Casting a Lifeline
Cast and wait. Cast and wait.
Cast -
And wait. Of course, always wait, because Goddess forbid anything actually bite after who knows how many attempts…!
Oh, his hands were shaking again. He doubted that was helping matters.
"Enough," Machias chastised himself, and if nothing else it was far easier than it would have been two years ago to release the tension and relax, his head dropping briefly before he looked up again at the painfully quiet water, hoping against hope to see any sign of movement – or maybe even feel a tug?
As expected, his silent prayer went unanswered.
"Some leisure activity this is turning out to be," he muttered under his breath, not particularly caring how churlish he sounded at the moment, but then again he supposed it beat the alternative because the alternative was thinking about Rean.
And if he was being honest, it still hurt to think about Rean.
Machias shook his head once as his eyes went distant behind delicate lenses, the memories of recent events all too fresh in his mind. One moment, he and the rest of Class VII had been staring in absolute despair at what seemed like the end of everything, and the next thing he remembered was waking up in the Hexen village, uninjured but utterly adrift… just like everyone else.
He exhaled roughly. Goddess, what a mess.
"… Have you caught anything yet?" a melodic voice asked, effortlessly catching his attention like it always did, and he turned to greet the new arrival with a shrug and a wan smile.
"No, unfortunately. That would have required a fish to bite a least once, and it doesn't seem like they're inclined to do that anytime soon."
"Ah, I see. If it's any consolation, I don't think anyone else that's tried has had much luck, either."
"Hmm. That does make me feel marginally better."
"I try," Emma said with a strained smile as she sat down beside him, and he figured that if she could muster the effort to pretend all was well for a little while, then so could he. "Hi."
"Hello."
"So out of curiosity," she began, gesturing to the lake with one hand, "what made you want to try this? I never pictured you for the fishing type…"
"I'm not," Machias replied dryly, pushing up his glasses, "but Fie was under the impression that I should at least give it a chance. Well, I think that was her intention, anyway."
Her brow wrinkled in confusion. "You think…?"
"She interrupted my reading by dropping the rod in front of me without saying a word before walking off to… wherever she wound up going," he continued, rolling his eyes. "I'd wager she got frustrated and decided to share the misery."
"Misery?" Emma repeated, sounding skeptical. "Really?"
"Really. I can't envision a single scenario where I'd consider this fun," he groused, eyes flashing with distaste. "I mean no disrespect to those that do, of course, but I've spent the last hour waiting and hoping for a fish to have mercy and see what the shiny object flashing in the water is without a hint of success. I don't necessarily mind sitting still for that long, but I would rather it be for something that's a little bit more stimulating."
"Fair point," she conceded, looking back out at the lake's still surface. "I think some would argue that the tranquility of the experience is the whole point, though."
"I'd prefer to be tranquil with a book and a cup of coffee, all things being equal."
She laughed in agreement at that, the forced, brittle sound setting off alarms in his head, and when he turned to face her, his heart ached at seeing the bags under her tired eyes.
"… Emma."
She said nothing in reply, but when he set the rod down and reached out to pull her close, she nestled against him without hesitation, resting her head against the fabric of his coat.
He didn't want to ask.
He knew he had to ask.
"Any luck?" he murmured, hoping against hope that maybe…
She shook her head once, sniffling. "N-No. Nothing. I still can't - no one knows..." Emma stammered helplessly, her voice cracking at the end and making the ache all the more pronounced.
After all, it wasn't just Rean that was missing. Emma was missing her sister in all but species as well, and no one knew if they were all right or even alive and –
"Breathe," he whispered, the solemn entreaty just as much for her as it was for him. "Breathe, Emma."
He felt her nod weakly against him as her hand delved out to seek his, the fishing rod all but forgotten and her next words muffled into his coat.
"…thing."
Machias blinked, not having caught most of that. "I-I'm sorry?"
She looked up, and Goddess; he had never seen her look like that before. "Say something. Anything. Please. Just… talk to me."
Seconds passed, the heavy silence and his sudden, desperate need to bring the life back to her eyes growing more and more pronounced with each moment, before…
"Y-You know, I think I've finally managed to get used to seeing you without glasses on."
