A/N: Okay, so who had 'random not-entirely-canon Rogue origin story' in the What On Earth Will CrimsonStarbird Write Next sweepstakes? What do you mean, no one?
Just as a heads up, this jumps back and forth between the present day (set just after Tartaros) and Rogue's past. ~CS
He Who Walks Behind The Light
By CrimsonStarbird
It could have been any of them.
But for a roll of the dice, Rogue could have been the one who was found by a kindly old couple, or taken under the wing of a responsible stranger from a parallel world, or discovered by an elderly Guild Master and brought straight to the best guild in Fiore, just like that.
Hell, six years older and he'd have thrived in Phantom Lord just like Gajeel had, scales already hard enough to deflect the jibes, claws already sharp enough to hit back.
It could have been any of them.
But the cards had been dealt, fate had already chosen her favourites, and when the dust of ages settled, Rogue Cheney had been given Master Jiemma.
Sometimes, he thinks about the version of himself who came back through the Eclipse Gate and wonders how it took him twenty-six years on this earth to become evil.
He hasn't taken a job since the battle against Tartaros ended. He's been too busy since then, thinking, remembering, rehearsing words he'll never be able to say. I'm sorry. I didn't know, either. It should be me. I'm sorry.
It has taken all his willpower not to do anything at all.
Now, he wonders how he ever thought this was normal, as he stares up at a Request Board overflowing with the sins of the world.
They say a packed Request Board is the sign of a successful guild, and it's true that Sabertooth has become a much better place since they lost to Fairy Tail in the Grand Magic Games, but to Rogue, the job requests are just confirmation that the world outside is still as screwed up as ever.
Kidnap victims to be rescued, dark guilds to be rounded up, thieves to be found and punished, each with their own price, and here Rogue stands, getting to decide who should be saved today, which curse will be broken, whether stopping this criminal is more important than finding that runaway child.
Who gets to live, and who has to die.
Perhaps a hero would say that it's better to save one person than none at all, although Rogue thinks it depends too much on who that person is, and besides, if he wasn't sure that he met the description of 'hero' a few days ago, he definitely doesn't now.
His fingers linger over the kidnapping job anyway.
But it's S-Class, which means he needs approval, which means walking over to the corner of the room where the lamps saturate the daylight with sickly gold; where the laughter is so loud it grates; where the vodka comes in pint glasses though the evening's far away. It means talking to the man who hasn't had a single word for him since the dragons reappeared, and Rogue, Gajeel, Natsu, Wendy, and Sting had been reunited with Skiadrum and Metalicana and Igneel and Grandine and-
And-
He doesn't take the kidnapping job in the end, or any other. Instead, he catches a train out to the middle of the countryside, to a place he'd thought he'd never been before but now finds out that he has. He takes Frosch with him. Frosch isn't much of a conversationalist, but at least this way, it looks like Rogue is talking to someone. The Exceed is a good listener; he nods and agrees and rarely talks back.
After an afternoon of searching, he finds it: a rugged crag, old monoliths of stone, remnants of an ancient civilization in a sea of wild green no one has tried to tame since. It looks different to the memories that Skiadrum has only just returned to him. There is no sign of the cave large enough to house a dragon. Forests have risen and monoliths fallen; the river where he used to bathe now a rasping tongue of red in the parched earth; time, time and more time.
He doesn't know what he was hoping to see here. A huge city, maybe. Something that couldn't possibly have coexisted with a dragon and his human child; something that demonstrates conclusively that the memories he received from Skiadrum's ghost are just as false as the ones he's carried with him most of his life.
This doesn't prove anything.
He tries anyway. He tells Frosch it's a treasure hunt, and they scramble around on their hands and knees, looking for a scrap of scale, a tiny handprint on a cave wall, any tangible remnant of his past.
Nothing.
It should make him happy, but it doesn't. The absence of evidence for one hypothesis does not constitute proof for its opposite; just because he can't show beyond doubt that the new memories are true doesn't immediately make them false. He's always known that. He's clutching at straws.
And when at last he looks up and sees that the crimson sun has built a nest between two distant peaks, just as some part of him had known it would, those straws disintegrate into ash.
This time, what he remembers is real.
He watches the sun set with Frosch in his arms. "I used to live here," he says to the Exceed, to himself, to the monoliths and the trees, to everything except the shadow lengthening behind him. "With my dad, Skiadrum, and… and my family. But until I met Skiadrum's ghost and he gave me back my true memories, I didn't remember any of it, not accurately."
Absently, he scratches behind the Exceed's ears. The head of his frog suit is patchy where Rogue's affections, Rogue's anxieties, have almost worn the threads away, but Frosch purrs anyway.
"I spent most of my life believing I had killed my father with my own two hands," Rogue murmured. "But it was just a false memory he gave me. It was all a lie."
He has the truth, now.
And the truth is so much worse.
As the sun sinks further, it seems his body starts to fade around the edges, and the shadow sharpens, sharpens.
He pays for a hotel room rather than going back to the guild tonight.
Master Jiemma is Master Jiemma long before his acquisition of Sabertooth puts a society-approved stamp on the title.
Strictly speaking, he doesn't buy Rogue. The slave trade is illegal in Fiore, and Jiemma is far too clever to be caught doing something illegal. The guardianship documents are all present and accounted for, and not all of them even needed to be forged. After all, the only person who has ever been family to Rogue, as far as he is aware, lies dead at his own hands.
Besides, as Jiemma is fond of saying, he couldn't have bought Rogue when Master Jose of Phantom Lord paid him to take the street urchin off his hands.
The boy is a pest, Jose had claimed, always hanging around the guildhall and disrupting Phantom Lord's image and never seeming to get the hint, no matter how his mages treat him. Gajeel is one thing; at least he can take on jobs and pay his own way. A five-year-old in a guild is a joke.
A five-year-old with extremely rare magic, though, and their back alley exchange comes with an extra clause: if Jiemma can whip him into shape, Jose will buy him back, and at ten times the price.
That's all Rogue needs to hear. Jiemma's going to train him, and once he has proven himself, he'll be allowed to join the guild of his idol Gajeel, be able to go inside, not just stare through the windows. That brave, exciting life will soon be his, if he works hard enough. Doing a few odd jobs for his new Master is a small price to pay.
