(no subject)
Title: Presents You May Not Want
Pairing: Heading towards Ohmiya, Matsuba
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4596
Notes: The next in the line of the Imp!Nino series. This is also the Chapter of the Exposition Hammer, so expect a lot of Toma talking. Also if you find yourself going 'huh' at certain points, know that I mean for you to. Immediate sequel to Christmas Interlude.
For all the power that Christmas brought with it, the air was still. There was nothing that should have disturbed the sleep of anyone in Aiba’s house. The part of Ninomiya that never shut off, that was such a part of the world that it couldn’t be shut off, knew this. The imp shifted in his sleep, brow furrowing in confusion.
- jerking pain - “I love you.” - burning - “Evil! Murderer! Get away!” -
dreaming?
- power - “Please don’t kill my child! PLEASE!” - wailing newborn - “You! Away!” -
too jumbled
- so tired - “You belong to me; you will do what I say!” - why won’t you look at me? - “Bring him back!” -
what?
- hurts - “How much for her?” - interrupting my fun - “Are you lost, pretty?” -
old, too old
- familiar - “Spare me! I’ll do anything!” - they dance! - “The world will be better if he is dead.” -
don’t want this!
- make the red come - “I know you.” - soft voice - “WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?!” -
STOP
Nino woke with a start, blinking rapidly and not entirely certain what had woken him. There weren’t any noticeable noises. There were no presences that might threaten his humans. There was just a loud, gentle rumbling sound close by that Nino couldn’t place, and a feeling that something was different and a vague discomfort.
The house wasn’t Loud, so nobody else was awake. Probably. The calm that came over the house when humans were asleep; but it wavered, as it always did when it came to these four. Nino sighed and thought about perhaps rolling over, but was stopped by the feeling of warm breath against his neck.
Instantly he became aware of the face buried in the crook of his neck. Moreover, there was a leg tossed haphazardly over his, and a body molded around his from behind, spooning him. The imp’s brow wrinkled in confusion. Who was on him?
He raised a hand to rub the sleep from his eyes, as if that would make things clear, and realized he couldn’t. Arms were wrapped around him from both sides, making it quite impossible to move - and one of those arms had a hand resting at the back of his head, fingers twined in his hair.
A hand shifted, stroking down his chest softly. It wasn’t an altogether unpleasant sensation, and vaguely Nino was aware that the gentle rumbling was getting louder. It was close enough to even be vibrating his throat.
What?
With a sudden shock of clarity, Nino realized what the rumbling was and why it was so loud to him. Low in his throat, there were muscles vibrating against each other, expressing his pleasure with the situation.
He was purring.
Nino blinked. He hadn’t purred in ... he couldn’t remember the last time. If he looked through his memories he might be able to come up with that last time, but that would require energy he didn’t feel like spending. He’d been primarily a worker for his last humans, which he hadn’t minded until he’d been bound to the apartment, and they’d rarely bothered with physical affection.
But these humans had made him purr last night. They’d probably ask about it when they woke up. Idly Nino wondered if he could escape back to Ohno’s apartment without disappointing them, and knew it was a lost cause the moment the thought went through his head. Of course they’d be disappointed if he left.
Aiba especially would want to know about the purring.
The imp shifted, trying for a better look at the humans. The body wrapped around his from the front sighed softly as soon as Nino moved, and moved itself. The hand fell out of Nino’s hair. Ohno’s face rolled over to greet him as Ohno’s body rolled away from him. Nino couldn’t help the smile upon seeing the human’s face, lips parted and the thinnest line of drool creeping down his chin from the corner of them.
The body behind him moved as well, but it pulled him close to a warm chest instead of letting go. Nino rolled his eyes, but settled back. He didn’t look back, not wanting to wake the others. Instead he closed his eyes spread his awareness to find them. He was vaguely surprised to find that it was Sho using him as a replacement for a stuffed comfort toy. Normally it would be Aiba.
But Aiba was already awake. Probably because of Jun.
Nino figured it must be hard to sleep when there was a hand down your pants.
The imp started to withdraw from them, realizing seconds later what exactly he’d felt. Not even pausing to think about it, he withdrew from Sho and focused intently on Aiba and Jun instead. There was smugness, and joy, and a shortness of breath that wasn’t life-threatening, and heat and pleasure. And that was definitely not Aiba’s hand down Aiba’s pants, because there were two hands tangled in Jun’s hair - the tiniest of spikes of pain pricked every now and again.
Nino sucked in a breath silently, feeling heat begin to pool in his stomach, feeling his stomach knot. Hurriedly, he pulled his awareness away from Aiba and Jun, his ears flaming hot and the strange feeling growing more intense in the pit of his belly.
It was a similar sensation to what he’d felt when Sho had traced the points of his ears back on Hallowmas, only much more intense. Nino had decided then that was what ‘ticklish’ felt like, and nobody had done it since, but clearly it was not ‘ticklish’ if he was feeling it now and nobody was near his ears.
So what was it?
- “More, please - ” -
- “So good - ” -
The imp blinked.
Ohno had once had another human who would come over. They would spend the night in strange, twined positions, always without clothes. They would say things like that to each other during those visits. That human had stopped coming three months after Ohno moved in to the apartment. It had made Ohno cry a lot at first, but recently Ohno didn’t seem to mind so much.
But that memory hadn’t been Ohno’s voice. Had been. Maybe.
What?
Nino’s stomach fluttered when Aiba made a soft, gasp-y sort of noise, direction his attention away from the building confusion. The warmth that had settled in his ears and stomach began to spread, radiating through his body. Nino bit on his bottom lip harshly and squeezed his eyes closed, hoping to make the feeling go away. He wished Sho would wake up. Jun and Aiba were laughing about something and Jun’s breathing was getting more ragged. Nino stirred and tried to bite back a whimper.
“Wait, Aiba,” Jun hissed.
“What?” the taller human whined.
“You hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Nino had only rarely met someone able to stretch syllables like Aiba could.
Jun was undeterred. “I thought I heard one of the others. Come on. Bathroom.”
There was quiet grumbling and shifting, and then footsteps receded from the living room. Nino let out a quiet sigh of relief. He tried to roll away from Sho, but the human made a displeased noise and tightened his arms around Nino instead. The imp groaned quietly. He didn’t like using magic this early in the morning, but Sho showed no signs of being ready to wake.
