Crossover // Apeiron Academy: Part VII // hymn
Fandoms: Tales of Symphonia, Tales of the Abyss
Focus: Zelos/Tear
Genres: Romance, drama, introspection
Rating: K
Wordcount: 3020
Summary: First she slaps him. Then she says yes.
Notes: moko-moko has spawned a new OTP, holy shit. Anyway. This fic is about Zelos and Tear and their band. Yes, their band. I didn't use the word 'spawn' lightly. Also, actual note: the tense change in the last section is intentional. I wanted a more immediate sense in contrast to the flashback past tense of the previous sections.
Edit: Oh my god, oh my god, moko-moko did artwork for this and it is amazing. You'll find it at the bottom, after the fic itself. ...Amazing.
Enjoy!
vii: hymn
Just for the record, Tear hated him.
Or perhaps hate was too strong a word. She'd learned her lesson about hate in the past-- it screwed things up, complicated her life, hurt people who didn't deserve hurting. So she didn't hate him. But she didn't like him. She disliked him a lot.
It wasn't the hair, though that didn't help. Reminders of her relationship with Luke and its subsequent sad failure made her depressed, but she was logical enough a person to know that that wasn't Zelos's fault.
It wasn't the never-ending flirting, either. She was as used to that by now as she was having long hair and it didn't even make her blush these days, though she often seized the excuse to hit him because the violence made her feel marginally better.
It wasn't the similarities in their backgrounds-- wealthy, suppressed by their families, rebellious-- though that didn't help either.
It was the way he smiled at her, like he could see right through her cold, controlled facade to the tumultous workings of her insides. Though she never cried, he always gave her the impression of being just about to wipe the tears off her cheeks. It drove her insane. She didn't want anyone to see her, that's why she had her facade in the first place.
Even so, even though it hurt to be around him most of the time and made her angry the rest, she couldn't help herself.
When they'd met last year, early in the autumn semester, she had been sitting in a secluded area of the campus practicing for the upcoming exams. Her vibrato was still shaky and unsure of itself, and her neglected lower register needed a little smoothing before she went up before Professor Demyx. He was a deceptively scatterbrained, laid-back, genial guy, until it came to marking. Then he was a vicious blue-eyed demon.
Practicing in advance was hardly even optional in his vocals class, and Tear was good at following rules.
Fretting over how thin her low notes still sounded, she hadn't even heard him coming up to her, though he hadn't even tried to be quiet.
"Yo, my sultry songstress," he said cordially.
It took her a moment to realize what he had actually said, because at first all she'd seen was long red hair and pale skin and thought Luke, oh god, and then another moment after she realized he wasn't Luke for the blush and frown to catch up. "Is my practicing disturbing you?" she'd asked. "I'll move somewhere else."
Raising his hands in mock affront, he'd shaken his head vigorously. "No, babe, not at all. I'm completely bewitched. Please, continue, or I might have to cry."
At first she'd opened her mouth to say him staring at her made her uncomfortable, but then she'd realized that she was studying for a possible career in the performance arts alongside her audiotherapy major and if an audience of one made her nervous, what would she do with an audience of hundreds? Thousands?
So, she'd resolutely turned away and continued her practice as though he was not there, commanding her voice not to waver.
When at last she was finished, he had clapped enthusiastically and leaned right into her face, making her blush again by sheer reflex. "Say, I have a... proposition for you," he had said with a lascivious wink.
She had slapped him. Then she'd said yes.
And now, somehow, her studies had taken a backseat to his proposition, which had turned out to be a band.
He played guitar and sang. She played piano and sang. Sometimes they were joined by Professor Demyx with his sitar, a mysterious man named Hagi on the cello, and often by an alarmingly enthusiastic boy named Ryouhei on the drums.
The core of the band, however, remaind the two of them. Though some of their songs sounded better with the accompaniment of the others, any one of them could still be performed only with them and still sound beautiful.
Tear had been skeptical of his talent at first. His long hair, oddly colourful clothes, and smarmy tone had all spoken to her of a layabout hippie who practiced sporadically at best and got bored quickly. As it turned out, she was right about all but the last. He was a layabout hippie who almost never practiced, but he was a genius so it didn't actually matter.
