#calworks

Dante is putting her clothes into the closet when the door creaks open. It's late, but not quite curfew, which is why she's alone. But it is not Beatrice that enters the room like she thought it'd be– out of the corner of her eye, she sees Gal stop in the doorway.

He stares, still and silent, fingers white as he grips the door. “Are we girlfriends?”

Dante blinks, taken off guard. She shifts on her feet, goes to answer– but finds herself pausing. “...What?”

“Girlfriends,” Gal repeats. He's looking straight at her, face entirely serious. “Are we?”

“Um.” She feels her cheeks blush and there's a question on her mind; do you wants us to be? But that's not the only thing she should be concerned about. “You're a… boy.”

Gal straightens out in the doorway. “Do you think I'm a boy?”

Dante looks. She looks at the skirt he's wearing– the very same he took out of her closet four days ago. She thinks about the makeup products in his room. She thinks about Henri calling Gal his sister. She thinks and she remembers and gapes. “Oh. Are you not?”

“I'm not today.”

Dante closes her mouth. She nods. “Okay. We… Yes. We can be girlfriends.” She reaches up, twirling the first strand of hair she touches. “If you want to?”

Gal stares at her. He takes a step into the room. And then another. The door is left open and he's stepping closer, and when he stops right in front of her, Dante blushes.

“Yes. I want to be your girlfriend.” He says, voice quiet. He leans in. Presses a kiss to Dante's cheek.

Dante swallows. She nods, smiles, and licks her lips. “I'd like that. I like that.”

Gal smiles at her. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Dante repeats, feeling faint.

Gal stares at her face for a moment longer and turns sharp on his heel. Dante watches him take a step and only when he reaches the door, she blurts out a “Wait!”

Gal stops. Dante bites her lip. “Are you still… Gal?” She cringes. “I mean– you are, it's just– do you want me to call you a… different name or something? Pronouns?”

There's a pause. Gal stays silent. “I'm a girl now. Ask me tomorrow and maybe I won't be. I don't know.”

Dante considers. Cool. “Okay. I will.”

“You say that a lot.”

“...I mean it a lot.”

Gal smiles. He– she blows a kiss and is out of sight in a split second. Dante stares at the still open door for a long moment before going back to putting her shirt onto the correct shelf without a word. There is a smile on her face and a warmth deep in her chest.

Joui tries not to be too distracted. The cellphone weighs impossibly much in his pocket, and there's some impulse, some voice in his head telling him to check it. He doesn't need notifications to know Arthur is texting him yet again– they always do this. Joui will answer their text for the first time in weeks, and he and Kaiser will start asking questions and for him to visit and it's… it's understandable, obviously. It's also very good at making Joui feel guilty, because he knows he can't do that.

He's just– busy. He is. With his own private life and Liz going off on her own, and him having to make sure she's still okay, and trying to better his bow skills, and keeping up with his gym; it's a lot, so it's understandable he can't see his friends that often anymore, or that he can't text them back. It's… understandable. Yes. It is.

Joui sits on the rooftop of a building. He fights the part of him that wants to get his phone and talk to someone he loves; he's watching over someone else he loves right now. It could take just a second for something to happen; just one second for him to miss something important.

But… Well. It has been 3 hours since Liz has entered the building. Her curtains are pulled shut, but the building isn't known for being high quality, so he can see her figure through them nonetheless– just a blurry shadow. She's been sitting down this whole time, taking a moment to drink… something every once in a while– Joui has been here long enough to know she will not be getting up for a while. And that she will not answer his texts. With nothing more than a “I'm fine, don't worry about me” anyways.

(...Maybe Arthur and Kaiser were right with that one. He'd prefer if Liz was answering his texts, so… he can imagine how it feels. The thought makes him wince; guilt, guilt and more guilt piling up inside him. He pushes it as far away as he can.)

Liz won't be coming out for at least a day. Well. A couple of days, most likely. So…

The phone seems so heavy in his pocket.

Joui swallows. Huffs. He keeps looking at the building in front of him, maybe in some form of spite. It's more like a failed attempt, in the end. He eases from his crouch into an actual sit just a mere minute later– gets his phone out of his pocket and stares.

As expected, the messages from earlier fill up the screen, words and questions and “It's okay if you don't want to talk,” and so much more he can't see now.

He grimaces and shakes out any new guilt from his body. Takes a breath. It's fine. They'll understand.

