[AO3 Crosspost] Princesses come in all form

[terresdebrume]

✗ TECHNICAL DETAILS

FANDOM: Saint Seiya
SERIES: Times Between Us
RATING: Teen and Up
WORDCOUNT: 3 389
PAIRING(S): -
CHARACTER(S): Pisces Aphrodite, Andromeda Shun
GENRE: Defining one’s identity
TRIGGER WARNING(S): None
SUMMARY: Things, it seems, aren’t going to change, despite the fact that two of the Gold Saint have been missing from the Sanctuary for a week -though if you ask them, they’ll tell you it felt a lot longer than that.
And then, with a simple cup of tea, it seem things will, in fact, change. If only for two of them.

TIMES BETWEEN US ON LJ: [Series masterpost]


----------------------------------------------------------

It’s been a month since Athena resurrected those of her Saints who died during the battle of the Sanctuary and the Holy War against Hades –capitalization extremely necessary- which is to say an alarmingly high proportion of their population. It has also been about three days since Aphrodite and Shaka came back to the Sanctuary, a week after when they were supposed to come back in order to match the time of their departure.

You could also say it’s been two hundred years, if you’re going with Aphrodite’s perspective, but he tries not to think about it too much, as he’s got more than enough things to go crazy over already, he doesn’t need to include time paradoxes into the equation.

He’s gone back to his garden.

Aphrodite has always loved this, kneeling in the ground all afternoon, letting the sun pound against his skull as he pulls weeds out, waters his plants, trims rosebushes, and generally gets himself sore and tired despite the temporary pause on training “so everyone can calm down and get back to normal”, or so Shion said.

Aphrodite isn’t sure he wants to go back to normal.

And who knows, maybe he won’t have to either, not if the surprising guest waiting for him when he comes back to his Temple for lunch is any indication.

Not even if his presence makes Aphrodite long for the knife he’s had by his side for the past hundred and fifty years, which he left on the table this morning as he reminded himself that he has his Cosmo-Energy back now, and doesn’t need a blade to defend himself. Old habits really do die hard.

“Please,” Shun says, raising armor-clad hands in a placating gesture. “I’m not here to fight I just… I couldn’t….”

Aphrodite nods, because he knows.

Gold Saints are allowed to go around the Sanctuary in civvies because they live here, and they can’t be expected to be wearing their Cloth all the time, but Silvers and Bronzes are required to keep their uniforms on if they want to go past the training grounds.

Still, that doesn’t mean Aphrodite feels any less tense about standing in simple jeans and a too-big t-shirt in front of that particular teenager.

“Not to be antagonistic,” he remarks, “but the last time you were here I ended up dead. Just because I understand the reasoning behind it doesn’t mean I really want to renew the experience.”

Aphrodite can feel the blood drain from his knuckles as he tightens his hold on the basket full of vegetables he is holding in his right hand, the left one ready to defend him. A strand of hair has fallen into his face, still blonde… he’ll have to think about dying it again someday.

“I promise,” Shun repeats, “I’m not here to fight. I just want to talk.”

He does that thing where his eyes try to eat his face, and he looks so much like a girl in her teens it’s pathetic.

This is the kind of thing that makes Aphrodite wonder what anyone was thinking, trying to put children into armors like theirs. Now all Athena has at her disposal is a bunch of soldier kids walking around with enough strength to potentially blow off the planet, and just enough issues that one of them might end up doing it… and that’s supposing Athena is even still around to hear them but, judging from Saori Kido’s noted absence, Aphrodite would guess the Goddess has left Earth until the next Holy war comes around. Or at least, she’s probably sleeping the rest of this life away while the brat does what she wants with her own body.

Greater good my ass, Aphrodite thinks, someone out there is a sadist is all.

He’s got a pretty good idea on who said sadist might be, but even he doesn’t dare taking dissent too far, just in case. The Sanctuary isn’t actually tender with its inhabitant, traitors or not, and Aphrodite’s past, well… he’s probably better of fuming in silence.

“Just don’t apologize,” he tells Shun as he makes himself relax. “I’ve heard enough people apologize for the rest of my life.”

Well, there haven’t been a lot of people who apologized to him specifically, but out of the few who did, most of them didn’t actually mean it. He’d rather not get any apologies than false one.

Surprisingly enough though, Shun blushes to the roots of his green hair and admits:

“I didn’t come for that, either.” His flush grows deeper. “I didn’t even think of it.”

