So, after the urge to write more ZeroxDio, and hours of work, I give you chapter 2! I know this was supposed to be a one-shot, but this chapter is kind of too tied to this story to stand on it's own. This chapter was originally only supposed to be 2 pages long or so, about what would happen if Dio found out Zero was training with Jin. It ended up being about what would happen if Dio DIDN'T find out, and became an entirely different story. And then somehow, it kept going and going, and none of this was planned out at all, so it's really poorly written. You might not want to waste your time reading this, haha. Also, Kathrine shows up again, so sue me, but only because I REALLY wanted to poke fun at Sieghart. There's practically no dialogue at the beginning, then suddenly tones at the end. Well, uh, enjoy anyways, I guess.
Disclaimer: I do not own Grand Chase or it's characters. I do own Kathrine, however.
Dio's hand groggily waved about the opposite side of the bed, searching for a warm body to hug. As he patted the sheets and felt them cold, a slur of swears escaped his lips and he slowly sat up, still half asleep. His magenta eyes glowed as he lazily scanned the dark room, half expecting to see the wanderer curled up somewhere with a book, but his search revealed only one thing. This was not the room he remembered falling asleep in.
The chieftain leaped out of the bed, well aware he was currently undressed, and fumbled about to find a candle and a match. After a few seconds of searching, he cursed once again and gave up, simply summoning a small blue flame in his rake hand. The odd light it gave off lit the room enough for him to confirm that it was his own room. The chieftain pondered over this for a moment, collecting his clothes and dressing quickly. How he had ended up back in his own room, the stygian didn't know. He pursed his lips as he thought about it. Dio specifically remembered falling asleep with Zero, in Zero's room, after the fight they had the day before. The chieftain shook his head, all the thinking beginning to make it pound, and left his room.
The hallway was dark, the wall sconces out for the night. Dio once again conjured a blue flame in his left hand as he began to walk towards Zero's room. He knocked twice on the door, but when he heard no response, he tried opening it. He was surprised by the fact that it was locked. Now, the chieftain knew he could easily break open the door with minimal force, but he did not want to upset Zero once again, especially after they had just made up. Sighing, Dio knocked once more, and called out.
"Zero?"
The leviathan pressed his ear to the door, but heard no response from within. He got down on one knee and peeked below the door, to see if any light was coming through, but saw nothing. Dio once again swore and stood back up, taking a moment to decide where else the seeker could be.
Yet it was then that it dawned on him that perhaps something had happened to Zero. After all, the leviathan had been with the wanderer in his bed only a few hours before, yet woke up in his own room. The magenta demon knew he did not sleep walk, so that only left two reasonable answers. Either Zero moved him, or something happened to Zero. Since Dio did not like the first answer, he chose the second. So Dio began to panic.
First, Dio decided to try the library. The stygian figured he'd try looking everywhere first before he made a fuss. That didn't mean he wouldn't search quickly. So after tearing through every corner in the library, and making a mess that Knight Master was sure to scold him for once again (unless he found some way to blame it on Arme again), the chieftain ran off to the small, quiet room on the top floor that Zero often resided in when he wanted to be left alone.
The doors to said room were glass, so all it took was a quick glance through them to confirm that the wanderer was not there either. After checking the kitchen, dining room, sitting room, roof, and meeting rooms, Dio decided he had checked every reasonable place and began to panic.
The leviathan decided this was a good enough time to make a fuss. He ran about the castle, shouting out for Zero, positive that something bad had happened. The chieftain wasn't sure what this would accomplish, perhaps some part of him decided that if he caused enough trouble for everyone else, they would help him only to make him shut up, so he continued his endeavour.
Surprisingly, the drakar did not get very far before the unamused face of the very wanderer he was looking for appeared before him. In his tow was a short brown-haired child holding a story book. In his hand, Zero held the Grandark. They came from the general direction of the training grounds, and Dio felt his jealousy burning inside him.
"Why are you with that… thing!" Dio shouted, pointing in the general direction of Grandark, but meaning to point at both it and the child.
"You mean me or the meanie-bum sword?" Kathrine tilted her head and motioned with her book to Grandark.
