Disclaimer: -man is Hoshino's territory. I just trespass the fence from time to time to steal some coal to fuel my brain.
A/N: woah! Look at that. Another DGM fanfiction, after almost 5 years! Thank the HALLOW for that.
A/N2: I hope that search for A.W. arc will be over soon. It's boring as heck, revolving around characters and motifs I don't really care about – Nea, Johnny, Kanda… the whole The 14th business is unappealing to me, an artificial plot-pusher. I want some Exorcist business! Slaying Akumas! not some petty squabbles of two fractions. Politics my ass.
Except Link, of course, he is great in every arc. He was among my favourites DGM characters (along with Bak) long before his bishounenfication!
Story summary: 'Almost', as the saying went, made a huge difference.
Almost
"Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters" – Francisco Goya
Link took a deep breath. He could feel Atuuda's own life-force surging through his veins intertwined with his own racing heart. The golem was like electricity: A tingling sensation at the tips of his fingers, itching in his gums resonating through his teeth, a dull throbbing in all of his scars. During daytime full of surviving and fighting, the golem's presence was almost indistinguishable from the rest of his bodily functions.
Nights were different: curled under his coat or a flimsy blanket offered by cheap hotels, Link had nothing more to do than feel the pulse of his life-saver in his chest, making the sleep almost an impossible task. It was all like a torn blister – too trivial to bother with but annoying enough to reconsider life choices. During first couple of nights, Link had a hard time dealing with the parasite-like golem. He felt assaulted… from the lack of better term. There was something inside him he didn't agree of carrying and he would wedge his option carefully if he had any saying in that matter beforehand.
The assassin had, most often than not, woken up with tears in his eyes and blood on his shirt. After closer inspection ex-CROW came to realize the blood was a mere echo of a self-harm, done in his sleep by his own untrimmed nails digging into the flesh as if his subconsciousness wanted to extract the alien from within; while Atuuda – according to it's property – healed the scratched and gashes. Nowadays such occurrences almost never happen as long as Link kept his fingernails trimmed to the skin.
Radiating heat and even breathing of another person lying next to him soothed Link's racing mind. It was almost like the old days: sleeping with his family, his squad - when he was a CROW - or later when supervising Allen Walker. Well, it wasn't farfetched déjà-vu - the person sleeping next to him was almost Allen.
Nea stirred in his sleep, murmured something to his pillow that sounded almost like the young Brit he once was.
However,'Almost', as the saying went, 'made a huge difference'.