I hope this one turned out okay, seeing as to how ther is a lot of talking so I was running out of ways to word things.
I sure got this up fast, probably because I know I only have a few chapters for a it and I want to quickly get it done for those who are reading it. So much more motivational when you have only three or four chapters that when you have ten or twenty, ne?
A couple notes:
1) I have decidec to call Noa and Zed both 'man' and 'teen' because they are eighteen and so it is kind of hard to figure out which one would suite them better.
2) I mention how Noa is the other savior-child in this, and this has to do with the fact that he technically was a savior, just not the savior, and his actions did help save the world. I call them savior-child as well as savior because in truth they were still simply children at the time.
3) In the third section where it is talking about 'the beast inside Zed,' that is entirely metaphorical.
I was kind of 'meh' about this chapter in the beginning because of how I was writing it (stupid long conversatins), but I think I finished it quite nicely. Hope you enjoy it.
I do not own Kiba :'(
Chapter 3: Eternal Bond
Sleep threatened to overtake him; fear nipped at his heels; sadness gripped his heart like death. How long had they been in there now, while all he could do was watch through the clear barrier, helpless? Had it been only hours? It felt more like days. How many times had they almost lost him? Three? Four? He couldn't remember. How much blood had to be replaced by now? The floor looked like a slippery web of red, so it had to be a lot. Assistants were constantly mopping up the mess, which had luckily been stemmed in the last couple hours. Or was it merely half an hour? Time meshed together here.
A dark skinned man wearing a surgeon's robe walked in through the automatic door, but Zed paid him no heed. His golden eyes meticulously watched the scene below, as the swabs and gauze and used thread and needles were collected, and where Noa was cautiously moved onto a wheeled bed to be moved. The ravenette's chest held the steady rise and fall of restful breathing, the warm air from his lungs causing condensation to form on the inside of his breathing mask.
"He is out of immediate danger, Zed," Ginga said, leaning tiredly against a consol. Weariness assaulted him just as it did his friend, who only turned to greet him once Noa was wheeled out of the operating room. "We will have to watch him closely, though, for incase he loses stability."
"He won't," Zed said confidently, despite the obvious sleep deprivation in his voice. "Noa is stronger than that."
Both stood in silence for a minute, both sagging more and more as adrenaline and anxiety ebbed away. "It took longer than we expected," Ginga admitted. "I had estimated somewhere between twenty-four and thirty hours, we were approaching forty when we finally finished. Several of us had to switch out."
Sharing a yawn, Zed staggered uneasily to the green-haired man. Placing an unsteady hand on the Taskan's shoulder, he said, "You should go lie down. You must be dead on your feet."
"What about you?" Ginga asked the back of the departing savior.
"I'm going to stay by Noa's side, even if I end up falling asleep before he wakes," Zed answered, stopping just long enough to glance over his shoulder.
Giving a small, curt nod, Ginga sent the snowy-haired male on his way, collapsing into a chair himself. As much as sleep pulled at his senses, he had one last thing to do…
Stumbling through the door, Zed met the floor before Noa's bed. Weights pulled him eyelids down, coaxing him to forget about everything except sleep's dark embrace. Are you planning on staying on the floor? an obnoxious, cocky voice asked. It was enough to give him strength to crawl over to the bed. Sitting up enough that his arms and head were on the comfy surface, not even Amil Gaoul could wake him this time.
The light hurt his eyes at first, and he defensively rubbed him palms into them to block it out. "Hey, he's up!" a chipper voice sounded, one he knew could only belong to the Taskan-Tempuran girl. Taking a moment to blink and adjust to the harsh light, the next thing Zed notice was he was lying on his back.
"A bed?" he asked, sitting up to look around the small room he had been given. Before anyone could answer, he went off again. "Where's Noa? What's his condition?"
"Calm down, Zed," the blonde Joust Champion sighed, giving his signature shrug before continuing. "Noa is doing just fine. Woke up around an hour ago. Of course, we had moved you to here by then because no one knew exactly when you were going to wake. It's been almost… sixteen hours now. If I'm correct, you hadn't been getting much sleep lately anyway, so this was probably really good for you."
