joudama (stopthatgirl7) wrote in no_true_pair, @ 2009-03-29 21:28:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! 2009 eight characters challenge, author: joudama, crossover: ff7/the king and the clown, pairing: angeal/gong-gil |
A Hope in Hell (pt 4) [Final Fantasy 7/The King and the Clown: Angeal & Gong-gil]
Title: A Hope in Hell
Fandom: FF7/The King and the Clown
Status: 4/6
Word Count: 7500ish
Rating: R (themes, hints of canon m/m from The King and the Clown)
Prompt: Angeal and Gong-gil with the title "A Hope in Hell"
A\N: ...I had no idea part 3 was as long as it was. Oh my. So the second half became part 4, and, um, if this had to be split, the last part will have to be, too. *headdesk* The word count on part 3 is for both three and this combined.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
--
He was wandering in the forest, completely lost. He had no idea where he was, not at first, but it didn't take long to realize he was in the Great Forest. Or something like it, there was something wrong. The forest was full of wisps, of blue sparks like fireflies that skittered away if he drew near.
Something was burning. He looked southwards, and could see smoke, a lot of it in the distance, and he could almost hear screams. He headed towards it, and there was a burning village. Or what had been a burning village; now there was nothing but wreckage and ruin and bodies.
...bodies that were rising to their feet and screaming. They were the ones whose screams he had heard, only now the screams were wrong, hoarse, broken, ripping out through charred flesh. And they were pointing at him, and screaming, over and over.
He scrambled back, wanting to get away from this burned place, and ran back into the Forest. But the ground was rumbling, rising, and people--corpses--were coalescing into being from the tiny blue wisps that had fled from him before. There were screams and weeping in the air, and all of it seemed aimed at him. He tried to get away but they were everywhere, and in desperation he reached for his sword, but it was gone.
His sword was gone, and he was surrounded by weeping and screaming corpses and breathing in the stench of burning buildings and flesh.
He ran. He ran deeper into the woods, but had no idea where he was going, which way was out, and there was no escape.
And the deeper into the forest he ran, the more he felt himself changing, changing into something, something monstrous. There were men, men with guns, shooting at him from the trees, and he leapt for them, claws ripping them apart. Deeper into the forest he ran, deeper and deeper, feeling now the fleshy ground beneath his claws, the weight of wing that, once clear, would let him rise about the forest and seek out--
There was a flash of something off to the side, a slip of white and red. He looked over and saw it again; someone slipping through the trees. They stopped and looked back at him, and Angeal recognized him instantly.
"Gong-gil?" he asked, his voice a roiling roar.
Gong-gil's mouth moved, as if he was speaking, but no sound came out. He gestured once, motioning Angeal to follow, then he slipped into the forest, and Angeal ran. And as he ran, as he followed, the ground changed, the feeling changed, from fleshy ground to solid, and he felt lighter, the weight of claw and wing fading, but he barely noticed, his eyes locked on the flashes of red and white.
He followed.
He followed until he caught Gong-gil, who was standing in a cleared circle. Angeal's sword was in the circle, in the middle, stuck into the ground as if a marker. Gong-gil stood in front of it, and gestured again. He made his way to them, suddenly feeling the blood on his hands and the way smoke and ash clung to his hair.
"I can't," he whispered, and Gong-gil smiled, a smile so breathtaking that something in Angeal lightened, almost felt like--
He took a step forward, and Gong-gil reached out a hand.
"NO!" a voice roared, and an arrow shot out. Angeal moved but not fast enough, it struck him hard in the shoulder, and instead of blood there were feathers, feathers white as Chímaira's, and Angeal screamed as a wing ripped itself out. "You can't have him! He's mine!"
Another arrow, another shot to his back, but this was a graze, and the wing that ripped itself free was smaller, but still as white as an abomination.
The archer came out, and there was madness there. Madness upon that dead face, and Gong-gil fled.
"Give me back my Gong-gil," the dead king yelled. "He's mine! Mine! You can't have him! Kill him and give him back!"
The dead king raised his bow again, and with his next shot, Angeal became a monster once more.