Jiemma's house is so enormous that it could only be more fairytale-like to Rogue if it had turrets and a moat. It's vast and sparkling and it abounds with novel things – shelves and shelves of books! Lights that come on at the flick of a switch! Hot water on tap! More bedrooms than he can count!
Jiemma doesn't take him to a bedroom, though. He takes him to the basement and throws a blanket down after him. If he wants to sleep in a bed, Rogue is told, he has to earn it.
That's understandable. Rogue is here for training, after all. And the basement is actually more sheltered than the cave where he slept with Skiadrum, and though it might be missing the paradoxical comfort of a scaly tail and the warmth of a man-eating monster, Rogue knows he's not allowed to cry for it, when he's the one who killed his father.
He's not allowed to cry for anything here, even where he thinks no one will hear, because somehow, Master Jiemma always knows.
That's the thing about living with Master Jiemma. He's a much more dedicated teacher than any Rogue has ever known, able to make every aspect of daily life into a lesson; into a chance to grow stronger.
Wants new clothes? He has to earn them.
Wants supper tonight? He has to earn it.
Wants to go to bed without being beaten?
Well.
He'll have to do better tomorrow, won't he?
It's strange, Rogue thinks, that he lived with a dragon for five years and doesn't have a single scar to show for it, but after a week with Jiemma, he already has enough for a lifetime.
Rogue doesn't know how Master Jiemma makes his money, but he's not stupid enough to ask.
He knows he himself is just one small part of it. First it's cleaning the house, weekly, religiously, even the rooms that no one uses, even the rooms that mysteriously accumulate blood as well as dust between cleans, even the rooms that still stink of decay to his draconic senses after he's bleached the carpets thoroughly. Then it's cooking, the guest one night a member of the Magic Council and the next an emissary from a dark guild, and he puts the white powder in the wrong teacup once and is beaten to within an inch of his life.
Sometimes he carries messages, written in a code he's not privy to; sometimes he receives deliveries at 2am from masked men in strange cities, and it's more than his life's worth to wonder what's inside. The shadows are his friends, and they let him into places no one else can go, recording conversations he doesn't understand, though he understands Master Jiemma's smile when he plays them back. It means Rogue won't be the one to suffer that night.
He's not alone in that vast house. Minerva lives there too, but she hates him; her magic's nowhere near as rare as his so her usefulness depends on her being better at it. She's older than him, bigger than him, and more powerful than him, but she's just as trapped as he is so she takes it out on him. He becomes good at avoiding her. They don't talk about it then, and they don't talk about it after, either. They are just another part of each other's darkness.
There's only one light in that time.
It comes from the most unexpected place. There's an exchange going down in the cemetery tonight; Rogue doesn't know what's being exchanged or between whom, but it will be Master Jiemma's by the end of the night.
That's the plan, anyway, but the plan doesn't account for the blond-haired boy crying over two graves.
It's the wrong end of the ceremony from where the deal's going down, Rogue's only passing through, but from the moment he lays eyes on the boy, he's not following orders at all. He's sitting down beside him. It's not instinct that drives him, it's memory; he just doesn't know it yet.
The boy is clutching a white rose in his hands, and in the moonlight his tears are the brightest things Rogue has ever seen, but it doesn't make his voice any weaker when he says, "Get lost."
Rogue's never been told to leave so politely before, and he's not quite sure what to do about it, so he ignores it. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, people always cry in graveyards when they're okay," the boy snaps back.
He's seen children cry before – made more than a few adults cry – but none of that bothered him like this bothers him. Rogue nods towards the headstones, their lettering too sharp to have known a good rainstorm, too clean to have been accepted yet as part of the scenery. "Who're they?"
"My parents," he says. "Not my real parents. But I loved them."
"You're alone, then?"
"Why do you care?"
"I don't want you to be alone." Rogue doesn't know where the words are coming from, not back then, not until it's already eight years too late for either of them to walk away. "You can stay with me. I'll protect you."
"You?" he laughs. "I don't need protecting. Especially not by you."
"Sure you do. You're crying, you're weak, you need someone-"
"It's not weak to cry when people die!" He throws the rose at Rogue. The petals scatter like his thoughts, like a storm of perfect serenity; he wasn't allowed to cry for Skiadrum and he can't imagine crying over Master Jiemma. It's weakness, Jiemma always says, and the boy's pride in his emotions is strange to him.
The boy adds, "You're the weak one. I could beat you with one hand behind my back."
No, he couldn't; not a boy who hides and cries and has lived a happy life with two adoptive parents against a boy who's trained every moment of every day with diligent Master Jiemma. Rogue shuffles closer. Jiemma always insists that he should keep this a secret from everyone, but lowering his voice to a whisper is all the consideration he pays his Master in that moment. "Do you want to know a secret?"
The boy nods.
"Well," he continues, "I'm a Dragon Slayer."
It's the second time he's said those precious, precious words, and this kid's as unimpressed as Gajeel was. He's cuter and his eyes are red with grief, not like Gajeel's usual demonic scowl, but it somehow makes his sneer twice as awful.
"So what? So am I."
"No, you're not," Rogue laughs.
"Sure I am. The White Dragon Slayer, blasting away darkness with holy magic. And I'm a real Dragon Slayer, not like you. I've slain a dragon and absorbed his power."
Rogue wants to say he's done the same, that this weak child crying in the night on his own is not better than him, but he thinks about the means of Skiadrum's passing and the words stick in his throat. He can't even pretend to be proud of what he did.
"So, I don't need you," the boy finishes.
"Yes- well- you're still alone, aren't you?" Rogue challenges.
"Nope. I'm gonna join a guild."
"You could come and work for Master Jiemma, like me."
"Master? Are you in a guild?"
"No, but it's similar." Given that Rogue's only experience of a guild is Phantom Lord, which will attack Fairy Tail and be disbanded not a year from now, it's not an untrue statement. "It's just me and Minerva, but we work really hard. Master Jiemma would love another Dragon Slayer. And so would I. Come and join my family."
And he feels, once again, that overwhelming urge to protect that he's never known before – or, at least, not that he remembers. He has no word for it, because Master Jiemma has no need for one, but maybe this boy knows it too.
"Guess I might as well," the boy grunts, like he's disappointed that he's not received any better offers at midnight in a graveyard, and he's having to settle for this.
