l
-16-
Jackson stared at Keiichi with drunken horror. "Man, I ain't sleeping on yo' ugly-ass, 'light red with rosette pattern' couch. Go fuck yourself!"
Keiichi shrugged. "Okay, you can sleep on the floor then since the guest bedrooms are all taken."
The afternoon had worn well into the evening, and with it, the barbeque was wrapping itself up for those in attendance. Most of Team 12 had enough control not to drink too much if they'd driven to the Morisato house or had forgone alcohol altogether as the designated driver for that evening. At this point, the only exception was Jackson, who'd had a few too many. Currently, his keys were being held hostage by Aiko. There was plenty of room in McGuinness's truck, since he was the DD that night, but Jackson had already made it clear that he didn't want to spend two painful hours the following morning working out how to get to Keiichi's place and then driving back home. That meant staying the night, and with the Morisato house already filled with four additional women, none of whom were sleeping with Keiichi, made for few options in terms of beds.
Now the large man stared at Keiichi in bafflement. "What the fuck, are you-what you mean?" he sputtered. "By who? You got three bedrooms Jank. Who the fuck takes three bedrooms?"
Keiichi raised an eyebrows and pointed to the four women behind Jackson. Good lord, the man had to be heavily inebriated to have forgotten the Norns and his younger sister staying at his place.
Jackson turned and stared at the four women, who watched him with various levels of amusement. "Ah, come on, man!" he groaned. "Are you serious?! Yer kill'en me, Smalls!"
Keiichi stifled a laugh. "What, you don't want to be a gentleman for these poor, homeless women and lone dorm rat of a college student?" he asked, ignoring the glare Aiko directed his way. "You either take the couch, the floor, or, if you like..." Keiichi leaned in close and wagged his eyebrows at Jackson. "You can spend the night with me..."
The larger man leapt away from him as if he was a snake. "Hell no!" he cried. "No Homo, man, no homo!" Neither individual noticed the heavy looks of amusement on the rest of Team 12's faces, nor the way Belldandy sighed in sudden relief at Jackson's abrupt refusal. Aiko smiled broadly, McGuinness looked away with a snort, and Urd stifled a laugh as Skuld and Sanchez snickered.
"Looks like the answer's obvious..." Braxton muttered.
Jackson groaned. "Man, can't I at least shack up with Sheila for the night?" The man looked at Urd, his eyes desperate. "Please?!"
"No can do Bud." Keiichi shook his head slowly. "Urd's already rooming with Skuld, and they've got the smaller bedroom. Belldandy and Aiko are sharing the other guest bedroom, which means the only other room is my own, and let me tell you something, Bro." He hooked an arm around Jackson's broad shoulders. "After hanging out with the SERE boys, I ain't afraid a' cozying up with another dude." He blew a kiss at Jackson just for effect, and was rewarded when Jackson screamed like a little girl, threw Keiichi's arm off his shoulders, and backtracked into the couch, falling onto the Ugly Beast in his haste to escape the man.
More roars of laughter, and above it all Sanchez cried out, "Face it, Piper," he said, calling Jackson by his callsign. "You sleeping on the Grandma Couch tonight!" Jackson groaned in misery.
A little ways back from the couch, Urd and Skuld were playing a game of ro-sham-bo in their nightly ritual of who slept in the bed versus who was on the blow-up mattress. After a couple of rounds, Urd pumped a fist in silent victory as Skuld scowled. "And you're sleeping on the floor," Urd whispered, then pivoted with a laugh as Skuld tried to punch her in the arm. Even Belldandy laughed, her cheeks rosy as she swayed gently from one side to the next, displaying all the signs of being tipsy despite no one having seen her have more than one or two beers. If anything, she'd had more root beer instead, seeming to prefer the carbonated drink's flavor to the beers Team 12 had brought with them. And while there was nothing wrong with that, it was still, perhaps, a bit strange to those who knew her to see Belldandy almost downright drunk.
"And I believe it is time for us to take our leave," McGuinness announced. "It is getting close to eleven in the evening, and I think we've stayed long enough." He nodded to Keiichi, who smiled in turn.
"Yeah, sounds good," he agreed. "Thanks for coming over, Tank. We had a good time." He paused and glanced at Belldandy, who was heading upstairs (staggering more like) to retrieve an extra blanket and pillow for Jackson's upcoming night on the couch. "I think Belldandy liked it too," he said in a softer voice.
"She would not be the only one," McGuinness murmured, glancing towards Urd, who was staring openly at the two of them from where she leaned against a door frame. The woman had a fond smile on her face, though judging by the pink in her cheeks, it was hard to say if she even realized she was wearing it. The man averted his gaze to the rest of the hallway, where Braxton and Sanchez were carrying crock pots and coolers in their arms. "Ye' have everything?" This late at night, some of the man's accent slipped into his words, mild though it was.
"We're good," Braxton said. "Thanks for having us over, Jank." He looked over to where Skuld and Aiko were hanging out in the hallway. "Nice meeting you guys," he said. "See you around."
"Yeah, nice meeting you Skuld!" Sanchez cried. "You keep Sheila in line, yeah?"
"I'll keep it in mind." Skuld glanced at Urd who was still staring at either Keiichi or McGuinness with an almost lonely look in her eyes. She scowled, then looked back to the departing remains of Team 12. "Have a safe trip home, guys."
McGuinness nodded. "And ye' have a good night as well," he said. With that, the group of three: McGuinness, Sanchez, and Braxton, departed out the door.
Keiichi closed the door behind them, and then looked to where Jackson sat on the couch. "You stick your lip out any more a bird is going to come and shit on it," the man advised.
"Fuck you, Jank."
Aiko laughed. "You're pouting worse than Keigo after Takano confiscates his Gameboy," she said. "It's a pink couch, Piper. And you're only sleeping on it for one night." She rolled her eyes, cheeks red in her own drunken state of being, though she'd only had two beers.
Belldandy came back down the stairs with the items she'd left to retrieve. There was a perplexed frown on her face. "Ah...Mr. Jackson-"
"Piper. Mr. Jackson was my father."
"Piper then." Belldandy bit her lip. "I went in search of blankets and pillows, but, well..." It was hard to tell if she was biting back humor or anxiety. "...there was only this left. All the other blankets are being used or are in the laundry." She offered the man a pillow in a white sleeve and an absurd, pink blanket that at one time might have been red. It showed signs of age, and additional signs that someone-whoever that someone was-had at one point mixed some type of bleach-based product in with the wash at one point.
Piper took the items with a stony complexion. Then he diverted a glare to Keiichi, who laughed and scratched the back of his head. "Heyyyyy..." he drawled, not without unease. "You, uh...you found my old ship blanket!" He smiled. It looked like a grimace. "From when I was fresh out of 'C' School and on the USS Ronald Reagan! That's-that's... great?" Under his breath he muttered, "I forgot about that old thing."
"This shit's pink, Morisato." Unconsciously, Jackson echoed his earlier statement towards the Ugly Beast. "Why the hell is it pink, Morisato?"
"Yeah..." Keiichi looked away, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously. "Younger me wasn't that good with washing machines, once upon a time..."
"Bullshit," Aiko called his bluff. "Takano made sure we all knew how to operate a washing machine as soon as we were old enough to start helping out around the house."
Jackson's eyebrows shot upwards. "Oh really?" he said, then looked to Keiichi with large, accusing eyes. "Well then what's your excuse, Morisato?"
Keiichi shot a glare at Aiko, who smiled and blew him a kiss. "I uh... younger me was drinking while waiting to use a washing machine," he said. "So, um, yeah, I didn't separate the colors from the whites."
Jackson narrowed his eyes. "I still smell bullshit," he growled.
"Okay, okay!" Keiichi brought his hands up in his defense. "So maybe I wasn't drinking and maybe there was only one washing machine available and maybe I didn't want to spend my off hours doing laundry all day?"
Jackson groaned and threw the blanket and pillow on to the Ugly Beast. It contrasted the cast of pink on the couch rather well, in all honesty. Not that Jackson cared. "Jesus Christ, get your shit together Jank."
"Well..." Belldandy spoke up, voice hesitant. "I think it's a lovely blanket." She walked into the living room and grabbed the blanket, spreading it open onto the couch. "It speaks of fond memories and the hardships Keiichi's younger self experienced in his earlier years, and it has served him well since his time aboard his first ship." Perhaps in another time, another place, the words might have come out as tender words of affection, one that invoked feelings of warmth and kindness in so great a manner that it affected everyone present.
