AN: So I decided, after seeing the title of the new Kamen Rider Double movie, that I'd try my hand at one of these alphabet memes. This will be a series of relatively unrelated drabbles/oneshots, themed after words that correspond to each letter of the alphabet. I suspect that it will focus mainly on Shotaro and Phillip, but there are alot of letters in the alphabet, so I might branch out to other characters.
This is purely for my own enjoyment, it's mainly to help with my writer's block, and this happens to be my second fic ever. Also, spoilers will probably work their way into some of these blurbs, and I will label them to the best of my ability. If anything escapes my notice, please feel free to tell me about anything I might have missed.
Disclaimer: Kamen Rider Double doesn't belong to me. I don't even own the DVDs, they're too expensive.
Spoilers: Superficial spoilers all around, and if you haven't seen episode 47 yet...I would suggest watching that first.
Acceptance
He accepted it.
Everything in him rebelled against it initially, like a wave of nausea. He'd wake up in the morning expecting to see his teacher sitting at that desk, waiting for him with the aloof yet somehow still slightly warm expression. Always ready to teach him, to save people, to save Fuuto.
Then he'd blink and he'd see that the chair was still empty, the chair was his now, as was the desk. The agency is his, the cases are his, and the people are his to save.
He still refuses to wear that hat; he buys himself some others, cheap replacements in comparison. He can't wear his teacher's hat, not yet. He wonders if the day will ever come when he can, and whether or not he'll be able to tell when it does. It doesn't matter either way; he has to better himself in every way before then. He'll continue to do his best to follow his teacher's example, and he's accepted that.
He accepted it, and became part of Kamen Rider Double alongside a mysterious, strange, and odd boy, the Chosen One that his teacher had been hired to save.
Every person who came walking through that door, he would listen to, would work to help with every fiber of his being. He knows that there is no experienced, strong and always reliable teacher there to help him anymore, and that's all right, because he has a partner now. He can do this, and after a while, he starts to think that accepting it wasn't that hard at all.
It was his fault that his teacher died, and he will work to repent for that sin for the rest of his life as the protector of Fuuto, and living in the agency wasn't so hard when he had another person to grow accustomed to.
He grew accustomed to, even if he didn't understand his new partner's odd personality and behavior. He adapted to the Gaia Memories and fighting in the armor of Double. He got used to having another person in his mind, whispering advice and explanations of how the Dopant's Memory worked, what they would need to do to win. After a while, it became a solid, seamless part of his life, and he didn't mind at all.
Everything disturbed and ruffled by the appearance of Narumi Akiko, but he accepted her too, at first begrudgingly because she was unpredictable, new, and she hit him with that green slipper of hers all the time, but she was his teacher's daughter and she was his new 'landlady' as it would seem.
After a few weeks he was fine with her.
The mysteries revolving around the Museum, the Dopants, and the appearance of Terui Ryu, Accel, the revelations about Wakana, the Sonozaki family, Shroud, Phillip, Raito, he understood it all, and it was all right with him, because he'd accept it. He accepted that he was weak, and he grew stronger.
Akiko is family now, and Terui is nearly as close. It doesn't matter as much as it should, that Phillip is Sonozaki Raito, but no matter what, he's Shotaro's partner, and that will never change, because Shotaro has done more than accept that, he's embraced it and made it a part of him. He's let everything happen, even the changes that he hadn't wanted, and now he has a family.
So when Phillip tells him that he's going to disappear, Shotaro looks at his partner's hand as it flickers, shining briefly, showing the construction of ones and zeroes in glowing green light before it settles back into flesh and skin. It stays like that for a moment, and then his hand is transparent, green, nothing but data.
He looks at his partner's hand, and then his partner's resigned expression, and he refuses to allow it. He won't let it happen, never, no matter that Phillip has accepted it. He doesn't care. He'll never give up and resign himself.
Because this is something Shotaro can never accept.