I personally don't feel as though this chapter is as good as the first, but you know. It's Two and Ivan, which the lovely Carnivorous Moogle suggested, who I would like to thank because even I had never considered that idea before.
This is kinda an AU where he didn't kill her - not quite sure how that worked out, but there's probably tons of plot holes and unexplained things I didn't feel like going in to. And I don't think I wrote this one very well, the relationship goes a bit fast, but you know - it's an Au and it's a fanfic, it's allowed.
Disclaimer: Don't own, yada yada.
Two and Ivan
Ivanik Shuh-Ra thinks that Number Two is quite possibly the most annoying girl he's ever met. That is, until she introduces him to literature. Then his perception shifts, and suddenly he doesn't want to kill this girl. AU, somewhat Good!Ivan.
The girl is crying again.
Ivan's face frowns with displeasure as he begins to hear the sound of tell-tail sniffs coming from across the hotel room. She's been at it non-stop ever since they left the apartment, and it's really starting to get on his nerves.
"Hey!" he barks, feeling a surge of sadistic satisfaction small, surprised gasp she makes. "Shut up! I'm tryin' to sleep."
The little girl doesn't respond, but the sniffles die out a bit after that, enough for him to comfortably rest. Ivan turns on his side and breathes out harshly. Stupid Adam, making him wait to kill the Garde. He has a strong urge to just slaughter her in her bed right now.
Ivan rises and grabs the hilt of his knife after a couple of seconds, intending to do just that. Despite his bulging muscles and large shape, he's actually quite capable of being stealthy, and he uses his years of intensive training to make it across the room in practical silence.
He stands over the little girl's bed – because she is simply a little girl, very much so – and looks down at her. Her curly red hair, barely visible in the dark, springs and looks like it might be slightly puffier than before (not that he cares) and her skin seems pale, almost the same shade as his. But it's not any of this which catches and holds his attention.
No, it's her big brown eyes that do that, looking back up at him with nothing but pure and utter fright.
He stares back, impassive in the face of her terror – revelling in it, even. She whimpers a little, and Ivan resists the urge to either roll his eyes or strangle her.
Then he remembers what he was planning – do it in public, where everyone can see. Where Setrakus Ra can see. Then no one can deny that he is great, and that he killed her magnificently.
Ivan turns on his heel and goes back to bed.
000
"Last night," Number Two begins hesitantly, as he does his routine sit-ups on the floor, sweat beading his forehead. "Why didn't you kill me?"
Ivan pauses for a second to smirk.
"Did you want me to?"
"No!" the girl yelps out, flushing the same colour as her hair and fidgeting as she hurries to correct herself. "I just – I was just wondering that's all." It's a lame excuse, even if it's probably true, but Ivan is surprised to find he doesn't mind her hurried talking. It's better than last night's crying, at least.
"Isn't it obvious?" he states in something of a rhetorical question, standing up and stretching out, admiring the way his muscles bulge as he does so. He is so much stronger than Adam. "I'm saving you."
Two takes a second for that to sink in.
"You – you are?" she questions, hesitantly. "You're… rescuing me?"
Ivan snorts, picking up an apple on the hotel table and biting into it harshly.
"Not in that way," he scoffs, not caring that his mouth is still full and he probably looks a mess right now. "I'm – preserving you, more like, until the time when I can go back my people and present you to the Beloved Leader."
The little girl looks sick at that, turning slightly green against her freckles, that splatter delicately across her cheeks. As she turns away, Ivan can see the tears in her eyes.
He rolls his own.
000
The girl is reading.
"What are you doing?" he asks, regretting it the moment he does. Number Two looks slightly shocked, but at the same time honoured that he has. It makes him want to roll his eyes in disgust, so he does. The redhead either doesn't notice or doesn't care.
"I'm reading," she says matter-of-factly, and damn if that isn't the most confident that Ivan has ever heard her. "Shakespeare. It's a sonnet, because he wrote poetry as well as plays, which isn't something that many people seem to know…" She trails off at his expression, folding in on herself slightly with both fear and shyness.
"I don't care," he snarls, and he doesn't, he really doesn't. "Why would I care about Shakespeare?"