"Cease this meanie-bum calling! My name is Grandark, and you shall refer to me by it, you insolent fool! I swear if I could move…" Zero's sword seemed particularly angry at the moment. "Pick me up, Zero, I am cold!"
Zero ignored the sword, instead answering Dio. "I was training," was all the leviathan got.
Dio growled. "Then explain to me why the fuck I woke up in my room when I remember quite fucking well that I fell asleep in your room."
The wanderer simply shrugged, continuing to walk past the leviathan, leaving Grandark to continue to complain while he dragged it behind him. Kathrine stopped in front of the chieftain and looked up at him, a pathetic look on her face and tears in her eyes.
"I'm sorry… I didn't mean to keep Uncle Zero from you… Uncle Sieghart was drunk and I had a nightmare and I couldn't wake him up so I came out here and sat under the tree and Uncle Zero found me and read me a story and-" Dio bent down and put a finger over her lips to stop the constant blabbering the child was spouting.
"I don't really fucking care right now, just go back to bed and leave me alone." The stygian snapped, glaring angrily at the girl. She simply tilted her head down and ran off. Dio was sure later he would feel bad for how he treated her, but right now he was too jealous that Zero had spent time alone with her and Grandark instead of with him. His breathing picked up speed as he clenched and unclenched his fists, storming after Zero.
It didn't take long for the magenta haired demon to catch up to the seeker. After all, Zero walked a lot slower when dragging that abhorrent thing along behind him. The leviathan called out to the silver haired demon, pacing along beside him.
"Oh great, look what the cat dragged back in…" Grandark rolled its single eye as it spoke, its words dripping with disgust.
"What do you want now, Dio?" Zero did not look to the leviathan as he responded.
"I deserve a god damn answer as to what the fuck happened tonight, that's what!" The leviathan roared, grabbing the silver haired demon's shoulder and forcibly making the wanderer face him.
Zero remained quiet for a moment, and though his mask covered his gaze, the leviathan could tell that the seeker was not looking Dio in the eye.
After the prolonged pause, Zero spoke. "We shall not talk here. Meet me back in my room in an hour. I shall have an explanation for you then." Zero quickly turned, ripping his shoulder out of the taller demon's grasp, and marched slowly back towards his room.
The drakar suddenly had no idea what to do for a whole hour. He fought with the urge to march after the smaller demon and continue to demand an answer. He was furious, after all. How dare Zero put him off for even longer? Did he not deserve his answer now? The leviathan knew that patience was not his strong suit, but he decided he'd at least try to wait an hour. He kicked the wall violently, hearing it crack even though he could not see it in the dim light. He swore and moved on, his feet leading him to the kitchen.
He was surprised that, upon arriving at the kitchen, the place was bright. Someone had relit all the lights, and in places where natural light usually shone during the day, there were small balls of fire currently lighting them now.
What tipped him off the most that he was not alone, though, was the sound of someone humming. It was not a song he recognized, though he did not care much for music in the first place. He assumed it was Amy and turned to leave, but not before he heard a squeaky voice call out his name.
"Oh hey Dio, what are you doing up right now?" A purple head bobbed around the corner of a cupboard door, wide amethyst eyes staring at the retreating leviathan.
"I could ask the same of you, Arme." Dio sighed and turned back around, knowing it was too late to leave now that he had been spotted. Besides, he didn't mind the mage all that much.
"Well I asked you first, so help me find the pie tin while you explain what's keeping you up tonight." Arme's head disappeared back behind the cupboard door, and he could hear her rummaging through the contents piled within it. The stygian took a deep breath and decided there would be no point in arguing with her, and that it really couldn't hurt to talk with her about it anyways.
Then he decided he would still be an ass first. "Demons don't need sleep."
"Not as much as humans, but they still need some. And you usually sleep in. So why are you up wandering the halls of the castle at this hour?" Arme did not let the subject drop. Dio simply shrugged, and as though she had seen the action, Arme continued. "I'm not going to let this go until you answer."
"I fell asleep with Zero, in his room. I woke up in my room. When I confronted Zero about it, he said to give him an hour and he'd tell me. I mean, what the fuck? Why does he need a fucking hour? Why the fuck can't he just tell me? I…" Dio trailed off, confusion hitting him for a moment as tears began to form in his eyes. "God dammit, what did I do wrong?"
