call it the grace of god
Aug. 3rd, 2011 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
metisketRight. So after all my whining about how there isn’t enough Hakuren fic in the 07-Ghost fandom, the first 07-Ghost fic I finish has…NO HAKUREN AT ALL.
orz
This fic, then, is about Teito and Frau. They’re so interesting. Despite the age gap and the fact that Frau is nominally training Teito to be a priest, they have an amazingly balanced relationship. They should be mentor-student, but instead they’re BFFs. It’s awesome. Also, their low expectations of life charm me to pieces. ♥
This one is for isiteggs, who asked for 07-Ghost fic so long ago that I’m sure she NO LONGER EVEN REMEMBERS, but. Here it is. XD
Spoilers through Ch. 62 and for Speedster.
Thank you to Zephy for the beta! And 07-Ghost doesn’t belong to me.
ETA: Now with a Hungarian translation by aislinarchives. *_*
Call It the Grace of God
Frau cuts a long, precise line down his arm, pretty deep. With the vein, not against it—the way they tell you to, if you’re being serious about it.
The cut barely bleeds, and it heals freakishly quickly. Now…how does that work? Dead bodies don’t heal, let alone like that. Of course, dead bodies also rot like crazy, while this one’s eerily well-preserved.
“Frau,” Castor says in that aristocratic, stuck-up voice of his. “Stop that.”
“Piss off, four-eyes,” Frau snaps. “I’m experimenting. Need to know how this works.”
“I’ve already done those experiments,” Castor answers impatiently. “If you have questions, you should ask them. Rather than mutilate yourself.”
Frau likes how he says mutilate yourself in that revolted tone when, in the same breath, he admits that he’s mutilated himself. Maybe he thinks it’s okay because he did it in the name of science. Freak.
No, that’s not fair. Castor acts like a cold bastard, but judging from his truly stupid expression every time he looks at the mermaid girl—Razette—he’s secretly a soft touch. Must not like to see other people hurt.
And it does hurt. Body’s got no climate control, but apparently the nerves are in working order. Someday Frau’s gonna have a talk with the Lord of Heaven about what a lousy design the Ghosts are. Just like life only colder? No wonder Verloren went nuts. ‘Greatest creation,’ indeed.
Bad thought. Bad, bad thought, the kind of thought that wakes up angry scythes. Frau, you moron.
He slams his eyes shut with a hiss of pain and tries to talk down the evil weapon living in his arm—which is hilarious, horrible, surreal. As adjustments go, this one’s making the whole being dead thing seem like a minor inconvenience.
He eventually manages to wrestle the scythe back into relative obedience, and opens his eyes to find Castor kneeling in front of him. Castor’s wearing about as much expression as you’d expect from a corpse, but his hand is resting on Frau’s scythe arm. This is probably him trying to be comforting. He’s failing, but it’s cute that he tries.
“Here, Frau,” Labrador says, handing him a flower over Castor’s shoulder. They’re in one of Lab’s gardens, meaning he can produce as many random plants as he likes, more’s the pity. It is a pretty flower. A funny purple-blue, with silver-green leaves shaped like hearts. Frau holds on to it, because the thing with Lab is, sometimes he gives you flowers because they’re pretty, and other times he gives them to you because he’s imbued them with freaky spiritual properties that’ll save your immortal soul. But he never feels moved to tell you which is which.
Lab is, in his own special way, actually scarier than Castor. With Castor, what you see is what you get. He looks like a freaky, manipulative maniac, and that’s what he is. If anything, he’s not as bad as he looks.
Lab, on the other hand.
That woman, Gid said once. See how she smiles like she’s doing it to punish herself? Like smiling hurts?
Frau informed Gid that he should stop making shit up about people.
Shut up, brat, he drawled. I’m trying to teach you a life lesson, here. Stay away from people who smile like that. They’re always crazy, and it’s hardly ever worth it.
Lab smiles like that. Plus, from what Frau understands, he died of plant attack, and his response was to surround himself with plants and develop a deep bond with them. Come to think of it, the same can be said of Castor and politics. These are not signs of mental stability.
Frau, on the other hand, died of a fucking evil scythe that’s now grafted into his arm, which makes him less crazy and more cursed.
