A/N: Well, it's been literal years. But I haven't forgotten this story. I remember it every time I'm reading fanfiction and realize it's unfinished only after I cannot click to the next chapter. You all still leave me reviews sometimes and follow this story. Special thanks to the Guest who went to the trouble of filling the entire dialogue box with a polite request for an update. That made me laugh xD.
Is anyone even still reading this?
Aw well, even so, I don't want to let you all down! Or myself. No matter how long this takes, I won't give up on it. SO HERE WE GO –
It had been all over the news, headlines splattered across tabloids and celebrity talk-shows spooling through story after story speculating the death of Briefers Rock, heir to the Rock Foundation and a fortune of millions. Brief's father held a press conference on live television and remained stoic for only the first few questions before he broke down completely, speechless and shaking his head, choked by tears, unable to continue. The future of the Rock Foundation, determined the press, was unknown. Simply lost in a stasis of grief. Directionless. Listless. Stuck.
Stocking could relate.
She'd last looked into Brief's dull green eye and touched his cold, pale skin on a Saturday in spring. That was over a month ago. It felt like eons and yet, no time at all. And she hadn't been the same since.
It shouldn't have mattered. It was just one human, one measly, blink-of-an-eye existence. Brief should have been no more remarkable than any other speck of dust on the planet, placed here to live and die a life no one would care to remember. But that just wasn't the case. Stocking remembered, and the world without him felt fundamentally different. School was quieter. The days seemed emptier. Ghost hunting held no meaning for her anymore. Losing Brief changed Stocking.
And it changed Panty too.
Her sister – her lust-hungry, lizard-brained, pain-in-the-ass sister – hadn't had sex since the day Brief died. Stocking knew this because when Panty wasn't at home, she was ghost-hunting. And when she was home, she was bitching at Garterbelt over the phone for more cases. Nothing about her demeanor had changed because she was still crass, self-centered, and impulsive. But her actions spoke louder than her words. And abstinence, for Panty, was like screaming so loud that the entire world could hear her.
"Hey, bitch."
And speaking of which…
"Bitch."
When had she gotten home?
"Stocking."
"What?" Stocking asked, hugging her stuffed kitten to her chest, both their expressions flat. Panty stood leaning against the doorframe of Stocking's bedroom, watching Stocking watch television. They'd rebuilt the church with Garterbelt's help over the course of long weeks. It would never been the same as it was, but they got it close.
Stocking's room was no longer in the wing, as the architecture had been too ornate and difficult to rebuild properly. Instead, they'd carved out a new area upstairs in the main house, smaller and simpler than her luxurious gondola room. It hardly seemed to matter.
"Got a new case of ghost activity downtown."
"Oh?"
I kept you safe, he'd said.
"A bunch of dildo ghosts are fucking up the local sex shop."
"Mmm.."
Don't fall asleep!
"See what I did there?" Panty asked with a smile, devious. "The pun?"
"Ha."
I'm tired, Stocking.
With a sigh, Panty crossed the room and sat directly on the edge of her bed, blocking Stocking's view of the television. Stocking didn't even blink. It's not like she'd been watching it anyway. It was just noise to fill the room. To keep the silence at bay. And it was a much-preferred sound compared to Panty's harsh, dismissive voice.
"Just how long are you going to sit on your lazy ass and make me do all the work, huh?"
"Why are you doing all the work instead of fucking your endless conga-line of penises?"
A wound for a wound. Equivalent exchange. Panty knew why Stocking was laying around all day, without any motivation to move more than the handful of steps that took her from her bed, to the bathroom, to the kitchen, and back again. Just as Stocking knew why Panty had thrown herself into the messy, annoying, endless task of collecting Heaven Coins.
They couldn't accept he was gone.
Leaning back against her palms on the bed, Panty scoffed. "You're giving me shit about choosing work over sex? Where'd you gag and stash my hardass sister?"
Closing her eyes, Stocking clutched her kitten tighter and hoped if she believed hard enough, Panty would just fuck off and leave her alone. They barely spoke more than a few words a day now anyway, with Panty wrapped up in work and Stocking curled under her sheets in bed.
No such luck. Something snatched the front of her blouse, yanking her forward, stretching the material. Stocking gasped, eyes snapping open, and she grabbed Panty's wrist to stall her. Glancing down, she could see the lavender fabric was pulled at a bad angle, the lace catching and threatening to tear. This had been his favorite shirt, he'd been with her when she bought it –
"Stop! You'll rip it!"
"You're losing your fucking mind, Stocking!" Panty shrilled, shaking her. With her other hand, she reached out to jerk out Stocking's barrettes and the hair-tie at the end of her braid. She'd worn her hair that way since that day, and preferred it now. "You're going crazy, crammed in your damn room all the time!"