Angeal woke up with a start, his heart beating too fast. It took him a minute to remember where he was; that he was not fighting in the middle of the Great Forest, surrounded by corpses and with a possessive insane and very much dead king trying to kill him.
And that he was human.
He shut his eyes and rubbed his face desperately with his hand, as if trying to wipe even the memory of that nightmare out of his mind. He didn't want to go back to sleep--the thought of sleep and even more nightmares made him want to gut himself with his own sword. So instead he rose and made his way to his desk, and turned on his lamp and began to read through everything he Park had given him so far on Gong-gil again, to piece together what had happened and what his relationship had been to the king and seeing if he had missed anything. To piece together if he would have to order Gong-gil to become 'a casualty of the fall of the castle.' To--
There was a flash, again, in his mind of Gong-gil in his cell, wan and broken; a flash of those bandaged wrists and something in his gut twisted at that, and in his head, he could hear the dead mad king from his nightmares screaming "He's mine!" over and over again, and Angeal wondered if maybe he was going a little mad as well.
--
Madness, he decided about ten minutes later, was the only way to explain what he was doing now. Namely, walking down the halls in the dark--because this place was forsaken-by-the-gods backwards and had no electricity, and while they'd wired the place some, there wasn't enough juice available to run everything--at 3 in the morning, and security force fields took precedence over lights.
So he was walking in the dark at 3 am.
Straight towards Gong-gil's room...cell...room...whatever.
He was just going for a walk. A walk to clear his head. Just a walk. To clear his head. So he could think and to get the nightmare that hadn't let him concentrate out of his head. Just a walk.
A walk that would take him right past Gong-gil's room.
You've lost it, Hewley, he thought to himself, but that didn't stop him from heading that direction. He couldn't really explain even to himself what he was doing, other than being unsettled at that dream. He had no intention of going into Gong-gil's room...it was almost as if just walking past it would be enough. Enough for what, he had no idea. He felt stupid, as if he was still a little kid sneaking into his mother's room after nightmares about monsters gobbling her up. He wasn't seven years old and there were no dead zombie kings trying to eat Gong-gil's head and shoot Angeal full of arrows to turn him into a monster.
He'd honestly had no intention at all of going in.
Not until he heard the sounds of a struggle happening inside.
The sounds were so faint someone who wasn't SOLDIER probably wouldn't have heard them at all...same way as the almost pitch-black hallway would have been almost impossible to navigate. But just as Angeal didn't have any problems seeing, he sure as Shiva had no problems hearing the sounds of muffled, panicked struggles happening behind paper doors and the low hum of a security field.
Given that one attempt had been made on Gong-gil's life already, Angeal didn't even hesitate and had punched in the deactivate code for the security shields at top speed, then flung the door open.
He'd been expecting to see a number of things, but what he actually saw left him so stunned it actually took a moment for it to sink in. But when it did, everything pretty much turned into a reddish haze of what the fuck is this shit, and he was yelling before he even realized he'd drawn a breath to do so.
"What in Hel's name is going on in here?!" Angeal yelled, his voice thunderous even to his own ears--he didn't yell often, but when he did, no one missed it.
Truthfully, he had a pretty good idea what the fuck was going on--Gong-gil in a shaking heap on the floor and half his clothes pulled off, and the trooper ordered to guard Gong-gil scrambling away--but by the gods, he wanted an explanation. "Explain yourself, trooper!"
"Sir...I...sir!" Williams said snapping to attention and saluting futilely.
"I want an explanation, trooper! Your duty was to guard him!" Angeal yelled, and it was starting to turn into an almost white-hot rage as he got angrier and angrier. "Did you misunderstand your orders?! Answer me!" This was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. The man had tried to kill himself once and the gods only knew why, someone had tried to kill him and damned near succeeded, and now the man Angeal had ordered to guard the guy had tried to assault him--and it was pretty obvious there was nothing mutual in the whole thing, not with the way Gong-gil had been struggling and the way he was shaking now.
"Sir--it's not--!"