He clicks onto the groupchat, only slightly nervous. His “Yes, I'm doing okay, promise I'll say more soon” is not visible at first– Joui scrolls up, reading the messages as he goes. At some point, the questions and the worry turned into Kaiser and Arthur texting by themselves. Which… makes sense. Still, something in his chest tightens as he reads the casual, domestic "you should give jennifer a bath soon” and “come into my room rn” and… “we can play cards in a sec if you want to. JOUIi, you're invited too, if you want to you know we miss u man”

Joui stares at that last one for a minute longer. Sent just 40 minutes ago. He… His grip on the phone tightens a bit.

They still think of him. Of course they do. It makes sense. It also makes something burn in his chest.

3 dots show up in the corner of his eye– Kaiser typing something in the chat. Joui is gripped with something, some stupid feeling of being caught; he still does not know how to turn off his online status. Like a kid getting noticed by his mom with a hand in a cookie jar; it is unfamiliar to Joui in this specific way, yet something he can identify so quickly, making him sick. Is it shame? Is that it?

Kaiser types for a moment. And then he stops. No message goes through.

There is something in that. Maybe it's some form of acceptance, or maybe giving up on him– Joui isn't sure he even wants to know. But that's something. And that something…

He looks at the messages higher up again. They miss him. He knows that. He misses them, as well. It's been so many days now, of not talking with a person he cares about, days he wakes and goes to sleep without even cracking a smile, days where he feels so cold to the world. He misses his friends. He…

He glances up, back at Liz's new apartment. Nothing has happened. Nothing has changed. It probably won't for many hours from now. So… Maybe…

Joui… clicks on the keyboard. He pauses and holds his fingers over the letters, uncertain– this is a bad idea, he knows. It's also just one night, at best. It's… something he wants. Something he wants so badly.

He swallows and writes out a sentence, slowly. Backtracks. He turns his phone off. He… Fuck. He's worried about Liz, but his friends are worried about him– to Joui, it's an easy choice to say who is more important. It's just been such a long time. And he… admittedly, does miss Arthur wriggling into his private space all the time. He misses Arthur, and he misses Kaiser, and he even misses Ivete. It is empty, and it is cold and he is alone a lot now. It's nothing new to him, of course it isn't, but…

It's harder now. After seeing what he could have. What he can have. It's still here. He just has to reach out.

He knows that.

He stares at Liz's window. He already messaged her twice today. She has not replied to either of the texts and it doesn't look like she will, at least not tonight.

…Joui picks his phone back up. Slowly, he writes. His fingers don't shake, and he breathes, and it's fine.

“I'm free today. I can come over now?”

If you'll have me. Because, really, he could just stay out here, alone, instead and–

“you're always welcome joui yk you don't have to ask”

The answer is immediate. No less than 10 seconds later and Arthur enters the chat, too—affirmations and yes, obviously you can come– They want him there, Joui thinks to himself, so very quietly. Still. Even after this all. They want him with them. They want him.

Something in his chest releases, tension easing out of his shoulders. Joui feels a smile stretch out on his face, as small as it is– the first one in days.

And so…

Well. Even if he wanted to not go, at this point Arthur would only get more persistent. So, really, he has no other choice, does he?

Liz can…

He bites his lip and raises his gaze once more.

Liz can stay safe for one night, surely. It's… fine. It's fine.

He shoots one more message, an “I'm on my way” and makes sure he has all his things. The bow, his katana in place, the water bottle– he should maybe make a stop at his apartment before anything, but… Arthur and Kaiser won't mind. They can lend him some clothes for today, anyway.

Adamczycha is not the worst place to live, Arthur supposes. He worked in worse conditions, and even if he'd like to be on the other side of the village… It always could be worse. Arthur doesn't have wishes. He can't. So, it's fine.

Surprisingly, the mornings are not the worst part of the day. It's more cold than usual and getting out into the field is always followed by soreness and the freezing wind and working, but Lord Kian is not awake in the mornings. That's what makes it bearable.

The people are starting to get used to his presence, too; while they don't smile, they make eye contact and at least acknowledge him. At breakfast, Paweł (the man giving out the breakfast whom he only met 5 days ago) gave him the usual ration. Not less. It's good here.

Being the blacksmith's helper is nice, too; it gets hot and the hardship of banging on metal all the time is not easy, but he is only an assistant. It is no surprise that he gets told to relay information to people all around the village and has to do little jobs here and there.

He's good at it. It's going well for him, so far. No reason to complain, and even if there were, he wouldn't.

It’s neither morning nor the time of absence of Lord Kian when he walks to the geese feeding area– someone has to feed the horses and he should probably not be in there by himself. Someone else can do that job.

Lord Kian laughs in the distance as he walks; a now familiar “Chop, chop, chop!” following close behind, rushing him. Arthur ignores it as best as he can and focuses on the people in front of him instead. Half consciously, though, he speeds up.

