hi no Kuni.

“And then I fish them out because they are mine and our neighbors aren’t allowed to mess with what’s mine.” And the decorated academic is possessive. Good to note, as it raises questions about where Sakumo stands. Highly uncomfortable questions. “Do try not to get yourself involved though, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and all.”

Sakumo isn’t going to argue the point - it’s true and he painfully knows from experience - and tucks the pamphlet into his uniform jacket for later perusal. How much could ‘Don’t’ cover anyways?

The door to the lab is knocked at rapidly, and then the assistant, Nawaki, sticks his head in. “Dr. Benzaiten, there’s been - ”

“Who was it this time, Nawaki? If it was Youko, please go tell her I refuse to -” Dr. Benzaiten doesn’t look up from where he’s returned to soldering connections on a breadboard.

“Noboru. It’s Noboru. Please, sir, it’s urgent.” His grey-green eyes don’t waver, even when Dr. Benzaiten bolts upright, eyes alight with anger and righteous indignation.

“Major, I won’t be back in the laboratory today, please take the rest of the day off.” It’s phrased like an order, like the ones Butsuma Senju used to give, that made everyone hurry to obey, and on instinct Sakumo nearly dos the same. It takes a moment to recognize that he’s heard wrong, and that checking that his sidearm is holstered is the wrong action to be taking, even though it’s perhaps more expedient given. The men are hurrying towards the door, and Sakumo hurries after them.

“This situation, are you sure you won’t need backup?” Sakumo’s a military man, always has been. He’s good at achieving the best outcomes, and he won’t leave someone in trouble when he’s capable of helping. Especially if it’s as urgent as this sounds.

“If I thought you impeccable aim and impressive ability to track would be of any use, Major, I would be telling you to come along. As it is, you aren’t versed in the protocols and you have a small child yourself. About the same age as Noboru. Go home to your son, Major, there’s nothing you can do here.” With that, the Doctor and his assistant rush out the door.

Unfortunately, Sakumo hasn’t gotten to where he is in life without a good bit of skullduggery, skulking, and snooping. And while he’s entirely sure he is completely able to follow Dr. Benzaiten and Nawaki without being spotted, noticed, or otherwise caught, there is one thing universities and the government are better at doing than the military - paperwork. And Dr. Benzaiten is a researcher in Experimental and Theoretical Magic, which means he must keep a detailed log of everything. Thank the Fire God and all the Small Lords for red tape.

Dr. Benzaiten is one who keeps everything in handwritten logs. Small blessings. It’s nothing to use the master key access he has for his own needs to access Dr. Benzaiten’s office, to find his logs. And while Dr. Benzaiten writes in a shorthand that’s as complex and near as impossible to read, almost worse than nearly-completely faded Ancient Scripts, Sakumo had minored in Ancient Scripts for a reason beyond its use in code breaking. There’s nothing better than writing a senior thesis on the regional and dialectic variants of the shorthand for certain elements in spell writing that ends up having uses later in life. Because Dr. Benzaiten is definitely using a southeastern Mizu no Kuni regionalization, the Marsh Witches High Cant. Last Sakumo had heard, that was a matrilineally passed language, and also long extinct. Out of academic interest, he copies a few pages, but keeps an ear trained on the noises in the office. He absolutely does not need to be caught.

It seems at least once a week there’s mention of ‘’thrs’ or ‘o’t’rs’ - Cant for outsiders, those who are not of or belonging to a Witch, with belonging originating in terms of vassals but here more likely to mean the regular townsfolk. Much mention of the ‘Peer High One’ - the leader of the neighbors, then, since the Witches failed to recognize male leaders unless they were vassals of another Witch - and her casual cruelty. No mention of what she’s been up to though, just that she rules with an indiscriminate iron fist - Dr. Benzaiten makes mention of the woman taking out her whims on her own vassals - and something . Fire God and all the Small Lords, Sakumo can’t tell if the word is smudged, miswritten, or something completely made up.

His senses sting, muscles freezing as his ears prick at the slight sound of footsteps limping forward on wood - there’s someone at the door. Sakumo can smell blooming blood, and the tangy-fizz of magic, and something wild . He reflexively calls up his magic, because Dr. Benzaiten wouldn’t end up here if he was covered in that much blood, so whomever has gotten themselves here is either a badly wounded friend or a blood covered foe. “Hello?”

There’s no answer for a moment, and that’s worrying in all the wrong ways, until, “Doctor? Are you here?” That voice is definitely neither Dr. Benzaiten’s nor Nawaki’s, but something akin to an older woman’s only more soft, more weathered yet clear and solid and nothing like the sharp shard sound of the leader of the people who live outside of town. Sakumo cautiously opens the door, and starts. A woman, his age, or not much older, pale and nearly blended into her dog’s grey-white fur.

“Ah, Doctor, Takao’s been - you’re not the Doctor.” Near instantaneously, he finds himself at the end of a blade and staring into grey-nearly-black eyes, the same as his and his son’s.

“I’m working with Dr. Benzaiten. You said your dog was injured?” He won’t begrudge the woman seeking aid for her dog. Not when he himself has needed help to care for Fuzzy when he has active combat duty and she’s been injured.

“Takao’s taken a nasty hex to the side, I’ve done my best to keep it from corrupting more of his flesh, but I’m no medic.” Together they both support the massive beast into the lab, the poor dog visibly flagging with the effort needed to limp along. “I didn’t know what else to do, the Lady is raging so, and none of the others would dare disobey her or undo her handiwork.”

“But you did?” She’s right, this is a nasty hex, something slowly leaching Takao of life and energy, destroying his muscles and ligaments. Sakumo’s seen similar though, in the bloody genocide in Mizu no Kuni a few years back - an awful, prolonged, painful way to die - but there’s a salve. One some Inuzuka with the 5th regiment had made up, that smelled like fresh shit combined with fermenting fish and rotting corpses but worked .

He’s fumbling around his belt pouches - he has several vials of the stuff, since it works on most hexes by dint of being every anti-hex ingredient in a paste - when she speaks measuredly, “I am both her most trusted lieutenant and the one she distrusts the most. For all my loyalty, she only sees daggers in the dark or what would amuse her best and pain me most.” As he applies a thick coating of the salve, she wrinkles her nose and gags, “Earth God’s fertile soil and its bounty, what is that?”

Sakumo is inclined to agree - somehow the smell is worse that he remembers - and has to breathe through his mouth to stop himself from puking. “Salve, good on hexes.” He accidentally inhales through his nose and has to fight the tumultuous roil of his stomach attempting to rebel. “I still need to channel magic through it to make sure it penetrates the tissue properly and removes all the contamination.” To Takao, who has been laying on his side patiently, panting and whimpering his pain but not moving, “You’re doing so good boy, I’m almost done, then you can rest okay?”