He had the trooper by the scruff of the neck before he even realized he had moved. "You! Follow me," he snapped at Gong-gil, and part of him winced inside at the way Gong-gil flinched, but Angeal was altogether too fucking pissed to really say anything then. Right now, the only thing that mattered was getting Trooper Williams into a gods-bedamned cell. "And as for you, you piece of shit, since you can't manage your orders properly, maybe the military isn't the place for you," he snarled. "You are hereby relieved of duty and arrested for assault. Say hello to a dishonorable discharge, and you're fucking lucky I don't gut you right here and save myself the fucking paperwork!" he yelled, and was gratified to see the bastard flinch. Angeal shook him again just for good measure before he forcefully dragged the man out to the makeshift prison they had made the castle holds into. He got some shocked looks from the people on guard, who all snapped to attention the second they saw him. He ignored them and marched a babbling Williams straight into the cell in the back, where Gong-gil had once been but was now empty, and shoved him with little care to watch his own strength.
"Stew here overnight," Angeal snarled as the cell door slammed shut. "Because starting tomorrow, as soon as I file the paperwork, your military career is officially over."
"But sir, please, it's not what you--!"
He looked over his shoulder at Gong-gil, who was standing a good two meters behind him, his clothes still a mess and looking completely shell-shocked and shaking. "You, come with me. If I can't manage to trust the guards to watch you, it looks like I'll have to do it myself," he snarled, and tightened his hands into fists so he wouldn't put his fist through the wall, something about his expression causing Williams' "Sir, it's not what you think, I wasn't, sir!" babble to dry up, and Angeal turned on his heel to go.
There was a long moment of what surely had to be hesitation, but before he'd even made it to the doorway he heard the faint, hesitant sounds of Gong-gil's footfalls behind him, and for some reason, something in him almost relaxed.
Until Nok-su began to laugh. "The amazing Gong-gil; you lose your loyal Jang-saeng, you even lose the king, but you seem to have gained a general. You do always end up protected, naa, Gong-gil?!" she screamed in Standard, and Angeal knew enough to damn well know who that had really been aimed at.
--
If he'd thought Gong-gil'd had a bad reaction to being brought into the castle, it was nothing compared to being brought into Angeal's quarters.
Gong-gil had followed him; probably, Angeal thought uncomfortably as his anger started to fade as they walked through the castle, because he was afraid not to. But when they got into his quarters, something poisonous flared for a moment in Gong-gil's eyes before they went dead and flat and Gong-gil became sullen, hunched in protectively and his face tight.
Angeal was not in a mood for it, for any more problems that night.
"You," he said sharply, and Gong-gil flinched at the tone. "Are here for tonight. And just tonight. You understand?"
Gong-gil nodded once, just as sharply, but in a brittle kind of way, and what in Hel's name--
All of a sudden, Angeal had a rather sick realization. His quarters were the king's old chambers.
No wonder Gong-gil didn't want to be here. Only the gods and Gong-gil knew what had gone on here, but Angeal would bet his materia that it hadn't been good.
Fuck.
His shoulders slumped, and the last of his anger drained out. "Look," Angeal said faintly, not able to look a Gong-gil. "You aren't safe in the cells. You know that."
Gong-gil's lips tightened slightly as he worked out what Angeal had said, then slowly nodded his head.
"Right. So you're here for tonight until the morning guard is on shift. For right now, this room is the safest place in the entire castle that you could be," he said, and for that, he looked straight at Gong-gil, because it was the goddess' own truth. Anyone that tried to do any harm right now to Gong-gil would sincerely wish they hadn't.
Gong-gil never lost his tenseness, but he nodded, and dared only briefly to look at Angeal before he looked away. "So here you are. Oh, and don't even think about trying to sneak off, because you leave this room, and I will put you back in the regular cells, and we both know that will not go well for you," he said sternly, then felt like an ass when Gong-gil's eyes went large and he seemed to hunch in on himself even more. "Yeah," he said, his voice softer. "Neither one of us wants that, OK?" he said, and Gong-gil looked up at him again with those eyes, the ones that wanted to trust but seemed afraid to. "Uh...you look like you need sleep," he said, latching on to something that was not the current conversation or situation, something normal and banal and...and not this. "You...you should get some," he said, scratching the back of his head, and glad to be on normal footing.
