Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, nor do I own lyrics. I am just one very tired writer who is trying to catch the deadline. Whoops, my secret is out. Gotta run.
Shout Out: No,' dancer' is not a typo. It's - in my opinion - a word play. I hear both 'dancer' and 'denser' the same, even if they are written differently. As an amusing tidbit – Flowers, who is the author of lyrics, was said to take inspiration from the quote of Hunter S. Thompson who had stated that 'America was raising a generation of dancers.' The context is cultural, and it can be explained in several different ways, so if anyone is interested in that, it can be found via internet and its threads.
Warnings: AU on multiple scales, and yeah. Archer is lovably pitiful and Vindice has an existential crisis.
Are we human or are we dancer?
My sign is vital, my hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Looking for the answer
Are we human or are we dancer?
Are we human or are we dancer?
Are we human or are we dancer?
('Human', by The Killers)
In a dark, austere fortress, within a room that was just as bare of any ornaments as its' outside bearings, there was a small, mummified form sitting behind their deck, clad in a black cloak which melded within the shadows pervading the room, the white of bandages a stark contrast of the dreary surroundings. On its head, there sat modest black top hat, similar to the ones worn by magicians. It's hands,the right clutching the eagle quill, were similarly bandaged, making it a wonder just how could such a tiny - dare an observer say - baby hand scribble over the gathered papers with such dexterous efficiency, as if its owner had been an old man, extremely knowledgeable in the art of penmanship.
The small form, which was previously concluded to be that of a baby's, primly sat in its modified chair, and if it weren't for its bearing, one would say that the dark, ornate desk on which the mound of papers laid almost threateningly, considering their sheer bulk, was almost overwhelmingly imposing. Instead, it seemed opposite - the baby in question manned the paper monster with an almost enviable ease… or would have, if the mound of papers in question hadn't fought back just as ferociously as it's opponent.
The baby form paused as it felt someone's eyes on it.
"Jaeger. Stop staring at me." The voice came through the bandages, muffled as it was, containing the traces of stern reprimand and half-exhausted exasperation, as if its owner had already known his request wouldn't be granted.
(Not that it had been before, at least not in that matter. Jaeger was always such a worrywart - )
The darkness shifted, revealing tall, almost lanky man in similar attire to the baby's. The only difference lied in the wide, fluffy white, fur collar that spanned over his shoulders. As the now called Jaeger tilted his head, his single exposed eye flashed gold in repressed amusement at the currently very cranky object of his observation.
"No can do, Master Bermuda." The hoarse, yet still deep voice rumbled out from his chest, where laid an ornamental silver chest chain glinting in feeble light as if mocking the gloomy austere with its brightness. The man's hair was swirling down from the top of his head in loose black curls, akin to the tails of snakes in motion.
Maybe in some other time, other day and when he was at his prime, such a man would have been considered a dandy or at least honestly handsome. But right here and now, those things didn't matter. Hadn't mattered for a very long time. Jaeger was Bermuda's right hand and Guardian - not that Bermuda needed one, but Jaeger had been stubborn on the issue ever since that day -
Jaeger shuddered to think about it. He had come so close to losing his Master - ever with Bermuda's… unusual circumstances, it had been by sheer dumb luck they had survived.
Vindice were said to be impartial with a very good reason. Their unique set of abilities made them extremely hard to kill - if even, and there were very, very few who could do the deed with a margin of success. Because of their abilities and longevity, Vindice were ideal law enforcers as it were, because they were - if different accounts of their deeds to be believed - nigh immortal.
Vindice had long lives and even longer memories. Famiglias may have forgotten their predecessors' deeds or aim to sweep them under rug of time and passing… but until Vindice was there, there was remembrance and justice.
Vindice had been robbed of all worldly possessions and virtues, doomed to a thankless existence because of an unfair set of circumstances they cursed out day in and day out. They couldn't change anything, couldn't get anything, live skeletons burning for justice and revenge.
If Bermuda's face had been bare of its numerous bandages, the baby's eyebrow would surely be twitching in irritation.
"Jaeger."
His tall companion hummed. "Yes, master?"
The baby grit his teeth. "Have I told you that you are being very obstinate today?"
A raw excuse escaped the parched, lifeless lips. "Not yet, today, Master."
Bermuda was sorely tempted to use his stamp as a makeshift tool to express his annoyance with via chuck it at Jaeger's head, when a warp portal whooshed in life at Jaeger's right side, allowing three very disheveled forms to tumble out of it, and stopping baby boss in the middle of his reaching for the afore mentioned stamp.
….
Both Jaeger and Bermuda stared at the shivering, sobbing wrecks on the cold concrete in front of them.
