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The restoration of Flanoir is slow going, certainly not helped along by the weather. Though the people of the city are used to going about their lives in the cold and snow, the righting of the mana balance brings on the worst blizzard the city has seen in half a century, stalling the rebuilding in the process. Rumors of unrest trickle off the continent and across the ocean - resentment, after all, is at a high - and Sheena sets out to get a feel for the mood.
The last time she’d been here, the buildings had been scorched and wounded, bodies bleeding out in the streets. Not as bad as Luin or Palmacosta by a long shot, but enough to make her stomach feel queasy. Now, the bodies are gone, the blood and broken glass cleaned up, but signs of Decus’s rampage still make their presence felt. Sheena trudges through the streets with her cloak drawn tight and her scarf pressed over her mouth and nose, heading to meet her contact. Eyes peer mistrustfully out at her from windows and beneath overhangs, but she’s not particularly concerned. Mizuho’s been careful to maintain a neutrally friendly presence in the city to keep things smooth with the doctor, and these looks are wounded, not hostile.
After the meeting she wanders the streets, thinking to gather her own intel to make a formal report to Meltokio; with the weather disrupting channels of communication, Mizuho’s network is invaluable. The streets feel like a tunnel, the buildings dark masses rising up close on either side, slate-grey sky pressing down from above. It’s silent. Completely and utterly. That presses in on her too.
Behind her, someone whistles. “Fancy seeing you here.”
Sheena whips around to find Zelos standing behind her, hands shoved in his pockets and a look of irony on his face. “Zelos!”
“Sheena,” he answers, mimicking her tone of surprise. “Yo.”
“What are you doing here?” She doesn’t mean for it to sound accusatory, but he took her off-guard and off-balance. As usual.
“Orders from the king.” His handsome face looks bored as he explains. “Bringing supplies and goodwill from the crown, though for some strange reason the folks here are happier about the supplies. The way he figures, I’m the one person from Lloyd’s pals least likely to get run down by a mob in the streets.”
“Oh.” It’s true. Zelos’s popularity is almost universal in Tethe’alla, whose people adore him. Rather like Colette in Sylvarant. But - and it would be like pulling teeth to admit this aloud - it’s good to see him. After the incident with the rebels, they’d gone their separate ways, only keeping in contact with the occasional professional correspondence. He looks good - healthy - if unusually subdued. “How have you been?”
His shoulders roll in an exaggerated shrug. “Eh, y’know. More of the same. Can’t say I’m too happy to’ve been sent to this hole, but what can you do? The magnificent Zelos is much in demand.”
“And your sister? How’s she holding up?”
No, she doesn’t think she’s imagining the way his expression flickers, hinting at a buried but unrestrainable happiness. “She’s doing good too.”
“Good,” Sheena says, almost too forced. “Good.”
“I saw your pal Orochi the other day. Cheerful guy. If looks could kill, his would’ve skinned me alive.”
“He’s just doing his job.” She feels the need to defend her longest friend. While there are those in Mizuho who still resent Sheena’s growing influence, Orochi has been a constant, her second and her most loyal supporter. “After everything that happened with Kuchinawa, he feels honor-bound to watch my back.”
The snow swirls down around them, speckling Zelos's vibrant red hair with fine flecks of white powder. He chuckles, managing to make the sound come out patronizing. "Oh brother. Your chest really is the only thing that's well-endowed, isn't it? For the leader of a gang of spies, you're not all that perceptive."
Color flares in her cheeks and she tightens her fists, fighting the impulse to drive one into his arrogantly pretty face. The comment infuriates her so much, she can barely control her voice. "What is that supposed to mean?!"
His eyes met hers, holding her gaze, and despite the condescending smirk twisting his lips, his eyes look strangely intense. Maybe it's because she's seeing so much red right now, but she's never noticed before how bright and vivid a blue they are. They have a quality she noticed in Colette's eyes way back when she was following Sylvarant's Chosen to assassinate her - a quiet, indefinable depth, like looking into deep water and not being able to see the bottom.
Then he laughs and all she can notice is what a complete and total jerk Tethe'alla's is. She huffs and, giving in to impulse, scoops up a handful of cold, wet snow and flings it right in his stupid face. The laugh turns into a splutter, which makes Sheena grin, and she follows her attack up with another well-placed snowball that draws an indignant shout. Then something snaps and soon they're both lobbing snow at each other and laughing like a pair of children. It's uncharacteristic for the both of them, and with a start Sheena realizes she rarely hears Zelos laugh quite like this: lightly and freely like the snow drifting in the air.
She makes to pivot and her foot slips mid-turn on a slick patch of ice hidden beneath the snow. Suddenly Zelos is there, his hands grasping her elbows. "Whoa, there," he says, that light thing still in his voice. "Can't have you cracking your head open on the ice. That doc of yours might be feeling too miserly to stitch you back up."
His grip is strong, steady, his presence there solid and warm. She can see his breath misting on the air, that part of him still human, and then it seems the most natural thing in the world to press her mouth to his.
He goes still against her, a living statue, so that for a moment she thinks stupid, you stupid idiot before he's kissing her back. It's slow and hesitant, two words Sheena never thought she'd associate with Zelos, but there they are, standing in the snow with his hands sliding up her shoulders and their lips pressing tentatively against each other's. Her hands feel too heavy and clumsy hanging at her sides, so she raises them, and slips her fingers between the low-hanging curls at his waist. The world spins silent and cold around them, but against her Zelos is warm.
