A/N: All my fans are sadists! And Devalu's a monster for feeding your addiction Dx Whaaa!
Chapter Eleven
Day 8: Prom King
Frau's POV
Frau's night had been a long one. So long, in fact, that it clear went into the next day before self-preservation screamed at his sleep-deprived body to get up and move. The wind and snow had come back to life somewhere in the early morning before the sun feebly shone its light through the grey clouds hovering inches over the trees. The snow now fell in a sort of light drizzle, more water than ice.
Large dark bruises curved around Frau's swollen eyes, looking almost painful against the blond's fair skin. He sported a thin layer of frost over his clothing and hair, its usual sunshine color dull, its spiked texture gone. It lay plastered to his skull, the odd curled-tip spikes cascading over his forehead and shrouding his eyes. He ran a gloved hand through them and slicked the damp hair back, freeing stray frozen droplets of water that littered his hair like tiny diamonds.
Moving was painful: a sharp prickling pain that became irritating as his cold body grew numb. It took twice the amount of energy to perform simple tasks, and Frau found himself panting and exhausted by the time he uncovered the hawkzile from its light blanket of snow. Even more so when his attempts to bring the vehicle to life failed.
Slipping out of the driver's seat, Frau bitterly smiled down at the vehicle before he threw a kick to the machinery. The hawkzile easily tipped over and fell into a soft cushion of slush with a moan. The bishop chuckled humorlessly as his shoulders shook with the suppressed emotions.
Once he reined in his bitter laughter, Frau forcefully sighed, the weight of his responsibilities finally settling on his shoulders almost uncomfortably. He sighed again, this time appearing like the broken man he knew he was. He had never felt so incompetent in his whole unnatural life. The only child left under his care and he lost him. He lost the one child stupid enough to go wander about in harsh weather conditions on their own.
Frau grasped the handle attached to the hawkzile, and pulled the machinery up with a grunt. This time, making sure to keep his patience, Frau gently coaxed the vehicle to start. It sputtered, just like before. Once, twice… After the seventh try, Frau's patience was wearing thin, and he was just about ready to dismantle the vehicle when it choked, popped and finally hummed into life.
"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you," Frau sighed, hugging the hawkzile to further show his gratitude. He was beginning to worry that he might just have to start walking.
Pushing that thought aside, the blond began to rummage though his pockets for the map he had been using previously. Comparing the distance between the next two nameless trails and Winter Falls, Frau decided it would be best to finish his inspection of the trails before he went back into town for something hot to eat, and maybe even a nap.
Stowing the map away, Frau slipped on his helmet, wiped the visor of any remaining snow, and eased the living vehicle back onto the main road. He sped down the stretch of white, the road having disappeared underneath the previous day's flurry. Only the dark trunks of trees kept the scenery from turning into a whiteout.
Going at eighty miles per hour, Frau easily passed the snow-covered sign that marked the junction of a different road. He looked back, unsure of that small flash of green he saw, and was forced to halt his vehicle once he realized that flash of green was the reflective material of a road sign. Spinning the whining hawkzile around, Frau advanced at a calmer speed and turned into the turnoff. His eyes darted back and forth, seeing nothing that could count as a shelter or anything else of the sort. The ground was flat, trees too knitted together to leave comfortable space to sleep between. Nothing stirred, and Frau wondered if wild life inhabited the snow-ridden forest.
With a city some miles away, Frau doubted any wild life would risk exposure, considering how panicky humans are around beasts, both large and small. But still, not even the shrill of the native cicadas could be heard. The eerie silence was wearing on his stress and anxiety and he had half a mind to turn around and just head to town. He could distinctively hear his forced breathing, the rumbling of the hawkzile below him. And he could hear the pounding of his heart, disturbingly loud and fast in his ears. It pounded once, twice, again. Thump, thump, thump. Hardly any pause between beats, and he was accustomed to that agonizingly long thirty second pause between the push and pull of blood.
