by Kira
Ginji did not often make unusual requests of him. In the beginning, it had been strange, having someone depend on him the way Ginji did and ask the things he did. It was almost like having a ten-year-old tagging along at his heels constantly, pointing out everything of remote interest and demanding an explanation about its purpose or what the letters scrawled across it meant, and any of the other of the numerous things Ban found Ginji turning to him for answers to. It was still like having a ten-year-old trailing him around like some lost puppy.
He learned to grow accustomed to it, answering at times even the most mundane of questions, despite his exhaustion and intense desire to tell his partner to shut up and go to sleep. The one time he had done that -- and it was perfectly justifiable to snap, their latest job had taken a number on him, and having to use his Jyagan had not helped matters -- Ginji had dared not ask him a single question for the next three weeks. He started to miss being able to explain things to him.
Still... he wasn't sure asking for a story really constituted as a question.
"Why do you want me to tell you a story?"
Ginji was curled up in the backseat of the bug, using Ban's bunched up dress shirt for a pillow. It was a warm summer night and he preferred to be without it. Lacking any sense of the word modesty, he would have been content to sleep in his boxers alone, but that might get them caught for indecent exposure. He already had enough parking tickets piling up in the glove compartment to add another ridiculous charge to the growing record.
"'cause," Ginji answered. "I can't sleep."
Ban damn well could have slept and had been about to drift away when Ginji had startled him awake with the soft-spoken request. He restrained the urge to growl.
"Close your eyes and count sheep."
"That never works."
"Give it a shot."
"I did, but it didn't work."
Ban sighed. Probably the nightmares again -- Ginji had been having them more and more often lately, memories of his childhood in Mugenjou that would wake him in the dead of night. He never troubled Ban with them, but sometimes Ban would wake up and find the passenger side of the Bug empty, and after a brief moment of disconcertion and -- maybe -- panic, he would always look out the window to find Ginji staring aimlessly into the sky.
The vacant gaze always bothered him.
"All right. One story, but then I'm going to sleep even if you're not."
"Okay," Ginji agreed readily, and Ban could practically feel his smile. "Deal."
Ban had read more than enough books in his life to know how a decent story worked... it was just forming one of his own that was the problem. Well, he could probably steal one from those old fairy tale books he had read when he was a kid. Ginji wouldn't know the difference.
"It was love at first sight," he began to recite.
"That's not how a story starts, Ban-chan," Ginji said indignantly.
"Says who?"
"Everybody."
"Well, maybe I want to start from the middle."
"That's cheating! You're supposed to start with 'once upon a time' or something like that."
Damn. So much for skipping the bulk of the story and getting to sleep.
"Okay. Once upon a time, there was a girl named Buttercup..."
"I know this one," Ginji interrupted. "You took me to the movie, remember? And then you read the book to me."
There went another brilliant scheme.
"All right--hey, wait, you didn't tell anybody I read that to you, did you?"
"Umm... why?"
Why? As if he had to ask. Ban could just imagine the expression on the monkey trainer's face when Ginji informed him that his tough, all-cool-exterior partner read fairy tales. Not only did he read fairy tales, but he read them aloud -- even provided voices for all of the characters to keep Ginji entertained.
"Just wondering."
"Nope, didn't tell anybody," Ginji said, and the answer was too quick for Ban's comfort. Well, maybe if he was lucky, it was only that thread spool Ginji had told, and he was getting used to the strange, knowing smirks the string boy tossed his way, anyway. (Strange, the smirks had only started when Kazuki had found he and Ginji once sprawled on the floor of Madoka-chan's den; the rain had flooded them out of the bug for the night and she had been kind enough to let them bum a room. Somehow Ginji had ended up sleeping more on him than the floor, and really, it wasn't his fault that he had an arm around Ginji's waist. It was more comfortable there.)
"Are you gonna tell me a story?" Ginji demanded.
