The Un-Series

Title: Un-Forgiveable
Fandom: Star Ocean 2
Pairing: DiasxClaude (duh!)
Rating: PG
Warning: Uh, kissy-kissy stuff. XDDDD
Notes: This fic now has a title thanks to maiji.

Un-Forgiveable

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The first time Claude wanted to kiss and kill Dias at the same time was for him being a stubborn bastard.

They had been scouting the mountainous regions of Salva, investigating the disappearance of several villagers. Dias had suspected bandits (Dias always suspected bandits), even though no demands for ransom had been made. Then, they had discovered the giant three-toed footprints that had left indentations even in the soft rock.

"Must be some huge bandits," Claude teased, though the situation did not exactly merit good humor. "And ugly to boot." Dias rolled his eyes and bent down to examine the footprints more closely.

The attack came from out of nowhere, a sound much like a whip slashing through the air their only warning, before a huge tail impacted exactly where they had been standing a second ago. The tail lay still for a moment, allowing them to get a good look at it, and discover that the creature had to be something like an oversized chameleon that could mimic its surroundings so perfectly that it was hardly visible to their eyes.

The battle that followed involved them mostly dodging invisible fangs and claws and the creature lashing about like a mad thing, its massive body making the earth shudder whenever it lunged. They retaliated whenever it would let them, but they were slowly yet steadily losing ground.

Finally, the creature had driven them to the edge of a cliff. On the upside, it was bleeding from numerous wounds, making it easier to see and evade its attacks. On the downside, they were tired, as the battle had been going on for over an hour, but the creature showed no signs of relenting.

"I'm going to distract it," Dias said, never taking his eyes off the monster, which was rearing its ugly head and roaring. "You get to the other side fast."

"What?" Claude shot back, a quick hot flash of anger and something else knotting themselves together in the pit of his stomach. "You're crazy if you think I'm going to run and leave you behind!"

Dias barked out a sound between a laugh and a cough. "Hah! As if I expected you to."

"Then...?"

"If we manage to attack it from both sides at the same time, chances are we'll both survive this without being mangled."

"How high?" Claude asked.

"Not very," Dias replied, ever the pillar of support and reassurance.

And before Claude could to protest this course of action, because really, it was a stupid plan, and a dangerous one, and if they could figure out another way to at least take a breather, surely they could come up with something that wouldn't very likely get one or both of them killed, his partner had issued the "go" command and lunged at the creature, leaving Claude with nothing to do but react.

He did indeed manage to reach the other side, away from the edge, just in time to hear the shouted incantation for Firebird Shockwave, and the world exploded in flames.

After the dust clouds cleared and the smell of burning flesh lifted slightly, he could see that the entire ledge farther than six feet from his current position had crumbled away. He ran to the edge despite the dangerous noises from the stone, kneeling down and staring into the pitch-blackness of the shadowy chasm.

His first thought was that Dias was a lying bastard. A goddamn idiotic lying bastard who attacked a giant chameleon on a cliff with a killer move he knew would shake the earth more than any three-ton monster could, and who just wanted Claude out of the way so that he could pull this damnable suicidal stunt. Then, he had started looking for a way down, because no way in hell was Dias going to die without hearing Claude rant about him being a goddamn idiotic lying bastard.

After three hours and a way down, he finally found the charred lizard's body, but no sign of the lying bastard. After pushing and shoving the dead thing away to make sure Dias wasn't trapped underneath it, he allowed himself the small comforting thought that Dias had somehow survived and, from the looks of things, randomly wandered off. Bastard.

The sun had long since slipped behind the mountaintops when Claude started the trek back to town. He had used up all his matches in creating makeshift torches, and now, he could barely make out the way anymore. It would be pointless to stumble around in the dark looking for Dias, and he knew that the man himself would call him a moron for even trying. (Not that he deserved that, when Dias was the bigger moron, for obvious reasons.)

Relief and self-hatred washed over him when he finally saw Salva appear in the distance. Relief because he did not have to worry about breaking his neck anymore, and self-hatred for leaving his partner behind in the mountains. He grit his teeth and balled his fists and kept walking. He wasn't going to cry. Bastard. He wasn't quite sure who he meant anymore. Should've looked harder, should've tried harder, idiot idiot idiot.

A shout startled him from his musings. He whirled around to discover a shadowy figure, about half a mile away. He didn't need to see the details to know who it was. Before he knew it, he was racing back towards the dark silhouette, taking a scant second to register the fact that it was indeed, Dias, before flinging himself at him and eliciting a grunt of pain from the older man.

Claude hardly heard it. He was too busy hugging Dias, laughing and crying and not caring what Dias thought about it one bit.

----

After the doctor - quite startled to find a young man at his door telling him to "get his ass in gear" in the middle of the night - left to fetch some more medicinal herbs, Claude set about bandaging Dias' wounds, despite the swordsman's insistence that he could do it himself.

"Forget it. I'm still angry at you."

"You have a weird way of showing that," Dias replied, then winced when Claude gave the bandage around his chest a firm tug, causing his cracked ribs to protest. The blond was looking at him with a sharp, wounded look in his eyes that clearly said, 'You lied to me', and so he became quiet and allowed Claude to do as he pleased.

"Why did you leave?" Claude finally asked quietly, swallowing other, more bitter accusations he wanted to throw at him. "Why didn't you just wait for me?"

"The creature. It had cubs," Dias said. "Normally, they wouldn't have been a problem, but..." He motioned to his broken, bandaged leg.

Claude gave an incredulous laugh. "So you decided to give me a heart attack and just walk back on a broken leg."

"It seemed like the best thing to do, under the circumstances."

"You could have waited for me somewhere else," Claude said, even more quietly.

"I wanted to wait, in the plain. I just didn't realize that..." He shifted a bit and winced again. "...that it would take me so long."

"I'm still angry at you." And he was. Claude wanted to kill him. He really, really did. He just needed to get up and grab his sword, or even better, choke him to death. He did neither. Instead he leant in and pressed their mouths together.

---

The first time Claude kissed Dias lasted for about two seconds before Dias broke away in a laughing fit.

Claude just sat there, stunned by his own actions and the reaction he had received. "You... are you... what?" was all he got out, his pride just a little bit wounded because of all the things he expected Dias to do (stab him strangle him hit him leave him), laughing at him was not one of them.

"I'm sorry, it's just... you have a really weird way of showing you're angry at someone!" Dias finally choked out among fits of laughter.

Claude crossed his arms, embarrassed and angry at himself at the same time. "You're a special case," he grumbled, preparing to leave and just jot it down on his list of 'One-Hundred and Twenty-Seven Embarrassing Things that Happened between Dias and Me' - really, he should be glad that he was getting off so easily - when Dias' hand caught his arm, causing him to look up.

"That's good."

Dias' eyes had a strange glint to them. Dias' grip was uncharacteristically lax. He could break out of it easily. He found he didn't want to. He wanted to know what that look meant. He had a feeling he already did.

The second time Claude kissed Dias, it lasted for a long time.

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A/N: Phew, writing this totally drained me of any mojo. I'm not feeling well right now, so I apologize if it seems strange. I also apologize if the fight scene sucks. I quite like the kiss scene, though. XD Sorry, maiji. Hope you aren't scarred for life or anything.

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