At first she was horrendously jealous. She rehearsed and ground her way through scales and arpeggios for hours every day just to reach the level he was already effortlessly at.
However, after a while, she had given that envy up for the pointless exercise it was. Hating him for being naturally more talented than her didn't make him less talented, or her more. It just gave her a bitter taste in her mouth and soured the music they made together. So, with a sigh and a song, she let it go and loved him for it instead.
This, by the way, was not mutually exclusive to her dislike for him. She still disliked him, and probably always would. But she could not ever deny that the songs he wrote were beautiful and his voice was beautiful and everything he did ever was beautiful. It was as if he were born to be beautiful, even in his poisonous hatred of his place in the world.
When he turned twenty-one next year, his family would demand that he take his place at the feet of his father and learn to run their gigantic corporation. He would be made to don a black suit, cut all his fiery hair off so as to appear professional, and set his mind to making money for the future of his family.
It would kill him. His heart would continue to beat, his breath would keep coming in steady ebbs and flows, his skin would still be pale and bright. His hair would still be red, but everything that made him Zelos would be gone.
So it was that their time together was bittersweet.
xxxxx
"Hey, I'm thinking of starting a band, and I could really use a voice as divine as yours," he said with a wink, his face mere inches from hers, his smile blinding at this proximity. "I play the guitar and sing, but there are already a ton of guy-and-guitar acts out there. I want something new and different.You play piano, right?"
Flustered, she nodded. "Yes, and the flute."
"Awesome," he pronounced, and reached out to seize her hand and shake it firmly. "Welcome to the band."
"I haven't said yes yet," she reminded him pertly, withdrawing her hand as soon as he loosened his grip enough. "I have a heavy courseload. I barely have a moment to myself as it is, why should I give it to you?"
"Because you love me?" he said with a brilliant smile.
"No, I don't," she protested.
It was that moment that was her downfall. She would remember it clearly in years to come, with a sad smile and a hand clasped to her heart.
"Yes, you do," he replied, but it wasn't a statement. He was still smiling, but now it was a gaping wound on his face, raw and bleak and a perfect painting of his heart. It was like he had turned transparent for just this moment to let her see the hell inside him, a gesture of profound humility and desperation.
"All right," she found herself saying before she could think about it too much. Anything to ease that pain. She was a healer, after all, in training to use music to calm the mind and dissolve pain. What sort of healer would she be if she refused him this one thing?
That evening they met each other in a dimly lit practice room, she with a keyboard and he with an acoustic guitar, and made music together until they fell asleep on their instruments with smiles on their faces.
The next day, they met again at the same room at the same time without asking. It was worth forgoing sleep for the warm, otherwordly stories they were writing together.
He flirted mercilessly whenever they weren't actively playing, driving her half-mad within the first week until she realized from watching him with other girls in their program that he did that with everyone. Flirting was his native language. He probably didn't even realize he was doing it half the time.
Strangely, realizing that both relieved and disappointed her. She hated the flirting, and disliked him, but somehow it had made her feel special to be called such overstated but beautiful names.
As the days passed, however, she had come to realize that though he flirted with everyone, it was her he kept coming back to. Zelos never made music with anyone else, not like this.
Eventually, reaching the magical moment in their music where everything seemed to click into a distinctive style, they turned to performing. It was then that her schooling fell by the wayside, suddenly much less compelling than the rapt looks on the faces of their endless audiences, the echoing moment of silence just before the standing ovation, the surreal boundary between the stage light and the auditorium dark.
All of a sudden, there was demand for them all across the country, offers of airfare and hotel accommodation and payment just to have them come and make their music for those not quite rich enough to fly all the way to the Academy's island to hear them.
Then came the recording contracts, mere months before his twenty-first birthday. It was an irresistable though time-consuming offer-- to immortalize the beauty they'd created together on disc and digital file, indestructible, eternal.
Forgoing school altogether, they spent days secluded in the hushed sanctity of the recording booth, blessed with the luxury of all the time they needed. Hours upon hours they spent singing the same songs over and over again, searching for the elusive sense of perfection.
