route_1065 | Sometimes people leave you, halfway through the wood.

Don't give up! I'm coming!

[After wriggling out of a a small pile of Pokemon. Did one of them just try and grab her skirt with their teeth? She glances back at a sheepish looking Umbreon and then she's pushing herself to her knees, then her feet, making quite the dramatic show of fending off the 'attacking' Eeveelutions.]

[She doesn't stop to try and examine her own feelings, despite a rush of them. This is unexpected. She's confessed a surprising fondness for Wrath before, but her own internal reactions have never been quite like this. Something about him calls to some part of her she's never been aware of before. It's that small part that's informing all of her actions now.]

We have one advantage! Height!

[If she had been acting on anything beyond some instinct she wasn't aware she had, she never would have done it. But she's thinking with that small, long forgotten part of her that is responding directly to Wrath. So she leans down and reaches into the squirming mass of Eevee's to scoop him up and perch him on her shoulders. The Eevee's mill around her feet, standing up at her and stretching up toward Wrath without missing a beat...]

_{[He can't help but let out a slight squawk of alarm when she scoops him off the ground, and for a moment he just grapples for purchase on her shoulders, hands digging into her hair not to pull, just to balance.]

[She isn't the ONLY one surprised by this-- he's more that surprised, he's utterly baffled.]

[But... on his end, it brings back a rush of those few memories he'd accumulated back home that actually qualified as happy. Sloth... Sloth had done this for him, sometimes. Not often; she spent so much time doing important work for Pride, but sometimes.]

[And deeper still, there's memories from that little house he'd been brought to after the island.]

[He doesn't bother lingering on those. He never does. They hurt too much.]}

Q... quick!

Clear a space with your claws!

Force them back!

_{[Because THAT'S one thing he can always remember cooperating with Lust on-- fighting. No matter how aloofly she'd always treated him when they weren't on a mission, the Homunculi were always good team players on the battlefield.]

[He knows she doesn't have her claws anymore, AND that the wiggly bundles of colorful fur jumping at them are NOT opponents that remotely required being sliced to ribbons.]

[But they're all only playing.]}

[Her 'claws' are now just neatly manicured purple painted fingernails, so Lust improvises. Thankfully her year in the circus allows her to carry Wrath more or less comfortably on her shoulders, and he seems to have anchored himself relatively well with her hair.]

[The detached part of her can't quite believe this is real. She's always assumed she'd be one of those people who has no idea what to do with children. Wrath always irritated her, back in Amestris. Here and now it's something entirely different.]

[She tugs off her gauzy fashion scarf and waves it over the Eevees, making it flutter and dance. She holds Wrath's ankle with her other hand, to keep him stable. There are still nearly a dozen evolved Eevees darting and prancing around her feet.]

[But they're leaping and prancing after the fluttering scarf now.]

I think we've got the upper hand at last!

_{[It's a surreal experience for them both.]

[If he chose to, he knows he could summon up the vivid memories in a heartbeat. The sharp burst of pain between his eyes, followed by nothingness. And the brittle snap of her finger from the slightest pressure. The anguished scream.]

[THAT is the last thing he remembers from home.]

[And it's been what's run through his head every time he and Lust have come face to face, whether in person or on a tiny PokeGear screen.]

[Yet here they are-- he's on her shoulders with his hands in her hair and she's got HERS around his ankle-- something he'd only ever have imagined would involve him YANKING and her possibly getting ready to hurl him into the wall. But instead they're playing. And laughing.]

[Laughing!]

[Of all the crazy things...]}

They're distracted!

Quick, the finishing blow!!

[Lust isn't sure she manages a finishing blow, but before long, the Eeveelutions are sprawled on the floor or playing halfheartedly with one another.]

[And they aren't the only ones getting tired. Lust crosses her ankles and sinks gracefully into a crosslegged position on the floor, allowing Wrath to simply slip off her shoulders. She's breathing heavier than she was, and her hair's falling in her face.]

[But she's succeeded and thensome. The Eevees are satisfied and played-out. Wrath has had fun. Bringing them together had been the right instinct. So far, more often than not, her instincts regarding Wrath are right. She never would have guessed.]

Victory belongs to us! Now I think we deserve a treat.

_{[He slides off once she hits the ground and rolls a couple feet, flopping down alongside the Eevees with the same air of winding-down exhilaration. A few stray puffs of winded laughter are still in his throat, and he lets them tumble out while he catches his breath, most of his hair in his face.]

[Sitting up, he shoves about half of it to the side and tilts his head at Lust quizzically.]

[The possibility that this is still some kind of huge, elaborate scheme to make him let his guard down is still bouncing around in his head a little bit, but after this, it's lost a great deal of momentum. Even Wrath can't delude himself-- if she'd wanted him dead, she'd had plenty of opportunities to pursue that goal. Realistically, any one of his captors could easily have marched down the stairs, cornered him, and wrung his scrawny little neck until all the life in him was gone. Determination, speed, and a tiny set of fangs were all he had now, and none of those could do any good in captivity.]

[So...]

[The only conclusion he could reach was that for some reason, she genuinely wanted to be down here. Playfighting with him against a bunch of Eevees.]}

I like treats.

Why are we doing this?

It's never been like this.

I like treats, too.

[Lust sits there on the basement floor, her legs crossed under her and her hands in her lap.]

I know.

[It wasn't even two years ago that they'd been sworn enemies. But it had been different, back home. They'd all been different. How to explain all the complexities to a child? She sighs.]