Frau pushed the vehicle harder, forcing its purr to turn into a full-blown roar. Trees passed by him in a blur, slurring into black and white smudges in his peripheral vision. Time distorted as stretches of road disappeared behind him; he wasn't sure if time sped the faster he went, or if it slowed. The thought of it slowing down – agonizingly crawling on bloody hands and knees – it scared him, terrified him. It meant more time alone with the horrible beast inside him, gnawing and clawing for attention… it meant more time with his failures and shortcomings, more time knowing that he distinguished that one small light from his world…
He harshly pulled on the handle, pushed on the other. The vehicle turned, the back-end crashed into snow and gravel and upturned the earth in a fine semi-circle as he planted a heavy-booted foot into the snow. The hawkzile hissed in protest before shuddering into silence, leaving Frau panting and gasping – his heart in his throat and his mind scrambled. He removed his helmet with a forceful tug and threw it aside. He pulled in a deep breath, like a man who had just discovered the act of breathing, but it meant nothing to him. Nothing.
And he hated that.
Hated how now, when the act was hardly beneficial to him, he missed the need and the want and the encouraging feel of a constant flow of clean air in his lungs.
He missed being human.
Violently, Frau scrubbed his face with both hands, stabilizing a shudder that raked his body head to toe and threatened to paralyze him and take him down. He held himself for a moment, taking the time to quite his breathing and calm his thoughts.
What the hell was wrong with him?
Was this fear – this painful, constricting force that tightened his chest and closed his throat? It had been so long since he remembered this sort of crippling emotion. Before his days flying the skies, if he could remember.
Frau collapsed onto his vehicle, fists tightening painfully at his sides. He couldn't recall how long he had remained in that awkward position, the sun hardly showing behind thick clouds heavy with snow. But when the wind began to howl fiercely, Frau roused himself up before he froze to death. He retrieved his discarded helmet and placed it on his vehicle before leaning against the whimpering machine to search for his cellular phone.
After a brief search through all his pockets, Frau pulled out both the electronic communications device and the crumpled card he had received from Miles. He frowned at it, glared, uncertain of what to do. But, as his situation was dire and he was almost certain he was losing his mind, Frau wasn't really given much options. Punching in the numbers that followed after the word 'cell', Frau brought the phone up to his ear and waited patiently as it rang once…twice... A voice called a weary 'Hello?' with that strange accent from the other end at the fourth ring.
"Ashley," Frau replied, flinching at the eagerness of the tone.
"Hey, if it isn't Blondie!"
Frau raised an eyebrow. "How'd you know?"
"Of course I would know the voice of my darling dearest~," the elder male played with the two words, much to Frau's disgust.
"What is wrong with you?"
"Sorry sweetie, I'm still at the office. Could you wait like…five minutes until I can take a break? I've got news on that little puppy you've been asking about."
"Cat, actually," Frau rolled his eyes. Somehow, the reference of Teito being a puppy did not sit well. Cat seemed more appropriate, especially with the teen's lack of emotions (aside from the whole 'crying'). Cats tended to have that quality, especially when they found pleasure in ignoring their master's calls.
"Kay, kay." And the line went dead.
Frau shut his phone and removed himself from his position against his vehicle. He took a few paces forward, sinking into knee-high snow. He kicked a path for himself further down the road until the elevation of it was too acute to ignore. He glared up the hill before deciding to take a small walk, something to both return feeling to his legs and to give him something to do.
It was a steeper climb than what he had assumed, and found himself mildly exhausted by the time he reached the top. The scene was hauntingly mesmerizing, a painting from a crazed painter almost.
Under the blanket of pristine white, scorched wax-like trees hung feebly to whatever life they had left. They littered the clearing sporadically, clawing their way up from the underworld but struggling against the purity of frozen water falling from heaven. It reminded him faintly of something he heard, a whispered confession of some sort from someone he should remember. But couldn't quite pinpoint whose tongue it rolled off of.
The shrill cry from his pocket startled him and jerked him away from the scene.
"Yo, Blondie," Miles began once Frau answered. "We can talk now, kinda. People still around so if I start acting strange you'll understand why."
Frau looked out to the scene once more before turning away and relocating his hawkzile from the vantage point on the cliff.
"You said something about news?"
"T. Klein. Runaway from the Barsburg Military Academy."
Frau cursed silently under his breath, running a gloved hand through his hair as his eyes strayed to the ground.
