thinking about an old modern!assassin!au aenari again. it was a fun mental exercise because at first it was "the twins would make amazing assassins" and then at some point a sniper tighnari snuck in but i realized there was no way tighnari would become an assassin unless he was torn to shreds, destroyed, and put back together so a very angsty plotline took away from my poor half-badass half-sitcom idea.
so the twins are assassins but it's important that aether actually met tighnari in a very mundane setting - a coffee shop tighnari recently decided to frequent. (i can't decide if i wanna keep it entirely mundane so it's just a cafe or is it actually secretly the twins' intelligence hub that tighnari finds and loves for being so quiet and uncrowded all the time because there is an appeal in the irony.)
the main conflict is the fact that aether takes lives for a living and the tighnari is very passionate about sanctity of life right, he is a ranger, a botanist, an activist, he is very adamant on the basic right of every living being to simply live. aether can get away with some suspicious things re: randomly disappearing and keeping secrets, because tighnari thinks he works for the government so there are things he cannot legally reveal to even closest family/spouse and tighnari respects that. still, tighnari feels something is off, and aether feels guilty because he actually does love his job, any moral qualm he might have is relieved behind the knowledge that he kills people he thinks deserves killing, he has a god complex right that (like i'm going to take a pair of celestial twins and turn them into mortals without giving them an actual god complex). tighnari would never understand or sympathize, so he can never know.
initially, aether wants to take attraction run its course, he likes this fox a lot but he considers himself a realist (he doesn't have the most accurate vision of himself), clearly they have an expiration date. but he keeps falling and falling until he is actually planning to ask tighnari to marry him and- well, it's been going so well for so long, getting married will basically only change how they refer to each other at this point, what the hell. he will go for it.
there are three genres this can go - one is action which is inherent and can be focused on easily as part of the plot, one is sitcom, and the other is as angsty as it goes until tighnari is realistically corroded enough to become an assassin. technically all can coexist, angst can come after comedy chronologically, but it would be a DRASTIC tone shift,
the sitcom route is basically aether living this double life, settling nicely into the mundane while juggling his duties as an assassin of an organization. someone is refusing to give tighnari a grant, so aether is uwu so sweetly supportive i'm sure you'll find a way!! she's a dick anyway let's go talk to this other person!! and he turns around and gives her a glare that implies he is considering actually killing her, and she swallows by the sheer threatening aura.
the angst route is having tighnari find out. preferably just before aether's planned proposal for more drama. he has no proof to hand aether to authorities, but he can and sure as hell will dump aether on the spot. tighnari moves on but despite the logic and anger he never really stops missing him, aether doesn't move on or even stop thinking about him for a single day, so it's a couple years of post-breakup pining. up until aether, fully believing he is bleeding to death, calls him to hear his voice for last time. except tighnari is practical and resourceful and he has no time or patience for that hopeless romantic bullshit, so he goes to look for aether, patches him up as much as he can until the ambulance arrives. except at this point aether is unconscious and hanging by a thread. tighnari is still angry but he still doesn't have the heart to not go to the hospital and watch over until lumine arrives at least. he tells himself it's not because he still loves him and he is lying, it is true that he would do it for anyone but also he is so difficult to fall in love that he is also not one to fall out of love easily. thing is, sticking around has him witness the horrible world aether is the part of - aether naturally has a lot of enemies and tighnari definitely didn't know the correct procedure for discretion for an assassin. the said vague enemies are clever and subtle enough that tighnari is ridiculed by the hospital staff for asking for help, and he suspects some of them have been paid off or undercover as well. while tighnari can defend himself from a random attacker on the street and doesn't lack the muscle strength, he is not a trained fighter like these people, either, so he has to find creative ways to fight them off, nothing is off-limits, he even sets traps cuz hey he does that at work every week and he is damn good with his chemicals. he is already exhausted, he definitely made the right choice leaving aether, because even if he could somehow look past what aether really does when he's gone, which he never could-
someone gets to aether.
tighnari doesn't make it in time to stop them from taking off the oxygen mask, and in his rush to put it back on asap and minimize the damage, he tries to knock them unconscious as usual but the blow actually kills them.
to say the accident fucks tighnari up is an understatement.
lumine finally arrives but it's too late, she arranges the cleanup and is very grateful that tighnari saved her brother, she tries to reassure him that it was self-defense but tighnari finds it difficult to believe her, it wasn't self defense, he was defending someone who took who-knows-how-many lives and was going to take even more once he got healed. lumine explains to tighnari what kind of people they go after, but tighnari sees right through the god complex, insists it doesn't make it fair, and leaves. he doesn't know how he will put everything behind but he is eager to try, he won't shy away from therapy if he can figure out how honest he could be in one, just get him miles and miles and miles away right now.
