V had experience herding drunkards. A shockingly large amount of experience.
Despite being part of one of the most notoriously party heavy units during the war—something they had deserved, their unit a constant march of death and innovation that saved lives at the cost of them—he really hadn’t partied himself. Sure, there had been times when he’d shown up to one of [Pick a Name!!!]’s shows, nursing a drink as he watched his teammates drink themselves into a stupor, awkwardly bobbing along to the beat of the eclectic songs. Somewhere along the lines, however, he had assigned himself the job of making sure his teammates didn’t get into too much trouble while wasted.
This had involved tossing them into their beds, for the most part. Some had gone willingly, but more often than not, they’d put up a bit of a fight. While he had often been known as the softest spoken, politest member of their unit, in those moments, confronted by a drunk that he at least passingly cared for the well-being of, he had become the person he was today, decades later.
Strong, unbendable, throwing men twice his size over his shoulder and carting them off to their beds.
Perhaps that didn’t count as herding so much as kidnapping with good intentions. That experience also wasn’t really going to do him any good at the moment: this younger, more belligerent version of Emilia definitely would have complained if he tossed her over his shoulder—would perhaps even complain if he hoisted her into his arms—but the experience he had herding the more amenable members of their team was coming in handy.
Fortunately, his former teammates—yes, he thought of them as his former teammates despite knowing full well that their unit was still technically active, a nice paydrop appearing in the account he refused to use, lest his parents track him down, every month—had never been particularly violent. This Emilia was very violent. She hadn’t thrown any skills at him, but she had bitten his forearm. Hard.
V couldn’t decide if it was a good or bad thing that she was either too drunk or too knotted up to either slide or spark, but it did mean she couldn’t get away from him, no matter how hard she seemed to be trying.
“Fuck. Off,” she hissed, wobbling and making him extremely nervous that she would trip and go splat over the disgusting street.
Logically, he knew this Emilia wasn’t the real one, except… maybe she was. Emilia had left a piece of herself, both inside him and the training system as a whole. She was also just straight up inside the raid. This wasn’t her, and yet it could be her. It could be a memory, a fabrication of the system, or a dream she was also living at this very moment.
V had no idea, but it locked him to her. He couldn’t leave any version of Emilia to fend for herself, even when she was spitting insults under her breath—although they sounded half-hearted—and definitely didn’t want him there.
On the plus side, her shorts were tiny, her ass hanging half out, and well… V really liked her ass. He’d spent many years avoiding looking at it, back when they’d been teammates—when he’d had to worry her psychotic ex would catch him looking and threaten him, as he had Olivier and Rafe and even Helix, although V was pretty sure Helix was 100% not interested. Now, there was no reason not to look, whatever version of Emilia this was wouldn’t care—and if she did, well, he’d know she wasn’t the real one.
“V…” she groaned, leaning against a grimy looking wall and staring despondently at a slide line.
“V?” he repeated, curious as to why she wasn’t using his real name.
Emilia glared back at her, light purple eyes glowing in the dim light. She frowned, confusion fighting with her blood alcohol levels. “Not supposed to know who you are,” she said, nodding to herself before clamping her eyes shut.
So, a version of Emilia who was at least passingly connected to the one currently within the raid. He hadn't known for sure that she’d figured out who he was, of course, but little slips the last night they’d spent together, her internal voice leaking out through her aethervoice, told him it was likely. It was cute, that she didn’t want to admit to herself who he was, the current version of her muttering about how it was supposed to be a surprise, for the Eve of the Astral Storm.
V almost pointed out to her that it was the Eve of the Astral Storm, but he didn’t. He didn’t want this Emilia’s reaction to who he was. He wanted the current one’s—he wanted his Emilia’s reaction.
Hopefully, the Emilia who showed up would be whole, her mind not burned away by this raid, and single. Did he know much about her current boyfriend, other than that Emilia didn’t think it something long-term? No, but he also knew Emilia had shitty taste in men.
Ironically, he included himself in that category. He was okay being kinda shitty, though, especially since he knew where and how he was shitty. You weren’t supposed to get into a relationship hoping to change your partner, but V wasn’t aware of anything saying you shouldn’t get into a relationship meaning to change yourself.
Regardless of his want to keep Emilia’s full set of emotion about his identity for the real world, V couldn’t resist poking. “A good surprise, I hope?”
Emilia wobbled as she gazed up at him, frowning. “When did you get so tall?”
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“The last few years of the war?” He’d had an abrupt growth spurt, years after was generally considered normal. He still wasn’t convinced someone hadn’t done something to encourage it along. What and who, he had no idea. But growing nearly a foot, when he had been well into his 40s, had been weird—most people stopped growing in their late-20s to early-30s.
The woman frowned up at him, eyes flickering and unfocused as she searched through her Censor. So wrong—Emilia had always been so smooth using her Censor, even when drunk. No one could tell when she was doing something with it. Fucking stars, he’d once seen her hack into military intelligence in the middle of a meeting while high as the sky, and no one had been the wiser.
What had happened? What had led to her becoming this beautiful disaster, so far from the perfect, broken person she had been in the last years of the war?