"So you knew about this?"
"Yes, I did," Frau pinched the bridge of his nose, suppressing the urge to curse out the person on the other end of the call.
"Naughty, naughty, Blondie. You know the landlord doesn't like it when we house stray cats in our apartment~!"
"So what, are you going to turn me in?" the bishop glared down at his boots, sunken into the snow. He wasn't sure, but Frau felt like he was being ridiculed.
Miles scoffed, "Hardly. I think the kid's brave for what he did. …I mean, that kitten tried scratching the landlord; I can see why he's angry enough to want to send the little guy to the pound…There's actually a reward for your little friend. I found the wanted poster coming in through the fax machine. I snatched it before anyone had time to come back from their lunch break."
"You're really confusing me," Frau admitted, turning his sights towards the sky. "Can you just tell me the news?"
"Actually, that was the news. A tenant must have seen the little guy; otherwise the landlord wouldn't have sent the very nasty note… Your friend must still be in town, the military is usually on top of everything and their reports are hardly ever imprecise. The only cameras stationed in our town belong to privately owned companies, so one of those… tenants must've caught sight of him… and passed the info to the military."
"Is there any way you can get your hands on whatever tape the military used to find Teito?" The blond roughly massaged the growing pain along his temple. It really was difficult trying to decipher Ashley's gibberish.
"Way ahead of you, I already looked into it…and I thought it would be better if we discussed this over, say dinner? My treat~"
"Better be your fucking treat," Frau growled. "I can get there around…" The sky gave no sign of the time, so he checked the time quickly on his phone and answered briefly: "…Five, maybe. And I think it would be better if I didn't meet you at the Police Station. For obvious reasons."
"There's this popular café just down the main road, it's called CatHouse. Five o'clock, darling, don't keep me waiting." And he hung up.
Frau gagged, stomach churning unpleasantly at the idea that people hearing Miles' sided of the conversation imagined that he just asked someone out…on a date.
Frau…on a date.
That didn't quite roll of the tongue right…
With a sigh and a shrug, Frau turned his back on the eerie scene and headed towards his hawkzile. He faintly wondered why that part of the forest seemed to be dying (excessively) but didn't think to much of it. Decided it wasn't worth his time or effort. Besides, if the unpleasant chill at the base of his spine and the feeling that something was just wrong told him anything, it was to better leave things alone.
At least he had a hot, steamy bath waiting for him before he had to join Miles for the…debriefing. Yeah, debriefing. That sounded so much better to his ears.
-o7-o7-o7-
With a lazy yawn, Frau walked the iced streets of Ulrict towards the café Miles had indicated. The wind had slowed to a faint whisper and the snow was elegantly drifting down from the sky. The streets were littered with people, half complaining about the weather, the other half too accustomed to it to even bother wasting their breath to whine.
The café welcomed him with heated air, and it wasn't difficult to spot the middle-aged brunet seated by one of the snow-plastered windows. He seemed like a different person, Frau mused, when he wasn't acting like an idiot. He had a strange noble air to him, and for the first time since their meeting, Frau felt like a child around the man. Miles appeared intimidating from far away: the irritated frown, the glare in his eyes as he stared down the newspaper he was reading, even his tense posture.
Simply, Frau shrugged off the strange feeling along with the sense of helplessness and the desire to dump his load on an older, more experienced (if not mature) man. This was his problem; Frau would solve his own problems. He may have been young, younger than most believed him to be, but he was an old man by the time he became a teenager, maybe even before then. His job, mission – then and now – required the mind of aged equanimity, not the musings of a terrified youth.
Jaw set, Frau advanced towards Miles, watching as hazel eyes drifted upwards to catch onto his own. Instantly, the noble high-ranking aura Ashely held before dissolved into childish affection. A grin pulled against his lips, exposing perfect white teeth.
Frau rolled his eyes and pulled the chair across from the other out, sitting himself heavily on it. He stripped himself of his outer coat and hung it over his chair before raising his feet onto the chair between himself and Miles. He slumped against the wall, stole the brunet's coffee, and finally, finally, addressed the other with a curt nod.
