Chapter Text
Downtown wasn't Downtown anymore. The name change and the Erebonias rebuilding the entire district into what it was originally intended pissed Wald off to no end. But even that anger was minor in comparison to the feeling that downtown was just, gone. Like it had vanished overnight. Even though Wald's head ached more than it had ever ached before, in part from his hangover and in part from Seeker's fist, even he could see that his old home was gone.
In part, it was his fault. The damn Gnosis and the damn alchemist who apparently wouldn't stop showing her damn face in Erebonia, according to the new Dominion who had run into her during the latest Ouroboros incident. But more importantly, it was the damn empire's fault for ripping what remained of Downtown up and replacing it with a shell of what it once was: the Uptown District. Which, in part, Erebonia getting full unrestricted control of Crossbell was also Wald's fault, but still. The sight in front of him made him want to vomit on the newly paved streets.
Paved, not dirt. The boys had mentioned it last night, but Wald still didn't want to let it sink in. The Crossbell outside of Downtown had stayed largely the same. But his home, the place Wald once ruled by decree of wooden sword and iron chain... It was all gone.
"Are you two okay?" A voice cut through Wald's train of thought, derailing it completely. After the disaster that was yesterday, Scarlet insisted that they all stay at the church to get all their work done before they all, together, went for dinner and drinks in the evening. Wazy suggested they go to the bar that used to belong to the Testaments... But with a glance at the other man standing at the entrance to the Uptown District, Wald could tell by the rare look of shock across Wazy's face that he was experiencing a similar feeling... No wonder the boys had agreed that it would be better for them to rematch in the harbor district. If Wald had seen all of this while he was drunk, well, maybe history would just have repeated itself.
"We're fine." Wazy spoke for Wald, taking a step forward with a slight snap of his boots against the concrete ground. "Just haven't stepped foot in this part of town yet. They really spiffied the entire place up."
"Spiffied." Wald repeated, tilting his head up at the selges high apartment building, full of Erebonians who knew nothing about this former abandoned wasteland of a city. Why would they ever even care about a random abandoned city district, that was left in ruins after Crossbell had yet another major crisis? Obviously, they had just demolished what Wald hadn't and built nothing but housing and more housing on top of it all.
Wazy took another step, turning around to look at his squires. "Well, gentrified would be a better word." He acknowledged, turning a hard right to head toward what used to be his bar... It was somewhat intact beyond the new apartments built on top of it.
"It seems like a rather nice place. But I can't say I believe this is where you two ever ran rival gangs." Scarlet pointed out, looking at Wald and Wazy with a sly grin that did not necessarily befit a sister. "Though, I guess it probably mirrors how you've changed since we both became squires, Wald."
"Says the former terrorist."
"Pot meet kettle."
A laugh broke the argument between the two squires, who had somehow stepped closer to one another without Wald ever realizing that he was toe to toe with Scarlet.
"I really am the best rehabilitation program the Septian Church can offer!" Wazy piped up, a smirk on his face as well as he kept talking. "Now, can we please get to the bar? Personally, this place is making me nauseous... And I think it might be nice to go to Trinity and wash it down."
Well, even with that cocky comment, Wald couldn’t say that Wazy was wrong. Between the work gathering artifacts and fighting off the various forces of Ouroboros enhanced jaegers that had stormed the Holy City behind the Direwolf and her, Wald had grown to be able to smile alongside his former rival and this former terrorist they’d picked up. Abbas was chill too: a lot more chill than he ever came off to be. Maybe watching Wazy was just that tough of a job that it made Abbas a bit of a hard ass back during the gang days—Wald just hoped that working for Wazy wasn’t what made Abbas lose all his hair.
Despite it all, Trinity was basically the exact same as Wald remembered it. It's not like he spent too much time in the middle of the enemy's home base, but the dull blue light and the pool tables were still there. Those were the most memorable parts of Trinity anyway.
His beer was Erebonian. But, if Erebonians made anything good, it was booze. Even what he drank in Arteria was mostly Erebonian or North Ambrian. Though, between Lysander’s repeated trips back to Erebonia, it would make sense the second Dominion would develop a taste for the imperial beer and bring it back to share with anyone willing to drink alongside him and deal with him when he was wasted.
