Dal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dalicious) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
speaksoftlylove2015-05-14 04:45 am
dalicious) wrote in speaksoftlylove2015-05-14 04:45 am
FIC – Predetermined Roles
death parade/original
ginti + arche; loose canons cr/au
850 words
for alex
The first time it had happened, it was completely unexpected – or, well, if she was going to be precise (and precise wording was important with him, she'd learned that early on) it'd been something he'd explained would happen one day, but it wasn't something she'd expected then, or so suddenly. She'd wandered over to him and she'd mentioned something in passing – something easy, something irrelevant about how Agent Specs probably would have approved of one thing or another in that dry way that he has – and it had been met with silence and a strange look from Ginti before he'd looked away and gone back to fussing with the alcohol stocked behind the bar, arranging it in ways that only he understood before their "guests" arrived for the day, and the realization had hit Arche with so much force that for a brief moment she understood what it must have felt like for that princess falling from twenty-five mattresses up.
But while the realization had hit hard, the determination hit harder, and she'd thought she understood what Ginti felt like too, that first night after she'd started remembering who she'd been. He'd been angry then, but it hadn't been at her (he was surprisingly never angry with her, even if he was angry a lot of the time), and he'd made it very clear that a reset like that was never going to happen again, and she'd gone and put in a request with Nona for something from the living world, and she had been a little off-put but not disheartened at the look in the female arbiter's eyes while she considered it.
In the end Nona had allowed it, and Arche had smiled, because Ginti had told her that Nona would like her and as usual, Ginti wasn't wrong – after all, Nona didn't get things from the living world for just anyone.
And so it follows that every few weeks it becomes a game; sometimes Ginti keeps the memories longer than usual, other times they're gone in a surprisingly brief period of time, and after a while it occurs to her to wonder if that has to do with the sort of people he judges, if it's worse to have some people in his head than others. She's gentler with him on those instances that sees them erased quickly, though he doesn't seem to see any reason why and he's a little irritated and distrustful when that happens; either way, though, late at night they sit on the couch and he flips through the book Nona had given her and they play a game, and even it's not one with souls on the line it's one that he seems to like regardless.
"So, who's that?" he starts once he's found one, whether because he finds them interesting or just because that's where the book fell open that day.
"Agent Shutter."
"...Photographer?"
"Yes."
He falls quiet for a moment. "...Gonna guess I was okay with her."
"I think you said you were 'used to her face.'"
That just gets a quiet, vaguely amused noise out of him before he turns the page. "This guy?"
"Agent Wings."
"...He's a kid. What the hell's the bird, did he have a pet falcon?"
"It's a hawk. He was the hawk."
And then there's silence, and if Ginti tilts his head any more he's likely going to fall over, and after a while Arche prompts him and tries to get him to move on from it. Fortunately, there's something good to fall back on, with regards to adventures with Wings.
"You fought a dragon with him once."
"What, seriously?"
"Yes."
"...Was it at least an impressive dragon?"
"Oh, yes," she says, though she isn't bothering to hide her smile. "You were very awesome."
"You're messing with me."
"A little. You really were pretty awesome, though."
Ginti goes quiet again after that. "...So...I probably liked the guy if we were fighting dragons."
"You fought a lot with him at the outset, but I think you became friends."
They go through everyone like that, working through friendships that he doesn't remember forming with people he doesn't know, and he's so interested in the process that it's difficult to find it sad. It's just a part of living with him, and he certainly seems to just treat it as business as usual, and after a while he stops shifting around so much when she runs her fingers through his hair as they play, and even if he's obviously inhuman and she knows what arbiters are – what she technically is, now – and she knows the rules he's bound by, she can't shake the thought that he feels entirely too real for all of that.