It takes a touch of magic only to activate the properties, fire, not water, to burn apart the bonds the hex uses to latch on to the body, uses in order to leach energy and life in order to feed its own. Water and it’s life won’t help here, no, fire needs to burn out the infection and that takes precision.The white-haired lady is hovering but motionless, and it prickles every instinct of his, to not bare the back of his neck to a stranger, to someone he does not recognize as his leader, and it’s easy enough to distract himself from such old intrusive thoughts, “Can you not depose her?”

She hisses startled, “Don’t even speak of such things! Even here the Lady has ears waiting to report back what was said and done!” She holds her elbows, arms crossed yet spine straight, a commander wearing her strength like armor, though a plate or two is clearly cracked and her vulnerability is showing through. “Is it done?”

Sakumo has removed as much as he could - the rest will burn out and off in the next few hours, but that will continue even after he stops running his magic through the salve. “It’s done. Let me wrap the area, and then you can be on your way.” He softly pets Takao’s head once more in silent praise, feeling vindicated when the dog pushes up gratefully into the press of his hand, then gets up to fetch the bandages from the first aid kit. Dr. Benzaiten could stand to lose a roll or two or linen gauze; he’s stocked for a small war.

When he gets back, Takao blearily opens his ice blue eyes and noses at his wrists, whining lowly. The woman cradles his large head and whispers in his ears as she runs her hand down his neck soothingly. He finally ties off the bandages. “Leave them on for a day, just to be sure that the salve has completely gotten rid of everything.”

The woman and dog rise, the dog listing and the woman obviously supporting him. “I will not forget your kindness, wolf-souled one. I owe you a life debt.”

The alarm bells in Sakumo’s head are ringing wildly, Dr. Benzaiten’s warnings running through his head. He has to bite his tongue to stop himself from telling her it was nothing, wracks his brain to think of something, anything to say. Finally he settles on, “Sakumo. My name. It’s Sakumo.”

The woman smiles and it is warm and softly sunlight, “Sayaka. And this one is called Takao. Well met, Sakumo the Wolfling.”

“Well met, Sayaka.” He wants to ask how he went from ‘wolf-souled’ to ‘Wolfling’ but decides it might have to do with social hierarchy the people who live around town use, and that’s probably not worth the headache.

She leaves into the orange-red twilight, and Sakumo can’t help but think that there’s something so much worse going on here than whatever the town believes, whatever that Dr. Benzaiten believes - has them believe?

There’s only one thing to do.

“A what? ” Dr. Benzaiten startles so hard the micropipette tip he’s been distractedly trying to jam onto the micropipette goes flying. Nawaki screeches quietly then rushes out dialing on his phone.

“A date.” Sakumo had talked it over extensively with Dai, with Hisako, and with Kakashi (and Gai, though Gai had cheered that dating was youthful, for which Sakumo would like to blame Dai preemptively before anything comes of that) and Fuzzy and Pakkun. The only one of those conversations that had gone well was with Kakashi, who had supportively suggested he get a guide on how to date since it had been literal years since he’d last gone on one. Dai and Hisako had exchanged glances, Dai wincing and Hisako gently mentioning that just because it had been nearly two years since- since - that he didn’t need to feel like he was rushing to pretend like he was done grieving. Really. Take his time and if Hisako needs to recommend a therapist, she’ll find one who’s willing to do appointments via Skype.

Things hadn’t gotten better on that end when he’d explained he wanted to mine Dr. Benzaiten for information, thus necessitating a situation where he (Sakumo) could liberally apply alcohol and loosen his (Dr. Benzaiten’s) tongue and find out what the Twelve Hells is going on in this town. Maybe he hadn’t explained things right, but Dai had told him it was uncool to use some pretty young thing like that - which while Dr. Benzaiten is pretty, and young, he is just as guilty of having ulterior motives and Sakumo knows it - and Hisako had winced and made dandan noodles for dinner to express her distaste for the idea.

It’s not his fault that Dr. Benzaiten is entirely too much to take on alone. “This isn’t a late retribution for the sexual harassment back then, is it?” His eyes are more purple eyeshadow than gold, suspicious and angry.

“What?! No!” Sakumo is quick to assure him it’s not that at all.

“Not a prank, or otherwise meanly meant?” At this one Sakumo has to internally wince, because he has ulterior motives but he isn’t pursuing it with malice intended.

Still he soldiers on. “No.”

Dr. Benzaiten unhooks his face mask to reveal pursed lips, flush high on his diamond cut cheekbones, “Are you attempting entrapment via relationship so I am forced to take you along on Headman duties so that you can reasonably discharge your duties as my overseeing officer for the Army?” A single emerald painted fingertip taps pointedly against the top of the lab bench.

He runs that through that sentence a few times, because it’s just convoluted enough to make sense, but not so convoluted there isn’t a right answer. “While that’d be a great way to do that, I’m pretty sure that’s morally wrong and for a different type of mission than this, also, no.” Sakumo smiles pleasantly, the one that crinkles his eyes just so, and pushes his hands into his pockets, relaxed. He can practically see the wheels turning in the doctor’s head. “Unless we’re doing International Incidents again?”

As if it’s reflexive, Dr. Benzaiten snaps, “That was entirely Kagami’s fault, and you know it Jiraiya!” There’s a moment of dead quiet, then Dr. Benzaiten’s eyes widen in horror.

Sakumo raises his eyebrows, notes both names for later research, but grins quicksilver mischief and says, “Not even one date and you’re calling me by another man’s name? That’s certainly fast, doctor.” At the wildfire flush running unchecked across pale skin, the sheer mortification made public, Sakumo eases, “If you’re actually that uncomfortable - “

“Tonight. 8pm. The izakaya off the main square. We’ll split the bill, so don’t get any funny ideas. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go wrangle a phone from my assistant and try to yell one of my best friends down from an aneurysm over the phone.” Flush still riding high, the doctor glides quickly out of the room, lab coat billowing like a flag in the wind.

Sakumo’s going to chalk that up as a win, even if that win is slightly questionable. Now to figure out the highest proof alcohol the izakaya sells, and make sure Kakashi knows to go to the Maito’s tonight. He’s not throwing away his shot.

Fuzzy insists upon joining him that evening, and Sakumo, not willing to risk being late by having to fight a 300+ pound apex predator trained by the military, gives in and resigns himself to her coming along. She follows close beside him, stopping to sniff fences and lampposts as well as thoroughly investigate the public fountain in the corner of the square, plus or minus some rather aggressive squirrels. They must give the squirrels steroids or the like, given the way they hiss - which, since when did squirrels hiss? - and flicker their tails irately. That is some power tail flicking.

All in all Fuzzy makes an utter nuisance of herself on the walk over, but settles down when they meet Dr. Benzaiten at the door to the izakaya. “Doctor. Good evening.” Sakumo slides open the door gallantly. Fuzzy slips past like a large white shadow and pants happily from just inside the door.

