Background: It was a stupid idea I came up with while playing Devil May Cry. I mean, come on. Daughter of Squall meets son of Dante. It sounded so rediculously funny that I just had to. So I did. In the beginning, this wasn't meant to be serious, or even to actually exist in Kyrie's universe at all. It was just too weird not to play with, y'know? But it grew on me. Damn you, Ky. I guess it's set more or less a couple of years after the end of Retribution Nor Redemption. Enjoy, I hope. Do not read, however, if you've got a really narrow view of relationships or sexuality (keep the other two stories in mind, in other words--Kyrie and Rodger have been together for a long time and they're very secure in one another). You might get warped. Heh heh.
Also Note: In the interest of... well, myself, really, this is written under the theory that "demon" is a term that incorporates all hellspawn--"devil" is used specifically for a humanoid, intelligent, "higher demon". So all devils are demons, but demons are not devils. Just in case there's any confusion.
Descendants of the Mundane
Chapter 6
by Orin Drake
Morning came uneventfully,
signaled by a very slow roll by "somebody"--and then a flailing latch to
keep him on the bed rather than, once again, on the floor. John sighed
quietly with his accomplishment; he not only managed to keep himself on
the mattress, but also woke the other two in the process.
At least Kyrie was laughing.
Groggily, granted, but it was amusement. "Yeah, you better go."
She joked as she stretched. "You just can't handle this bed."
Both of the boys made scoffing
sounds, but Rodger was the one to change the subject. "Is Vincent
expecting us early?"
"Nah." His wife answered,
trying to become more or less "aware". "I figured it'd shock the
hell out of him." She looked to the curtains, seeing no signs of
sunlight coming from them. It was damn early. But in this case,
to help John, that was good.
"Sorry about this."
The silver tressed boy admitted quietly. This was even early in Hell.
Well, okay, not really. He grinned a little at his own internal dialog.
"Don't be." Rodger
offered, sitting up. "You're giving us something to do."
"How elegantly crass, love."
Kyrie teased.
None of them bothered with
showers. John wouldn't have done so even if he'd had all the time
in the world that morning; in the end, he'd just be going back to that
place.
No reason to spruce up. The other two just thought it'd be funny
to show up really early, looking every bit like they just rolled out of
bed. Kyrie even threw a ragged pair of bunny slippers in the trunk.
And that, the half-devil
admitted to himself, was why he was really going to miss this dimension.
Imagine, these two social psychopaths inviting him into their home, treating
him so well, and all the while keeping this infectiously sick sense of
humor. He had little doubt that, were it possible that they met,
his father and Kyrie would have come to blows. He laughed at the
picture--his father taking on demon form and still not being able to escape
the girl's dirty fighting--even as he put his boots on. Even as he
knew the time to leave was getting closer.
"And just what is that on
our front lawn?" Rodger's awed voice broke in.
Kyrie grinned widely, pulling
on her own frye boots. Wearing slippers in the estate was fine, but
at the train station? Ew. "Like it?"
Well now. John couldn't
just sit there and not know what they were talking about. He walked
beside the brunette and pulled back the window shades just a bit more,
to see--"I... want it. Whatever it is."
Sitting there, on their
front lawn, sparkling in the beam of porch light, was this... bike.
Oh, Hyne, not just a bike. This was... the most amazing fucking
"bike" that ever existed. It looked very much like a monster tricycle
with a three-bar EstharTech engine and a really, bad, attitude.
"It's for Cloud."
Kyrie announced innocently.
"You're kidding."
John breathed. He... really wanted one.
The ever so softly spoken
girl only grinned a little wider, walking up behind the two gentlemen.
"Nope."
"Wait a damn minute here."
Her husband turned, trying to make a point. "He gives you a collar
and you give him a motorcycle?!"
Her only response to that
was a maddeningly devious smile. It was enough. "You want one,
John?"
Despite his better judgment,
he responded honestly (albeit very softly), "Yes."
"Feeling damn charitable
all of a sudden, aren't we?" Rodger teased. This must have been what
the phone call the night before was about... unless... "And what
did you get Vincent?"
"I've yet to come up with
something evil enough just yet." She admitted. "I bet Cloud
could give me some ideas from his shop's back wall, though..."
It was a quiet ride in the
car. As it was a quiet wait at the station until John got and inkling
of where to go. They paced together, up and down the departure tracks
until one in particular just... clicked. It was kinda weird, selecting
a train that more or less went out in the middle of a desert near the southwestern
point of the continent. But, low and behold, as soon as that train
pulled in, he just got an unquestioned sense about it.