Doesn’t matter whether Lab and Castor are worth it or not, though, because Frau’s stuck with them. Whatever, it’s not like Gid would be surprised to find Frau ignoring his advice. Being crap at taking advice was always something they had in common.
“Experiments, huh?” Frau asks Castor, who’s still hovering.
“Mm,” Castor says, stepping back. For all his claims of being willing to cough up information, he doesn’t sound exactly encouraging.
“Right. So you’re totally sure no one else can see the giant skeletons?”
“Essentially,” Castor agrees, suspicious.
“But I can see the skeleton and feel it and everything. So if someone normal were starving, could I boil the marrow out of one of the bones and make soup? I mean, would there be actual nutrients in that?”
There is a very, very long pause during which both Castor and Lab stare at him blankly. You’d think they’d never wondered about this themselves.
“What an interesting philosophical question,” Castor says eventually.
“Priests shouldn’t eat meat,” Lab chimes in.
“Starving,” Frau reminds him. “Starving children!”
Castor’s eyes fall slowly closed; he looks pained. “Let’s…leave that question for when it arises.” Frau resists the urge to punch him in the face—it wouldn’t end well. “Although I suspect that a spiritual body would only provide spiritual sustenance. You could always hack off this body’s arm for food.”
“Yeah, but that would be disgusting,” Frau points out.
“Starving children,” Castor repeats, eyes still shut.
“Point,” Frau allows.
“You should change your name, by the way.” Apparently that was all the culinary talk Castor could handle; he opens his eyes to glare at Frau. “It’s irresponsible not to.”
“Why?”
“Keeping your name will increase the chances of running into someone you knew before you died.”
“Won’t happen.”
“However unlikely it may—”
“They’re dead. They’re all dead. Hunting air pirates was practically a sport toward the end, there.” Spectator sport. Gid coughing blood and rolling on top of Frau to hide him from the soldiers and laughing, the crazy jerk, for as long as his body would let him. Laughing to match the soldiers up above, who were laughing as they watched him die. All of them laughing, because an air pirate on land is a sad, funny object, no lie.
Oh, that shut Castor up. Frau’s gonna remember this: sympathy shorts out Castor’s brain. Or maybe it’s the awkwardness that does that. Either way.
Lab breaks the frozen silence by handing Frau another flower. A red one, this time.
Frau sighs and takes it. Soon he’ll have his own little bouquet. He suspects Lab is messing with him, but what the hell, right? If dead men don’t have time to smell the flowers, who does?
Of course, he never wanted to smell the flowers. All he wanted to do was fly, and this? This feels just like being grounded.
* * *
Memory’s a funny thing.
Teito sits in bed and traces the path of a new cut along his forearm under the bandages. He doesn’t think it’ll scar; it takes a lot for him to scar. He knows that, but he can’t remember when he first figured it out.
It makes no sense.
Kurena bandaged the cut up more gently than she needed to, and she touched him on the head as she left. He wanted to flinch away from her; he wanted to throw himself into her arms and cry until his voice gave out. He didn’t do either one. The first would have been the war slave thing to do. The second would’ve been thanks to the weak part of him that pretends this life is a nightmare, something he can wake up from.
But what does he think he’ll wake up to? This is all he remembers. Or it should be.
If he really didn’t remember anything else, he wouldn’t let people touch him. He wouldn’t understand it. He’s seen slaves like that—the ones who’ve never had anybody who loved them. They just don’t get it, they think kindness is a trick. It scares them.
Teito trusts kindness a lot more than he should.
Killing people wouldn’t bother him either, if this were all he knew. He’s seen slaves like that, too (and fought them and killed them). It’s just a job to them. They figure their own lives are worthless, and they don’t worry about the lives of strangers at all. They probably think of themselves as tools, and the word murderer would never occur to them.
Number 2741, Teito Klein. War slave. Weapon. Toy. He knows he’s less than human, that his life is only worth its usefulness to his masters. The casual disregard war slaves usually have for their own lives and everyone else’s makes total sense, if he thinks about it. Even so, for reasons buried in memories he can’t reach, he can’t shake his own stubborn belief that other people’s lives, at least, are special. Sacred.
Things would be a lot easier if he could shake that idea, if he could rip those memories out by the roots. He can’t, though, and it’ll end badly. Maybe he should work on caring about that—it would be a first step. To wherever it is I think I’m going.