Aphrodite snorts.

Yeah, he wouldn’t have thought to apologize for killing a soldier during battle, either. The five Bronzes though, they’ve always seemed to be somewhat strange and stuck up about things like honor and faults and whatnot… it would have made sense for Shun to apologize.

“In that case,” Aphrodite says, “Take your Cloth off, then come along.”

He can tell Shun wants to protest, but a look silences the teen.

Aphrodite can and will make an effort, if only to show the Golden Assholes who live in the Sanctuary that he can, in fact, be polite and accommodating when he feels like it –aka: when they’re not concerned- but that doesn’t mean he’s going to be taking pointless risks.

He hears the telltale clicking of armor parts twisting and shifting into one of those sculpture-like things as he opens the hidden door to his living quarters, then the quiet exclamation of surprise from the other Saint.

He wonders if he did the same thing when he reached that room for the first time.

“Don’t mind the mess,” he warns Shun, “I’m redecorating.”

“Are you allowed to do that?”

The expression on Shun’s face when Aphrodite turns to look at him is a good indicator that he doesn’t normally speak like that.

Still, that’s about the most normal thing Aphrodite has ever heard in the Sanctuary and, aside from Anchise’ conversation, perhaps the least antagonistic one as well. He sets his vegetables basket on the table, picks up the unassuming dagger lying next to it, and smile as he pushes the sheath through his belt.

“Nobody ever said I wasn’t.”

Besides, it’s not like he intends to take an apprentice at any point anyway.

What does he need three empty bedrooms for? He might as well take the bunk beds out and spread his possessions in the Temple. He knows he’s not going to leave now, no matter what else happens. The outside world is definitely not made for him.

Not as it stands right now, at the very least.

The room in itself is remarkably similar to what Aphrodite remembers leaving behind, but after two decades of living in fully functional apartments with more money than he knew what to do with thanks to a few judicious placements and lots of savings, it’s a little strange to go back to a life without running water or electricity outside of the local infirmary.

The stone-like bed is still here though, so he gestures for Shun to sit on it, then goes to retrieve the only two teacups he owns: a roses-patterned one for himself, and another one with a clumsy skull painted on the porcelain so Anchise wouldn’t mistake the two.

Wouldn’t want to kill off his only friend now, would he?

“Look at what you want,” Aphrodite tosses over his shoulder as he starts a fire in his old woodstove, “but don’t touch the plants with a red ribbon, they’re poisonous. Do you want some tea?”

“Oh… uh… yes,” Shun says, sounding surprised… Aphrodite smirks to himself.

Guess his reputation has finally started to stick outside of the Sanctuary. It was only ever a matter of time, anyway. Aphrodite hands Shun the box of green tea he usually keeps for Anchise’s visits, then pours some of his personal mix in his cup.

“I don’t have much choice,” he says in a not-apology of sorts, “my only regular guest isn’t fond of experimentation in the first place.”

“It’s all right,” Shun says, still looking a bit puzzled, “I didn’t expect you to have any to be honest. Or only something made out of poisonous roses or something.”

“Touché,” Aphrodite chuckles, holding out his cup. “The amount of things I eat and drink that are poisonous would surprise you.”

It always does, no matter how familiar the guest is with Aphrodite’s poisonous fluids and, on occasions, skin.

It’s not the only thing surprising Shun though, Aphrodite can tell. There’s something else and Aphrodite wonders if the kid is going to ask about the garden at all, ask where the idea came from, why Aphrodite even bothers when the Sanctuary gets regular food deliveries from the best farms in Greece.

Aphrodite doesn’t really want to have to say he needed something to keep his mind away from the nightmares.

“To be honest,” Shun admits after a short silence, “I always sort of imagined you sleeping in the corridors or just sort of… standing there, motionless, until someone came to defy you.”

“That what it would be like,” Aphrodite grimaces, “if some people had had their ways.”

His old man was always about a Gold Saint’s duty to be ready to fight a hundred percent of the time, after all.

“Sorry,” Shun chuckles, flush creeping back onto his face, “It makes you sound like a piece of furniture.”

“Well you know the weight of the Cloth often makes me feel like I’m a giant paperweight… I should probably start keeping my Cosmos more active.”

Shun laughs again, and it actually sounds amused this time, instead of surprised. Aphrodite can’t quite help his grin.