Only moments pass, though it feels like hours. Finally they break apart with a soft sigh. Sheena blinks, her head too light. There's a look on Zelos's face she can't quite read—dizzy with shock, almost, like a deer caught in the sights of a crossbow. Then his expression shutters, closes, and he moves back a step.
"Um," Sheena says, her breath puffing white on the cold air, and then: "Sorry."
She turns and beats a hasty retreat.
Back at the inn she shuts herself in her room, falls on the bed, and buries her face in a pillow. It smells like laundry soap and starch, simple, common hotel smells. It’s cold in here, and she should get up and build a fire in the stove in the corner, but she can’t be bothered to move.
Why in the names of all the spirits great and small did she go and kiss Zelos?
The memory of it makes her face burn. Phantom pressure lingers on her arm where his hand rested, and with her eyes closed she listens to her breathing and hears the sound of his. She can’t put rhyme or reason to her actions, only that for some reason, it seemed right. It still feels right, even though he’d looked at her like she was a monster out of Niflheim that grew three heads. Her skin feels strange and numb, though not from the cold.
Curled up like that, with her arms clinging to the pillow, she falls into a doze, half-aware of the grey light in the room darkening as outside the sun sets behind the blanket of clouds. A knock on the door draws her out of her stupor, and she stumbles up and across the room to wrench the door open.
Zelos stands before her in the hallway.
“Hey,” he says, and her cheeks burn. “Mind if I come in?”
Mute, Sheena steps aside, and Zelos closes the door behind him. She feels the heat of him as he passes, and she shivers. The room feels small and drab with him at its center, and Sheena feels small and drab along with it.
“I’m sorry,” Sheena blurts out before he can speak. His face is inscrutable. There’s a sick feeling in her gut telling her what he’s come here to say. “I didn’t mean—I mean, I didn’t think...” She huffs in frustration and stamps her foot. “Dammit, if you’re going to laugh at me, just laugh at me!”
“I’m not going to laugh at you.”
“Fine, I get it, okay? I’m an idiot, and a klutz, and you’re used to sophisticated dolls falling at your feet so this all must seem like a big joke to you,” she continues, not even hearing him.
“Sheena.”
“But you know, this—this isn’t easy for me, okay? I don’t just go around kissing random guys! It’s supposed to mean something, dammit. I’m not just a joke you can have at your expense! And you’re just standing there not even saying anything!”
“Sheena. I’ve been trying to say something, but you won’t let me get a word in.”
“Oh.” Her mouth snaps shut. His humor at her expense is almost too much to bear.
He half-smiles before his expression shifts into something more somber, and he looks away. One of his hands reaches up to drag through his hair, and Sheena flushes to remember how those thick curls felt between her gloved fingers, and she wonders how they might feel against naked ones.
“Man,” he mutters. “I came here to let you down easy.”
Her heart drops into her stomach. Let you down easy. That’s almost worse than being laughed at. As if she’s to be pitied for her feelings—there, she admits it—her feelings for Zelos Wilder.
“Fine.” She forces the words out, feeling about a million miles away. She can’t look him in the face either. Her eyes sting. “You don’t have to say anything else, okay? I get it.”
“Sheena...” From the corner of her eye she sees his hand tug through those rich curls again, and he sighs. “Ahhhh, dammit.”
He’s like the wind, quick and intangible, and just that suddenly he’s there with his hands cupping her face, and he’s kissing her, he’s kissing her, his mouth hot and insistent. A tremor of some restrained force courses through him. Sheena follows her impulse and knots her hands into his hair, clinging fast. As if she’s afraid he’ll slip through her fingers.
His thumbs brush strokes along her jaw, his fingers pressing against her skull. She squeezes her eyes shut and sighs into his mouth. He traces long fingers down her neck, over her shoulders, down her back until he pulls her fully against him. He drags her lip between his teeth and makes her groan.
If the room had been cold before, it’s far from that now. They’re absorbed in each other absolutely, their whole attention committed to this thing unfurling fast and wild and new between them. Her skin sparks under his his hands, each touch causing her to arch against him in pursuit of more.
They don’t realize they’ve shifted towards the bed until it’s there to catch them off balance, sending them tumbling onto it in a heap, still entangled with each other. Sheena lets out a squawk as she receives the full brunt of Zelos’s weight, and he laughs that loud, uncommonly carefree laugh she’d heard from him earlier. He rolls off of her and settles on his side beside her, one hand propping up his head and the other teasing patterns along her collarbone.
“You weigh about nine hundred pounds,” she accuses, swatting at his chest. He catches her hand and presses a kiss to the inside of her wrist. Her heart thuds in her chest. “And you’re an ass. ‘Let me down easy’? What the hell was that?”
“That.” He can’t quite meet her eyes, so she yanks on his hair until he looks her sheepishly in the face. “I figured it’d be better off if I did. For you, I mean.”
Sheena yanks on his hair again. “Here’s a wild idea: how about you ask me what I want instead of trying to make decisions for me? I’m a grown woman, Zelos.”
“I noticed,” Zelos drawls, and earns another yank. “Ow! Geez.” He rolls his eyes, and in a voice like pulling teeth admits, “You have no idea what a tremendous wreck I am.”
Whatever admission Sheena had expected, that certainly wasn’t it. But she only sighs. “Don’t act like you’re the only one with baggage.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know,” she says gently, more gently than she realized she could be. “But I’m here, aren’t I?” It’s the closest to a confession she can manage, but he understands what’s beneath those words. He brushes the tips of his fingers against her cheek and looks momentarily at a loss for words. “Yeah,” he concedes. “You’re here.”