… Oh, damn it all.
Emma merely stared at him in response, her lips parted soundlessly with no words coming forth, and he honestly couldn't blame her in the slightest. Out of all the things he could have said, that was what he went with? That was the best he could do?
"I… I mean, that's… you're…" he stammered fruitlessly, a painfully familiar blush beginning to spread across his face, and his day really could have gone without a stark reminder that while he was well acquainted with the written word, the spoken… well, that was a whole other story.
"I-I see," and it was small consolation that her face was probably as red as his, if not more so.
(At least she didn't look so sad, so broken as she had before. That was something).
"It's just," Machias tried again, his jumbled thoughts struggling to piece themselves into something halfway coherent, "I don't think I've ever seen you without your glasses on for an extended period of time, the festival aside. Considering how often you wore them, I just assumed that you legitimately needed them to correct your vision."
"I did! Er, do," Emma countered hastily, waving her hands around in a manner that brought back a rush of memories from Thors. "The enchantment on the lenses served as a restraint for my powers, true, but… well, their curvature was still intended to ensure that I could see properly," she admitted, looking a little sheepish.
Ah, so that was it.
"Interesting," Machias mused, his curiosity piqued now. "So I suppose without them, you're relying on some kind of Hexen spellcraft to compensate?" he reasoned, adjusting his glasses as his brow wrinkled in thought and thus completely missing the surprised look that flit across her face.
"Um, no – that's actually not – "
"Or," he continued, speaking faster now, "maybe it's nothing so specialized seeing as how there's no incantation required… in that case, is it similar to when you use your hypnosis then? You just channel your power through your eyes, except instead of directing it toward a target you use it to – and you're smiling. You're smiling," he repeated with a sigh when he saw her hands drawn to her face in a poor attempt to disguise that fact, "which means probably I'm about to look like an idiot in a few seconds."
"Oh, not at all! Your theories are certainly sound; I'd hardly call a few incorrect hypotheses grounds for calling you an idiot," Emma answered, unable to keep the corners of her mouth from curling upwards.
He sniffed indignantly. "Well, I'm glad you think so. But if that's the case, how do you…?"
She pointed to her eyes with a casual shrug, and the blend of sympathy and mirth he saw didn't reassure him.
"Contacts."
And unbeknownst to both of them, a fish finally jumped.
"I… I see," Machias managed to choke out, his blush from earlier having returned with a vengeance, and now he was very much wishing there was a wall nearby that he could bang his head into and not stop. "In retrospect, I guess that sometimes the correct answers are the simplest ones."
"Now, now," she soothed, though she might have been more convincing had she been able to stop giggling. "Like I said, your theories were sound – "
"They were also wrong," he grumbled, reaching for the discarded fishing rod while trying to forget how his mouth decided to show off its best impression of a runaway train. "Now, with that cheerfully acknowledged – "
"Liar."
He cleared his throat loudly, much to Emma's amusement. "As I was saying, perhaps I'll give this fishing thing another try. If nothing else, it might help me salvage a shred of dignity from where it currently lies comatose."
Emma tilted her head, an air of innocence about her that Machias knew from experience was anything but genuine. "Really, Machias? Catching a fish will let you turn back time by thirty seconds?"
Machias, for his part, simply glared. It was all he could do at this point, really.
"Thirty-five, now," she added with a small grin, clearly enjoying this.
"Rub it in, why don't you," he sighed, setting the rod down again with a grumble. "Your vision without correction isn't even that bad, is it?"
"I wouldn't call it great, but I suppose it's not exactly terrible, either," Emma answered, looking surprised when Machias turned away with an audible groan. "I-I take it yours is?"
"Awful," he replied with a grimace. "If I took my glasses off right now without making sure exactly where I was, there's a fifty percent chance I'd end up walking into the lake when I got up to leave. I may have resorted to that sometimes when Elliot, Fie and I were on the run, but that was purely as a concealment tactic; apparently I looked different enough without them that it served as a disguise in itself."
"… And that actually worked?"
"That it did. I had to look down a lot," he mumbled, still a little embarrassed by how much fumbling was necessary just for traversing Celdic without running into things, "but it got the job done. I can only imagine it would have been harder to pull off had they bothered distributing wanted posters of us at any point."