All the while Tear felt like crying.
What would she do when Zelos graduated from his accelerated business program and flew away to follow the chains of his pre-written destiny? What would she do, left to make music alone? Every chord would fall flat.
She didn't like him, but the thought of music without him rang discordantly hollow.
xxxxx
It is their last performance, she knows.
She can hear the hushed murmurings of the audience beyond the heavy fall of red, can feel the trembling of the floor beneath her feet with the thunder of thousands of feet searching for their seats. The air smells of anticipation.
Zelos, for once, is not smiling. He stands close beside her, his fists clenched at his sides and his lips harshly downturned. She can see the battle in the lines between his eyes.
She doesn't have to ask to know what the problem is. This is the end, the swansong of his adolescent freedom. From this point onwards there are only numbers and charts and politics to deal with. There are some who find such things beautiful, but Zelos is not one of them, and Tear knows it. There will be no joy in such a life for him.
Because it is the last time, it is forgivable-- she reaches out and catches his left hand with her right, winding their fingers together. She does not look at him. It is important to maintain her facade, and her facade involves not liking him. If she lets it slip, she knows she will bleed into him like blue paint into red and there will be no extricating her heart, not ever.
For once, he is subtle and understanding, crushing her fingers between his but never looking over at her or demanding more than this.
It occurs to her that were she any other girl, he probably would have kissed her right now. The thought makes her sad, though she pretends even to herself that it doesn't in the name of preservation of sanity.
The opening act, all jangling guitars and high, ethereal voices, is finished. They speak, briefly, and the crowd roars.
It is time.
Resolutely hand in hand, they part the red sea of curtains, and walk small and unassuming out into the center of the stage. The noise of the crowd is at such a decibel level that it's almost beyond hearing, an impossibly vast ocean of sound crashing against their ears.
"Yo," Zelos says into his microphone, adjusting his guitar. "What's up with you guys?"
A roared response, thousands strong, utterly incomprehensible.
"Awesome," he says, "glad to hear it. Anyway, you guys want to hear some tunes?"
Tear can't help but smile and feel her eyes sting when the crowd shrieks its desire out towards them. It isn't an egotistical thing. It doesn't make her swell with pride. It makes her happy because this is what she has always wanted her life to be for-- making people smile. She's no saint. She is selfish, so very selfish, and this here is exactly what she wants.
It hits her like lightning with the first chord his fingers draw from his guitar, weeping and jubilant all at once.
Tear can lie to herself all she wants, but it will never change the truth, and the truth is that she is in love with him.
The tears come with the first chord she strikes on her piano's keys, strident and glorious and heartbreaking.
He sings, she sings, they sing together as their fingers accompany them and it's so much more than her dreams had ever reached for as a child, a teenager, an adult. Again and again she wonders how she found herself herself here with all her modest ambitions and humble wishes. The answer, she finds as their last song builds to its climax, is Zelos.
No matter how much she pretends to loathe the way he dances through his life without plan or preparation, he draws out of her the desire to do the same, inspires in her a longing for such freedom from the restrictions she helplessly draws herself into. By seeing beyond the narrow paths of their lives, he forces her to do the same, and she's not sure she'll ever be able to forgive him for that when he leaves.
Their last shivering harmony echoes out into nothing, and the audience volcanically explodes.
Zelos turns to her as if there's no one else in the room but them, with a brash smile just for her.
Her cheeks are soaked, her throat raw, and it seems there is nothing left in her but exhilarated sorrow. Somehow she finds a smile to give him, and stands to take her bow alongside him. His hand finds her before she even properly gets there, dragging her into place against his side. She can feel his breath coming hard, can see the sweat on his brow, and knows he feels much the same as she does.
She doesn't know why they aren't leaving the stage, mission accomplished, but everytime she goes to move away his grip tightens and keeps her still. They bow and bow until the uproar subsides.
Then, seizing the nearest microphone, he turns to her with an expression that even she can't read-- half hope, half terror, half something else infinitely sweet.
"Hey, Tear," he says with a rakish grin.
She has the distinct sense that she's missing something, but the audience is giving her no clues and neither is here. "Yes, Zelos?"