again, though, he didn't know how to be discreet in a way that matters in the assassin world. while he was defending himself and aether in the hospital, he was already seen by many people, he was registered to the hospital with his full ID, and by the persons who were observing undercover, he already made himself known as an ally to lumine and aether. so he gets targeted as well, and he would be easy prey if not for lumine, who offers to provide him sanctuary until the word of him dies down. he doesn't have to do anything, just stay in this area in the middle of nothing, if he feels imprisoned he can walk out anytime he wants, "you saved my brother" pinky promise. he wants to be stubborn, but for the sake of the safety of his family and people around him, not to mention the realization that he can't just live with a constant threat on his life, he eventually takes the risk of trusting her, cursing the day he ever got involved with aether, love be damned.
the rest is a steady collapse of tighnari's self of sense and morality. it's the constant assault of little things. lumine's friendship. the askew normality that comes with living with assassins. talking to people and understanding where they are coming from. realizing those who are threatening him and his loved ones (which begrudgingly includes lumine and aether) are cruel to the point that their entire motivation can be as shallow as eliminating competition or their wealth. he sees the death of certain figures actually help halt their harmful projects. don't misunderstand, he never sympathizes. he is of the opinion that there can always be another way, but he also realizes that the organization is a reaction, not the first strike.
it's not pure observation, of course. lumine does love tighnari, she doesn't want him to get away, not as her friend and not as the love of her brother's life, so she is trying to get him to make peace with the way they live, and she is twisting everything until it's more palatable for tighnari, until he can stomach more and more. miko helps her achieve that, mostly because she is not too keen on housing someone already so against them from within, it's too risky - she can figure out a use for tighnari as long as he can be loyal.
the day their patience pays off is when lumine slips up and returns wounded from a mission. miko is strategically harsh, and mentions aether always covering lumine's back so there are no surprises, until tighnari asks if there is no one who can go with lumine, she can't go on like this, who knows when aether will wake up, if he even does. he gets explained that the twins both being on-site is actually an exception, usually there is a sniper who is the eyes of the operation and covers another assassin when the mission is risky and logistically allows one. if only one of the twins were required to be on-site, usually the other twin would be the sniper. then why would they not assign lumine a sniper? well, you see, the twins get to experience a mundane life because they are a special case. they need to be able to blend in for undercover ops, and the precautions the organization takes to make it possible also lets them have the double-life. however, one of those precautions is keeping their positions a secret even within the organization - not that the organization is that wide to begin with, but everyone tighnari has talked to is part of this tight little circle. as a result, there is actually no sniper who knows lumine, because the twins never needed another assassin to work with them. lumine is ridiculously skilled so working solo has worked out for her so far, but pairing assassins off is to cover unpredictable situations, after all, and even she can be a victim to sheer luck.
it's all a setup for tighnari to volunteer his sharp eyes, because miko still wants to make him useful, and either he is gonna develop the stockholm syndrome toward their little club or get blackmailed into keeping their secrets. either way, he needs to put in the work.
she gets what she wants. because he is concerned about lumine and he gets why the target is forcing their hand, he offers to help, but not without certain conditions. if all they need is an eye to warn lumine, he can do that. he was a ranger, he is agile and he has sharp senses, but he is not killing anyone. and surely they don't need to be worried about him running off with proof of the organization's existence since no one is going to let him leave with any. counter-offer: just take some basic sniper training, you dont have to use it, and even if you do, you can aim at non-vitals, just enough that lumine has time and doesn't get hurt. the whole premise brings tighnari war flashbacks about that hospital night protecting aether, he had again set out to not hurt anyone permanently but ended up actually taking a life, still losing aether anyways, and changed his own life forever. with a little calculated nudging thanks to the manipulative lesbians, he finds the horror actually motivates him. he wants to be in control this time. he is already ten miles deep in this hell, and previously he made a fatal enough mistake that aether is practically dead, it's only lumine's stubbornness keeping his heart beating, and tighnari can at the very least cover lumine this one time.
his past olympic archery skills doesn't exactly translate into using a sniper, but he is still eerily a natural at it. to his relief, he doesn't need to use the weapon that one time.