A blink later, Nino sat up by the Christmas tree and shifted uncomfortably in place. Sho’s arms fell to the floor, and the human started awake. He grumbled, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. Nino swore to himself softly. Aiba and Jun were cleaning up in the bathroom, so he wouldn’t have time to actually do anything to make the uncomfortable stiffness go away. Nino groaned and buried his head in his palms. He didn’t even notice Sho standing and stumbling for the bathroom.
“Oh? Nino’s awake?” Ohno asked, voice slurred from sleep.
Nino looked up and over, his ears burning, and quickly brought his legs together. “Yeah.”
Ohno didn’t notice, sitting up and smiling sleepily. “S’good. We can have breakfast.”
The imp laughed, shifting a little, “Do you always think about food first?”
“Sometimes he thinks about getting dressed,” Jun said, “if he’s late for school.”
Ohno just turned the smile to the doorway in greeting. The younger man sighed, rolling his eyes and heading for Aiba’s kitchen. The taller human popped up behind him, grinning.
“Gooood morning!”
Nino was always a little surprised that small hearts didn’t come popping up after Aiba finished speaking, like they did in cartoons. The human bounced over towards Ohno, rubbing a hand absently over the older man’s already mussed hair. Ohno hardly batted an eyelash, instead simply running his hand back through the mop - Nino watched enviously as the man’s hair straightened itself. Why couldn’t his hair ever obey him like that?
- “I love your hair.” -
The imp blinked, staring at Ohno. “What?”
Ohno looked back at him, clearly confused. “What?”
Nino shook his head, trying to clear it. “You didn’t say anything just now?”
“No,” the human said, shaking his head. “I didn’t hear anything, either.”
Nino gave a weak smile. He’d been so sure that he’d heard Ohno’s voice. Or maybe it had been Sho’s? How could he have gotten those voices confused? Only it wasn’t really Ohno or Sho saying that, was it? Because neither had said anything. Sho was only just stumbling back from the bathroom and Ohno was giving him worried looks.
Worried looks.
He’d gotten worried looks like that before. A long time ago. Not so long ago. From females and males. Nino blinked. He wasn’t in Aiba’s living room. Why wasn’t he in Aiba’s living room? Why was he back in Greece? They called it Greece now - it wasn’t really Greece - why was he in Delphi?
“Nino?”
His voice. Her voice. Which was it? Why were there more than one?
“Nino?!”
The hand on his shoulder. He knew that hand. His son’s hand. Son?
“Nino!”
Jun smacked the imp’s cheek lightly, eyes wide when the slight being turned frighteningly blank eyes to meet his. He looked at the others, panicked, but the only thing that met him was the same confusion and worry reflected in their eyes.
“Eutychius ...”
Jun froze, suddenly unable to see Aiba’s living room. Of course not, he wasn’t even there. Who was Aiba? What was an Aiba? What did an Aiba matter when his mama was crying? Why was his mama crying? Papa was only sleeping.
“Mama?”
His mother wept. “Milo. I’m so sorry.”
“What’s wrong with papa?” Panic. Why wasn’t she speaking to him? No. It couldn’t have happened so soon. Not so soon as this. His father had a shorter life, his mother had told him that all along, but he couldn’t have gone so soon. “Mama? Is he dead?”
Aiba shook Jun’s shoulder’s desperately, but the younger boy wouldn’t blink, let alone respond. “Jun! What’s going on? Why won’t you speak to us?”
“Nino? Hey, Nino, can you hear me?”
“Guys, seriously, this isn’t funny,” Aiba said, kneeling by Jun’s side. “Ohno - what’s going on?”
“I don’t know!” Ohno cried.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You’re the one who deals with these things! You’ve got all the - ” Sho cut himself off with a frustrated wave of his arm, “ - stuff.”
“Actually, you all have the ‘stuff’.”
Sho cried out and whipped around. Aiba clutched Jun tightly, pulling him away from Nino, despite the younger man’s unresponsive state. Ohno had already felt the mandragora’s approach - there was a distinct displacement of ... something that the copper haired being created when he appeared.
“Toma!”
“Toma,” Ohno started, “what’s wrong with them? What’s going on?”
The mandragora stepped forward, smiling calmly. “I need to get to them to make sure.”
Ohno couldn’t help himself - he pulled Nino closer to him. Something in him didn’t want Toma to touch Nino. No, not Toma. Anybody. Like he should know how to deal with this himself. Like he’d seen this before and Nino was his to help. Always his.
“He’s getting to you, too, Ohno,” Toma said with a crooked grin, dropping to his knees.
“What?”
Who was talking to him? Another vision? The demi-god who spied on her sometimes?
Toma sighed. He put his hands to either side of Ohno’s head. A second later, the human was slumping into his arms. Sho and Aiba both cried out at the same time. Toma paid them no mind, tapping Jun’s forehead and watching him fall limp against Aiba.
“What are you doing?” Sho demanded.
“Making things a little easier for all of you,” Toma replied absently. He placed Ohno carefully down on the floor, ignoring how Sho scrambled over to Ohno in favor of taking Nino’s hands in his own. “You are making quite a fuss, imp.”
Sho couldn’t tell what that was supposed to do. He couldn’t see if Toma was actually doing anything. It didn’t seem to be. Nino wasn’t talking or moving. Toma didn’t look like he was moving, either. Sho brushed his hand through Ohno’s hair anxiously. Suddenly Nino let out a gasp like he was coming up from under water, and Sho watched as Toma scrambled to catch the imp before Nino crashed into the Christmas tree.
Aiba was staring at Toma, open mouthed, and didn’t look like he’d be forming words any time soon. Toma as well didn’t seem like he’d be giving an explanation without a push. Sho sighed, worried and annoyed.
“Well? What just happened? What was that? What did you do to them?”
Toma was silent as he settled Nino down by Ohno. Sho watched with no small amazement as the older man rolled over and curled around the imp, almost protectively. Even more amazing was that Nino responded in kind. Ohno had never said anything about him and Nino being like that.
“Are they - ?” Aiba started.