He’s met by a pointedly arched eyebrow, silently judgemental, “Orochimaru, please. I must insist.” Orochimaru glides past anyways entering the premises easily. He greets the hostess easily, and they immediately get lead to a private booth. “So tell me, why exactly should I inform my best friends that you do not deserve to be pummeled into a pate for even looking at me sideways?”

Sakumo accepts the bottle of shochu from the waitress - prearranged after much deliberation between classy low stakes alcohol, like shochu or sake versus hangover inducing soju -careful to nod his thanks rather than speak it. “I do hope I’ve not given the impression that I’m that much of an asshole so quickly. ”

Orochimaru’s lips twitch, “Fair enough. Now that I’ve gotten my required question out of the way, the crux of the matter, Why did you ask me out?” He accepts the proffered glass of shochu, and they both sip at the sweet white sweet potato shochu. It’s tasty, perhaps fish will pair well, but possibly green beans or yakitori.

Sakumo thinks it over before answering, “You’re intriguing, and pretty. Should there be more to it?” Perhaps he’s getting the hang of telling the truth while also hiding his real intent. A scary yet exciting thought. Maybe he could go full on James Bond, super spy. Except James Bond was Navy, the soggy-bottomed loser. Maybe a whole new type of super spy? One who’s not a functioning alcoholic, for one.

“Call me pretty and give me non watered down shochu,” Orochimaru toasts him over the rim of his glass, “You, sir, are playing dirty.”

“Then I shall continue playing dirty.” Sakumo tosses back the rest of the shochu and refills Orochimaru’s glass. “How did Noboru fare in the end?”

“Little Noboru was snatched out of his cradle by our dearest neighbors and their Lady has the gall to pretend like no one knows who did it and on whose orders.” Orochimaru runs a finger around the rim of his glass; Sakumo has no choice but to listen to it sing with his hearing acting as funky as it is. “Luckily Manda managed to help make the point clear that the Lady isn’t welcome to simply trapeze around like she’s the Queen of these parts anymore. Now you, what do you get up to when you’re not lounging around my laboratory?” Manda hopefully, stayed at home and isn’t anywhere near the establishment.

Sakumo smiles, “I usually spend time with my son.” He fishes for his phone and swipes through the photos until he finds his favorite, “Kakashi. He’s 7, and a little genius. That’s his puppy Pakkun.” The pug is curled up in Kakashi’s lap like a small furry ball, barely visible.

Orochimaru coos appropriately at the picture of Kakashi solving basic calculus equations, then freezes warily asks, “And your wife?”

Sakumo lets the wash of ice cold sadness pour over him then exhales, slow and even, “She passed.” He forces himself to shrug, “Modern medicine is a miracle, but even that can’t fix metastasized cancer in the magic pathways.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” It’s sincere, for what that’s worth. For all Orochimaru is clearly playing a dangerous game with the people who live around the town, at least he’s not a complete sociopath. A stiff silence falls, and Sakumo tries to think of how to get it back on topic. Fire God’s Eternal Flame, he wasn’t the best dater around and he knew it. Why was this the plan again?

The waitress comes around to take their orders, and once she’s left Sakumo tries again, “So what brought you out here initially?”

“To shorten a needlessly complex story, my teacher won a grant to do some work for the military, and since I was assisting, I came out here with him. When his work was successfully completed, he left but I had unusual results that wouldn’t or couldn’t be replicated elsewhere in the world, so I left and came back to set up my lab. And now I mainly do research plus some work for the military as they find projects they need my expertise on.”

“Fascinating. And the ... friendly folk who live outside of town? How long have they been a problem?” Sakumo tops up both their glasses, though he’s been carefully pretending to drink instead of actually drinking.

“Mmm, about the same length of time, though they are usually quickly dealt with.” Their food arrives, small plates meant for sharing. “I have better things to do than to deal with their nonsense.”

“Are they usually targeting those who live here or each other?”

Orochimaru’s face twists, “Whatever catches their eye and suits the flavor of their cruelty for the moment. The Lady will target those among her people, and it’s disgusting. She has favorites to target, and one of them reminds me of you. Hair color, eye color, massive dogs like the wolf in Princess Mononoke had puppies.” He twirls a piece of yakitori contemplatively, before pointing the skewer suddenly at Sakumo. “Kind, earnest, honest, humble, loyal to a fault.” Sakumo knows his surprise is coloring his face, at the description his commanding officers have used to describe him since time immemorable, and Orochimaru’s smirk is triumphant, “You didn’t expect me to do my own research on you?”

“There’s nothing particularly interesting to know about me,” Sakumo demures, because it’s true. He’s a single parent to a genius child who’s only doing his best to make sure his last living family member is healthy and happy.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire, Mr. Youngest-Highly-Decorated-Major-In-the-Special-Operations-Division. You’re also in the running to make Colonel soon.”

“And you have nearly as many patents as your teacher, the second most in the world.” Sakumo should’ve saved that as ammunition for later, but he can’t regret the faint pink spots that rise on Orochimaru’s pale face. He really is pretty, which is an unconventional descriptor for a male, but also intelligent and not shy about it. A little loose tongued under the effect of alcohol, but that’s to be expected when you have three un-watered glasses with no food to cushion the shock to the system. Sakumo feels the sinking stone of guilt in his lower abdomen, the heavy rocks of regret weighing down his tongue. Perhaps this really was a bad idea.

“I surmise that this is your first foray back into the dating pool, then?” Orochimaru’s eyes have sharpened and Sakumo wonders if perhaps he hasn’t stumbled into some sort of trap.

The only thing to do though, is be honest. He scratches his cheek abashed, “Ahhh, what gave me away?” Under the table, Fuzzy snuffles about, as if she smells something intriguing, but Sakumo disregards that in favor of watching Orochimaru and the phases his eyes change through eureka - satisfaction-regard-intrigue lightning fast.

They finally settle on a glimmer of laughter - still not mean, just teasing mischief meant without malice. “Beyond the fact we just had a conversation over drinks that can be primarily and summarily described as ‘business oriented’, your phone keeps getting texts from someone named Dai sending you dating tips.” And this is why Sakumo doesn’t keep his phone on silent, Fire God forsake it. He can feel the fire of his blush all the way to the roots of his hair. “Don’t worry, I’m flattered. It’s not everyday someone decides all your various patents and magical skills mean you’re safe enough to test the dating pool with again.”

“A certain International Incident, if I recall correctly, marks you as very dangerous.” A set of eyebrows rise, astonishment, interest, and smug pride conveyed with so little, and Sakumo hurries to continue before things get wildly out of hand, “But ‘dangerous’ ... is interesting. I like dangerous things.” He replays what he just said in his head, and wrestles with the mortification rising from the depths of his soul. Open mouth and insert foot. While it’s not untrue , even when applied to Orochimaru - he is pretty and lethal, considering what he may or may not have accomplished a decade ago against immortal hitmen - Sakumo suspects that a) he’s not supposed to come right right out and say it, and b) when did that become less than a total lie? Even as he turns it over and over in his head in the silence that follows, he can’t say it’s untrue - from what he knows about Orochimaru he’s prone to protectiveness, possessiveness, sharp wit, and carries himself with a lethal sort of grace. None of those are necessarily deal breaker things, nor is his penchant for trouble and being in the center of it - glass houses and those who live in them and such.