"I'll talk to Master Jiemma. Meet me back here tomorrow night?"
"Yeah. Okay."
But Master Jiemma doesn't care that Rogue found another Dragon Slayer.
Master Jiemma cares that Rogue missed the exchange.
Because he's never so wilfully failed on a job before, his punishment must be equally unprecedented, and as he screams and screams throughout the night, he finally understands why Master Jiemma's house is so large. It's not the rooms he needs, but the space between them, so that he can sleep peacefully while his guests don't sleep at all.
Rogue has screwed up and he knows it and he's so, so sorry, but he had a reason, and even now he can't think of that boy as anything less than family; can't see how wanting to take him in and shelter him is this much of a sin.
The time of their arranged meeting comes and goes, and there's a part of Rogue that's glad he's still chained up in one of those rooms that mysteriously acquires blood between cleans.
This is his life, and that's fine.
But he wants better for that boy.
He's better off not being part of Rogue's family, after all.
In an unknown city far from Sabertooth, Rogue stretches out on the hotel bed and knows without even trying that he won't be falling asleep any time soon.
Maybe Sting has the right idea. He's probably comatose under a table in the guildhall right now, empty bottle in hand. It's not so late that the bars here will have closed, there's probably still time for Rogue to join him in spirit, but he's not sure he wants to know what visions await him in a drink-induced stupor.
It's bad enough when he's awake.
"You're running away, Rogue."
His eyes fly open at the familiar voice. It's Minerva. What's she doing here? Has she come looking for him?
He catches himself in the nick of time. He doesn't roll over to look at the speaker, just keeps staring at the chair where Frosch is sleeping peacefully, trying to recall if he heard the door unlocking or footsteps approaching before she spoke.
"Father would be disappointed," she continues, and now he knows it's not really her. Minerva never talks about those days. Back then, they could have been for each other what Sting later was to Rogue, but she'd hated and envied him too much, and by the time she realized her mistake, he had Sting and she had no one.
He'd hoped, towards the end of Tartaros, that she was starting to change, but that had been before the dragons appeared.
Back when there was still such a thing as hope.
He feels the bedsprings bend beneath him as she sits on the other side, and he refuses to acknowledge the impossibility of it just like he refuses to acknowledge her, him, it.
"He made us strong, Rogue," Minerva says. "He screwed us up, but he made us strong."
"Not strong enough," he spits, before he can stop himself. "I've never been able to beat Sting, not once!"
The voice laughs, slides so smoothly from Minerva's haughty tones to something even more familiar, a voice that is horribly, unfairly, undeniably his own.
"I beat him," that voice says smugly. "Or perhaps I should say, you will beat him."
Rogue says nothing, like he should have done the first time.
A whisper, so close he can feel the breath on his ear; cold, without life, without substance. "I killed Sting, and I absorbed his magic."
"Shut up!" Rogue screams, spinning round, lashing out.
And of course there's nothing there.
Never was.
Only shadows.
In the corner of the room, Frosch slumbers on, undisturbed.
When Rogue is twelve, Master Jiemma inherits a guild.
It belonged to his estranged brother-in-law, and technically Jiemma doesn't even make the first page of potential beneficiaries, but he knows the probate officer and has the solicitor in his pocket and both of them are a lot less afraid of breaking the law than they are of the suspicious circumstances of the brother-in-law's passing.
Jiemma's always wanted a guild. They're excellent for laundering money through.
It's the closest thing to retirement that exists for a man like him: swapping his old line of work for one a little less active, one which will let him convert his formidable legacy into the cash to see him through the rest of his life.
Of course, for this to work, the guild needs to look legitimate. And for this to work well, the guild needs to be legitimate, such an asset to the Magic Council that their auditors will be tripping over themselves to excuse an anomaly or two in the books.
Besides, it's not in Jiemma's nature to retire any more than it is to put his name to something weak.
That's why Jiemma bursts into that ramshackle hall of angry and grieving mages with an ultimatum in hand: if they want to stay in the guild, his guild now, they have to prove themselves by beating Rogue in single combat. By sundown, there are only three members left in Sabertooth: Rogue, Minerva, and the man who is their Master in two senses, now.
Rogue thinks that's how it's going to be, the three of them doing the same thing under a different name, but not a week has gone by before the guild gets its fourth member.
It's midday, and the boy who kicks the doors open seems to bring the sunlight with him: gold in his hair, verve in his eyes, the blinding light of day in his presence. "I heard there was a guild they only let the strongest mages join. I'm here to offer you my services… if you're worthy."
Jiemma doesn't even look up, just nods to Rogue, who jumps down in front of the newcomer. He knows, without looking, that this is the boy he once met crying in a graveyard, the boy who is so full of life, the boy who deserves better than the best he has to offer.
Rogue gives no sign of recognition, and deliberately doesn't look for signs in the other. Jiemma taught him how to make his voice come out cold: "Beat me, and you're in."
The boy grins like he can't hear the ice in those words – or like he already knows his smile can thaw it. "Bring it, shadow boy."
From the moment he does, Rogue knows it's not like any battle he's ever fought before. This kid is matching him blow for blow. He doesn't let one or two hits break him; he doesn't fall for the tricks that have claimed so many of Rogue's victims. Light whips away the shadows, equal and opposite, until it's just the two of them, a whirl of fists and speed and excitement.
Even Jiemma is watching, now. But Rogue's not watching him, he knows one slip will cost him the match, and he's never felt such a desire to win – not to survive, not to complete the mission his Master gave him, but to win. He's never fought like this before, but it feels like he has, like he knows this boy far better than he should for someone he met once in a graveyard, like they're connected, like they're-
Well, he doesn't have a word for it, because to him, 'family' is Skiadrum dead at his own hands and blood dripping from rooms that should have been empty, and this boy's not like that; this boy is good.
But he sees the wild grin on the boy's face, and knows that whatever this bond is that they share, he feels it too.
Then the grin reveals fangs. Light sketches white streaks across the boy's face. And suddenly the boy is twice as fast as before, twice as strong, and it turns out that Rogue is not his equal and opposite, after all.
Rogue's still reeling from it, coughing up blood on the guildhall's smoking floor, when Jiemma strides into his line of vision. He seizes Rogue's hair and yanks his head upwards, ignoring the yelp of pain.
