Lucky_Ladybug (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladybug_archive) wrote2005-05-14 11:09 pm
ladybug_archive) wrote2005-05-14 11:09 pm
Muwahahahaha
I loved the episodes. They were so sad, though! And they mashed Seto's dialogue in a lot of places. Raphael's gone byebye now. ;__; **cuddles him.** And finally Lizzie knows the final terrible secret of Dartz. Now she can read my biker stories. XD;
Necrophia at Janime's drew an awesome picture of the bikers and Liu! It's so cute! =3
In the morning, I wrote half of a bizarre blurb. Then, tonight, I wrote the other half. Here's the whole thing.
Valon sniffled sadly, drawing his knees up to his chest as he stared blankly at the grass in front of him. He was sitting on a stone bench monument in the cemetery, where he often came when he wanted to be alone and think. He had frequented the location all the more often in the past few weeks, though he did not know the person who was buried there. Somehow a cemetery just seemed a good place to come when reflecting on a departed loved one. He knew his friend had often come to the cemetery to think as well, though he had never understood the attraction. He still did not, to be honest, but he found himself coming anyway, especially on rainy days such as this.
He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he did not bother to look up when someone else sat on the bench beside him. "You seem lonely," a raspy voice remarked.
Valon sighed, shrugging a bit. "Yeah, well . . . I guess a lot of people who show up here are lonely," he replied, "if they're still alive."
"The dead too, I imagine," the stranger answered.
Valon laughed weakly. "Yeah . . . guess so." He leaned back, still staring forlornly at the dampened grass. "I wasn't expectin' company. I'm usually the only one here."
"Likewise." A brief silence. "But you don't seem the type who would enjoy regularly visiting a place such as this."
"I'm not, really." Valon glared at the ground. "I just started comin' a while back, when I lost my friend." He sniffled again, his wet bangs plastered to his forehead. "I miss him, y'know?" It was strange, but he felt relaxed around this person. He looked up at his companion, but the night was so dark that he really could not make out any features. But before he quite knew what was happening, he was explaining how his friend had died. A faraway look came into his eyes as he recalled the battle.
"You probably won't believe it," the Australian said with a wry, rueful grin, "but a while back this whole city got overrun with all kinds of monsters. All of us were tryin' to fight them off. . . . My one chum, Raph, was already down . . . and Alister and I were tryin' to protect him. He told us to just go and that he'd be able to make it up, but neither of us were gonna leave him all torn up like that. So we were helpin' him up and tryin' to get away with him, when they started comin' after us." He clenched a fist tightly, almost drawing blood. "Alister said he'd distract 'em. Right about then was when the Pharaoh was tryin' to get up enough energy from his Millennium Puzzle so that he could get rid of all the monsters. Alister knew that, and he knew what'd happen if he got caught in the blast, but that idiot stayed behind anyway!" Valon slammed his hand down hard on the smooth stone, shaking at the memories that were coming to light in his mind. There was not a day that passed when he did not spend time running the events over in his mind and wondering if possibly he could have done something to change the outcome. "Raph and me . . . we were able to get just far enough away that we just got dazed when the blast came . . . but Alister . . . Alister kicked the bucket."
The other man frowned, studying the boy. "You never found a body," he remarked.
Valon shrugged helplessly. "Heck, we tried. But well . . . we figured . . . you know . . . that there wasn't any body to find. The monsters all got wiped out . . . and we figured Alister had, too. The only thing we ever found was a bloody piece of his glove!" He lapsed into silence again, staring blankly into the raindrops that were falling down. Why am I talkin' to him, anyway? I know it's crazy . . . how he kinda reminds me of my chum. . . . "If Alister was still alive, he would've come home," the boy added then, glaring at the sky again.
"What if he couldn't before?"
"Well, why couldn't he have?!" Valon snapped.
"Maybe he didn't remember he had a home. Maybe he was very sick."
Valon snorted. "We were devastated! Both of us were. And each of us was blaming himself for what happened." He was trembling again. "That idiot . . . he knew he would die. He knew it!" This was growing stranger with each passing moment. And there was no denying the fact that the person, in a certain way, did sound like Alister. Valon shuddered, supposing that his loneliness was making him imagine things again. Maybe this person did not even exist. Maybe he was a figment of Valon's imagination because he wanted someone to talk to.