“Not at the moment,” Toma said softly, “This isn’t Ohno responding per se.”
“At the moment?” Sho asked incredulously.
“At the moment,” the mandragora confirmed. “They have.”
“How is that possible? You’re making less sense than Aiba does sometimes.”
“Hey,” the taller human said mildly, still cradling Jun.
“I said ‘sometimes’.”
“You can’t tell me you’ve never heard of reincarnation,” Toma said, tone approaching something close to disbelief.
Sho gritted his teeth. “I’ve heard of it, but that doesn’t mean anything right now.”
“Sure it does. Means a lot, actually. Everybody can’t be born once.”
“All right, look - I get it.”
“Sho-chan ...” Aiba started.
Sho didn’t even look at his friend. “No, really, I get it. You’re superior to us. You’re however old - it would blow my tiny mind, right - ”
“His words,” Toma said, motioning to Nino.
“Don’t interrupt!” Sho snapped, “So you’re however old and you have whatever powers and you’re however superior to us humans as you are. You could probably make me jump off a bridge for fun if you wanted to. And all this pales to utter insignificance to me when I see two of my friends completely stop responding to us just because an imp is ... is ... doing ... something.”
The look on Toma’s face didn’t once change, and Sho nearly winced as he trailed off lamely because of it. He set his jaw firmly after a second of silence, daring Toma to do something to him and hoping idly that jumping off a bridge wasn’t in the cards.
Toma laughed softly. “Got more than I gave you credit for.”
Sho and Aiba blinked.
The copper haired being stroked Nino’s hair lightly, sighing. “They’re only sleeping now. After that they’ll need it.”
“What was that?” Aiba asked, looking down at Jun.
“Memory overload.”
“What?”
Toma nearly laughed: Both Sho and Aiba gaped at him, looking like fish. But Sho would probably kill him if he laughed now. So he nodded. “I thought you all felt a little familiar in your own ways. I was right. We’ve all met before.”
“Yes, yes, at the clinic.”
“No. Before then. Long before then. Many times. Nino’s starting to remember them all.”
“What does that have to do with Ohno and Jun?” Aiba asked softly.
“They’re receptive to him. More so than you just on experience, though if it had gone on long enough, you’d have been caught up in it, too. Just like he’s receptive to you all. He probably wouldn’t have survived November if he hadn’t been.”
“Receptive?” Sho asked.
Toma stood, heading for Aiba’s kitchen almost absent-mindedly and turning on the water heater for tea. Aiba didn’t even think to stop him. Sho sighed.
“Toma. What’s ‘receptive’?”
The mandragora sighed, setting tea bags into six mugs. “Exactly what it means. Willing to be open to you. To your past lives together. Only the receptiveness can’t be controlled by your mental will. It’s too intimate a link. I wondered how long it was going to be.”
“For what?”
Toma distributed the hot water into the mugs and came back to the living room, setting the tray down. Sho picked one up, but let it settle in his lap. Aiba didn’t let go of Jun. The copper haired being smiled a little at them.
“For this to happen.”
“You knew this would happen?” Sho snapped.
“Didn’t know when, though. Things were a little crazy, if you remember. That threw things off. See, he and I have been around for a long, long time. That’s a lot of memories of life, a lot of memories of humans, a lot of memories of good things, and a lot of bad things. So we have this little trick. Every now and then, maybe after something traumatic, maybe just because it’s been too long, maybe because we get sealed by some over-zealous wizard who can’t tell a mandragora from a tree, we Wait.”
“‘Wait’?” Aiba echoed.
Toma nodded, hands wrapped around his mug. “Everything on the outside stops for a little while. It gives us time to deal with what happened before we started Waiting, to separate the memories and put them into storage so they don’t drive us ... well ... insane, I suppose.”
“Insane!?” Sho asked incredulously.
The mandragora nodded again, then paused, clearly thinking. “I don’t know if that’s a perfect word, but it’s close. Basically if we left everything rattling around up here, we would ... lose it. Imps need humans to ground them, see, because by nature they’re chaotic.”
“Like ... dangerous?” Aiba asked softly.
“Chaotic and dangerous are not the same,” Toma said sharply.
The unusually still human shrank back.
“Chaotic is just what it means. Random. Unstable. The problem is, because humans are the ones to ground imps, they do as their humans tell them to. Whatever that might entail. They do it to keep the humans with them, because they can’t stand to lose the companionship.”
“What about you? Mandragora?”
“I’m even more special,” Toma said, smiling, the perfect picture of cocky. “I’m a construct.”
“CONSTRUCT?”
“Not so loud!” the mandragora said, glaring at Sho and Aiba.
The humans snapped their mouths shut and flushed. “Sorry.”
“Yes. The me that you are looking at is a physical construct; a pretty good one, if I do say so myself.”
“But ... how can you be a ... construct?” Sho asked slowly, nearly tripping over the word.
“Because I’m a spirit. Like Nino is a spirit. We weren’t born, we don’t die, we just are. If we stop existing, that’s it. We don’t follow human rules. We also can’t be seen by human eyes if we’re not in our constructed forms. Even if they’re like you.”
“So Nino ...”
“Was given his body by the first humans who were strong enough to catch his attention, and then to catch him. He’s gone through a few make-overs since then, of course, to fit the expectations of those who’ve summoned him.”
“Expectations? Like what?”
“What spirits, or fairies, or whatever we’re being called, should look like. It’s amazing how tiny the human imagination can be sometimes, just as it’s amazing how large it can be. I’ve looked like this since the beginning. The best Nino’s first humans could come up with was a little fur and pointed ears. He had one, though, where he was made of fire, almost. Huge wings of fire.”
Toma paused to take a sip of tea, giving Sho and Aiba, still gawping, a chance to collect themselves. As he did, Nino began to stir; Jun and Ohno taking his cue soon after. Aiba abandoned the train of conversation entirely to focus on Jun, stroking his hands up Jun’s neck and shaking him gently.
“Jun-chan. Jun-chan.”
The younger human made a disgruntled noise, taking a blind swipe and nearly clocking Aiba in the face.
Aiba grinned and grabbed Jun’s hand. “Yeah, you’re all right.”
Jun’s eyes opened slowly. “Wha - ?”
