Note: there are some mild bloodplay, sadomasochism-ish kind of things in the story.
The sun was setting.
It was the perfect time for getting philosophical. People got like that about sunsets; it must be because anything sounded good against a dramatic background. You barely had to put in any effort.
"Look," Fran said, not putting in much effort. The stakeout had been long, tedious, and pointless; the house opposite the rooftop where he and Belphegor crouched had stayed resolutely quiet, and he was stiff from not moving.
"Can't make me," Belphegor said, keeping his pert nose trained in the direction of the target's house, unwavering as a bloodhound.
"Yeah, you're right, sempai. It must be difficult, going through life with a haystack in your face..."
He ducked, but Belphegor only snarled at him and left the knives out of it. The self-proclaimed prince must be cramped too. Silence settled back in, and Fran's eyes were drawn back to the paint box spill in the sky. It really was pretty. He settled on something to say.
"Really, sempai, look," he said, his voice a shade deeper to pass for profound. "The sunset takes your breath away. Amazing, that we still have such beautiful things in such an ugly world."
"What?" Belphegor snapped, like it was totally out of the blue.
"It isa good time for observations like that," Fran said reproachfully. "The sunset. And here we are, out to kill someone. Doesn't it seem like it's too beautiful for this world of ours?"
He looked back at the sunset drawing deep blue closer at its edges, and felt pretty satisfied. That really had sounded good, said here and now, all melancholic in between the aerials and cracked tiles of the rooftop. His knees creaked. He wanted to go home, and all he had was Varia headquarters. Any second now he was going to start believing what he'd said.
And then a curious thing happened - and even if it had to do with Belphegor, where unexpected moves meant danger, it was a relief. Belphegor had been sitting still all day, except for that big, expressive mouth, which couldn't help pulling down in displeasure that verged on baring teeth.
And now he said, incredulously, "Ugly."
"That's what I said," Fran confirmed.
"Ugly," Belphegor repeated, a tiny twitch shaking his shoulder. He had to be genuinely offended if he was trying to hide the reaction, and Fran watched with interest. Belphegor flew to his feet, making his proclamation to all the rooftop. "Ugly! How could the world be ugly? It has me!"
He flung his arms open to the bloody sunset, all teeth and graciousness, and Fran wondered, as he did again and again: how sincere was he? How crazy was this man? Could he really believe such a nutty thing as the idea that everything revolved around him—but then, did he really have the skill to pretend so well that he believed it?
"Why, you shitty little brat—"
"Oh, was I thinking out loud again?" Fran said, and hunched up until his back was an arch under the flurry of knives. "I gotta stop that bad habit..."
o - - o - - o
Belphegor offered an answer, in his way, when they were back at Varia HQ that night. There were footsteps at the bathroom door and the door opened in spite of the 'Occupied' sign, but that almost always happened. Wordlessly, Belphegor slouched against the doorway.
Fran paid no attention to his arrival - but for once, Belphegor didn't pick a fight because of it. He watched as Fran continued looking over his own shoulder at the mirror to see where the Varia nurses had missed putting plasters on his back. He'd told them to use bandages and deal with the cuts properly, but they never took him seriously in the infirmary. Or anywhere else.
He tilted his head as Fran's hand moved, and when Fran slid it slowly along the patched-up wounds in experiment, Belphegor's head followed the motion by fractured increments. Almost obscene, and then Belphegor said, "It's best if we make our own beauty in this world. Then we can be sure of it."
Fran stared at him, and thought about it. One nice thing - the one, single nice thing - about Belphegor was that he could take it when Fran stared at him. Other people got so ticked off. "So then you're as crazy as you want to be?"
One of those grins bloomed all over Belphegor's face. Lucky - he could have whipped out the knives again.
"You're not as stupid as you look," Bel said.
"You should add, 'Not that that'shard'," Fran said helpfully. "That would make it a really mean insult."