"Why do you think he didn't let that bother him?"
Valon heaved a sigh, knowing the answer. "'Cause he wanted to protect us," he mumbled.
"Exactly." Another pause. "You truly do miss him, don't you."
"Of course I do!" Valon yelled, his voice growing louder than he'd intended. He narrowed his eyes, quieting again. "He and Raph were my best chums. Now Alister's dead and Raph is almost always brooding. He blames himself still. But that's crazy, 'cause he couldn't help what happened! I'm the one who should've been able to have done something. . . ."
In the darkness he could almost sense that the other man was raising an eyebrow. "Could you have stopped him? Honestly, I don't think you could have. He did what he felt was right. You couldn't have convinced him otherwise."
"Yeah, yeah," Valon muttered in irritation, knowing that the man was right. Alister would not have listened. He had not listened when Valon and Raphael had protested. He had wanted them to be safe. "I just wish . . . I wish I had a second chance. . . ."
"Oh?" His companion sounded slightly surprised now. "What would you do with a second chance?"
Valon thought about that carefully before answering. "I'd tell him I was sorry," he admitted then. "We were always arguing about something. We'd had a row right before he croaked, actually . . . but I never got to tell him I was sorry. . . ." He grinned ruefully. "And . . . I guess . . . I'd try to listen to him more." He had a bad habit of getting annoyed whenever Alister had tried to give him advice or had pointed out something or another that Valon was doing that was dangerous. He liked to think that he could take of himself perfectly fine and that he did not need anyone's help or advice.
"Really." Valon felt a hand being laid on his shoulder. "Well. Valon, you have your second chance."
Valon almost fell off the bench. Immediately he whirled around to look up at the person he had been conversing with. The moon had come from behind a cloud now, lighting upon the man's features. He recognized the deep crimson hair, but the eyes were hidden from him behind honey-tinted sunglasses. His friend looked weary and exhausted, and his clothes were torn in places, revealing bandages draped over various places on his pale skin. His voice still had a rasping effect, but it was recognizable. Valon had recognized it quite soon after they had began talking, but he had been certain that it would be impossible for it to actually be Alister talking to him, unless he was hallucinating. He would say that he was now, but the hand on his shoulder was real.
"Why you!!!" he yelled, grabbing a fistful of Alister's torn tanktop. "You were talking to me all this time??! Why didn't you say it was you?!" So many conflicting emotions were crashing through his heart all at once---disbelief, wonder, annoyance, foolishness. . . .
"I assumed you would recognize my voice," Alister replied calmly, "but I soon realized that you thought I was dead. Then you wanted to talk about what had happened, so I listened. You were too upset at that point, so I didn't tell you who I am." He studied his friend thoughtfully. He had missed Valon, and Raphael as well, of course. They were his family. He cherished the ties he still had on earth, as Miruko had once told him to do a long time before.
Valon glared. "Yeah? Well, I'm upset now!" But he wasn't, really. He was overwhelmed and happy and joyous. They could go home together and Raphael would not have to be sorrowing any longer. Their friend had returned, though Valon still could not believe how that was actually so.
Alister just shook his head, reaching up to remove his sunglasses and study Valon clearly without them.
"Hey," Valon said then, a new thought occurring to him, "I guess . . . earlier . . . what you were tryin' to say was why you really didn't come home, wasn't it?" He blinked up at Alister, looking into the depths of his gray eyes.
"Yes," Alister admitted quietly. "I was seriously injured, Valon. I didn't get caught in the worst part of the blast, but it did do damage to me. And before that, I was also attacked by a Magician of Black Chaos. I was already wounded by that time from the Silver Fang attack." His eyes took on a faraway look of their own as he remembered the battle. It had been a harsh, fierce fight to the death, and Alister had barely managed to win, though he did not know how he had succeeded. He had collapsed unconscious right after that, and that was when the blast had actually struck. He had regained consciousness in the monsters' own realm, being tended to by a Dark Magician Girl. Not all of the monsters were vicious creatures, of course, and the good ones (who had tried to help overthrow the bad ones in the humans' dimension, and who had added their powers to the Pharaoh's blast) had been very kind to him. But he did not explain all of that to Valon right then. He opted to wait until they could go home and talk to Raphael.