He could almost hear Genesis going, "That was smooth, Angeal" for that one.
Gong-gil colored slightly, but nothing could hide the bags under his eyes and how he was swaying on his feet. The adrenalin rush was probably fading, and it was only about 3:30 in the morning. Angeal gestured towards a sofa that had been there from the beginning, and Gong-gil went towards it stiffly, and sat ramrod straight, while Angeal went off to find a blanket and pillow for the guy. And to get away from him, because this whole thing was crazy, the way his mouth went dry was crazy, and the way he wanted to do whatever it took to keep that tense, brittle look off of Gong-gil's face forever. He could understand all of this if it was something simple, like he wanted to screw the guy or something, but the thought of that made something else twist in him, in a bad way, so he was pretty sure that was not it, for all Gong-gil was the most beautiful person he'd ever met. He didn't want to sleep with the guy, he wanted--Hel's realm, he didn't know what he wanted, as if the fact that he had gone out for a night stroll right past Gong-gil's room didn't tell him that much. All in all he was glad he had, but...what the fuck.
I really have finally lost it, he thought, then went, "A-HA!" as he found an extra pillow.
--
Gong-gil finally fell asleep, curled up on the glorified sofa. He'd been wary as a cat, staring at Angeal the whole time like he expected Angeal to jump on him or something; all things considered, Angeal couldn't blame him one bit even though it stung, so he ignored him and went about doing everything he that wouldn't get him accused of endangering security by having the king's former...something...in the room. He'd see about assigning a new second shift night guard tomorrow; for now Gong-gil could stay here, because only a fool would trying to break into Angeal's quarters.
He started the paperwork on Williams, filled out a few request forms for banal things such as higher-level Cure materia and rations since he was doing paperwork anyway, and finally wrote his mother a letter just for some semblance of something that wasn't military, but normal, civilian life. Eventually, as Angeal busied himself with all that, Gong-gil's eyes had started to drift shut, and soon after he was fast asleep, the bags under his eyes like dark bruises.
Angeal looked over about an hour or so later, just as the night sky had started to lighten to his eyes but still well before dawn, and saw Gong-gil was asleep, but shivering. Angeal had given him a blanket, but it was getting late enough in the year to start becoming chilly at night, and yeah, there was that "feeling like an ass" feeling that he was getting used to.
Angeal didn't figure he was going to get any sleep--it was only an hour or two before when he was supposed to be up anyway, so he got up, went to his own bedding, took the futon cover off of it, and headed over to Gong-gil.
He had gotten to about two feet away from Gong-gil before Gong-gil's eyes flew open and he went tense, clutching tightly at the thin blanket covering him.
Angeal winced. "Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you. I just thought you might be cold. Go back to sleep," he said, putting the cover over Gong-gil and then raising his hands to show he meant no harm and that bringing over a blanket was all he had meant to do. "Sorry. And good-night." He smiled ruefully, feeling like a heel and wondering how he had messed up trying to do something good and just what it is he was doing. "An...annyong...annyeonghi jumu...ju...I know this, I do...ha! Annyeonghi jumushipsiyo!" Angeal said, managing somehow to dredge out one of the few phrases in Chochung Wutai he had managed to learn and feeling stupid for having even tried to say it. Sephiroth could converse with the best of them on theories of war in Yamatan and Genesis could cuss to make Faunus Pan blush in Gwongnaamese now, but Angeal figured himself happy when he could twist his tongue enough around Chochungese to order food on his own.
Ahh, well, he figured, and gave a lopsided smile. "Did I get that right at all?" he asked, scratching the back of his head.
His fumbling horribly over the Chochungese for "goodnight" seemed to have done the trick, though--Gong-gil managed the faintest ghost of a laugh, lightening his face and making him into something breathtaking, before he nodded once and gave a nodding bow of thanks with his head.