Teito laughs, and it doesn’t sound right even to him. Not that he would know; he’s never heard anyone else laugh.
Except that he has. Must have.
He remembers his first kill, but not learning to read. He remembers being taught to use a knife, but not to use zaiphon. He remembers when they first locked him in this pretty cage, but he doesn’t remember being free.
“Teito Klein,” Cal says. Teito’s blind watchdog, come to give him something more immediate to worry about than his mental state. “It’s time.”
Teito stands up. It doesn’t matter what he remembers. If he plans to survive, he should be trying to forget.
“Kids shouldn’t brood,” Cal informs him. “Your face’ll stick like that.”
He shouldn’t brood, but murder’s fine. He lives in cage, but it looks like a mansion. The only thing that’s ever volunteered to help him was his own reflection in the mirror. And now a blind man is making fun of his face.
There’s no point glaring at Cal, so Teito saves it up for the guards who come to fetch him. They must be new, because they’re actually scared of him, freaked out by the glare, nervous about coming close enough to put on his collar and chain. They’re still thinking of him as human, not a slave. A dangerous person, not a weapon to be used.
They’ll get over it.
Cal thinks they’re hilarious, anyway; he’s standing in the doorway laughing at the whole scene, however much of it he can make out. It’s weird—Cal never laughs, and for him to be laughing now, when Teito most wanted to hear it…it’s creepily like he can read minds. Not that it really matters if he can. Even Teito can’t make sense of what goes on in his head, and if Cal’s trying to make sense of it—well. Teito wishes him the best of luck.
Laughter is nice, just like Teito thought (remembered?) it should be. A warm sound.
He climbs in the truck on his own, and the guards drive him away to kill people.
* * *
“That one’s got eyes like you,” the proprietress says, watching Teito bustle around and smoothly wait tables like he’s the one who grew up working in a bar.
“I hope you mean attractive,” Frau replies, hoping, in fact, that she’ll drop the subject. “Compelling. Mysterious. Alluringly—”
“Broken,” she declares with her peculiar brand of harsh, seen-it-all sympathy. “He looks like someone scraped his soul out, stomped on it with hob-nailed boots, and then shoved it back in without checking to see if it’d fit.” She pats Frau on the cheek hard enough to leave a red mark, if he had warm enough blood for that. “Just like you.”
Frau grabs her hand and kisses it. She pulls away, rolls her eyes, and marches off. After all, she has a business to run.
Times like this, even now, Frau feels Magdalene’s absence like a hole in his chest. It makes it somehow worse to know that even if she weren’t dead, Frau would be dead to her; they wouldn’t be allowed to see each other. Sorry position to be in, this Ghost job.
And as if his woes weren’t enough on their own, Frau’s spent the last several months watching Teito remember everyone he’s loved and lost. It’s not the fun kind of masochism—empathy is annoyingly like the real thing. The sudden shock, then fierce denial until the ache fades to something bearable. Frau wishes he could tell Teito it gets better with time.
It never gets better, just less immediate. You get used to it; you walk bent under the pain until it warps you, until it’s part of you, until you’ve forgotten how life felt without it. Teito already knows that, so Frau has nothing to add. They’ve walked a very similar road, the two of them. Teito just felt compelled to walk it faster.
Precocious brat.
“She’s right, you know,” says Marie, drifting up behind him as he wipes down the counter, resting her chin on his shoulder and gazing at Teito over it. “He is like you.”
“He’s really not,” Frau murmurs low so the customers won’t hear, testing out sincerity, as he occasionally feels moved to do. “He’s…a beautiful soul. Untainted.”
Marie hides her face against his shoulder blade and laughs at him. At length. Frau didn’t see that coming, and he is, he thinks, deeply wounded.
“Yes, you’re such a terrible person,” she manages eventually, moving to his side to meet his eyes and smile, sweetly mocking. She was a lovely woman: elegant, graceful, kind, bright with the joy of life. Far too lovely.
Teito and Marie are both object lessons on the dangers of being too good for this world. Frau, not so much.
“I know what I am.”
“Mm. You’re the kind of guy…well. I think I know better than you. Everybody probably knows better than you.”
“I always appreciate a vote of confidence from a beautiful lady,” Frau drawls, reaching for vegetables to chop, for something to look busy with. As far as the customers are concerned, he’s standing around muttering to himself, and it’s starting to earn him funny looks.