So... well. That was
that. He glanced at the others, and they regarded him with the same
kind of mild nervousness. While the walk to the train wasn't a death
march or anything, it was definitely a little lacking of the usual smoothness
they usually had together. John wanted to assure them that this wasn't
good-bye or anything... but really, he couldn't. His stomach turned
to warm lead at that thought--but he pressed it as far away as it would
go. He could reflect on that at another time, perhaps. Not
now. Now, he just needed to... suck it up and do what he needed to
do.
As usual, it was Kyrie's
instinct to interrupt the situation. She tried her best to be positive.
"Did you want us to go with you?"
He smiled at the very thought,
giving the train another glance. "I'm not sure that'd be a good thing.
I might have to get off before the actual stop. 'By any means necessary.'"
Well, it'd been worth asking.
She nodded her understanding. "Look, if you need--"
"Uh-uh." He cut her
off gently. "I... I need to do this by myself. And besides,
I think you two have been through enough."
"Granted." She agreed
quietly, seeing her husband's mild grin out of the corner of her eye.
"But should you ever need anything... Alright?"
"Okay." John accepted.
"And there's always pizza
here for you." Rodger offered.
"That, I appreciate."
He was interrupted by a hardly comprehensible boarding call that sounded
more like a string of barked curses than it did an actual location. Well,
this ain't Casa Blanca.
Seemed the time had come.
Emotions weren't exactly blazing; but they were clear. "I wish I
knew you were coming back." Kyrie admitted, stepping forward and
hugging him tightly.
"Me too." He responded,
squeezing back. He really and truly didn't want to pull away.
Sadly, he knew he had to admit to himself that every moment counted, and
he was forced to remove his arms from her first.
"Just take care of yourself."
She ordered.
He smiled delicately with
a confident nod. "I promise. You too."
She nodded in return, forcing
herself to step back. This was... really very much harder than she
thought it would be.
John had started out by
just offering a hand to Rodger... but that didn't seem to be enough.
It was a hug, but it was a "manly hug".
"We'll miss you around here."
The brunette assured.
"I'll miss the both of you."
He pulled away, taking a deep breath. "Especially on those lonely
nights in Hell."
At least that little gem
inspired some grins.
The walk into the Presidential
Estate, short as it was, was as quiet as the ride to the station.
They weren't ones to dwell, really, but... well, it was just a little more
quiet than it had been before. In a number of senses. They'd
waved as the train took off, and they'd seen John wave back and give that
terribly hot little grin...
Ah well. Nothing had
been left unsaid, really. And they were on their way to surprise
the hell out of Vincent. That was definitely something to keep their
minds off everything else. Well, that and the fact she'd hired someone
to pick up Cloud's new bike and have it delivered to him right in front
of his store. She was quite sure his reaction would be heard from
as far away as Trabia.
It was a little too early
for much to actually matter, though. Coffee was of main concern.
As that was taken care of thanks to the treasured "beverage station" in
their hallway, the day was officially started. Even before the sun
came up. What a... foreign idea.
Not like there was anything
to do that time of morning, anyway. All they really wound up accomplishing
was stumbling into their shared office and slumping together in the large,
comfortable chair.
Quite suddenly, Rodger reached
over and completely woke his wife up with a quickly copped feel.
The startled look on her face inspired a laugh. "Sorry."
"No you're not." She
accused over her coffee in a tone that almost anyone else would mistake
for deadly serious.
"No, I'm not." He
admitted just as dryly. "But we haven't, you know. Just us,
alone. Not for a while."
She blinked like a shy southern
belle. "Aw, did you miss me?"
"Kinda." He said in
a low tone, as if trying to avoid the subject. "Not that I didn't
enjoy the living hell out of a 'third party'..."
"Such a fucking romantic."
She did not mince words at that time in the morning. "Gimme some
lovin'."
Rodger smirked--but decided
to surprise her with another lewd copping of feel. She grinned, accepting
the challenge by putting her cup of coffee on the windowsill.
The need for words was pretty
much nonexistent. They'd been together long enough, after all.
In an almost practiced storm of motion, Kyrie's shirt was over her head
and on the back of the chair; Rodger's was not far away, hanging off the
corner of the desk.
