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Title: Off Track
Fandom: Tales of Graces f
Genre: Humour
Rating & Warnings: PG-13 (for innuendo)
Words: 884
Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Graces.
Summary: Two ways Asbel's confession on Fodra could have gotten a little off track. Spoilers for the end of Lineage & Legacies.
Author's Notes: Oh my god this is too stupid to post anywhere but here. What the hell was I even on when I wrote this.

...Um, so, I kinda felt as though Asbel's confession to Cheria was pretty forced, although I'm not a fan of the pairing to begin with. No offence to any shippers of the pairing is intended--it just isn't my cup of tea. So I ended up writing two ways things might have gone wrong...very ridiculously.

Idek.

(1)


Cheria wiped at her eyes yet again, this time because they were hot and itchy, not because she was leaking tears. She was cried out completely. If . . . if Asbel died absorbing the core, she didn't—

"Cheria?"

She didn't raise her head when Asbel spoke, didn't move even though she knew Sophie had to be behind her, too. She just couldn't.

She heard him step closer. "Hey, Cheria."

She refused to look at him.

"Are you still mad?"

Finally, she lifted her chin a little. "I'm worried, Asbel. . . . I'm not mad."

She heard his voice drop. "Oh. . . . Sorry."

Silence, heavy despite Telos Astue's thin, dry air.

She heard him take a breath. "Look, can't you find a way to trust Lambda?"

"I want to, I do. But I just. . . ."

"Listen, let's make a promise."

Without meaning to, her head jerked up and she was looking into his kind, wonderful, earnest face. "A promise?"

"I've learned something from all this."

Now it was Asbel who turned away, to look up into Fodra's dying ember sky. "When I was young, I used to think my family was holding me back. But now I know they acted that way because they cared for me. So I've been wondering if it's possible for me to care about someone in that same way."

Cheria's heart leapt to her throat. She could feel its every pulse. Was he . . . was Asbel . . . ?

"And I can think of only two people who might fit the bill," he went on as his mismatched eyes fell to her.

"Two?" Cheria asked, praying her voice wasn't shaking nearly as much as she thought it was. She tried to smile through her hope, to joke about it. It was bad luck to be happy too soon. "Please don't tell me you're planning to adopt another Sophie."

Now he turned to face her completely. "No, Cheria. What I need is someone to look after Sophie with me."

"Oh. . . ." The syllable fell from her lips as she warmed. Then, this really was. . . .

She didn't move, barely breathed as Asbel continued with the words she had dreamed about since she was a child—even during those long years she had felt abandoned by him. "This person has always been close to me, but I've been too stupid to see it."

At last, oh at last. . . .

"So when we get back, I plan to tell him."

. . . Him?

The drop from the euphoria to despair was a sharp but surprisingly short plunge.

Him?

The climb to rage was also surprisingly short.

Oblivious, Asbel went on, "But right now, I need you to trust me, and trust Lambda, and wait for us both." He smiled, he dared to smile at her! "Will you do that, Cheria?"

She couldn't believe him!

"No!" she shouted right into his awful, horrible, stupid face. "Go away, Asbel—I don't want to see you anymore! Just—just . . . !"

She turned and ran, ignoring the alarmed way both Sophie and—and that jerk were calling her name.

It looked as though she wasn't quite cried out after all.

(2)


"Asbel, if you make a promise, you have to use your pinky," Sophie reminded him, smiling.

He nodded. "I suppose so. . . . Okay, Cheria. It's a promise."

He stepped forward and held out his pinky. (Could this really be happening? Was she dreaming?)

Cheria hesitated . . . then did the same.

She had only a second to register the feeling of her pinky hooking around his before everything froze around her and an enraged voice shook her head with pure volume.

"Back off, mortal. This foolish man is mine."

Her mouth dropped open. "Huh?"

"Do not presume to challenge my claim," the voice went on. "If I see you make any attempt to do so, I will destroy you for your transgression."

She couldn't move; she was almost completely paralysed by the hatred exploding in her mind. But who . . . ? No, it couldn't possibly be—

". . . Lambda?" she breathed out.

She received no confirmation, but who else could it be? Especially since . . . um. . . . .

"I shall be the only one to be inside this man," Lambda went on. "Only I shall know him so intimately."

She was on fire, from head to toe, with unadulterated embarrassment. "But . . . I'm not. . . ." into that. . . .

"Do you understand?" Lambda suddenly bore down on her.

She cringed, her finger still locked around Asbel's. "Um . . . y-yes."

"Good." The volume lessened somewhat; Lambda was satisfied. "Now. Here is what you must say to him. . . ."

In the end, all Cheria could do was follow Lambda's instructions. After all, they would give Asbel a greater chance of coming back alive. And sometimes, no matter how long you had hoped and dreamed for something . . . you had to know when to step down. When you were threatened by a hate-filled godlike being of nearly unlimited power? That . . . was probably one of those times. . . .
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