“It’s bad that I don’t remember,” she finally said, something sad entering her tone. “Sorry,” she added, hiccuping and V opened his own Censor, searching for somewhere he could get her water—or better yet, some remedy to sober her up. “It’s not you. It’s me. I’m…”
Emilia trailed off, losing herself in drunken thought and depression. V’s heart ached for her, for the sad woman she’d been in these years after the war—was she still this person? Sure, there had been moments during their time together where sad introspection had overtaken her, but for the most part, she’d been cheerfully broken. A little on edge, a little subdued, but most veterans were, at least at times. Even Helix, force of happiness and optimism that he had been since he exploded into their unit, had anger issues, if stories that came out of Hail were to be believed.
V definitely believed them. No one escaped the war without a few scars, not unless they were a full on sociopath, something even black knots weren’t, even if some people liked to argue they were close enough to apathetic monsters.
“I have issues remembering things, too,” V offered, taking Emilia’s surprise that he was still there as a chance to loop his arm around her waist and pull her close, taking the majority of her weight onto himself as he led them to the slide lines. “Although it’s more… I can remember every moment of the war in perfect clarity. It’s the stuff after that that fades away, especially the closer to the war it is.”
It had gotten better in the last few years, but he still struggled to remember things on occasion. There had, unfortunately, been a time when he hadn’t realized he was losing so much time; events and facts fading away under the stress of PTSD, childhood trauma, and a general lack of taking care of himself. Quite a few people had eventually lost patience with him, especially when he bit at anyone who accused him of not remembering things.
How could he not remember details of a friend’s sister’s death when he could remember the exact screams of a thousand people, dying because he had fucked up? How could he not remember that another friend’s bathroom was being renovated when he could still remember every scuff across the floor of their base at Alliance Ridge, even decades since it had been blown into the aether?
To say he’d been touchy when people accused him of not remembering anything was an understatement, and even now, he still found himself tensing up when he forgot things, his fists clenching and jaw tightening around frustration that his mind wouldn’t let the past go so he could live in the present.
“Where are we going?” Emilia mumbled as she accepted V’s slide along request, his Censor warning him to keep a hold of her, lest her drunk ass fall off.
Where were they going? V really wasn’t sure. He didn’t know how realistic this dream was—whether it was a made up moment, or something ripped from Emilia’s memory. If it was, she probably had a dorm and a roommate, who would take one look at him, with his filthy clothes, the bottoms still barring Emilia’s vomit, and throw him out.
Somewhere else, then.
Glancing at the location of several local stores that were still open and offering remedies to sober people up, V picked one in the underground—one that would hopefully care less about his appearance, and not question why a cute girl like Emilia was with a guy like him.
Ironically, if they’d both been dressed properly, he knew he’d appear the more civilized. A product of their upbringings and Emilia’s silverstrain: everyone would assume he was important, her some slut he’d picked up to have a little fun with.
The area they exited the slide lines at wasn’t one most people could find, but V had spent the last decade living inside blackaether raids and even if he’d never personally been to the Piketown underground, he knew where it was. In theory, like all undergrounds, it would be one of the most diverse areas of Piketown, filled with all sorts of people. Hopefully, that meant they’d be left to their own devices, or only bothered if someone in the know—usually gang members—didn’t recognize them. Most cities had an underground, though, and if you named a few people you knew in the Rosalia underground, someone would know someone and you’d be in.
Piketown’s underground was nearly empty, however. It only took a moment for V to realize why, glowing ads for parties hung across buildings or suspended by skills in the air, screaming at people in neon colours to attend raves at one club or another.
Luckily, the shop he’d been aiming for was actually open, and when he pushed his way in, Emilia lolling against his side and mumbling some mixture of angry thoughts this version of her would have had, had he dared to show up in her life half a dozen years ago, and snuggly thoughts the current version of her would have had, he was greeted by a familiar face that he definitely hadn’t been expecting to see.
“Alex.”
Alex glanced up at him, mouth open in a caught yawn. They looked good, like they were sleeping more than enough, despite the strange working hours. Still, it took his former teammate a long moment to even realize who they were looking at, their light-brown eyes blowing humorously large.
“Emilia! S—”
“SHHH!” Emilia hissed, bolting forward to smack a hand to Alex’s delicate mouth. “It’s a secret. He’s V! Oh… V…” She smiled back at Alex before bursting into a fit of giggles and sliding to the floor, Alex peering over the top of the counter to watch her curl into a ball of amusement.
“Is she okay?”
V… really wasn't sure. “I have no idea.”
Alex gave him an assessing look, eyes that had seen every inch of him in an ill-advised night of mutual need for comfort catching on his ratty clothes and vomit covered bottoms. “Can’t say you’re much to look at, but her decoration isn’t helping—I assume that’s her vomit? I have some spares in the back, if you like?”
They weren’t his real clothes, but V couldn’t refuse either way.
Being in clean clothes would definitely help his mood, especially when Emilia had decided laughing on the floor of the shop was the best option.
“Yes, please.”