Valon looked down, biting his lip, and then back up at the man who was one of his two best friends. "What about now, Alister?" he asked. "I mean . . . are you still awfully torn up?" There was the fact that his voice seemed a bit different. And Alister had been wearing his sunglasses at night, though Valon knew he often did do that anyway. The Australian looked searchingly into Alister's gray eyes, but Alister met his gaze, and he obviously was not blind.
Alister was silent for a moment before he answered. "I'm healing," he responded carefully. "I don't have any injuries that won't heal, if that's what you mean. I'm going to be fine."
"You idiot," Valon muttered. "I thought we'd lost you. . . ." He swallowed hard. "Raph and I both really missed you, y'know. It just wasn't the same without you around." He glared, but then his expression softened. "I know what you were trying to do, though. And, well . . . thanks, chum." He grinned. "I'm just really glad you're back."
Alister smiled slightly, watching the boy before starting to stand up. "Come on," he said quietly. "Let's go home."
Valon scrambled up after him. "Yeah," he agreed. "Home sounds good. And Raph's gonna be shocked out of his mind." He continued to grin happily.
"Heh." Alister did not deny it.
The two friends left the cemetery.
****
Raphael growled to himself as he sat at the kitchen table, looking through the stack of bills that had come earlier. He had snapped at Valon before the boy had stormed out, and now Raphael was starting to worry. It was still raining outside, so there was the possibility that Valon had gotten into an accident. If he did . . . then it's my fault, he thought bitterly. Just like it was my fault when Alister died. . . .
He ran a hand through his hair. Why was it that he had been wounded? If it had not been for that, then the three of them could have left together and Alister would not have felt the need to do what he did. Instead his and Valon's friend was now dead, and he and Valon could no longer seem to get along. Raphael tried, and Valon tried, but in the end it seemed that they always wound up losing their tempers and being angry with each other. We can't get along anymore. . . . And now what kind of trouble has Valon got himself into? Raphael glared at the table before standing up. He needed to go look for the boy. Valon was reckless; there was no telling what he might get into.
As he was heading to the front door, it was suddenly flung open and he wound up crashing into two people who were on their way in. Stunned, he pulled back. He was about to apologize to Valon, who he saw first, but then he noticed the other young man and went completely pale. "Alister?!" he managed to choke out at last. But . . . that was not possible. He must be going mad.
"Hey, Raph!" Valon chirped with a grin. "Look who's finally back with us!"
Alister smiled slightly, seeing how shocked Raphael looked. "I'm real, Raphael," he said, stepping inside along with Valon. "I'm not a figment of your imagination."
Raphael stared at him. "But . . . how?" he finally managed to ask.
Valon turned to look at the redhead as well. "That's a good question, mate," he declared. "You said you wanted to wait to talk about it until we got home." He shut the door and wrung some of the rainwater out of his fluffy hair. "So, where the heck were you after the attack?!"
Alister grunted, pulling off his trenchcoat slowly. "It's a long story," he replied. Now that the coat was off, the others could see more of the bandages covering Alister's various wounds. Valon shuddered when he remembered seeing Alister being slashed by the Silver Fang. Those wounds were on his upper back, concealed mostly by the tanktop, but part of the bandage over them was visible.
"We thought you were dead for so long," Raphael spoke again, his voice cracked as he came over to the younger man. Part of him wanted to embrace Alister, as he thought of him as a younger brother, but none of them were especially overly affectionate with each other, so he did not.
Alister looked at him, his gray eyes calm and peaceful. He was happy to be home, and he knew that both of his friends were happy to have him back again. "I know," he said quietly. "I'm sorry about that. I came home as soon as I could."
Long into the night, after he and Valon changed into dry clothes, Alister explained of what had happened to him while he had been nursed by to health by the good monsters, in their dimension. Both Valon and Raphael were stunned, but they supposed it was logical enough for the good monsters to take Alister back with them after the battle.
"Why didn't they come find us?!" Valon asked in vexation.
"I wondered that as well, once I was recovering enough to be able to think clearly," Alister answered. "The Dark Magician Girl said that they weren't sure where I belonged, and that I was so severely injured that they thought they should just take me back with them instead of trying to find you and Raphael." Idly he rubbed at his right arm, where his friends could still see the vague outline of a scar.
