InsaneJournal

DDS fic, Playtime
First Kinkfest submission for this round. Posting a day early, because I may not be around tomorrow.

Title: Playtime
Fandom: Digital Devil Saga
Character(s): Gale, Embryon/Embryon OTP
Rating: Worksafe


“What’s your problem?” Heat growls, tossing his head to try and shake long hair out of his face. It’s wet, and it sticks to his cheeks, which just seems to make him madder.

“…I don’t know,” Gale temporizes. Something about the heavy gray clouds and the sheets of cold rain seems important to him. He thinks of Jenna, vaguely, or maybe it’s that Indian kid who just moved in down the street—Fred says they’re supposed to say ‘Native American’ but no one does—and for some reason his throat goes tight. Serph and Sera are standing, dry under the overhang on the porch, watching him stand in the rain and get soaked.

“What the hell,” Heat says, even though he’s not supposed to use words like that. He throws the ball they’d been playing with at the ground with a growl of disgust, and Argilla catches him in the back of his head as he’s standing up. “Quit being an idiot,” she tells him, and for some reason Gale’s never really gotten, it calms him down. “You’re the idiot,” he mutters. She’s not even looking at Heat as she leans back on her heels, “Quit whining.” Her eyes raise up, hold Gale’s steadily as she smiles that far-off half-smile she gets sometimes. “You’re fine.”

They just stand there like that for a long minute, with the rain coming down hard all around them, not saying anything, and Gale can’t make himself back down from them. Comrades, he thinks, and doesn’t have anywhere to go with the thought.

“Well maybe he’s fine. But what about the rest of us, eh?” Cielo carols somewhere behind him. “The game’s not over!” Gale turns to see him stamping his foot in the beginnings of a puddle, trying to look mad through his laughter and failing pretty badly. Gale turns back to where the ball is getting slowly covered in mud. Serph is giving him this long slow look, patient, while Cielo whines and Heat pretends not to watch. Gale doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but apparently he finds it because in the next second he’s giving Sera’s hand a gentle squeeze and stepping down off the porch into the rain with the rest of them. “Come on,” he says, picking the ball up and holding it while the rain washes it clean. “Let’s play.”