Orochimaru shakes himself free of his excellent mimicry of a deer in the headlights. “That’s quite - I must myself admit that I find dangerous things also attractive.” His face is pointedly facing away, and all Sakumo can see are the sinuous snake earrings dangling from Orochimaru’s loose waterfall of midnight hair.

“Ah.” Sakumo covers with a deep drink of his shochu. Mmmm distilled sweet potato alcohol. Refreshing and if Sakumo has enough of it, he won’t be able to recall any of this. Fuzzy sneezes thrice in quick succession and harrumphs before settling down. He’s not sure if that’s Fuzzy making fun of him or the situation or both.

The silence that falls is awkward. Sakumo clears his throat and opens, “Maybe it’s better to stick to work talk or small talk?”

“Agreed.” Orochimaru nods once. “How are you finding our sleepy little town?”

“Are you asking as Headman or...?” Sakumo pulls off a piece of chicken from the yakitori stick. This garners no response, so Sakumo hedges his bet and goes a fifty-fifty split. “The area is nice, really, like something out of a fantasy novel, but ‘sleepy’ isn’t how I would describe it.”

“You have nothing to fear of the kindly neighbors who like to kick up a fuss, truly; their Lady just likes trying to test the constraints of her power every now and again.” Orochimaru’s mouth thins and his nose wrinkles in distaste. Whether it’s at the woman called Lady refusing to recognize that Orochimaru is the new big dog in town after all this time, or at the pickled daikon - which is too pickled for Sakumo’s taste - but it’s clear the situation is a thorn in his side. How far he’ll go to deal with such a threat is an unknown, but Sakumo sincerely hopes it’s after his work here is done.

“Yet she orders children snatched and hurts her own people. Why hasn’t anyone usurped her yet?” Because Sayaka had admitted to having reservations about her leader, and Sayaka couldn’t be the only one.

“Power. She’s owed enough favors and promises that moving against her would be likely suicide. For them, her word is law and that’s all they’ve likely ever known.” Orochimaru shrugs one shoulder as if to say ‘what can you do?’

It’s a fair point. Power often dictated societal morals in Sakumo’s experience, and often those with power had no morals, or if they did they - either the person or the morals didn’t last long. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Perhaps it would be worth looking into having this Lady classified as a direct threat to the safety and wellbeing of the people of Hi no Kuni, so Sakumo could take her out and restore some peace of mind here. Something to ask the Major when he calls for his weekly report in. He’s got enough first-hand evidence of the direct threat she poses, and it wouldn’t be the worst thing he’s ever done.

“You know, I’ve always wondered - ,” Orochimaru breaks Salumo out of his plotting, but himself gets broken off by the trill of his phone. “Apologies, someone must have put in the override code.” He checks the caller id, then vigorously swipes the “End Call” button on a “Kagami” - the second time Sakumo has heard that name, now he’s curious. “Wondered - ,” the phone rings again, once again Kagami. Orochimaru bristles, then angrily swipes the ‘accept call’ button, “ What? ” If tone of voice could kill, this Kagami fellow would be dead 17 times over with just a word. Impressive.

Whatever this Kagami is saying, it’s sing-song and gleeful, but too muffled by static and speed of talking for Sakumo to clearly make out the words. He does catch an ‘I told you so,’ and virulent laughter, though what this Kagami told Orochimaru and how it’s come true Sakumo has no clue. Sakumo can see the steady throb of Orochimaru’s temple slowly gaining speed, though, and worries for this Kagami fellows life expectancy.

Sakumo grabs a napkin and slowly writes out, ‘Perhaps we should reschedule?’ Orochimaru takes a moment to read the note and then viciously shakes his head in denial.

“Kagami, if you must know I am very busy right now. Yes, on a date. I know you know that because Jiraiya probably blabbed at poker night, and I know you know that I know about that time with the centrifuge toast and the turducken in the autoclave incident. I think perhaps Dean Senju would be interested in learning about those, hnm?” Fire God’s eternal flame, that’s vicious. Yet, clearly blackmail has it’s uses. Sakumo is conflicted between disapproving and admiring the elegant solution.

Kagami is still speaking, but Orochimaru hangs up. “My sincerest apologies, Dr. Uchiha thought that was an emergency.” He glances at his phone when it rings again, and looks taken aback. “It’s far too late now. You have to pick up your child from Captain Maito’s correct?”

Sakumo checks the time himself, and winces at the 45 text messages from Dai. Small Lords and Heavenly Courts preserve him. “Yes. I do need to get Kakashi.” He had collected some of the information that he aimed for tonight, and some other ones more besides.

“It’ll be fastest if I take you. Come.” He pushes up from the booth with easy grace, signalling for the waitress to bring the check to the front.

Sakumo follows, trailing Fuzzy like a fluffy fluffy banner. “Er, did you have a motorbike I missed?”

Orochimaru glances at him, then the check before swiping his card. “No something better.” They step outside, Sakumo about to protest the fact that the bill is very certainly not split , when the world turns to a swirl of light streaks and colors.

Sakumo is glad it’s Saturday and that he can sleep off the combined hangover and migraine from the previous evening. Because apparently the migraine is a potential hazard of teleportation. Space-time compression. Something. Kakashi prods the bag of ice on Sakumo’s head to refreeze it, then nestles down again beside him. Sakumo warms with pride - or a hot flash, jury’s out on which - at the skill his son is already showing in magic. Fuzzy is curled around him on his bed, and Pakkun is somewhere in this tangle of fur and limbs. It’s a morning that would best be spent recalling the sheer excitement and delight on Kakashi’s face when he experienced the Teleportation spell for himself, or sleeping in, but all he can think about is the color of liquid gold by gas light and the Lady.

And with his senses on full blast, overheating and lacking the will to extract himself from the puppy pile thrown together on his bed, even thinking leaches him of his last bit of energy.

He goes in circles, until his thoughts are a well worn track anchoring him in the sensation overload that are his senses failing to remain at normal, until he falls into an exhausted sleep that is full of cruel laughter and blood coated in gold. Sakumo wakes to Dai shaking his shoulder, and can recall none of it but the unsettling feeling of being watched.

In deference to his still throbbing migraine, Dai opts to whisper as he delivers Hisako’s cure-all tomato soup. “Dr. Benzaiten showed you the Teleportation seal in action?!”