Through watering eyes, Rogue is forced to stare at the boy who has beaten him into the ground. He stares back, almost perplexed, as the white light around him fades to nothing.
Rogue isn't perplexed. He knows what's coming next.
"See that?" Jiemma rasps triumphantly. "That's a proper Dragon Slayer. You're just a failure. He's in. You're out."
Rogue is too exhausted to do it himself, but that's okay, because Jiemma is more than willing to haul him to the door and throw him into the street.
At the station, he asks for directions to Phantom Lord and is met by confusion and condescension until a passing Rune Knight informs him that the guild was disbanded six months ago.
Rogue thinks it's for the best. If his own teacher doesn't think he's good enough, there's no way Master Jose would have accepted him. He just doesn't know where else to go.
When the Rune Knight notices his wounds and starts talking about taking him to a hospital, Rogue scarpers. He doesn't trust hospitals. In truth, Master Jiemma taught him to avoid hospitals for the same reason he wouldn't let him go out in short sleeves or a vest top, but Rogue doesn't understand that yet.
He's still avoiding the adults who could have helped when he hears a voice.
"Your Guild Master's a dick," it says, and the blond-haired boy drops down onto the bench beside him.
Rogue's pretty sure he's not supposed to let people insult Master Jiemma, but as no one has ever tried it so openly before, he's too surprised to react.
"Sorry about all that," the boy breezes. "If I'd known he was gonna react like that, I'd have- well-"
"Thrown the match?" Rogue finishes archly, because he'd lost fair and square, and they both know it.
The boy drums his fists against his knees. "Why didn't you use Shadow Drive?"
"Huh?"
"You know, your version of my White Drive!"
"How can I use something I've never even heard of?" Rogue shoots back.
"You've not even heard of it? But you're a Dragon Slayer! All Dragon Slayers can use it! Can't they?"
"I can't."
"Oh. I've been able to do it for as long as I can remember, so I just kinda assumed… it's not like I've met any other Dragon Slayers before." He mulls this over for a moment. "Weird. Maybe you're not weak, after all. Maybe it's just that I'm really strong."
"Gee, thanks."
"No, but I could teach you!" the boy exclaims, eyes brilliant, whole world in his hands. "Imagine if you walked back in with Shadow Drive! That'd show your stupid Master, wouldn't it?"
Rogue looks away. He's too bright, sometimes, this boy. "You don't know him. I failed. It's not like one new trick will be enough to make him take me back."
"Yeah, well, I'll tell him I'll quit unless he lets you join again."
"What? Why would you do that?"
"Because I've decided I don't want to be in his guild; I want to be in yours," he shrugs. And while Rogue is still reeling from those words, the boy moves on like they're nothing to him, to the sun who'll change so many people in his lifetime just by winding his ordinary way across the sky. "You're the first Dragon Slayer I've met. Fighting you was really fun. And… I just feel like we're supposed to be together. Like we've met before."
"We have met before-"
But before he can worry about how he's going to explain the abandonment or the tears, the boy cuts across him. "I don't mean that. I mean… properly. Like you're the brother I never had."
Rogue can't remember much of his family beyond the horrific blade of shadows that had flashed once and destroyed it, and he doesn't really want to, but maybe that's a blessing. If he can't remember not having a brother, who can say for sure he never had one? "I'd like a brother," he admits.
"Me too. My family…" The boy gives a hasty glance around, as if the world would care, and whispers, "Can I tell you a secret?"
Rogue nods, so the boy scoots closer on the bench. "You know I told you I killed a dragon? Well… that was my dad. Weisslogia. He was dying of a terminal illness, so he begged me to kill him, so that his power would pass to me rather than disappear. And I did. It was… really awful. So, you know, I don't think it's bad that you're a weaker Dragon Slayer than me. Maybe it just means you're a better person."
It isn't the admission that shocks Rogue – it's the fact that another little piece of what makes him unique has been lost; the reminder that everything he is, everything he can do, this boy can do better.
"But if that's true," he bursts out, "why are you proud of it? You boasted about it to me! Killing your own father!"
The boy's face scrunches up as he thinks. "Because acting like it was my choice makes it hurt less."
Rogue can't imagine that. He's never had a choice in anything.
Maybe it would be nice to pretend.
Maybe then he could be as strong as this impossible boy.
"I'm Sting, by the way," the boy says abruptly.
"Rogue."
"You wanna learn Shadow Drive, Rogue?"
"Yeah. I do."
"Do you know why you could never beat him, Rogue?"
Rogue's heart stops. His eyes shoot open, and they're the only part of him that can move, because the duvet's a coffin and this unfamiliar hotel room is the last thing he'll ever see.
He'd thought he was free from it. He'd stood up to the demonic thing his Master had become during Tartaros, and beaten him back into the past where he belonged – but Sting had been with him then, and Sting's not with him now.
"You're- you're dead," he tries, and it comes out like a plea. "You can't hurt me any more."
"I'm trying to help you, Rogue," Jiemma lectures. "I only ever tried to help you; to let you become the man you need to be right now. Don't you know why you could never beat Sting?"
"I know what you'll say," he retorts. "It's because I'm weak, I'm a coward, I'm a failure."
It's as effective as spitting into a volcano. "You are all those things," Jiemma chuckles. "But they never stopped you from winning, not once, until you started fighting him."
Rogue clamps his mouth shut. He learnt as a five-year-old that silence is the safest response.
"He's a hero, Rogue. He's brave and noble and he fights in the light. We're not like that, you and me. We're creatures of the dark. We can't win by fighting on their terms – we have to make them fight on ours."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Of course you do," the voice chides him, the gentle tone that always preceded nights of blood and tears. "I can't tell you anything you don't already know. Why does the shadow always walk behind the light? To stab it in the back."
"I would never-"
"But you did," comes the response, and now the voice is far too relaxed to be Jiemma's, because of course it never was his. "Or, rather, I did. It hasn't happened for you yet, but it will. I killed Sting, and I absorbed his magic. Do you think I did that by overpowering him in a fair fight?"
He's expecting laughter, but it never comes. A hand touches his shoulder, lighter and gentler than Jiemma's, and far more scarred, because Jiemma always had other people to do his dirty work. "You know what to do and you know how to do it."