"Hmm. I wonder…"
He watched as Emma moved closer, a thoughtful expression on her face as her slim fingers moved toward his glasses. "May I?"
Machias raised an eyebrow. "Go ahead, but really?"
"Hehe. Humor me, okay?" and before he could say anything else, his lenses slid off and his world shifted and morphed into a haze of indistinct colors and shapes; an undecipherable mosaic of visual noise.
He squinted – not that it helped, but it was a reflex that had proven impossible to break over the years – in an attempt to find his bearings, and he only let himself relax when Emma grasped his forearm and squeezed reassuringly.
"You weren't exaggerating, Machias," she murmured, all traces of laughter having vanished into thin air.
"Not in the slightest. It'd be a miracle if I could even see – "
"No," Emma interrupted, and he could picture the shake of her head without even thinking about it. "That's not what I mean. You… you really do look different without your glasses off, you know."
He flushed at the noticeable catch in her voice, having heard it in his own more than once; the shoe was on the other foot, it seemed. "Is that so?"
"Mm hmm," she hummed, gingerly sliding them back onto his face, and when his vision corrected and refocused, he found himself staring at a transfixed Emma, who seemingly couldn't bring herself to look away. "You look younger, I think. Less serious. It's good on you."
"Hmph. There's nothing wrong with a serious appearance, especially in my line of work."
"I never said there was!" Emma said with a laugh and a warm smile, raising a hand to tenderly cup the side of his face. "A little variety never hurt anyone, though."
He merely grumbled halfheartedly again, for he couldn't find it in himself to be truly exasperated; not now, not with the weight of the Hexen mission briefly lifted off her shoulders, not when there was once again music in her voice and light in her eyes.
Still, Machias was no fool, and he knew that Emma wasn't either. When all was said and done, both knew that this didn't change anything. Rean was still nowhere to be found, same with Celine, and the threat facing all of Erebonia – all of Zemuria, really – still loomed over the horizon as it always did.
He couldn't say anything that could possibly make things better, and he wouldn't make empty promises that might not ever be fulfilled. But if they were indeed resigned to staring down a bleak, hopeless tomorrow, and perhaps all the bleak, hopeless tomorrows that came after… then it only made sense to try and hold on to the fragile peace they found today.
"Emma," he murmured as one of his hands settled atop hers, the small gesture of comfort all he had to give.
I'm here.
She blinked, before her confusion at their linked hands gave way to a warm, gentle smile when he brought them up to brush his lips across her knuckles.
As always, she understood.
"I know," Emma breathed, leaning forward to place a lingering kiss on the corner of his mouth. "I know."
I'm here too.
He nodded and remained silent, breathing in the sweet scent of her hair, and somehow it was enough to make him forget about tomorrow and all the uncertainty that came with it.
"Do you think," Machias began, drawing a questioning glance, "anyone would miss us if we stayed out here a little bit longer…?"
She smiled at him again, and he would never tire of looking at eyes that shade of blue.
"No, I don't think they would. And even if they do... too bad. I want to see you catch a fish."
He laughed aloud for the first time in what seemed like forever, but reached for the rod anyway, shaking his head all the while. "You're going to be in for a long wait, you know."
Her arms snuck around his waist with a content sigh.
"Hehe. I'm okay with that."
And maybe - just maybe - so was he.
AN: Machias can fish in Sen IV, along with a few others. I wanted to do something with that (along with Emma having no glasses in Sen IV) and I'll take any excuse to write bookworm fluff!
Speaking of which, there are now 12 fics in this series alone. Didn't even know it was going to turn into anything when I was writing my first CS story...
OMAKE
"Huh. You look pretty proud of yourself."
"I feel pretty proud, honestly. It certainly took me a while, but in the end I managed to successfully reel in a bite or two," Machias told Fie smugly, placing the rod on the table with a satisfied expression.
"... Really."
Fie stared at him, her own expression unreadable, before she turned away with a shrug and a dismissive wave.
"Emma doesn't count, y'know. You had her hooked long before - "
"I-I meant fish, Fie!"