Raphael shook his head slowly. "You were gone for weeks," he stated, hating the memories of those past weeks.
Alister nodded. "And I was near the point of death for most of the time. They didn't think I was going to survive."
Valon grinned. "But you did, chum." He paused, blinking as another realization came to him. "Why were you in the cemetery anyway?"
Alister grunted. "I was going to come home when I was returned to this dimension, but I happened to be near the cemetery and I saw your motorcycle there, so I went in. I knew that you and Raphael probably thought I was dead. When I saw you, you looked quite forlorn, so I sat on the bench with you and you know the rest."
"Yeah. . . ." Valon still felt ridiculous that he had not realized that he had been talking to Alister all that time. But he knew that Alister was right and he had been quite upset, so he had not paid much attention when the voice had sounded like his "deceased" friend's.
"It's good to have you back," Raphael said then, and firmly meant it. "We missed you."
Alister nodded. "Valon told me that both you and he were blaming yourselves for what happened," he said. "But you realize that you couldn't have stopped me? I wanted to do what I did so the two of you could get away. You couldn't have changed my mind, Raphael."
Raphael sighed. "I know," he replied quietly. And he had known, but in spite of that he had still blamed himself.
"Well," Valon spoke up, "everything can get back to normal around here, right?" He grinned impishly, looking from Alister to Raphael.
"That depends on what you mean by normal," Alister answered. "I'm too weary to argue with you tonight."
"That's not what I meant!" Valon retorted, cuffing Alister on the shoulder (but first making sure that Alister did not have an injury there).
Raphael just shook his head, watching them. Already things were sliding back into place. He had the feeling that the two might start arguing soon, whether Alister felt he was too weary or not, but Raphael found that he was actually relieved. Alister was home.
Necrophia at Janime's drew an awesome picture of the bikers and Liu! It's so cute! =3
In the morning, I wrote half of a bizarre blurb. Then, tonight, I wrote the other half. Here's the whole thing.
Valon sniffled sadly, drawing his knees up to his chest as he stared blankly at the grass in front of him. He was sitting on a stone bench monument in the cemetery, where he often came when he wanted to be alone and think. He had frequented the location all the more often in the past few weeks, though he did not know the person who was buried there. Somehow a cemetery just seemed a good place to come when reflecting on a departed loved one. He knew his friend had often come to the cemetery to think as well, though he had never understood the attraction. He still did not, to be honest, but he found himself coming anyway, especially on rainy days such as this.
He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he did not bother to look up when someone else sat on the bench beside him. "You seem lonely," a raspy voice remarked.
Valon sighed, shrugging a bit. "Yeah, well . . . I guess a lot of people who show up here are lonely," he replied, "if they're still alive."
"The dead too, I imagine," the stranger answered.
Valon laughed weakly. "Yeah . . . guess so." He leaned back, still staring forlornly at the dampened grass. "I wasn't expectin' company. I'm usually the only one here."
"Likewise." A brief silence. "But you don't seem the type who would enjoy regularly visiting a place such as this."
"I'm not, really." Valon glared at the ground. "I just started comin' a while back, when I lost my friend." He sniffled again, his wet bangs plastered to his forehead. "I miss him, y'know?" It was strange, but he felt relaxed around this person. He looked up at his companion, but the night was so dark that he really could not make out any features. But before he quite knew what was happening, he was explaining how his friend had died. A faraway look came into his eyes as he recalled the battle.
"You probably won't believe it," the Australian said with a wry, rueful grin, "but a while back this whole city got overrun with all kinds of monsters. All of us were tryin' to fight them off. . . . My one chum, Raph, was already down . . . and Alister and I were tryin' to protect him. He told us to just go and that he'd be able to make it up, but neither of us were gonna leave him all torn up like that. So we were helpin' him up and tryin' to get away with him, when they started comin' after us." He clenched a fist tightly, almost drawing blood. "Alister said he'd distract 'em. Right about then was when the Pharaoh was tryin' to get up enough energy from his Millennium Puzzle so that he could get rid of all the monsters. Alister knew that, and he knew what'd happen if he got caught in the blast, but that idiot stayed behind anyway!" Valon slammed his hand down hard on the smooth stone, shaking at the memories that were coming to light in his mind. There was not a day that passed when he did not spend time running the events over in his mind and wondering if possibly he could have done something to change the outcome. "Raph and me . . . we were able to get just far enough away that we just got dazed when the blast came . . . but Alister . . . Alister kicked the bucket."
