DISCLAIMER: Suikoden 2 and all its elements are properties of KCET. The fanfiction belongs to littlemaiko. Stealing is prohibited.
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~ Silent Little Mermaid 7 ~
The water was cold. Much colder than Jess ever imagined from looking at the dark blue surface during the day. The season barely glazed autumn, yet the liquid waves felt like just-melted ice. Although the throw had been fearsome and the impact of the fall more so, neither compared to the stinging sensation of the water that had quickly filled the bag that was to be his coffin.
// If I can get these rocks out... //
The two assailants had filled the bottom of the bag with fist-sized stones to act as weights. Jess groped blindly to open the mouth of the cloth prison, but the knots outside did not budge at his pushing and pulling. Holding his breath became trying as his lungs screamed for air.
// Open... open... open... agh... //
Large air bubbles escaped from Jess' mouth, water rushing down his throat to choke him. Unconscious tears of agony mixed with the lake. The lithe chamberlain wondered in a fit of panic if Flik was all right; if whoever those men were knew that he had a companion...
// No... Flik... //
A sound of hearty splash came, disturbing Jess in his death-battle against suffocating coldness. He heard another splash of something falling from the wooden pier, then the third followed immediately. Although the first two splashes merely fell quiet after the initial noise, the third turned into rhythmical stroking sound.
// What is... ......... //
Jess felt someone feeling the bag from outside, then strong tugs began to pull him up through the depths. He knew instantly that someone had come for help. Relief made him weak, and he closed both useless eyes to shut out the wavering darkness of the underwater world.
**********
Sometimes, acting upon an impulse eluded the enemy plans and lead to surprising success. Flik realized that when he saw two fake dock workers throwing their burden into the lake. Death of Gene had not reached those men's ears, and therefore, they had gone on with the original plans of throwing Jess into Lake Dunan alive.
Flik gave no words or warnings to the unfortunate spies; the moment he saw the linen bag hit the calm waves, he lost all control. Water and dead body never made a good combination in his mind and memory. Especially when the body in question had auburn-brown hair and tea-colored eyes.
With a roar more fit for a beast in kill-rage than the famed nickname of Blue Thunder, Flik drove his sword into the first man whom he approached. The man never saw it coming, which spared him of the fear of instant death. The other one wasn't so lucky as the same sword buried into and out of his neck, ending his misery quicky but nevertheless letting him see his own blood before losing his life.
"Jess!! Jess, Jess..." Flik searched into the dark water, cursing loudly at the waves disfiguring his field of vision. The bodies of men he had just slain floated, but the large bag containing the young chamberlain was nowhere in sight. Surely, those men had stuffed heavy weight inside of the bag.
"Dammit, don't die like her!!"
Screaming angrily, Flik yanked off his shirt and jumped into the water. Coldness numbed his nerves in an instant, but he swam, downward and across, looking for the white cloth prison. He couldn't describe the double-edged relief and fear he felt when he saw it sinking below his very feet.
// Odessa, help me... //
The bag felt as though it were filled with iron, but Flik tugged it furiously until he could open the mouth of the bag at the surface. He tried to hold the upper part above the water, feeling the shape of Jess' dampened head inside. When he at last managed to tear the bag away from the very limp figure, sickening imagination toyed with the last bit of his painfully-collected calm.
Porcelain face shone with droplets of water, matted locks of red-tinted brown sticking to the smooth skin and same-colored lashes dressing both blued eye-lids. Lovely lips, once pink and full of stubborn and adorable words, were unmoving and purple from the chill. The dead weight and the blood-like shade of moving waves from red torch lights by the pier ran shivers through Flik's body.
"Odessa, no!!!"
Next few moments blurred in Flik's mind. What he grasped after those seconds had passed was himself kneeling on the stony path lining Lake Dunan with a body stretched before him. He leaned down to give frantic mouth to mouth, barely holding back his strength as he pushed and shoved both hands over the other's stomach and chest.
"Odessa, no... no... no..."
The swordsman was no longer aware of his surroundings. Tears poured from his blue eyes like never since the loss of Odessa. The feeling of powerlessness assaulted him again, this time cruelly aided by the visual terror. Jess became Odessa, neither shorter hair nor the lack of soft roundness upon the chest bothering Flik's delusion.