"I won't! You're wrong, I won't, I-"
"Rogue! Rogue!"
It's a plaintive wail that breaks him out of it; it's little furry paws on his chest and tearful eyes and the innocent, meaningless love of one who will never understand. Rogue sits up, letting the sweat-soaked covers fall to the ground, pooling like velvet shadow in the brightness of the windows whose curtains he never drew.
"Rogue?" Frosch whimpers, again.
"I'm okay. Just… just a bad dream."
More like a bad life. He glances out of the window at a city whose name he doesn't even know. It's already midday.
"Are we going back to the guild today?" Frosch doesn't hide the hope in his voice. Maybe he doesn't feel like he needs to; more likely, he doesn't know how. He could have learnt a lot from living with Master Jiemma.
"Not today." Maybe never. "What do you want to do instead? You can pick."
Frosch thinks about this. "Fro wants to see Lector and Sting."
"Well, Fro can't!" Rogue snaps, before reining it in. He can imagine Jiemma's glee: the right anger, the wrong target. "I think I saw a funfair on the way into town. Do you want to check that out?"
"Okay," Frosch sniffs.
"Great," he says, forcing a smile.
The shadows laugh at him in Master Jiemma's voice.
Guild jobs are much easier than the jobs Master Jiemma used to make him do. They pay better, too, in that he's actually allowed to keep some of the reward money – one less irregularity in case the books are ever checked. He's not sure how to react the first time a client thanks him, because he's all too aware of the things he got wrong – too slow, too clumsy, gave away the fact that he was a Dragon Slayer in the first ten seconds of combat – but for some reason, the client doesn't seem to care the way Jiemma does.
Oh, Master Jiemma punishes him for it anyway, because he should have been able to do two jobs in the time it took him to slog his way through that one, but it doesn't seem to matter as much as it would have done before.
Not that Master Jiemma bothers him much these days. Too busy using the guild to legitimize his older business ventures. When he does want something doing, he sends Minerva, and Rogue finds that he's quite happy to be overlooked. There's far more than just the four of them, now. Jiemma relaxed the strict entry requirements when he realized a decent guild could be profitable in its own right, and soon Sabertooth is filled with mages who know only the guild's present, and not its past.
Really, though, there's only one reason why life is so much brighter now, and that's Sting.
He's his teammate, friend, partner. He looks out for Rogue in the way Rogue always intended to look out for him, slowly introducing him to society, to real life, to camaraderie; sharing with him all the things Jiemma never felt the need to teach him. It doesn't matter how many times Rogue screws up. Sting just doesn't care.
Sting has always been able to smile in this guild, long before anyone else could. He's bold and loud and he doesn't care who knows it. He respects Master Jiemma, thinks his strictness is a small price to pay for strength and success, though he's been Jiemma's favourite ever since he trounced Rogue that day, and thus he never sees the worst of it. That's okay, though – Rogue's used to it, and it means he's protecting Sting in his own little way. That knowledge numbs the pain, and one adventure with Sting bright and free and alive at his side is always enough to make him forget it entirely.
Sting is his light.
And Rogue is the shadow that walks behind.
Because Sting is better than him, and that's just a fact.
Three months it took Rogue to master Shadow Drive – three months of intensive secret training to learn something Sting could just do – and he's still never beaten him with it, not once.
They're a team, but it's so often Sting who carries them through difficult battles. The fact that he's never mentioned it, never asked to do a job on his own for once, only makes it worse.
Sting's words have helped him come to terms with his role in Skiadrum's death, but he's never been able to take ownership of his past the way Sting has; never been able to turn it into strength.
He's so envious of the way Sting can stride around town in a tank top, midriff bare, muscles attracting the attention of the ladies, while Rogue himself can never go out without a travelling cloak, a high-collared shirt, a long-sleeved top. Jiemma can't force him any more – doesn't bother trying, now that Rogue's old enough to bear the blame himself – but Rogue's too ashamed to try. Too many scars in too many places. Sting relishes the attention, drinks it in, shines ever brighter, and the light he radiates burns when it falls across Rogue's old wounds.
And it's fine, because no one in the guild is as strong as Sting.
No one else is expected to be, though.
They win the first Grand Magic Games they enter, and it must have been excellent for business, because no one is as happy as Master Jiemma. In fact, he's so happy that he presents his Twin Dragons with a gift: a White Dragon Lacrima and a Shadow Dragon Lacrima. In retrospect, an older, cynical Rogue wonders if they were two-for-one at the local black market, but he's not about to turn it down – it's their chance to become strong, truly strong, he and Sting, the first Third Generation Dragon Slayers the world has ever seen.
And they do.
Or, at least, one of them does.
Sting was always strong, but now he's unbeatable, a paragon of victory, a glorious white knight, a true dragon's son.
And Rogue… his Shadow Drive is no stronger. He can barely manifest Dragon Force. He's gained in strength, but it's like he's taken a step forward when Sting has sprouted wings. The scans say that the lacrima were originally of equal strength, but now they've been assimilated into their bodies, the power output of Rogue's is barely a tenth of what it was before, where Sting's is unchanged.
Like his own weakness is a black hole able to sap the strength out of an inanimate object.
Sting's the only reason why Master Jiemma doesn't rip the lacrima straight back out of him. Not that he doesn't try, but Sting makes it clear he won't have anyone else as a partner. Rogue just needs time to adjust, he says.
And he does learn, slowly, coming to unlock more of the lacrima's power every day, toddling along the trail Sting has blazed, watching him get further and further away.
The Grand Magic Games of X791 is the apex of his struggles and the nadir of his hopes.
It's hard to be excited about facing off against his former idol Gajeel when the only other Dragon Slayer Rogue knows is impossibly far out of his league. He has no doubt Sting can win. He's not been sure about himself for seven years.
And the guild's start to the Games isn't one that inspires confidence.
Maybe they've become too complacent, or maybe their enemies have upped their game, but the early rounds don't go Sabertooth's way.
Sting's disappointed, but Rogue's terrified. He's not seen Master Jiemma this angry in years.