"Let go!" Stocking shrieked, shoving a foot into Panty's gut. She tried to stop her sister from ruining her hair, yanking away all the bubbly, cute little things she'd clipped into it. "Quit it!"
"No!" Panty forced her flat onto the bed, crawling onto her, trying to jerk the lacy blouse off over her head. "You need to wake up and get a grip!"
"Stop!"
Stocking slugged Panty right in the face, kicking and squirming before Panty got hold of her wrists and pinned her down.
"I won't!"
"Stop, dammit!"
"I fucking won't!" Panty slapped Stocking across the face, grabbing her hair to hold her head still. Her teeth were bared as she screamed, tiny flecks of spit hitting Stocking's face. "Dressing like this won't bring him back!"
"SHUT UP!" Stocking roared, arching up against Panty to try and unseat her. Escape. Remove Panty from this tiny, sad little paradise Stocking had cocooned herself within. Maybe she was delusional, hiding from the world in this bedroom, pretending there was nothing else beyond. It was safe here, behind a wall of tempered glass.
But Panty was taking a bat to it, leaving her sanctuary in shards.
"Sitting on your ass won't bring him back!"
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!"
"HOW COULD YOU JUST GIVE UP ON HIM?"
Stocking froze. Panty froze with her. The two of them panted, catching their breath. Neither of them relaxed, and Stocking could feel Panty's fingers grinding bruises into her skin. She turned her head to stare out across her room, eyes tracking to the smooth, flawless object sitting on her dresser.
Brief's orb. Stocking had kept it. And Panty had taken Brief's spear, when they found it in the wreckage.
"You really think you're the only one?" Panty asked quietly. "The only one who misses him?"
Stocking didn't say anything back, just breathed heavy. Crushed under the weight of her sister, the enduring weight of their loss. Panty panted above her, grip finally beginning to loosen as the both calmed down. With the two of them in bed, straddling hips and pinning wrists, Stocking couldn't help but wonder if Brief would have liked to watch. Closing her eyes, Stocking could still see his smile.
"I miss him too sometimes," Panty said softly, sitting back to settle more heavily on Stocking's pelvis. Her voice was rough, an attempt at a callous concession. But they both knew it was deeper than that. "Ghost hunting takes for fucking ever now. Geek Boy really did know his shit."
They shared a grieving silence, Panty sluggishly rolling over to lay beside her sister. Automatically, they tangled into one another's arms, unspoken understanding passing between them. Stocking tucked her head under Panty's chin, sighing. The tears just wouldn't come. She didn't have any more to give. Panty spoke up again, hand stroking down Stocking's wavy, mussed hair.
"…Remember that time we all got take-out together? Down by the river?"
Stocking almost smiled, one side of her mouth twitching. It felt almost unnatural, as she hadn't done it in a while. But the memory was so unexpected, so strangely joyful instead of sad, she couldn't help it.
"…You ordered the spiciest shit they had and dared him to eat it."
"And then we skinny-dipped while he moaned in See Through about his tongue catching on fire."
Stocking did smile that time, and Panty smiled wider. It turned into an afternoon of stories, some of the best and some of the worst they could remember, all featuring Brief as the star.
Brief and his mother shared tea together at that same little round table, sitting across from each other in a cabin much emptier and lacking in character than Brief remembered it. The lights were dim, the interior was cold, and outside, a snowstorm wailed against rattling windows. His mother watched him carefully, looking old and tired. Brief felt somewhat the same.
"I'm dead," he said again. He couldn't say it enough times. It just wouldn't sink in. "Dead…"
"How else could you have come to visit me, my love?" his mother asked, giving him a gentle smile. It faded quickly, and dropped her eyes to her steaming mug of tea. Brief watched her, his mind wandering back to the battle – sparks of energy, the hum of his staff in his hands, Panty beside him, the tornado of enemies around them…
They were quite for a little while.
"I'm happy to see you," his mother said suddenly, and they met eyes when she gave him another smile. This one was sad. It reminded him of when she was alive, those last few months before illness took her, when she would smile through her apologies at not being able to watch her son grow up. "… but I wish you hadn't died so young, Brief."
"Me neither," he replied, sipping his tea. It tasted like nothing. All the illusion was gone. "There were a lot of things I still wanted to do." He stewed on that list for a minute, and then an even heavier thought struck him. Brief's eyes widened, air leaving his lungs. "And Dad.. he's alone now."
His mother lifted a palm to her cheek, huffing a sudden, soft sigh. "Oh, Katsuji…"
… and they were quiet for a while.
All that joy Brief had felt, the elation at seeing his mother after so long, was beyond his grasp now. How could he have been so childishly happy in the first place? He was dead, stone cold six feet under somewhere at his family's estate, maybe even next to his mother, and his father no doubt had buried him all by himself. He and his dad had never seen eye to eye, but Brief loved him. Knowing he'd left him there with all that grief, with another hole in his heart to cope with, was unforgivable.
