#phminibang25

     “Kieran.”

     Ugh, no. Not her. Not now. His monsters lamented the viper’s presence, scorned by her newfound power to pull him from their clutches. Her cold voice was familiar, light steps intentionally heavier to bring him back to the surface.

     “Yes, Bella, I’m here. I’m… I’m here.” 

     Her frigid hands managed to freeze him through his clothes, but it was a welcome frost compared to the boiling. 

     “You’re here for a reason, Flower Boy. If I had to do this shit so do you.” She flashed him that sharp grin and held up her banded left hand. It was this, her casual calmness in the face of his common storm that finally grounded him. For it reminded him of why he was here in the first place. Who he was here for…

     “Ah yes, a normal stipulation of friendship; exchanged suffering.” It felt good to smile, even if it was small and sarcastic. Bella sat herself up on the bathroom counter, kicking her feet at the perfect angle to bump his leg without risking dirtying his dress pants.

     “How else would the universe keep us in check, Kieran?”

     “I think it sent us the women of our dreams and made us work to keep them.”

     Her laugh, though wry, was comforting. “Cheers to that, I suppose.”

     They shrugged together, and Kieran actually felt some of his nerves fall back. The suit jacket was less suffocating. Breathing came easier, not some grating battle to force air into his lungs.

     “You ready to face the music, K?”

     He heaved a final sigh, mustered a more relaxed smile, and nodded his stiff neck. “As ready as I can be…” His old friend hopped down with a hummed giggle, clearly excited to watch her companion’s wedding despite her teasing. Bella straightened his tie, then brushed away imaginary dust to make him as presentable as humanly possible.

     He was ready. He was ready for this. Otherwise, life wouldn’t have put him here yet. Bella was right in that.

     Just as he accepted his place, a rambunctious blunette burst through the door. Her white suit was marred with dirt and blood dripping from her temple, hair loose from its small bun. The expression on her face rivaled the hopelessness Kieran himself bore mere moments ago.

     He lost sound again, every sense going dull in a haze of something. A monstrous cacophony he couldn’t decipher even after so many years together. All he knew was the singular, heart stopping phrase Kym had panted out as the last thing he heard.

     “They took her- Lauren-“

     A blur of pink caught the collapsing officer before she could hit the floor. Kieran was gone in a matter of milliseconds. Tearing through Sinclair Manor, crashing into his soon-to-be in-laws. It didn’t matter where he was going, just that he moved. The air in his body vibrated with a rage he hadn’t felt since the collapse of his old captors.

     He nearly ripped the back doors off their hinges. White, blue, gold and black greeted him. A beautiful venue he’d agonized over for weeks. Every detail, every hyacinth and daisy and rose carefully picked from a combination of nurseries solely for her.

     It was too much. Too many colors. Too many sounds. Too bright compared to the void consuming his vision.

The days were worse when it rained. Not that it ever was, by any means, good; but misery hung lower than ever. The cold that seeped inside the bones, the grimy water that soaked through even the best boots, the sight of hungry children in rags, huddled together under any surface that could keep even a singular drop of water from falling onto their bodies…

It never got easier walking through the streets of Greychapel. And definitely not when the only reason why he wasn't among those kids was a wild, humiliating twist of luck. One that, if he could, he would happily throw away and leave behind…if only he could.

Instead of throwing it away or leaving it behind, however, he was actively walking towards Greychapel's famous cathedral - or perhaps infamous, after his own past deeds - where the messenger awaited him.

Before he knew it, he was standing in front of the heavy wooden door. It creaked as he pushed it and was met with the familiar sight that haunted his every day:

Through the stained glass of the high windows, rained in the dim light of the gray, rainy day. A puddle of water had formed under the hole in the roof, where new raindrops fell with a rhythm that echoed between the pillars and walls. And above all, hung a chandelier.

What would it be like to walk past the church, without memories of nightmares and waking horrors all flooding one's senses, what was it like to see the weathered building as a holy place of worship, one to long for, one to seek refuge in, to whisper silent please of deserved forgiveness for human mistakes; he wondered. He could only wonder, as the place was but one to dread, for him, one to avoid on his daily path, to hold his breath as he walked by, to stay alert and ready to defend as he walked in. The scenery but a grim reminder of his misery, one he'd brought upon himself, the architecture standing heavy with ghosts of his past, his spoken plea of forgiveness only a code - “forgive me father for I have sinned”, a mark that he was who the messenger was there to hear. And his silent plea of forgiveness…undeserved.