Yukino's the one forced to strip in front of everyone, and Lector's the one who pays for it, but Rogue's the one who is paralyzed. In his mind, he's back in that empty room in a house that shouldn't need so many, trying not to bleed too much onto the carpet because he knows he's the one who'll have to clean it-
And suddenly, he's angry. It was okay when it was just him – when he didn't know any better, when he was protecting Sting and the others in the guild from the same fate. But Yukino didn't sign up for this. None of them did. They're his friends, just doing their best with their lots in life, like he is. He's not losing Yukino over this. He's not losing Lector. He's not losing Frosch-
But it's Sting who strikes first.
Sting who burns away his demons.
Figures.
It's Sting who becomes Guild Master, temporarily and then permanently, and it's right that he does, because he's the strongest, the one they've always looked up to, the one with the right of conquest… but no one even considers whether it should be anyone else, not even someone who's been in the guild since the very beginning.
So it's not surprising how the final day of the Games plays out: Rogue, defeated in single combat by his one-time idol, and Sting, undefeated, whose actions matter, whose surrender changes all their lives, whose sacrifice everyone remembers.
After all that, the Eclipse Gate's just rubbing it in.
Finally, everyone's talking about Rogue, and it's not even really him, just some twisted version of himself from the future.
A version of himself that had killed his Sting, and absorbed his magic.
But it's a good thing, because meeting what he could become really throws Rogue's jealousy into perspective. If that's where the path of power is leading him, then he doesn't want it. He's happy being the weakest Dragon Slayer if it means he still has Sting, his brother, his light.
He is so grateful to have glimpsed a future he can now ensure will never come to pass.
He breaks down after the Games and tells Sting everything – and Sting understands, he forgives without hesitation, because that's what brothers do, and Sting has always been the one protecting him. And for once, Rogue finds that he doesn't mind it at all.
They go to Tartaros together. They defeat what's left of Jiemma together.
After all these years, Rogue is finally free.
He's got his brother, he's got his brother's incredible guild, and everything is just okay; wonderfully, beautifully, okay.
Then the dragons return.
And nothing will ever be okay again.
The sun is falling from the sky but Rogue's not tired at all. He slept through most of the morning, and it wasn't as though there was much in the funfair to keep him occupied. Frosch is the opposite. Rogue's attempts to keep him too busy to wonder why Sting isn't on this non-job with them have worked too well.
He's carrying the Exceed in his arms, listening without listening to his sleepy mumbling, dreading what he'll hear when Frosch finally succumbs to his exhaustion.
Who he'll hear.
It's probably because he already knows.
Without turning to look, he knows whose footsteps he's hearing slightly out of time with his own, neither closing in nor falling behind as he wanders aimlessly through the sun-drowned streets.
Sting says, "I know you're better than this, Rogue."
He'd made an effort to ignore the other voices, but he has never been able to ignore Sting, his brother, the other half of him. "That's a lie," he snaps back, stopping short in the empty street but not turning round. "You've always known exactly how worthless I am."
"My shadow," he agrees softly. "You never could do anything without me, could you? Can't even fulfil your duty without me here to talk you into it."
"You're wasting your time. I won't do it."
"This is why you're such a failure, Rogue. You know what you need to do and you still won't do it. There's a good reason why you're weaker than me, you know that now, but there's no reason why you should be weaker than Gajeel or Natsu. That's all on you, you failure, you ghost, you shadow."
Rogue forces out a laugh, holds it up like a screen to hide the bleeding wounds. "Now you're not even trying. Sting would never say that to me."
"But I think it," it says, still in the voice of his brother. "Seven years you've been trailing along behind me. How many more are you going to waste before you realize the truth? I'm too bright for you, Rogue. No one will ever see you while I'm around."
It takes all his willpower not to turn round, not to let a sound give his traitorous heart away, to remind himself, again and again, that this isn't real.
"You've been trying so hard, but as long as I'm around, it will all be for nothing," Sting murmurs. "No one's interested in you. You're not even a person. You exist as half of the Twin Dragons, or you don't exist at all. Don't you want people to see you? To finally be free of me, and become your own person?"
There's silence for a moment, tears in Rogue's eyes.
"You're not trying to bait me into it, are you?" Rogue asks hollowly. "You already know I'm going to do it. You're trying to make it hurt less when I do."
Softly, kindly, Sting says, "I can't tell you anything you don't already know."
And then: "Turn around, Rogue. I'm standing in your shadow, now."
Against his better judgement, he does.
It's not Sting standing there, of course it isn't. It's himself – or, at least, a version of himself from seven years in the future. One who was strong enough to do what needed to be done.
Rogue's shadow stretches between them, impossibly long even for the sunset, like time is stretching, melting. The path of his future is the absence of light, and it leads him to the man who came through the Eclipse Gate and never really left, not for him.
The other Rogue waits patiently for him to speak, unthreatening, understanding, not real.
"You told me that you killed Sting and absorbed his magic," Rogue says, at last. "But you never told me when."
A smile stretches across his future self's face. "Well, now you're asking the right questions."
"You told Natsu that you turned to the darkness after Frosch died," Rogue continues. Nothing he doesn't already know, the shadow told him; he just doesn't know he knows it until he puts it into words. "I always assumed it was sometime after that that you murdered Sting, in anger, or perhaps in greed. But it wasn't, was it? You didn't do it because you wanted to, but because you had to. And it wasn't seven years in the dark future. It was tonight."
He takes a deep breath. It tastes like nothing. "It will be tonight."
The shadow neither confirms nor denies it, just keeps smiling kindly.
"You brag about killing him for the same reason Sting brags about killing his father," Rogue says. "It hurts less if you pretend it was a choice. You've finally taken ownership of your scars."
"Will you?" asks the ghost of his future.
"I don't think I'm strong enough."
"Seven years is a long time."
Rogue has nothing to say to that.
There's one shadow Rogue has been expecting to see since all this began, and it comes to him as he walks back to the guildhall.
Nothing conveys scale quite like the shadows; an infinity lurks between night and imagination. The earth compresses beneath silent footsteps. Wings stretch on forever overhead, vast enough to block out all the light, had there been any left in the world.
Rogue's probably supposed to be happy to see him, but he's not felt any positive emotions towards his father since he was five years old. Skiadrum's death – murder – euthanasia – however he spins it – has hung over him his entire life, his original darkness, and learning it was never real doesn't take that away any more than Jiemma's death can take away the scars on his back.