A tiny fit of weak coughs graced Flik's ears, more following though entirely silent. Only the noises made by throat contracting violently with available air and hacking out water were audible. Helping out the suffering lovely body, Flik waited until all coughing subsided and the lithe limbs went slack from exhaustion.
"Thank God... Thank God, Odessa..." Flik murmured like someone who had just been saved by a miracle himself. With most gentle care, he cradled the unconscious burden to his chest and sobbed until the horrifying deja vu of the past left him.
**********
// Odessa... //
Jess shifted like a little where he was laid, protesting against the mistaken name by which the man at the bedside called him. No, Flik no longer called him that, but he recalled through haze in his memory that the mercenary had called him so. The dead woman's name.
"Awake now?" Flik asked in a considerate hush, holding a warm hand to his charge's forehead. Swelling and reddening of his eyelids made his previous weeping apparent.
Nodding in a motion which more resembled a ticklish squirm than confirmation, Jess nuzzled against the extra blanket Flik had tucked over him. His fingers and toes felt numb, along with the rest of him that had suffered a short instant of death's grip.
"Stay in the bed for a while. I don't want you catching pneumonia."
The concern which Flik exhibited was so genuine and deep that Jess frowned in question. The older man read the expression and chuckled without humor, doing so only to keep his tone light.
"I just had the worst waking dream in my life. ...I never told you, but you are the male carbon copy of Odessa. When I saw you drowned, I dubbed you to her body in the dark underground waterway of Lenan Camp." Flik's handsome face contorted in a flicker of emotional pain, but he wiped the expression away before Jess could further question. "So if you heard me call you Odessa, that's why. I'm sorry."
Jess shook his head, ruffling the brown locks against the pillow. He looked unhappily up at the swordsman, his eyes scanning the proximities of the bed and finding the notebook and pencil on the table. He mouthed the words, asking that the stationaries be given to him.
"Sure. Let me help you sit up first, all right?"
As Flik wedged a hand beneath Jess' back and hefted the light upper body off of the sheets, the chamberlain flushed into a healthier rosy color. He wore nothing save a clean pair of white boxers. A blushing glance to the mercenary gained him the answer that it had been hard trying to dress an unconscious man. The notebook was placed in his hands along with the pencil, at which Jess gratefully shifted his mind from the current nakedness to the conversation.
**********
The mysterious murders of three newcomer dock workers stirred Kuskus into thin air of fear, but in the times of war, such news faded as quickly as it swelled up. Jess, certain of Highland involvement but unable to prove anything, spent the remainder of his stay at the port town inside the warm bed guarded by Flik.
"Other than those men, I haven't come in contact with anyone else threatening. Think they were all that there were or...?"
Jess shook his head to Flik's musing, scribbling on the notebook, "Highland spies. There are more of them but they are watching where they tread. You killed those three, after all."
"Hmm. I guess there's nothing more that we can do." Flik folded his arms in a loose fashion. He regretted that he had killed all three men who had blown their covers, but in that situation, there was no way that he would have kept his cool. Although two days had passed since the assault, Jess still looked paler than his usual white.
"We will report this to Sir Shu. He will send spies of our own to hunt down and dispatch the rest." Crisp handwriting conveyed the message while Jess sat plopped against the backboard. He stared down at the paper hard, his tea-colored gaze thoughtful. "Flik, I'm grateful that you saved my life. I don't know if it is right to ask you but..."
Looking over to what Jess had written so far, Flik reached out to still the slender wrist holding the pencil. "You look like her. You don't act like her. You are not Odessa Silverberg."
Jess looked from the paper to Flik, looking surprised. He nodded at the answer given without questioning, relieved without realizing so. He didn't want to be a mere ghost from the past.
"I wish you could speak again, Jess. You are really something when you give me those sharp and bitter remarks." Patting at the chamberlain's head, Flik grinned at the given mild glare. He had grown to appreciate the mock-thorny demeanor. Jess had so much self-defense mechanism implanted inside that it was fun to poke at him and watch the results. Of course, Flik never attempted to leave any real scars in the other man's pride. He was just teasing.
"I want to speak, too." Jess wrote honestly and waved the notebook before Flik's azure eyes. He curled his lips as he took the obscuring notebook away. He found himself able to take the matter of this disability with humor, if only around Flik.
"You know, I wasn't lying when I said that I like your smile." Handsomely peeking into long-lashed brown eyes, Flik took in the half-glare that looked more confused than angry. Making sure to keep the lithe chamberlain in the state of unmoving confusion, he neared his lips to the other's and gave a soft and quick peck.