It was at that instant,
that the door opened. At all the times, of all the places, who would
be--
Vincent was surprised, alright--but
he didn't show it. The man had developed one hell of an ability to
suppress reactions, she'd give him that. Only the slightest widening
of his eyes gave anything away; and damn but she hadn't the chance to remove
her bra. Her husband couldn't help but grin at the way she didn't
so much as bother to cover herself--only sat facing him on his lap, looking
at the intruder with a dull and
what do you want? sort of
look--even as he made to put his shirt back on.
The raven haired man made
it a point to act as if nothing out of the normal routine was going on.
"I was informed that two people had entered the hallway. I never
thought either of you would be awake early enough to be those people."
"Miracles can happen."
Kyrie smirked, finally standing to slip her shirt back on.
Vincent's expression changed
to one that clearly said, Bullshit. "If I may have a quick
word with the little woman, Mr. Kinneas."
Rodger chuckled at the way
he'd phrased that, laughing just a little harder as he saw the devious
look across his wife's face. "Of course." And, whispered to
his partner in crime, "Good luck."
She flashed him a joking
middle finger as he stepped out with a flourish and a wave. If only
luck were ever on her side. She placed all of her attention
squarely on the man in front of her, trying to decide whether he was suppressing
a look of horror or one of amusement.
"I thought perhaps you should
be reminded that your office is for work." Vincent commented
as dryly as possible.
Heh, that was funny.
"You don't seem to remind Laguna of that little issue."
"He's the president."
He defended, knowing full well his reasoning held no logic. And liking
it.
She wouldn't let him get
away with that. "Maybe your office is a little lonely?"
With that, he let only the
most mild of grins through. "And where is your pet?"
The phrase he'd used only
made her miss John all the more... in a certain sort of way. "Life
called, I'm afraid."
That's all he'd needed her
to say. Certainly he understood; a change of subject was in order.
"Cloud hasn't stopped talking about your little present, I'll have you
know."
She was just amazed that
the delivery company had transported the bike so soon. Very efficient.
She'd have to remember to use them in the future for... things. But
that was beside the point. "Poor dear Vincent. Forced to listen,
as usual."
The smirk was almost silencing;
even to her. But, if the conversation was going that way anyway...
"So tell me." He started very innocently; quite unlike him.
He made her wait several beats for the question, coiling like a snake to
surprise her. "Who wore the collar first?"
With a grin in her eyes
she was trying so very hard to hide (and not doing a very good job), she
took a moment to stare at him. Straight face, completely uninterested
look. That... bastard. "You don't look like the kind that would
gossip, you know."
"I was merely listening,
as you pointed out." He dismissed easily.
The grin broke through to
her lips, morphing into a highly amused snarl. She spoke without
thinking. "You do just enjoy the thrill of voyeurism, don't you?"
To both of their surprise,
he started to chuckle. It was just the pure, vicious quickness of
the question--he'd been caught off-guard. Not good at all.
Worst of all, he was clearly trying to stop and failing at every
attempt.
Shock bleeding back into
amusement, she went in for the kill. What the hell. "That collar
would look good on you."
He felt a sudden exposed,
life threatening adrenaline rush; the type of which he hadn't experienced
since his Turk days. This girl was pure, complete evil. Back
against a wall, unarmed, he did the only thing his split-second instincts
told him to--be a cocky asshole about it. "I'd like to see you get
it on me."
And, unfortunately for him,
the words came long before any sort of thought process scanned them.
She only grinned as he hung himself in his own rope, then clearly struggled
to get free when he realized what he'd just said. But there was no
need to watch the poor creature strangle, was there? Oh no, that
was too easy. She walked past him to leave, throwing casually over
her shoulder, "I'll make it a point to show you."
What---the hell had just
happened? He shook his head as the door closed after her. They'd
been around one another for far too long. Or maybe almost long enough.
Walking briskly down the
hall to join her husband (no doubt having found something sugary for that
extra morning "umph"), she knew very well that Vincent had been trying
in his usually askew way to make sure they were all being quite safe together.
But the way he'd approached her... he just left himself wide open, was
all. And she enjoyed every last minute of it. Little by little,
she was chipping away at his resolve. It felt good. She expected
nothing out of it, in the end--it was sport. Good, fun, vicious sport.
And Rodger noticed by the
expression she wore as she found him around the corner. "That was
a fast one." He joked quietly.
"Oh hush, Mr. Three Minute
Warning." She threw back.
"You were never supposed
to bring up the wedding night!" he cried, even as laughter destroyed his
attempt at staging a domestic dispute. Usually it scared the shit
out of people. But this time there was no one to witness it, anyway.