“Hey. Hey, you,” he says, himself not knowing to who yet. The geese aren't being too troublesome today, so he allows himself to walk a bit closer.

One of the men turns around to face him, grain still in hand. There's a shadow of something in his expression, but it quickly gets overtaken by a neutral face that nods in acknowledgement.

“The horses need to be fed. Can you do it?”

“...Just in a minute, when I'm done here,” the man nods again and throws the grain onto the dirt– the geese similarly throw themselves at it.

Arthur frowns; “You should probably do it now. Poor things are hungry, you know?”

The man pauses and turns to stare at him. He blinks, a mix of the confusion and amusement showing again, this time more stronger.

…There is something about that face. Light blonde strands of hair fall onto his face and the cheeks are not so rosy as they normally are in everyone else who work all day in the cold, and he's pale. Beautiful, surely, familiar also, but…

“Dante!” Lord Kian shouts from where he's sitting; way closer than Arthur thought. There's still an apple in his hand and food being chewed in his mouth when he speaks. “How many times have I told you? Nobles don't work!”

…Dante. He knows that name. The youngest of the sons. Only– Lord Kian is staring at him while he speaks.

There's a quiet scoff behind him. Arthur… Arthur turns around once more to face the man he just told to feed the horses. He turns to face Dante. The noble.

…He has been here for less than a week. Nobody important checks in at the blacksmith and so far he hasn't caused any trouble enough to guarantee a punishment– now, his stomach twists. It is possibly the biggest insult he could offer, to not only confuse a noble with a peasant, but to so informally order them to work.

Dante smiles in response. He stares him deep into the eyes and oh Arthur's about to fall to his knees. “Well. I better go feed those horses. I'm sure they are hungry.”

-

It stares back. It stares back. It barks and growls and she– she doesn't want to die. But they're here and the dogs are covered in blood and they only ever laugh and she doesn't want to see, she doesn't want to watch– the fangs pierce the skin and there's blood; so much blood, so much pain, so much screaming. She doesn't want to watch. She has to. She doesn't want to die. They'll hurt her if she stops. The man on the floor (bloody and hurt in a way Agatha isn't used to yet, not yet) reaches his hand out for her. One of the dogs bites couple of his fingers off. It growls. She can't stop shaking. It turns to stare at her. It lunges. Agatha screams. It doesn't matter that it jumps at something- someone behind her, because it still hurts, it hurts and all there is is the blood and the darkness and the laughter in the distance. Eyes on her.

There's guts and blood and meat and blood and muscle and Blood and screaming. She doesn't want to die. She doesn't want to die. It splatters on her face. Her hands are sticky with blood. Is it hers? It is not? Does it matter? Red is on the floor and organs are falling into it– her own insides twist and fuck, God, she doesn't want to die here. She doesn't want the pain. The fear.

Hands reach for her. Someone reaches for her. She doesn't want to die. She knows what she has to do. There's nothing here for her. Just her teeth and her hands and the knowledge– she has killed before. She has hurt before. She knows how to do it. There's a knife in her hand. It's sharp and efficient and hers and she knows it's good. She knows exactly how much it hurts. And fuck, will she make it hurt.

The dog launches. The bald guy with the dull knife reaches out. The girl with– A girl with pink hair… An angry dog barks. It's going to kill her. She will die if she doesn't kill it first. She bares her teeth– grips her knife– knife? There's no knives for her here– She doesn't want to die. She won't let them kill her. She can't. (Don't, don't, please– Please don't touch me, please, please, leave me alone–)

“Don't fucking touch me!” She snarls and screams and stabs. She doesn't want the pain. She doesn't want to die. The girl– A girl– The hands leave and nobody is near; there's a scream and then not– good, good, they're dead and nobody can hurt her anymore, it's fine, it's… It's not fine. She needs to get out, she needs to get away from this fucking place and the fucking–

A dog whines. It's just her and the dying dog (can't hurt her, it's hurt, it can't hurt her now) and the fast beating of her heart and the heavy breathing. She coughs and tries to inhale and just coughs more. But she's fine. Not dead yet. Fuck. Fuck. Her hands are— they're…

She can feel the blood, feel it under her nails, drying on her skin and turning sticky and… her hands are not red. It doesn't… She…

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She doesn't– she can't…

It's bright. It's never bright in the cells. There's no shadows hovering over her. There's never not a shadow hovering over her at school. She…

“Mia. You go. Take Lupi with you.”

…no. What?

It's the fucking old guy that– oh God. She's going to die. She's going to die. She doesn't want to die. Please. Please, I don't want to die, please– Don't hurt me, go away, please, go away– Fucking leave me alone! Don't touch me, don't come closer!

