Incomplete
Who: Duke el_legendaire and Val pointedly
When: Yesterday
Where: Duke's office
Rating: Arrrrr.
Warnings: Language, violence
Summary: lolololol because Duke has to fight with every single person at least once about Jericho.
It hadn't been a good week. People leaving and people arriving and other people going insane and making crazy posts on the network, and Vincent was still a little too quiet to be completely over Veld and Hojo and Jericho's brief re-appearances, and Duke didn't know how to ask him about it because he wasn't over them himself.
Not to mention the fact that his arm hurt like hell. The little blond thing that might have oh so conveniently gotten Duke's almost-daughter pregnant looked like a child but didn't fight like one, and the black metal key he wielded as a weapon had opened the flesh almost down to the bone.
It didn't matter in the end. Duke was a professional. Whatever the child was, he fought angrily and over-extended himself parrying what he probably thought were random, desperate gunshots and even the power of teleportation couldn't save him from what he never saw coming, the pattern he was being herded into. Which was the ground exploding from under his feet.
All Duke had needed to do was squeeze. Jenova had given him gifts enough for what she had taken in return, and strength was one of them. He held the bloody child down with one hand by the throat and squeezed until the struggles stopped.
Your heart is black, the boy had whispered before the end, staring up at him with one good eye.
It was true. Duke didn't bother denying things that were true.
The boy was down in the basement now, drugged and strapped down with his rib cage broken open and the inside of his chest bare to the world. Duke remembered how that had gone for him, back on Gaia. Except they hadn't been taking out his heart. They'd been putting something in.
Val was worried. Val was trying to hide it, but she was worried, because the boy hadn't come home, and it made the muscles in his face hurt to keep a straight expression around her. It was for her own good. The boy's life would be saved with the operation and maybe he would come down from whatever ledge he'd been teetering on. Maybe it would shock him into taking 'filthy humans' seriously, or maybe he would stop caring without a heart.
Maybe he would take a goddamn hint and leave Duke's Turks alone.
On top of all that, the Jericho mess was just...aggravating. It was more Roxas than Jericho that was making him snap his pens and forget his train of thought. Definitely wasn't Jericho, and the way Jericho used to shudder under him and cling as though each time had been his first, and that stupid inexcusable note with its stupid inexcusable confession of love that had hit him like a fist to the gut, and the guns that Duke had adopted for his own, and the stab when Val had acted like he'd stolen something from her.
Just like Veld.
He hadn't stolen Jericho. Jericho had all but thrown himself into Duke's lap. So had Vincent. He hadn't stolen either of them. They had come to him.
Dammit. He'd snapped another pen in half.
When: Yesterday
Where: Duke's office
Rating: Arrrrr.
Warnings: Language, violence
Summary: lolololol because Duke has to fight with every single person at least once about Jericho.
It hadn't been a good week. People leaving and people arriving and other people going insane and making crazy posts on the network, and Vincent was still a little too quiet to be completely over Veld and Hojo and Jericho's brief re-appearances, and Duke didn't know how to ask him about it because he wasn't over them himself.
Not to mention the fact that his arm hurt like hell. The little blond thing that might have oh so conveniently gotten Duke's almost-daughter pregnant looked like a child but didn't fight like one, and the black metal key he wielded as a weapon had opened the flesh almost down to the bone.
It didn't matter in the end. Duke was a professional. Whatever the child was, he fought angrily and over-extended himself parrying what he probably thought were random, desperate gunshots and even the power of teleportation couldn't save him from what he never saw coming, the pattern he was being herded into. Which was the ground exploding from under his feet.
All Duke had needed to do was squeeze. Jenova had given him gifts enough for what she had taken in return, and strength was one of them. He held the bloody child down with one hand by the throat and squeezed until the struggles stopped.
Your heart is black, the boy had whispered before the end, staring up at him with one good eye.
It was true. Duke didn't bother denying things that were true.
The boy was down in the basement now, drugged and strapped down with his rib cage broken open and the inside of his chest bare to the world. Duke remembered how that had gone for him, back on Gaia. Except they hadn't been taking out his heart. They'd been putting something in.
Val was worried. Val was trying to hide it, but she was worried, because the boy hadn't come home, and it made the muscles in his face hurt to keep a straight expression around her. It was for her own good. The boy's life would be saved with the operation and maybe he would come down from whatever ledge he'd been teetering on. Maybe it would shock him into taking 'filthy humans' seriously, or maybe he would stop caring without a heart.
Maybe he would take a goddamn hint and leave Duke's Turks alone.
On top of all that, the Jericho mess was just...aggravating. It was more Roxas than Jericho that was making him snap his pens and forget his train of thought. Definitely wasn't Jericho, and the way Jericho used to shudder under him and cling as though each time had been his first, and that stupid inexcusable note with its stupid inexcusable confession of love that had hit him like a fist to the gut, and the guns that Duke had adopted for his own, and the stab when Val had acted like he'd stolen something from her.
Just like Veld.
He hadn't stolen Jericho. Jericho had all but thrown himself into Duke's lap. So had Vincent. He hadn't stolen either of them. They had come to him.
Dammit. He'd snapped another pen in half.