A/N: For Resmiranda, who is Awesome with a capital A.

Fandoms: Tales of the Abyss, Tales of Vesperia

Prompt: Raven + Guy, "Women are scary!"

xxxxx

Haven

xxxxx

Exhausted and sick to his stomach, Guy leans his forehead against the rough bark of the tree and tries to regain control of his breath. His heart, banging wildly against his ribs, will take longer.

"Hey," drawls someone, a man by the voice, from the other side of the wide trunk, "find yer own tree."

xxxxx

In a school of several thousand students, roughly forty-five percent of which are female or at least pass as girls, it's impossible to avoid every one of them. Every class he is in contains at least a handful of them. The hallways are choked with them. Standing in the cafeteria line, walking across campus towards the dormitories, even in his engineering core classes, they are ever-present.

The park is his only sanctuary, being large enough to contain both the women and himself.

Luke's room is usually safe, but not always-- though Tear is gone now, happy with her musician boyfriend whom he hears she'll be marrying soon, women still like Luke and the room is often lit by their laughter and cosmetic glittering. His childish but earnest manner awakens their maternal instinct and they are forever cooing over him and touching his hair.

Guy is happy for him, really, since he seems to enjoy it, but it makes things difficult since he doesn't dare go home to their shared dormitory until after the midnight curfew ensures that the room will be empty but for his roommate.

He is often glad for the temperate climate belt the Academy's island lies in, which saves him from having to find shelter from the cold through the supposed winter months.

It is December now, but the grass is still green, the leaves still firmly attached to their branches, and the gentle wind is barely short of balmy even now, an hour past dusk.

Dimly he recognizes the place he has run to, and opens his mouth to ask--

"Didn't I tell ya to find yer own tree?"

"It's my tree," replies Guy without missing a beat, "you go find your own."

The man laughs, a real one right from his belly. "Siddown, kid. I dunno what yer runnin' from, but this is as good a place ta run ta as any, I s'pose."

Rounding the trunk, Guy finds the speaker sitting cross-legged among the roots, large flask in hand but blue eyes sharp and intelligent. His worn, baggy outfit is composed of blinding shades of purple and yellow, there is stubble all over his chin, and yet there is a strange air of nobility about him. Anyone else might not have recognized it, but Guy knows from a lifetime of living amongst nobility what to look for. Though the stranger is slouching, there is a fine arch to his back that only a spine accustomed to perfect posture can create.

"I'm Guy," he says informally, taking a seat in the moss beside the man.

"I'm... well, I guess ya can call me Raven," says the stranger thoughtfully. "That'll work as well as any."

"Pleased to meet you, Raven."

Raven shrugs. "Right back atcha. Drink? It's good stuff, I don't waste my money on cat piss."

Guy shakes his head, turns his face up to the net of spreading branches and the stars caught in them. "No, thanks, I don't drink."

"Wait'll ya get a woman," Raven says wryly.

There are so many things Guy wants to say to this, but they run into each other in his throat and in the end he doesn't manage to give voice to a single one.

xxxxx

"Take it easy, kid," says Raven as Guy leans over, hands on his knees, and gasps for breath. "Ye'll give yerself a heart attack at that rate."

Guy doesn't answer, only presses his forehead against the tree and tries to deal with the mass of guilt currently trying to swallow him whole.

"So, what's up, then?" Raven asks, offering him the flask again, as he does every time.

This time, after refusing the flask, Guy tells him.

She was a nice girl, really, gentle and harmless and very pretty. Every other single guy in the mess hall had stared in undisguised jealousy when she approached him, confessed her feelings with teary sincerity, and went to throw herself into his arms.

He hadn't seen any of the rest of it through the red haze of terror.

"That's... quite an unpleasant problem ya got yerself there," Raven says sagely. "I can understand."

"You can?" asks Guy weakly, eyeing the flask with deeper consideration than he's ever given it before.

Raven nods and grins. "Kid, women are scary even for people who ain't got some kinda phobia. They'll convince you that giving them yer heart is a good idea, then they'll dissect it for scientific purposes. You got the right idea running from 'em."

"Uh," says Guy, wrinkling his forehead. "I'm pretty sure most girls don't dissect hearts for fun."

"Well, mine does," moans Raven woefully.

"Oh?" says Guy, sensing a story waiting to be told.

He's right, and Raven turns out to be a decent storyteller.

Also, it seems, a cradlerobber, but by the description of his girl-- she's a Mathematics of Magic student of unparalleled brilliance with equally unparalleled violent impulses-- it seems to Guy that Raven needs every one of his years of life experience just to keep up with her.

xxxxx

"Ya know, there are good schools out there just fer boys," Raven tells him.

"Not as good as Apeiron," Guy says truthfully. "Besides, I'm not here just for myself. There's a friend of mine who I've always kind of taken care of, and he asked me to come. It was basically impossible to refuse."

"Got no backbone, that's yer problem."

"I have plenty of backbone!" snaps Guy, indignant. "Just because I have some deep-seated fear of women and am loyal to my friends... it doesn't make me-- I'm not a wimp."

"All right, all right! Relax," says Raven with a laugh, "have a drink."

"Stop trying to make me an alcoholic," Guy says, but finally takes the proffered flask and downs a few mouthfuls of the fiery liquid inside. "Ugh."

"Ya don't hafta be an alcoholic ta enjoy good whiskey," Raven informs him, though this tastes like nothing so much as high quality fermented cat piss.

Guy has never touched alcohol before. His body is unused to it. After a few more swallows, the stars blur into the dark night sky as if they're melting and the branches begin to dance.

xxxxx

"Say it again, and I'll--" Guy begins tiredly.

"Lightweight," obliges Raven with a rakish grin. "Cheap drunk, that's what ya are. Can't hold yer liquor."

Instead of replying, Guy gives up and sighs, leaning his head back against the trunk to stare up at the sky, head inches from Raven's.

"Who are you, anyway," he asks eventually. "They kick non-authorized people off the grounds right away, but you're here every night and I've never seen you do anything remotely productive."

"That's 'cause all my classes are in the mornin'," Raven says sensibly.

"Classes?" Guy says, faintly amazed. "You're a teacher?"

Raven levels a reproachful look at him. "Yes, I'm a teacher. You shouldn't make assumptions. It's dangerous."

The tone and diction of his voice is completely changed from the sentence before-- though he still has a slight drawl, his pronunciation is much clearer, aloof, almost formal. The switch is quite dramatic. Guy is appropriately taken aback.

"Of what?" he can't resist asking.

"History," Raven replies. "Modern war history."

xxxxx

Next semester, Guy signs up for Raven's class.

He tells himself it's because he needs the balance credits, but really it's because he's curious what his friend and human sanctuary is like on duty, obliged to professionalism.

He can't wait to see the old man's face.

XxxxxxX

A/N: Yes, I know Raven doesn't drink much in the game. That part's mostly based on a fanart I have of him pouring sake over Casey's grave. I CLAIM POETIC LICENSE