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Amon clenched his hands tightly in the pockets of his massive flowing robe in an effort not to scratch at his face. The mask he was wearing (blue scaled and horned like a dragon) made his face feel impossibly sweaty. It felt so gross.
So.
Gross.
The whole mask thing just gave him another reason to hate ghouls. Ghouls were the reason he had to wear a mask, after all.
At this point, Amon was relatively sure every bar in the city was run by ghouls, and he was almost tempted to tell his superiors that just to get out of this mission (”go undercover” they said. “It’s a mask party, it’ll be fun” they said). Unfortunately, his sense of responsibility was too strong and his ability to tell jokes too weak, so here he was.
Not everything was terrible - Helter Skelter was a pretty nice place if he ignored the tacky Halloween decor and the possibility that everyone in the place was a ghoul.
Akira and Seidou weren’t drunk this time either, so that was a bonus. Seidou was even doing a decent job of scaring people away from Akira (though Amon suspected she didn’t need any help). It wouldn’t do to have any ghouls with sharp noses get too curious.
Seidou hadn’t bothered helping Amon out, sadly.
Yet another (young…too young to be at a bar) potential-ghoul hid underneath his robe in a bizarre bar-wide game of hide-and-seek. Amon was apparently a prime hiding place that all the masked children flocked to.
It’d be cute if he wasn’t deathly afraid of having his legs bitten.
He was 99% sure one of those kids had licked him.
Sighing to himself for the umpteenth time, Amon gazed morosely at his wine. Something kept telling him not to drink it and Mado had told him to trust his intuition. He was really thirst though - thirsty and sweaty andgross.
Swirling the wine (ignoring how it almost seemed to coagulate), Amon wondered why he wasn’t more…passionate about being here. Why he wasn’t on a witch hunt. Why he let the kids duck around him and made small talk with the red-headed bartender.
He should burn this place to the ground.
He just didn’t want to.
Seidou and Akira were squabbling now somewhere in the distance. It brought a wry smile to Amon’s lips. Some things hadn’t changed, at least.
He placed down his wine and made up his mind. He had better get to work with the actual investigation if Akira had delegated herself to back up tonight. She was probably testing him, anyhow.
After a couple rounds of the room, Amon was relatively certain that the crowd was mixed. Everyone was wearing masks and some wore sclera lenses, but there were humans scattered here and there. Nobody had died and so Amon decided there was no need for the CCG tonight.
Apparently, Akira had figured that out pretty early on. When he’d whispered his report to her, she’d smirked and patted his shoulder sympathetically.
“Too bad, big guy.”
She snarked,
“No work for you tonight. Just a paid night on the town.”
Amon (correctly) guessed that meant she wasn’t leaving yet. Ugh…that meant he wasn’t leaving either. He glanced at Seidou to confirm, however quickly gave up when he started arguing with Akira about how being responsible was one of Amon’s good points.
His heart was in the right place, but Amon was a little offended that Seidou called him “an ideal salaryman”. He wasn’t a salaryman. He was a warrior of justice…
Exasperated with himself, Amon shoved his massive hood off of his head and ran his fingers through his damp hair. He sounded like an idiot.
Right as his mood plummeted to untold depths, a familiar voice caught Amon’s attention. Though the tone was airy and light in ways he had never heard before, that youthful tenor could only belong to one person.
“You, sir, are a liar! I can’t believe you…this has to be wine. Utaaaaa~”
The voice, which was growing steadily closer, had taken on a whiney note. Amon was rooted in place waiting for the moment of truth. Could it possibly be-
“I take my duty VERY SERIOUSLY. I can’t go wandering around drunk! The kids…Hina-chaaan…I’m setting a BAD example.”
The Eyepatched ghoul squeezed through a gap in the crowd, listing to the side awkwardly before a heavily tattooed man (in the ugliest suit Amon had ever seen) caught him around the shoulders.
“No names tonight, little Centipede. Maybe you really aren’t old enough to drink. What should we do with you…”
The man responded, amusement showing despite the full-face mask he wore. A flicker of sensation passed over Amon’s spine at that amusement.
