Fair warning, this may never be updated, or it may be updated periodically throughout this week. I first played Final Fantasy Type-0 about a year ago, and it completely wrecked me emotionally. I have never stopped loving these characters, or shipping them, or wishing they got a better ending. Among those many ships, Jack and Sice stood out as one that I always wish had come to pass. This is written for Caesar's Palace Shipping Week. This particular chapter is devoted to prompt one, whisper. I hope I did decently with the characterisation and I hope you all enjoy. :)
From the moment she hears first hears his voice, she hates it. As kids, it's too light, the same way his hair is too light, and his eyes are too light, and his face is too open and full of sun, like they weren't born in a war, like he's not here because his family is dead or will be soon and they'd rather he be safe and learning to be a weapon than at home with them and meeting his end.
He's too bright, and he's too loud, always making noise. Not the way the tall boy with the lance makes noise, either, when he shows up. The tall boy, he's just noisy, like it's a side-effect of existence for him, because every time he opens his mouth he's shouting and every time he walks somewhere he's falling over something with limbs that are too long to carry him properly across the ground. But with the blonde boy, it's not like that, it's different, somehow. His noise is ambient, chips crunching in a classroom where they shouldn't be, snores coming from the back of a lecture, whoops of joy while he rides a chocobo and laughter ringing out of nowhere, like there's something to laugh about in this place, and singing under his breath and humming under his breath and he's just a collection of sounds, a million noises, always going off as if he's scared he'll disappear if he's not making some sort of quiet cacophony.
She spends so much of her life hating him and his sunlight and his noise that she's not sure when the hatred changes into something else, when she finds the accidental humming more of a comfort than an annoyance, even if she still hisses at him about it. It's like this: they're seven years old at Sorcery, and she hates his guts, and then they're ten and learning how to use magic and she has lightning in her fingertips that she uses to shock him the one time he tries to hug her, and then they're twelve and picking up weapons and he moves slow but he swings a katana like it's just another three feet of metallic arm and she's never realized how deadly his face until she sees it through the swinging silver blades of her scythe as she springs around him in a sparring match, and they're fourteen and their names become numbers like they never had names to begin with but his name doesn't change somehow, and then they're sixteen and seventeen and he's cracking a joke on the battlefield, some sarcastic remark or another but it doesn't matter, really, because then they're sixteen and seventeen and in a few hours they're going to be dead, and she has no idea what to think of him except that she doesn't know that she's ever seen him afraid before now.
The funny part is they only met each other because they were running from death to begin with, and now, they're facing it together, all of them. They've turned their weapons into a flag pole, tied their capes together and flown it from the blades they've all used to end the lives of thousands, and the flag is crimson, bloodstained peace blowing over them all. She slumps down against the rocks and he slumps down next to her, and she would tell him off if she thought it mattered but it really doesn't, so she lets him.
She doesn't die first, but she dies before he does. She thinks he sees it coming, the way they all do, when the other voices start to silence one by one. She thinks she's spent too long swinging around a scythe while bullets fire around her to be so scared of a little death now, but her heart is twisting in her chest and she doesn't think she cares. Her body aches, and she's tired, so tired, but she doesn't want to go, doesn't want to leave him or him to leave her or any of them to leave period, but it's too late because half of them are already gone and the others are going soon enough. This is the cost of saving the world, and she thinks – hopes, though she'll never admit that, not even to herself – that it's worth it, but she's not quite sure.
There's a soft bumping against her hand just after she closes her eyes, and she opens them again to see that it's him, the back of his hand brushing the back of hers, and she's surprised how warm he is, considering how ashen he looks.
"The hell are you doing?" she asks, croaks, really, because her voice is choked in ashes and air is a commodity right now that she doesn't have much left of.
His voice is as soft as it's ever been, but still bright, still golden. "Buddy system, remember?" he says, and there's a pause before he continues. "You can't just leave your….partner hanging, right? You're not supposed to go…strange places on your own." He manages a breathy laugh, and it's full of pain. "Honestly, didn't you pay attention in any of our classes?"
She snorts, and it hurts, but she doesn't regret it. "Like you're one to talk…snack boy. You and your damn sandwiches…" She tries to smile and isn't sure if she succeeds. Her eyes fall on the proximity of their hands, back to back, and she calculates for a moment before she decides fuck it, we've got nothing to lose and she lifts her hand a bit to maneuver it over his, their fingers lacing together simultaneously, a shared thought. The angle is awkward and it's even worse because she's pretty sure he's held about as many people's hands as she has, which is to say nobody's, but the grip they have on each other is iron, and their fingers lock tight, perfect, no room for discussion.
She can feel it still, the darkness at the edge of her vision, and she lets it creep closer. "You and your stupid jokes," she mutters, because she needs one last jab at him, even now, especially now, because dying and she thinks she's finally figured out what she thinks of him in the worst moment, the last one, the one the comes too late. "You know," she whispers, "I always thought they were…kinda funny."
She closes her eyes. Her last breath is soft, a gentle exhalation, far gentler than anything she ever did in life or death, and the last thing she hears is him laughing, him being quiet, his voice full of sunlight as he whispers a reply. "I know you did," he says, and the world goes dark.