In the end, that's why the people and the adventures aren't all that she reminds him of; sometimes they talk about characters and stories and the roles that everyone is expected to fill. And even if he's not caught up in the politics of it like Nona and Oculus and Decim, he still listens to her talk about how sometimes roles are predetermined but can contain ambiguities, they can be modified and added to and changed, and it's enough for her when he smirks in that overly confident way he has and agrees.
ginti + arche; loose canons cr/au
850 words
for alex
The first time it had happened, it was completely unexpected – or, well, if she was going to be precise (and precise wording was important with him, she'd learned that early on) it'd been something he'd explained would happen one day, but it wasn't something she'd expected then, or so suddenly. She'd wandered over to him and she'd mentioned something in passing – something easy, something irrelevant about how Agent Specs probably would have approved of one thing or another in that dry way that he has – and it had been met with silence and a strange look from Ginti before he'd looked away and gone back to fussing with the alcohol stocked behind the bar, arranging it in ways that only he understood before their "guests" arrived for the day, and the realization had hit Arche with so much force that for a brief moment she understood what it must have felt like for that princess falling from twenty-five mattresses up.
But while the realization had hit hard, the determination hit harder, and she'd thought she understood what Ginti felt like too, that first night after she'd started remembering who she'd been. He'd been angry then, but it hadn't been at her (he was surprisingly never angry with her, even if he was angry a lot of the time), and he'd made it very clear that a reset like that was never going to happen again, and she'd gone and put in a request with Nona for something from the living world, and she had been a little off-put but not disheartened at the look in the female arbiter's eyes while she considered it.
In the end Nona had allowed it, and Arche had smiled, because Ginti had told her that Nona would like her and as usual, Ginti wasn't wrong – after all, Nona didn't get things from the living world for just anyone.
And so it follows that every few weeks it becomes a game; sometimes Ginti keeps the memories longer than usual, other times they're gone in a surprisingly brief period of time, and after a while it occurs to her to wonder if that has to do with the sort of people he judges, if it's worse to have some people in his head than others. She's gentler with him on those instances that sees them erased quickly, though he doesn't seem to see any reason why and he's a little irritated and distrustful when that happens; either way, though, late at night they sit on the couch and he flips through the book Nona had given her and they play a game, and even it's not one with souls on the line it's one that he seems to like regardless.
"So, who's that?" he starts once he's found one, whether because he finds them interesting or just because that's where the book fell open that day.
"Agent Shutter."
"...Photographer?"
"Yes."
He falls quiet for a moment. "...Gonna guess I was okay with her."
"I think you said you were 'used to her face.'"
That just gets a quiet, vaguely amused noise out of him before he turns the page. "This guy?"
"Agent Wings."
"...He's a kid. What the hell's the bird, did he have a pet falcon?"
"It's a hawk. He was the hawk."
And then there's silence, and if Ginti tilts his head any more he's likely going to fall over, and after a while Arche prompts him and tries to get him to move on from it. Fortunately, there's something good to fall back on, with regards to adventures with Wings.
"You fought a dragon with him once."
"What, seriously?"
"Yes."
"...Was it at least an impressive dragon?"
"Oh, yes," she says, though she isn't bothering to hide her smile. "You were very awesome."
"You're messing with me."
"A little. You really were pretty awesome, though."
Ginti goes quiet again after that. "...So...I probably liked the guy if we were fighting dragons."
"You fought a lot with him at the outset, but I think you became friends."
They go through everyone like that, working through friendships that he doesn't remember forming with people he doesn't know, and he's so interested in the process that it's difficult to find it sad. It's just a part of living with him, and he certainly seems to just treat it as business as usual, and after a while he stops shifting around so much when she runs her fingers through his hair as they play, and even if he's obviously inhuman and she knows what arbiters are – what she technically is, now – and she knows the rules he's bound by, she can't shake the thought that he feels entirely too real for all of that.
In the end, that's why the people and the adventures aren't all that she reminds him of; sometimes they talk about characters and stories and the roles that everyone is expected to fill. And even if he's not caught up in the politics of it like Nona and Oculus and Decim, he still listens to her talk about how sometimes roles are predetermined but can contain ambiguities, they can be modified and added to and changed, and it's enough for her when he smirks in that overly confident way he has and agrees.