Day after day, murder after murder, his purple hyacinths lost their initial meaning, their purpose, getting closer and closer to the mask he'd assigned them: a threat to those who stood under the flag that bore the same flower.

Just as everyday, he got closer and closer to the monster he was afraid of becoming.

On his way, was the statue of the Mother and the Child, covered in vines and lichen, weathered by the salty breeze that flew in from the river. And at last came the confessional. Meant for confessing to sins you regretted, to vow you'd never commit them again, used to announce victory in missions of death and destruction, to receive new ones, to pile corpse upon corpse, a trophy of blood.

He cleared his throat before pulling aside the curtain, sat on the wooden bench and steadied his shaking soul with a sigh.

Huddled against the icy cold and bitter wind, Lauren glanced up toward the train tracks. There was a part of her that hadn’t expected to hear from him again, a part of her that had moved on and dived with complete focus into her work. It had helped her forget about it all… to an extent, and the distraction was most welcome.

In the past five years, Lauren had climbed her way up to head detective now - a job that she took with the utmost sincerity, especially knowing how hard she'd had to work to get back onto Hermann’s good side. Case after case. She’d solved them meticulously and thoroughly while learning how to rely on clues aside from just the lies. If the Phantom Scythe had taught her anything, it was that hearing a lie could not tell her the truth of the matter, and in many cases, it may not even give her the full picture of what wasn’t true. 

So she’d take it as an inkling of a clue, and investigate around her until she found enough evidence to back up her claims regardless of if she could get a confession. Though it usually wasn’t hard with a few pointed questions once the facts were laid out in front of the suspects.

In the midst of one of her most difficult cases to date - aside from the Phantom Scythe - Lauren had received a letter. One in which a certain man stated that he was returning to Ardhalis in the coming months. Kieran had let her know the date and the time that the train would be arriving, and Lauren, unable to sleep the night before, had gotten to the platform nearly an hour early.

She regretted her impatience now, as the day was cold even by Ardhalis’s standards. With the next gust of wind, Lauren brought her hands to her lips to blow warm air onto them. Her eyes drifted to the clock. It should have arrived by now. Should she go inside of the station to at least get out of the wind? Logic told her yes, but despite that, her feet remained firmly routed to the platform. Perhaps she was too cold even to move at this point. 

A shiver traveled through Lauren’s spine, but on the next gust, she heard a faint whistling of a train engine. Bringing her head up, she sought for the locomotive on the horizon. In the end, she felt the rumbling of vibrations through her feet before she actually caught sight of the black ironed engine that led the cars behind it. The blowing of the whistle sounded again, this time loud enough to make her ears ache, but her focus was fastened to the windows of the cars as they passed slowly by where she stood, looking for striking turquoise eyes and black hair from somewhere within. 

With a light screech, the train finally halted, and the people poured off. From the southern regions, they were clearly unprepared for the bitter chill, and many of the passengers visibly shivered and jumped when the cold air met their lightly clothed bodies. 

In an ironic twist, it was the thick coat - so unlike everyone else that had gotten off - that Lauren’s eyes found first. Only after she’d examined the black wool did her eyes travel upward to find those familiar blue eyes. Lauren’s breath caught in her throat as she felt the world around her shift oddly in the moment that he, too, caught her gaze. The distance of the platform in that heartbeat was both astronomical and non-existent. 

“Kieran…” With his name, Lauren’s body began to thaw, and her feet which had previously been frozen to the earth beneath her finally moved. It was slow at first, but she worked her way into a sprint as she covered ground. Her shawl fell from her shoulders as she picked up speed, but Lauren hardly noticed. The chill in her bones was gone, her focus all dedicated to the one man before her. Her partner. 

She opened her arms and embraced him in one smooth motion, and felt the rumble of a laugh in Kieran’s chest as he returned the gesture. 

“Did you miss me, Detective?” he teased, tilting his head as he cast a lopsided grin back down at her. 

“Don’t pretend it’s one sided, Subordinate.”