"… What on Earth…?" Bermuda finally spoke out, causing the said wrecks to flinch even more. "Weren't you three the ones who were assigned to bring back Harry James Potter and his cohorts – "
"S-Sorry! We are very sorry, but it couldn't be done!" The smallest one squeaked out.
"Punish us any way you like, Bermuda-sama!" The tallest one finally managed to get out of the ball of misery the three of them had been tangled into, and immediately kowtowed to the surprised Bermuda, his voice shaking so much that it was more of a warble than recognizable sentence. The offender yelped as Jaeger's fist descended on his head for his unforgivable misconduct.
"What are you three fools doing?!" Jaeger practically seethed at crowd, but much to his surprise, it didn't have the same amount of effect it usually did. "You are in front of Master, and for all that's holy. Act. Like. It!"
The hapless bunch of three immediately tried to straighten himself, and Jaeger looked over them with critical eye.
No broken bones. No visible damage. Their cloaks and bandages were more or less pristine, if one could exempt their tumble scant moments before. "So. Why didn't you bring the accused in?" He growled at them.
"W-We can't! We literally can't! Or couldn't!" The third one chattered anxiously, snapping their jaw shut when Jaeger aimed at them an especially livid glare.
The one that promised unspeakable horrors to be done to them if they acted foolish again.
"Say it in three words or less." Jaeger demanded, fed up with their uncharacteristic idiocy. Not many people knew, but Vindice could be fools like ordinary people. Jaeger had trained out - or at least tried to train that quality out of them, but even with such long time under his careful guidance, something just had to happen to make them into blubbering idiots All. Over. Again.
The middle one - coincidentally the smallest one cringed, as if even saying the words physically and mentally hurt them.
"Il Guardiano."
Jaeger stilled.
Bermuda's eagle quill broke in his grip.
"How certain are you of it?"
'Il Guardiano' was a code word for nature calamity in human shape. It existed ever since the dawn of time, leaving behind mountains of corpses, guilty and innocent alike, and nothing Vindice ever did could stop it.
"W-White hair. Silver eyes." The middle-sized one piped out, trembling like leaf in hurricane. "R-Red and there was s-steel and iron – "
Steel and iron.
Bermuda's eyes behind the bandages closed as sense of helplessness pervaded his very bones with chill that couldn't be availed by any kind of artificial warmth.
Jaeger, on the other hand, was still, his shoulders stiff as a board as his mind replayed The Distaster over and over again.
The Guardian - an ironic name for one who had been causing such bloodshed through the hundreds of years, even before the existence of Vindice.
Vidice's long memories had been a blessing when it came to dealing with Mafia, but they proved to be the curse of the worst sort when the first of them had the greatest misfortune of encountering this man and going against him.
Vindice tried to be impartial, or as much as they could afford themselves to be. Innocents were to be exempt from Mafia, as long as they stayed on the right side of things.
When Guardian had appeared for the first time, Vindice had tried to interfere to save those innocent lives.
And for the first time in their almost-invincible existence, they felt feelings they had thought to have left behind with their human-looking forms.
Fear. Terror. Despair. Helplessness. Impotent fury, because it took nearly all of them to try and stop the monster in human guise – along with Bermuda almost losing his life – but all their efforts had been in vain.
What burned the most, was the news and people talking about some natural disaster or another, but Vindice knew damn well just who the hell caused the destruction of an almost apocalyptic scale.
Despicably unstoppable. They had tried to stop him with Night Flames - their own curse and one feared through all of Mafia – only for them to be swept away in the wave of cursed fire and strange weapons.
"A-and –" The smallest one swallowed saliva as it tried to reign in its' body's instinctive reaction to flee as it remembered one more horrifying fact.
"And?" Jaeger's voice was dull.
"And he has a Master."
Both Jaeger and Bermuda jerked up, Jaeger's mouth soundlessly moving through the foul curse at their shitty luck –
"And who is his Master?" Bermuda was calm. Almost eerily so.
The tall form in front of him flinched back, as if expecting to be struck for its answer.
"Harry James Potter."
Jaeger stopped in the mid-curse. Really, there was no strong enough curse or expletive to express their utterly shitty luck.
"Jaeger." Bermuda was still, but all of them could see just how still the tiny baby was.
"Yes." Jaeger managed to choke out.
"Operation Armaggedon is a go." The three until now hapless Vindice stilled. The super-secret, most extreme security protocol of Vindice was finally put in action.
Jaeger couldn't help but to bow to Bermuda.
"As you will."
"I am a Counter Guardian."
Kiritsugu stared at Archer flatly.
Archer was clad all in black, like some kind of a fashionable villain - heavens knew the man couldn't go out of the house without one or another of those pesky fashion designers to beg him to be their model. This time, he had on black, leg-hugging jeans and black shirt with two uppermost buttons left off to show off the hollow of the man's throat and a slender chain, made of mithril lying upon the tanned skin. Feet encased in designer shoes, also black.
