House of God
Author: LonelyWriter42
Disclaimer: I only own the official manga release of 07 Ghost, not the right to it in any way.
Summary: Night serves as the best time to hide secrets, but also is the best time to reveal them. . . Teito Frau conversation. AU
...
Frau stood on the balcony of the small room that he had managed to procure. Teito and Capella were both asleep on the two beds leaving a hard chair or the floor for Frau. He didn't mind though. They both needed sleep since they were both still human. His cornflower blue eyes narrowed into slits as he gazed up at the moon. To the untrained eye it appeared normal but to someone like him… He shook his head and slowly exhaled. Castor had been trying for ages to tell him that the best way to calm himself was taking deep breaths. He only did it to appease Castor though because the alternative was, well, terrifying.
Frau shuttered again. Castor and his strange moods was not what he needed to be thinking about right now. He could feel the warsfeil in the air and the moon was veiled in its sticky darkness. He knew that Ayanami and his group of cronies were close behind them, always searching for Pandora's Box. Frau was sure that Ayanami didn't know about Teito but he was unconsciously drawn to him because Teito was his body.
The thought that he had been trying to ignore jumped back into his mind and he looked back at Teito to make sure he was still there. His one true fear was he was not going to be able to save Teito from Ayanami. His right arm started aching and he held it against his chest. Phantom pains in his arm were not abnormal and he knew that both Castor and Labrador also sometimes had problems. The Ghosts where the protectors of humanity from Verloren, but sometimes they had trouble with their human forms.
Frau let out a deep sigh. Being a member of the 07 Ghosts wasn't what he expected but in the end it allowed him a second chance at life. Why that mattered to him he wasn't sure since it hadn't before but suddenly in that moment it did. Brief flashes of childhood memories flooded over him in his moment of weakness and they threatened to overwhelm him. He took an involuntary step back and pressed his palm to his forehead, shutting his eyes tight against the onslaught. The memories of his childhood always seemed to rear their ugly heads just when he thought they were banished forever. Thinking back that far often hurt his brain and reminded him that he was much older than he looked or felt. The world was still spinning slightly when he opened his eyes so he perched on the railing of the balcony much like a cat and allowed his eyes to stare at the moon without really seeing anything.
How long had it been since he last thought of his father and mother? He strained his brain but failed to find a reference to his father since becoming Zehel. His mother was a different matter though. She had always been foremost on his mind when Zehel had first possessed his body. She had been a strong and beautiful woman, youthful and lively up until his last memory of her. That one was the one he had tried to bury the deepest and seemed to be the only one he could recall in the rare moments he thought of the woman that had given birth to him. As a young boy he had often questioned her judgment in bringing him into this world when she knew how her husband was and how he would react to a child. But she still had and Frau could never think ill of her, even if she had been married to that monster.
"Frau?" Teito's childish voice came from beside him and Frau for the first time became aware that the boy had been standing there for some time.
"What is it?" Frau tried to keep his tone dismissive of the boy but in truth he worried constantly about the Raggs prince.
"Are you alright?" Teito's emerald eyes met Frau's indigo ones and again Frau wondered if the boy's almost ancient wisdom came from the fact he had been the Eye of Michael's host for so long or the fact he was Pandora's Box and thus one of the oldest beings in the universe.
"What makes you think that something is wrong?" Frau said, trying to keep Teito from seeing just how deeply the question had shaken him. How that boy had known that Frau wasn't alright at that moment stupefied him. "I was just…" Frau trained off and tried to keep what he knew was a blush off his cheeks. A blush? How far he had fallen from Frau the almighty bishop that was the incorrigible pervert. To actually admit to himself that he was worried about Teito almost made him gag but he had almost revealed it to Teito himself.
"Just what?" Teito questioned, looking up at him with those innocent eyes that had seen so much.
"Thinking about things," Frau said vaguely, hoping that if he was uncooperative Teito would go back to bed. "Nothing that would worry you too much. About whether or not Castor is really a guy," he looked at Teito out of the corner of his eye and saw that the comment had no effect on the boy at all.
"Frau," Teito said hesitantly as if he wasn't sure if he was breaking a great taboo in speaking. "What is Zehel's God house like?"
Frau felt his stomach plummet to his ankles and tried not to let it show on his face.
"Why do you want to know that?" He asked casually but inside he was panicking. This was the last thing he wanted to discuss or even think about. Teito had asked out of pure curiosity he was sure but that still didn't help settle his nerves.
Teito's eyes gazed into Frau's again with unwavering devotion. "I was just wondering if it will be like what we encountered with Fest and Profe's houses, Hausen and Krat. They both had somebody that needed to be released from their earthy bounds to Castor and Labrador."
Frau stared down at the boy. He had never thought that Teito was very perceptive, more a bundle of energy that needed to be released or would explode. But Frau was constantly rethinking Teito and how his mind worked and this seemed a natural extension of what he had already seen.