Sakumo can’t summon the energy to do more than tilt his head in question, and then mentally chide himself because now he knows exactly where Kakashi picked that up. “It’s only to be used in extreme cases, the doctor and his teacher found when they were developing it that it thinned the spaces between worlds. Or made reality fragile? Possibly caused one subject’s insides to become outsides, but that could have been something else.” Dai really isn’t helping. Thanks Dai.

He and Kakashi spend the rest of the day sleeping in, surfacing every once and again to shift around; Sakumo can swear he feels a gentle hand pet over his head more than once, but it has to be wishful thinking. There’s no one there, after all.

The following week passes quietly, Orochimaru makes no mention of Friday night or their discussion, but Sakumo can feel the weight of his gaze whenever Sakumo has reason to be at the lab. Which isn’t often enough, or even often at all. Sakumo dearly wishes he had more time at the lab, to weigh feelings against facts, to see if perhaps this researcher is someone he could find kinship and kindredness in, could date without pretense. His head says probably, his heart is wavering, and this mixed bag doesn’t help anything at all. That and the feeling there is someone watching him, watching his son. That might just be paranoia though.

Commands from the capital have him setting up a secure communications lines, and reporting on the handful of military families stationed out here. There’s discussion of having a training base set up out here, which would require he and Dai to scout out the terrain and the obstacles. Sakumo feels like Central won’t appreciate if he says ‘crazy people who live in the forest’ as an obstacle, no matter how serious he is on that count. Dai thinks they should put it down anyways, but Dai is also earnest and faithful and sometimes fails to consider the fact that perhaps they should have trainees chased by crazy people on the orders of a madwoman. If they sign the consent form, they’re fair game for whatever gets thrown at them.

That might just be Sakumo’s bitterness talking though; Colonel Shimura had spoken at length of peaceful military-civilian interactions, and that the Headman of the village would handle and continue to handle the situation and report to the government if necessary and that Sakumo was not to overstep his authority or tread on the toes of the locals by taking out the neighbor’s leader. Which is frankly idiotic since the Headman is a military scientist and protecting their asset and his work is his primary objective. If Sakumo ever becomes Colonel and Shimura gets ousted, he’s going to clean up the red tape and use common sense to lead, he swears it on the Fire God’s Eternal Flame. So mote it be lest his soul be consigned to eternal damnation in the Fire God’s Hells.

He’s so consumed by the massive dump of tasks the Colonel sends his way that he almost doesn’t notice how eerily quiet the town becomes. Like everyone is huddled indoors, away from windows or doors, just waiting for the danger to pass. His senses ratchet up and catch on every slightest noise, every pin drop. It’s like waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it’s been in the works too long and everything is a giant exposed nerve twisted up in knots and trembling with barely restrained potential energy, ready to explode.

The phone ringing in the midst of all that tension should have been his sign. His phone ringing has never ended well for Sakumo, that the ringtone was even audible in the first place ought to have given him pause.

He knows the voice on the other end of the line, “Major Hatake? This is Principal Takahashi -” His hands shake as he listens, and then his world bursts. He doesn’t know what to do - should he spring into action; should he wait for the authorities to arrive; should he scream and keep screaming?

The decision is taken out his hands when his heart starts racing uncontrollably, his hearing sharpening until all noise is shrill and shrieky, his nose catching every scent in the vicinity, his jaw aching with the strain of something Sakumo cannot put a name to. A stringent voice snaps out orders, the phone tugged free of his hand and a third voice speaking. He feels more than hears the distressed whine of Fuzzy, the fingers against the pulse in his wrist and then the firm, cold hands against his chest, cold hands pressing one of his hands to a thin chest to match his breathing to. It doesn’t help, doesn’t fix the screaming in his ears or the flood of information or the bone deep pain that blooms and blooms and blooms . More commands Something falls out of his mouth as he gasps for air, and he dimly realizes it’s one of his front canine teeth. First one, then another, then another, they tinker to the floor like something from a nightmare, and something sharper pushes out of his gums, filling his mouth with blood. Bones shift and move and sharpen, and if Sakumo thought he’d be able to draw breath he’d scream with the pain of it. Fuzzy pushes into his chest as if she can headbutt out the wrongness and circles him protectively, anxious and defensive.

Then one by one the pains fade, plateauing. Sakumo finds himself staring into sharp gold eyes as he shakily inhales, holds, and exhales, and he wants nothing more than to collapse against those deceptively thin shoulders and weep. What he gets instead is a hard slap across the face, and virulent cursing from Orochimaru as he cradles the hand he used to slap Sakumo. “Get yourself together Major!” A fuzzy iridescent green glow encases Orochimaru’s hand, and Sakumo can smell the way the hurt eases.

“What’s happened to me?” He wonders how he can even croak that much out when - when this is the ultimate nightmare scenario. The thing that haunts his dreams more than his first kill or the last rattling breath Chiasa breathed in that grey beige hospital room.

Orochimaru, clearly not a believer in sympathy for those having a life-changing paradigm shift in worldview, forces him to his feet, then into Fuzzy for support. “I believe our fair neighbors would call it manifesting. Come on, we can chat as we move. Time is of the essence.”

Nothing makes sense and everything is haywire. But it’s easy enough to fall in step with Orochimaru, who moves like a soldier headed into a standoff with a mission they aim to complete, no matter the cost. “Manifesting?”

“Coming into one’s ... inheritance? Power? Whatever it is that marks our fair friends as something other .”

“Other meaning what exactly, beyond someone not from in town?”

Orochimaru narrows his eyes dangerously. “We are later going to discuss the fact you can read Marsh Witch High Cant, Major, and the repercussions of going through my logs. For now, Other means the ones who have your son. Can you track him at all, Ranger?” Impatient, but now that Orochimaru mentions it, Sakumo can smell traces of his son, of wild-sunlight-sprint-mischief , and suddenly he’s moving.

First it’s a quick walk, then a faster trot, a jog, then it’s the most natural thing in the world to flat out run. He can catch traces of wild-sunlight-sprint-mischief that is Kakashi, and can track it by nose alone, on the fly, and it’s exhilarating. Fuzzy sprints beside him, keeping pace easily with her long loping stride, pausing only momentarily to sniff through the air currents of the forest as it grows more dense and tightly grown, but it’s nothing to duck and weave and course correct with his every sense singing. The only hitch comes when he hits something of a wall. It’s not a wall, per se, more alike to a convoluted piece of Ancient Script he hasn’t quite parsed the base of. But the scent of his son does go beyond it, that much he’s sure of.

Orochimaru catches up, breathless. “Oh, Air God and the Heavenly Winds, a trod . Of course, a trod .” His omnipresent crystal bead bangle clacks as Orochimaru begins forming handsigns, but Sakumo stops him.

“You punch through with magic the trod will ... collapse.” Sakumo hopes he’s reading the runes floating around correctly. It’s either collapse or destroy itself, but the result is still the same. There’d be no finding Kakashi. Something about the word trod itches at his brain, but Sakumo ignores it because his son . His son is in the hands of a monster, and he will rip her throat out with his teeth if he has to in order to get Kakashi back safe.