Ashley frowned, kicked at Frau's ankles and effectively knocked his feet off the chair. "Sit right, boy," he scolded before stealing back his coffee.
"I thought I was getting dinner," Frau scoffed childishly.
The grin returned onto the brunet's face, half hidden behind his steaming Styrofoam cup. "Someone's eager for our date."
"It's not a date," Frau glared, which only made the other shrug a shoulder as if he'd more likely believe that penguins breathe fire. "Can we just get on with this?"
"Well, firstly," Ashley blew into his cup, eyes straying throughout the large room, "the last time your kitten was seen publicly was in this establishment."
Frau stiffened as he settled into his chair properly, eyeing the café as if he was within enemy territory.
"Sitting over there," he pointed with the hand still holding his cup towards a group of teens hanging around the bookshelves and beanbag chairs, "well into the night. One thirteen in the morning to be precise with this blond."
"And then?" Frau prompted as he glared towards that far corner.
"Then nothing. I tried hacking into the military database, to see what other cameras might have caught sight of him, but my tech savvy only goes so far."
"Is that all you have for me then?" Frau regretted the sharpness of his tone but if this meeting was showing him anything, it was that he needed to find Teito. Needed to find the stupid brat yesterday.
"Chill, Blondie. Take a deep breath," Miles coaxed. Frau sighed and relaxed his shoulders, accepting the half-gone drink the brunet pushed onto him. "I have the name of this blond kid."
"Then what are we doing here," Frau managed to bite back the growl in his throat.
"I thought it might be best to talk to a friend of his before you go stalk after this kid and hang him upside down over a frozen river," Miles chuckled, hands folded on his lap.
"A friend of his?"
Miles indicated with a curt nod of his head, cinnamon curls swaying. Frau followed the man's line of sight to a young dark-haired man staring back, glaring would have been a more appropriate word. Probably sensing he was being spoken of, the young waiter weaved through the tables until he reached the other two. He forced a bright smile to his face, passed Frau no more than a single glance, before settling all his unspoken loathing onto Miles. The man merely smiled pleasantly in return.
"Need anything else, Sir. Or can you clear the table for other patrons?"
"Now that's not very nice," hazel eyes clouded lightly with melancholy, but disappeared behind closed eyelids. "Besides, I don't see anyone waiting."
"I'm sure someone will come in."
"Why do you feel the need to chase me out of here, Luke?"
"I don't need a reason, Dad."
Frau choked on his drink, luckily preventing the act of spraying the lukewarm coffee across the table.
That seemed to catch Luke's attention, and he turned his unmistakably identical hazel eyes to that of his father onto Frau. He narrowed his eyes and regarded the still coughing blond critically.
"This is rather a surprise though," Luke turned to his father, "I didn't think you liked men."
"Hey," Frau defended himself before either got the wrong impression. "We're here on business, brat, so sit."
He pulled the teen into the unoccupied chair and decided whatever was going on between father and son could wait until he left. The only pleasantries that were exchanged were names before Frau demanded that they get to the whole purpose of this meeting.
"You want to know about Lancelot?" Luke raised an eyebrow, glancing between the strange blond and his father.
"That's his name?" Frau asked uncertainly.
"Name's Lance," Ashley smiled.
"It's just a nickname," Luke replied at the same time. "Anyway," he continued with an unmistakable bite to his tone, "What's all this about?"
-o7-o7-o7-
"What are you going to do now?"
Frau glared at the manila folder spread wide before him, delicately turning a bleached white page as he stole a drink from his beer. He ignored the inquiry easily enough until the folder vanished and he was left staring at a darkly colored wooden counter that definitely seen better days. The blond grumbled his displeasure but refrained from lifting his head.
"Ashley, care to give that back?"
"Pay attention to me," Miles whined like a child.
"Stop acting like your five," he growled threateningly.
"I want to know what you plan on doing."
At the seriousness of his tone, Frau looked up and was surprised to see such a set look on the man's face. He finally appeared his age, which was definitely old enough to scold Frau should the blond need it.
"What?" Frau bit back the hiss in his tone.
"What do you plan on doing once you find this Lance fellow?"
"Make him tell me where Teito is," he replied through clenched teeth, meeting Miles' narrowed, critical gaze.