Yet the world had moved on, and the more it turned, the harder it became. It also didn't help that Belldandy was drunk. Jackson grunted, staring at the couch with a disdainful glare. "Riiiight." He drawled. "Just like the boxers I've had since Basic."
Belldandy turned to stare at him sharply, and then all at once she collapsed onto the couch in a fit of giggles. Keiichi groaned. "And with that folks, I believe it's time we all retire for the night." He watched as on his queue, Skuld walked over to Urd and grabbed her by the arm.
"Let me help you, you can barely even walk," she said as she pulled the silver haired goddess to her feet and started to lead her towards the stairs. As they passed Keiichi, she paused just long enough to reach out and sock him a good one on his arm before continuing.
"Ow! Fucking hell what was that for!"
Skuld said nothing, but Urd wavered and leaned slightly towards him. "That wasss my fault," she slurred, then giggled. "But you deserves it!"
With that, the elder Norn was pulled or perhaps more accurately dragged to the stairs, leaving the confused mortal behind.
XXX
The night that followed would be a drunken one that few would remember, and the results of which would never be appreciated until further down the road, when people had a chance to reflect and laugh on how life worked and could joke about their own tomfoolery without their own feelings getting in the way of that reflection. Jokes that would be made in the presence of others or when alcohol was present, for alcohol was the end all to most stories, where so long as only ten percent of the tale was true, all of it could be considered true in the minds of those relaying the events.
And what, on this fine night, were those events?
Well then...
Belldandy awoke later that night to a sharp pain in her shin. The woman flinched and grunted, adjusting her position in her bed before snuggling up to the man of her dreams, spooning up against him with a warm sigh. Another kick nailed her in the shin, this one just above the previous blow, and again the Norn flinched, wincing a bit as she became more awake. "No more kicky," she grumbled, hugging the person beside her tightly as her hand accidently squeezing something that was most definitely a breast. Wait. Some piece of logic stopped her, and checking just to be sure, Belldandy once more squeezed her hand, feeling the soft give of flesh that spoke more of a soft breast than a hard chest. Wait. Keiichi has breasts? When had this happen? Did Urd give him a potion? Her sister had been giving Keiichi a lot of potions over the past couple of weeks, if her mind recalled.
Another kick nailed her in the shin, this time in the same spot as the first strike, and Belldandy hissed, releasing her misbegotten prey in favor of sitting up. She rubbed her eyes, then stared down at her bed mate, rubbing her bruised leg as she stared at the short blue hair in the night. I didn't know Lind cut her hair, she thought, followed by; Wait, this isn't Keiichi's room.
Grimacing, the woman looked around, blinking bleary, intoxicated eyes as she tried to recognize her surroundings. Next to her, Aiko sighed in relief, free at last of the Norn's agonizing death hug that had been cutting off her air, and attempted to go back to sleep, heels throbbing from where she'd struck the goddess in question with all her might. Unfortunately for her, now that her mind was awake her body chose that moment to burn with a familiar need for relief, and as Belldandy looked around the room trying to make sense of where she was, Aiko groaned into her pillow. I need to pee. She thought.
Belldandy muttered to herself, not realizing she'd slipped back to her native tongue. "I should be with Keiichi. Why am I with Lind?" Grumbling, the woman rubbed her shin one last time before getting out of bed and heading for the door, opening it on silent hinges before wandering out into the hallway.
Aiko, listening to her departure, screamed in her head. No! I need to pee! Why you got to go potty now of all times!? The woman strained her ears, trying to follow the sound of Belldandy's footsteps as she departed the bedroom and went into the hallway. Hurry up!
Ignorant of the thoughts of the lone, poor college student in her bed, Belldandy wandered down the hallway, passing the bathroom without so much as a glance as she stumbled towards Keiichi's room. I was with Keiichi. She thought, mind muddled and thick, half-asleep and still drunk from...whatever it was she'd been drinking earlier. Mead? Was it Mead? Mead always knocked her on her ass. She always had a tendency to overindulge in the drink due to its sweetness. Strange. She wasn't aware American mortals knew how to make mead, since it was almost an exclusive Norse alcohol. But that wasn't important right now. What was really important was finding Keiichi. How'd he switch with Lind like that? She wondered. And why Lind of all people?!
The goddess wandered down the hallway and to the stairs, completely missing Keiichi's room. She paused at the alcove, looking down the dark descent before turning and wandering back up the hallway. She missed Keiichi's door a second time, then passed her own room, where a tired, drunken Aiko was throwing mental curses at her as she passed the door, wandered past the room Urd and Skuld were using, and approached a back cabinet that rested at the end of the hallway. Here we are. She opened it, then stared at the empty shelves in confusion, wondering how Keiichi's room had misplaced itself in the past twelve hours.
"Froggy?" Belldandy squinted into the shelves, yet Keiichi was nowhere to be seen. Groaning softly, the woman shut the door and wandered back down the hallway, this time opening every door she came across and peering inside. "Froggy?" She opened her sisters' room, yet nothing but two pairs of gentle, feminine murmurs met her ears. Nope. She closed it and moved on. "Froggy?" She opened the bathroom, then stared at the toilet in mild confusion, wondering why The Screaming Man wasn't attempting to greet her in a fit of Old Spice on the back of a tiger. She closed it and moved back to her room. "Froggy?" Wait, this was Lind's room. At once she closed it, hoping she hadn't woken Lind, and moved on.
Aiko, frustrated, her bladder burning, screamed into her pillow.
"Froggy?" She opened the final door that came right before the stairs, and was rewarded at last with soft snoring from the lone resident inside. There he was. Goodness, how silly of her. She must have been rather drunk to have missed him. Here we are. She thought, breathing a sigh of relief. I was getting a bit worried for a moment. The woman entered the room and closed the door behind her. Perhaps in my drunken state I mistook the guest room Lind was sleeping in for mine? She wondered, then cast the thought aside with a mental shrug. It mattered not. She'd returned to her bedroom, with her man, and that was the important thing.
The woman walked towards the bed, and then with a gentle sigh flopped herself down on top of Keiichi's sleeping form. Keiichi, a man who'd learned to sleep through mortar attacks on FOBs and would probably one day die in his sleep from such an attack bringing the building down on his head, did little other than grunt, squirm, and settle once more beneath the new weight on top of him.
By this time, Aiko was completely awake and miserable as she awaited her 'bedmate' to finish her business and switch out with her. Aiko followed Belldandy's path with strained ears. She had to listen for the soft sound of doors opening and closing, for the woman's footsteps were so light they seemed nonexistent; as though the woman floated rather than stepped, for the wooden floor never groaned against her weight, never protested against her steps. It was only the peculiar word she used: "Froggy?" That helped Aiko track her presence, and though a piece of her was certain the woman was no longer searching for the toilet, she now no longer wanted to get up for fear of the Norn walking in on her while she was using the facilities.
What was 'froggy' again?
She listened to the woman open Keiichi's room, Speak 'Froggy' and enter, and went inside, then heard the squeak of the bed next door as a weight settled onto it. Oh god. A part of her thought. She's going to sleep with my brother and I'm right next to them. She shuddered, trying to drown the sudden mental images that wanted to pop into her head, and then her body reminded herself of what else she'd been neglecting. Fuck. Bathroom. Shit. Fuck. Piss. The college student rose with a soft groan, and no longer caring about anything the goddess did to her brother, made her way to the bathroom in a rush.
A short time later, with relief Aiko emerged from the bathroom. She looked around, mind fuzzy with either exhaustion or drink-this late at night it was impossible to tell the difference-and began to make her way back to the bedroom. And it was in just such a way that, in an amusing sense of irony, Aiko peered first into the room she shared with Belldandy and looked around. The bed is empty. She thought. That's not right. I was sleeping with someone. She narrowed her eyes at it, in that moment forgetting how she'd listened to Belldandy go into her brother's room. Can't sleep here. Must be the wrong bedroom. She looked to the one neighboring it closer to the stairs. That's Kei's room, and I always took the bedroom farthest from his room.
Why was that again? Ah, that's right. She didn't want to hear her brother fucking his wife. That's why. An involuntary shudder worked down her spine, and grimacing Aiko shut the door and moved further down the hall. A small piece of her didn't feel right about the whole thing though. Why did she feel like that middle guest room was supposed to be her room? It didn't make any sense.
