[Fic] Shattered Glass Ch. 1 [Draft sort of]
Might as well throw this ditty up on here too, while I'm at it.
Title: Shattered Glass
Rating: PG for now.
Warnings: In this chapter? Just slap slap kiss. And my continuing sordid love affair with In Medias Res style prose. And weird sound effects.
Word count: 2400-ish
Summary: Sherry comes over to grill Bruno on the whole "almost killed me" deal, then finds out he looks really kind of familiar.
Notes: I am not even going to lie, this is all a completely self-indulgent excuse for Sherry/Bruno shipping.
Written: Originally? Around April 2010.
Concrit: Oh god yes please.
Bruno heard the whine of a Momentum engine vehicle parking outside the garage and immediately perked up from his computer. Huh... a D-Wheel engine, but not any of the guys’ D-Wheels (he knew the sounds of all theirs by heart by now) and he was pretty sure it wasn’t Aki’s either... The model was a few years old but extremely well tuned, although it sounded like it was a month or two late for some maintenance. He’d have to let them know.
... Whoever they were.
Then there was a knock on the front door. Oh, right.
“Ah-just a second!” Bruno called out, punching in the last couple commands to start up a system check on their test engine. As soon as he hit the last key he shot up and picked his way as fast as possible across the nest of wires and plugs that currently crisscrossed that corner of the garage. Any other time he’d probably have let one of the other guys get it, since they were usually the ones people were looking for anyway, but Crow was out running deliveries and Yuusei was doing a fixit job for Zora. And Jack had just yelled at him this morning to unhook Wheel of Fortune and then sped off without a word, like usual.
So this all left Bruno alone to look after things. Though he wasn’t doing the best job so far, since whoever it was had already knocked again by the time Bruno stumbled his way across the room and up the ramp.
“Sorry about that, I-” he started to say as he opened the door, but then the sight of the visitor nearly made him jump. “-Y-you! Miss, uh...”
“Sherry LeBlanc,” she said casually.
It hadn’t really occurred to Bruno what meeting her again after... well, after that, would be like, but this was more than what he’d have pictured. He’d figured she must be a D-Wheeler since she had mentioned her team to Yuusei, but in her riding suit and with her D-Wheel parked behind her she cut a pretty imposing figure. She smiled at him in a way that somehow made him feel even more flustered and she adjusted the helmet in the crook of her arm.
“Is Yuusei here?” she asked, letting herself in. “I was hoping the three of us could talk.”
“Oh... right,” he said thickly as he stepped out of her way and watched her walk by. , “He isn’t just now. He should be back pretty soon, though, so you can wait if you like.”
But she was already walking down the ramp towards the small table and set of chairs in the corner, her long hair swaying across her back with every step. “I’ll do just that, then.”
... Bruno rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, watching her set down her helmet and begin to curiously look over the garage as he slowly followed her down the ramp himself.
Should he... should he get them drinks, or something? Make small talk? He’d never really had to... well, he didn’t remember ever having to do this before, at least. It was different with Aki and Rua and Ruka, they were friends and they knew their way around. It wasn’t like Sherry was a complete stranger, but the only time he’d ever really met her was when-
“Is anyone else here besides you?” she asked suddenly.
Bruno snapped out of his thoughts. “Er- no, the others are all out.”
“Good, then we can go ahead and get this part out of the way now,” she said seriously as she turned to face him, and Bruno felt a bit of a prickle at having her full attention. “I thought you might want to talk about our... altercation, alone.”
“Ah...” Bruno looked away a little. She was right, he hadn’t told any of the others about that yet. He hadn’t even thought about it very much himself. He didn’t really know what to think.
There was one thing he knew he wanted to tell her, though. “I’m... sorry. For trying to hurt you, and all. I didn’t mean to.”
A few more uncomfortable moments passed between them while Bruno continued to avoid her eye.
“Is that all you have to say?”