No, knowing the truth only makes it worse.
That false memory was never some misguided effort to make him feel like a true Dragon Slayer.
It was about preparing him for what he has to do.
Normalizing it.
Because he's known what his task is ever since the end of the battle against Tartaros, when he and Gajeel and Natsu and Wendy and Sting were reunited with Skiadrum and Metalicana and Igneel and Grandine and a big empty space where Weisslogia should have been.
Five Dragon Slayers.
Four dragons.
"You should have done it," Rogue states.
"I should have done," Skiadrum agrees.
It's not enough. An admission of guilt from a shadow just won't cut it.
"You should have done it the moment Weisslogia was killed," he spits. "You should have done it as soon as you realized that there was no longer a way of stopping Sting from turning into a dragon. You shouldn't have let him grow up in ignorance. You shouldn't have let him live just to die." His voice is a bitter cry. "You should have killed him then and there! You shouldn't have left it up to me!"
"I know," Skiadrum says.
They walk on, and the shadows bend around them, warping reality away.
"Do you know why I didn't?" Skiadrum asks.
"Because I begged you not to," Rogue whispers.
He remembers everything, now, but it doesn't stop this shadow, this memory, this figment of his masochistic imagination from laying it bare in front of him.
"You threw yourself over that boy and told me that if I wanted to kill him, I'd have to go through you," Skiadrum rumbles. "And that if I did, you'd be dead, so I could seal my soul inside Sting instead of you and save him, so he'd get to live either way. You said he was your brother and you would protect him no matter what. So I took him in, and I raised him with you, even though I knew that one day I would have to choose which of you to save."
"I was a child," Rogue says, blinking back the tears. They sit so bright on his cheeks, in a world where all other light has been extinguished. Sting, his brother, the only person he has ever been able to cry for. "I didn't understand the consequences. You should have done it anyway."
"I know," Skiadrum repeats.
The night goes on.
"He'll lose his mind first," Rogue recounts hollowly, unable to stop himself. "Then his human body. Grandine told me he's got days at best; he's almost at the edge. He doesn't have the protection I and the others have. He'll become another Acnologia. He'll destroy everything he used to love. I have to kill him before he becomes indestructible."
"That is your duty."
Rogue almost – but doesn't quite – spin to look at the shadow walking beside him, wings hanging over him, legacy drowning him. "Please, tell me, is there any way to save him?"
He'd already asked the question, of course, screamed it at the real Skiadrum and his fellow dragons until his throat was hoarse, but the lore of the dragons and all their long years had yielded nothing but despair.
There was only one way to save the world from a second Acnologia, and no way at all to save Sting.
"I can't tell you anything you don't already know," the shadow reminds him. "I am a part of you, Rogue."
The worst part of him.
And it's destined to destroy the best part of him.
Sting, his brother, his light, the only good thing to have come from a lifetime of darkness, but the darkness always wins, in the end.
"The longer you wait, the harder it will be," Skiadrum says, and after all these years, it isn't anything Rogue doesn't already know.
He hasn't worked out how or when or where he'll do it – he's barely got his head around why – but he's already reached the guildhall. The shadows of the past have brought him to his future, and it's a hateful, lonely place. It's darker and quieter than he's ever seen Sabertooth before, even under Jiemma's reign, and it's not because of the late hour.
"Rogue!" There's a surprising number of people inside, given the time, given the silence. One of them is Yukino: "We've been trying to get hold of you – we didn't think you'd make it back in time!"
He blinks at her stupidly, placing the sleeping Frosch upon a nearby table. "In time for what?"
"You haven't heard?" She glances around the guildhall, seeking support, hoping someone else will step in. But they all turn away, and it's not so quick that he can't see the pain in their faces, the shame. She explains, "Sting's in hospital. They're not sure he'll make it through the night."
No. It can't have started already. The dragons had promised him Sting had a few days left as a human, enough time to say goodbye-
"He overdosed," Yukino murmurs.
His mind blanks. "On what?"
"Everything. He raided the guild's infirmary – he's the Master, he has full access – half of those substances aren't even meant to be consumed-"
Rogue doesn't hear the rest. He's already running, ignoring the shouts of his guild, ignoring the shouts of the hospital staff, pretends they're as silent as the shadows at his heel, Minerva and Jiemma and Skiadrum and his future self, runs like he can outrun them all.
"Sting!" he shouts, lurching towards the figure in the hospital bed.
He's already so still. That light, impossibly dim.
"Rogue…" he slurs.
Still here. Still here.
Rogue grasps his brother's hand in both of his. "I'm here, Sting. Can you hear me?"
"Yeah. Guess I'm still alive, then." Even in the depths of night, he manages to crack a smile. "Underestimated the constitution of a dragon. Looks like I'm already further gone than I thought."
"Why?" Rogue bursts out. "Why would you-?"
A laugh that's a croak, that's not his confident, abrasive, beautiful light at all. "I've been a dead man walking ever since it turned out Weisslogia wasn't inside me," Sting states. "I refuse to become like Acnologia. I'd rather die than lose my mind and destroy the things I love. And…" Finally, he moves, and it's only to turn his head away. "I didn't want you to have to do it…"
That's the moment when Rogue knows he's failed. It's not being the slowest to acquire Shadow Drive, it's not being the weaker half of the Twin Dragons, it's not being defeated in the Grand Magic Games, it's this that makes him a failure.
"You were trying to protect me," he says, in a hollow voice, one befitting a shadow.
"Guess it didn't turn out quite like I'd hoped," Sting remarks. "You have to do it, Rogue. Now, before anyone comes. You have to kill me."
"I don't want to," he pleads.
"I know. But you must. You're not the only one who got your memories back. I know what fate awaits me, and I refuse it. I will not become a mindless, violent beast." His hand tightens around Rogue's. Maybe it's a trick of the moonlight, but his skin gleams scale-white. "I'll be gone either way, Rogue. You're not destroying me. You're saving me."
"It's not fair!" he cries.
"That's why I didn't want you to have to do this. But you're stronger than you think, Rogue. You always have been."
"I'm not! I'm weak, I can't do anything on my own-"
"Of course you can. Fourteen years ago, you stood up to your father, and because of that, I've got to live these fourteen amazing years with you and the guild. I am so grateful that I met you, Rogue. It's only because you took the burden of killing me upon yourself that I was able to live at all."