It was a feeling of impending doom.
A threat.
Without a thought, Amon’s arm shot out to grasp Eyepatch’s shoulder, shoving off the tattooed man’s hand. He tugged Eyepatch firmly forward and made direct eye contact with him through the mask.
“Oh, it’s you!”
Eyepatch murmured, taking a deep breath like he was inhaling Amon’s scent in the air and wow that wasn’t creepy or anything at all. Through the unzipped portion of the mask, Amon could see a dopey smile float onto Eyepatch’s face.
He saw the exposed eye flicker darkly and decided he should probably let go of the ghoul before someone got hurt (oddly, it wasn’t himself he was worried about).
“A friend?”
Tattoos-and-creepy-mask inquired curiously. Eyepatch sidled in closer to Amon, fisting his hand firmly into the fabric of his robe and answering with,
“No, but he could be.”
Amon didn’t remember how he wound up on the patio with Eyepatch, completely separated from his back up or any witnesses to his potential gruesome death. While he wasn’t really worried, he knew that he wassupposed to be.
Eyepatch, the source of all his problems recently, remained blissfully unaware of Amon’s inner turmoil.
“Hey you, you saw me didn’t you?”
Eyepatch asked, draping himself precariously over a table and staring at Amon upside down. His behaviour was ridiculous, though the question was surprisingly astute.
“You didn’t come down and fight me. You didn’t attack me.”
He continued, unnervingly refusing to look away from Amon even as his exposed skin began to colour from the blood rushing to his head.
“Stop that,”
Amon mumbled, using his foot to nudge Eyepatch’s shoulder,
“You’ll hurt yourself. You’re drunk.”
Amon had been extremely intent on asking Eyepatch about himself, about why he left Amon alive, and why he cried…but…
He’d expected to confront him in battle.
Not while Eyepatch was drunk at a bar.
This was painfully outside of his social expertise.
Eyepatch huffed, however he sat himself upright again anyway. He kept looking at Amon and was clearly waiting for an answer Amon didn’t want to give.
“Why did you think I was there?”
So, Eyepatch was changing tactics then? Alright, this was easier. This question was something Amon could actually answer.
“You were fighting too, right?”
He responded, taking a seat on the opposite side of the table Eyepatch was sitting on and facing away. The eye contact had been just shy of creepy (too intimate for strangers, too much like friends).
A hum graced his ears, theoretically a positive response. Unintentionally, Amon felt his shoulders relax a little bit. It was good to know Eyepatch wasn’t a member of Aogiri Tree.
“They were torturing me. Some people came to save me, though.”
Eyepatch murmured conversationally. Amon felt the table rock as the ghoul turned to continue staring at the back of Amon’s head as he spoke.
“It’s nice…being loved like that.”
Well…shit. Amon really had no idea how to respond to that statement. He was gonna go out on a limb and assume that Eyepatch wasn’t referring to the torture as love.
“It made me stronger.”
Eyepatch whispered in what probably should’ve been an ominous way. Honestly, it just sounded sad. Sad and lonely (a little like the first time Harima shattered a practice dummy with her bare hands and cried, saying she was happy to be so strong, but Amon knew she could never touch someone gently again).
“Strong? Were you weak before?”
Amon carefully asked, trying to get a feel of the delicate ground he was stepping on. No matter what his intuition said, Eyepatch could very easily become a threat to him if Amon gave him the right reasons (and Amon felt like this moment could change something that might never change back).
The table suddenly stilled, making Amon realize that Eyepatch had been rhythmically rocking it before. Words stuck in Amon’s throat and he choked out,
“You beat me and you didn’t kill me. Was that weak?”
The table remained unmoving and Amon felt breath on the back of his neck. Though it was almost the question he had meant to ask (why let me live), he almost didn’t want an answer (that the one reason he’d been given to doubt the fucked up world would go up in smoke).
“I don’t know…”
Eyepatch trailed off, his cold hands brushing over the bite scar Amon’s shoulder would always bear as he gathered his thoughts.