"I'm thinking, I'm thinking." It was hard coming up with something original. He had already told Ginji most of the good ones. And by told, he of course meant he had either forced a book into the blonde's hands (the kid could use some culture) or with a dramatic, suffering sigh, agreed to read it to him. It would have been easier if Ginji had been a bit more flighty. Then he could find a story he wouldn't remember, but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, Ban had never really decided) Ginji was the sort of person that always remembered.
Ban cracked open an eye, glancing back at his partner and grinning slightly. "How about the story about the snake that ate his electric eel friend for not letting him sleep?"
"Very funny, Ban-chan," Ginji mumbled, voice muffled in the fabric of his make-shift pillow. "And anyway, the eel wouldn't taste good. The snake would always be getting shocked from inside his stomach when he least expected."
That did sound uncomfortable...
Ban considered. "I ever tell you any Norse mythology?"
"I dunno." Ginji yawned. Good sign. "Is that the one with Zeus?"
"No, that's Greek. Norse has Loki and Odin and Fenrir and... hell, a lot of other people."
"I don't remember. Tell me about that one."
Reaching back that far was easier said than done... His grandmother had made a point of educating him in the histories and mythologies of the world, as much as she expected him to understand the arts; music and theatre, art shows and museums. At eight years old, it had all been a lot of boring crap. Now that he was older, he could appreciate it. A little, anyway. At least it kept Ginji entertained.
"Okay. So a long, long time ago, there was this god named Odin, and he presided over the Hall of the Slain, Valhalla--"
"Valhalla?" Ginji repeated, the word barely rolling off his tongue.
"You going to listen or interrupt?"
"Listen, Ban-chan."
"Then be quiet."
It went on like that, Ban talking about whatever came to mind, filling up the spaces he did not remember with the most ridiculous of lies he could conjure up and still keep Ginji believing him, and Ginji occasionally stopping him with a question. Though he always told him to be quiet and just listen instead of ruining the story, Ban didn't mind as much as he pretended to. Even if the intention was to lull Ginji to sleep, he liked when he asked questions. It meant whatever he was talking about interested Ginji, and Ban liked to have him interested in something aside from Pocky for a change.
When he came to Thor, the god of thunder, Ginji bounced up and leaned between the passenger and driver seat. "What did you say, Ban-chan?"
Glancing at him, looking at the eager, excited look on his face, it was hard not to smile. Even if that expression did mean it would be another good two hours before he saw even a blink of sleep...
"They said when there was a thunder storm, it was Thor, riding through the heavens on his chariot lead by Tanngrisni and Tanngnost."
"What's a tann-erh-thingie?"
"Goats."
Ginji wrinkled up his nose. "Goats?"
Ban grinned. "Yep. The pounding of their hooves is what makes the thunder and when Thor would wave his hammer, that made the lightning."
"He had a hammer?"
"Yeah -- don't remember its name, though." Mol-something-or-other. He had never been very good with Norse names...
But that didn't matter. Ginji was staring up at him in rapt attention, and Ban doubted that his partner would care if he forgot everything about the entire Norse hierarchy, as long as he remembered Thor, the thunder god.
"Ne, Ban-chan, you said that Zeus controlled all that. Remember? He was god of the weather or something."
Ban reached over and lightly flipped his nose. "Idiot, he was god of a lot of other stuff, too. But yeah, he made the thunder and lightning."
"But you just said Thor made it."
"The Greeks and Norse believed different things," Ban replied patiently. "You know how there's Shinto people in the city, but there's some Buddhist and Christian, too. There are a lot of religions."
"Oh." Religion and politics had never interested Ginji much; not the technical aspects, anyway. He was more interested in the stories. Ban could keep him absorbed for hours on end if he were explaining how the Hebrews were expelled from Egypt and how God brought down the plagues, but if he tried to tell him the technical aspects, how they were persecuted for their religion, Ginji grew bored.
"Wanna know more about Thor?"
"Yeah, yeah!"
"Right..." Ban closed his eyes momentarily, trying to remember those old texts spread out in his lap, the sharp eye of his grandmother on him, watching so that he did not doze. "Told you about Ragnarok, right?"