Not that a guy muttering to himself while holding a knife is an improvement, exactly, but at least people will give him a wider berth.
“Capella’s a sweet boy,” Marie comments, mercifully giving up on convincing Frau of his worthiness. “Very well-behaved.”
“He is,” Frau agrees. “Hard-working. Polite. Obedient. I definitely recommend child slavery as a teaching tool—great for discipline.” Good manners aren’t the surprising thing about Capella. The surprise is that he’s managed to hold on to his naïve, unquestioning belief that pain doesn’t last forever, that things are bound to improve. Unusual for a slave. If Teito ever had that kind of faith, it burned out years ago.
Frau doesn’t know what innocence is—he’s not sure he’s ever seen such a thing, and he’s not sure he’d approve of it if he did see it. But he hates watching kids outgrow that easy hope.
“Oh, so that’s how you ended up with him.” Frau isn’t comfortable with the charmed and enlightened look on Marie’s face. “What about the other one? The little you?”
“He’s not a little me,” Frau insists again. That’s an insult to Teito. “But he was a war slave.” Among other things.
For the first time, Marie sounds surprised—shocked, even. “Oh. Is that where those eyes came from?”
Frau keeps his own eyes studiously on vegetables. “No,” he says. “Not completely.”
Silence, then, quietly, “There are worse things than being a war slave?”
“There’s always a lower place. And he’s taking a tour of them, the stupid brat.”
Marie puts a comforting hand on Frau’s arm. For some reason, more people have tried to comfort him since he met Teito Klein than…probably in his life before that. Frankly, he could do without it. Especially since Teito’s brand of comfort involves bruises for everyone.
“I’m glad he’s got you with him,” says Marie.
Do not let go of Teito’s hand, said Lab.
Frau thinks they’re both crazy, but there’s no point in arguing with moon children. “I hope you’re right,” he offers. And for what it’s worth, that’s true—he wants to save Teito the way he once wanted to fly. Too bad he’s not the saving kind.
Then again, it’s true that Frau is stubborn as hell and utterly incapable of recognizing a lost cause. If that’s what’s needed, he’s got it covered. He’ll do his dubious best, regardless.
He did make Teito a promise, after all.
* * *
They’re actually catching a break for once—enjoying a bizarrely peaceful flight among scenic floating islands, no one chasing them, not chasing anyone, no threats on the horizon. Which is almost a shame, because it’s giving Teito time to think, and time to think has never been good for him. The longer he thinks, the more it seems like he’s going crazy and the world is ending. Possibly because he is going crazy and the world is ending, but there’s no point panicking about it. Won’t do any good. And freaking out about Hakuren and Ouka won’t help anything either.
In a poorly-chosen bid to distract himself, Teito decides to think about Capella instead. How he’s doing. If he’s eating enough. Whether those people have bought him more warm clothes.
He shakes his head impatiently. Capella’s fine. It’s not like they abandoned him in the wilderness; they left him in a comfortable house with his mother, who actually turned out to be a good person. He’s fine, he’ll be fine. Better off than he was with Teito and Frau, that’s for sure. Teito’s just being selfish. And ridiculous.
“Crying again, kid?”
“Shut up, I am not crying. And why don’t you ever cry? Are your tear ducts frozen or something?”
“You’re funny, brat.”
“Ow! Bastard!”
“Hey, knock it off, I’m flying—you want to crash?”
They probably wouldn’t die even if they did crash, Teito thinks, because no way would they be lucky enough to die such clean, simple deaths. This is another reason it’s good Capella isn’t with them anymore: there’s no reason to believe he shares their freaky, backhanded luck.
It’s a weird feeling, but Teito’s pretty sure he and Frau are only going to die if they kill each other. Weird not least because it’s comforting. Survivors would be the nicest word for them—they struggle and snarl and refuse to step down, even when going on seems impossible. Even when it would be smarter to give up.
Destroy the enemy. No mercy. Never stop.
You can fight like hell to stay in the world, and you can even win, but you can’t help changing. You might manage to hold on to your light and your purpose, but you never go back to what you were before. Everything that’s broken scars.
“If you don’t quit moping, I will chuck you off this hawkzile.”