"His name is Vágdal Vili," Frau said with some difficulty. "He is the lord of the Vágdal house. He has gone mad ever since his wife and son left him. Well, he was crazy before that but now even more so. I wouldn't want you to meet him but to get Zehel's seal you will have to."
"Who is he, Frau? Why don't you like him?" Teito's simple questions were starting to throw Frau for a loop and he was struggling to keep up.
"Vágdal Vili," Frau muttered again in extreme dislike. "He is not at all unlike Castor's father in the fact he will put anything and everything pertaining to the God house above all else, even his own family. He had his wife and son hunted down when the escaped from him. He had them killed."
The last statement was so simple in its wording and message but so profound and Frau knew if Teito kept this line of questioning up much longer he was going to snap.
"Why?" Teito's question was simple in its form but again Frau knew its deeper meaning. "Why did your father do that?"
"What are you talking about, brat?" Frau breathed. Surely Teito had never been this smart. Sure the kid had his moments but for him to make that conclusion from the short bit of information he had been given. . .
"Your father," Teito repeated. "Why would he kill his own wife and son?"
Frau let out a deep breath. He wasn't quite ready to admit his defeat so he pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and put it into his mouth. After lighting it he took a long drag and closed his eyes. Teito was too smart for his own good. Yes, that was the only explanation for this sudden conversation.
"Vágdal Vili has his issues, just like every person. Only his were harder to come to terms with," Frau paused and contemplated his next words. Not even Labrador had gotten Frau to open up completely even with his weird hypnotic flowers trying their best. And, if Frau was willing to be completely honest with himself, Bastian had never gotten Frau's entire life story either. Sure the man had heard the most important parts but the thoughts and feelings. . .
"Vili suffers from the same disease that all members of God houses suffer. They were born into a God house. You where lucky, your father genuinely loved you, Teito. Vili, well, Vili loves himself and his position. Nothing more. Nothing more," Frau repeated, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "He was married to a beautiful young woman named Bianka when she was just 16. She of course had no idea what she was getting herself into. The pain, the suffering, none of it. To this day I wish I could have saved her from it but I wasn't even born when it started and was only a young boy when it ended."
Frau's thoughts pulled him in again and he sat there silent as he struggled to bring a memory of his mother to the surface. "Vágdal Bianka," he sighed. "She did not have her son until the tenth year of her marriage to Vili was coming to its end. And in all truth her marriage was coming to an end as well not just another loveless year of it passing by. But the son's birth helped for a short while to stave Vili's madness. But only for a short while. The son was five when his mother suddenly woken him in the middle of the night and spirited him away into the night away from his mad and abusive father. They escaped into the 7th district and they managed to hide away for three years. Bianka became the mistress of a boarding house with money she had managed to save in secret away from her husband. To protect her identity she only allowed herself to be called "Frau," as in a married woman. No one in the 7th knew her name and probably didn't care. But all good things come to an end. Vili found her and their son."
Frau broke off again and tossed his now cold cigarette off into the night. "He set fire to the boarding house. Bianka managed to get all of the guests out but she realized that her son was nowhere to be seen on the outside. She knew he was fascinated with the attic of the building and she had a choice to make. Run up to the top floor and perhaps throw her son out a window saving him or watch as he died in the house. Of course that is a question that no mother could ever answer with anything other than saving of the child so she tried. Bianka tried to save the little boy. But she failed. They both perished in the fire. But someone didn't inform the little boy."
Teito's head came to rest against Frau's side and he knew the boy had fallen asleep but he had to continue. Not for Teito's sake; but his own.
"Miraculously the boy survived, though now he was more than he had been. The boy had no home but he was alive. Everyone had forgotten his name so they called him the same as his late mother. Frau. A strange name for a boy but no one cared. Soon the boy was getting into all sorts of trouble and eventually he ended up in the care of a cranky old bishop who, much like Castor, convinced the boy to take the bishop exams. Thus the boy from the house of Vágdal survived and became Frau, pervert extraordinaire."
Frau smiled down at Teito. Such powers this boy had. He had started off the evening depressed and unhappy but now, he felt calm and ready for anything thrown at him. Frau gathered Teito's small body into his arms and carried him back to the bed he should have been fast asleep on instead of listening to stories that retold a past that was best left forgotten.
"What was his name," Teito sighed as Frau placed him on the bed. The blond bishop paused but decided that Teito was truly asleep. Frau tucked the blankets around Teito and returned to his perch on the balcony.
"Jóska," Frau said finally as he watched the moon set. "My name is Jóska."
A/N: Since people don't read these things I had to put it in bold. Frau's name is not Joska nor is he from a God house called Vagdal. I came up with both. They are both figments of my imagination. Now that I said that, enjoy the story for what it is, a FANFIC.