"That doesn't matter," Zed growled, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and standing before Roia could stop him. He tottered for a second, eyes unfocused, before he steadied, heading right between the congregation in his room to the door. Opening it, he suddenly realized he didn't know where he was, or how to get to his best friend's room.
"Go to your right and it's the third door on the left," he heard from behind him, and giving only a slight nod in reply, took off.
"Aaah, what has gotten into our Zed," came the bordering-on-whiney voice of Robes.
"We just can't stand between those two," Roia smiled, walking the few steps over to Robes' side. The tall male leisurely draped his arm across her shoulders, subtly pulling her closer until she was leaning against his chest.
"Nope, our kids are all grown up now," he joked back, grinning from ear to ear.
"What is with this "our kids" stuff? I'm their age, you know," Roia shot back, just a slight hint of irritation in her tone.
"We are the ones who took care of them, right?" Robes replied with a question.
"Yeah, I guess," the girl said back, shaking her head slightly.
Quietly opening the door, golden-brown eyes peered through the gap before the young man stepped through. "Noa, how are you feeling?" he asked quietly, slowly making his way over to the bed. The raven-haired man sitting up on it, turned to him with a smile, eyes soft.
"I'm feeling a lot better now," Noa replied. "Still in pain, but that's because of the surgery, and should go away in a couple months. I can't move my legs, though," he said sadly, looking forlorn at the useless appendages. "Ginga said it's because they have been inactive too long. The muscles have broken down too much for therapy to recover them."
Not knowing what else to do, the snowy-haired male said softly next to his friend, placing a cool hand over the paler male's warm one. Words failed him, and all Zed could do was simply remain in Noa's presence, and hope that did something to help.
"Don't worry about it so much, Zed," the ravenette smiled, though Zed could find no reason to smile. "Ginga already came in and spoke to me over my options. I could leave it like it is, or I could undergo another operation, one he himself had gone through."
"What do you mean? What exactly in is it that you are planning on doing?" the savior-child asked, concern lacing his words.
"Nothing major. It would entail replacing all the muscles in my legs with mechanics, just like they did with my spine and the major nerves running off from it. This one is much simpler, though," Noa assured, and could clearly see the relief on the other male's face.
Letting a moment of silence pass, Zed finally spoke up again, "So when is this next operation, then?"
"It's been set for a couple weeks from now. I'm no longer in danger from my previous trip to the operating room, but it could cause complications if we don't let my body heal first," Noa replied. A sweet smile touched his legs as he gripped Zed's shoulder, lowering him to the bed. "I'm still kind of tired," Noa admitted, lying next to his friend. "So let's just… lay for a bit."
Watching the man he had fallen in love with fall asleep, not even stoic Zed could keep all the color from rising to his face. Cheeks tinted a slight pink, the boy drifted off next to the other savior-child.
One thing Zed found convenient about traveling light was the lack of items to pack for the trip. He had already made up his mind, back when he saw Noa exiting that emergency room. No, maybe ii was farther back than that, like when he was hanging from that tree that reminded him so much of the one back 'home' in Calm. Or possibly it was before he even set foot in the forest to begin with, before he landed after impulsively returning to Tempura.
Zed had already decided he could not stay.
As far as he saw, there was no longer a place for him in this world. He, Zed, had friends here, like Noa and Roia and Robes, as well as family, such as the Seekers which he was technically a part of. But he, Amil Gaoul, no longer belonged in this world. His presence alone could bring unbalance and destruction, the only flaw in his foolproof plan. By fusing with Amil Gaoul, and in essence becoming Amil Gaoul himself, Zed prevented the six key spirits from being gathered outside his body. But they could still be gathered within.