"Yeah," Ginji answered promptly, "when all the gods fight and the world ends."
"Well, Thor fights, too. His enemy's Jormungand, the Midgard Serpent..."
The serpent and thunder god.
His words trailed away. He had forgotten. In Ragnarok, Thor and the Midgard Serpent would fight, and Thor would slay the serpent. But not without a price. The bite of the serpent would spread poison through the thunder god, and he would die as well.
It reminded him of another battle between a snake and thunder god.
"Ban-chan?"
"Huh? Oh... never mind, Ginji, it's late. You tired yet?"
"What? No, I'm not. Aren't you going to finish?"
"I already told you how Ragnarok ends."
"You didn't say what happened to Thor and Jor-um... the serpent."
He didn't want to say what happened to Thor and Jormungand.
"Everybody dies," Ban said. "But then after all that destruction, a new world is born without evil and misery. Some of the gods survive and they're able to live together again. So it's happily ever after."
"Does Thor survive?"
"Yeah, I think so." He didn't know. None of the texts had ever been specific on that, but he wasn't about to tell Ginji Thor wasn't able to return to that paradise.
"What about the serpent?"
"Don't remember. You going to let me sleep now or what?"
"No. I want to know what happened between Thor and the serpent."
He wouldn't let it drop. Stupid. He should have known better, told Ginji the story about Little Red Riding Hood, or maybe the Three Pigs. Anything but a story about a thunder god and serpent that kill each other to bring about the end of the world. It was too familiar. It reminded him too much of those days long since past in Mugenjou, fighting with Raitei for no reason or purpose, wanting only to destroy.
"It's not a happy ending, Ginji."
Ginji did not answer him, only stared up with hard, determined eyes. He wanted to know.
Damn Ginji, anyway. Something about those eyes... Ban had never been able to deny him anything.
"They kill each other. The serpent and thunder god. Thor is able to slay Jormungand, but the poison of his fangs will slowly kill Thor."
He hated to tell him the stories with unhappy endings. Ginji took everything too much to heart; Ban could not count the number of movies he had taken him to, only to have Ginji leave the theatre mumbling something about, 'I don't understand why all those bad things had to happen.'
But this story was different. This one struck too close to a place neither wanted to venture.
Ginji was silent, leaning his cheek against his outstretched arm, and Ban hoped, for a fleeting moment, maybe he had fallen asleep. But a quick glance down to his partner showed Ginji wide awake, eyes open, staring into nothing.
Suddenly, he sat up.
"I don't like that ending."
"Didn't think you would." His fingers itched for a cigarette. Why the hell had he promised Ginji not to smoke in the car?
"You should change it."
Ban lifted an eyebrow. "Change it," he repeated.
"The ending," Ginji elaborated. "Say... something else. Anything else. Just not that."
Tilting his head back against the chair, Ban closed his eyes and tried to envision a beautiful, happy ending that would make Ginji smile. But he lacked the imagination, the optimism, the enthusiasm for story-telling. His was a more pessimistic view; not by choice. Nature had done that to him.
But as he was opening his mouth to say he didn't know how the story should end, Ginji stopped him, speaking softly.
"Maybe Thor and the Midgard Serpent decide fighting each other is stupid. And Ragnarok is stupid, too, and so is the end of the world, and all of that. So they leave the world of the gods and they go into another world, just the two of them. And they decide that they'll help people in that world and get back the important things that have been stolen from them."
Ginji looked up at him with a smile. "And everybody lived happily ever after."
Ban dropped a hand to his partner's head, lightly ruffling the scattered blonde spikes.
"Think so?"
"Mm." Ginji nodded. "I want everybody to live happily ever after, Ban-chan."
"... yeah. I guess I do, too."
When he looked down at Ginji again, he was fast asleep, breathing slowly and peacefully. No battles between thunder gods and serpents would haunt his dreams.
Ban only hoped he could protect him from that nightmare.