fanfic; quietude

[acperience]

Title: Quietude
Series: The Legend of the Legendary Heroes / Insect, Eyeball, and Teddy Bear / Tales of Legendia / Persona 3
Character(s): Tiir & Minato.
Warnings: Tiir's thoughts. Yes, this deserves a warning.
Summary: [AU, in this 'verse and a companion to An Interlude.] Silence has its own language.
Dedication: To igiko, broski, and kalisona.
Note: I've only been half-awake for the past two hours and it probably shows sob. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.



—

Quietude

—


When someone says his name, Tiir tenses, every nerve screaming at him, before he whirls around to face the source. His expression is shocked—afraid, even. It's the kind of face that a cornered, hunted man would make.

Which, in all honesty, is an apt description of how Tiir feels at the moment.

It takes a few moments before he recognizes the face. While Tiir's memory is far from poor, his situation means that his head is filled with generally little but thoughts of revenge and Guriko. The only involvement past acquaintances have in his plans are that they are be to avoided.

Apparently, that part of the plan is failing already.

"Tiir?" Minato repeats, blinking. His expression is as neutral as ever. A part of Tiir can't help but envy that—how untroubled he seems to be, compared to him. He's as good as a wanted man, whether merely in his own head or for real.

"Minato," he says briskly, before turning back to stare at the street. He'd hope that that would end the conversation, but if there's anything he remembers about Minato, it's that he's annoyingly persistent and that ignoring him doesn't seem to work.

"It's been a while."

"It has," Tiir answers, glancing at the station sign.

Minato doesn't seem to falter at Tiir's lack of enthusiasm. "How have you been doing?"

Tiir almost wants to laugh at that. Minato doesn't know, of course. He can't, unless he happened to be a stalker on top of a stubborn schoolmate. He shouldn't know where Tiir used to live. And Walter's death doesn't mean anything to anyone, save a few select people, so there's no reason for Minato to know about that.

He's well-meaning but so pathetically oblivious.

Tiir smiles wryly. "Aside from being bothered with pointless formalities, I'm fine."

A lie, but as he's been a criminal for years, he learned a certain lesson rather quickly: not to be honest about himself.

"... I'm sorry," Minato says. "But I mean it—how have you been doing?"

And again, there's something bitterly amusing about that.

(He's as well as someone on the path to hell can be.)

The bus approaches, before slowing to a stop.

Tiir merely shakes his head, smiling that same mirthless smile, before boarding without a word.

---

There was a problem with the motel he was intending to stay at, he's wasted the bus fare, and now he's sitting on a bench in a park, trying to pretend he's more okay than he really is.

All in all, Tiir would say it's been a bad day, if he didn't have rather low standards for what a 'good' day consisted of.

"Tiir?"

Tiir is beginning to hate his name.

"What do you want?" he asks, narrowing his eyes at Minato. "And for that matter, what are you doing here?"

"It's not safe being out this late at night," Minato says. Tiir smirks.

"Says the pot to the kettle."

"May I sit down?" asks Minato. Tiir looks away (and notes how they're not actually replying to each other).

The air is filled with two kinds of silence: the silence that comes from the fact that it is rather late, as Minato so kindly pointed out. It's the kind that Tiir would never send Guriko out in—but Guriko isn't here anymore, and neither Minato's safety nor his own is a major concern right now.

(As much as Tiir wants to see this through to the end, he's found it increasingly hard to truly care about his own life.)

The second comes from the two of them. Tiir says nothing, content to wait until Minato gets bored of him—of playing the nice guy—and neither does Minato, perhaps realizing that Tiir has no desire to speak.

In the end, though, every silence has to be broken.

"How are Guriko and Walter?" Minato asks.

Tiir freezes.

"... That's none of your concern," he manages to say, though the warning is there in his tone.

"Ah... if you say so," replies Minato in that oh-so-tolerant tone that a part of Tiir despises. His hand clenches into fists, even though he doesn't intend on striking him.

(There is only one person Tiir wants to beat right now, and it's not him.)

Tiir stares down at his bag, containing everything he brought with him. It's not much, but then again, he's never had much to begin with.

Minato shifts. It takes a glance before Tiir realizes that his gaze has followed his. Again, Tiir looks the other way, not wanting to watch as Minato figures it out.

Quietly—

"You don't have anywhere to go, do you?"