He felt like he'd at least made some kind of progress, but that feeling quickly deflated when he realized the other man wasn't relaxing at all; that he was still tense and wary and still watching Angeal. He didn't know how Gong-gil managed it; it was like being watched by a badly-injured kitten that knew it couldn't do anything and was waiting for you to pounce and attack it.
...Like watching a wet, injured, shivering kitten, that's how helpless Gong-gil seemed, like he had no defenses at all, not even pride.
Angeal wondered about his thinking sometimes. He was sure that kitten analogy had made some sort of sense when he started it, for all it was strange to be comparing a grown man--one who was actually a couple centimeters taller than the other Chochungese for all he was good at making himself look small--to a kitten. He could almost hear Genesis in his head again, this time going, 'You still suck at analogies, Angeal.' "Just get some sleep. And I promise I won't make you ever have to listen to me try to speak Chochungese ever again."
Gong-gil let out another faint laugh, one that was tired and thin and a little surprised at itself but still an honest-to-the-gods laugh, and he clutched the cover to him and curled up underneath it. But his eyes only began to drift back shut after Angeal went back to his desk and went back to work, and Angeal began to wonder what he would have to do to convince the poor guy he didn't mean him any harm.
...never mind you might have to see about having the guy killed, Angeal thought sourly, his face tightening as reality sank back in. You can't forget that.
He looked over at Gong-gil and something in him sank. If he was as involved with the king as it seems like he was, and if the people who helped us overthrow that madman are the ones who tried to kill Gong-gil...ShinRa won't want to let him live.
It would have been easier, he thought, turning to stare out the window, if he'd never started trying to figure this out.
--
And he was falling, falling into some kind of mist-filled darkness, and scratched barely at the edge of his consciousness was a voice, a jagged, broken, woman's voice that filled him with terror, and if he fell any more into the mist that voice would crawl inside him, have him, make him into that monster again, and--
He jolted awake with a yell, flailing, and Gong-gil jerked his hand back quickly, his eyes wide. Angeal had no idea when he'd fallen asleep. He'd fallen asleep at his desk, face-first into his paperwork by the feel of things, and half the papers were fluttering around wildly after the flailing he'd done.
Gong-gil was still staring at him wide-eyed, and Angeal wiped at his face, trying to get rid of the jittery bad-feeling left over from it, like something that had been scratching at his brain. "Nightmare," Angeal said in answer to Gong-gil's unspoken question, rubbing his face tiredly. "Seen too much, I guess," he said, and sighed. "That was why I was out walking tonight," he said, feeling like he had to explain. And hoping Gong-gil would buy it. It was the truth, after all, for all it wasn't quite the whole truth. It was a truth that didn't make him uncomfortable, and that was good enough. Angeal really wasn't very good at second-guessing himself or why he did anything or ascribing deep meanings to things; he tended to leave that sort of garbage to Genesis, who seemed to love it. Angeal had no idea why; all of this was making his head hurt.
Gong-gil let out a sudden, sharp gasp.
"What?" Angeal said, tensing and looking around quickly. There was nothing that should have startled the guy...
Gong-gil was staring at his desk. Or rather, staring at the folding fan on his desk. It was the broken old fan Angeal had picked up a while back, and that even now would pick up and turn in his hands whenever he was thinking or wondering what he was doing here. Gong-gil was staring at it and looking as if he had seen a ghost or something.
"Gong-gil? What's wrong?" Angeal asked, then felt stupid because it wasn't as if the man could tell him. The guy still wasn't talking, after all.
Gong-gil was completely focused on the fan and he reached for it, and his hand--his hands were shaking. Angeal almost stopped him, something stupid and possessive flaring up, but that was stupid, it was a fan. And one that obviously meant a lot more to Gong-gil than it did to Angeal, judging by the way Gong-gil was shaking as he picked the fan up.
When he had it in his shaking hands, Gong-gil gripped it tightly and held it to his chest. He looked like he was having trouble breathing, and dropped his head. He let out a hitching breath, and Angeal stared, completely flummoxed, at Gong-gil's shaking shoulders, before he realized the man was crying.