"I have to say it feels weird sitting on this side of the bar," Wazy pointed out, spinning around slightly on his bar stool with his far-too-sweet, blue drink in hand. Of course, it was fucking blue. "But it's a nice change."
"What's a nice change?" Wald asked, putting his beer back down on the coaster. "Being on this side of the bar? Or being able to drink legally?"
Scarlet raised an eyebrow, looking at Wazy. All he did was flick his wrist to dismiss any of her concerns.
"Can I get anything else for you three?" The bartender, one of Wazy's former men asked. Wald tried to remember this guy’s name for the life of him... But they all looked so damn similar. It was never the best time for him to remember faces when he was trying to bash them in during the old gang fights.
Damn, he was getting old. Reminiscing on the good old days at a pool bar was something meant for geezers, not Wald.
"We're fine for now." Wazy spoke up, taking another sip of his drink before turning to Wald. "I can't say I expected this place to be so similar after everything else around here."
"Seems like your guys wanted to keep your weird gang alive." Wald shrugged, pushing his glasses back up on his face. "But seriously. This ain't the Downtown I grew up in. That ain’t coming back either."
"Hard to believe how quickly they got it all done too." Wazy added, idly stirring his drink with a straw. "Apparently during the lead up to the war, this place was converted into a military district."
"Shows the power that Erebonia held over Crossbell." Scarlet added, taking a sip of her own drink. It had a orangeish pinkish tint from what Wald could tell with the lights. Maybe something with grapefruit. "I know it was reported that the Chancellor was being influenced by a part of The Great One, but I don't think Ishmelga was insisting that my home needed to be destroyed with train tracks."
"Neither was the fucker wishing for new housing in Crossbell, I'm sure." Wald added, taking a sip of his beer partially out of anger. "They even tore down Imelda's old place here. Likely paid a pretty penny for her to let them do that, even with the state I left it in."
Scarlet held out her glass to Wald, and Wald grabbed his beer to tap it against her drink.
"Well, with the work we're doing now on behalf of the Arteria, Crossbell should be officially recognized as independent soon enough." Wazy added, holding up his own drink like he was jealous of the other's toast. After they all toasted, he sipped the blue drink and kept talking. "And then... Well, all these apartments may start to empty."
"Meaning they gentrified our downtown district for a few months of military recruitment, and then a few months of normal people living here." Wald declared, putting his beer back down on the bar. Wazy smirked again as he sipped his drink. Whatever remained of the Downtown spirit in Wald really made him want to punch that smirk off Wazy’s face.
Trinity was still the same. But Ignis... That old warehouse was definitely long gone. As much as Wald wanted to deny it, it was one of the places that he hit the hardest on his demonic rampage. There was likely a set of luxury condos built on top of the wreckage.
It wasn't totally all his fault, he tried to remind himself.
What else was he supposed to do, a shitty voice cried in his head.
What if he did it all again, and destroyed the Uptown District and brought everything back to how it was.... A nauseous feeling washed over Wald as a tremor went up his spine.
"I think I need some air." Wald stood up suddenly, speaking and moving before his brain could even process it. And before Wazy or Scarlet could even say anything, Wald found himself rushing up the stairs, and shoving the door open with a force that very well could’ve knocked the door right off its hinges.
When he first got to Arteria, one of the nuns there who was conducting blood tests and other shit on Wald to try and get a feeling of the impact of Gnosis in his body told him that the withdrawal symptoms from the drug wouldn't last for longer than a year.
But Wald knew that was only talking about the physical symptoms on his body, and not the lingering mindset of what he could do with all that power he had when he took the drugs and achieved perfect demonization. Or the feeling of praise from that bitch alchemist as she ran her dainty fingers across his rough skin and called him perfect.
Trying to take the usual route to Ignis got Wald intercepted time and time again by random buildings and other blockades that had gotten in the way. How the hell was there even more construction being done! Eventually, Wald found himself in front of a tall building. More importantly though, he found himself at the gravesite of Ignis, an old warehouse converted to a gang hideaway, where Wald held more power than any cop, mayor, governor general, or... Even Goddess.