Still, silence falls on them once more, a lot less uncomfortable than Aphrodite would have thought, even though he keeps his knife at his side and sits on the windowsill, ready to spring outside at the slightest sign of aggression. The sun is shining again today, flooding the center of his mountain-encased garden and the all-in-one room of his Temple.

Outside, the air is pleasantly warm and smells of roses, onions and warm earth, a combination he’s come to think of as his. It’s one of the few things he truly missed about his life here, he found.

While Aphrodite is simply enjoying the weather, it looks like Shun is trying to make up his mind about something, trying to gather his words… Aphrodite is surprised at his own patience: he should probably tell the kid to say what he’s come here to say or get lost. Then again, this is literally the first time anyone but Anchise ever sat down with him for tea so… he supposes he might as well enjoy it.

Eventually though, the teacups are emptied, washed, dried, and put away.

Shun twists Aphrodite’s dishtowel in his hands as he goes to stand at the window before taking a deep breath and asking:

“How does it feel for you when people think you’re a girl?”

Aphrodite blinks.

He’s thought of several possibilities for whatever Shun had to tell him, ranging from clueless insensitivity to downright antagonistic questioning of his life choices, but this particular topic never even crossed Aphrodite’s mind.

“Uh… I don’t care?” He replies, perplexity clear in his voice. “I mean, it happens to me all the time, anyway, and it’s only a bad thing when people make it into one. ‘S long as I know I’m a guy it doesn’t really matter to me what people think.” Aphrodite pauses, frowns, then asks: “Why, does it feel like anything in particular for you?”

Shun’s face goes back from his usual bronze to roughly the color of his armor, and he lowers his head, shoulders coming up as if in defense before he mumbles:

“Isortofmaybelikeit?”

It comes out all in one breath, so Aphrodite doesn’t quite make out the words at first, but once he does he falls into a puzzled silence. Definitely not what he was expecting.

“I mean,” Shun pushes, still violently pink, gaze glued to the random words of Swedish Aphrodite carved into the windowsill when his master wasn’t looking, “It doesn’t… It doesn’t feel like a mistake to me.”

“Uh…” Aphrodite starts, far from his usual composure, “correct me if I’m wrong but you do belong to the sausage and meatballs club, right?”

For a moment, it looks like Shun doesn’t know whether to be offended or grossed out by the sentence, but then when he sighs “yeah” he looks so defeated it doesn’t even matter. It’s stupid, really, but Aphrodite sort of feels bad for him.

Her.

Should it be her?

“It’s just that I… I mean… oh, forget it,” Shun mumbles, “I’ll go see someone else.”

Now that, at least, Aphrodite knows to handle.

“If you had anyone else you could talk to about this, that’s where you’d be right now,” he tells Shun, and the slumping of the kid’s shoulders is more than enough of an answer. “Look, honestly, what did you expect me to say? I’ve never had anyone talk to me about that. I don’t even know if there’s a name for people like you.”

“You think there are others?” Shun asks, turning a hopeful face toward Aphrodite.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Aphrodite shrugs. “I mean, I spent about ten years being a bouncer in a club where men used to dress up as women and perform songs… who’s to say none of them did it because they wished they were considered as women?”

“So…” Shun seems to hesitate then, as if getting ready for a great dive. “So you think I’m normal?”

Aphrodite considers the question for a minute, running a hand through hair that, according to the standard of the time, are starting to flirt with ‘too long’. He tries to decide if he wants to answer with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for a long, long moment, Shun’s face falling a little more with every second that passes, but in the end what the Gold Saint says is:

“I think I don’t know what normal is supposed to be.” He shrugs. “Anch—I mean, Deathmask says normal is supposed to be thin white guys with money to their names, but if you look at it closely they’re only just a small part of the world. I don’t think so many people would fall outside of the so-called norm… and beside, who am I to know what normal is? I’m twenty-six and I’ve been eating poison every day of my life since I was six, I live in a place out of the world that pretends we’re still in the sixteenth century, I wear an armor made out ofgold as part of a job I don’t even get paid for, and I grow roses that can literally eat people.”

“You forgot the part where you used to be a hitman,” Shun adds with a quiet sort of smile.

“That too,” Aphrodite agrees. “My point is, I don’t have any idea what a normal guy is supposed to be like. Or girl.” He frowns again: “Would you say you’re a guy or a girl?”

“A… girl. I think.”