(Harry's gift, Kiritsugu remembered sourly.)
Kiritsugu eyed the man up and down again, irked by the smug smirk on his face and feeling vastly underdressed for some reason.
Archer was the type that was effortlessly elegant in any clothes he donned… and that pissed Kiritsugu off for some reason.
"Nope. Not seeing it." Kiritsugu retort was flat and Archer's eyebrows rose in mocking askance.
"You are a dandy. I bet you can't hit even the wide side of the barn, never mind being a Counter Guardian." Kiritsugu shook his head mock-mournfully. "What a useless son I am cursed to bear." He raised his arms as if in despair at Heavens' little choice of his offspring.
Archer's eyebrow twitched as he held himself back not to throttle Kiritsugu.
Suddenly, he smirked.
"Whatever you say…. Old man."
Kiritsugu stilled. That oversized, bleached, dandified, no good punk…What did he say?
"Say that again." His voice was deathly quiet as he glared at his errant protégé.
Archer smirked as he leisurely cleaned his left ear with his pinky.
"Oh. They say the first sign of age is your hearing going. My condolences. You are an official old man, Old Man."
Kiritsugu saw red.
"I AM EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD, YOU LITTLE SHIT! I AM NOT OLD!"
Archer's face brightened with mock-delight at Kiritsugu's outburst.
"Sweet! I am twenty-one and of course, because I am older…" He paused for dramatic revelation.
"I can forbid you to smoke. After all, you are just a minor."
With that said, he quickly snatched the pack of cigarettes from Kiritsugu, smiling all the while.
Kiritsugu was now fit to shot him with Contender.
"I am of age in Japanese law." He reminded Archer, seething, his nerves frazzled and fingers twitching for either cigarettes of trigger. Either one would do.
Archer patted Kiritsugu's hair patronizingly.
"Oh, but it isn't in Italy, and if I remember right…" He hummed mock-thoughtfully "You will stop being actual minor in November, the eleventh, to be exact." He grinned a shark grin at the fuming assassin.
"How dare you deceive poor little Harry with your stories of you being an adult, really. Shame, shame." He tutted, letting his hand be swatted away by increasingly pissed of Kiritsugu.
Archer tilted his head, enjoying needling his teenage 'father'.
"You know, you are kind of cute like that. A jailbait if I ever saw one."
Kiritsugu's mind became blank at the 'J' word.
Jailbait. Jailbait. Jail-Bait.
He breathed in and out. And then, he remembered. A slow smile stretched his lips, causing Archer to pause.
"You haven't been even born yet, so what that makes you? Future jailbait?
Kiritsugu was all teeth as he came close to the taken aback Archer, until they were nose-to-nose, black glaring into silver as their breath intermingled together. And then, he paused.
"No, I take that back."
Archer tensed.
Kiritsugu willingly taking his words back? The world gotta be ending somewhere.
Kiritsugu's smile was now positively menacing, and Archer unconsciously shrunk back on the couch he was sitting on.
"You. Are. Oldest. Virgin. Jailbait. Ever."
Archer's eyes got impossibly round as he spluttered in shocked amusement at Kiritsugu's daring. Really, his…mentor… was just too much.
"At least I am the kind of jailbait who got to have a threesome," He snarked back, grinning at Kiritsugu's poleaxed face at his revelation. "You, on the other hand…" He smirked smugly.
"Are about as fresh as not-driven snow. Bet you hadn't even kissed yet." The smug smirk stretched into a shark grin at Kiritsugu's speechlessness.
"I so did." Kiritsugu managed to get out, but much to Archer's amusement, the tips of his ears were red. And the rest of his face, too, even if it was really faint shade of pink. If Archer hadn't had sharp eyes, he would have missed it.
Archer quirked his eyebrow. "And I call bullshit. You can't even - actually, right now you are blushing like little kissing virgin you are." He playfully pursed his lips. "Mwah."
Kiritsugu's dark eyes flashed. And before Archer knew what was happening, the front of his T-shirt was being grabbed into iron hold as he was yanked forward, only to feel chapped, cigarette smoke-tinted lips on his own.
Silver eyes bulged out with belated horror, but just as soon as it happened, he was also harshly pushed back.
"Well. I proved that I am no kissing virgin, you are my witness." Kiritsugu breathed at him, cheeks flushed (and Kiritsugu looked horrifyingly cute and young at this moment), dark eyes flashing with defiance as he roghly wiped his lips with the forearm.
He smirked at shell-shocked Archer as he stepped away from him, nonchalantly heading to the door. When reaching the door, he stopped and looked over his shoulder at the dumbfounded Counter Guardian.