"Gong-gil, what in the goddess' sweet name--?" Angeal began, rising to his feet and not knowing what under the Heavens could have set Gong-gil off as it had.
Gong-gil looked up at him, tears falling one after another from his eyes. His mouth moved soundlessly, as if he was struggling to make himself say something but nothing would come out. And then he just gave up and dropped his head again, sobbing and clutching the fan so tightly his knuckles had gone white.
Angeal had no idea what to do about this.
By now, he figured, you'd think he'd be used to that.
--
Angeal crossed his arms and glared. He kept the glare up for a long time, and waited. He knew how well that glare could work, and he was determined to use it to full advantage today. He'd cleared his entire morning for this, after all, and was fully prepared to glare as long as this took.
Things went as he had expected. Williams went from sulking to sweating, and when he was a few minutes away from shaking, Angeal finally said something.
"Explain yourself, trooper. First off, why were you in the room with him?"
"He still has the scissors, sir," Williams said, looking at his hands. "We can't see him from outside, so we've been in the same room. It's a large room and he works in the bigger room, where the table is."
Well, that made sense, at least. As for the rest... "And what does making sure he doesn't turn a pair of scissors into a weapon have anything to do with that spectacle I saw last night?"
"Things went too far," Williams blurted out. "I wasn't going to hurt him, honest, sir! I was just..." he trailed off.
"Just what?"
"I was kidding around. That guy is creepy, y'know? Won't say anything. It's creepy."
"So you're saying you assaulted him because he's mute. Likely trauma-induced muteness," he said, emphasizing the 'trauma' bit, because, sweet Shiva, he knew what things were like, but what in Hel's name...? The poor guy was damaged, and his guard was attacking him because he was creepy?
"No! Yes! No...I mean...He acts like a girl," Williams said, his shoulders slumping. "So I was...just giving him a hard time, y'know? Creepy ass wutie that won't talk and is pretty as a girl. I was just sayin' maybe he was a girl, just hiding it, and...and things just got out of hand." Williams looked up, pleadingly. "I wasn't gonna hurt the guy, honest! I just...he shouldn't be so damn girly, everyone was wonderin' and talking about it, an'..."
Angeal was beginning to get used to having a headache every day.
"So what this boils down to is you wanting to strip the man naked to prove he is a man. Because he was too 'quiet' and too 'girly.' Have I got you right?" he said flatly, fixing the glare back on the man.
"Yes sir," the man said, shoulders slumping and looking pained.
"So basically...you're trying to tell me you're not a rapist, you're just a fucking idiot, is that it?" Angeal said, voice just as flat.
"I was just..."
"I don't want your excuses for a yes or no question," he said, crossing his arms again. "Which is just going to prove how much of a fucking idiot you are. I do not have time for stupid, immature STUNTS, trooper!" he yelled sharply. "Your job was to guard him, not to satisfy your boneheaded curiosity! Because you are a moron, I'm now even deeper in paperwork, you are in line for a reprimand at best, and the 'creepy, girly' man you were supposed to be guarding is now even less likely to get over what the docs are saying is, once again since you didn't seem to get it, trauma-induced muteness. Which, all in all, once again inconveniences me, because the pool of people who can guard him is very, very small and taking you out means I very well might have to put my translator in. And I've got investigating this added to the rest of my duties. How well do you think I like that, Williams?"
Williams swallowed.
"I SAID 'How well do you think I like that', Trooper!" Angeal yelled. "You WILL answer your commanding officer! How well do you think I like that?"
The man had gone ramrod straight at Angeal's drill sergeant tone in yelling, and his response was just as drill-like in cadence and volume. "I don't think you like it, sir!"
"You're fucking right I don't!" Angeal yelled. "And as for you, you immature ass, depending on the statement I get from your little prank victim, you will either be reprimanded or discharged...or sent so deep into the swamps that the Great Forest looks like a public park! So you better pray he backs up your 'Ha ha, just a joke that got out of hand' version of events," he said, feeling disgusted, but relieved at the same time, because true or not, he really wanted to believe it was just a situation that got out of hand. It was reasonable, it was plausible, and it was better than the alternative by a lot. He knew what the alternative was--he'd fucking seen the alternative, because it was fucking war, and no matter what orders and regulations on treatment of 'the enemy,' when people got caught up in us vs. them and 'the enemy is not like us,' honor and civilization went out the fucking window, especially when the upper echelons turned a blind eye.