Ohno groaned suddenly, his eyes fluttering open and his grip tightening around Nino. Sho, watched, waiting to see how long it would take Ohno to realize exactly what he was doing and let the imp go. Ohno just picked his head up to look at Toma.
“I slipped, didn’t I?”
Toma nodded. Ohno put his head back down, closing his eyes and sighing. He curled closer to Nino. The imp twitched a little. Ohno’s eyes flew open. He sat up cautiously, but rather than remove himself from Nino entirely, Ohno left his hand resting lightly on Nino’s chest.
“There were memories that weren’t mine.”
Toma shook his head, then nodded. “Not this you yours, no.”
Jun sat up, grabbing for a mug of lukewarm tea, taking a sip, and making a face at it. The mandragora reached over and touched the bottom of the mug briefly - Jun nearly dropped the mug in surprise as steam rose gently from the surface of the liquid a second later.
“Not this me?” Ohno asked, brow furrowing.
“Ugh, and I just got through with explaining this,” Toma groaned, but held up his hand to stall any protests before they could form. “Reincarnation. Nino’s met you all before. Many, many times, and in many different places. Normally this isn’t a problem like it’s turned into. But things weren’t exactly normal with how you found him, so, problem.”
“Problem?” the human asked, hand starting to caress Nino’s chest absently, his face screwed up in worry. He hardly noticed when the soft rumbling of purring started.
“Problem-ish,” Toma amended. “We can’t forget. Period. Ever. So we have this little trick, where we can separate and store memories, and literally move them around if we want to see some and not see others, or if we change our minds. Usually to do this we need a time when we’re not doing anything - for him it happens when he gets sealed away.”
“So what happened to bring it out?” Jun asked around a mouthful of tea.
“You did.”
Four people looked at him, stunned. “What?”
Toma shrugged. “You’re all pretty strong presences in your own right. It happens when you’ve been reincarnated as many times as you have. Things get muddled here and there, sometimes everything is suppressed and sometimes it’s frighteningly strong. His last human was a putz when it came to delicate things like sealings and bindings. He bound Nino to the apartment, and left, and then went and kicked it. That left Nino helpless. He couldn’t communicate, and he probably couldn’t feel much. I could barely sense him after it happened.”
“You tried to get him out?”
“A few times. But there were terms to the binding, to prevent him from being ‘stolen’, maybe, and one mythical being can’t summon another. We’re not compatible.” There was a ring to Toma’s tone that none of the humans could place, but Ohno thought there was something sad hanging on it.
The mandragora shrugged and plunged on. “So there he was, all unhappily bound and in walks a presence that he knows well, and it’s strong, but he can’t recognize it or call out to it or anything, and just stews in it. Then that presence starts getting three other presences into the apartment, and he knows all of them, but once again, nothing he can do. Then all of a sudden he’s been yanked out of his binding, and with the events of November ... everything got shunted to the side.”
“Until now.”
Nino’s brow furrowed and his breathing quickened. Ohno’s hand went to his forehead, stroking him soothingly without looking away from Toma. The mandragora didn’t look away from Nino. The imp’s eyes opened and locked onto his, apparently unaware of the others or Ohno’s hand on his head. He looked tired.
“Memory overload?”
“Yep.”
“Damn it.”
Toma laughed. “I told you.”
“I didn’t have time.”
“You’ve had almost two whole months.”
“I was working,” Nino said, blushing up his ears. He sat up slowly, blinking when Ohno’s hand fell from his hair. He didn’t seem particularly bothered by it, but he also didn’t do anything to get it back.
Ohno withdrew his hand to his lap, chewing on his bottom lip.
Toma, not having noticed, laughed. He reached over and ruffled Nino’s hair. “Got ‘em sorted now, though, right?”
“Yeah,” Nino grinned, and snuck a look at Ohno. His ears colored and he looked away quickly. “Sorry, Ohno. Jun-kun. I didn’t mean to.”
Jun shrugged. “I didn’t expect to get pulled in. ... Who’s ... who was Milo?”
Nobody saw Nino’s eyes flick towards where he knew Sho to be. “An old ... an old friend.”
“And lover?”
Nobody saw Ohno’s wince.
Nino didn’t look up, neither angry nor particularly smug. “And husband.”
There was a stunned silence for a moment.
“Husband?” Aiba asked, “They had gay marriages in ... somewhere?”
“Of course not. I was a woman.”
There was a dead silence. Toma bit down on his bottom lip to keep from laughing. Nino caught his eye, grinning once more. The mandragora grinned back.
“I told you he’d been through some make-overs.”
“I was summoned by a human who wanted a female helper,” Nino said, shrugging.
“You can change just like that?” Sho asked, voice awed.
“You’re that surprised?” Nino shot back.
Sho bit his lip, suddenly busy with his tea. “Sorry.”
Toma thwapped Nino over the head. “Be nice.”
The imp grimaced and turned to look at the human. “Sorry.”
Sho offered a smile, and shook his head. “It’s okay. I really shouldn’t be surprised, I guess.”
“Something like that, I can understand you might be,” Nino demurred.
“If we’re done being unbearably polite,” Toma interrupted, rolling his eyes. He stood. “I’ve got to be going. You five have a wonderful time having long and meaningful heart-to-hearts. I’ll see you around.”
Before anyone could say anything, he was gone. Nino reached out, automatically checking for Toma’s presence to see where he might have gone. He frowned. He couldn’t feel Toma anywhere. Like he was being blocked. But what could be blocking Toma?
“Nino?” Aiba asked.
The imp blinked. “Oh. Sorry. What?”
“Breakfast,” Jun said from the kitchen.
Nino blinked again. He hadn’t even felt Jun move this time, the human’s presence already catalogued and memorized once more by his senses - already being taken for granted. The imp had to swallow back the wave of sadness. He’d locked those memories away.
Jun wasn’t Eutychius anymore. Nino couldn’t try to bring him back.
“Nino?” Ohno asked, squatting in front of the imp, touching Nino’s face worriedly. He sighed in relief when Nino focused on him and smiled, finding that he couldn’t help but smile back despite the whirl of emotions coursing through him. He stood and offered his hand to the imp. “Come on. Let’s eat.”
Nino took the hand offered to him, still smiling.