She dropped her voice, back
into seriousness at last. "He just wanted to make sure everything
was fine and dandy. In his own little way."
Ah. What a way to
start a conversation like that off... "I see." He paused, thinking
over his next question. "But did you get any sweetness?"
She smacked his shoulder
with just enough force to be on the verge of joking rather than actual
domestic abuse. "You are a bad man."
"I know." He agreed
with a grin. "Hey, the sun's rising, though. Want to go for
a walk in the garden?"
Hm. "That's actually
a good idea."
"Why thank you." He
started them off, leading at her side. "And hopefully we won't stumble
on any not quite official presidential matters." The thought kind
of made him want to shiver. Laguna might have been a handsome soldier
once, but in the many years since then...
"What can I say?" she laughed.
"My family's full of nymphos."
Rodger threw a hand to the
sky. "Thank Hyne."
Alright, they had to hand
it to Laguna; the garden really was gorgeous at sunrise. The way
the snow white lilies caught the reds and golds of the morning, the way
the roses of a hundred different hues all seemed to play off the light
in their own way... it was dazzling. All sorts of flowers were on
display, several of them in full bloom or producing brightly colored berries.
Birds chirped little by little, hopping across their path to find waking
bugs. Squirrels chattered sleepily as they walked underneath living
spaces. The ground trembled...
Hm. Before
she had the chance to ask whether or not she was imagining things, the
look on Rodger's face pretty much said it all. With all calmness,
he inquired, "That was just a big ship or something, right?"
She couldn't answer.
Not because she didn't want to say yes whether she believed it or not,
but because the ground literally seemed to shift beneath their feet.
In one jarring motion, the place that they had been standing simply "moved
aside", tripping them up but not quite toppling them.
"Well. This isn't
good." His understatement seemed to resonate in the ground underneath
them again. This time, they clung to one another just to stand upright
underneath the increasingly violent vibration.
They were not located on
a fault line--not that such a fact always mattered, of course. But
had there been any signals in the planet's core, the whole damn world would
have been informed. There hadn't been an unexpected earthquake in
half a century at least; not with the technology available and a new deep
earth research facility open and running. This... simply was not
right.
Not that that much mattered,
they'd both be forced to admit. Louder than standing beneath any
ship, louder than any of the oldest trains still running, the very grinding
of the earth was deafening. Unable to stand, even against one another,
they lost their footing... and fell.
In one of those split seconds
that lasted an imagined eternity, Kyrie found her mind asking itself, "And
why does there seem to be no ground beneath us to fall onto?"
"Because there is not."
She answered herself with a logic that made her sick to her stomach.
Only, there was a
place to land--but that didn't help a volatile stomach, any. Actually,
it was the smell that first rapped viciously at her gut. She had
smelled the foulness of monster blood, and she had only the slightest inklings
of burning flesh from having shared a mind with Sephiroth, but it did not
prepare her for... for this. It was as sweet as it was revolting,
and that was not a good combination. Breathing was a problem, but
she was forced to do so in order to survive.
Only after she was able
to breathe in without coughing was she able to reflect on the landing having
been... "soft", for lack of a better word. The realization that something
warm lay under her sprawled hands caused her to pull them back, away from
the moist heat. What a mistake. They came back to her with
a sticky slurp, bathed even more strongly in the rank, pungent smell--and
a sticky sort of translucent slime.
The horror of the situation
numbed her enough to give her emotions a break; she sat stark upright and
looked around. Wherever she was, it was dark... but not entirely.
The walls themselves seemed to give off an otherworldly light of sorts...
and this light pulsed.
No... no, wait. It
wasn't the light that pulsed. It was the walls.
And that's when she heard
it. A great, dull, heavy drumbeat all around her. Rhythmic.
Perfectly spaced.
A heartbeat. The walls...
this place... was alive. Alive, but... very much dead, for lack of
a better understanding. Beyond death. Beyond anywhere the Lifestream
had ever wanted to reach. This... must be...
A warm, sticky hand found
her shoulder. She started at first, but that touch was unmistakable.
She wasn't alone, at least. Whether or not that offered comfort,
she was uncertain. "Why us?" she asked aloud, out of nowhere.
"I mean, have you ever asked yourself that? Why you're in the fucking
crosshairs of everything?"
"'Cause I'm with you."
Rodger joked, coughing furiously with that godawful smell.