Shrugging, she cast the thoughts aside, opening her bedroom and peering inside. Right. Back guest bedroom. Smallest room in the house, so there was only really enough room for a twin bed, and she'd had to share it with... with... Belldandy! That's right!
...Had there always been a bunch of stuff on the floor?
Carefully, Aiko made her way into the bedroom, being careful to shut the door as silently as possible before tiptoeing around the blow-up mattress with Skuld and to the bed with Urd. At this point, her body was starting to beg for sleep again, and she could feel her eyelids drooping like a pair of lead weights against her eyes. Sleep sounded real nice right about now, and with a sigh she crawled into the bed and scooted up to the person next to her.
She felt the woman beside her adjust, making room for her on the small bed (it felt smaller than before, strange) and then felt 'Belldandy' pull her close, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her into a gentle embrace that wasn't near as tight as it was before. Aiko sighed in resignation. This is my life now. She thought. Why couldn't she just sleep with my brother and give me the bed? And then she too, after some measure of difficulty, drifted off to sleep.
XXX
Jackson moaned and buried his head further into his pillows, trying to drown out the noise emanating from somewhere around the house. It sounded like knocking. "Go 'way," he grumbled. "Don wan' any." His head was pounding and his throat felt uncomfortably dry. Grimacing, he buried his head under his pillow and tried to drift off once more into the sweet oblivion of sleep, and just felt it's tender tug when a knock, this one more forceful, once more pulled him to the waking world and it waiting pain.
"God Damn it," he groaned. "Someone get the door!" He winced at his own voice, drawing the lone comforter that served as his bedding up over his head. Yet the house was silent. He heard no movement from the floor upstairs nor anyone rushing towards the door from the dining room or neighboring kitchen. Everyone was asleep. Everyone but him. "Not gonna get it," he said through gritted teeth. "Not gonna get it. Not gonna get off this ugly-ass couch just to answer some fucking Jehova's witness. Fuckers can piss off right now before I-"
A third knock. Angry. Loud. Demanding. "Someone get the fucking door!" Jackson bellowed, and was answered once more with silence. The fourth knock wasn't so much a knock as it was something crashing into the doorframe, perhaps warning the residents 'if you don't open now, I'll force my way inside.' "Oh hell no." Jackson rolled out of the Ugly Beast, all at once angry and upset. "Motherfucker asking for it now. Who the fuck they are, smashing into a door like that?" The man stomped into the hallway and approached the door just in time to see it shudder on its foundation.
"This bitch," the man growled. Had he been a younger man, one who'd yet to enter the harsh world of ad-hoc deployments and at times hourly gun-fights with terrorist insurgents, Brian Jackson would have taken the shuddering door as a sign to proceed with caution or, better yet, to get a shotgun, hole up, and call the police. As a man who'd grown up in a ghetto, he'd seen his fair share of murders and robberies, and even had a younger brother doing time for gang-related car theft.
Yet the Naval life, in particular life as a SEAL, had somewhat jaded him over the long years since enlisting, and having lived in Virginia for a good many years-Virginia, with its broad forests and large coastland-had changed his overall attitude towards anyone who came to his front door. Now, he was hung over. Now, he was irritable. Now, he wanted to tear someone's ass up for waking him at fucking seven in the morning on a goddamned Saturday. The man paused at the door, having just enough sense to look through the spyhole and ensure that the person on the other side wasn't armed, and saw a woman with a shock of blue hair standing outside.
"I know you're there," a muffled voice came to him from across the threshold. "Open the door now or I'll knock it down."
This of course, did not sit well with Chief Petty Officer Brian Jackson, and so with a snarl on his face, his mind shifting into 'pissed-off Chief' mode, a mode that left many a sailor fleeing in terror, for no man was so salty as a higher-tier enlisted Chief. The man unlocked the front door, threw it open...
And met the most beautiful blue eyes he'd ever seen in his entire life.
All at once the fight went out of him, and instead Chief Brian "Piper" Jackson stared at Goddess First Class, Special Category Lind and felt Cupid's arrow of love strike him in the heart.
The woman on the other side of the door froze, and Jackson watched her eyes widen. Oh lord, he could gaze into those eyes forever. They're like glaciers. That bright blue of an underwater glacier.
"Oh no. Wait, you're not-" She looked around, and Jackson felt a piece of him leave with that broken gaze.
The eyes are the gateway to the soul. He thought. And she just broke in and stole it. His heart fluttered in his chest, and his breath came short, making it difficult to breath. He watched her turn, watched her glance over her shoulder, and in the gentle rays of the Sunday morning sun her actions seemed slow. Deliberate. A form of art that stole his breath with the way the light played with her hair, danced on her white clothes, colored her face in ways he'd never seen on another person before.
"I apologize, I must have the wrong address," the woman said, looking back at Jackson with furrowed brows the same shade of pale blue as her hair. Pale blue. Blue like the sky when he was jumping from a C-130, and with a shine so bright it could have passed for crystal.
Like florite, he thought. It's shiny like florite. God, what he wouldn't do to run his fingers through that hair. He likened it to silk; long and smooth and luxurious, as though blessed by a goddess herself.
"Forgive me, I thought this was the Morisato residence." The woman's voice was soft and apologetic, and she sent him a worried glance as she edged away from the front door. "Uh..."
Baby, you must be an angel from heaven, cause I'm falling hard for you. Jackson continued to stare, and across from him, the woman with the strange, outlandish garb and the shocking blue hair that reminded him a bit of Aiko began to fidget.
"Um...I'll-I'll just be going now." She turned to leave, her stance now somewhat anxious, and Jackson found himself reaching out to her.
Wait...Don't go. He thought. I just want to—His hand touched her shoulder, and the cloth felt strange and outlandish against his fingers. Soft like cloth and yet cold like steel. And then all at once the Woman in White had grabbed him, maneuvering him in an armbar with such a natural sense of ease and skill that he could feel himself melt inside. She's touching me! A piece of him screamed, overjoyed by his current predicament. I've been touched by an angel! And...
And it fucking hurts!
"Why are you touching me?" That scowl had returned, and the anxious, nervous, adorable angel he'd seen vanished in place of a gorgeous, ass-kicking Valkyrie who looked close to breaking his arm.
"Ow." That was the first word out of Jackson's mouth to the woman of his dreams. "Ow. Owowowowwwww!" The second, more understandable word was, strangely enough, "BEARGLOVE!"
And to his surprise the woman released him. She was also now staring at him as though he had some strange kind of plague, but at least his arm wasn't about to break. Not that he'd mind if she broke it. Hell, she could come over and break all his bones if it meant her touching him. Just not that bone down at his cro-
"Goodness, you must be one of the mad ones." The woman grimaced and recoiled from him, holding her hands away from her as though she'd touched something soiled. "This must not be the place. But I was so certain I felt-"
"No!" Jackson yelled, and watched as the angel with the blue eyes jumped. "No, I mean yes, I mean, this is the Morisato residence, I'm Brian Jackson, how do you do." He smiled and held his hand out to her, and the woman flinched away from it. She stared at it as though it was a dog that would bite her, then back at Jackson. The smile on his face didn't fade.
"Ah..." With a bit of hesitation, the woman reached out and grasped his hand, the grip firm against his own. "How do you... do?" she said. "Are...are you a friend of Morisato's?"
"Yes!" he screamed, and the woman flinched. "Yes! Yes Ma'am! The best friend! The only friend! And he has never told me anything about a woman of such beauty as yourself. How are you doing, Miss..."
"Lind." The woman eyed him, sending him a smile that his rational mind would have translated to 'strained' but his lovesick self took and cherished like the stars in the sky. "Ah... I-I am a... friend? Yes, I believe so... I am a friend of Urd's."
"Oh." Jackson's mouth formed in a large, exaggerated 'O'. "Oh! So you must be from the UN as well! So you know Skuld and Belldandy too, right?"
"...Yes?" She looked very much like she did not want to admit to this fact, though once again, Jackson missed any signs of her discomfort.
"Hey, that's great!" He beamed at her. "You come to the right place then! Everyone else is upstairs asleep still, but if you want, you can come on in and I'll get started on some breakfast while we wait. Maybe, you know, chat and get to know-"
It was at that inopportune moment, that a scream echoed throughout the household, emanating from the upper floors and flooding outside and down the stairs, causing both Jackson and Lind to jump. It was Skuld, of course. Skuld, waking up to the results of last nights drinking and good fair. Skuld, who'd just discovered her sister sleeping with Keiichi's sister. And her response given what she awoke to was reasonable: one of shock, horror, and disbelief. "WHAT THE FUCK?!"
