Conviction (Chrono Trigger, Lucca + Crono_ Title: Conviction Author/Artist:kunenk Fandom: Chrono Trigger (+ Homestuck) Pairing/characters: Lucca and Crono Rating: PG Warnings: None Prompt/challenge you're answering: Somehow, Lucca feels like Crono is someone he/she has met before... A/N: Partly inspired by an anon crossover prompt. It doesn't really fit the prompt, and I think the idea needs a lot more thought… we'll see how it goes.
It’s the first time she ever sees him in person, no longer text on a computer screen, and she’s angry, feeling almost ready to pull out the heat from this land- her land, somehow- except that’s a bad idea in so many ways she’s not going to bother counting them (it's counterproductive, for one).
She settles for punching him instead. She doesn’t think she’s that strong, but he winces anyway, and maybe he does give a damn about what she and Marle think after all. “What the hell, Crono, why would you even think that was a good idea?” she says, and grabs his ear, pulling him down in case she’s not being loud enough. “And you come here to tell me hi, it’s nice we’re finally getting the chance to meet each other only we’ll never see each other again because I’m going on a fucking suicide mission!” She’s shrill by the end, but she’s known Crono since she put her first bit of coding together- a robot that could carry things places, though it wasn’t a very good walker. Maybe even before- no, definitely, by the way those green eyes are so familiar, and by the way he’s blinking at her, maybe he thinks that too.
He manages to look shamed, even though she’s got a vicegrip on his ear and he’s bent over to accommodate her. “I thought- it’d be better if I saw you guys before- before all of that, because at least you’d have some memory of me as a person, not just text.”
Lucca looks at him, considers the way he’s trying to comb his hair into some semblance of order (but, she knows, messy spikes are the best he ever gets), and the way he’s almost trying to shrink in on himself. “You didn’t actually tell her, did you,” she says.
Crono’s eyes go wide, and he looks like he’s considering bolting. Lucca grabs him before he can, pulls his ear again, and scowls at him. “…no,” he admits after a few moments, trying to tug out of her grasp.
“Of course you didn’t,” Lucca mutters, and lets go of his ear. She keeps the grip on his wrist even as she looks away, and adds in an offhand sort of way, “Probably for the best, anyway. I think she’s still trying to get the mess those imps made out of her computer- I didn’t know they could go splat like that- and who knows what kind of a mess she could make, messing around in there.”
Crono flinches a little, which she feels more than sees. He doesn’t try to tug away again, which she counts as increasing the odds she can talk him out of this. “She’s a lot tougher than we first thought, huh?” he says, trying to put a bit of laughter into his voice.
“Of course she is,” Lucca says, remembering dreams of ice and fury and determination set in blue eyes and blonde hair. She squeezes his hand and looks up into his eyes. “But that doesn’t mean she’ll be able to handle you going out and dying on her.” She pauses, thinking, and then leans against him, closing her eyes. “I don’t know if the rest of us would handle it any better,” she admits, the words muffled by his jacket.
Crono hesitates, and then puts his free arm around her for a hug. “I just… I want you guys to be safe.”
Lucca laughs a little, her voice shaky. “Somehow, I don’t think that leaving us one player down is really going to help that,” she says, and wraps her arm around him. “C’mon, Crono- we’re a team. Or we should be, anyway.”
“…this isn’t really going down on my list of team-building exercises to share,” Crono says, shaking his head, and touches her arm. “It’s almost too much to deal with, isn’t it?”
“Almost?” Lucca raises her eyebrows at him, then relaxes and starts to smile. “But we’ll beat it if we stick together. Idiot.” She punches him once in the side for good measure, and steps back. “C’mon, we’ve got dungeon crawling to do.”