“Huh?” That one sure made Bruno look at her, and the accusatory expression on her face took him aback.
“You suddenly turn from a wet noodle into something barely human and all you have to say is ‘sorry’?“ she said, raising her voice and rounding on him.
Bruno took a shocked step back. “B-barely human? I-I’m not sure that’s-”
She was quickly getting close enough (and testy enough) to get physical with him again. “Don’t play dumb with me. Do you expect me to believe that someone with glowing red eyes and the strength of three grown men is normal? And that he just happens to be one of Fudou Yuusei’s friends?”
“Wh... what?” Bruno continued to back up shakily. He knew what he had done back there must have been pretty extraordinary, but... red eyes...? What on earth did that mean?
Between his thoughts racing and Sherry getting way too close for comfort, Bruno wasn’t remotely paying attention to where he was going. So backing right into the low seat of the test Wheel didn’t just surprise him, it sent him tripping backwards right over it.
“L-look, I don- w-WAAAUUHghhh..!! - HRKkk-”
Bruno’s head snapped back and his hair whipped off his face. Sherry had shot her hand down and
caught him by the collar in midair, and by the time he’d even realized what happened he was bent backwards over the D-Wheel frame and had an angry woman leaning inches from his face. ... Again. He gulped.
Her voice was low and dangerous. “You may have helped me out back there with the supercomputer, but I’m committed to investigating every last lead I have, understand? So if you don’t start giving me answers, I’ll-”
Bruno flinched and squeezed his eyes shut. But then... nothing happened. After a few seconds of silence he tentatively peeked out of one eye, and was more than a little surprised to see her looking... shocked, for some reason.
Suddenly she yanked him back upright, and while Bruno was hurriedly trying to find his feet she ran her hand up his forehead and pushed his bangs out of his eyes again.
He stared at her. She stared at him.
She suddenly let both her hands drop, and now she was the one stepping back and taking a shaky breath. She looked like she’d seen a ghost.
Her voice came out as almost a whisper. “Glass...”
Bruno just blinked. But right when he opened his mouth to ask her what was going on now, he was nearly floored by what had to have been the hardest slap across the face he’d ever got in his life.
“What the hell are you doing here?!” she bellowed.
“Wh-wha...?” He put a hand over the giant stinging patch of skin and gawked at her.
“You’ve been gone for months! Why didn’t you contact me?”
“Um...”
“What about our plans? What about our TEAM?!”
“I don’t...”
“Why didn’t you tell me anything?”
“I...”
“I thought they had got to you! Don’t you understand, Glass!? I thought you were DEAD!“
“JUST WAIT A SECOND!”
There was silence in the garage again, save for very soft panting by Sherry, as they both eyed each other uncertainly across their few feet of distance.
Bruno almost surprised himself when he was the one that broke it.
“Are... are you saying you know who I am?”
Sherry’s brows furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
Bruno slowly let his hand fall from his face and tried to stand up a little straighter, but he ended up looking at the floor as he talked.
“I woke up on a beach a few months ago. I... I don’t have any memories of my life before then. I got picked up by Security, but they couldn’t find any data on me at all. They asked Yuusei and his friends to put me up, so... now I’m here. “
He didn’t look up at her face, but after a few moments she started to walk towards him. He was pretty sure he was about to get hit again.
But instead, to his complete confusion, she stopped just in front of him and pulled him into a tender embrace.
Bruno stood stock still. He tried to say something, but all that came out were a couple of indistinct babbles. A part of him wondered just how red his cheeks were glowing right now.
“Oh, Glass...” she breathed mournfully as she rested her head on his shoulder, “what did they do to you?”
====================
“So... is Glass my real name?”
Sherry scoffed lightly as she wrapped a few ice cubes in a towel. “I doubt it. You were using ‘Dark Glass’ as a stage name for the WRGP. You never told me or anyone else what your real name was, so Mizoguchi and I just called you Glass.”