“The only other option is to go Underhill and confront the Lady directly, which will mean we can’t surprise her and steal your son back before she notices.” Pale strong arms cross defensively, and as much as Sakumo agrees, there’s nothing to be done. He doesn’t even know where to begin with this ... Veil without at least two different reference texts, which could take hours to translate, filter for junk, translate again, and undo. They just don’t have the time. Orochimaru must see something of this resolve, and sighs resigned before grinning darkly. “Underhill it is. Let’s go make an Incident shall we, my sweet?”

Sakumo bares his teeth in a parody of a grin, “Of course, let’s do what we do best.”

Perhaps Sakumo should have checked that they were on the same page about what constitutes an “Incident”, since his version is kicking down doors and subduing people (killing them if only necessary), and Orochimaru’s just disintegrated his fourth person. “Are you even trying for survivors, Beautiful?”

Orochimaru flexes his fingers testily, “First of all, never use “beautiful” as a pet name again. Second, letting anyone get away to raise the alarm at this juncture would be counterproductive as a scare tactic.” He whirls in a elegant movement to catch a leaping assailant - one with cat eyes and a tail and a truly horrific amount of serrated teeth - in the face. With a puff of magic, ink scrawls out across their face with a acidic hiss, then with a sickening scream they dissolve to so much ash and dust. Well, Sakumo can’t say he’s surprised, he’s long known Orochimaru is dangerous and not just superficially. Fuzzy rumbles low in her throat and licks some of the bright red blood off her well-coated muzzle.

“But wouldn’t the scream make any nominal attempt at stealth moot?” He moves with a surprising amount of speed and finesse for the way his body’s muscles react a touch too fast, catching a whirling white blade with his reinforced gloves and then collapsing magic paths and deadening nerves with precise hits. Sakumo catches the blade before it falls to the floor, and after a cursory inspection, straps it to his side. Useful weapons were few and far between after all. Fuzzy races ahead, engaging with enemies unseen before they can spring their traps.

Orochimaru had led them through an opening in a knotted series of branches and roots into a set of underground tunnels, but Sakumo had the disorienting feeling that the path they had taken was somehow bigger than the thicket had seemed from the outside. And things that had previously seemed obscure had finished unearthing themselves from Sakumo’s recollections. Still he’d like to wait for a little more confirmation -

Sakumo catches the soft twang of a bow and easily slices the arrow in half, lets Orochimaru fire off a cyclone of scalep sharp air blades and inferno hot flames over his head to the hidden archer as he parries a longsword that rose up from the ground like an assassin’s blade. Their steadily smoothing ability to work together like a well-oiled machine - or a danse macabre for two, considering the bodies littering their path - makes Sakumo’s Ranger missions look like toddlers learning to walk. It’s like playing a MMORPG as a rogue with an exceptionally skilled mage laying down cover fire; he can’t keep back a feral snarl of unadulterated pleasure, if these lackeys thought they could go and kidnap Kakashi and get away with it then they were surely learning otherwise. The hard way, as Sakumo bisects some twig-figure’s legs at the knee. A ripple up his spine; danger there, move now -

A blistering wave of lava rushes towards where they last were, Sakumo throwing them both bodily out of the way and into an antechamber clearly lit by sunlight. He ducks and rolls low as Orochimaru throws up a barrier with a fluid series of handsigns and follows it up with a harsh burst of wind to cool and harden the lava into an impassable door. It’s as simple as breathing to come up with his blade bared, Fuzzy growling, teeth exposed, ears high and fur bristling like a matched set.

“And so you’ve come for the halfbreed, Headman.” The woman he’d last seen at the forum is seated on what can only be a throne, lavish with gold and jewels and surrounded by women holding pitchers and platters of food. “And you bring a second one with you.” Her sneer is poisonous, her hatred noxious, and Sakumo bares his teeth at her.

“Halfbreed or not, you took one of my children, Lady, and we both know that is not something I will accept.” Orochimaru’s magic wreaths him like a second skin, a suit of armor made of scales. “Return him with no harm and I may be inclined to leniency.”

Sakumo finally accepts that this is his reality as the woman rises, unnaturally lithe but eyes fully black and hair thick twists of vine and bone and wood and fur and leaf and antler that shift arrangement as if of their own accord. “Your leniency is a falsehood, Snake-souled Orochimaru, for you know only calculation. Didn’t your tales tell you not to lie to a Fae? Or insult a Fae Queen? You are in my domain now, Headman and Wolf, not neutral ground. The very essence of Underhill obeys me .” As if to prove her point, vines thicker than a all-terrain vehicle shoot up out of nowhere and bind Sakumo tight to the walls, narrowly miss catching Orochimaru but tie Fuzzy to the floor. If he struggles, the vines tighten.

As if by design, the balconies and hidden galleries fill up with a vast assortment of strange and fantastic shapes and forms, more than Sakumo can count. Their noise fills his ears though, and their smells. Far too many of them smell of things Sakumo cannot name, does not want to face by smell alone.

As if it’s less than a mere though, Orochimaru torches the remaining vines, letting the woman’s shrieks pass over him. “While it’s true I’ve entered your land, and have come into your Mound, Lady, you’ve broken oath. What’s that they say about lying and oath breaking?” His smile is placid, but screams of being caught red handed.

“I have broken no oath, Headman. I have made no promise to you I have not kept.” Her snarl is rabid with rage, fury made real by the way flames gout and gutter up from thin air.

Orochimaru tilts his head like he’s indulging a child’s tantrum. “The man and his progeny are mine. You said you would not harm those I have claimed as my own. Yet, you’ve caused the man great distress, and probably the child as well. You have broken faith by causing harm to me and mine.”

The woman scoffs, “I have greater and first claim on their lives, they are of my people and thus mine to treat as I please. This is the truest truth I know, and you know it too.”

Sakumo knows that set of Orochimaru’s shoulders, that shift of weight from one leg to another, and is not disappointed. Orochimaru is out for blood, and this will be the start of the end. “Yet, Lady, this is not the only oath that I speak of. You yourself said you laid the halfbreed to eternal rest and that has been proven false, Lady.”

She starts. “What do you speak of, Headman?”

Orochimaru clears his throat, “Lady, once upon a time you said you had been betrayed by your closest handmaiden, who loved another more than you, and thus conceived a child. Among you and yours, children are rare, and much beloved as symbols of the depth and strength of the devotion between the parents. You, Lady, were so enraged that you plotted to have the child and it’s father slaughtered, to cast out your most trusted attendant in disgrace as punishment. But, when the time came, something went wrong, and the child never died. The man and his child escaped your clutches, but you bathed yourself in their scents and glamored blood upon yourself and came back in false triumph. You cast your attendant into the Wild Hunt as their leader as punishment and have used her as your whipping post since.”

“Wild conjecture.”

