Work Text:
He can’t get rid of the shaking, today. So he of course hides from everyone.
He stares at his coin - it got lost in the nightmare.
Tsumuri finds him. She stands beside him and doesn’t say anything.
“I have… something to tell you,” she says. Ace doesn’t have it in him to respond. “I knew about… the ones who took you.”
Still looking down and away, he turns to her. She’s wringing her hands on each other. He wants to grab her hands and still them, put her at rest and ease.
“I know,” he says instead.
“…Ah,” Tsumuri says.
She’s guilty. Ace can taste it in her voice, in her anxious movements and slumped-yet-stock-straight posture.
Ace feels the same, of course. He didn’t know enough to help her. Even if he knew she had a secret. Even if he knew she had been moving scared.
He perhaps should have investigated more, instead of waiting for Tsumuri to ask.
“…Samas’ game left evidence,” Tsumuri says. “The ones who found it decided I was the easier target.”
“Clearly, they were wrong,” Ace teases. It explains a lot. In fact, he’s even proud. A light grin crosses his face.
“…I had help.”
“And you chose well,” Ace says. Tsumuri’s frown deepens.
“I thought they were gone,” she says.
“I know,” Ace says.
He can’t absolve her guilt while he’s still healing, still getting back ahold of reality.
Only mostly sure when it all changed.
“…What do we do now?” Tsumuri asks.
“We end them properly,” Ace says.
“…And how do you plan on doing that?”
“I’m not sure,” Ace says. “They ran before we could end it.”
He doesn’t know if these people can be saved, corrupted as they are by the stains of the DGP. Or if the heart they tore from his chest is willing to try.
He looks out at the world. His world, again.
“But if you handled them once,” he says. “I think what we can do together.”
Ace heals quickly. So does Michinaga, to the point where he sometimes forgets how normal humans work, but Ace does even more so.
When two weeks go by, and he’s still hiding bandages under his usual old man clothes, Michinaga’s had enough.
He corners Ace in the bathroom, and Ace turns, steam and shower water glistening on his…
No longer unfairly pristine skin.
“It should fade, now,” Ace says. Michinaga jolts and looks away. “I am a god.”
“But it isn’t,” Michinaga says. Ace doesn’t reply because he doesn’t need to. He turns the water off and grabs his towel. Despite his best efforts, Michinaga can see his winces as he dries himself, fresh skin tensing and taut.
Michinaga watches. He knows Ace is grinning as he dresses. Michinaga lets him get a kick out of his worry, the asshole.
Ace walks closer, shirt undone.
“And what about you?” He asks. He lifts up Michinaga’s hand, running lines down the thin scars the powers of a Jyamato left. They can’t be seen unless you know how to look. “You’ve got an unnatural advantage of your own, right?”
“I do,” Michinaga says. “Do you?”
“Always have,” Ace says. “I… will be alright, Buffa.”
“Probably,” Michinaga says. “But you’re still bleached.”
“…Ah,” Ace says. “I suppose so.”
“He’s probably just lost a bit of control.”
Michinaga doesn’t know when he started turning to his so called stepmother for answers. Natsumi’s sheer knowledge and willingness to give out answers her husbands were cagey about probably helped.
“Yeah?” Michinaga asks.
Natsumi nods. She takes a sip of her tea and makes a sour face.
“Tsukasa and I,” she says. “You too… we’re made of stories. That’s probably how Zombie responded to you. You made it real. My siblings are made of cycles. Geats is wishes. And you’re the Riders he chose. That probably just means he needs time, and he needs you.”
That makes sense. Ace has certainly been equal parts clingier and more prone to run, since he got back.
“Is this normal?” Michinaga asks.
“Sometimes,” Natsumi says. “Trouble loops around every few years. Sometimes it takes more than it has any right to. That’s the nature of epilogues.”
“It’s stupid,” Michinaga says. “Stupid and unfair.
Natsumi looks down.
“It is.”