---

Tiir isn't entirely sure of how it happened, but somehow, he ends up in Minato's apartment. It's near the college campus, meaning Minato is likely a student, Tiir realizes with seething jealousy. No doubt he's getting by on scholarships—something Tiir could never hope for. A lack of time and natural book-smarts meant that he was never anything more than decent.

Nothing like Minato.

"Make yourself at home," the blue-haired boy says, gesturing to the spare bedroom. Tiir spares him a brief look and a frown, before heading in, discomfort written all over in his movements.

He hated Minato's charity when they were in school, and this—this is an even greater act of it. By all means, he should be walking out the door. By all means, he never should have entered through it.

And yet this is all so disgustingly convenient, and Tiir needs to take advantage of conveniency when he can. Knowing Minato, Tiir could leech off of him for months and he wouldn't care.

(He hates him—and himself—that much more for it.)

---

Raiding Minato's cupboards is probably breaking a few rules of etiquette somewhere, but Tiir has never been especially polite to him and there's no point in starting now. Besides, he's cooking for him as well, so in a sense, he's doing him a favour.

It'd likely be easier, however, if his head didn't feel as if it were about split open.

Perhaps the stress has finally gotten to him. Either way, Tiir doesn't know why he's sick now of all times (when the last time was—), and he doesn't especially care as he tries to focus, cracking an egg open—and accidentally spilling yolk onto his shirt.

He stops.

And he remembers.

(What he had, and what was taken away from him—)

His shoulders shaking, Tiir clutches the edge of the counter, barely noticing as his tears drip onto the surface. He hasn't cried in a long time, but the dam has burst now, and he can't will himself to stop.

(He remembers a blond boy—his baby brother, even if not by the same mother. He may have never liked Tiir, but he was half the world to Tiir, nevertheless.

He remembers a girl with black hair like his—his baby sister, still somewhere out there, and the other half of his world.)

He's not so lost in his memories, however, that he doesn't hear Minato's approaching footsteps. Without a moment's hesitation, Tiir moves, and by the time Minato enters the kitchen, Tiir's left the apartment. If there's one thing that he's always hated, it's showing weakness. That, at least, he won't bend to.

Pathetic. You're pathetic—

Fortunately, Minato doesn't seem to follow him. Tiir sits down on the steps of the stairwell, not foolish enough to leave the building without a coat on and worsen his condition. The tears have stopped by now, though he has no doubt that his eyes are still red.

Silence rings through the air again, but this time, there is only one kind: a suffocating one. It seeps into his skin, invading his senses and echoing through his mind. It's unbearably loud in its quietness, to the point where he can't stand it.

Sanity has been relative for a while now, but it's times like these that Tiir wishes he could truly go mad.

---

He's wrong. Minato did follow him, but in his own way.

Tiir doesn't know how long it's been when Minato joins him on the stairs, sitting down beside him without a word—not bothering to ask for permission this time.

That's probably just as well, because Tiir wouldn't have given it. Minato has a distressing habit of showing up when Tiir wants to be alone, which is generally most of the time.

And so—

"Leave me alone," he says, leaving no room for argument in his voice. However, Minato doesn't seem to need permission here either.

"I won't ask you what happened," he says, "but I don't think that's what you really want, Tiir."

"You would presume to know what I want?"

"... When I don't think you know either," Minato replies. This time, Tiir does laugh, even though there is no humour in this situation. He laughs a sad, broken laugh because it's better than crying again.

"I know what I want very well, actually," he says, smiling a smile he doesn't mean either. "I've spent the past months thinking about it."

He wants vengeance. Justice. Things that nobody else can grant him. He has to seek them on his own, because that's what he is—on his own, completely alone. He can't rely on Pueka or Lafra for this.

He can't rely on an acquaintance from years ago—a person completely ignorant to what he's been through.

Minato appears unperturbed by his response, though. "And is being alone what you want?"

Yes.

No.

(Tiir doesn't know.)

"... That's not the kind of thing you can explain so easily in words," Tiir says. It's possibly the most truthful thing he's said yet. Minato nods.

"That's fair."

He doesn't leave.

Instead, another silence is born—the same silence from before that takes two to create. It overwhelms the previous silence, driving it out of Tiir's mind and enveloping him in its quietude. This time, however, Minato doesn't break it. He lets the silence stretch on, settling onto them like a blanket—a much needed source of warmth for Tiir. It's strangely comforting.

(Like a reminder that he belongs in this moment—)

And for the first time, Tiir is sincerely grateful towards Minato. Not for the bentos of years past, not for offering him shelter—

—but for this silence, clearer than any words could ever be.