Upstairs, Urd and Aiko awoke with a pair of twin screams of their own. Screams that grew shrill and loud as their attention drifted from Skuld's screams and to each other, wrapped arm and arm in a lover's grip that left them attempting to separate in a wild tangle of limbs.
"Holy shit what the fuck, how the hell did you-"
"What the fuck am I doing in here? Where the fuck am I, what the hell!"
"Oh Yggdrasil, oh gross, oh Heavens, this is nasty oh by the sweet fruit of the Tree of Life, oh-"
The combination of their clamoring protests intermingled with Skuld's waking scream were enough to awaken Keiichi and Belldandy with a start from where Belldandy had passed out on top of Keiichi. Sadly, the position was most unfortunate for the man in question, for as Belldandy awoke with a yelp her right foot crashed into his chin with a good, solid kick. Keiichi, ever the man of action, responded in turn by knocking the individual on top of him off his bed, his mind not processing who it was until Belldandy cried out and toppled to the floor, hitting the wood with a heavy thud that caused Jackson and Lind downstairs to wince.
It took a moment for Keiichi's mind to catch up with the rest of his body, and when it did he swore loudly. "Oh fucking shit, Bell?" He looked over his bed, staring down at where the woman had rolled herself onto her back with a moan, legs sprawled out in the air. "Fuck. Fuck. Are you alright? Shit, I'm so sorry, I didn't-what were you doing in my bed?"
Belldandy groaned and moved to a sitting location. "I don't... know?" she said, rubbing her head with a grimace, then looked up at Keiichi. "I... I remember going to sleep in my bed, so how did I..."
The two flinched as an ever-maddening protest rose in the hallway. "Is that Cerberus?" Belldandy grumbled. "I hear the barking of three bitches."
Keiichi stared at her with widening eyes. "Did you just-" He paused, listened, and fell silent as he identified one of the voices as Aiko, clearly arguing with Skuld and Urd over some unfortunate predicament. "No... no, I take it back," he muttered, then made a face as he looked at his alarm clock. "Man, it's not even seven yet..." He sighed and rubbed his temples, feeling last night's drinking catching up with him. "So much for sleeping in."
"Indeed." Belldandy picked herself up and sat next to him on the bed, and for a moment Keiichi was tempted to pull her into a hug-good morning Beautiful and welcome to the start of the rest of your life-and then decided against it. They both sighed in relief when the morning rabble of siblings didn't come barging into Keiichi's room but instead back to their respective bedrooms, throwing curses and barbs at each other like a trio of angry, screaming cats.
"I suppose this means we must greet the new day." Belldandy sighed and buried her face in her hand, then surprised Keiichi by leaning into him. The Norn sounded very much like she wanted to curl up and go right back to sleep. Perhaps in Keiichi's arms.
"Guess so," Keiichi replied, his own face dour. Then, in a burst of spontaneity, leaned over and kissed the woman on the cheek. Belldandy went rigid. "Morning."
A deep flush darkened the woman's cheeks, but he wasn't blind to the smile she was fighting to hide. "Good morning, Keiichi."
"So... I couldn't help but notice…" He glanced sheepishly over at the woman as he reached back and scratched the back of his head. Belldandy looked back at him in confusion. "That you don't wear panties?"
"No," Belldandy replied. She seemed more embarrassed by the kiss than the revelation. "I don't. Do you?"
"What?" Keiichi looked at her with a start.
Belldandy looked back with furrowed eyebrows. "What?"
And so began the new day.
XXX
"So... you're here early," Skuld said. "And... you're uh, still dressed in your uniform, too."
It had taken the group of sibling sets a good fifteen minutes to calm down enough to change clothes and gather downstairs. It was an awkward time frame of covert glances and grimaces and shudders-at least for the Norn siblings and Aiko, the latter of which would blush and stutter and mutter whenever she ran into Urd. The fact that Urd, being the person she was, did little aside from smile and wink at poor Aiko did not help matters, and her calm over the whole matter spoke of a chance at relentless teasing further down the road. It made Aiko glad she was leaving on Sunday.
Then there was Lind. Poor, poor Lind, whose experience with mortals was limited at best, suddenly finding herself shadowed all throughout the house by a large beast of a man who watched her with stupid smiles and moon-eyes.
An awkward fifteen minutes, indeed.
"Yes," Lind replied, shuffling as she tried to ignore Jackson's love-sick eyes. "I... was not expecting you to have, ah, company."
"Yeah, well, that's what happens when you visit a family home on a holiday weekend." Keiichi held an icepack up to his chin, sinking into the Ugly Beast beside Belldandy. The lower half of his face was swollen and red from where Belldandy had accidentally kicked him. It hurt like a mother, and he was a little worried about how his jaw cracked when he opened his mouth too wide. "Thought you were coming on Sunday."
"I misjudged my..." She glanced at Aiko, perhaps preferring to look at the youth with hair of such a similar shade of her own to the SEAL pining away in a dining room chair off to one side of her. "...travel time."
"Well you might as well go back then." Skuld crossed her arms over her chest. "Because I'm still not going back until Sunday, and that's a good twenty four hours away. I meant what I said about a week, Lind."
"Or you could hang with us for the day," Urd suggested, ignoring the glare Skuld shot her way. "By the time you get back home, you'll just have to turn around and come back anyways, and that kind of travel can be exhausting, even for someone like you, Lind."
Aiko leaned forward from her place on the other side of Keiichi. "You're from the... UN, right?" She winked at Lind, who stared at Aiko in confusion.
"Yes, she's from the UN," Urd supplied her. "She's from... Greenland, where there aren't that many people, and she's never been to the States long enough to gain a feel for the culture."
"Greenland..." Jackson sighed. "Doesn't the Air Force have a base up there? Man, I'd gladly switch to the Air Force if it meant going up to Greenland..."
Lind cringed.
"Hey Jackson." The man looked up at Keiichi. "You know that Green Dot training we accidentally attended with the SERE dudes that one time?"
"Yeah." The man straightened, and some of the old Jackson began to shine through. "What about it?"
"You're acting like a red dot. Chill."
"I'm acting like a..." For a moment a look of incomprehension fell across Jackson's face, and then brightened as realization dawned on him. "Oh. Oh fuck. Sorry. Shit." The man rose at once. "Hey Belldandy, a little bird told me you like cooking. Want to help me whip up a quick hangover breakfast for everyone?"
"Red dot?" Belldandy stared at Keiichi in confusion, then narrowed her eyes. "Wait, a bird said what?"
"That was me," Urd cut in, directing the focus away from Keiichi. "Come on, let's go Bell. You help Jackson make some breakfast and I'll whip up my special hangover cure for everyone. Sound good?"
"I suppose?" Belldandy rose from the Ugly Beast, then sent one final, confused glance to Keiichi, still wondering what a 'red dot' was supposed to be before allowing Urd to drag her off towards the kitchen behind Jackson.
As soon as Jackson left to follow, Lind sighed in relief. Keiichi grinned at her. "Sorry about that," he said. "Jackson comes off strongly to anyone who first meets him, but he's a good guy. Really."
"So you're a god too?" Aiko cut in, bouncing in her seat beside Keiichi. "Nice hair by the way."
Lind started, taken aback by the sudden question. "Ah... yes. Yes I am..." She looked to Skuld, eyes pleading, yet the woman in question did little other than lean back and smile, taking glee in the Valkyrie's discomfort.
"Its okay, Lind. Aiko knows. She's my little sister, by the way," Keiichi threw in, then looked at Aiko. "Lind's a Valkyrie. She's part of some kind of godly military unit." He smiled. "She got a special duty assignment watching Urd after Urd went wild trying to rescue Bell."
"I see..." Lind murmured, looking between the two of them with interest. "Interesting. I was not aware that blue hair was a genetic trait associated with mortals." Skuld snorted, biting back laughter and growing red in the face as a result. "It looks good on you as well."
"Wait, her hair is-" Keiichi grunted as Aiko's elbow dug into his ribs.
"Speaking of..." Aiko looked at him in renewed interest. "You know, you still owe me that story..." She trailed off as Keiichi shook his head.
"Not know," he said. "When Jackson's gone, maybe, but nothing until then." The SEAL looked back to Lind. "Jackson doesn't know about you guys, and that's something we're trying to keep quiet about, too. So, for safety's sake, everyone here that's not a mortal is from the UN."