Despite himself, Rogue moves closer, wanting to see that smile in full one last time, wanting to hold tight to his last glimpse of daylight.
"I am so lucky to have had you as my brother, Rogue," he murmurs, eyes sliding shut. "I would be honoured if you would take my magic and use it as your own."
I killed Sting, and I absorbed his magic. The words of his future self, the words of his shadow, about to become his reality.
He wonders how long it took his future self to turn that wound into a weapon. Did he march out of the hospital, Sting's power in his veins, announcing to all and sundry that it was his by right of conquest, holding it proudly up as armour so that he wouldn't have to force out a single guilty tear?
Or did he slink out as a coward, pretending the magic was Sting's dying wish, letting them believe it was the overdose that killed him rather than the shadows that crept within and stopped his heart, not being able to take ownership of that one final scar for the full seven years-?
"Seven years?" Rogue asks out loud, puzzled.
Sting stirs, looking up at him with bleary eyes. "What…?"
"The Rogue from the future killed his Sting and absorbed his magic seven years before coming back through the Eclipse Gate," Rogue points out, with a frown. "But he never turned into a dragon."
"Of course not," Sting sighs. "He had the same protection that Skiadrum gave you."
"Yes, so whatever it is that Skiadrum did, it's clearly enough to suppress the magic of two dragons!"
"But it's in you," Sting explains gently. "Your body, your magic. If it could be transferred to me, the dragons would have said so, when they told me I had to die."
But Rogue can't stop now; he clings to the tiny sliver of hope like he's clung to Sting all these years. "Not if they didn't know about it," he argues. "Not if it isn't ancient magic, but modern technology. Do you remember when Master Jiemma gave us those dragon lacrima, and we became the first Third Generation Dragon Slayers in the world? The moment the Shadow Dragon Lacrima fused with me, its power fell to barely a tenth of what it had been before. I bet it's being capped by the same thing that limits my Dragon Slayer magic so that I'll never turn into a dragon. Whatever Skiadrum did to me – antibodies, enchantments, whatever – they've been integrated into my lacrima too!"
"But there's no guarantee that will work in me," Sting points out, face ashen. "We don't even know if it can be transferred from one person to another."
"Don't you want to try?" Rogue demands.
Sting glances away. "I've come to terms with my fate. I'm not sure I can bear another false hope."
"Then I'll bear it for you," Rogue vows. "You've always been my hope. This time, let me be yours."
Rogue is expecting it to be morning when he wakes up, or at least dawn, but the night still holds sway. It doesn't matter. The nurses have pushed his bed up next to Sting's following the emergency operation; over the edge of the bed, he can feel Sting's hand in his. He doesn't care if it's soppy. He has come to love those emotions Jiemma tried to beat out of him. That warmth is all the light he needs, his own daybreak, the end of his night.
"Sting?"
"Yeah?"
"How are you feeling?"
A grunt. "Like I should be in a hospital."
"You are in a hospital," Rogue smiles. "And it should feel rough for a while. You're a hybrid Third Generation, now. A White Shadow Dragon Slayer."
"And you're back to being a First Gen," he murmurs. "I'm sorry. I know you always wanted to become stronger."
"Not really." The words roll off Rogue's tongue; he hadn't realized, until that moment, how true they are. They feel like chains breaking. "I wanted to become strong so that I could protect you. If I can do that better by being weak, well, I'm okay with that."
Sting thinks about this for a while. Rogue's not sure he understands, but that's okay. That's why they need each other.
"Say, Rogue. Do you think this means we've saved Frosch?"
"Huh? Where's that come from?"
"Think about it. Future Rogue came back in time, and because you met him in the present, you were able to come up with the idea of the lacrima, which that other you hadn't had. So the future's changed, right? In a way, his time travel has set you on a different path. So maybe Frosch won't die a year from now. Maybe you won't turn into an evil megalomaniac, after all."
It's Rogue's turn to consider this. In the silence, he's half-expecting the voices from his past to weigh in, but he doesn't think he'll ever hear them again. Not because they've gone, but because they're back to where they're supposed to be, inside him.
He is the shadow. He accepts that. He'll wear it like he'll wear the criss-crossing scars on his body: part of who he was, but not necessarily who he will be.
"I don't think it was losing Frosch that made the other me go evil," he admits, at last. "I think it was losing Frosch after I'd already lost you."
His brother's hand tightens around his. "Not this time."
He nods. "I don't know if changing the timeline like this will be enough to save Frosch in a year's time. I'm certainly not going to take it for granted; I'll do all I can to protect him. But even if I fail, and I'm not able to save him… I don't know what will happen to me, but I am certain that I will not become that. The other me lost his hope tonight. I still have mine. He may have taken your magic, but I am stronger than he will ever be."
"And I'll help you protect Frosch," Sting agrees. "Whatever happens, we'll face it together."
And he knows it's true. No matter what comes, Sting will always be his light, leading him towards brighter times.
And Rogue will be his shadow – always right behind him, watching his back.
A/N: I wrote this one back in the summer of 2020. I was inspired by a fic whose name I sadly can't remember, in which Natsu and Wendy are raised together by Grandine as Sky Dragon Slayer siblings. Me being me, my first thought was 'but Grandine can only save one of them from dragonification, so how is this going to work'? I don't know if the original fic ever addressed this issue; it didn't seem like it was going to, but it wasn't my kind of thing, and I stopped reading after the first chapter. But that rather morbid idea stayed with me.
At the same time, I was working my way through The Divine Comedian's absolutely fantastic collection of HP Marauders-era melancholy and poetic fics, and I wanted to try writing something in that style, or at least inspired by it. Throw into the mix the fact that I was re-watching the Grand Magic Games arc at the time, and He Who Walks Behind The Light was born. I wanted to try rationalizing Skiadrum and Weisslogia's 'let's have our kids think they killed us' plan by approaching it from a completely different direction, as well as some of Future Rogue's actions.
I think I've settled on what I'll post for my next long fic, so watch out for a new multi-chapter fic appearing in the next few weeks. But as this little one was already drafted, I thought I might as well get it edited and finished in case anyone was interested in this weird little bit of alternate Rogue backstory. Thanks for reading! ~CS
