Fiction: A Not So Stranger in the Night
Title: A Not So Stranger in the Night
Author/Artist: Cyr Anomaly, chaos_anomaly
Fandom: Route_29 inspired what-if; Dissidia: Final Fantasy and Katekyo Hitman Reborn
Characters: Squall Leonhart, Suzuki Adelheid
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mention of IC past death
Word count: 765
Summary: He keeps coming back but is it to this place or to her?
Notes: Unbeta'd. Tenses are probably f---ed up. There is no promised smut but i'll try again later. :'|
He stares at her, wondering if she knew he was there.
She should. She was always more observant than he gave her credit for.
A smile tugs at his lips. It hurts to smile, to let his mouth move in anyway. Chapped lips, however, were the least of his worries. Not when he went back, to that place. Not when he went back to fighting for a Goddess he once served. But now he’s back, really back and although this place isn’t home-probably would never be-it is close enough. For him.
He stops himself from reaching over to push aside a strand of hair. She’s diligent, quick and witty. She’d react the moment he did something to her, no matter how innocent. At the same time, he doesn’t really want to touch her, not with blood stained gloves he wore. Even if he takes them off, his hands aren’t clean enough for his liking. If he’s honest, nothing about him is clean. No amount of scrubbing could-would-stop him from seeing her blood on his person, or make him stop hearing her final blood curdling scream.
But here, at least here he can feel some peace. Then again, maybe it is just her presence in the room that helps him. Or a combination of the two, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know.
Instead, he leans back and rests his head against the wall. He brings a knee up to and rests his hand over it. The floor is hard but not uncomfortable, not as much as the rock of the cavern he took sheltered in as he and the others trekked through Chaos’s domain. It’s cold but no colder than the Elven Snowfields where snow was ever present, ever-falling.
The wind howls against the window and his eyes close slowly. His fingers curl into a fist, mimicking the motions of him gripping his weapon.
His weapon is not here. Like before, it was gone. Disappeared and vanished. A world of peace where no battling, no dying occurred is still as strange to him as the first time he arrived in this world. It’s an impossibility and although he remembers more of his true life, the life he had before the Conflict, this place is nothing like he would have thought of.
It would be, if he was someone else, a good place to live. A good place to die.
Except he is who he is. A mercenary, a swordsman, a warrior of Cosmos.
His fingers twitch as he licks his lips. He should get up and get dressed, change his clothes into something less dirty. He should change into something that wasn’t drenched in the blood of his enemies or covered in the dust of those puppets he fought.
But he’s too tired to move.
His thoughts turn toward the others. Were they in this place? Or did they actually go back to their home worlds? Or perhaps they were still there, trapped by the nonsense of that strange world the Conflict took place. He doesn’t know.
He takes a deep breath and pushes it aside. Now isn’t the time. (Now will never be the time.)
He’s here. He has to focus on being here, in the present and in this room.
He listens to her breathing, counting all her exhales while matching them with his own. He lets her lull himself into a state of being. He turns his gaze from the bed and out the window. He thinks he spies a creature or two playing in the darkness. There might be more. There probably is more.
The bed shifts and he turns to look. She rolls over but her eyes are still closed, the covers still pulled up to her neck. She looks the same as if no time passed since they last met but he knows, for certain, that isn’t true. The date on the Nurse’s desk is different from what he remembered. The month is different and so is the day. He had been gone too long.
Idly, he wonders if she thought of him, remembered him but decides not to dwell on it.
He’s gotten good at not thinking about certain things despite popular belief.
Slowly, her hand slips out from underneath her blankets. The fingers curl slightly and he stares at her hand. The urge to reach out and grab it strengthens. He bites back a sigh of frustration.
It’s hours before dawn arrives but it’s minutes before her eyes open, slow and cautious.
“…Squall.”
His lips quirk as he raises an eyebrow of expectation. “Suzuki.”
Author/Artist: Cyr Anomaly, chaos_anomaly
Fandom: Route_29 inspired what-if; Dissidia: Final Fantasy and Katekyo Hitman Reborn
Characters: Squall Leonhart, Suzuki Adelheid
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mention of IC past death
Word count: 765
Summary: He keeps coming back but is it to this place or to her?
Notes: Unbeta'd. Tenses are probably f---ed up. There is no promised smut but i'll try again later. :'|
He stares at her, wondering if she knew he was there.
She should. She was always more observant than he gave her credit for.
A smile tugs at his lips. It hurts to smile, to let his mouth move in anyway. Chapped lips, however, were the least of his worries. Not when he went back, to that place. Not when he went back to fighting for a Goddess he once served. But now he’s back, really back and although this place isn’t home-probably would never be-it is close enough. For him.
He stops himself from reaching over to push aside a strand of hair. She’s diligent, quick and witty. She’d react the moment he did something to her, no matter how innocent. At the same time, he doesn’t really want to touch her, not with blood stained gloves he wore. Even if he takes them off, his hands aren’t clean enough for his liking. If he’s honest, nothing about him is clean. No amount of scrubbing could-would-stop him from seeing her blood on his person, or make him stop hearing her final blood curdling scream.
But here, at least here he can feel some peace. Then again, maybe it is just her presence in the room that helps him. Or a combination of the two, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know.
Instead, he leans back and rests his head against the wall. He brings a knee up to and rests his hand over it. The floor is hard but not uncomfortable, not as much as the rock of the cavern he took sheltered in as he and the others trekked through Chaos’s domain. It’s cold but no colder than the Elven Snowfields where snow was ever present, ever-falling.
The wind howls against the window and his eyes close slowly. His fingers curl into a fist, mimicking the motions of him gripping his weapon.
His weapon is not here. Like before, it was gone. Disappeared and vanished. A world of peace where no battling, no dying occurred is still as strange to him as the first time he arrived in this world. It’s an impossibility and although he remembers more of his true life, the life he had before the Conflict, this place is nothing like he would have thought of.
It would be, if he was someone else, a good place to live. A good place to die.
Except he is who he is. A mercenary, a swordsman, a warrior of Cosmos.
His fingers twitch as he licks his lips. He should get up and get dressed, change his clothes into something less dirty. He should change into something that wasn’t drenched in the blood of his enemies or covered in the dust of those puppets he fought.
But he’s too tired to move.
His thoughts turn toward the others. Were they in this place? Or did they actually go back to their home worlds? Or perhaps they were still there, trapped by the nonsense of that strange world the Conflict took place. He doesn’t know.
He takes a deep breath and pushes it aside. Now isn’t the time. (Now will never be the time.)
He’s here. He has to focus on being here, in the present and in this room.
He listens to her breathing, counting all her exhales while matching them with his own. He lets her lull himself into a state of being. He turns his gaze from the bed and out the window. He thinks he spies a creature or two playing in the darkness. There might be more. There probably is more.
The bed shifts and he turns to look. She rolls over but her eyes are still closed, the covers still pulled up to her neck. She looks the same as if no time passed since they last met but he knows, for certain, that isn’t true. The date on the Nurse’s desk is different from what he remembered. The month is different and so is the day. He had been gone too long.
Idly, he wonders if she thought of him, remembered him but decides not to dwell on it.
He’s gotten good at not thinking about certain things despite popular belief.
Slowly, her hand slips out from underneath her blankets. The fingers curl slightly and he stares at her hand. The urge to reach out and grab it strengthens. He bites back a sigh of frustration.
It’s hours before dawn arrives but it’s minutes before her eyes open, slow and cautious.
“…Squall.”
His lips quirk as he raises an eyebrow of expectation. “Suzuki.”