They had moved up to the kitchenette or sorts at the corner of the living room, where Bruno was making some coffee and Sherry was making something to press onto the rapidly blossoming bruise on his left cheek.
“You said you’re calling yourself Bruno, right?” she said, handing him the makeshift cold compress.
He nodded. “I didn’t even remember that at first, they had to- hnghss...” he hissed a little as he put the ice to his cheek, “they had to read me whole lists of sounds and names and until something started to sound familiar.”
“Well then, I’d guess that Bruno is your real name after all. I certainly never thought this would be how I learned it,” she said with a grin. Bruno just nodded sheepishly. He noticed her gaze wander down as he tried to pour the coffee awkwardly with his right hand, and then she placed hers over his. The cheek that didn’t have ice pressed on it started feeling hot again. “I’ll get this. You sit down,” she insisted.
“Uh, th-thanks,” he said, and gratefully walked over to sit on the couch. He spoke across the room while she continued working at the counter. “So, why would he- er, why would I want to hide who I was?”
She was quiet for a few moments before she answered. “Glass always played it very close to the hilt,” she said finally. “You never talked about it more than you had to, but I always got the feeling that there was more history between you and Illiaster than you were letting on.”
“Illiaster...” Bruno pondered on that while she finished fixing the coffee. He knew the name, but all he really knew about Illiaster was that they had been involved with the murder of Sherry’s parents (he remembered her mentioning it in the computer room) and that they had had something to do with that battle that Yuusei and his friends had fought together a year ago. What sort of history could he have with a group like that?
While he was thinking to himself a steaming cup of coffee was placed on the table in front of him, and he looked up.
“Do you still take yours black?” Sherry asked.
“Y... yeah,” he said, and put down the ice to pick up the warm cup with both hands. Sherry carried over the chair from the computer table and sat down across from him with a mug of her own.
For about the fifth time today, Bruno again found himself in an awkward silence with her. So instead he stared down at his coffee and took a sip. Which nearly burned his tongue off because it was still too hot to drink, so he winced and flinched back. Which just made him spill a considerable splash of coffee on his jeans, which he hurriedly tried to wipe up with the elbow of his jacket.
When he set the cup down again to free up his hands, he glanced up at Sherry in dismay only to see her quirking an eyebrow at him dryly.
“You’re pretty different from the Glass I remember.”
The way it came out made Bruno feel like he should be vaguely insulted. He preoccupied himself with unrolling his sleeve to rub more at the coffee, not realizing he was now sporting a bit of a pout.
“How are you even sure it’s me?” he said in a prickly tone. “This could all just be a coincidence, you know.”
He heard a refined chuckle and the tap of another mug being set on the table, and the next thing he knew Sherry was sitting down next to him on the couch and offering him a handkerchief.
“Just how many left-handed duelists do you think there are in this city?” she asked with a smile, and then decided to punctuate it by placing the handkerchief, and her hand, softly over Bruno’s fingers on his lap. Bruno felt a tingle shoot up spine and then down again for good measure.
“And ones with hair like this?” She ran her other hand through his hair, but then let her fingers come to a rest cupped against the back of his neck. Bruno just stared at her like a deer in headlights.
Sherry’s smile was getting more coy by the minute. “And this face...?”
She started to lean in. Bruno was pretty sure he’d forgotten how to breathe.
Somewhere way, way back in his awareness he thought he heard a sound like boots on metal. And Sherry must have heard it too, because she broke off her approach and looked over his shoulder toward the staircase up from the garage.
“Ah, Yuusei.”
The universe came crashing back down on Bruno’s brain and he spun around to see, sure enough, Yuusei, standing at the top of the stairs and looking extremely but politely confused.
“... Sherry,” Yuusei replied. And apparently ran out of words there.
Sherry calmly got up from the couch and walked over to him. “It’s good you’re here, we’ve been waiting for you. There are some things we need to discuss.”