“Was it? I’m happy you’re alive.”
Eyepatch’s breath fanned over his damp hair as he spoke. A liquid shiver slid down Amon’s spine even as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
“S-strength is control and versatility. It’s the ability to stop when you need to stop. You were strong before.”
Amon stuttered a bit, his too-dry mouth unable to properly form words. He was still sweating uncomfortably under his mask and Eyepatch’s very close proximity was making the heat worse.
A cool zipper and a pair of lips pressed into his neck as Eyepatch draped himself over Amon’s back. Breathing was suddenly a lot harder (was Eyepatch using his hood to…oh shit…was he crying!?).
“How…can you be sure?”
The crack in Eyepatch’s words startled Amon (he had to be crying). His hands twitched uselessly at his sides, unable to overcome the gap between them to lift and grasp at Eyepatch’s delicate black-nailed fingers.
“I knew somebody once,”
Amon voice was low - so low that he himself could barely hear his nostalgic tone,
“Who was much stronger than me. They said she was the strongest investigator, in terms of raw power, that they’d ever seen.”
Harima would probably outclass Takeomi. She would probably still outclass Amon if she were alive.
“When she got even stronger…she couldn’t do normal things quite right. Hugs from her bruised, chopsticks broke, and haha…”
His laugh was watery, but Amon pressed forward. He hadn’t told Harima’s private stories before (it felt like a disrespect to her memory with anyone else).
“She stopped wearing skirts with zippers. She kept breaking them.”
He could almost remember the sound of her voice on the phone at 6am, demanding he bring her new clothes. He’d brought her mens pants because it as 6am and he wasn’t thinking. She’d been so angry…
“She hid it pretty well from most people by isolating herself. She wouldn’t let anyone eat with her. She wouldn’t touch them.”
Ever since her academy days, she had wanted to have a family of her own. After she even managed to bruise Amon like a peach, he knew that she’d never let herself have children.
“I’m pretty sure that’s what killed her in the end. There are some things you can’t beat without someone at your back.”
Amon finished lamely, cheeks burning with the realization that he’d spilled an investigator’s life story to a ghoul, complete with a cliche moral. He wanted desperately to turn around and take a look at Eyepatch’s face. He wanted to apologize for assuming he could understand him (for seeing a person instead of a ghoul).
“Please don’t turn around.”
Eyepatch murmured, his face still firmly planted in Amon’s hood. He’d shuffled closer somehow. Eyepatch took a shuddering breath and continued,
“Once I’m sober, I’ll let go. I’ll stop crying.”
A teeny tiny sliver of relief embedded itself into Amon’s heart. He had done something right (if only for now). He wasn’t sure what exactly he’d done right, but Eyepatch’s exhausted tone was vulnerable in the right way (not like he was afraid of breaking, or thought he deserved it, but like he was thinking and readjusting).
Better yet, he’d shifted away from his bite mark.
Amon was pretty sure that was a sign of trust. He could return that gesture, so long as it was just for tonight. A truce had been called that he wouldn’t violate.
“Next time we meet, you’re going to tell me your story.”
He bluntly stated, tangling his fingers with Eyepatch’s. A weak laugh vibrated against his back.
“Yes, next time.”
Eyepatch promised him, though they both knew next time was a matter of chance. One in a million.
He shouldn’t be so sure that there was going to be a next time.
(He shouldn’t be this happy)
When Akira and Seidou finally decided to leave, Amon went without complaint. He drove them home quietly, dropping Seidou first, and Akira eyed him thoughtfully at her door.
“You haven’t taken off your mask.”
She pointed out, tapping the blue scaled with a calloused fingertip.
“Oh well, it’s none of my business.”
She stated, shrugging, before entering her house without a second glance.
If she had’ve looked back, she might’ve caught Amon climbing back into the car and removing his mask, making eye contact with himself in the mirror.
His face was brilliant red. It had been since…
“Shit.”
He whispered,
“I’m so screwed.”