- “I’ll find you again. I swear.” -
Pairing: Heading towards Ohmiya, Matsuba
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4596
Notes: The next in the line of the Imp!Nino series. This is also the Chapter of the Exposition Hammer, so expect a lot of Toma talking. Also if you find yourself going 'huh' at certain points, know that I mean for you to. Immediate sequel to Christmas Interlude.
For all the power that Christmas brought with it, the air was still. There was nothing that should have disturbed the sleep of anyone in Aiba’s house. The part of Ninomiya that never shut off, that was such a part of the world that it couldn’t be shut off, knew this. The imp shifted in his sleep, brow furrowing in confusion.
- jerking pain - “I love you.” - burning - “Evil! Murderer! Get away!” -
dreaming?
- power - “Please don’t kill my child! PLEASE!” - wailing newborn - “You! Away!” -
too jumbled
- so tired - “You belong to me; you will do what I say!” - why won’t you look at me? - “Bring him back!” -
what?
- hurts - “How much for her?” - interrupting my fun - “Are you lost, pretty?” -
old, too old
- familiar - “Spare me! I’ll do anything!” - they dance! - “The world will be better if he is dead.” -
don’t want this!
- make the red come - “I know you.” - soft voice - “WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?!” -
STOP
Nino woke with a start, blinking rapidly and not entirely certain what had woken him. There weren’t any noticeable noises. There were no presences that might threaten his humans. There was just a loud, gentle rumbling sound close by that Nino couldn’t place, and a feeling that something was different and a vague discomfort.
The house wasn’t Loud, so nobody else was awake. Probably. The calm that came over the house when humans were asleep; but it wavered, as it always did when it came to these four. Nino sighed and thought about perhaps rolling over, but was stopped by the feeling of warm breath against his neck.
Instantly he became aware of the face buried in the crook of his neck. Moreover, there was a leg tossed haphazardly over his, and a body molded around his from behind, spooning him. The imp’s brow wrinkled in confusion. Who was on him?
He raised a hand to rub the sleep from his eyes, as if that would make things clear, and realized he couldn’t. Arms were wrapped around him from both sides, making it quite impossible to move - and one of those arms had a hand resting at the back of his head, fingers twined in his hair.
A hand shifted, stroking down his chest softly. It wasn’t an altogether unpleasant sensation, and vaguely Nino was aware that the gentle rumbling was getting louder. It was close enough to even be vibrating his throat.
What?
With a sudden shock of clarity, Nino realized what the rumbling was and why it was so loud to him. Low in his throat, there were muscles vibrating against each other, expressing his pleasure with the situation.
He was purring.
Nino blinked. He hadn’t purred in ... he couldn’t remember the last time. If he looked through his memories he might be able to come up with that last time, but that would require energy he didn’t feel like spending. He’d been primarily a worker for his last humans, which he hadn’t minded until he’d been bound to the apartment, and they’d rarely bothered with physical affection.
But these humans had made him purr last night. They’d probably ask about it when they woke up. Idly Nino wondered if he could escape back to Ohno’s apartment without disappointing them, and knew it was a lost cause the moment the thought went through his head. Of course they’d be disappointed if he left.
Aiba especially would want to know about the purring.
The imp shifted, trying for a better look at the humans. The body wrapped around his from the front sighed softly as soon as Nino moved, and moved itself. The hand fell out of Nino’s hair. Ohno’s face rolled over to greet him as Ohno’s body rolled away from him. Nino couldn’t help the smile upon seeing the human’s face, lips parted and the thinnest line of drool creeping down his chin from the corner of them.
The body behind him moved as well, but it pulled him close to a warm chest instead of letting go. Nino rolled his eyes, but settled back. He didn’t look back, not wanting to wake the others. Instead he closed his eyes spread his awareness to find them. He was vaguely surprised to find that it was Sho using him as a replacement for a stuffed comfort toy. Normally it would be Aiba.
But Aiba was already awake. Probably because of Jun.
Nino figured it must be hard to sleep when there was a hand down your pants.
The imp started to withdraw from them, realizing seconds later what exactly he’d felt. Not even pausing to think about it, he withdrew from Sho and focused intently on Aiba and Jun instead. There was smugness, and joy, and a shortness of breath that wasn’t life-threatening, and heat and pleasure. And that was definitely not Aiba’s hand down Aiba’s pants, because there were two hands tangled in Jun’s hair - the tiniest of spikes of pain pricked every now and again.
Nino sucked in a breath silently, feeling heat begin to pool in his stomach, feeling his stomach knot. Hurriedly, he pulled his awareness away from Aiba and Jun, his ears flaming hot and the strange feeling growing more intense in the pit of his belly.
It was a similar sensation to what he’d felt when Sho had traced the points of his ears back on Hallowmas, only much more intense. Nino had decided then that was what ‘ticklish’ felt like, and nobody had done it since, but clearly it was not ‘ticklish’ if he was feeling it now and nobody was near his ears.
So what was it?
- “More, please - ” -
- “So good - ” -
The imp blinked.
Ohno had once had another human who would come over. They would spend the night in strange, twined positions, always without clothes. They would say things like that to each other during those visits. That human had stopped coming three months after Ohno moved in to the apartment. It had made Ohno cry a lot at first, but recently Ohno didn’t seem to mind so much.
But that memory hadn’t been Ohno’s voice. Had been. Maybe.
What?
Nino’s stomach fluttered when Aiba made a soft, gasp-y sort of noise, direction his attention away from the building confusion. The warmth that had settled in his ears and stomach began to spread, radiating through his body. Nino bit on his bottom lip harshly and squeezed his eyes closed, hoping to make the feeling go away. He wished Sho would wake up. Jun and Aiba were laughing about something and Jun’s breathing was getting more ragged. Nino stirred and tried to bite back a whimper.
“Wait, Aiba,” Jun hissed.
“What?” the taller human whined.
“You hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Nino had only rarely met someone able to stretch syllables like Aiba could.
Jun was undeterred. “I thought I heard one of the others. Come on. Bathroom.”
There was quiet grumbling and shifting, and then footsteps receded from the living room. Nino let out a quiet sigh of relief. He tried to roll away from Sho, but the human made a displeased noise and tightened his arms around Nino instead. The imp groaned quietly. He didn’t like using magic this early in the morning, but Sho showed no signs of being ready to wake.