"Did you ever stop to think for a moment that maybe this has nothing to do with you?" The purple magician asked, moving to another cupboard to continue her search. "Look in the cupboard over the stove for me, will you? You're tall, I can't reach up there. Perhaps Zero had something he has to deal with on his own, maybe something to do with the Grandark, and he didn't want to unnecessarily involve you." The way the alchemist easily switched between topics while doing so many things at once impressed the demon.
And she was right. Dio had not thought of that. He opened the cupboard above the stove, spotting the pie tin right away, and handed it to her wordlessly. He thought over what she said for a moment. She uttered a quiet "thank you" when he passed her the tin, and she went back to doing her own thing on the far counter. Dio began rummaging around to see what he could find, his hands absentmindedly working while he thought.
"Why wouldn't Zero involve me?" The leviathan hadn't meant to ask the question aloud, and only realized he had when the magician answered him.
"Perhaps he's hiding something from you, and asked for an hour to build up the nerve to confess to you?"
Dio didn't like the idea of that. How could the wanderer hide something from him? The chieftain's hands began to shake. Arme came over and placed her own hands over his, steadying them.
"Come help me clean and pit these cherries. It will give you something to do while you wait. Give Zero his hour. If he asked for it, he obviously needs it. No matter what he's going to tell you, worrying about it right now is only going to make it worse." Arme let go of Dio's hands, gently leading him over to where she was working.
The demon sighed, nodding to the magician. "I hate to say it, but you're right…" He growled half-heartedly, observing the mess the warlock had spread about the counter. "And for fucks sakes, what the hell are even making?!"
"A cherry pie…" came the sheepish reply from the short mage as she fidgeted beside the taller demon.
"Oh for the love of- You're going to fuck this whole thing up if I leave you be now. Come on, if you're going to make a god damned cherry pie, then you're going to make a damned good cherry pie."
A lot more than an hour and several cherry pies that weren't quite up to the chieftain's standards later, Dio finally began his trek back to the wanderer's room. Thanks to Arme's clumsiness, and her complete disregard for measuring anything, the drakar had been able to keep from thinking about his meeting with Zero. But now that it was upon him, he was surprisingly anxious.
He knocked once on the door, Zero's quiet voice commanding him to come in. Hesitantly, he opened the door, taking a deep breath, and then barging in. The leviathan slammed the door closed behind himself, and turned to face the seeker, who currently sat in a chair, cleaning the Grandark absentmindedly while it complained about spots he missed.
The silver haired demon made no comment on Dio's extreme lateness; instead he gently placed Grandark on the floor beside the chair, much to the sword's irritation, as Zero stood slowly and turned to face the leviathan. The wanderer removed his mask and placed it on a nearby table, letting his piercing yellow eyes meet the eyes of the leviathan.
"Let me start by apologizing for my actions-" The silver haired demon started, only to be cut off by Dio.
"No shit."
"Please let me finish before jump to conclusions." The wanderer looked to the leviathan to confirm he would not interrupt him again. Dio simply nodded, looking away from the wanderer.
"I felt very guilty during the night, and I was unsure why. I fell into a fitful sleep and had strange dreams. When I awoke, I only felt guiltier. I thought that perhaps I needed some time alone, so I simply moved you to your room. I did not think it would bother you so. I apologize." The wanderer fidgeted while he spoke, as if uncomfortable with admitting his strange feelings.
Dio grunted a response and sat on the bed, folding his arms across his chest. "It's going to take more of an explanation than that."
"I am not finished." Zero quietly retorted.
"Then continue for fucks sakes!"
The seeker sighed and nodded, unsure how to continue. "After sitting alone in my room for a while, I felt no better. I decided I would go train, that maybe I had too much energy still to sleep yet. I took Grandark and spent some time training, but found I was tired from training earlier still, so that was not the cause of my inability to sleep." Zero paused for a moment again, recollecting his thoughts.
"Are you finished?"