She grips the knife in her hand. She… doesn't know. Something trickles down her arm. She can't die here. She can't. But all she has is her teeth– her knife. That won't do anything against a guy with a fucking sword. She's going to die.

I'm going to kill you. I will. Don't fucking come closer or I swear–

She wheezes. There's no fucking air, she can't fucking breathe– God, she doesn't want to die. Please. Please.

Dante doesn't like the bedrooms. Or the “living room”, or the kitchen, or the outside. Or maybe he just doesn't like anything at all about the orphanage- that'd make more sense to say, wouldn't it?

Gal doesn't seem to share the same sentiment. He likes to explore and wander around– when Dante is stuck in his room or too afraid to come out, there's always a migraine soon to follow; Gal doesn't like being limited, yet they're stuck together anyway. He gets angry sometimes. A lot of those times, it just makes Dante stay in his room longer; the doctors are concerned about the random bloody noses.

Today, though, Gal wants to go outside.

It's cold and windy and there's even snow and Dante really doesn't want to go out, but he's sick of headaches and feeling dizzy, so he follows the nuges anyway.

Cold means getting sick, and getting sick means dying, so Dante makes sure to cover himself up as best as he can to keep his body the most warm it can be. A hat, two pairs of socks, two too-small pants under a jumpsuit and a big, warm hoodie on top of his shirts. He ties a scarf on top of his neck warmer and puts on the gloves Beatrice lent to him.

A demanding pull is accompanying him the entire time as he dresses; Dante doesn't blame it. Gal can't feel cold or get sick, after all; he doesn't understand why Dante has to do this instead of just walking out as he is.

But that's fine. All he whispers is a; “Sorry, just a little longer– have some patience” into the air and tries to tie his shoes faster.

Sneaking through the orphanage is easy. It's not as much as sneaking, even, just simple walking and paying some extra attention into not slamming the doors. The Nuns are still busy after the last time Gal was playing with the lights; the generator was… something happened to it. It didn't blow up, he doesn't think, but anything can happen, so he wouldn't be surprised even if that were true.

The doors are locked sharp at 6 PM, but there's no reason to worry about that. They shouldn't be out that long– even if they were, Gal can easily open either the doors or the window of his room.

“We can't go too far, Gal,” he murmurs quietly as he closes the main door behind him. The wind picks up at his words; Dante scowls. “We can't. Someone will notice if we're not back when it gets dark, and that's what's going to happen if we get lost in the woods again.”

He pauses for a moment and Gal presses against it in displeasure; a pressure in his head and a sensation on his skin that he's already too used to to call it uncomfortable.

“‘m going.”

And he does.

Strangely, Gal pushes him in the direction of the playground. Usually, he wants to go into the forest to look at all the animals and insects and wander around the trees, but it seems… not today. Dante has no objections about that (he hates the bugs; especially more when Gal tries to throw them into his face, and he's steadily getting better with his aim) so he follows without a word, shoes crushing the snow beneath his feet with a satisfying noise.

There, in the middle of the playground, is a swing. Dante stops and stares. There's nobody on it.

(He loves that swing. It's the best thing in the whole orphanage– in the whole world. He can't play on it, like, ever cause when he's allowed outside someone will always already be on it, and they don't ever let him play. But he observes it from his window sometimes; the playground is visible from inside, and Bea likes to draw him swinging on it, so it's not… that big of a deal.)

Gal nudges him again. Go, go, what are you waiting for?

Dante… slowly walks closer. As he does, the swing starts swinging, but he knows it's not because of the wind.

“Oh.”

Pressure again– Gal twirls around him, excited at the realisation.

“You want to push me?” Slowly, despite the weather, despite knowing he's still probably going to get in trouble for sneaking out, despite everything, Dante smiles.

The swing seems to explode up; it almost touches the metal pipe that holds it up, and immediately goes down with a loud noise as the chains hit each other.

“Gal! Quiet!” And yet he cannot stop a giggle from escaping– Gal wanted to swing with him? And he's this excited about it?

He jogs the rest of the way and practically jumps onto the swing. Carefully wraps his gloved hands around the chains; he doesn't want to get bacteria on his hands. It'd take just one move for him to touch his face and then they'd get onto his whole body and then inside and he'd die.

Gal stays still as he prepares himself; he knows that this is important, at least. The moment Dante raises his head, though, the swing immediately starts rocking to the sides. Gentle and yet uncontrollable.

“Okay. But you have to be careful! I don't want to go that high. And don't make me fall either!”

Gal flickers like a fire about to be extinguished; probably offended at the thought.

