Blame the weather and bad luck for lack of updates until now. So to make up for it...double updates!
When he noticed the apartment next to his had been rented, after a particularly unpleasant bit of business involving breaking into the wrong place and thus alerting his neighbors of the fact that he was very much entrenched in the dark underbelly of the world... He honestly didn't think much of it.
That lasted up until he saw who had rented it.
It was a young girl, not even out of her teens and almost certainly an innocent. Just looking at her told him a lot.
She was the sort of innocent little lamb that wouldn't last a day in his world. And just with that observation, he made the decision to keep their interactions to a minimum. The last thing he wanted to darken his soul was the knowledge he had tainted someone like her with death and darkness.
Except... her eyes seemed to draw him in. He had only given her a simple introduction, and her vivid green eyes seemed to draw him in and refuse to let him have even the chance of being let go. They spoke of things that made him shiver, like she could peer right into his very soul and judge him.
What the verdict was, he was hesitant to know. All he did know was that he very much did not want to be on the wrong side of it, ever. Because it would break and shatter him so completely that there would be no chance of being brought back.
She had done it again. There was a reason why her aunt refused to give her a proper prescription and it had nothing to do with the fact she was a complete and utter bitch.
No one could look into her eyes and not feel the weight that came at the other end of them. And it only got worse after that damn snake bit her.
Now they carried the weight of a death curse on top of being able to see too much. Her life sucked when it came to crap like that.
And what she saw when she looked at her new neighbor made her want to turn into a second Molly Weasley and mother hen the man.
Deep eyes like the abyss, hair as black as night, and very pale skin. At first glance she immediately assumed one of those idiot vampires who were trying to play off the whole "mysterious stranger in the night" crap and actually being successful at the look.
It wasn't that she hated vampires personally, but being forced to read that damn Twilight series to understand her dorm mates had ruined it for her. Even Dracula with it's wonderful contradictions made more sense than that crap.
Except he was able to walk out into the noon day sun and nothing happened, and even vampires had some reaction to daylight.
But there was something off about "Reborn", even if he wasn't a vampire.
He felt...lost. Like he was drifting around for something and had lost hope in ever finding it. That he was one wrong step away from breaking.
Well, she could a least make small steps, like making sure he had someone to greet him.
She worked at a bakery. How fitting.
Reborn wouldn't admit it, but he had a new guilty pleasure. He would go out of his way to visit the bakery at least once a week just to watch her as he ate a random snack and drank some coffee. It was never at the same time, or the same day...patterns made one predictable which he loathed... but it was always during her shift.
The girl was a bright bundle of light in his dark world. Her tip jar was always full by the end of the day, yet for some reason she openly shared the larger bills with her coworkers, especially those who were having trouble making ends meet. It did a lot to ease any possible tension between them because people gravitated to the girl without hesitation the second they entered the door.
And she always managed to know when he was returning home, and greet him with a warm, open smile and some fresh bread.
It was nice. And it only reaffirmed his desire to never drag her light into his world.
Even if it took far too long to actually learn her name. Alex.
Then one morning, as he was returning from a hit he noticed something off.
Alex wasn't there to greet him, and he could sense a sort of tension in the air that was all too familiar.
A dark expression crossed his face. The door to Alex's half of the building was open, and the second he glanced through it his blood boiled and his flames raged to be unleashed.
There was a weaker, more foolish hit man in her apartment holding Alex at gun point. She looked more irritated than terrified, which he filed away but didn't questions. Terrified people had a bad habit of making really stupid decisions.
The second he saw Reborn, the idiot pushed the gun a little closer to her temple, as if having it closer would make him any more agreeable to whatever the man was doing there.
Alex's annoyed expression stayed firmly on place, and Reborn noticed something.
She was far too calm about being in the presence of death...and there was a resigned air about her, like she had expected something of this sort to happen sooner or later but hoped Reborn wouldn't be there to see it occur.
Then she did something that threw the equation he was familiar with out the window.
She turned to her assailant and said in a flat voice that spoke of complete honesty, "Your safety is on. If you're trying to make a point you think you would remember to flick that to the off position."