He didn't. He smiled even wider.
"Let me see," Belphegor said.
Fran had a theory. Show no fear, or Belphegor would smell it and jump on you and chew you up. He decided to test it, and simply shrugged and stood still, expectant. It must have been unexpected, because there was a long moment of silence. Very long. Too long, so that there was more than enough space for healthy fear to creep in. Except that Fran really did wonder what would happen if he let Belphegor 'see', and he waited until footsteps came quietly towards him over the tiled floor.
Back turned, practically defenceless, he let fingertips with round little nails that Lussuria kept trim slide over his back. And - "So gross, sempai." - peel the plasters off. Belphegor started snickering.
Fran had heard the other members of the Varia elite speculate about the way he managed to get through the stabbings life served him daily, but they didn't bother to ask him. A sinking feeling told him they'd seen weirder, and aside from that 'mist illusionist' explained a lot of things away. This would have been the perfect opportunity for Belphegor to enquire about his remarkable lack of death by blood loss, but he didn't; probably because Fran flinched on cue from the scrape of warm fingers, turning slowly sticky, against the marks on his back. Very realistic. Fran knew.
When the neat nails dug in - inevitable - Fran arched without being able to help it, sweat breaking out all over his skin, bent backwards over tiny crescents of pressure that stung even when Belphegor eased up. A hand slid onto his shoulder and Belphegor leaned down hard - his knees were probably shaking.
"Ugly, the froggy brat says. What kind of world do you think you live in? What did you expect? I don't know what's wrongwith you!"
Fran still wasn't afraid, and Belphegor still hadn't killed him. That probably proved something.
The warmth against his bare skin and the tickle of outraged, perplexed whispers in his hair distracted him from it, though. He stayed still when Belphegor's arm fit around his throat in a considering way, and went along when it tightened to pull him out of the bathroom.
o - - o - - o
"Oh, I can hardly believe it! Isn't it precious?" Lussuria dabbed tears away as he beamed at Fran and Belphegor sitting at the breakfast table. Squalo had seen them coming out of Belphegor's room together and had spread the news throughout headquarters in one disgusted yell. "Our babies are all grown up!"
"Does that make it incest?" Fran said, wide-eyed.
"Good God," Levi said, staring at Belphegor in confounded revulsion. "You touchedit."
Belphegor uncurled one finger triumphantly. "I managed to shut it up!"
" 'It'," Fran repeated, despondent. Just when he thought he'd been promoted to human pronouns for good.
"Have extra wild berry flapjacks," Lussuria said, sounding like he'd winked behind the sunglasses. "You two will need to keep your energy up from now on! And come to me if you want any tips." Over the motherly cooing, Fran could hear Levi enquiring about the method of the shutting-up, and if he could pay Belphegor to do it daily.
He sat uncomfortably straight and moved as little as possible to avoid aggravating wounds, and he knew from the tender feeling that his lips must be swollen like Belphegor's were. He was pretty proud of that big bite mark he'd left, though.
Maybe it all came down to adaptation. No matter what kind of world you lived in, you'd learn to find something beautiful, even if it was as painful and deranged as the world it grew out of.
But Fran suspected that in this job, he'd become accustomed to the idea that his heart could beat faster, without any input from him, banging around his chest in provocation and irritation and disbelief.
He let his eyes travel around the breakfast table - Squalo and Xanxus shovelling their food in at the far end, thankfully staying silent, and the rest squabbling - not paying any extra attention to Belphegor's reflexively vicious scowl at catching his eye. It was pretty much normal. They really took anything in stride around here.
The idle musings wouldn't stick, because an insistent question kept sneaking into his mind: Would he make an effort to keep last night's situation going? And just like that, bang-bang-bang, his heart jumpstarted.
Fran reminded himself to come out of this alive. But he really was starting to fit in around here - terrifying, by the standards of any normal person! - because that thought didn't have nearly the same kick.