There is silence for a couple tense moments before Two's gentle but firm answer comes.
"Because you asked."
Ivan doesn't even bother to dignify that with an answer – he just scowls and picks up another apple, biting harshly into it and feeling an odd sort of satisfaction at the crunch that it makes. Two flinches and turns away, back to his book.
He roughly wipes away trails of juice that run down his chin, and stalks off to go find something to punch outside. He doesn't worry about Number Two leaving in the meantime. She wouldn't dare.
000
When he comes back into the hotel room, having consumed enough alchahol to have a fuzzy head and a slightly blurry vision but not enough to classify as 'drunk', he vaguely notes that the girl is asleep in her bed. He knew she wouldn't leave. She's too much a coward. It probably didn't even occur to her beyond wishful fantasies.
As he walks past the book she was reading earlier, he pauses, picking it up.
If he stays up late reading it, then it is no one's business but his.
000
Number Two seems not to notice that he has even touched her precious little book the next morning. She picks it up and begins reading without saying a single word – she either doesn't know or doesn't care. Ivan suspects that it is the former rather than the latter – or rather, he hopes it is. Because he doesn't know what he'll do if she's noticed.
If he's entirely honest, he doesn't know what he'll do even considering that she's not. Reading and appreciation literature has always been Adam's thing, not his, and – well, he's embarrassed, if he's entirely honest with himself (and he's a fan of being blunt). He doesn't want to admit to anyone that he actually enjoyed reading those sonnets last night (god, he actually knows the name for them), much less the enemy he's somehow found himself staying in a hotel room with.
"What was your favourite?" Two asks randomly, and it takes a blank moment for him to catch up with what's being said before the Garde (filthy Loric scum, why is he even interacting with her) is pinned up roughly against the wall, his arm digging into her throat.
"None of them," he hisses, belatedly realising that he just totally gave the game away. He mentally shrugs. Oh well, too late now. He'll just have to deal with this situation with the only way he knows how – with violence. "I didn't like any of them, because they were stupid, pointless, pathetic pieces of trash…"
He trails off, something very un-Ivan-like as he looks into the Garde's eyes. She looks scared and meek sure, but still, there's an element of… defiance that he can't help but be attracted towards (and he hates himself as soon as he does, trying to wipe all thoughts of that kind from out of his head)(It doesn't work).
"No," she says quietly, and he's shocked enough to loosen his grip tightly. He half expects her to take advantage of his slack and wriggle out but, no. Number Two (and when did he stop thinking of her as the little girl? Overnight? It must have been,) simply stares up at him, a burning fire in her eyes he never expected to see there. "You enjoyed them. I know you did."
She stops, hesitating, and Ivan doesn't even bother shouting at her to shut up. He doesn't strangle her or scream or let spittle fly out of his mouth and onto her disgusting, filthy, Loric skin. He simply growls and stomps out with one aim in mind – to get brain-dead drunk.
He tells himself that she isn't worth the anger, anyhow.
000
The next day it's like nothing ever happened until he kisses her.
She jumps and pushes him away and he lets her, watching as she runs out this time, and he doesn't try to stop her even though he could. Ivan has stopped her from leaving before, but this time he watches her go with something akin to sadness and wonders how his life became so screwed up in so little time because of some stupid poems by Shakespeare.
(If he reads the rest of the book that night, he doesn't care enough to even mind, anymore.)
000
He doesn't expect Two to return, but she does, and for some reason Adam is there and next thing Ivan knows Adam is in the front seat of a massive Jeep and Two and Ivan are both cramped in the back.
"My name is Maggie," Two says randomly partway through the journey, and Adam glances back at the two of them through the rear-view mirror, taking in the tension between them before his eyes flicker away. Adam may be a traitor, but he knows when not to get involved.
"Okay," Ivan says, and he feels dumb but he lets Number Two be replaced by Maggie in his mind and, somehow it works.
He doesn't want to kill Maggie anymore. He wants to save her, yes, but in a rescue way.
He and Adam are both deserters now.
Like I said, not as good, but still - we can always pretend that one of Two's legacies is attracting people towards her (actually, I might use that premise for something later).
Anyway, thanks for reading and please review and make suggestions!