"Marry me."
The audience howls, unable to suppress themselves.
Tear stares at him, searching for signs of the inevitable joke, but there are none. He is smiling but it's real, he's not waiting for a punchline. Just an answer.
Her hand flies to her mouth, and his expression falls, just a little bit. It's enough to shatter what little illusions she has left.
She knows his family will do their best to make them miserable. She is born of soldier stock, not noble blood. She is not especially talented, not especially beautiful, not anything special at all. But for some reason far beyond her, she knows that he means this, more than anything he has ever said to her before.
She looks at him. He winks.
"Well, all right," she answers.
And that's that.
Just as she had worried about her future without him, it seemed he had worried alike, and had found the one possible solution to it. He could not abandon his family-- they were his family, after all, born and raised, and to leave them heirless would have bordered on cruelty just as forcing him to inherit did. Tear respected him for being the greater man in the situation.
Faced with a choice between two things he could not leave behind, he had found a way to lose neither, and left it up to her.
What else is there for her to do but choose?
The storm on his face breaks to sunlight. He gathers her into his arms, fingers spreading on her back, face buried in her neck.
Tentatively, she hugs him back. It's the first time. She knows that they're doing everything in the wrong order-- usually people find things they have in common, they spend time with each other, date, hug, they kiss, they say their I love you's, then they get married.
Tear and Zelos found things in common, spent time with each other, and now seem to be getting married without any of the things in between.
Still, somehow, it feels right to her. If marriage will give them an excuse to stay together and make music, then everything seems irrelevant.
Taking the initiative to strike one more of the relationship to-do list, Zelos pulls away just far enough to kiss her, in full view of the ten thousand audience members.
She hears nothing but the thunder of her heart.
xxxxxx
I cannot abandon my family,
and I will not abandon you.
Tear, I have two things in my life I cannot leave behind,
and I have found a way to lose neither.
And so, I leave it up to you.
XxxxxxX
A/N: WHY SO OTP, GUYS
Edit: THE ARTWORK IS STILL KILLING ME DEAD. moko-moko, YOU ARE MY HEROINE I LOVE YOU.
Focus: Zelos/Tear
Genres: Romance, drama, introspection
Rating: K
Wordcount: 3020
Summary: First she slaps him. Then she says yes.
Notes: moko-moko has spawned a new OTP, holy shit. Anyway. This fic is about Zelos and Tear and their band. Yes, their band. I didn't use the word 'spawn' lightly. Also, actual note: the tense change in the last section is intentional. I wanted a more immediate sense in contrast to the flashback past tense of the previous sections.
Edit: Oh my god, oh my god, moko-moko did artwork for this and it is amazing. You'll find it at the bottom, after the fic itself. ...Amazing.
Enjoy!
vii: hymn
Just for the record, Tear hated him.
Or perhaps hate was too strong a word. She'd learned her lesson about hate in the past-- it screwed things up, complicated her life, hurt people who didn't deserve hurting. So she didn't hate him. But she didn't like him. She disliked him a lot.
It wasn't the hair, though that didn't help. Reminders of her relationship with Luke and its subsequent sad failure made her depressed, but she was logical enough a person to know that that wasn't Zelos's fault.
It wasn't the never-ending flirting, either. She was as used to that by now as she was having long hair and it didn't even make her blush these days, though she often seized the excuse to hit him because the violence made her feel marginally better.
It wasn't the similarities in their backgrounds-- wealthy, suppressed by their families, rebellious-- though that didn't help either.
It was the way he smiled at her, like he could see right through her cold, controlled facade to the tumultous workings of her insides. Though she never cried, he always gave her the impression of being just about to wipe the tears off her cheeks. It drove her insane. She didn't want anyone to see her, that's why she had her facade in the first place.
Even so, even though it hurt to be around him most of the time and made her angry the rest, she couldn't help herself.
When they'd met last year, early in the autumn semester, she had been sitting in a secluded area of the campus practicing for the upcoming exams. Her vibrato was still shaky and unsure of itself, and her neglected lower register needed a little smoothing before she went up before Professor Demyx. He was a deceptively scatterbrained, laid-back, genial guy, until it came to marking. Then he was a vicious blue-eyed demon.