Back home, I wasn't a very good person. I believed horrible things about myself, and it made me sad and cruel. I tried to find pleasure in the things I'd been told I should, but there wasn't any. I didn't think I could be good. I didn't think there was any humanity in me. But I've learned the truth since then. I'm not a monster and I never was, and I can be as good a person as I want.

Now I find pleasure in the things I like. Really and honestly like. Now I don't feel sad all the time anymore. And I treated you very poorly, back home, when I gave any thought to you at all. I don't want to treat you poorly here, I want you to have the things you deserve. A home, a childhood, a proper life.

[She's speaking openly to him. He's not so very young that he can't understand. And he isn't a normal child. He's one of them. Which makes him, by some sort of default, family. She tells herself that's all it is, this strange sort of tugging at her soft emotional parts he's begun eliciting. He's just so small and frightened and confused. She hates to see him like that. It's an uncomfortable new sort of instinct she's never encountered before.]

And children like to play. Someone should play with you.

_{[It's not all that dissimilar from the things she'd told him before, the explanations she'd given him for her disloyalty.]

[But after romping about on her shoulders with a bunch of Pokemon, it's almost as though he's hearing it with new ears-- even if he's still squinting, his brow deeply furrowed.]

[For a time, he seems to be deeply contemplating her words (and he is!), until finally saying, slowly--]}

... So... you don't want me to break all my bones.

_{[YES, HE STILL REMEMBERS THAT CONVERSATION.]}

Oh Wrath, no.

[Lust shakes her head and sighs heavily again. It's taken her a good deal of trial and error to come to this point, where she can consider his feelings and place them as a priority.]

I was angry when I said that. When I'm upset, I say things I don't mean. I don't want you to break any of your bones. I'd be very upset if that happened.

I'd like us to be friends, Wrath.

_{[She's reassured him more than once that she would indeed care if he broke all his bones, but this is the first time he's actually believed it.]

[Still, for a second he tilts his head again, making DIRECT, PROLONGED EYE-CONTACT for the very first time during this conversation. For someone who spends a lot of time putting foreign objects in his nose and chasing invisible things across the floor, Wrath has a way of really staring straight into your soul.]}

... Okay.

But, friends means no stabbing each other.

Not even if one of us is being really mean.

Okay?

_{[IT'S SURPRISINGLY MATTER-OF-FACT, COMING FROM HIM, BUT. It's also the closest he's come to acknowledging that he was being 'really mean' right before the skull-skewering incident. Baby steps.]}

It's a promise.

[Lust meets his eerie, unblinking stare without looking away. His eyes are piercing, but she sees nothing threatening in them. Only serious contemplation. And she deserves that contemplation, from him. She's done wrong by him in the past. But they've made such progress, in his time here.]

[She holds out her hand, palm up, to seal the promise.]

On my heart. And soul.

_{[No threats here! He is just... trying to put all the puzzle pieces in his head together. There's a lot of them.]

[He blinks down at Lust's hand for a moment, frowning thoughtfully.]

[On her soul, huh? So she had one now? Or was that another thing that they were trying to claim that Master had been lying about?]

[After a few lingering seconds, he decides on a suitable answer and looks back up at her.]}

Well. I don't have a soul.

But I do have an organ in my chest for pumping blood. It works pretty well.

Will promising work if it's only on that?

You have a soul. I don't think a whole and complete one, but part of one at least.

[She didn't think anything could live without one. Even them. She knows they aren't an entire person, even if they're very close, but they have souls.]

That's your heart. I have one, too.

[She puts her hand on her chest, over where here heart beats. She can feel it.]

If we didn't have any soul at all, we wouldn't have beating hearts.

_{[OK... THAT SOUNDS FAKE... BUT OK.]

[Wrath still looks skeptical, and doesn't bother hiding it... but the fact that he's not literally opening his mouth to verbally argue back is some serious progress.]}

Okay.

Then I swear on my blood-pumping chest organ. ... Or heart. No stabbing.

I might still bite, though. Sometimes I can't help it.

But Ralph says I'm doing better about that.

No stabbing. No hitting or kicking or hurting at all.

[She half-laughs shaking her head.]

Even if you bite me. But please try very hard not to bite me.

I will! I'll try very hard, as long as there's no other kinds of hurting.

That's equivalent exchange.

That we both try.

Right?

Equivalent exchange.

[Lust nods, still feeling a strange sort of thick feeling in her chest and throat. These are all new impulses and physical compulsions she's never experienced before. She has the strong desire to hug Wrath. What has humanity done to her?]

We'll both be good to each other. Because we both deserve that. Now why don't I go upstairs and fix us some lunch? With a peanut butter brownie for dessert.

_{[WELCOME TO FEEL TOWN, LUST. ENJOY YOUR STAY.]

[If the kid had been a puppy, his tail would be wagging. Does he still have reservations? Sure. She did kill him that one time. But... but she's being so nice now. And after all those months of stubbornly resisting everything his former teammates had been trying to tell him, he's finally been worn down enough that some of it is sinking in.]

[And god, deep down, he really, really wants it all to be true.]

[Maybe it can be, if Dante never comes here.]}

Okay!

If there's any bread in the lunch, will you make sure all the snakes are dead first?

_{[Envy has probably filled Lust in on the whole 'our horrible goblin brother in the basement thinks untoasted bread will kill him' thing.]}

Sometimes people leave you, halfway through the wood.

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