Bruno decided that he should probably just stay on the couch for a minute until his heart stopped racing like a D-Wheel at top speed.
Title: Shattered Glass
Rating: PG for now.
Warnings: In this chapter? Just slap slap kiss. And my continuing sordid love affair with In Medias Res style prose. And weird sound effects.
Word count: 2400-ish
Summary: Sherry comes over to grill Bruno on the whole "almost killed me" deal, then finds out he looks really kind of familiar.
Notes: I am not even going to lie, this is all a completely self-indulgent excuse for Sherry/Bruno shipping.
Written: Originally? Around April 2010.
Concrit: Oh god yes please.
Bruno heard the whine of a Momentum engine vehicle parking outside the garage and immediately perked up from his computer. Huh... a D-Wheel engine, but not any of the guys’ D-Wheels (he knew the sounds of all theirs by heart by now) and he was pretty sure it wasn’t Aki’s either... The model was a few years old but extremely well tuned, although it sounded like it was a month or two late for some maintenance. He’d have to let them know.
... Whoever they were.
Then there was a knock on the front door. Oh, right.
“Ah-just a second!” Bruno called out, punching in the last couple commands to start up a system check on their test engine. As soon as he hit the last key he shot up and picked his way as fast as possible across the nest of wires and plugs that currently crisscrossed that corner of the garage. Any other time he’d probably have let one of the other guys get it, since they were usually the ones people were looking for anyway, but Crow was out running deliveries and Yuusei was doing a fixit job for Zora. And Jack had just yelled at him this morning to unhook Wheel of Fortune and then sped off without a word, like usual.
So this all left Bruno alone to look after things. Though he wasn’t doing the best job so far, since whoever it was had already knocked again by the time Bruno stumbled his way across the room and up the ramp.
“Sorry about that, I-” he started to say as he opened the door, but then the sight of the visitor nearly made him jump. “-Y-you! Miss, uh...”
“Sherry LeBlanc,” she said casually.
It hadn’t really occurred to Bruno what meeting her again after... well, after that, would be like, but this was more than what he’d have pictured. He’d figured she must be a D-Wheeler since she had mentioned her team to Yuusei, but in her riding suit and with her D-Wheel parked behind her she cut a pretty imposing figure. She smiled at him in a way that somehow made him feel even more flustered and she adjusted the helmet in the crook of her arm.
“Is Yuusei here?” she asked, letting herself in. “I was hoping the three of us could talk.”
“Oh... right,” he said thickly as he stepped out of her way and watched her walk by. , “He isn’t just now. He should be back pretty soon, though, so you can wait if you like.”
But she was already walking down the ramp towards the small table and set of chairs in the corner, her long hair swaying across her back with every step. “I’ll do just that, then.”
... Bruno rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, watching her set down her helmet and begin to curiously look over the garage as he slowly followed her down the ramp himself.
Should he... should he get them drinks, or something? Make small talk? He’d never really had to... well, he didn’t remember ever having to do this before, at least. It was different with Aki and Rua and Ruka, they were friends and they knew their way around. It wasn’t like Sherry was a complete stranger, but the only time he’d ever really met her was when-
“Is anyone else here besides you?” she asked suddenly.
Bruno snapped out of his thoughts. “Er- no, the others are all out.”
“Good, then we can go ahead and get this part out of the way now,” she said seriously as she turned to face him, and Bruno felt a bit of a prickle at having her full attention. “I thought you might want to talk about our... altercation, alone.”
“Ah...” Bruno looked away a little. She was right, he hadn’t told any of the others about that yet. He hadn’t even thought about it very much himself. He didn’t really know what to think.
There was one thing he knew he wanted to tell her, though. “I’m... sorry. For trying to hurt you, and all. I didn’t mean to.”
A few more uncomfortable moments passed between them while Bruno continued to avoid her eye.
“Is that all you have to say?”
“Huh?” That one sure made Bruno look at her, and the accusatory expression on her face took him aback.