“Ah, but Lady, I have proof. You’ve managed to tie him up, but the man you call Wolf is that child. And since he lives, the oath your swore to your attendant that you killed her husband and child is a lie. That is the promise I speak of.”

Sayaka and Takao stumble out of one of the hidden alcoves, eyes wide and shining. A heavy hush has stilled even the most quiet of rustles from the crowd, like they are waiting for something. Now that she is away from the crowd, Sakumo can smell her most clearly. Wild-sunlight-sprint , heavily influenced by a deep seated grief and the iron tang of steel. He can tell the moment that she smells his scent, notes the similarities that Sakumo has long since figured out marks blood-kin. “Lady, why .” Sayaka tightens her grip on her tanto as if her resolve had hardened even as her voice broke with barely restrained emotion, and Takao falls still, waiting.

The Lady does not respond, merely shrieks banshee-like and throws massive fireballs across the room. Sayaka moves, her and Takao so synchronous in their movements it’s like watching a ballet of flashing blades and snapping jaws. Orochimaru appears by his side, a thin gust of wind cutting through the vines holding Sakumo tight. By his side, a large purple snake tastes the air, slowly growing before Sakumo’s very eyes. “Hurry, find Kakashi. I will stay here and aid Sayaka as I can.” Fuzzy whines conflicted, like she could stand to take a shot herself at the Lady, but also to see Kakashi and ensure he’s unhurt.

“Come on girl,” Sakumo asks, because he’s afraid. He’s afraid and angry and there are powers he cannot match at work here, given the way the earth and walls tremble and the air shivers. And, apparently, his mother. Who is very clearly not human, not with the way her teeth are wolf-sharp and her ears are delicately pointed, and not dead like he had always been lead to assume. With one last guilty whine, Fuzzy comes to heel by Sakumo as they resume trailing Kakashi. His stomach twists as the scent of his son gets stronger, as it floods with pain and fear and his subconscious howls in outrage, with the need to race back and take every ounce of this feeling out of the Lady, out of anyone who laid a hand on Kakashi.

It’s clear to see that the rest of Underhill has been deserted, or more rather only left guarded by small hunched figures that barely come up to Sakumo’s knees and skitter away in fear when Sakumo bares his teeth and growls in their direction. The only one who gathers up the guts to hurl a crude wooden spear gets that same spear through the skull in quick retribution and the rest of it’s gathered mob scatters into the dank hallways like so many cockroaches from the light.

Finally something breaks in Underhill, ripples and shifts and warps in some intrinsic manner Sakumo cannot place but that straightens the halls from their previous winds and wanders, lifts the deep pockets of dark in favor of something less gothic. More importantly, perhaps is the distinct muffled grunting Sakumo hasn’t heard in so long. “Kakashi!”

His hair is matted with sweat, his skin pallid, and his scarf in tatters. The urge to snarl and bite and tear flesh from bones is back, and Sakumo swallows it down in favor of ripping apart the chains hanging Kakashi’s thin wrists above his head, to pressing ice to the swollen and sore flesh revealed, and holding Kakashi close as his whimpers of pain slow. “Dad?”

It’s the first time Sakumo has heard his son’s voice in years, and it’s slightly slurred and hoarse. “Yeah, baby, it’s me.” Fuzzy noses around them, concern clear in her low tail and flat ears. “You’re safe now, I’ve got you.” Sakumo presses closer, nose near buried in Kakashi’s hair, and feels the tension coiling in his muscles ease as the distress bleeds out of Kakashi’s scent. Kakashi’s muddy and bruised and probably ought to see a medical doctor as soon as possible, but Sakumo wants more to just hold his son. “Fuzzy, lead us out of here.”

It’s easier now, to follow the neat slink of Fuzzy through the corridors. Sakumo can smell that there have been creatures of not insignificant power passing through the halls recently, catches glimpses of them, but they seem to be fleeing instead of confronting Sakumo. He still doesn’t put away the tanto he reappropriated, not until the arrive at the rubble and ruin of the chamber where Sakumo had left the Lady.

Orochimaru is covered in grime and dust, a little blood, but the color is high in his cheeks and his eyes are bright with excitement, and he’s perched on the head of a massive snake. Sayaka outright glitters with power, covered in blood, and is ripping chunks from the Lady’s corpse to stack into a what’s shaping up into a throne. As for the Lady, she’s ripped to shreds, eviscerated, face contorted in a rictus of pain and horror, her throat gaping open from what is clearly wolf teeth. Whether they were Sayaka or Takao is unclear, but Sakumo feels a grim pleasure at the sight. May she rot in the Lady of Death’s embrace for eternity.

Sayaka’s head lifts up as a fresh and clean breeze passes through the room. Takao rises from where he’s been hidden in the shadow of the throne, and their gazes together zeros in on Sakumo and Kakashi like a laser guided shot.

“Oh good, you’ve found the puppy. Hello puppy.” Orochimaru glides over, picking over the larger chunks of rubble like they’re minor annoyances. Kakashi wriggles out of Sakumo’s grip and to the floor, yet hovers close to Sakumo - not comfortable being coddled in front of strangers, however cool, but not yet sure to leave his father. Takao slinks over, eyes large and pleading and amusing in the way he tries to shrink several hundred pounds into something nonthreatening. Sayaka follows cautiously after.

Now that Sakumo is looking for it, he can see more than just eye color and hair color that they share. There are traces of smile lines that bracket her mouth, the mole on the hinge of her jaw that Sakumo and Chiasa had both wondered where that trait had come from in Kakashi, the wild hope in dark grey eyes that maybe she wasn’t so alone anymore.

They talk long through the day and well into the night, about the years they have missed and the lives unknown and the little things Sakumo had never heard before and aches to know he missed. The way Sayaka had tried to hunt him and his father down over and over and over but never could catch a trace of them, finally accepted that the Lady had told the truth and they were dead; the way Kakashi had woken one day with deep jaw pain and a mouthful of blood and found himself with wolf teeth instead of normal human ones; the soft story of how Sayaka had met his father and fallen in love. In some ways it is too much, in others too little.

Sakumo exhales into the chill pre-dawn air, awake and restless. There’s so much more to know, questions he wants to ask but doesn’t know how to phrase, doesn’t know how to deal with the awkwardness of having a parent that he has never known after going without for a lifetime. He’s consumed by his own thoughts when Orochimaru extracts himself from the guest bedroom and comes out through the window, Manda looped around his throat like a scarf, bundled tight in a guest blanket. This at least, Sakumo is confident in maneuvering.

They’re silent and watching the pitch black skies slowly lighten to dark Iron grey for a long bet. “How’d you know?” Sakumo doesn’t look over to Orochimaru, where he’s perch himself comfortably on the rail of the porch.

