I'm not really sure where this pairing came from, to be honest; it just kind of clicked in my head, and I needed to write it, and here we are. I'm honestly not really sure how long it's going to be, just that it'll be comprised of everything from short drabbles to multi-chapter arcs.
Also, the rating may go up in later chapters. Just a heads-up.
Read on, and I hope you enjoy!
The words are on the tip of his tongue.
His lungs are still burning and spasming, coughing up foul water. He can't feel his legs; everything else is a lump of pain. Six is unconscious on the ground. Eight is covered in jagged bites and claw wounds. Marina is angry and terrified.
All that tough talk, all that arrogance, all that trained-by-the-greatest-warriors-in-the-galaxy bullshit. Bullshit it was. If he hadn't been caught by surprise by the most unfair goddamn Legacy in the world, he'd have whipped Five's Frodo ass.
(but you didn't, did you)
And in spite of all of it, they still had him beat.
And now, after lying to them, betraying them, attacking them (attacking his friends), the bastard has the nerve to sit there and cry.
The words are on the tip of his tongue.
Adrenalin is still burning through his blood
(god, this would be great if it didn't hurt so much)
and he's still full of rage
(who is he kidding, he's always full of rage, it hides but it never really goes away)
and the primal drive to punch and kick and bite and claw and annihilate anything that touches the people who are his
(they are his)
and brain-to-mouth filters are for pussies.
The words are there, but they don't come.
Maybe it's because Five is one of exactly seven living Loric that he's ever met, and something in his bones thinks that Nine owes his allegiance to anyone, anyone at all, who is left.
Maybe it's because of that drive, and because a few days is long enough for him to claim someone as part of his family. We all have that one cousin we can't stand.
Maybe it's because he remembers how the fat dork stood up, faced him down, and broke his fist with his jaw.
Maybe it's because he sees none of that calm, cold anger now, and because the terror and pain and loneliness and vulnerability he sees instead remind him of cells and smiling Mogs and the screams of a family and the screams of his Cêpan to please let it end
Whatever it is, it hits and it hurts, and even though the traitorous asshole crying on the ground fills him with anger
(guttural howling rage that makes him want to tear flesh with his teeth and scream at the world through the blood and hate in his mouth)
the words die on his tongue, and he says nothing.