“Shut up,” Teito mutters, burying his face against Frau’s back, which is exactly the same temperature as the air around. Too cold for any living thing. It should be creepy, but somehow it’s not. It’s just the way Frau is. This is as close as he can be to alive; it’s close enough.
Teito smoothes a hand across Frau’s room-temperature back—for no reason, really. Just to check that he’s real. Frau doesn’t react, but why would he? He puts up with a lot of weirdness from Teito. This is really the least of it.
“I’m not moping,” Teito feels the need to clarify.
Frau snorts, and Teito punches him in his stupid, cold back. “Yeah, like you never mope. Oh no, help, I’m gonna eat you—”
“Too soon to joke about that, brat.”
“Thought I’d better joke about it before it was too late.”
Frau doesn’t answer, but Teito can feel him laughing, and he lets himself smile, since Frau can’t see him. Man has a weird sense of humor. “We’ll be fine.”
“Oh, will we? Your optimism is stupid, kid, but I have to admit it’s sort of cute.”
The truth is, they take turns being optimistic; it just happens to be Teito’s week for it. Although it should really be the adult’s job to pretend things are fine when they’re not. “You suck at being the grown-up, Frau. We have to be fine.”
“And why is that, tiny ball of sunshine?”
“I’m not tiny. And I’m pretty sure we’ve tried everything else, so fine is all that’s left.”
Frau stops breathing. He stops breathing for way too long; if he were alive, he’d have passed out. He must just breathe out of habit, normally. “Doesn’t work like that,” he says ages later.
He really does suck at being the grown-up.
“It’s worked like that for me,” Teito insists.
“You’re young,” Frau informs him, which is funny, given the whole failing-at-adulthood thing.
Teito huffs indignantly and leans against Frau’s back again, dropping the argument. It’s not that he’s beaten, it’s just that Frau is a massive brat and may actually try to push him off the hawkzile if he keeps it up. Teito doesn’t have the energy for that right now.
They fly in silence, Frau’s body shielding Teito from the wind, Mikage keeping his shoulder warm, and the land slipping away below them. Teito feels steadily less like moping and more like he’ll be able to hold up his end on optimism duty. After all, there’s a lot going for them at the moment. They’re pleasantly off the map. They have an important job to do and they’re getting it done. They’ve met a lot of amazing people. And yeah, an insane guy is threatening to eat their souls, but it’s not like he’s bound to win. Teito and Frau are pretty scary in a fight, especially together. Things are a long way from hopeless.
And Teito has never felt this free.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-03 09:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-03 05:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-04 02:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-04 07:41 am (UTC)Haha, I'm having this whole downward spiral into more and more obscure fandoms...it's okay, though. Soon I'll write something for BBC Sherlock, and that's such a huge fandom it terrifies me. XD
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-04 12:22 pm (UTC)Ah, I know that one! I look forward to reading it. ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2011-09-25 02:11 pm (UTC)I'd love to see more Hakuren, but well written Frau and Teito are just as lovely.
Silence, then, quietly, “There are worse things than being a war slave?”
“There’s always a lower place. And he’s taking a tour of them, the stupid brat.”
True angsty sentiment beautifully said in Frau style.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-09-27 05:36 pm (UTC)I'm glad you liked this one, though! :D Once I catch up on the last couple of chapters, I'll hopefully post a fic about, um. Hakuren's dad. idek, my brain.
Thank you so much for the comment!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-23 11:31 pm (UTC)And this is just perfect. It's so true, they're like bratty brothers, and the size totally doesn't matter. They're practically /twins/ as soon as they have someone else to beat up. Some part of me is waiting for the day Teito decides to take up smoking and Frau freaks right out and makes totally failure-prone attempts at being a better role model. Which will, of course, make Teito laugh a lot.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-24 07:45 pm (UTC)They are hilariously similar, right down to the way they both think they're such bad people, but each thinks the other one is amazing. ♥
Oh God, I almost hope Teito DOES take up smoking. Except that if he did, Hakuren might feel compelled to kill Frau, which would be awkward. XD
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Date: 2013-06-17 05:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-22 12:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-15 12:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-26 05:46 am (UTC)And I agree, there's not as much 07-Ghost fic as I feel there should be. But nekokoban and Branch both have a few fics on AO3 that are very good. Recommend! :D
(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-27 02:03 pm (UTC)