(Ha. As if.)
"Shame you can't do the same with your so-called threesome. Until you do, however… you will be the oldest jailbait ever. Or, in your case, forever and a day." Throwing him one last smug smirk, Kiritsugu swaggered out of the room, leaving dumbfounded Archer sitting on the couch, still reliving the last minute of him receiving Kiritsugu's 'virgin' kiss.
"My eyes. My lips. My life shall never be the same." Archer was traumatized as he mumbled to himself, his eyes vacant with shock.
He had been kissed by his own father because of pissy contest that had gotten - by Archer's own fault - out of hand.
Did that mean he kind of de-virginized Kiritsugu somehow…?
A chill of terror skittered down his spine as he thought of the possibility of … Kiritsugu wasn't attracted to him, was he?
Archer's head was spinning with the thoughts twisting themselves into an unsolvable pretzel with ever-increasing speed.
But… Kiritsugu kissed him. Him. Archer.
By the Throne of Heroes… Archer wanted to whimper. And not manly whimper, either. This was a disaster. This was end of the world and -
And Kiritsugu was a stick in the mud relationships-wise. Even with Irisviel –
'Don't. Even. Go. There.' He firmly told his mind as he grabbed the nearby pillow to bury his completely red face into, feeling the heat radiate from his ears.
"Archer?" Harry's voice reached him. "Do you want to cook spicy fried noodles tonight? I will prepare cucumber sala – "
Harry abruptly cut himself off when he saw Archer almost curling into the pillow, the usually cocky and composed man a complete wreck.
"Archer?" Harry approached him, a concerned frown on his face. "Are you okay?" He placed his hand on Archer's right shoulder.
Archer slowly raised his head, only so much his eyes looked at Harry, the lower part of his face obscured by the pillow still.
"Love me?" He pitifully squeaked out.
Harry was half-amused, half concerned. "No kitchen tonight?"
Archer vehemently shook his head. Right now he was 100% sure he would fail at any and all dishes – hell, he could've burned water with the way how his life was going.
His F rank luck was biting him on the ass…
… or better, had kissed him on the lips and…
"My life is ruined." He told Harry, his voice gravely serious. "I need cuddles. And lots of them."
Harry nodded. "Okay. Will call Xanxus. And Kiritsugu."
Archer's face contorted into a mask of utter horror.
Xanxus. No.
Kiritsugu. Hells to no. Ever.
Archer was a humble man, but his pride had been already tattered enough for today. Xanxus was like a shark - if he knew Archer's weakness, it would be only matter of time to exploit it, Besides, that porcupine-like kitty brat only willingly cuddled with Iri and Harry and something would have to be seriously wrong with Archer's manly self-esteem if he subjected himself to Xanxus' mercies of all people.
Kiritsugu… No. Just… NO.
"Iri, then?" Archer blinked at Harry's question, not aware that he declined Kiritsugu's 'company' aloud.
He shook his head violently.
"No. Just you…. So, love me?" He gave his best version of puppy eyes at Harry.
Harry was his Master, his savior, his sole light in this mess…The tanned silver-eyed man sighed with relief as Harry tentatively hugged him around his shoulders, his own black-clad arms snaking around Harry's waist and tugging him to Archer, both moving until Archer was half-lying on the couch, with Harry using him as some kind of a makeshift body pillow.
"Harry?" He inquired softly.
"Mm?" Harry hummed back.
"You will love me even if I am a jailbait, right?"
Harry blinked at him, amused. "Can't see how you could be one." He hummed back again, humoring his Servant.
Archer let out a silent breath of relief. Well. At least one person was on his side. He felt Harry snuggle back on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. Archer felt his face slowly cool off, but a different kind of warmth filled his chest, as he half-closed his eyes in contentment.
Ahh… This was bliss.
But….There was a niggling thought at the back of Archer's mind.
Archer stilled when he remembered dream sharing.
Oh. Fuck.
Scribble
His mouth salivated.
The bliss was almost too much to bear.
It had been too long - too long since he had felt so light and free, so without agony rending his nerves apart.
The bracelet helped, of course - but in comparison with its source, it was as if it was a tiny white dwarf of a star in the face of a sun in its entire glorious splendor.
He fought - so very hard - not to collapse on the spot - and only his iron will was holding him upright as he gave off Aoi to that Tohsaka cretin.
(Tohsaka wouldn't be worthy of her. Ever. Not even if he were the greatest magus born, Aoi was too good, too delicate for the likes of him.)
All his sense were concentrated on the right side, where that bespectacled green-eyed teen was standing, clad in simple dark grey suit with deep emerald shirt that was not even close to the color of his eyes.
(Kariya should have known… He checked.)