The man was dumb enough to remove the gun from her temple long enough to look...and it was Alex, not Reborn who acted in a flurry of motion.
There was a sudden scream of pain, followed by the sound of something being driven into the soft tissue and a loud thump.
Reborn wanted to stare, but he was too busy checking over a tired and exasperated Alex to do so.
She had driven a simple butter knife she had hidden inside her sleeve, likely when the idiot broke into her apartment, into the most effective and messy place she could do enough damage to kill him with minimum effort.
Why the hell did she stab that idiot in the eye with a knife when she should have bolted to him? Where did she learn to be so calm in the face of almost certain death to the point she could react like that?
Worse...how would she react to that innocent light being tainted by the act of killing someone in cold blood?
"I'm fine. A bit pissed he broke my door, but fine," she said tiredly. It was like all the adrenaline decided to flee her body at once, leaving her bone tired. He was quick to have her sit down.
"You are not fine. No one is ever fine after killing someone like that unless they've done it so often they've become numb to it," Reborn said flatly.
Alex actually had the balls to roll her eyes.
"Death has the worst habit of following me around," she said flippantly. She glared at the idiot she had just killed, who was staining her cheap carpet with his blood. "At least he didn't come after me in the bakery. I would have suffocated him with flour if he had..."
Reborn's professional instinct as a hit man approved, because it would have meant a slow death by suffocation as the flour coated the man's lungs and turned it into a gooey mess...easier to clean up as well.
But the fact remained Alex had been targeted likely because of him or her proximity to him. Her light would forever be tainted by what she had done...unless he convinced Shamal to erase the memory.
A firm, if slightly painful pinch to the cheek alerted him to her annoyance with him.
"And you! I'm not going to run away and bolt because you happen to be a hit man, you idiot!"
Reborn blinked, before her words registered with him.
"You knew?"
"It's hard to miss," she informed him.
"How long have you known?"
"Since I saw you come out of the alleyway about two weeks after I moved here and they found a dead body a few hours later. Wasn't hard to guess you were the cause," she shrugged. "I'm not particularly interested in caring about the mafia, and as long as they leave me alone I turn a blind eye. I'd like to avoid being dragged into something so troublesome for once."
She was positively flippant about the fact she had figured out he was in the mafia, but had kept her silence this entire time. More to the point, she had greeted him anyway without even flinching despite knowing he was a cold blooded killer.
Seeing him about to turn his face away, she put her hand on his cheek.
"You are not a monster, Reborn, regardless of what other people might think. I'm not going to run or turn against you because you happen to be a hit man. I know that you wouldn't hurt me," she said so matter of fact he could almost believe it was true.
Reborn looked at her in the eyes, before realization hit him.
"Most people would be afraid to be living next door to a hit man, especially after being attacked," he informed her, a little irritated at how she was handling this. "And what do you mean I wouldn't hurt you?"
She definitely rolled her eyes now.
"I'm not going to judge you for being a killer. And I can see it in your eyes that you're not evil. Some people simply don't deserve to live and have to be put down without giving them second chances. You might kill people for a living, but you don't do it because you enjoy it," Alex informed him flatly. Then she considered something. "Well, you might enjoy the challenge of it, but not the act."
Reborn let out a shaky laugh. This girl saw so much and still retained her light. She understood the darkness and didn't consider it evil. She looked at him and accepted him completely.
And then he felt it. His Flames, which had been so agitated the second he came home settled and calmed, like a cat curling into a spot under the sun for a long nap.
Oh.
Reborn looked, and really looked at his neighbor. A brief poke with his Flames confirmed it.
He started laughing, though there was very little mirth.
"You're a Sky," he said in disbelief. His Sky. Something he had looked for his entire life, never daring to hope he would find it, especially after he found out he was the strongest unattached Sun alive.
Skies had tried to harmonize with him for years, and the painful realization they would never be able to match him had lead to him despairing of ever finding one.
And she had moved into the apartment next to his without a word.
She raised an eyebrow.
"I know I love flying, but I've never heard anyone call me a Sky before," she said confused and more than a little amused.