NEXT
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~ Silent Little Mermaid 7 ~
The water was cold. Much colder than Jess ever imagined from looking at the dark blue surface during the day. The season barely glazed autumn, yet the liquid waves felt like just-melted ice. Although the throw had been fearsome and the impact of the fall more so, neither compared to the stinging sensation of the water that had quickly filled the bag that was to be his coffin.
// If I can get these rocks out... //
The two assailants had filled the bottom of the bag with fist-sized stones to act as weights. Jess groped blindly to open the mouth of the cloth prison, but the knots outside did not budge at his pushing and pulling. Holding his breath became trying as his lungs screamed for air.
// Open... open... open... agh... //
Large air bubbles escaped from Jess' mouth, water rushing down his throat to choke him. Unconscious tears of agony mixed with the lake. The lithe chamberlain wondered in a fit of panic if Flik was all right; if whoever those men were knew that he had a companion...
// No... Flik... //
A sound of hearty splash came, disturbing Jess in his death-battle against suffocating coldness. He heard another splash of something falling from the wooden pier, then the third followed immediately. Although the first two splashes merely fell quiet after the initial noise, the third turned into rhythmical stroking sound.
// What is... ......... //
Jess felt someone feeling the bag from outside, then strong tugs began to pull him up through the depths. He knew instantly that someone had come for help. Relief made him weak, and he closed both useless eyes to shut out the wavering darkness of the underwater world.
**********
Sometimes, acting upon an impulse eluded the enemy plans and lead to surprising success. Flik realized that when he saw two fake dock workers throwing their burden into the lake. Death of Gene had not reached those men's ears, and therefore, they had gone on with the original plans of throwing Jess into Lake Dunan alive.
Flik gave no words or warnings to the unfortunate spies; the moment he saw the linen bag hit the calm waves, he lost all control. Water and dead body never made a good combination in his mind and memory. Especially when the body in question had auburn-brown hair and tea-colored eyes.
With a roar more fit for a beast in kill-rage than the famed nickname of Blue Thunder, Flik drove his sword into the first man whom he approached. The man never saw it coming, which spared him of the fear of instant death. The other one wasn't so lucky as the same sword buried into and out of his neck, ending his misery quicky but nevertheless letting him see his own blood before losing his life.
"Jess!! Jess, Jess..." Flik searched into the dark water, cursing loudly at the waves disfiguring his field of vision. The bodies of men he had just slain floated, but the large bag containing the young chamberlain was nowhere in sight. Surely, those men had stuffed heavy weight inside of the bag.
"Dammit, don't die like her!!"
Screaming angrily, Flik yanked off his shirt and jumped into the water. Coldness numbed his nerves in an instant, but he swam, downward and across, looking for the white cloth prison. He couldn't describe the double-edged relief and fear he felt when he saw it sinking below his very feet.
// Odessa, help me... //
The bag felt as though it were filled with iron, but Flik tugged it furiously until he could open the mouth of the bag at the surface. He tried to hold the upper part above the water, feeling the shape of Jess' dampened head inside. When he at last managed to tear the bag away from the very limp figure, sickening imagination toyed with the last bit of his painfully-collected calm.
Porcelain face shone with droplets of water, matted locks of red-tinted brown sticking to the smooth skin and same-colored lashes dressing both blued eye-lids. Lovely lips, once pink and full of stubborn and adorable words, were unmoving and purple from the chill. The dead weight and the blood-like shade of moving waves from red torch lights by the pier ran shivers through Flik's body.
"Odessa, no!!!"
Next few moments blurred in Flik's mind. What he grasped after those seconds had passed was himself kneeling on the stony path lining Lake Dunan with a body stretched before him. He leaned down to give frantic mouth to mouth, barely holding back his strength as he pushed and shoved both hands over the other's stomach and chest.
"Odessa, no... no... no..."
The swordsman was no longer aware of his surroundings. Tears poured from his blue eyes like never since the loss of Odessa. The feeling of powerlessness assaulted him again, this time cruelly aided by the visual terror. Jess became Odessa, neither shorter hair nor the lack of soft roundness upon the chest bothering Flik's delusion.
A tiny fit of weak coughs graced Flik's ears, more following though entirely silent. Only the noises made by throat contracting violently with available air and hacking out water were audible. Helping out the suffering lovely body, Flik waited until all coughing subsided and the lithe limbs went slack from exhaustion.