Angeal was not so naïve as to think all the half-Eastern children in Wutai were the children of wives and whores.
Not with everything he'd seen.
He'd seen enough, before he was given rank enough to put a stop to some abuses, that it had been a long time since he'd had untroubled sleep. It seemed like the only thing keeping him sane, or that had kept him sane, was his sense of right and wrong--and ShinRa be damned, pressure from everyone around him be damned, he'd hold on to that. As much as he could, at any rate, because while he never drew his sword, would never draw his sword for the things done here, he'd gotten far too good at using a gun after the fall of Daerimmun. Things he still did--he knew sooner rather than later, Jang Nok-su would become another "died in the Fall of Daerimmun," too.
He shook his head to clear it, bring him back to the present, to not think that out any further. He was going to take Williams on face value, that that was all it had been. He needed for that to have been all that it was--as stupid as it was, he needed to believe it. So much of his faith in other people had been whittled away in Chochung, that he needed to believe people weren't as bad as they seemed sometimes. Williams didn't seem like he was lying, and by the gods, Angeal didn't want to think that he was. "I have better things to be doing with my time," he muttered.
"I'm sorry, sir," Williams said, looking at his hands. "It was a mistake. Honest, I wasn't going to hurt the guy. It was a mistake."
"That's for damned sure," Angeal said. "Take him back to his cell and get him out of my face," he said to the guard.
--
"I apologize for my mistake, sir," Park said, and Angeal just blinked at him.
"Huh?" he said, feeling stupid and having no idea why Park had just burst out with an apology. He'd had a long day, starting bright and early with questioning Williams, and it had pretty much been all downhill from there. He needed more sleep than he was getting and he knew it, but it wasn't happening. Most nights he counted himself lucky if he went to sleep before 2 am, and considering he was up at 6, that wasn't cutting it anymore.
"I was in charge of guard selection. I take responsibility for the occurrence with Williams."
Angeal shook his head. "It's not your fault a bad apple slipped through," he said, waving his hand dismissively. "Anyone who saw that coming from his files has a bright future as an oracle."
Park seemed to accept this--if nothing else, something slight seemed to relax, as if he had been on edge, waiting to see how Angeal responded, and Angeal wrote that off as insane. Park didn't do that kind of thing, and it would be odd if Park wanted Angeal's approval. Or, he thought, he had been worried about a reprimand of some sort, and that made sense. Park's record was sterling, probably because he had to work twice as hard, Angeal knew, as anyone else to prove he wasn't Chochungese first. It wasn't fair and it wasn't right, but that's how the world worked and he knew it, and people would use anything they could against someone Wutai.
"What are you going to do for his second night shift, sir?" Park asked. "The shift that Williams was one? There are one or two people who have some Chochungese I selected as reserve guards..."
Angeal groaned. "Fuck. At this point, I don't trust anyone any more." He sighed, then threw his hands in the air. "Screw this. Shift the first guy to second, and I'll take first shift for now. If he needs anything I'm about the only person with the authority to drag your ass out of bed to come translate it. And it's not like I'm sleeping anyway," he muttered under his breath, shutting his eyes and rubbing the bridge of his nose. If he wasn't going to get to sleep before 2 am anyway, he figured he might was well do something more productive than staring at the ceiling over his bed. This couldn't be more than a temporary solution, but fuck. He was so tired of all of this, of everything being crazy, and by the gods, he was going to do something right--he wasn't going to let anyone else be abused or die who didn't have to. And if that meant watching Gong-gil himself, so be it.
"Sir..."
"Dismissed, lieutenant," Angeal said, not opening his eyes or wanting to deal with whatever Park might have been about to say.
Park's "Yes, sir" was much longer in coming than it normally was, and Park hesitated for a split second at the door before he walked out.
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