He did not want to chance such an event taking place, and so he decided to leave. His heart rebelled against the notion, so he sated it with the logical explanations of 'he had only come to make sure everyone was safe' and 'Noa was better now,' but that did not halt the stirrings. His emotions fought back like a caged beast, tearing at anything that came within reach with its menacing claws, fangs gnawing relentlessly at the adamantine bars, and slowly winning. Words flitted through his head in Amil's voice, taunting the beast and enraging it farther, driving it made until it bloodied it gums and paws from desperation, and still fought on. His pitiful excuses were losing their effect, changing from the deadly bullets they used to be into harmless daisies, falling around the monster that could be called 'humanity' to be torn to shreds and scattered on the wind that once dominated his soul.
Sitting on the bed in the room he had shared the last couple nights with Noa, the white-haired savoir cringed when he heard the sickening crunch! of teeth breaking in the mouth of his emotions. Fragments falling onto the scored floor, he could not deny that the damage was already done. How many bars had been snapped by those powerful jaws? How many times had he attempted to pacify the beast, only to find the creature immune to the tranquilizing fluid? Now he could almost see it clawing at the ground, half its body pulled through the demolished bars. The last sensible part of his mind told him to leave now, gather up his coat and open the portal and be gone before Noa had the chance to return and finish freeing the beast.
The internal battle made him move sluggishly slow, or maybe he wasn't moving at all. That had to be the case, for he was still in the same spot when that metal door swung open to reveal the ravenette, walking on his own again after three years. He seemed to know immediately what was going on, for the next second he was running across the room and placing firm hands on his friend's tanned shoulders. "You're not leaving again, are you?" he said quickly, afraid the man in front of him might vanish any second. "You can't leave! You just got back. And I just got better, why would you want to leave now?"
"I can't stay, Noa," Zed shot back, though no hate or anger was present in the words. If anything, they seemed almost sad, or pained. "I shouldn't have come back in the first place!"
"Why, Zed?" the other shouted back, the same emotion leaking into his voice. "Why can't you stay?" His only response was to look away, shame or guilt outlining his features. "Answer me, Zed!"
"I can't!" the shorter male yelled, the beginnings of tears forming in his eyes. Three years of keeping in his pain was finally culminating in that moment, and there was nothing he could do to prevent the dam from breaking. "It's not something I want to talk about, Noa! I'm not the save person I was before!"
Words, maybe laced with anger or frustration, was what he expected in return, not the warm embrace of arms enclosing him, pulling him closer until his face was nearly buried in the shoulder of his more feminine companion (not that it was Noa's fault, he was just built lighter and had to refrain from vigorous activities because of his illness). "It doesn't matter, Zed. It doesn't matter how much you've changed, for the only important thing is that you're alive. You are always welcome here. So please don't leave again. You're the most important person to me."
Most… important… his mind repeated, going over the words and interpreting ever meaning to them. Twin trails ran from the corners of his eyes to his chin, the emotions inside him fearing he meant 'only as a friend' and being torn by their own claws because of that.
"What I'm trying to say is, I love you Zed," Noa continued, unsuccessfully masking his apprehension. "As in love you, love you." It was hard for him, waiting there in those seconds of silence for the answer he wasn't sure was even going to come. With all they had been through at this point, Noa found it stupid to continue playing that fated game of poker and just threw all his cards down for Zed to see. Now all he needed was Zed's response…
Shocked yellow-brown eyes looked up at him, the words written in them more than the answer he needed. "Noa, I-" he didn't get to finish as a pair of lips descended to softly mesh with his own. It was short and chaste, but enough for that moment. Knowing Zed wouldn't be able to speak for a while, Noa placed a hand on the back of his snowy-haired friend's head and pulled him.
And let him cry.
This very end part seems kind of cliched to me, and sorry if it seems that way to you too. And the point at the end is that Noa lets Zed sort through his emotions that he ahs kept cooped up over the last three years, that is why Zed won't be speaking for a while, not because Noa blew his mind away with that tiny peck of a kiss. Zed has to work through the mess he has left himself with, so Noa is comforting his now-boyfriend as he's doing that.
Love you all!