Dante just smiles and hides his face in the scarf. “Okay, okay! Sorry. You can start now.”

Not unlike before, the swing moves suddenly, but it is slower and not as violent. Forwards and backwards, up and down and up, and Dante stays grinning, even despite his stomach dropping with each swing.

Again and again, even Gal seems to laugh.

---

In retrospect, maybe working for the Order did give him something good. No matter how it came along… a reason to live; some task he has to do before he dies is what he was looking for.

…technically. Relatively.

It… maybe was?

But in his defense, there really isn't a lot an orphan with nothing to his name can do after being kicked out of a place he once called home on the day of his 18th birthday.

Johnny was good in the Order. Not perfect (oh, he was far from that) and not the best and a lot of times more of a burden and an annoyance than not, but… He did his job. He saved some people. Pushed some civilians out of harm's way.

He just wasn't good enough. He understands that. He knows that was always how it was going to end. Too much blood on his hands, too much stupid things he said without thinking, too much impulsive decisions, too little work done correctly.

He's just surprised they only moved him to do undercover work.

He should be dead. Or fired. Or… whatever the Order does with their ex employees.

Instead, he's sitting in an apartment (a nice, warm place without any mold- maybe it shouldn't be as surprising as it is, but Johnny still dreams of a room too small, filled to the brim with little kids sleeping all around him; so overwhelmingly hot yet so cold, with the cold breezes of wind coming in from windows that could never truly close) on a bed, in a room that's his.

It's still weird to think about. Naluti is still cooped up in his own room (two whole rooms are inside the apartment!); even when Johnny was cooking dinner, he didn't come out. Just murmured something from behind his door that Johnny took as a “I'll make my own food later".

That's whatever. It's not like he cares about the guy. They just have to work together. Just like he did before with every other person in the Order.

…and yet.

On the laptop open in front of him is a tutorial on how to make a flamingo in origami. Around him are countless other origamis; unfinished works that he deemed unsalvageable and paper cranes and butterflies and fortune tellers…

Is it embarrassing? He doesn't know. It probably is.

His hands shake and he knows… Ruben? his housemate doesn't like it when he keeps his hands occupied with a gun, and all online articles say to do something repetitive and calming and how hard folding paper can really be?

…it is a little bit.

Most of the papers around him are not in his hands because he messed up with them.

But he'll be damned if this flamingo doesn't come out perfect. He's been rewatching the tutorial for hours and the pink scraps of paper on the floor are telling just how long he's been on it.

…maybe he could give it to Rubens (Natuli /Rubens,/ that's the name, he /knew/ he could remember it) when he's done. No point keeping all of this to himself, right?

---

^ (inspired by me getting into origami again... id like to think he'd enjoy it and maybe do some with rubens when they'd get closer.... they're just sooo)

----

and have a littleee piece of the wip of arthur now; it's an au where gal is imprisoned in the order but shrinks into a child instead (simply because i like time stuff) and one of the things im very 💥💥💥💥 about

---

There's now a commotion behind him- someone screams something, someone runs out of the room, someone does something, someone, someone…

Arthur does not pay attention to it. He drops to the ground and with wide eyes (where, where, where-) looks.

…Under the bed is a child. It's a small child, chest heaving with sobs while trying to make themselves as tiny as possible. They're bleeding, covered in bruises, and-

Oh God.

And then- hands on Arthur's shoulders, pulling him away; screaming again, so much screaming-

There is a child on the floor, crying and trying to hide away, they're hurt and- he needs to help, why are people pulling him away, this isn't right, this isn't-

“Stop! Stop, stop, wait-!” He screams- sees the child flinch, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, just wait-

It's Dante. Of course it's Dante. Gray hands dig into his skin, dragging him up and away- “Arthur! What's going on?!”

But he cannot answer, he can't- this kid needs him, why are they hurt, why are they here-

Somewhere further away, someone shouts. “Where is he?!”

Footsteps on the floor; running… That's Joui, Arthur knows Joui…

And there's a gun- there's a lot of guns, a lot of weapons-

“Stop! Just stop! Be quiet!”

They do- at least enough for Arthur to think, even through the fast breathing (just Dante, he can always recognise Dante…) in his ear.

He shrugs out of Dante's grip, crouches down again, ignores Joui- he's so angry, so, so angry again…

“Hey, hi,” he half whispers, half saps out. Kids. He knows how to deal with kids. Kids are easy. “I'm sorry, everyone here is very loud, huh? You're okay, nobody is going to hurt you…”

The kid looks at him; teary eyes, bloody nose, biting their hand to keep quiet…

Joui crouches down next to him. He takes in the sight and glances at Arthur with wide eyes. “Arthur.”