"And then?"
"And then what? I take the stupid brat back home."
"And you leave Lance alone? Untouched?"
Frau turned away, critically examining his beer bottle. Miles, however, did not find this reaction acceptable.
"Blondie-," he softened his tone, almost pleading.
"Stop calling me that, I'm not a child." Frau pounded his bottle onto the counter, threw a few crystalline pieces of payment beside it and stormed out of the tavern without a glance back though he would have been stupid to assume that he would walk out into the blistering cold night alone.
"I just don't want to see you do something stupid," Miles yelled after him once they were both outside. "Especially if it'll end up with you behind bars!"
"They can't pin me for a crime if they can never find the body," Frau grumbled, strictly repeating to himself, over and over again, that his quick steps were because he was hurried, not because he was running away.
"Hey," Ashley continued to call out to Frau, and before the older man understood, he was pounding through the slick, darkened streets of a deserted town, stumbling every now and again when the ice got the better of him.
It was obvious to Ashley that Frau was not a native to this section, what with his constant run-ins with dead-ends that forced the blond to be crafty in his attempt to escape, so he used his knowledge of the town's layout to corner the man into an alleyway with no escape.
The buildings rose tall into the grey sky, centering the fall of snow onto the grimy, slushy uneven ground. It was evident that the space Frau was cornered in was a loading dock, the fall into evenly spaced and closed storage units the one and only clue. The blond looked left and right for any means of escape, but only two doors – at either side of the strange U-shaped building – gave any indication of an escape. And he doubted those doors would be left open during the night.
Frau turned to face down the brunet who was inching closer to him whenever he looked away. Ashley's hands were raised, probably in an attempt to calm Frau. He felt like a crazed cornered animal; no doubt he probably looked like one too.
If he really wanted to, Frau mused, he could get away. He wasn't sure if Ashley even had the power to, but in a battle of Zaphion, Frau was confident in his abilities. More so because of the Barsburg Church's praise of them.
And if that didn't work there was always the other thing. He didn't like resorting to using that on humans but…
So why wasn't he doing any of that?
Why was he letting some stupid, middle aged man with family problems back him into a corner? Why was his body relaxing as his ears fine-tuned themselves onto the meaningless calm words coming out of a heavily accented mouth? Why wasn't he doing something?
"Blondie-," Ashley began again but a sharp snarl interrupted him.
"I have a fuckin' name and it's Frau." The bishop managed to suppress a strange sensation of déjà vu.
"Okay then," Miles attentively pushed forward, "Frau. When we first met, when you had come to the Police Station, I told you I would help you. So let me help you."
"I can do fine on my own," Frau growled.
"You damn punks are all the same," the brunet nearly shouted but managed to hold his tongue. "Think you can take on the bloody world or at least pound it into submission if it's being unreasonable. It doesn't work that way. Sometimes," he softened his tone, which only made Frau tenser, "there's nothing you can do but let someone help you."
"You don't know shit about me," he retorted, finally taking that defiant step forward. He slipped out of previous stupor, realizing what kind of submissive puppy he had been portraying before.
"I know you wouldn't have gotten this far without me," Ashley shouted, knowing he hit something when Frau violently flinched. "You're young, Frau. Please tell me why you feel the need to do this on your own." The brunet rolled his eyes at the blond's glare. "Besides the fact that the military is after this kid."
"I-," Frau began but immediately bit his tongue, his glare returning. But Ashley remained unmoved, unthreatened where others would have at least unconsciously coward. Was Frau repressing that demonic aura he wore like a second skin just for this man? He tried pulling that familiar, if not pleasant, feel around him and finally saw that flinch of fear snap through Miles but the brunet rebounded easily, no shadow of fear lingering.
"I was the reason," the bishop finally answered vaguely.
"The reason?" Miles attempted to keep his tone neutral, knowing if he showed too much interest or too little, Frau would find it insulting and withdraw. It didn't take a genius to figure out the type of man the blond was: strong, confident, fearless. But with strength like that, there was always a terrifying weakness. Even if they never showed it within their lifetime.
"For everything that went wrong with his life."