"Except Belldandy," Aiko reminded. "Don't forget, she's a human traffic victim."
"Yeah..." Keiichi sent his sister a glare. "I couldn't forget that even if I wanted to," he muttered.
"I...see..." Lind looked between the two siblings with a raised eyebrow. "And... what is the UN?"
Skuld laughed. "Oh Yggdrasil, you poor, clueless thing." She shook her head. "Okay, fine. I'll take pity on you this one time. What the UN is doesn't matter-you can look that shit up in Yggdrasil's archives when you get home. Just know this: you're part of the UN as..." She hummed in thought, a finger tapping against her upper arm. "as a...well, I wouldn't say spy, but... we need an excuse for your hair and outfit so... OH! I know!" She snapped her fingers, then looked as Lind with a wild grin. "You're running a sting at a Con! And part of it is dressing up so you aren't so easily recognizable, and you just came back from your shift in order to pick me up, and, admittedly, to get away from all the creepers who keep hitting on you at the convention! It's perfect! It'll explain why you aren't dressed like the natives and why you have hair that looks-" She looked at Aiko. "Like an... outlandish haircut."
"Okay..." Lind's brows furrowed together in concern. She wasn't certain she approved of the way Keiichi buried his face in his hands with a pained moan. "So... what is a Con?"
This time it was Aiko's turn to laugh. "Listen, if Piper asks, just tell him you're cosplaying Rei Ayaname, okay?" Keiichi turned to look at Aiko with a start, then switched to observe Lind with such scrutiny the Valkyrie began to squirm.
The SEAL grinned. "I can see it."
"See what?" Lind stared at the two siblings in growing confusion. "Who is Piper? What is 'cosplaying Rei Ayaname'?"
Skuld sighed and shook her head. "Just go with it, Lind."
"Go with what?!" Lind looked between the two siblings in bafflement. "What are you all talking about?!"
"Welp." Keiichi propped his hands behind his head and leaned back into the Ugly Beast, a large smile on his face. "We're doomed." It earned him another jab in the ribs from Aiko. The man's smile grew thoughtful. "Actually...since you're here, think I can talk with you in private later on?" The man grew serious as he looked to Lind, dropping his hands back into his lap. "It's...I need to talk to you about something personal."
"I...don't see why not." Lind said, her tone growing slow and thoughtful as she watched him. "This isn't about, well..." She looked to the kitchen, and catching her meaning, Keiichi shook his head.
"No, not-it's something else. Let's...talk outside."
Aiko and Skuld shared a look but said nothing, and frowning, Lind stood with Keiichi and followed him out to the front porch. The two younger women followed them out with perplexed gazes, then looked back to each other. "So..." Aiko began. "Starting bets. Belldandy, Jackson, or Urd?"
"Belldandy," Skuld affirmed. "Your brother doesn't have any reason to speak about anyone else. Not with Lind, anyhow."
"That's one bid for Carrie, and I'll place my bet on...
"Wow, wait a minute." Skuld stared at Aiko in confusion. "Who's 'Carrie'?
Aiko's grin was wicked. "Who do you think?"
XXX
"Sheila, come on, I'm begging you: Hook. Me. Up." Jackson had cornered Urd as soon as the Norn had left to grab her potions from where she'd come to store them in the kitchen cabinet, behind the expired cans of creamed corn and dried beans. The food items were old and covered in dust, and were of so little appeal to anyone in the house that Urd knew the potions behind them would be safe from tampering. Nobody would ever send a second glance to a bunch of bottles resting behind dusty cans that had never seen the light of day, and Urd doubted that even someone actively seeking her potions would give the bottles a second glance; it was so overt it was covert.
Now, with the base for her hangover cure in hand, the woman closed the cabinet door and turned around, finding Jackson all but in her face. "Wow, what?" Urd looked at Jackson in confusion. "Piper, what are you talking about?"
"Lind, Girl!" The man looked over his shoulder towards Belldandy, yet the woman was humming to herself, seeming to dance as she gathered ingredients from the fridge. Some of the steaks Jackson had prepped but had never been consumed rested on a plate near her elbow. The man looked back at Urd, gaze imploring before lowering his voice and continuing. "What's she like? What's her favorite color, favorite food? What kind of a guy does she go for? Come on sister, I'm dying here!"
"Wait, why are you coming to me for all this stuff?" Urd demanded. "What makes you think I can hook you up? And with Lind of all people? You met her what, half an hour ago?"
"'Cause you her friend, Girl! She said so herself!"
"Wait, what?" Urd froze, staring at Jackson in shock. "Her friend? Me?" Her voice came out as a disbelieving squeak. If not for the fact that the hangover potion's base serum was nestled in her arms, Urd would have dropped the large bottle in her bemusement. Unnoticed by either of them, Belldandy was sending quick, furtive glances back at the two of them, hiding her amusement behind a soft hum as she went about her business.
"Yeah!" Jackson nodded in emphasis, a large, ear-splitting smile on his face. "She introduced herself as 'I'm a friend of Urd's!' So come on, please? What you want in return? I'll grill you a steak, I give you my marinade recipes, I'll-I'll, fuck, I dunno, what do you want from me?"
"Wow, wow, calm down Piper." Urd raised her hands in defense. "I don't-Lind?" She glanced over Jackson's shoulder towards Belldandy, yet the woman was humming away, for all intents and purposes ignorant of their conversation. Urd dropped her voice as well. "You got a thing for Lind of all people?!" She shook her head. This was just too much all at once. "Why do you-what?"
Jackson sighed and rubbed his face. "Okay, look. I got a-a thing, okay?"
"A thing."
"Yeah, a thing," Jackson agreed. He looked uncomfortable and embarrassed. "It's-listen Urd, don't take this the wrong way or anything, but, I got a...look, I like a particular type of woman, and, well, Lind is that type. For me."
"Riiiiight..." Urd trailed off, staring at the SEAL with a raised silver brow. "That type of woman being...what?"
"Well...it's, uh..." He stared at Urd, then rubbed his neck before letting his hands drop to his sides. "Ah...it's-" The man grit his teeth and looked behind him at Belldandy, then gestured Urd towards him with a quick hand motion.
Her own curiosity peaked, Urd leaned forward, allowing Jackson to whisper in her ear. The man's words caused her eyes to widen, and as he pulled back Urd stared at the SEAL with large violet eyes. "Se-" She looked over at Belldandy, then lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. "Are you serious?!" She demanded. "Lind is-really?!"
Jackson winced but nodded, and Urd sucked in a deep breath, releasing it all at once as she let her head thump back against the pantry door. "Okay," she muttered. "I can't believe I-okay. Fine. But only because it's you, Piper. Just... don't do anything to tarnish my name, okay?"
Jackson's face lit up like a beacon, and his smile was gleeful and eager. "Got it, promise." He agreed in a rush. "Now spill the beans. What you got?"
This time Urd smirked. "Okay, so admittedly Lind is a hard one, but..." Imitating the man's earlier gesture, the Norn waved Jackson near, whispering advice and instructions into his ear that left the man overjoyed as he pulled away. "But take it slow, okay?" Urd finished. "I'll tell you right now she's not used to that kind of attention, and you're liable to scare her away before you ever get close if you rush in."
"Okay, yeah. Got it." Jackson nodded like a dutiful student, the smile he wore looking like it was ready to split his face in two with how large it was. "I'm gonna go… go talk to her."
"Take it slow," Urd emphasized. "Or you won't last five minutes with her."
"Got it, got it." Jackson was already turning to head out of the kitchen, his mind so visibly lost in thought that Urd could almost track the gears turning in his head. She sighed and shook her head.
Belldandy came to stand next to Urd as they watched Jackson depart. "He's rather adorable for a giant screaming man with explosions, wouldn't you agree?"
Urd looked over at her blankly, and Belldandy sent her a smile that was almost smug. The elder Norn narrowed her eyes. "You scamp," she grumbled. "You heard the whole thing, didn't you?"
Belldandy didn't answer, instead asking, "Do you think he has a chance?"
"With Lind?" Urd looked at her sister. Belldandy nodded, and Urd turned back towards where Jackson had disappeared off in search of Lind. "Like a snowball's chance in hell."
XXX
Keiichi shut the door firmly behind him as he and Lind stepped outside onto the front porch. The morning was still crisp and cool; around fifty, maybe fifty-five degrees out, if Keiichi took a guess. It was enough to make the hair on his arms rise in goosebumps. Yet the rising sun, well past the point of a sunrise and displaying its golden self above the tree line now, was warm, and its rays were welcomed. The man took a deep breath, for a moment exhilarating at how the chilled air prickled his lungs, then moved over to the wooden banister that surrounded the porch's perimeter.