“Alright,” Aphrodite nods, “Girl it is. Which means I have even less of an idea what a normal girl is supposed to be like. Besides, I’m pretty sure none of us in the Sanctuary and around can be considered normal anyway.”

Shun’s face falls again, prompting Aphrodite to swear internally, surprising himself with the intensity of his feelings on that topic.

“Look,” he tries again, going for a different angle, “You’re not common, I can tell that much. Neither am I, or Shaka, or any of us here. And for the record, I think the fact that you’re willing to have a civil conversation with me instead of spreading rumors about my past and trying to make me feel like I’m a chewing-gum stuck to your shoe is a lot more telling about your worth than some form of arbitrary criteria I don’t give a fig about. I’d still think you’re a good person if you wore a mask, I don’t see why the fact that you want one should change that.” Aphrodite makes sure Shun is smiling again before adding in a stage-whisper: “Though honestly, I tried one of them on once and let me tell you: you got lucky on that front.”

Shun honest to goodness giggles, and Aphrodite should probably disapprove of giggling in the Sanctuary on principle, what with the general need to be as tough as possible on a permanent basis, but honestly they’ve all been through enough bullshit that they deserve the right to giggle once in a while.

Especially when the rest of the conversation probably won’t feel as light-hearted as this part.

“That being said, I also think you should be careful who you tell about this. You’re an excellent fighter –honestly I think if you weren’t so nice, you could have gone for a Gold Cloth- but Cosmos doesn’t do everything. Words hurt. And I’m afraid a lot of people won’t have a lot of pretty words for you on that topic….” Aphrodite sighs, then walks up to Shun and tries for a reassuring squeeze of the shoulder –too hard, judging by the kid’s expression. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t talk about it at all just… brace yourself when you do.”

Shun nods, looking much too sad for someone who survived being Hades’ reincarnation, and Aphrodite almost wants to facepalm right now.

It’s ridiculous, really, because he doesn’t know Shun half as well as he knows the other Gold Saint, and he doesn’t know them very much either, but Aphrodite… it means something that the kid has decided to confide in him. It’s an odd, surprising, almost desperate show of trust, and Aphrodite, who never had that before he left the Sanctuary –aside from Anchise, but Anchise has always been a special case- doesn’t want this encounter to be a disappointment.

“Hey, what if I called you Princess?” He blurts out as soon as he gets the idea.

Shun gives him the stink eye.

“Are you making fun of me?”

“No!” Aphrodite assures. “I’m just thinking, nobody would think twice about feminine pronouns with a nickname like that.”

Shun’s face goes through confusion, understanding, hope, gratefulness and joy in a matter of seconds, until all that’s left is a choked sob and tear-brimming eyes as Shuns asks:

“You’d really do that?”

“Only if you want me to,” Aphrodite shrugs, and Shun’s nod is vigorous enough to shake hi—her hair. “It’s a deal then.”

“I’m sorry,” Shun says with a sniffle, “It’s just….”

“Don’t worry Princess,” Aphrodite chuckles, “It’s no big deal.”

“It is to me,” Shun answers firmly. She waits for Aphrodite to nod and adds: “I think I misjudged you before. You’re a good—”

“No I’m really not,” Aphrodite cuts.

Because it’s true, he’s not, and he doesn’t want anyone getting ideas about that.

Shun doesn’t look like she agrees, but she still nods.

“Alright, you’re not a good person. You’re still not as bad as I thought you were.”

“Yeah well,” Aphrodite says, trying to downplay the abrupt influx of compliments, “People get ideas about me. Comes from me killing people without batting an eyelid, I guess.” A cough. “Now get out of here, I can feel your brothers in the training grounds and I don’t feel like having to fight off the Flaming Chicken off my lawn.”

Shun snorts at the nickname Aphrodite found for the Phoenix Saint –for the simple reason that he didn’t want to bother learning all their names- then smiles in a disconcertingly fond way.

“Do you mind if I come back for another teacup some day?” She asks.

“Just don’t drop any more emotional bomb on me,” Aphrodite says. “Now get out, before I have to explain why you’re here.”

Shuns smiles again then leaves with a happy little hum.

Aphrodite wouldn’t go so far as to think this afternoon conversation solved anything, far from it. Still, he thinks as he realizes he still hasn’t eaten and sets up to prepare the risotto he wanted to share with Anchise, that was nice. He might even admit liking it if he were to be tortured long enough.

Looks like things can change around here, after all.