And the angels too… He could remember, faintly, the soft touch of Stocking's hand on his cheek and softer words in his ear. But that could have been a dream for all he knew. Brief could hardly remember anything after the fight, and wasn't even sure they'd won. Had it been enough? Did Stocking complete the purifying ritual? Was Panty okay? Were all the ghosts gone now, the people of Daten City safe?
.. had Brief's death been for nothing, in the end?
He slammed his cup against the table, surging to his feet. His mother jumped in her chair, looking up at him with wide, glassy eyes.
"Honey – ?"
"No!" he barked, startling himself with that deep voice he'd been sporting lately. It made him sound like his father, and heat prickled behind his eyes. "I won't accept it. This can't be the way it ends."
A warm, familiar hand cupped over his and squeezed. "It's not your fault, Brief."
"Not my fault?" Ridiculous. "I'm the one who charged out there like some kind of hero! Trying to fight a whole damn tornado of ghosts, what was I thinking – ?"
"Darling, please – "
"No, Mom!" Brief shouted, stomping a foot against the creaky, dusty boards of their depressing little shack in the woods. "You don't know how it happened! I was waving around my energy-staff like some kind of samurai, as if I actually knew what I was even doing out there, and Panty had to cover me the whole time, what if she'd taken a hit for me and got hurt?! She almost did! And Stocking, I had to abandon her with just a prototype to walk all by herself through the wreckage and the ghost-storm and it could have short-circuited while she was attempting the ritual, left her with zero cover at all, no backup, and what if it did short-circuit and what if I didn't know – "
Brief's panic-fueled babbling came to an abrupt halt when his cheeks were smooshed between his mother's hands. She was in front of him now, giving him a stern, narrow look he'd associated with trouble as a child. But as he blinked at her, lips puckered like a fish, her frown gradually smoothed into a tender, fond expression.
"You're just like your father," she sighed, and then dragged him into a hug.
He'd needed it more than he realized, latching on desperately, burying his head into her neck, her sweet-smelling hair. He'd never been able to hug her like this, with his head next to hers and his feet on the ground. She stroked his head, rubbing her fingers against his scalp, her other hand gliding up and down his back. Brief let out a shaky breath; he tightened his grip.
"While I did not see what happened," she admitted. "I know you were a hero. A son of mine could not be anything less."
He sniffled, trying suddenly to pull away when he realized he was getting snot in her hair. But she stubbornly clung onto him. He'd forgotten how strong she used to be.
"Whatever happened, you gave those girls a fighting chance," she said. "They could neither have asked for anything more nor anything less."
"But if I'd just – "
"There are no 'buts.' There are no 'what ifs.'" She leaned away from him, cupping his cheeks and swiping both thumbs under his eyes to wipe away his tears. Her expression was kind, but serious. She really meant what she was saying. "There is only what happened, and what you choose to do afterward. Dwelling on what could have been steals time from what could be."
Brief's eyes slowly lost focus as he thought about those words. What could be… what he chose to do afterward. But did it really matter? He was dead. His musing derailed when he felt his mom wiping his nose with her sleeves, and he jerked away, cupping a palm over his damp nostrils.
"Mom!" he whined, cheeks flushed. She grinned at him, just as mischievous and silly as he loved to remember her. It brought a smile to his face too, despite the watery state of his eyes, and he sniffled powerfully to suck evidence of his sadness out of sight. The cabin seemed lighter, warmer again. All the furniture was back. Even the snow outside wasn't as heavy.
Though when she tried to hand him his tea, Brief shook his head. "I can't," he said with another sniffle. "I have to go."
"Go?" Her smile faltered, eyes widening, before her shoulders relaxed with understanding. ".. Ah. There's my boy."
Brief hooked a smile, passing a sleeve under his nose. She didn't try to stop him, for which he was grateful. His mother understood, as she always did. Placing his mug back on the table, she gestured him toward the coat rack and followed him there. The crackle of the fire was the only sound in the silence, the light of it flickering shadows on their faces by the door. They had their conversation with looks and gestures, no words at all.
She looped a scarf over his shoulders. Be careful.
He tugged it tight, shoving it down into the front of his coat. I will.
She smoothed the fabric straight on his shoulders, running her hands down his arms to take his hands and squeeze. Tell your father I say hello, that I love him.
He squeezed back. I will.
Her eyes grew misty, and she took him into her arms for one last, long hug. Do not forget me.
He cradled her head, kissing her temple through her greying hair. I could never do that.
And then Brief was lost. Lost to a cold darkness, with only a notion of where he wanted to be.
/tbc