#bakuracult

Sometimes, days felt endless.

No matterthe amount of work he’d do, it felt as if the time stalled, purposefully movedslower to make the young man frustrated, his single functioning eye half liddedin a glare, as if that would help the sun move faster towards the horizon. Howlong is a week, exactly? Seven days, 168 hours, 10.080 minutes… It was a lie.For Isaac, a week was an eternity. An amount of time that was simply impossibleto count with precision, but that certainly helped his anger raise to a levelof warning at a record time.

Shovelingthe snow away from the entrance, cleaning the whole Isba (not that it wouldtake long, considering how small that place was), prepare the generator so thatit wouldn’t give up on giving out electricity and warm water, doing a couplejourney towards the village in order to hoard as much food and water as hecould, ignoring the people’s oddly gentle behaviour and the smiles that hesimply wasn’t used to seeing- What did they know, that he didn’t? Why were theyso happy to see him there, as if it was some sort of magical happening? He didnot know, but one thing he was sure about: happy people were eerie. Absolutely.And Isaac’d be happy if he never saw one ever again.

Perhapswith a single exception.

He had lostcount of the times he’d changed the position of the pillows on the sofa, as ifthat would change anything at all. On the television a rather impressive pileof DVDs gave the impression of being about to fall every two seconds, so theformer Kraken would run there to steady it, even if it hadn’t moved in the lastthree days or so- Why was he so nervous? It was nothing… No, it’d be a lie ifhe said it wasn’t anything special, because to him, it was the moment he waitedfor almost four months. An eternity, a lifetime. Isaac was surprised to seethat the floor wasn’t ruined by his constant walking back and forth.

Just as hewas about to give up and sit down on the sofa (with incredible high chances ofhim passing out on it), the former Marina heard a knocking on his door that hadthe same effect of an electrocution on his body: he jumped up and forward,falling on the floor with a surprisingly soft ‘thump’ before scrambling backonto his feet. How embarrassing- If Camus, or even worse, Hyoga saw him actinglike that, he’d never hear the end of it. But would it be so bad, if thathappened? When he opened the door, howling wind entered the tiny Isba, but withit came an incredibly familiar scent of- Almonds? He couldn’t tell for sure,but he was absolutely certain that the one on his face was a ridiculous smile,one of those that he tried to hide his whole life.

“I am sosorry I am late, but the man at the village wouldn’t let me leave! He saidsomething about not being properly dressed, but I told him I was very wellaware of where I was going, but he-“ The young man was abruptly interrupted bya sudden hug that made his face meet a surprisingly soft shirt and he couldswear that barely beneath the howling of the wind, he had heard Isaac saysomething. “I couldn’t quite catch that, Isaac.” Speaking against someone’schest wasn’t as easy as romantic comedies made it look like, but Shun sincerelyjust felt like laughing at that sudden and so uncharacteristically…Emotionalgesture. Now, if his arms were any more free, he’d be able to hug back, but theformer Marinaseemed absolutely uninterested in the notion of letting go. “Can you repeatwhat you said? It was a little too quiet.” At that, he felt the hold around himloosen up a little, to the point that the Saint got worried about having saidsomething wrong- At least, wrong enough to make Isaac want to let go.

Before hecould even start apologising (Seiya would mock him so, so much because of hisinfamous ‘Sorry I am so sorry mantra’, asking him if Shaka had taught himthat.) the Kraken’s surprisingly warm hands were on his cheeks (which, in turn,became considerably warmer too) and when he looked up, he met a yet anothersmile. But this one was so… So warm?

Kardia loved fighting and that much was known: in the heat of the battle, his own monstruous heat wouldn’t be counted as an illness, as a weakness, rather as a terrible weapon to be reckoned with. It made every needle heavier, more painful to bear and he felt no pity in seeing his enemies writhe in agony on the ground as he slowly completed his job, recreating the whole constellation of the Scorpio on the poor guy’s body, who only had some minutes of life left, minutes in which he’d feel nothing but pain- Quite the way to go, or so the Saint thought.

That was the moment in which he felt a ever so familiar explosion of Cosmo coming from not too far away and he knew that he’d have to wait about ten minutes or so before he arrived: it was the usual procedure for them, they had come up with it when they decided to try and be a team- Something not quite so obvious when your two powers clashed so majestically and not in the useful way. But they had found the right method to handle the situation and Kardia sincerely deemed himself happy, even if his heart was starting to give the usual signs of strain- That battle had went on for too long, he’d have to train some more.

The Scorpio sat down on the ruined soil, breathing slowly to try and steady his wild heartbeat as he observed the ominous red cloud hover over the battlefield, only to suddenly come pouring down like blood rain. Even from that distance, Kardia could hear the pained cries of those poor fools who thought attacking one of the Saints outposts had been a good idea. Well, now they had been dealt with swiftly and without further problems, so reporting to the Pope would be easier than the usual, for once.

Kardia could feel his grin grow wider as he saw his ever so unfazed partner walking towards him with his cape torn and hair disheleved because of the battle- To the Scorpio, he simply looked even more intimidating like that. And all the more beautiful, but that went without saying.

Albafica sat down next to him with a sigh and that was when Kardia noticed that the Pisces Saint had used pieces of cape to bandage the bloody wounds he had to use for his ever so ominous signature attack- The one without roses, of course. The Scorpio laid down on the soil, finding that the position somehow helped him relax further- Unfortunately the cloudy sky wasn’t so much of a sight to see. “...It went well, didn’t it? More than that usual.” During previous missions, they had risked too much and their powers clashed without them meaning to, causing more damage than anything else. “I’d say this new method works well. I take a side, you take the other and we deal with them separetely.”

It appeared as the Pisces Saint wasn’t into much of a talkative mood, but that happened often- Luckily enough, even from his position, Kardia could see him slowly nodding. Slowly, the Scorpio raised his left hand and patted his fellow Saint’s leg in a somehow soothing gesture, one that was answered in a rather surpising manner. Albafica turned around to look at him with a serious expression at first, one that slowly softened into a considerably more endearing soft smile. “...I’d say we did an amazing job.” He leaned forward, pressing a slow kiss on his lips, one that made Kardia smile even broader.