A blink later, Nino sat up by the Christmas tree and shifted uncomfortably in place. Sho’s arms fell to the floor, and the human started awake. He grumbled, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. Nino swore to himself softly. Aiba and Jun were cleaning up in the bathroom, so he wouldn’t have time to actually do anything to make the uncomfortable stiffness go away. Nino groaned and buried his head in his palms. He didn’t even notice Sho standing and stumbling for the bathroom.
“Oh? Nino’s awake?” Ohno asked, voice slurred from sleep.
Nino looked up and over, his ears burning, and quickly brought his legs together. “Yeah.”
Ohno didn’t notice, sitting up and smiling sleepily. “S’good. We can have breakfast.”
The imp laughed, shifting a little, “Do you always think about food first?”
“Sometimes he thinks about getting dressed,” Jun said, “if he’s late for school.”
Ohno just turned the smile to the doorway in greeting. The younger man sighed, rolling his eyes and heading for Aiba’s kitchen. The taller human popped up behind him, grinning.
“Gooood morning!”
Nino was always a little surprised that small hearts didn’t come popping up after Aiba finished speaking, like they did in cartoons. The human bounced over towards Ohno, rubbing a hand absently over the older man’s already mussed hair. Ohno hardly batted an eyelash, instead simply running his hand back through the mop - Nino watched enviously as the man’s hair straightened itself. Why couldn’t his hair ever obey him like that?
- “I love your hair.” -
The imp blinked, staring at Ohno. “What?”
Ohno looked back at him, clearly confused. “What?”
Nino shook his head, trying to clear it. “You didn’t say anything just now?”
“No,” the human said, shaking his head. “I didn’t hear anything, either.”
Nino gave a weak smile. He’d been so sure that he’d heard Ohno’s voice. Or maybe it had been Sho’s? How could he have gotten those voices confused? Only it wasn’t really Ohno or Sho saying that, was it? Because neither had said anything. Sho was only just stumbling back from the bathroom and Ohno was giving him worried looks.
Worried looks.
He’d gotten worried looks like that before. A long time ago. Not so long ago. From females and males. Nino blinked. He wasn’t in Aiba’s living room. Why wasn’t he in Aiba’s living room? Why was he back in Greece? They called it Greece now - it wasn’t really Greece - why was he in Delphi?
“Nino?”
His voice. Her voice. Which was it? Why were there more than one?
“Nino?!”
The hand on his shoulder. He knew that hand. His son’s hand. Son?
“Nino!”
Jun smacked the imp’s cheek lightly, eyes wide when the slight being turned frighteningly blank eyes to meet his. He looked at the others, panicked, but the only thing that met him was the same confusion and worry reflected in their eyes.
“Eutychius ...”
Jun froze, suddenly unable to see Aiba’s living room. Of course not, he wasn’t even there. Who was Aiba? What was an Aiba? What did an Aiba matter when his mama was crying? Why was his mama crying? Papa was only sleeping.
“Mama?”
His mother wept. “Milo. I’m so sorry.”
“What’s wrong with papa?” Panic. Why wasn’t she speaking to him? No. It couldn’t have happened so soon. Not so soon as this. His father had a shorter life, his mother had told him that all along, but he couldn’t have gone so soon. “Mama? Is he dead?”
Aiba shook Jun’s shoulder’s desperately, but the younger boy wouldn’t blink, let alone respond. “Jun! What’s going on? Why won’t you speak to us?”
“Nino? Hey, Nino, can you hear me?”
“Guys, seriously, this isn’t funny,” Aiba said, kneeling by Jun’s side. “Ohno - what’s going on?”
“I don’t know!” Ohno cried.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You’re the one who deals with these things! You’ve got all the - ” Sho cut himself off with a frustrated wave of his arm, “ - stuff.”
“Actually, you all have the ‘stuff’.”
Sho cried out and whipped around. Aiba clutched Jun tightly, pulling him away from Nino, despite the younger man’s unresponsive state. Ohno had already felt the mandragora’s approach - there was a distinct displacement of ... something that the copper haired being created when he appeared.
“Toma!”
“Toma,” Ohno started, “what’s wrong with them? What’s going on?”
The mandragora stepped forward, smiling calmly. “I need to get to them to make sure.”
Ohno couldn’t help himself - he pulled Nino closer to him. Something in him didn’t want Toma to touch Nino. No, not Toma. Anybody. Like he should know how to deal with this himself. Like he’d seen this before and Nino was his to help. Always his.
“He’s getting to you, too, Ohno,” Toma said with a crooked grin, dropping to his knees.
“What?”
Who was talking to him? Another vision? The demi-god who spied on her sometimes?
Toma sighed. He put his hands to either side of Ohno’s head. A second later, the human was slumping into his arms. Sho and Aiba both cried out at the same time. Toma paid them no mind, tapping Jun’s forehead and watching him fall limp against Aiba.
“What are you doing?” Sho demanded.
“Making things a little easier for all of you,” Toma replied absently. He placed Ohno carefully down on the floor, ignoring how Sho scrambled over to Ohno in favor of taking Nino’s hands in his own. “You are making quite a fuss, imp.”
Sho couldn’t tell what that was supposed to do. He couldn’t see if Toma was actually doing anything. It didn’t seem to be. Nino wasn’t talking or moving. Toma didn’t look like he was moving, either. Sho brushed his hand through Ohno’s hair anxiously. Suddenly Nino let out a gasp like he was coming up from under water, and Sho watched as Toma scrambled to catch the imp before Nino crashed into the Christmas tree.
Aiba was staring at Toma, open mouthed, and didn’t look like he’d be forming words any time soon. Toma as well didn’t seem like he’d be giving an explanation without a push. Sho sighed, worried and annoyed.
“Well? What just happened? What was that? What did you do to them?”
Toma was silent as he settled Nino down by Ohno. Sho watched with no small amazement as the older man rolled over and curled around the imp, almost protectively. Even more amazing was that Nino responded in kind. Ohno had never said anything about him and Nino being like that.
“Are they - ?” Aiba started.
“Not at the moment,” Toma said softly, “This isn’t Ohno responding per se.”