“The clues were all there if you had known what you were looking for. You’re both far too alike - and not just in looks. You magic is similar, an odd Lightning primary instead of Fire primary, though yours is colored by Earth - your father, I presume. And the Lady’s story had holes - why would she need to make a show of killing two defenseless people but not produce the bodies, not take a trophy? Though I can’t hold that particular piece of information against you; it’s not something I believe you were aware of previously.” Sakumo catches the edges of a slight head tilt and shrug.

“What am I?” Sakumo suspects, has a word bouncing around his skull, but he isn’t ready to apply that to himself quite yet.

“Have you still not figured it out? Even with Wolfy the way she is?”

“What does Fuzzy have to do with anything?” His dog?

Orochimaru counts off, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, “Wolfy is entirely too large to be suffering from any kind of gigantism common to any species of wolf in the Elemental Nations. That notwithstanding, you’ve never wondered at her intelligence? Or the fact she’s lived so long without any visible health issues.”

Sakumo has to argue, because he’s seen enough vets who’ve marveled over the same thing. “Magic increases the lifespan in animals who are around a lot of it.”

“Only by a few years. A whole decade has passed and Wolfy is nearly exactly the same as when I last saw her. You too for that matter.” If Sakumo turned his head he knows he would see shining gold focused on him, studying him. They’ll be bright, even in this half light, glowing, and honest, because Sakumo has realized that Orochimaru doesn’t lie, no not outright. He’ll speak as if you know all the facts, as if you’re fully aware of all the shogi pieces moving around the board and all several hundred moves that may have come before, and then continue on. A perverse kind of honesty, but honesty just the same. Once again, with a quiet insistence, “Have you figured it out?”

Sakumo swallows hard, his throat dry and only getting drier, “Fae. I’m Fae.”

“Demi-Fae, since your father was human. Your son too, for the human blood that runs in his veins.” A quiet jangle of links, the tinkle of metal against metal that made up the scales of Orochimaru’s earrings. “The distinction doesn’t matter, since you’ve both Manifested.”

Right. Showing Fae traits. Sakumo must suppose he got off lightly with wolf teeth - at least among Rangers, he can shrug and point out that Inuzuka file their teeth into a similar configuration, though maybe they’re also less human than he previously suspected. It might explain why they’ve always been able to work well together, but not mingled as one unit easily. They have a different leader, and Sakumo is the leader of his own group, small though it is. Which, “Sayaka killed the Lady didn’t she.”

“She did.” It’s a quiet confirmation, and Sakumo is uneasy at it. Sayaka, who does not know Sakumo or Kakashi beyond the fact they are her blood, one who she has mourned and one who she never dreamed of existing. Sayaka, for all of that, took on someone who had a power beyond magic in the form of oaths and promises that leveraged people against their own whims, and won.

“How?” Orochimaru himself had noted that it would be suicide to take on the Lady. Yet, Sayaka had won.

“The rules of Underhill are more complex than what Fae would have you know. Oh, their rules for us are simple enough, but for other Fae there are more ... strictures than there are concessions. Likely because they are all out for power.” Orochimaru resettles himself on the thin rail, tucking his bare feet within the swaddling of blankets. “The Lady may have held power via promises, but those all became moot when I revealed her to have broken faith. On top of that, the fight itself was most likely viewed to have been retribution for blood kin. Vengeance, or justice, whichever you prefer.” Clearly, Orochimaru gave no more importance to one over the other, and Sakumo chose not to care. He could wrap his head around the politics, perhaps, easily step into the role of a parent who’s lost something and wanted retribution. “In either case, the Lady had no choice. She had already lost the majority of her power, and would have been cast out of the Court. It’s better now, with her dead and Sayaka the new Queen.”

Apparently, Sakumo has a Fae Queen sleeping in his bed. Who is his mother, and willing to kill for him. There are worse situations to be in, if he thinks about it.

The silence they’ve fallen into is heavy, something not quite comfortable but not quite heavy either. Orochimaru breaks it, “You went through my logs.” It’s not an accusation, just a simple statement of fact. There’s no use denying it, so Sakumo just listens. “Why?”

Sakumo considers, and tries to extract the bare bones of the situation, “There was something afoot, and I needed to know what it was, not just for my job but also for my son.”

“A simple man with simple reasons.” Orochimaru inclines his head, “Still ulterior motives.”

“So did you.” He's fired back before he can truly think it through. At least in this, they’re both guilty of having motives behind motives behind motives. “Why else would you have asked for a sample of my magic, and how else would you have figured that my magic is similar to Sayaka’s?” The silence that follows tells him that Orochimaru’s conceded the point, but it’s barely a victory really. Sakumo sighs heavily, and turns to watch the way the sun’s first rays illuminate Orochimaru’s face, bare of heavy purple and hair loosely tied back. He’s lovely and intriguing and Sakumo wants to try getting to know this person who’s always thinking and moving and so very much the same but opposite. “So, where do we go from here?”

“I like to think that we deserve to start over. I - I was wrong, back then to use myself and my body as a distraction, to sexually harass you, and I've never apologized for that. As well as now, having ulterior motives for what I’ve said or done while you’ve been here. So this is my formal apology.” It’s sincere, and that’s worth meeting equally.

“I should apologize as well, for snooping through something that wasn’t, isn’t necessary for doing my job.” It raises the tiniest of smiles, true and genuine. It feels a little like discovery, and Sakumo can see how Orochimaru can get so engrossed in his work if everything feels like this.

“I think you’re a good man at heart Sakumo Hatake, someone not swayed easily and I cannot say that I am not interested in knowing you better.”

It’s difficult, to be honest, but Sakumo needs to say it. “In the interest of full disclosure; I'm not completely done missing Chiasa, I don't think I ever will be. She is someone I love, deeply, and I always will."

Oro reads between lines, "But you're also ready to wade back in?"

"Wade is a good word for it. If you're okay with slow, then ...." The ball is in Orochimaru’s court. He might not want to deal with the encompassing grief that comes and goes, or the fact that Sakumo will love Chiasa for the rest of his life. He’s used to missing her, not used to having someone there, used to mourning those who are lost.

Orochimaru smiles and reaches out a hand, “Then, hello, I’m Dr. Orochimaru Benzaiten, genius PhD. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I like reading academic papers and writing scathing reviews, research, and have been called dangerous before.” His eyes are dancing and it playful.

Sakumo can’t help but respond in kind. “Major Sakumo Hatake, single parent to a genius 7 year old, recently reunited with his long-lost mother, a Queen. I love spending time with my son and my dog, Fuzzy, and can be persuaded to listen to long rambles on any topic. Also, I like dangerous.” He smiles, and it’s weird around a mouthful of wolf teeth, but in the dawn light, it feels a little like a rebirth, and Sakumo can’t wait to see what comes next.

#sumigakure halloween event 2017 #prompt 15: this town isn't what it seems #promtp12: character finds out they're a supernatural creature #IM SORRY I LOST INTERNET THIS IS SO LATE DDDDDDDDD:#art writes

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