Practicing in advance was hardly even optional in his vocals class, and Tear was good at following rules.
Fretting over how thin her low notes still sounded, she hadn't even heard him coming up to her, though he hadn't even tried to be quiet.
"Yo, my sultry songstress," he said cordially.
It took her a moment to realize what he had actually said, because at first all she'd seen was long red hair and pale skin and thought Luke, oh god, and then another moment after she realized he wasn't Luke for the blush and frown to catch up. "Is my practicing disturbing you?" she'd asked. "I'll move somewhere else."
Raising his hands in mock affront, he'd shaken his head vigorously. "No, babe, not at all. I'm completely bewitched. Please, continue, or I might have to cry."
At first she'd opened her mouth to say him staring at her made her uncomfortable, but then she'd realized that she was studying for a possible career in the performance arts alongside her audiotherapy major and if an audience of one made her nervous, what would she do with an audience of hundreds? Thousands?
So, she'd resolutely turned away and continued her practice as though he was not there, commanding her voice not to waver.
When at last she was finished, he had clapped enthusiastically and leaned right into her face, making her blush again by sheer reflex. "Say, I have a... proposition for you," he had said with a lascivious wink.
She had slapped him. Then she'd said yes.
And now, somehow, her studies had taken a backseat to his proposition, which had turned out to be a band.
He played guitar and sang. She played piano and sang. Sometimes they were joined by Professor Demyx with his sitar, a mysterious man named Hagi on the cello, and often by an alarmingly enthusiastic boy named Ryouhei on the drums.
The core of the band, however, remaind the two of them. Though some of their songs sounded better with the accompaniment of the others, any one of them could still be performed only with them and still sound beautiful.
Tear had been skeptical of his talent at first. His long hair, oddly colourful clothes, and smarmy tone had all spoken to her of a layabout hippie who practiced sporadically at best and got bored quickly. As it turned out, she was right about all but the last. He was a layabout hippie who almost never practiced, but he was a genius so it didn't actually matter.
At first she was horrendously jealous. She rehearsed and ground her way through scales and arpeggios for hours every day just to reach the level he was already effortlessly at.
However, after a while, she had given that envy up for the pointless exercise it was. Hating him for being naturally more talented than her didn't make him less talented, or her more. It just gave her a bitter taste in her mouth and soured the music they made together. So, with a sigh and a song, she let it go and loved him for it instead.
This, by the way, was not mutually exclusive to her dislike for him. She still disliked him, and probably always would. But she could not ever deny that the songs he wrote were beautiful and his voice was beautiful and everything he did ever was beautiful. It was as if he were born to be beautiful, even in his poisonous hatred of his place in the world.
When he turned twenty-one next year, his family would demand that he take his place at the feet of his father and learn to run their gigantic corporation. He would be made to don a black suit, cut all his fiery hair off so as to appear professional, and set his mind to making money for the future of his family.
It would kill him. His heart would continue to beat, his breath would keep coming in steady ebbs and flows, his skin would still be pale and bright. His hair would still be red, but everything that made him Zelos would be gone.
So it was that their time together was bittersweet.
xxxxx
"Hey, I'm thinking of starting a band, and I could really use a voice as divine as yours," he said with a wink, his face mere inches from hers, his smile blinding at this proximity. "I play the guitar and sing, but there are already a ton of guy-and-guitar acts out there. I want something new and different.You play piano, right?"
Flustered, she nodded. "Yes, and the flute."
"Awesome," he pronounced, and reached out to seize her hand and shake it firmly. "Welcome to the band."
"I haven't said yes yet," she reminded him pertly, withdrawing her hand as soon as he loosened his grip enough. "I have a heavy courseload. I barely have a moment to myself as it is, why should I give it to you?"
"Because you love me?" he said with a brilliant smile.
"No, I don't," she protested.
It was that moment that was her downfall. She would remember it clearly in years to come, with a sad smile and a hand clasped to her heart.