The other man frowned, studying the boy. "You never found a body," he remarked.
Valon shrugged helplessly. "Heck, we tried. But well . . . we figured . . . you know . . . that there wasn't any body to find. The monsters all got wiped out . . . and we figured Alister had, too. The only thing we ever found was a bloody piece of his glove!" He lapsed into silence again, staring blankly into the raindrops that were falling down. Why am I talkin' to him, anyway? I know it's crazy . . . how he kinda reminds me of my chum. . . . "If Alister was still alive, he would've come home," the boy added then, glaring at the sky again.
"What if he couldn't before?"
"Well, why couldn't he have?!" Valon snapped.
"Maybe he didn't remember he had a home. Maybe he was very sick."
Valon snorted. "We were devastated! Both of us were. And each of us was blaming himself for what happened." He was trembling again. "That idiot . . . he knew he would die. He knew it!" This was growing stranger with each passing moment. And there was no denying the fact that the person, in a certain way, did sound like Alister. Valon shuddered, supposing that his loneliness was making him imagine things again. Maybe this person did not even exist. Maybe he was a figment of Valon's imagination because he wanted someone to talk to.
"Why do you think he didn't let that bother him?"
Valon heaved a sigh, knowing the answer. "'Cause he wanted to protect us," he mumbled.
"Exactly." Another pause. "You truly do miss him, don't you."
"Of course I do!" Valon yelled, his voice growing louder than he'd intended. He narrowed his eyes, quieting again. "He and Raph were my best chums. Now Alister's dead and Raph is almost always brooding. He blames himself still. But that's crazy, 'cause he couldn't help what happened! I'm the one who should've been able to have done something. . . ."
In the darkness he could almost sense that the other man was raising an eyebrow. "Could you have stopped him? Honestly, I don't think you could have. He did what he felt was right. You couldn't have convinced him otherwise."
"Yeah, yeah," Valon muttered in irritation, knowing that the man was right. Alister would not have listened. He had not listened when Valon and Raphael had protested. He had wanted them to be safe. "I just wish . . . I wish I had a second chance. . . ."
"Oh?" His companion sounded slightly surprised now. "What would you do with a second chance?"
Valon thought about that carefully before answering. "I'd tell him I was sorry," he admitted then. "We were always arguing about something. We'd had a row right before he croaked, actually . . . but I never got to tell him I was sorry. . . ." He grinned ruefully. "And . . . I guess . . . I'd try to listen to him more." He had a bad habit of getting annoyed whenever Alister had tried to give him advice or had pointed out something or another that Valon was doing that was dangerous. He liked to think that he could take of himself perfectly fine and that he did not need anyone's help or advice.
"Really." Valon felt a hand being laid on his shoulder. "Well. Valon, you have your second chance."
Valon almost fell off the bench. Immediately he whirled around to look up at the person he had been conversing with. The moon had come from behind a cloud now, lighting upon the man's features. He recognized the deep crimson hair, but the eyes were hidden from him behind honey-tinted sunglasses. His friend looked weary and exhausted, and his clothes were torn in places, revealing bandages draped over various places on his pale skin. His voice still had a rasping effect, but it was recognizable. Valon had recognized it quite soon after they had began talking, but he had been certain that it would be impossible for it to actually be Alister talking to him, unless he was hallucinating. He would say that he was now, but the hand on his shoulder was real.
"Why you!!!" he yelled, grabbing a fistful of Alister's torn tanktop. "You were talking to me all this time??! Why didn't you say it was you?!" So many conflicting emotions were crashing through his heart all at once---disbelief, wonder, annoyance, foolishness. . . .
"I assumed you would recognize my voice," Alister replied calmly, "but I soon realized that you thought I was dead. Then you wanted to talk about what had happened, so I listened. You were too upset at that point, so I didn't tell you who I am." He studied his friend thoughtfully. He had missed Valon, and Raphael as well, of course. They were his family. He cherished the ties he still had on earth, as Miruko had once told him to do a long time before.