Aidios, forgive him for that one.
Fight after fight with Wazy and the Testaments played through Wald’s mind again and again like a broken record. Then, it was his fight against Bannings, when the SSS first took it upon themselves to solve a problem they had nothing to do with. Then, it was that one rainy day…
“Knew I’d find you here.”
The Wazy that had turned his back on Downtown, and on Wald, vanished from Wald’s mind as the real, present Wazy stepped up beside him. Jarringly, his lips were slightly blue, probably from whatever he was drinking at the bar.
“It was way too much trouble to get here,” Wald answered, looking up at the building that had been built where Ignis had once stood. “I knew you’d look for me here, but I didn’t think you’d find me that fast.”
“Well,” with yet another annoying smirk, Wazy rested one hand on his hip as he glanced up the building, “it’s a lot quicker to get here if you run through the construction zones.”
“You’re going to get yourself arrested.”
“I have at least Lloyd, Dudley, and the Chief vouching for me.”
“I dunno if the stick-in-his-ass detective would pull any strings for you,” Wald countered, before realizing that his face was pretty much mere inches from Wazy’s. “Though, the other two? They’d hate you for it, but I know the SSS ain’t the type to let one of their own get thrown away without doing whatever’s their power to get them out.”
Wazy’s laugh, and slight eyeroll, did more to ease the nauseous feeling inside Wald than anything else had this entire evening. “I know, I know, I was pretty phenomenal to come in with my Merkabah and save everyone, wasn’t I?”
The memories of Mariabelle’s reaction to the SSS’s rejoicing rang through Wald’s mind. Her cruel laughter, like everything was going all according to her plan. “Apparently. Though, the only person’s perspective on the whole thing I’ve heard is yours. And the bitch alchemist’s. But, honestly, she’s probably even more bias than you are.”
“You really cozied up to her, then.” Wazy grinned, leaning against Wald and tossing an arm around the taller man like their height difference was not existent. “Seems like you have a type.”
“I don’t need to tell you that she’s not into men.” Wald answered, shoving Wazy off him and taking a step away from the Dominion, and toward the building that had replaced Ignis.
“So?” Wazy asked, obviously deciding that there were bigger problems to talk about than an Anguis’ sexuality. “What made you run out of the bar so suddenly like that? Don’t tell me you had to puke up your beer.”
The questions that had rang through Wald’s brain were better left unsaid. “I’m hungover, but not that hungover. I just needed some air.” He didn’t lie, but he didn’t tell the truth, and by the way that Wazy’s golden eyes narrowed, he wasn’t going to get by with a half-assed half-truth.
“…I was thinking about how the Downtown District changed. It didn’t feel like we were gone for all that long, but now it’s completely different. Made me want to bring it all down—again—and take back the monster-ridden apartments this place had, even if I was the monster inside them. I lost my fucking home, and it’s all my fucking fault.”
It was only after Wald unclenched his fists and let out a breath, he didn’t realize he was holding that he realized everything he had said. All his thoughts, bared out loud.
Wazy only looked at Wald, and his face said it all. Devoid of any traces of snark and cockiness, something pretty turned dark in mere instances.
Wald looked over at Wazy, and suddenly covered his own mouth with a balled fist. Wazy would get it better than most to lose your entire home, and feel responsible for it all, wouldn’t he? Wales, you absolute dipshit. “Sorry—” Wald blurted out, like he still hadn’t learned his lesson to not talk without thinking. “I didn’t mean it like that—”
“I had you read once again.” Wazy cut Wald off, probably for the better. “I figured you were blaming yourself for all this.”
Wald sometimes forgot that on top of being his former rival gang leader, a former cop, and his current boss that Wazy was a host who could make any woman feel like a princess, empress, or goddess without much more of a double flutter of his eye lashes. It was so easy to forget until Wald felt Wazy’s two hands, somehow not calloused and bruised from martial arts, envelop on his own so seemingly, and somehow silence the ringing voices in Wald’s head.