"Yes, you do," he replied, but it wasn't a statement. He was still smiling, but now it was a gaping wound on his face, raw and bleak and a perfect painting of his heart. It was like he had turned transparent for just this moment to let her see the hell inside him, a gesture of profound humility and desperation.
"All right," she found herself saying before she could think about it too much. Anything to ease that pain. She was a healer, after all, in training to use music to calm the mind and dissolve pain. What sort of healer would she be if she refused him this one thing?
That evening they met each other in a dimly lit practice room, she with a keyboard and he with an acoustic guitar, and made music together until they fell asleep on their instruments with smiles on their faces.
The next day, they met again at the same room at the same time without asking. It was worth forgoing sleep for the warm, otherwordly stories they were writing together.
He flirted mercilessly whenever they weren't actively playing, driving her half-mad within the first week until she realized from watching him with other girls in their program that he did that with everyone. Flirting was his native language. He probably didn't even realize he was doing it half the time.
Strangely, realizing that both relieved and disappointed her. She hated the flirting, and disliked him, but somehow it had made her feel special to be called such overstated but beautiful names.
As the days passed, however, she had come to realize that though he flirted with everyone, it was her he kept coming back to. Zelos never made music with anyone else, not like this.
Eventually, reaching the magical moment in their music where everything seemed to click into a distinctive style, they turned to performing. It was then that her schooling fell by the wayside, suddenly much less compelling than the rapt looks on the faces of their endless audiences, the echoing moment of silence just before the standing ovation, the surreal boundary between the stage light and the auditorium dark.
All of a sudden, there was demand for them all across the country, offers of airfare and hotel accommodation and payment just to have them come and make their music for those not quite rich enough to fly all the way to the Academy's island to hear them.
Then came the recording contracts, mere months before his twenty-first birthday. It was an irresistable though time-consuming offer-- to immortalize the beauty they'd created together on disc and digital file, indestructible, eternal.
Forgoing school altogether, they spent days secluded in the hushed sanctity of the recording booth, blessed with the luxury of all the time they needed. Hours upon hours they spent singing the same songs over and over again, searching for the elusive sense of perfection.
All the while Tear felt like crying.
What would she do when Zelos graduated from his accelerated business program and flew away to follow the chains of his pre-written destiny? What would she do, left to make music alone? Every chord would fall flat.
She didn't like him, but the thought of music without him rang discordantly hollow.
xxxxx
It is their last performance, she knows.
She can hear the hushed murmurings of the audience beyond the heavy fall of red, can feel the trembling of the floor beneath her feet with the thunder of thousands of feet searching for their seats. The air smells of anticipation.
Zelos, for once, is not smiling. He stands close beside her, his fists clenched at his sides and his lips harshly downturned. She can see the battle in the lines between his eyes.
She doesn't have to ask to know what the problem is. This is the end, the swansong of his adolescent freedom. From this point onwards there are only numbers and charts and politics to deal with. There are some who find such things beautiful, but Zelos is not one of them, and Tear knows it. There will be no joy in such a life for him.
Because it is the last time, it is forgivable-- she reaches out and catches his left hand with her right, winding their fingers together. She does not look at him. It is important to maintain her facade, and her facade involves not liking him. If she lets it slip, she knows she will bleed into him like blue paint into red and there will be no extricating her heart, not ever.
For once, he is subtle and understanding, crushing her fingers between his but never looking over at her or demanding more than this.
It occurs to her that were she any other girl, he probably would have kissed her right now. The thought makes her sad, though she pretends even to herself that it doesn't in the name of preservation of sanity.
The opening act, all jangling guitars and high, ethereal voices, is finished. They speak, briefly, and the crowd roars.
It is time.
Resolutely hand in hand, they part the red sea of curtains, and walk small and unassuming out into the center of the stage. The noise of the crowd is at such a decibel level that it's almost beyond hearing, an impossibly vast ocean of sound crashing against their ears.
"Yo," Zelos says into his microphone, adjusting his guitar. "What's up with you guys?"
A roared response, thousands strong, utterly incomprehensible.
"Awesome," he says, "glad to hear it. Anyway, you guys want to hear some tunes?"