“At the moment?” Sho asked incredulously.
“At the moment,” the mandragora confirmed. “They have.”
“How is that possible? You’re making less sense than Aiba does sometimes.”
“Hey,” the taller human said mildly, still cradling Jun.
“I said ‘sometimes’.”
“You can’t tell me you’ve never heard of reincarnation,” Toma said, tone approaching something close to disbelief.
Sho gritted his teeth. “I’ve heard of it, but that doesn’t mean anything right now.”
“Sure it does. Means a lot, actually. Everybody can’t be born once.”
“All right, look - I get it.”
“Sho-chan ...” Aiba started.
Sho didn’t even look at his friend. “No, really, I get it. You’re superior to us. You’re however old - it would blow my tiny mind, right - ”
“His words,” Toma said, motioning to Nino.
“Don’t interrupt!” Sho snapped, “So you’re however old and you have whatever powers and you’re however superior to us humans as you are. You could probably make me jump off a bridge for fun if you wanted to. And all this pales to utter insignificance to me when I see two of my friends completely stop responding to us just because an imp is ... is ... doing ... something.”
The look on Toma’s face didn’t once change, and Sho nearly winced as he trailed off lamely because of it. He set his jaw firmly after a second of silence, daring Toma to do something to him and hoping idly that jumping off a bridge wasn’t in the cards.
Toma laughed softly. “Got more than I gave you credit for.”
Sho and Aiba blinked.
The copper haired being stroked Nino’s hair lightly, sighing. “They’re only sleeping now. After that they’ll need it.”
“What was that?” Aiba asked, looking down at Jun.
“Memory overload.”
“What?”
Toma nearly laughed: Both Sho and Aiba gaped at him, looking like fish. But Sho would probably kill him if he laughed now. So he nodded. “I thought you all felt a little familiar in your own ways. I was right. We’ve all met before.”
“Yes, yes, at the clinic.”
“No. Before then. Long before then. Many times. Nino’s starting to remember them all.”
“What does that have to do with Ohno and Jun?” Aiba asked softly.
“They’re receptive to him. More so than you just on experience, though if it had gone on long enough, you’d have been caught up in it, too. Just like he’s receptive to you all. He probably wouldn’t have survived November if he hadn’t been.”
“Receptive?” Sho asked.
Toma stood, heading for Aiba’s kitchen almost absent-mindedly and turning on the water heater for tea. Aiba didn’t even think to stop him. Sho sighed.
“Toma. What’s ‘receptive’?”
The mandragora sighed, setting tea bags into six mugs. “Exactly what it means. Willing to be open to you. To your past lives together. Only the receptiveness can’t be controlled by your mental will. It’s too intimate a link. I wondered how long it was going to be.”
“For what?”
Toma distributed the hot water into the mugs and came back to the living room, setting the tray down. Sho picked one up, but let it settle in his lap. Aiba didn’t let go of Jun. The copper haired being smiled a little at them.
“For this to happen.”
“You knew this would happen?” Sho snapped.
“Didn’t know when, though. Things were a little crazy, if you remember. That threw things off. See, he and I have been around for a long, long time. That’s a lot of memories of life, a lot of memories of humans, a lot of memories of good things, and a lot of bad things. So we have this little trick. Every now and then, maybe after something traumatic, maybe just because it’s been too long, maybe because we get sealed by some over-zealous wizard who can’t tell a mandragora from a tree, we Wait.”
“‘Wait’?” Aiba echoed.
Toma nodded, hands wrapped around his mug. “Everything on the outside stops for a little while. It gives us time to deal with what happened before we started Waiting, to separate the memories and put them into storage so they don’t drive us ... well ... insane, I suppose.”
“Insane!?” Sho asked incredulously.
The mandragora nodded again, then paused, clearly thinking. “I don’t know if that’s a perfect word, but it’s close. Basically if we left everything rattling around up here, we would ... lose it. Imps need humans to ground them, see, because by nature they’re chaotic.”
“Like ... dangerous?” Aiba asked softly.
“Chaotic and dangerous are not the same,” Toma said sharply.
The unusually still human shrank back.
“Chaotic is just what it means. Random. Unstable. The problem is, because humans are the ones to ground imps, they do as their humans tell them to. Whatever that might entail. They do it to keep the humans with them, because they can’t stand to lose the companionship.”
“What about you? Mandragora?”
“I’m even more special,” Toma said, smiling, the perfect picture of cocky. “I’m a construct.”
“CONSTRUCT?”
“Not so loud!” the mandragora said, glaring at Sho and Aiba.
The humans snapped their mouths shut and flushed. “Sorry.”
“Yes. The me that you are looking at is a physical construct; a pretty good one, if I do say so myself.”
“But ... how can you be a ... construct?” Sho asked slowly, nearly tripping over the word.
“Because I’m a spirit. Like Nino is a spirit. We weren’t born, we don’t die, we just are. If we stop existing, that’s it. We don’t follow human rules. We also can’t be seen by human eyes if we’re not in our constructed forms. Even if they’re like you.”
“So Nino ...”
“Was given his body by the first humans who were strong enough to catch his attention, and then to catch him. He’s gone through a few make-overs since then, of course, to fit the expectations of those who’ve summoned him.”
“Expectations? Like what?”
“What spirits, or fairies, or whatever we’re being called, should look like. It’s amazing how tiny the human imagination can be sometimes, just as it’s amazing how large it can be. I’ve looked like this since the beginning. The best Nino’s first humans could come up with was a little fur and pointed ears. He had one, though, where he was made of fire, almost. Huge wings of fire.”
Toma paused to take a sip of tea, giving Sho and Aiba, still gawping, a chance to collect themselves. As he did, Nino began to stir; Jun and Ohno taking his cue soon after. Aiba abandoned the train of conversation entirely to focus on Jun, stroking his hands up Jun’s neck and shaking him gently.
“Jun-chan. Jun-chan.”
The younger human made a disgruntled noise, taking a blind swipe and nearly clocking Aiba in the face.
Aiba grinned and grabbed Jun’s hand. “Yeah, you’re all right.”
Jun’s eyes opened slowly. “Wha - ?”