It wasn’t all his fault.
The anger was. But that anger was taken advantage of by the bitch of an alchemist and her entourage.
Once he had taken the Gnosis, there was nothing else he could’ve done. Even as he watched KeA struggle and scream, and a hole was carved in his gut as he questioned what the hell he had gotten into, he was still trapped: in part by his anger, in part by the drug itself, in part by the crazy scheme to turn an innocent child into a super weapon.
And the ruined Downtown District? The image of how Wald had left it after a demonic rampage was burnt into his mind. He didn’t need to make it all a reality again—besides, he had other priorities.
“Sorry.”
That was all Wald managed to say as he felt Wazy’s two hands lock around his own.
“For what?”
Wazy’s voice was far softer than it had every right to be.
“Too much to name.”
That was the truth.
“We’ll work on it.”
Where did this guy get off?
“Stop reading me.”
“Stop being so readable.”
Wald couldn’t hold back at a laugh. When he opened his eyes again, and looked down at Wazy, his heart rate finally started to drop down, and the booze-and-Noel caused headache finally faded from his head.
And Wazy, he just kept reading, as if Wald’s complaints didn’t even reach his head.
“You did something you regret. And I know you regret it, because if you didn't you wouldn't have stayed in Arteria if you didn’t. You could leave any time after you were cleared of Gnosis. Become a bracer or go back to being a gang leader. But, you stayed, to atone not just in the eyes of Aidios but in your own. But I know those boys of yours you met up with yesterday forgive you. Sure, people like Ashleigh and Old Imelda may prefer it if you kneeled on the ground and put your forehead down and begged for mercy but...” Wazy stopped to laugh, either at his own cheesy words or the mental image of Wald begging.
“You don’t gotta feed me all your host club lines,” Wald answered simply, finally pulling his hand away even though the cold night air bit like some wild monster. Wazy’s words may be covered in honey, but Wald knew that they were far more sincere than most of the jokes that came from the other man’s mouth. It filled Wald’s throat with some weird feeling, like there was a lump that grew heavier and heavier as Wazy continued to feed him the sweet lines. “But finish your point.”
“My point is that even if you feel like you need to carry every single bad thing that has happened here on your shoulders, and even if it is your fault, you are taking steps to atone and make things better.” Wazy answered, returning his own hands to his side. “But, I stopped, because I think you figured that out for yourself.”
Fighting against the lump in his throat, Wald rolled his shoulders back, standing up straighter and looking back down at the short man in front of him. “Yeah. First, I wanna beat you, Stigma and all, with my own strength. Then, I’m gonna take that strength, and punch Mariabelle Crois so hard in the face, she’ll need surgery.”
Like the headache, nausea, and weird feeling in Wald’s throat wasn’t enough for this evening, Wazy’s cocky little smile made Wald feel like his heart was hitting his rib cage with a metal bat. Damned brat of a priest smirked up at Wald once again and leaned even closer. He was standing on the tips of his toes. Wald wished that didn’t make his heart race even more. “Well, I can’t help you beat me, that’s redundant. But, if you save some hits for me, I’d absolutely love to beat up an Anguis with you.”
“Sure.” Wald answered, pulling back from Wazy to glance up at the building. “Do whatever the hell you want. I just want to hit her so hard that she’ll shatter like one of her dolls. For all of Crossbell.”
“Not what I expected you two to be talking about when I walked over here.” Honestly, Wald had been expecting Scarlet to get bored sitting at a bar alone. Trinity always had good drinks, but even now most of the former-Testaments seemed more like socially awkward geeks than actual bartenders. Though, maybe they learned from their silver tongued (and actually good at cheering people up) former leader.
Wazy turned on his heel as casually as ever, his long robe flipping up as he turned around. “Just a Dominion and his second-favourite Squire talking about our plans to fight one of Ouroboros’ Anguis. Nothing really enticing, though I guess we should probably head back and finish the drinks, shouldn’t we.” And then, he winked at Wald, and Wald felt like his heart had taken a giant sword and slashed it across his rib cage.