The wood was cold and damp with morning dew as he leaned against it, yet Keiichi found he didn't mind it, instead taking it in as his gaze looked out across his yard. The Chevy was parked off to one side around the right hand side of his house, and its nose edged into his gaze as he surveyed first the truck, then Aiko's beaten Blue Bell, and finally Jackson's black Silverado. The man's large grill, a giant metallic beast with a trailer hitch, stood off in a rock bed fifty feet from the wooden porch, and he could see where condensation had formed upon its stained metal top. Past the cars and down his driveway, a tree line of the surrounding forest encroached upon his view, leaving nothing but brown trunks and smaller bushes in its wake. Somewhere further off and closer to the road towards where his driveway stopped, he heard a car drive past.
Lind moved to stand on his left, imitating his posture as she too leaned forward on the wooden railing, unperturbed by the moisture seeping into her uniform. Keiichi watched from the corner of one eye as her head swept across the landscape, taking in the trees, the vehicles, the barbeque, and the long field of grass that comprised the rest of his lawn, then seemed to focus on something farther off to his right. He turned to track her gaze, finding it resting on a section of forest where several trees had fallen last spring during a bad storm. It created a patch of deep shadows from where the branches of one of the fallen evergreens covered it in shade. At first he missed what had so caught the Valkyrie's attention, yet as he was looking away his eyes caught movement, and doing a double take he caught sight of something descending further into the forest.
"Did you see it?" Lind asked, focused on the small cluster of fallen trees.
"Not what it was," Keiichi admitted. "I only saw some of the bushes moving."
"It was a big cat," Lind replied, staring off at the fallen trees for a moment longer before turning to Keiichi. "Ah…large, brown coat, long tail." She shook her head. "I'm…not well versed on the animals of this region."
"Mountain lion," Keiichi supplied. "They're pretty rare this far east, but there's a roamer passing through the area. I saw it a couple of weeks ago. I think it might be looking for new territory."
"A roamer?" Lind looked at Keiichi in confusion.
"Yeah." The man nodded. "It's what I call 'em, anyway. Mountain lions were wiped out in Virginia a long time ago, but the conservationists hippies want to bring them back from the brink of extinction, and so have begun tagging them and tracking their movements. This one probably came west across the Appalachians and maybe down through Blue Ridge before making its way here. They're a lot more common further west. " He shrugged. "A friend of mine, Joe, he told me about them. It's illegal to shoot one without a permit, which Virginia doesn't offer for mountain lions, and if it's tagged you can't shoot it period due to interfering with conservation efforts or whatever, but if you saw a mountain lion this close to home, I might need to make some calls. Last thing I need is for a mountain lion to make my little chunk of woods part of its territory and then mistake me for a deer when I'm out for a walk. The things are dangerous."
"I see, " Lind murmured. She looked back toward the fallen trees a moment longer, yet when it became apparent that the cougar had departed the Valkyrie turned back to Keiichi. "You wanted to speak with me?"
"Hm? Oh, yeah." He'd gotten distracted with the puma. If it was the same one from before though, and it really was making its territory near his house… the man pushed the thoughts aside for another time. "Yeah." He fell silent, his attention once more focused on the lawn outside his front porch. Gathering himself, he spoke up. "Belldandy needs help," he grumbled. "I hate to say it, but... even I know when I'm out of my league, and..." Without thought his mind returned him to the Friday night of Belldandy's nightmare, now more a sensation of feelings and clips of images rather than solid memories. The crumbling door to the guest room. The twisted hunk of metal flying so close to his head he could feel its breeze. Skuld collapsed in his room. Urd dropping like a doll whose strings were cut. The naked terror on Belldandy's face. That pit in his stomach twisted itself into a knot, and for a moment he felt ill. And it happened again. He remembered. It happened again and you got a broken hand for it and Aiko got a broken nose. And wasn't that the kicker. Aiko, whom he'd hoped would have a chance to speak with Bell, had been the one most injured by the event. Aiko, who'd been the only one to drag Bell back down to reality.
This can't keep happening. Aiko won't be around here whenever Belldandy loses herself like that and I can't expect Urd to be around to shield me from the after effects. He bore his teeth in a grimace. "What do you guys even do in a situation like this?" he asked. "If she was human I'd take her to a therapist so that she could work this stuff out. I mean, the offer's been made and everything, and a part of me thinks it'd be a great idea but... I can't really take her to some mortal and say, 'Oh by the way, she's a goddess who was forced to play out the sick fantasies of a pedophile's porno films as a nine year old for ten years, have fun.' It doesn't work that way." His shook his head in disgust, grabbing the wood and digging his fingers into the weathered grains. "You said that people are trying to figure out what to do for her, right? Why are they taking so long?"
"Belldandy's situation is unique in the fact that it's never happened before." Lind sounded about as pleased with the whole thing as Keiichi. "Because of that, no one is certain how to go about it. They know that they need to assign a healer to her, but because of Belldandy's position, no one is certain which healer to assign. They're working on at least getting a temporary one prepped to come down here, but the wish you made... the wish she made complicates matters further."
"What do you mean?" Keiichi looked at her queerly. "What's her position got to do with getting her help? It's been two fucking weeks, Lind. Had she been mortal the first thing that would have happened after rescuing her from Aoshima would have been getting her to a hospital, first to get a physical diagnosis and then to get a mental exam. She's a fucking goddess, Lind. All of you are. You guys are supposed to be better about this sort of shit than us."
The look Lind cast his way was strange and unreadable, and Keiichi felt a lump form in his throat. Something in what he'd said had crossed some unknown line, and Keiichi all of a sudden felt like he was about to meet a firing squad. "Have you spoken with Urd about the videos?" Lind demanded, and Keiichi stared at her with a start.
"The videos-what does that have to do with anything?" Keiichi glanced at her from the corner of his eye, yet the Valkyrie remained fixated on some far off point in front of her. Her face was hard, perhaps even ridged.
"Answer the question, Morisato." Lind replied, and when once more she looked at him the man felt himself shiver. There was fire in her eyes. A peculiar glow to them that almost made them appear gold in the morning light.
He sighed and dropped his head. "I tried once, but she wasn't very forthcoming." His mind drifted back to that first Monday, with him nervous over his upcoming interrogation with McGuiness and Urd admitting she'd not slept well. "I guess it kind of... fell off my radar after that." Or Urd clammed up like a shell. He thought. She hadn't spoken to him about it, hadn't spoken of that night, and had acted like it and all of Belldandy's nightmares were something that didn't exist during the daylight hours; a monster under the bed that only appeared after all the lights were off and everyone was fast asleep in bed.
But that's how it's done. He reasoned. You don't force a person to deal with that kind of thing. You let them come to you in their own time. You can't push it, 'cause all it does is shut them down when they ain't ready to deal with it. He frowned at his own internal monologue, then challenged it. And it's thoughts like that which led to you drinking and Deb leaving you. Don't let that happen again, asshole.
As though touching on his inner thoughts, Lind brought a fist back and nailed him in the same arm that had become so popular as of late. The limb, already purple from the amount of Norns and younger sisters who'd continually hit him throughout the past two weeks, exploded with fresh pain. Keiichi yelped, and then snarled, "Will you guys stop fucking punching me?! Do I look like some sort of divine punching bag?" He recoiled and rubbed the area before throwing an accusing look at Lind.
Lind stared back, unamused. "I told you to speak with her about it." She sounded irritated. "Urd won't let you know something is wrong until she can no longer hide it, and both you and I need to speak on what we saw as well."
"Okay, yeah, I'm not going to deny that, but what does that have to do with getting Belldandy help?" Keiichi scowled and rolled his sleeve up, examining his arm before huffing indignantly.
"How can you expect to help Belldandy when you won't help yourself?" Lind asked, and her gaze was sharp and unrelenting.
Keiichi flinched. "How can I-Lind, that's not fair."
"But it's true," she replied. "You refuse to face what she has experienced after viewing the videos she was forced to enact. After coming to the truth of what awful deeds she was forced to perform, you choose to ignore it, to pretend it doesn't exist, to bury it in your psyche where it cannot harm you but instead lies and rots while Belldandy attempts to recover on her own accord," she accused. "And while her own health is delayed, yours will begin to degrade as well because of what you saw on those tapes." She shook her head, and for the first time Keiichi realized how upset she was. "What good can you be to her if you refuse to speak of what so brought her to that state in the first place?"