“You suddenly turn from a wet noodle into something barely human and all you have to say is ‘sorry’?“ she said, raising her voice and rounding on him.
Bruno took a shocked step back. “B-barely human? I-I’m not sure that’s-”
She was quickly getting close enough (and testy enough) to get physical with him again. “Don’t play dumb with me. Do you expect me to believe that someone with glowing red eyes and the strength of three grown men is normal? And that he just happens to be one of Fudou Yuusei’s friends?”
“Wh... what?” Bruno continued to back up shakily. He knew what he had done back there must have been pretty extraordinary, but... red eyes...? What on earth did that mean?
Between his thoughts racing and Sherry getting way too close for comfort, Bruno wasn’t remotely paying attention to where he was going. So backing right into the low seat of the test Wheel didn’t just surprise him, it sent him tripping backwards right over it.
“L-look, I don- w-WAAAUUHghhh..!! - HRKkk-”
Bruno’s head snapped back and his hair whipped off his face. Sherry had shot her hand down and
caught him by the collar in midair, and by the time he’d even realized what happened he was bent backwards over the D-Wheel frame and had an angry woman leaning inches from his face. ... Again. He gulped.
Her voice was low and dangerous. “You may have helped me out back there with the supercomputer, but I’m committed to investigating every last lead I have, understand? So if you don’t start giving me answers, I’ll-”
Bruno flinched and squeezed his eyes shut. But then... nothing happened. After a few seconds of silence he tentatively peeked out of one eye, and was more than a little surprised to see her looking... shocked, for some reason.
Suddenly she yanked him back upright, and while Bruno was hurriedly trying to find his feet she ran her hand up his forehead and pushed his bangs out of his eyes again.
He stared at her. She stared at him.
She suddenly let both her hands drop, and now she was the one stepping back and taking a shaky breath. She looked like she’d seen a ghost.
Her voice came out as almost a whisper. “Glass...”
Bruno just blinked. But right when he opened his mouth to ask her what was going on now, he was nearly floored by what had to have been the hardest slap across the face he’d ever got in his life.
“What the hell are you doing here?!” she bellowed.
“Wh-wha...?” He put a hand over the giant stinging patch of skin and gawked at her.
“You’ve been gone for months! Why didn’t you contact me?”
“Um...”
“What about our plans? What about our TEAM?!”
“I don’t...”
“Why didn’t you tell me anything?”
“I...”
“I thought they had got to you! Don’t you understand, Glass!? I thought you were DEAD!“
“JUST WAIT A SECOND!”
There was silence in the garage again, save for very soft panting by Sherry, as they both eyed each other uncertainly across their few feet of distance.
Bruno almost surprised himself when he was the one that broke it.
“Are... are you saying you know who I am?”
Sherry’s brows furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
Bruno slowly let his hand fall from his face and tried to stand up a little straighter, but he ended up looking at the floor as he talked.
“I woke up on a beach a few months ago. I... I don’t have any memories of my life before then. I got picked up by Security, but they couldn’t find any data on me at all. They asked Yuusei and his friends to put me up, so... now I’m here. “
He didn’t look up at her face, but after a few moments she started to walk towards him. He was pretty sure he was about to get hit again.
But instead, to his complete confusion, she stopped just in front of him and pulled him into a tender embrace.
Bruno stood stock still. He tried to say something, but all that came out were a couple of indistinct babbles. A part of him wondered just how red his cheeks were glowing right now.
“Oh, Glass...” she breathed mournfully as she rested her head on his shoulder, “what did they do to you?”
====================
“So... is Glass my real name?”
Sherry scoffed lightly as she wrapped a few ice cubes in a towel. “I doubt it. You were using ‘Dark Glass’ as a stage name for the WRGP. You never told me or anyone else what your real name was, so Mizoguchi and I just called you Glass.”
They had moved up to the kitchenette or sorts at the corner of the living room, where Bruno was making some coffee and Sherry was making something to press onto the rapidly blossoming bruise on his left cheek.