then the one time becomes two. then three, then four, and suddenly tighnari is officially lumine's partner, tailing her whenever the environment allows for a setup with a scope. just as he eases into doing nothing but watch, something goes awry, and he wounds someone to allow lumine a getaway. this happens once in a while, not often but enough that tighnari is fully assimilated into the morally-righteous-assassin-mindset where they think they are doing this for a purpose within reason so he is "fine" with it. he doesn't believe miko's justifications, but he fully believes in lumine's.
then he kills someone.
a target reveals himself one step ahead of lumine, except he is still going off the old intel that she is working with her twin brother and not an entirely new, dedicated sniper. so he kills him, both to protect lumine and complete the mission before it blows up into something bigger and more public.
he doesn't say a word on the way back.
he has his first mental breakdown that night, visiting aether's room.
he didn't visit much before, he never felt the need to, he is too pragmatic for that. a comatose man is poor company, it would only serve to make tighnari feel worse, so he would stop by maybe once a month, make sure nothing's worse by his novice medical knowledge, and the small heartbreak he gets from reading there is no improvement either is nothing he looks forward to. it doesn't help that he is never not angry with aether, because it is his fault, his stupid phone call - maybe even earlier than that, with discourtesy to not only break up with tighnari in time, but to actually plan a goddamn proposal to tie him further into his stupid fucked up life. and yet tighnari still loves him even though he should at this point despise him with all his being. oddly enough, as tainted as the sweet memories are, tighnari can't find it in himself to loathe them, and the first (technically the second) time he takes a life, he gives up on trying to understand why.
instead, he walks into aether's room, sits by his side, and tells him everything that has happened since he called tighnari that night. it's not nonsensical, he starts, there are studies that prove you can hear me, just no promise that you will remember it, so listen carefully, you owe me that much. halfway through, the lump in his throat gets big enough to suffocate him, and he's gasping for air, he knows he is having a panic attack but he can't think of anything, not one way to make it better. he just buries his face on aether's shoulder, and he doesn't even smell like aether anymore, tighnari knew this of course, he can smell the lack of it every time he visits the room, but there is something so fucking wrong with being this close and still sensing nothing, and he cries, he cries for the life he left behind, he cries because he misses collei, he cries because he misses aether, he cries because he misses himself, because he doesn't know who he is anymore.
looking back, he calls it a temporary insanity, because there is no other way to describe the way he yelled at aether's unconscious face, telling him to wake up, it's the least he can do, they didn't get married because tighnari thought him a monster but now they are both monsters, so please wake up, "don't let me navigate through this wretched world you've brought me into alone, you owe me that much."
tighnari thought aether a cold-blooded killer. earlier today, he killed someone in cold blood too, and he only felt bad about it for himself, because it was the nail in the coffin for his old ethos. he felt scared because he was losing himself, not because of the douchebag he killed.
there is no turning back now. tighnari can accept that. he can get to know himself again, he can survive. but if he is brought into this kicking and trashing, if this is what the adaptation made him become, he deserves not going through this alone.
he asks lumine if he can go home now, if they've cleared everyone after him. lumine tells him that the man he killed was the last one. she thinks she is leaving for good, but then he turns and asks him is there anything he should do to get the same deal as the twins - the pop in for a mission, and then have a normal life in your free time deal. he doesn't want to abandon lumine. he wants to be there if aether ever wakes up.
lumine is surprised, but miko thinks he is so predictable it's boring.
after every mission, he visits aether, and tells him about what happened since the last time he visited, including the mission. it's a bit like confessing his sins, he once jokes to no audience. lumine lives nearby, they go have a coffee or go shopping sometimes. it's weird, but it's comforting.
i only do happy endings, but i will acknowledge that while this ending is the happiest it could be, it is not all too happy, tighnari got throughly shattered and put back together wrong for it, but here goes: aether does eventually wake up, and tighnari supports him through physical therapy, during which they talk. a lot. to say aether is surprised as to everything that happened is an understatement, but he does not agree with tighnari - yes, tighnari's opinion changed, but he himself didn't change. things he went through to get to this point was traumatic, and aether explicitly asks tighnari to lean on him when the Horrors tm come back to haunt him, but... he's still the tighnari aether has fallen in love with, insert lovey dovey yet realistic examples about tighnari's passion and love, he just has a different perspective. tighnari doesn't fully believe him, but enough that he feels a little more relieved, a little better about himself.
their future, post-ending life can still be a sitcom but as an entirely different series with a different tone, with the occasional but necessary angst as tighnari deals with his issues and goes through more character development, sometimes for the better, sometimes for worse. he is loved and supported though, both platonically and romantically. he keeps his relationship with collei, it strained with his disappearance and the trauma she got with it, but they fall back into the rhythm eventually.