Ohno groaned suddenly, his eyes fluttering open and his grip tightening around Nino. Sho, watched, waiting to see how long it would take Ohno to realize exactly what he was doing and let the imp go. Ohno just picked his head up to look at Toma.
“I slipped, didn’t I?”
Toma nodded. Ohno put his head back down, closing his eyes and sighing. He curled closer to Nino. The imp twitched a little. Ohno’s eyes flew open. He sat up cautiously, but rather than remove himself from Nino entirely, Ohno left his hand resting lightly on Nino’s chest.
“There were memories that weren’t mine.”
Toma shook his head, then nodded. “Not this you yours, no.”
Jun sat up, grabbing for a mug of lukewarm tea, taking a sip, and making a face at it. The mandragora reached over and touched the bottom of the mug briefly - Jun nearly dropped the mug in surprise as steam rose gently from the surface of the liquid a second later.
“Not this me?” Ohno asked, brow furrowing.
“Ugh, and I just got through with explaining this,” Toma groaned, but held up his hand to stall any protests before they could form. “Reincarnation. Nino’s met you all before. Many, many times, and in many different places. Normally this isn’t a problem like it’s turned into. But things weren’t exactly normal with how you found him, so, problem.”
“Problem?” the human asked, hand starting to caress Nino’s chest absently, his face screwed up in worry. He hardly noticed when the soft rumbling of purring started.
“Problem-ish,” Toma amended. “We can’t forget. Period. Ever. So we have this little trick, where we can separate and store memories, and literally move them around if we want to see some and not see others, or if we change our minds. Usually to do this we need a time when we’re not doing anything - for him it happens when he gets sealed away.”
“So what happened to bring it out?” Jun asked around a mouthful of tea.
“You did.”
Four people looked at him, stunned. “What?”
Toma shrugged. “You’re all pretty strong presences in your own right. It happens when you’ve been reincarnated as many times as you have. Things get muddled here and there, sometimes everything is suppressed and sometimes it’s frighteningly strong. His last human was a putz when it came to delicate things like sealings and bindings. He bound Nino to the apartment, and left, and then went and kicked it. That left Nino helpless. He couldn’t communicate, and he probably couldn’t feel much. I could barely sense him after it happened.”
“You tried to get him out?”
“A few times. But there were terms to the binding, to prevent him from being ‘stolen’, maybe, and one mythical being can’t summon another. We’re not compatible.” There was a ring to Toma’s tone that none of the humans could place, but Ohno thought there was something sad hanging on it.
The mandragora shrugged and plunged on. “So there he was, all unhappily bound and in walks a presence that he knows well, and it’s strong, but he can’t recognize it or call out to it or anything, and just stews in it. Then that presence starts getting three other presences into the apartment, and he knows all of them, but once again, nothing he can do. Then all of a sudden he’s been yanked out of his binding, and with the events of November ... everything got shunted to the side.”
“Until now.”
Nino’s brow furrowed and his breathing quickened. Ohno’s hand went to his forehead, stroking him soothingly without looking away from Toma. The mandragora didn’t look away from Nino. The imp’s eyes opened and locked onto his, apparently unaware of the others or Ohno’s hand on his head. He looked tired.
“Memory overload?”
“Yep.”
“Damn it.”
Toma laughed. “I told you.”
“I didn’t have time.”
“You’ve had almost two whole months.”
“I was working,” Nino said, blushing up his ears. He sat up slowly, blinking when Ohno’s hand fell from his hair. He didn’t seem particularly bothered by it, but he also didn’t do anything to get it back.
Ohno withdrew his hand to his lap, chewing on his bottom lip.
Toma, not having noticed, laughed. He reached over and ruffled Nino’s hair. “Got ‘em sorted now, though, right?”
“Yeah,” Nino grinned, and snuck a look at Ohno. His ears colored and he looked away quickly. “Sorry, Ohno. Jun-kun. I didn’t mean to.”
Jun shrugged. “I didn’t expect to get pulled in. ... Who’s ... who was Milo?”
Nobody saw Nino’s eyes flick towards where he knew Sho to be. “An old ... an old friend.”
“And lover?”
Nobody saw Ohno’s wince.
Nino didn’t look up, neither angry nor particularly smug. “And husband.”
There was a stunned silence for a moment.
“Husband?” Aiba asked, “They had gay marriages in ... somewhere?”
“Of course not. I was a woman.”
There was a dead silence. Toma bit down on his bottom lip to keep from laughing. Nino caught his eye, grinning once more. The mandragora grinned back.
“I told you he’d been through some make-overs.”
“I was summoned by a human who wanted a female helper,” Nino said, shrugging.
“You can change just like that?” Sho asked, voice awed.
“You’re that surprised?” Nino shot back.
Sho bit his lip, suddenly busy with his tea. “Sorry.”
Toma thwapped Nino over the head. “Be nice.”
The imp grimaced and turned to look at the human. “Sorry.”
Sho offered a smile, and shook his head. “It’s okay. I really shouldn’t be surprised, I guess.”
“Something like that, I can understand you might be,” Nino demurred.
“If we’re done being unbearably polite,” Toma interrupted, rolling his eyes. He stood. “I’ve got to be going. You five have a wonderful time having long and meaningful heart-to-hearts. I’ll see you around.”
Before anyone could say anything, he was gone. Nino reached out, automatically checking for Toma’s presence to see where he might have gone. He frowned. He couldn’t feel Toma anywhere. Like he was being blocked. But what could be blocking Toma?
“Nino?” Aiba asked.
The imp blinked. “Oh. Sorry. What?”
“Breakfast,” Jun said from the kitchen.
Nino blinked again. He hadn’t even felt Jun move this time, the human’s presence already catalogued and memorized once more by his senses - already being taken for granted. The imp had to swallow back the wave of sadness. He’d locked those memories away.
Jun wasn’t Eutychius anymore. Nino couldn’t try to bring him back.
“Nino?” Ohno asked, squatting in front of the imp, touching Nino’s face worriedly. He sighed in relief when Nino focused on him and smiled, finding that he couldn’t help but smile back despite the whirl of emotions coursing through him. He stood and offered his hand to the imp. “Come on. Let’s eat.”
Nino took the hand offered to him, still smiling.
- “I’ll find you again. I swear.” -