Tear can't help but smile and feel her eyes sting when the crowd shrieks its desire out towards them. It isn't an egotistical thing. It doesn't make her swell with pride. It makes her happy because this is what she has always wanted her life to be for-- making people smile. She's no saint. She is selfish, so very selfish, and this here is exactly what she wants.
It hits her like lightning with the first chord his fingers draw from his guitar, weeping and jubilant all at once.
Tear can lie to herself all she wants, but it will never change the truth, and the truth is that she is in love with him.
The tears come with the first chord she strikes on her piano's keys, strident and glorious and heartbreaking.
He sings, she sings, they sing together as their fingers accompany them and it's so much more than her dreams had ever reached for as a child, a teenager, an adult. Again and again she wonders how she found herself herself here with all her modest ambitions and humble wishes. The answer, she finds as their last song builds to its climax, is Zelos.
No matter how much she pretends to loathe the way he dances through his life without plan or preparation, he draws out of her the desire to do the same, inspires in her a longing for such freedom from the restrictions she helplessly draws herself into. By seeing beyond the narrow paths of their lives, he forces her to do the same, and she's not sure she'll ever be able to forgive him for that when he leaves.
Their last shivering harmony echoes out into nothing, and the audience volcanically explodes.
Zelos turns to her as if there's no one else in the room but them, with a brash smile just for her.
Her cheeks are soaked, her throat raw, and it seems there is nothing left in her but exhilarated sorrow. Somehow she finds a smile to give him, and stands to take her bow alongside him. His hand finds her before she even properly gets there, dragging her into place against his side. She can feel his breath coming hard, can see the sweat on his brow, and knows he feels much the same as she does.
She doesn't know why they aren't leaving the stage, mission accomplished, but everytime she goes to move away his grip tightens and keeps her still. They bow and bow until the uproar subsides.
Then, seizing the nearest microphone, he turns to her with an expression that even she can't read-- half hope, half terror, half something else infinitely sweet.
"Hey, Tear," he says with a rakish grin.
She has the distinct sense that she's missing something, but the audience is giving her no clues and neither is here. "Yes, Zelos?"
"Marry me."
The audience howls, unable to suppress themselves.
Tear stares at him, searching for signs of the inevitable joke, but there are none. He is smiling but it's real, he's not waiting for a punchline. Just an answer.
Her hand flies to her mouth, and his expression falls, just a little bit. It's enough to shatter what little illusions she has left.
She knows his family will do their best to make them miserable. She is born of soldier stock, not noble blood. She is not especially talented, not especially beautiful, not anything special at all. But for some reason far beyond her, she knows that he means this, more than anything he has ever said to her before.
She looks at him. He winks.
"Well, all right," she answers.
And that's that.
Just as she had worried about her future without him, it seemed he had worried alike, and had found the one possible solution to it. He could not abandon his family-- they were his family, after all, born and raised, and to leave them heirless would have bordered on cruelty just as forcing him to inherit did. Tear respected him for being the greater man in the situation.
Faced with a choice between two things he could not leave behind, he had found a way to lose neither, and left it up to her.
What else is there for her to do but choose?
The storm on his face breaks to sunlight. He gathers her into his arms, fingers spreading on her back, face buried in her neck.
Tentatively, she hugs him back. It's the first time. She knows that they're doing everything in the wrong order-- usually people find things they have in common, they spend time with each other, date, hug, they kiss, they say their I love you's, then they get married.
Tear and Zelos found things in common, spent time with each other, and now seem to be getting married without any of the things in between.
Still, somehow, it feels right to her. If marriage will give them an excuse to stay together and make music, then everything seems irrelevant.
Taking the initiative to strike one more of the relationship to-do list, Zelos pulls away just far enough to kiss her, in full view of the ten thousand audience members.
She hears nothing but the thunder of her heart.
xxxxxx
I cannot abandon my family,
and I will not abandon you.
Tear, I have two things in my life I cannot leave behind,
and I have found a way to lose neither.
And so, I leave it up to you.
XxxxxxX
A/N: WHY SO OTP, GUYS
Edit: THE ARTWORK IS STILL KILLING ME DEAD. moko-moko, YOU ARE MY HEROINE I LOVE YOU.