The wanderer simply ignored the magenta demon and continued. "I then heard someone crying nearby, and found Kathrine sitting alone beneath a tree, trying to read herself a bedtime story. I asked her what she was doing. She explained to me that she had a nightmare and that Sieghart had gotten drunk last night and could not be woken to calm her down, so she came outside to calm down. I decided to read her the story instead. I heard you start shouting inside the castle. I asked Kathrine to come back inside with me, as I did not feel comfortable leaving a child out there alone. The rest you know."
Dio felt aggravated. He was now extremely jealous of both Kathrine and Grandark. So Zero had ditched him to hang out with them. He felt his hands grip tightly to the sheets, aware that he was tearing them even without wearing his rake hand. He could hear his own heavy breathing as he struggled to stay calm, failing miserably.
"So that stupid sword and that pathetic child mean more to you than I do?!" The leviathan accused, glaring at the floor.
"That is not the case, Dio." The wanderer protested.
"Then what the hell, Zero?!" Dio cried, tears now falling from his eyes, as he looked up to stare wide-eyed at the seeker. Zero closed his eyes and guiltily looked away from the drakar's gaze. "What aren't you telling me?" The leviathan pleaded.
"I… feel guilty…" Zero whispered, almost to himself.
Dio rolled his eyes, clearly at the end of his limited patience. "The fuck, Zero? Did you ever at least figure out why you feel so fucking guilty around me?"
"Yes" Came the limited response.
"Then…?" The chieftain growled.
"I was training with Jin yesterday, and I did not tell you."
Dio snapped. "That's it? That's fucking it?! You put me through all this fucking shit just because you felt guilty over training with someone else?! You've never felt guilty about that before, so what the fuck happened yesterday?!" The leviathan roared, his face becoming heated from his rage, as he pounded his fists down on the mattress intermittedly while he spoke.
"I promised Jin I would not speak about it, and perhaps that is what has been bothering me." Zero tilted his head at an angle, placing his hand on his chin in thought, as though he was just now coming to the conclusion that keeping a secret from his lover was what caused his guilt.
"You better start fucking talking, Zero. I'm running out of patience." The quiet tone Dio spoke in was almost as unnerving as the glare he aimed at the smaller demon sitting across from him.
Zero fidgeted uncomfortably, not wanting to tell of his earlier confrontation with the fighter to the currently very angry leviathan, but Zero knew he had to. He took a deep, steadying breath and spoke quietly. "It was a very warm day yesterday, and since we were training so hard, we both removed our shirts to be less restrained in our movements-"
"That fucking red-haired pussy got to see you half naked?!" Rage was once again plastered across Dio's face as he quickly stood from the bed, half tempted to march out the door that second and rip Jin a new one.
As though he had not heard the outburst of the leviathan, Zero continued. "The two of us continued training like that for a while, and what happened next was completely of my own fault-"
"If you were more capable of reading your opponents, such a horrible thing to witness wouldn't have happened!" Grandark spoke up from its place beside the chair, its cold voice snapping Dio's attention back to Zero's story.
The drakar sat back down on the bed, eyes wide. "Zero… What exactly happened…?"
The wanderer once again began to fidget, taking another moment to collect his thoughts and word his sentences properly, terrified of angering the taller demon further. "Jin shifted his weight onto his back leg, and I kicked it out from underneath him. I thought he would fall backwards, but with the way he threw his momentum and with how hard I kicked his leg, he fell forwards."
Dio looked confused. "So?"
"He fell on top of me in a… rather compromising position."
With that, Dio's rage snapped. Zero could see something click in the eyes of the leviathan, and instantly the rakes were present on his hand as it began to glow, flames engulfing it. Magenta eyes began to burn, and the Soul Reaver appeared in his right hand. With a great amount of strength and rage, the dusk bringer slammed his fist into the bed, hitting it so hard that the wood frame holding it up broke. Dio's eyes widened as the mattress folded around him and he slammed to the floor, his legs crumpling beneath the weight of the mattress, becoming instantly trapped. The bedding and pillows on the bed buried him, and though the chieftain tried to escape the grasp of the bedding, he was unable to get up. In his sudden panic, rage was replaced with fear, and the scythe and metal rakes from his hand disappeared as soon as they had appeared.