"Thank God... Thank God, Odessa..." Flik murmured like someone who had just been saved by a miracle himself. With most gentle care, he cradled the unconscious burden to his chest and sobbed until the horrifying deja vu of the past left him.
**********
// Odessa... //
Jess shifted like a little where he was laid, protesting against the mistaken name by which the man at the bedside called him. No, Flik no longer called him that, but he recalled through haze in his memory that the mercenary had called him so. The dead woman's name.
"Awake now?" Flik asked in a considerate hush, holding a warm hand to his charge's forehead. Swelling and reddening of his eyelids made his previous weeping apparent.
Nodding in a motion which more resembled a ticklish squirm than confirmation, Jess nuzzled against the extra blanket Flik had tucked over him. His fingers and toes felt numb, along with the rest of him that had suffered a short instant of death's grip.
"Stay in the bed for a while. I don't want you catching pneumonia."
The concern which Flik exhibited was so genuine and deep that Jess frowned in question. The older man read the expression and chuckled without humor, doing so only to keep his tone light.
"I just had the worst waking dream in my life. ...I never told you, but you are the male carbon copy of Odessa. When I saw you drowned, I dubbed you to her body in the dark underground waterway of Lenan Camp." Flik's handsome face contorted in a flicker of emotional pain, but he wiped the expression away before Jess could further question. "So if you heard me call you Odessa, that's why. I'm sorry."
Jess shook his head, ruffling the brown locks against the pillow. He looked unhappily up at the swordsman, his eyes scanning the proximities of the bed and finding the notebook and pencil on the table. He mouthed the words, asking that the stationaries be given to him.
"Sure. Let me help you sit up first, all right?"
As Flik wedged a hand beneath Jess' back and hefted the light upper body off of the sheets, the chamberlain flushed into a healthier rosy color. He wore nothing save a clean pair of white boxers. A blushing glance to the mercenary gained him the answer that it had been hard trying to dress an unconscious man. The notebook was placed in his hands along with the pencil, at which Jess gratefully shifted his mind from the current nakedness to the conversation.
**********
The mysterious murders of three newcomer dock workers stirred Kuskus into thin air of fear, but in the times of war, such news faded as quickly as it swelled up. Jess, certain of Highland involvement but unable to prove anything, spent the remainder of his stay at the port town inside the warm bed guarded by Flik.
"Other than those men, I haven't come in contact with anyone else threatening. Think they were all that there were or...?"
Jess shook his head to Flik's musing, scribbling on the notebook, "Highland spies. There are more of them but they are watching where they tread. You killed those three, after all."
"Hmm. I guess there's nothing more that we can do." Flik folded his arms in a loose fashion. He regretted that he had killed all three men who had blown their covers, but in that situation, there was no way that he would have kept his cool. Although two days had passed since the assault, Jess still looked paler than his usual white.
"We will report this to Sir Shu. He will send spies of our own to hunt down and dispatch the rest." Crisp handwriting conveyed the message while Jess sat plopped against the backboard. He stared down at the paper hard, his tea-colored gaze thoughtful. "Flik, I'm grateful that you saved my life. I don't know if it is right to ask you but..."
Looking over to what Jess had written so far, Flik reached out to still the slender wrist holding the pencil. "You look like her. You don't act like her. You are not Odessa Silverberg."
Jess looked from the paper to Flik, looking surprised. He nodded at the answer given without questioning, relieved without realizing so. He didn't want to be a mere ghost from the past.
"I wish you could speak again, Jess. You are really something when you give me those sharp and bitter remarks." Patting at the chamberlain's head, Flik grinned at the given mild glare. He had grown to appreciate the mock-thorny demeanor. Jess had so much self-defense mechanism implanted inside that it was fun to poke at him and watch the results. Of course, Flik never attempted to leave any real scars in the other man's pride. He was just teasing.
"I want to speak, too." Jess wrote honestly and waved the notebook before Flik's azure eyes. He curled his lips as he took the obscuring notebook away. He found himself able to take the matter of this disability with humor, if only around Flik.
"You know, I wasn't lying when I said that I like your smile." Handsomely peeking into long-lashed brown eyes, Flik took in the half-glare that looked more confused than angry. Making sure to keep the lithe chamberlain in the state of unmoving confusion, he neared his lips to the other's and gave a soft and quick peck.
NEXT