The man grimaced and leaned away from the Valkyrie, face taunt and pained. "Okay, okay!" he snapped. "Shit, you don't pull punches with this sort of thing, do you?"
"Not with matters such as this," Lind said. "If you want to help, speak with Urd about the videos. Speak with me. Bring it out in the open where its power holds no sway, because right now, you're all Belldandy has, and she needs you." The woman fell silent, staring at Keiichi long and hard. Keiichi dropped his gaze, unable to hold it, and Lind continued. "I am doing what I can to ensure Belldandy acquires a healer, but it's difficult, Morisato. I don't know what you know about her, but Belldandy is a special goddess. All the Norns are. And because of that there are certain policies that have to be followed, and even as we speak right now there are roughly fifty Healers all vying for the opportunity, the honor, of treating her." She bore her teeth in a snarl, tearing her gaze away from him.
"Fifty…" Keiichi's voice came out weak, and he stared at the woman in shock. "Wait, Fifty? As in fifty doctors?!"
"If that is what you call your healers in this era." Lind sent him a sidelong glance. "Doctors, shamans, medicine men, whatever term you prefer, there are fifty of them all arguing amongst themselves and powers much greater than me for the opportunity to care for her." She sneered in disdain. "I have seen it, and it is pathetic; their own selfish desires are hurting the one who needs their care the most, and the infighting is left for higher leadership to determine who would be the best fit, with others arguing against that case whenever a possible candidate is found." The Valkyrie shook her head. "I've been doing everything I can on my end, but when it comes to the healers, they look and me and see a know-nothing; I am a grunt, one more fit for fights against demons rather than healing gods, and any questions asked are ignored."
Keiichi turned to observe the woman more fully. "What are-what position does Belldandy and the others hold that would cause fifty doctors to want to care for her?" he asked. "Are they some kind of royalty? Is that part of what being a 'Norn' is? Some kind of divine royalty?"
"No." Lind scowled and looked at the wood, scratching a nail against the grain. "No, it's not... it's a bit more complicated than that. Royalty is a mortal term and doesn't exist among the divine." She shrugged, all at once restless. "But it is not my place to speak on that. If the Norns have not spoken of their family, than far be it from me to speak in their stead."
"What, will you get in trouble if you tell me about them?" Keiichi sent her a sidelong glance.
Lind sighed and shook her head. "I wouldn't know," she said. "But I do know that I would be rather upset if I found out someone who was only an acquaintance spoke of my family as though they knew everything there was to know about them." She looked directly at him. "Wouldn't you?"
Keiichi winced and looked away. "Point taken."
Fifty doctors though... fifty fucking doctors. All for a goddess-no, to them she'd be just another woman-all for a woman who suffered ten years at the hands of a creature with all the significance of an ant. While Keiichi knew next to nothing about... wherever the gods came from-Heaven or Space or some sort of Dreamland beyond the reach of mortals-he was willing to bet that fifty doctors vying to treat one lone woman was out of the ordinary. How often does a god need to see a 'healer'? he wondered. Do they even? Hell, for all he knew, maybe these 'healer' gods were so out of the business that the idea of anyone getting sick was worth fighting over. The SEAL made a face. The thought made his stomach churn. And until they place their petty arguments aside, Bell is relying on you for help, Bucko. An annoying voice popped into his head. It sounded too much like Aiko for him to simply ignore. You're her hero, remember? Her 'froggy black knight', the man who whisked her away from an evil tower like Rapunzel and chased away her nightmares like Prince Charming. And for what? You're too pussy-whipped to talk about some nasty videos you saw on accident? And with Urd and Lind, of all people? One of your closest friends and a goddess who's seen some nasty shit in her line of work too? You useless chickenshit.
At length he sucked in a deep breath. "This... is going to take some time to take in." He was shaken, but damned if he knew why. It's because even amongst the 'heavenly elite', Belldandy is a big deal. Lind hinted at it enough that even you can't mistake it, that same voice whispered in his ear. He groaned, letting his head drop. They all are. Even the Poodle, and here you are sitting around with them and having dinner with them like they're your buddies from the Hippie Lands of Oregon itself. "I... fucking shit, I need a moment. I need to calm down, Lind."
Lind stared at him for a moment in silence, then inclined her head. "Stay out here and get some air," she advised. "I'll be right back." He watched her depart from the corner of one eye, heard the door open and shut, and then Keiichi sucked in another deep and long breath.
What was he to her? Him, a man, a mortal, whose life would pass her by in a matter of years? What did she see when she looked at him? Fuck, was it what Skuld saw whenever she looked at him? What about Urd? Belldandy? How did they fit in this big ugly picture that had just been painted for him? I'm in love with a goddess. He thought. One of my closest friends is a goddess. And here I am... a simple-minded mortal with no idea of who or what they really are. I know they're Norns, but in the grand scheme of things, what does that mean to me? What does that mean for me?
The thoughts circled and churned within his mind, sinking into the crevices of his brain and blocking out all other thoughts. He shouldn't be worrying about this. The SEAL knew that, yet he could not shake it. His body broke out into a cold sweat, chilled by the cool air, and every time it felt as though the thoughts would ebb like a riptide it would return, stronger than ever and pulling him back under before the man could escape. The thoughts were damn near despairing in the raw reality presented to him, and as such Keiichi wasn't even aware of Lind's return until the goddess pressed something warm into his hand.
The man looked down, stupefied, and found a mug of tea in his hand. He stared at it in bemusement, watching as a tiny bag bobbed up and down in the hot, amber liquid. A pleasant scent of mint wafted from the steam it produced, and the man looked to his side, finding Lind with a similar mug in her own hand. "Let's sit," she instructed, and while her tone was gentle it held a note of authority that reminded Keiichi of McGuinness. She moved to the steps leading to the yard, and he followed her, if only out of the discipline instilled ages past. The man plopped down heavily beside the Valkyrie, and again came a long moment of silence. "Breathe Morisato. You're fine."
He did breathe, and what he smelled was Evergreens and mint, a sharp scent that cleared his head in a manner that was almost painful, like having a bucket of ice water drenched on his head. He grabbed hold of that sharp, clean scent with all his will, and as the silence passed so too did the sense of calm return. When he felt more in control of himself, the man blew on his tea, then braved a sip. It'll taste like pine needles and spearmint. He predicted. And I'll be taken for another ride again, just like last time. Only this time it didn't. This time it tasted just of mint, and that not very strong. The SEAL was almost disappointed it was just regular tea.
"Mint always calms me down when I'm feeling overwhelmed." Lind spoke up, and he looked over at her, taking in the woman's peaceful disposition. The Valkyrie's eyes were closed, her face serene from where her head was tilted up at an angle, allowing the sun to hit her face and cast it in a warm glow. "My commander introduced it to me when I was still an acolyte among the Valkyries-no rank, no training, all hands and knees and terror as I scrambled to accomplish whatever tasks they assigned to me." She took a sip from her own mug, and as she opened her eyes an almost forlorn smile appeared on her face. "That was a long time ago. Now it's reached the point where I've surpassed her in rank."
Keiichi latched on to the new subject matter like a man on a lifeboat. "Was she part of your unit?"
Lind nodded, eyes distant and thoughtful. "We... lost her a good while ago," she murmured. "But let's move to lighter subjects. It's too early to converse on such morose topics." She lapsed into silence once more, and this time when she spoke there was a note of amusement in her voice. "Tell me some of your experiences with your team."
He looked at her. "Will you give me one of yours?"
"If it's a good story."
"Well..." Keiichi leaned back in thought, rummaging through his mind for any tales worth speaking on. The mint had done its job of soothing his nerves, and the idea of a story was a welcome distraction in light of their earlier conversation. "There was this one time back a couple years ago where I got hit on by a Ladyboy in Thailand..."
Both of Lind's eyebrows shot up in interest. "A what?"
"Tranny." Keiichi clarified. When Lind's puzzled look did not go away, he elaborated. "A guy dressed up like a lady, acts like a lady, thinks like a lady... basically claims to be a lady in every way but the junk in the trunk."
Lind twisted to face him, her eyes wide. "Tell me more." She demanded.
