Chapter Text
Ban was, in all truthfulness, not the man he wished to be. However, no matter how hard he tried, he could not bring himself to change.
They, whoever they are, say that ten years changes a man.
They were wrong. Ten years to a human, was, to Ban, one infinite speck of life, and shitty life at that. No, it would take more than ten years to change Undead Ban, the fox sin of greed.
He kept his quirks. He kept his habit of clinging to the nearest object in his sleep. He remained the drunkard who killed himself with alcohol poisoning every week. He still cooked amazingly well. He still loved the pain, (though none was as good as the captain could deal). And after all that, he would go to bed every night and cry. Cry, because he was still the mourning lover that he had been, all those years ago.
Out of the ten years before he was reunited with his captain for the first time;
Three years he spent enjoying life to the best of his capabilities. Those didn’t change him.
One he spent lazing about and trying to find something interesting. That didn’t change him in the slightest.
The last year he was a free man, he spent fighting. He fought in a foreign land, much north of Liones, where conflict was a common thing. He knew nobody would find him, but he knew it wouldn’t change him either.
So he left.
He got caught just to feel the pain. It was amazing to feel the metal spikes refuse his limbs’ healing. Amazing to feel Jude the Holy Knight, member of the Weird Fangs, as he was called, torture him to the best of his ability. It was amazing, yes amazing, to feel he was alive. ‘Undead Ban’ was never the right name for him when he resided in Baste.
Five years of pain.
Then the captain came. Ten years had passed. Ten years could change a man. Any man, that was but Ban.
However, when he broke out and found himself facing the captain, he hadn’t aged a day.
“Ban!” he cried, and the immortal was alive again.
“Taichou!” cried Ban, tears in his eyes.
The captain hadn’t changed. Ban hadn’t changed. They checked. First they shot each other through the walls. Next, they arm wrestled. Then, in the midst of the dust where none could see, they hugged.
“You haven’t changed a bit.”
“I could say the same to you.”
No, ten years couldn’t change a man, but a hundred years could.
Then one hundred years came to pass, and they found themselves reunited.
Bandits raided what had once been Liones. Farmers fled to Camelot and other neighboring nations.
Ban, the Man of Many Names, took it upon himself to check it out. He led a shitty life and cared not if he were to find himself in another shitty situation.
Meliodas, though he then went by another name, was seeking ideas for things to do with his life.
The two crossed paths and beer was drank. Tears were shed and stories were exchanged.
“Hey taichou, did you ever end up marrying Elizabeth?”
“Yes. Ninety three years ago.”
“Sorry I couldn’t be there.”
“It’s okay.”
“Did you ever find what you were looking for?”
“No.”
“Still looking?”
“No.”
For they had changed, though only the slightest, over the course of one hundred years.
However, one thousand years couldn’t change them that much either.
They passed again, when Ban was an alchemist and Meliodas a wanted criminal again, 1000 years from when they first parted.
“Taicho.”
“Ban.”
So they drank, exchanged a few words, and parted ways, recent occurrences to painful to bear each other’s memories.
After all, one thousand years is nothing to an immortal and but a few years to a demon.
One million years didn’t change them either, except that they looked the same age.
This time they stayed with each other. They travelled and such, smiles on their faces at last. For Ban, the only wound that truly left a mark after one million years was given by Meliodas. For Meliodas, Ban was a face that never truly betrayed him, and was open about his intentions if he did.
They saw the world, then another, for science and magic had progressed as such. Then they sat together and talked of stories for several days.
It was only after eight long months, that something unusual occurred.