Then, the leviathan heard a wheezing noise. It sounded almost like Mari when she was forced to run for more than a few seconds. It then dawned on the leviathan that the noise was coming from Zero. In a panicked attempt to make sure the other demon was ok, Dio desperately tried to escape from his prison of foam and cloth. All the stygian ended up achieving was further tangling himself in the mess as he toppled forward and somehow brought the mattress down atop his back. He coughed, winded, but managed to get his head and left arm free of the entanglement. He used his naked blue hand to hold a blanket off his face as he glanced up, seeing Zero now standing before him with a small smile on his face.
"Just now, were you laughing at me?" Dio narrowed his eyes, trying to identify what that sound could have possibly been.
"I have no idea what you are talking about." Zero responded, but the smile remained, and he reached down to help Dio out of his prison.
After a bit of work on both of their ends, the two demons managed to free Dio from the mess of the wrecked bed. Zero and Dio sat beside each other, neither sure of what to say, though the wanderer still hadn't let go of Dio's hand after freeing him. After a while, the wanderer let out a small sigh and spoke. "Are you still angry?"
The leviathan took a deep breath and answered him. "No, I'm not. But that doesn't mean I've forgiven you. And I'll kill Jin for everything he did to you yesterday."
"Dio…" The wanderer warned, his grip on Dio's hand becoming suddenly tighter.
"Unless you could keep me otherwise occupied until I forget my manic urge to kill, of course." Dio grinned at Zero, leaning closer to the silver haired demon.
"I suppose I owe you that much." Zero reasoned, letting the taller demon leer over him. Dio beamed, chuckling slightly to himself, and tackled the smaller demon to the floor.
And Lass was sure he had died and gone to heaven when he saw all the cherry pies that were left in the kitchen for him.
A/N: So to start off, I meant to re-submit this chapter much earlier, as it really didn't require much work to edit. But after the person I wrote it mostly for critiqued it rather harshly, I began to doubt my abilities to write for Zero and Dio at all, and didn't want to even try to fix it. But after sitting back and thinking about all that she told me, I realized she was only trying to improve this story to make it as best as it could be, and I owed it to her to do so, since she spent her valuable time reading and finding my mistakes, I owed it to her to fix those mistakes and make this story everything it could possibly be.
So this story is for you, SuperPaperBag. I'm sorry I got so angsty after you critiqued it. Harsh words scare me, and I don't know how to take constructive criticism very well. So I did my best to make this story better for you, and I hope you enjoy it more than the original version.
Secondly, I pride myself on keeping some things accurate to the time-span of when Grand Chase took place. I assume that it's some time like 1400-1500 a.d., but for all I know it could be, like, the year 600 or something. I dunno. I know it's not in the present, so I do my best to keep stuff out that I know they would not have. But magic is a convenient excuse for the stuff that I can't explain. I also know I don't always use the best language to describe their environment, too. So please, tell me where I've screwed up. Point out my mistakes with the language or the world around them. I'll do my best to fix it. This is how I learn and improve. Also, if you have a better idea of the year GC takes place in, I wouldn't mind knowing that. So feel free to ask questions or make comments. This story was inspired by SuperPaperBag asking me why Dio wasn't jealous of Jin, so your comment might just help give me inspiration for my next story. So don't hold back. (And I promise I won't become an angsty emo teenager on you like I did to her.)
Thirdly (is this a word?), I finally did it. I finally made a Lass loves cherry pie reference in one of my stories. And I feel so proud of this feat. If you don't understand it, don't worry about it, it's not super important, but it's something I've always wanted to do.
Fourthly (I'm sure this isn't a word...), I feel no shame for somehow getting Sieghart drunk. I just really wanted to prove he'd be a terrible parent, haha. And that Zero is a total sap and a much better parental figure.
AND FINALLY, I also want to apologize for the bad grammar in places. I am aware of it. It's part of the way Dio speaks and thinks, and Microsoft Word was constantly bitching about it. I honestly didn't know how to write it any better, though, so if you have some suggestions for that, feel free to point out the grammatical mistakes and leave some suggestions for future avoidance. Thanks in advance! And point out and other grammatical/spelling mistakes as well, since Microsoft Word was bitching about Dio's poor grammar, I'm sure I missed a few other things it was bitching about.
I hope you enjoyed this terrible excuse of literature nonetheless! Long AN is long. I rant too much. Please forgive me.
-Barrows