"Now, come on, that can't be tr-."
"Of course it's not," Frau snarled, stealing another step forward and inwardly cursing Ashley for keeping his footing. "But I might as well have. I was responsible for him. I was the one who couldn't save his friend. I set off that chain reaction that led us into this mess," sapphire hues turned away, glaring at the brown snow cuddled against the walls.
"I somehow doubt that, kid."
Frau snarled at the nickname. He was far too old to be called a child.
"Okay, okay," Ashley quickly lifted his hands in defense shortly before slipping them into the pocket of his pants. "You don't like being called a kid, I get it. But with the title of 'adult' comes a price, Frau. You can't go around passing judgment on whoever breaks your morals and laws."
The blond snorted; that was exactly what he did for a living. Hazel eyes glared at him momentarily, assessing the reason for that reaction before he attentively continued.
"Wherever you're from, hurting someone – or God forbid, killing them – because they did something bad to you is wrong. I'm sure you know that. If you let me help, we can catch this guy and have him sent to prison. We can let the law fairly accuse him and no one can say anything about it-."
"And what? Use the brat as a witness?" Frau laughed humorlessly. "Then all this shit would have been for nothing. The military will find him-," he snapped his fingers, "like that. They'll drag him back to the First District and properly execute him. I did not struggle this much just to sit back and watch that happen."
"I can see it already," Frau took another step forward, leaving just an arm's length of space between them. They met each other eye to eye, neither intimidated of the other. "The way your son so hotly defended the piece of shit without even knowing what we were even going to ask, he's going to have a court-full of character witnesses. Mr-Perfect-College-Student-Who-Volunteers-His-Time-At-An-Animal-Shelter-And-Old-Folks-Home. Who's going to believe someone like that kidnapped and did God knows what to a teenage boy? A drugged up, military runaway? There is no case. And you. Fucking. Know. It."
"We're not even sure he did any-."
"Don't give me that cop bullshit," Frau snarled, fisting his hands to prevent them from grabbing the stupid old man and shake some sense into him. "He had been accused of two accounts of rape in the past three years, five assault charges in the past ten."
"But he's never been convicted of any-."
"And you're going to stand there and tell me you believe it? You believe that all these people just have it out for Mr. Perfect? You, you, were the prosecuting officer in half of these cases. Were those people just accusing this kid because he stole the title of class president from them?"
Ashley fell silent, and for the first time Frau finally saw doubt, regret, and a dash of fear mingle in his burning glare.
"Didn't think so," Frau huffed. He pushed that final step forward and rammed his shoulder into Ashley's as he began to walk away, forcing the brunet to take a step back or fall.
Miles, however, did not let the blond leave so easily. A hand shot out and grasped onto Frau's double-layered arm, gripping tightly that it hurt him more than the blond. "As a police officer I can't just let you leave, knowing you might kill someone." He didn't speak directly towards Frau, and that just seemed to irritate the bishop further.
Frau tugged his arm free, took a step away from Ashley, and when no retort or outburst followed, he turned fully and was prepared to continue walking but something rooted him in place. He sighed exhaustedly but refrained from turning back. "Look, I can't give my word that I won't hurt the kid, but I'm sure I can keep my anger in check to prevent a homicide scene for you to clean up." Frau squared his shoulders and ducked his head to prevent himself from turning back to Ashley. "And don't think I'm not grateful for all you've done for me, Ash."
The man behind him laughed lightly – a defeated and sad sound. "I know, Blondie."
A/N: Hm. Well, I think this chapter, frankly, was pointless but I'll let you guys be the judge of that. We get a little insight of Frau's struggles and Lance's background. I don't really think anyone cares about Ashley and Luke, being OCcharacters and all, soooo I didn't bother elaborating their backgrounds. They'll be gone forever in a few chapters anyway. (Along with Lance, he's not a permanent figure in this story, but that much should've been obvious, da?) So, when will I update? Either real soon, or really, really, really late. I'm off on vacation in a couple days (against my will, mind you) and I don't know if I'll be able to get on the internet over where I'm going…or if I really want to take Kevin (my laptop) and risk him either getting kidnapped or broken. Who knows~~ Till later then~