Reborn shook his head.
"I'll explain later. First let me call a few people in to clean up the... mess... I think both of us would like to avoid the cops."
She snorted.
"Just so we're clear, I am not one of your floozies that I see visiting so damn often," she said dryly. Reborn snorted.
As if he would dare do something like that to his Sky. God, he was already smitten with her and he never realized it before now.
So apparently the mafia had something very similar to magic that was centered around what she knew better as Soul Fire...and her particular type was so rare that it made her damn near royalty.
Alex had groaned the second Reborn told her how rare Skies were and that they were highly coveted. His amused gaze had only been tempered with a protective glint.
"So basically the second they realized I've 'Harmonized' with you, I'm going to have more of the underworld trying to either kidnap, seduce or otherwise bother me. I thought I left this crap behind in England!" she said with some despair.
"This happened before?" asked Reborn.
She gave him a glare, and he had the gall to chuckle.
"Do you know what the Statute of Secrecy is?" she replied bluntly. "If it's any help, it's the one that's almost identical to Omerta."
"You're a witch," he said staring at her.
Alex had a dark chuckle of her own. It sent a different kind of shiver down his spine. The kind that made him want to sweep her up and do unspeakable things to her.
"You're soul bonded to the 'savior' of magical England," she laughed darkly. As if she didn't find it funny at all.
"You mean that ridiculous Girl-who-Lived title?"
She nodded.
She would never figure out how she ended up curling into his side on the couch, but once she realized the position she was in, she didn't really mind. Reborn was utterly unimpressed with her so called 'fame' and the crap that the idiots in England put her through. He was more concerned about Alex, the girl who had become his Sky than he was with the recently emancipated Lady Potter who had left England the second she found out that the Wizangamot were under oath to never try a minor under a full court.
She had looked into how they could get away with that bullshit, and the moment she found out about the oaths all members were required to take upon appointment... one of which clearly stated they would not try a magical minor under the age of seventeen unless they were emancipated and the last of their line (thank god Sirius was more than happy to help her try and sue the damn Wizangamot...) she had bolted.
Sirius hadn't complained. He had given her his full blessing because even he could see that Hogwarts was slowly killing her one piece at a time.
He was going to laugh himself sick when he heard about this... in between putting Reborn through hell.
Somehow she had the feeling the two would get along like a house on fire once Sirius ascertained Reborn wasn't just playing with her to get into her pants.
She didn't even realize when she fell asleep curled up against him like a giant teddy bear.
Reborn looked at Alex...and saw something he had missed.
The almost invisible lines of stress had disappeared, making her look younger than he had originally thought. She was so frail and light, it was almost bordering unhealthy. Under properly lighting Reborn often caught sight of scarring, including one on her right hand that spelled out in English "I must not tell lies". As if someone had carved the very sentence into her hand with a precision that was unheard of. And there was the way that she had held herself until she fell asleep on him. Like an invisible weight had settled on her shoulders until she didn't even realize she was still carrying it.
Reborn gently pushed his Sun flames into her...and his frown only deepened.
Her entire body was riddled with injuries. From a snake venom that was barely kept in check by something else, to the scars that he had yet to see littered all over her body, to the way her bones felt like they had been broken repeatedly, save for her right arm. And that wasn't taking into account the invisible scars that would almost certainly be present on her heart and soul.
Someone had made a concerted effort to kill his Sky, for years. And not just since she was alerted to the fact she was a witch. He could feel that she had suffered for well over ten years...and she wasn't even seventeen yet. She had just turned sixteen two months ago.
And the very thought of someone trying to slowly murder his Sky made his blood boil. It wasn't just the infamous protective nature a Guardian had for their true Sky... Reborn hated people who abused children, and he could tell without being told she had been abused.
How dare they. How dare they?
His arm curled a little tighter around his precious Sky as she twitched in her sleep, as if sensing his distress.
Never again. He would never let whoever did this to her get away with it. And with any luck the bastards who did this were still alive so he could kill them, slowly. But first...he had to make sure his Sky was protected from any other idiots that tried to kill her to get to him.