And so he did. He spoke of the rather... handsome, masculine woman who'd approached him one evening looking to buy him drinks, with Keiichi himself being too inebriated to recognize what was standing in front of him. "Don't get me wrong or anything-she was pretty and all, but I was already married at the time and I wasn't big on the whole stuff downstairs bit, and I think she had a bit of facial hair that she forgot to wax off that night." It was the first time he'd ever heard Lind straight up laugh. "McGuinness, my commander, ended up getting me out of that fix-though I was too drunk to remember how he did it. She was looking for a date and wouldn't leave until she got one." What he did remember was the hangover the following morning, and the way Team 12, Sanchez in particular, sang off-tune love songs for the remainder of the TDY. "By the time we left for home, even the Air Force Ravens guarding the plane back home knew about me. I spent the entire trip in the back of a C-17 listening to Spanish ballads sung in my honor. Had one dude even ask me out on a date, though I'm pretty sure he was joking."
Lind chuckled, an easy smile on her face. Her whole disposition seemed more relaxed now that they were swapping stories, and in turn Keiichi felt his own tension melt away too. It'd been a while since he'd had the opportunity to swap stories with a foreign service member. "You got me there. Never had someone that... interesting hit on me." She said. "You win, I'll tell you a story. This was from way back-let me see...a hundred and eighty, perhaps ninety years back, just to give you an idea." The smile grew into a toothy, silly grin. "Valkyries are a military unit, just like any other force," she started, "and likewise, we tend to hit it hard when we're off-duty, just like everyone else."
Lind's story was of one such particular party, where her unit had gotten the bright idea to perform a 'roof stomp' of a high ranking VP's visit. "This guy was super up the Chain. I mean, he was huge. He'd come to visit us and assess our base because about a month earlier we'd been given some bullshit award for high performance or what not. My unit had just gotten back from a recent deployment playing peek-a-boo and tag with a bunch of demons, and, well..."
"You were a little rough around the edges still," Keiichi filled in.
"Exactly." Lind bobbed her head in agreement. "We needed some R&R to help readjust to 'normal society' again, and with the VP on base, that R&R was pushed back. They wanted us to march past his quarters as a show of respect and to help highlight how wonderful the base was."
Keiichi winced. "I don't know if I'm happy or sad to hear that military bullshit extends up to the gods."
"Common sense isn't common in the military."
"It never is."
Lind continued. "So we marched. We marched, put on our gameface, all that shit, and oh weren't we the pride and joy of the Wing back then. And right afterwards, as soon as we were released we banded together and got totaled. In the midst of it all, our OIC decided we hadn't shown the VP a proper Valkyrie greeting, and so came up with the bright idea to go on a 'roof stomp' of the quarters the VP was staying at. You ever done a roof stomp before?"
"Can't say that I have."
"It's how you and your squadron have a 'meet and greet' with a new commander. You go to his place, climb up onto his roof while he's gone and just start stomping up a storm. It's an informal way of saying 'welcome to the family, from us to you', and on occasion it's done during other special occasions as well."
"Sounds like a hell of a party."
"Yeah. There was a lot of alcohol involved."
"When is there not?"
"That's just the start." Lind's face was bright at the old memory, her speech animated as she recalled the event. "We ended up stomping up such a storm that at one point, someone-I forgot who-was afraid we'd actually bring down the roof. We'd gathered a huge crowd by then, all of 'em only half as drunk as us, and they were hooting and hollering and egging us on, and then here comes the VP, just waltzing up to the house in surprise with his wife on his arm. And you can tell right away the VP has absolutely no fucking clue what's going on. He's on the edge of losing his shit, but then you look at his wife, and she's just breaking into laughter over the whole thing. I remember thinking 'ah, she's a Prior! She knows what the deal is!' and somehow her laughing just made us stomp harder and him get angrier, 'cause even if he's a VP, the military branch he served in wasn't the same as the Valkyries. He was an Aesir, and they tend to do things a little differently from we humble Valkyries."
The woman chuckled, then took a sip from her mug. "So you've got half the base at this visiting VP's quarters, watching a flight of Valkyries so fresh from a deployment you can see the sand on their uniforms and who are all drunker than Pan at a party and stomping on a roof. The guy's wife is laughing along with everyone else and isn't trying to calm him down or explain anything, and this man is getting angrier by the second. And what does he do? Jank, I shit you not, the man pulls off his right hand and fucking hurls it at us. It hit Gunnr-the Valkyrie next to me-square in the jaw and knocked her clean out. And I swear to Yggdrasil, that fucking hand was flipping us off."
Keiichi erupted into laughter, and Lind joined him. "W-what the hell? Was it a real hand?" he stuttered out. "Or was it like 'Thing' from the Addams Family?"
"Fake hand," Lind shot out between laughter. "And so what we do, what we do is grab Gunnr, grab the hand, and fucking run." She laughed harder. "What's more funny than watching an Aesir throw his own hand at a bunch of Valkyries? Watching that same man chase those same drunk-ass Valkyries half-way across base trying to retrieve the hand he threw at us. At some point he started screaming we were stealing his property. We thought it was a shining gift from him to our unit displaying his appreciation for the hard work we'd done playing with demons."
"Did he ever get it back?"
Lind looked at him with an ear splitting smile. Keiichi returned it. "A wise woman once said 'one man can only chase one woman at a time, though he may strive for more'. We split up. He tried to get the whole base to hunt us down."
"Where is it now?" Keiichi asked.
"I'll take that knowledge to my grave," Lind replied. "But it's safe, it's secret, and whenever I see it, it remains flipping everyone off. It's a good luck charm amongst our squadron now. You kiss the birdie before a deployment to ensure you come home safe."
Keiichi chuckled. "I think you win this round," he murmured, then downed the rest of his tea. God damn. He never thought he'd drink so much fucking tea in his life before Belldandy entered his life. Takano would be proud of him. Then probably scold him since it wasn't green tea.
"Well, at least you tried, Dear." Takano's voice rang in his ears, and he smiled as he imagined his mother's irked expression at him. "I think I'm doing a little better now," he said, looking out into the forest and listening as somewhere far off, an eagle shrieked. "So...I think we've got some time before Jackson or Urd hunt us down if Aiko can keep them away." He took a deep breath. "How about we talk about those videos."
The look Lind sent him was first surprised, then pleased. "You don't want Urd to join us?"
The man thought a moment, then shook his head. "No," he admitted. "No... this is a bit more personal for her. I want to work a couple of things out in my own head before approaching her with this. It's-I know-" For a long moment he fell silent, then Keiichi sighed and tried again. "I know what it's like... that anger, that horror... knowing something so bad befell your younger sister without you knowing it and only finding out until after the deed has been done. And... I know the anger that rises towards anyone who tries to relate with you on the subject, too."
Lind beheld him in silence, and the man took a deep, soothing breath, fiddling with the string of the tea bag. "I want to make sure I can keep my cool before speaking with her. That... we both can, when we finally corner her about it, because as soon as she hears the word 'video', that anger is going to come back, and we're going to be the closest thing she lashes out at."
He glanced at Lind, and the woman dropped her gaze to her mug. "You're right," she murmured. "I... saw her anger. That night." She swallowed before sucking in a deep breath. "It is a thing of terror, I will admit. Level heads will be needed to soothe it, for it is a creature with a will of its own, and it is terrible."
Keiichi thought back to Belldandy and her night terrors, Belldandy and her sudden flashback with him and Aiko, and thought he could relate. Just like Belldandy's fear. He was willing to bet. "I want to be that level head for her," he admitted. "For her and Belldandy too. And you're right. I can't help Belldandy, or Urd for that matter, if I can't help myself, so...let's start talking."
Lind stared at him for a long time, then dropped her gaze back to her mug. "As you say," she murmured. "So... what happened when you saw the videos?"
"Well... I'd been searching for Belldandy, and..." Keiichi began to speak, and Lind listened. And when Keiichi could speak no more of the subject Lind took his place. And so they continued, back and forth through the early morning, discussing the pain of bearing witness to what could not be corrected. Inside, a pair of younger sisters who bore no relation to each other entertained a man desperate to speak with the woman of his dreams, while in another room a pair of older sisters gossiped and bickered, trying to make up for precious time and moments lost in the span of ten long, painful years.
A/N: The Ugly Beast seems to elicit many types of reactions. It almost has a life of its own.
Comments of a Madwoman: The Valkyrie organizational structure is based more off Air Force structures than it is traditional Army. Mostly because the Air Force likes to do things weird and they were the ones to come up with Roof Stomps. Had a lot of fun writing Jackson's ridiculous descriptions of Lind from his perspective. His character is starting to grow on me.