“You said you’re calling yourself Bruno, right?” she said, handing him the makeshift cold compress.
He nodded. “I didn’t even remember that at first, they had to- hnghss...” he hissed a little as he put the ice to his cheek, “they had to read me whole lists of sounds and names and until something started to sound familiar.”
“Well then, I’d guess that Bruno is your real name after all. I certainly never thought this would be how I learned it,” she said with a grin. Bruno just nodded sheepishly. He noticed her gaze wander down as he tried to pour the coffee awkwardly with his right hand, and then she placed hers over his. The cheek that didn’t have ice pressed on it started feeling hot again. “I’ll get this. You sit down,” she insisted.
“Uh, th-thanks,” he said, and gratefully walked over to sit on the couch. He spoke across the room while she continued working at the counter. “So, why would he- er, why would I want to hide who I was?”
She was quiet for a few moments before she answered. “Glass always played it very close to the hilt,” she said finally. “You never talked about it more than you had to, but I always got the feeling that there was more history between you and Illiaster than you were letting on.”
“Illiaster...” Bruno pondered on that while she finished fixing the coffee. He knew the name, but all he really knew about Illiaster was that they had been involved with the murder of Sherry’s parents (he remembered her mentioning it in the computer room) and that they had had something to do with that battle that Yuusei and his friends had fought together a year ago. What sort of history could he have with a group like that?
While he was thinking to himself a steaming cup of coffee was placed on the table in front of him, and he looked up.
“Do you still take yours black?” Sherry asked.
“Y... yeah,” he said, and put down the ice to pick up the warm cup with both hands. Sherry carried over the chair from the computer table and sat down across from him with a mug of her own.
For about the fifth time today, Bruno again found himself in an awkward silence with her. So instead he stared down at his coffee and took a sip. Which nearly burned his tongue off because it was still too hot to drink, so he winced and flinched back. Which just made him spill a considerable splash of coffee on his jeans, which he hurriedly tried to wipe up with the elbow of his jacket.
When he set the cup down again to free up his hands, he glanced up at Sherry in dismay only to see her quirking an eyebrow at him dryly.
“You’re pretty different from the Glass I remember.”
The way it came out made Bruno feel like he should be vaguely insulted. He preoccupied himself with unrolling his sleeve to rub more at the coffee, not realizing he was now sporting a bit of a pout.
“How are you even sure it’s me?” he said in a prickly tone. “This could all just be a coincidence, you know.”
He heard a refined chuckle and the tap of another mug being set on the table, and the next thing he knew Sherry was sitting down next to him on the couch and offering him a handkerchief.
“Just how many left-handed duelists do you think there are in this city?” she asked with a smile, and then decided to punctuate it by placing the handkerchief, and her hand, softly over Bruno’s fingers on his lap. Bruno felt a tingle shoot up spine and then down again for good measure.
“And ones with hair like this?” She ran her other hand through his hair, but then let her fingers come to a rest cupped against the back of his neck. Bruno just stared at her like a deer in headlights.
Sherry’s smile was getting more coy by the minute. “And this face...?”
She started to lean in. Bruno was pretty sure he’d forgotten how to breathe.
Somewhere way, way back in his awareness he thought he heard a sound like boots on metal. And Sherry must have heard it too, because she broke off her approach and looked over his shoulder toward the staircase up from the garage.
“Ah, Yuusei.”
The universe came crashing back down on Bruno’s brain and he spun around to see, sure enough, Yuusei, standing at the top of the stairs and looking extremely but politely confused.
“... Sherry,” Yuusei replied. And apparently ran out of words there.
Sherry calmly got up from the couch and walked over to him. “It’s good you’re here, we’ve been waiting for you. There are some things we need to discuss.”
Bruno decided that he should probably just stay on the couch for a minute until his heart stopped racing like a D-Wheel at top speed.