Valon glared. "Yeah? Well, I'm upset now!" But he wasn't, really. He was overwhelmed and happy and joyous. They could go home together and Raphael would not have to be sorrowing any longer. Their friend had returned, though Valon still could not believe how that was actually so.
Alister just shook his head, reaching up to remove his sunglasses and study Valon clearly without them.
"Hey," Valon said then, a new thought occurring to him, "I guess . . . earlier . . . what you were tryin' to say was why you really didn't come home, wasn't it?" He blinked up at Alister, looking into the depths of his gray eyes.
"Yes," Alister admitted quietly. "I was seriously injured, Valon. I didn't get caught in the worst part of the blast, but it did do damage to me. And before that, I was also attacked by a Magician of Black Chaos. I was already wounded by that time from the Silver Fang attack." His eyes took on a faraway look of their own as he remembered the battle. It had been a harsh, fierce fight to the death, and Alister had barely managed to win, though he did not know how he had succeeded. He had collapsed unconscious right after that, and that was when the blast had actually struck. He had regained consciousness in the monsters' own realm, being tended to by a Dark Magician Girl. Not all of the monsters were vicious creatures, of course, and the good ones (who had tried to help overthrow the bad ones in the humans' dimension, and who had added their powers to the Pharaoh's blast) had been very kind to him. But he did not explain all of that to Valon right then. He opted to wait until they could go home and talk to Raphael.
Valon looked down, biting his lip, and then back up at the man who was one of his two best friends. "What about now, Alister?" he asked. "I mean . . . are you still awfully torn up?" There was the fact that his voice seemed a bit different. And Alister had been wearing his sunglasses at night, though Valon knew he often did do that anyway. The Australian looked searchingly into Alister's gray eyes, but Alister met his gaze, and he obviously was not blind.
Alister was silent for a moment before he answered. "I'm healing," he responded carefully. "I don't have any injuries that won't heal, if that's what you mean. I'm going to be fine."
"You idiot," Valon muttered. "I thought we'd lost you. . . ." He swallowed hard. "Raph and I both really missed you, y'know. It just wasn't the same without you around." He glared, but then his expression softened. "I know what you were trying to do, though. And, well . . . thanks, chum." He grinned. "I'm just really glad you're back."
Alister smiled slightly, watching the boy before starting to stand up. "Come on," he said quietly. "Let's go home."
Valon scrambled up after him. "Yeah," he agreed. "Home sounds good. And Raph's gonna be shocked out of his mind." He continued to grin happily.
"Heh." Alister did not deny it.
The two friends left the cemetery.
****
Raphael growled to himself as he sat at the kitchen table, looking through the stack of bills that had come earlier. He had snapped at Valon before the boy had stormed out, and now Raphael was starting to worry. It was still raining outside, so there was the possibility that Valon had gotten into an accident. If he did . . . then it's my fault, he thought bitterly. Just like it was my fault when Alister died. . . .
He ran a hand through his hair. Why was it that he had been wounded? If it had not been for that, then the three of them could have left together and Alister would not have felt the need to do what he did. Instead his and Valon's friend was now dead, and he and Valon could no longer seem to get along. Raphael tried, and Valon tried, but in the end it seemed that they always wound up losing their tempers and being angry with each other. We can't get along anymore. . . . And now what kind of trouble has Valon got himself into? Raphael glared at the table before standing up. He needed to go look for the boy. Valon was reckless; there was no telling what he might get into.
As he was heading to the front door, it was suddenly flung open and he wound up crashing into two people who were on their way in. Stunned, he pulled back. He was about to apologize to Valon, who he saw first, but then he noticed the other young man and went completely pale. "Alister?!" he managed to choke out at last. But . . . that was not possible. He must be going mad.
"Hey, Raph!" Valon chirped with a grin. "Look who's finally back with us!"
Alister smiled slightly, seeing how shocked Raphael looked. "I'm real, Raphael," he said, stepping inside along with Valon. "I'm not a figment of your imagination."
Raphael stared at him. "But . . . how?" he finally managed to ask.
Valon turned to look at the redhead as well. "That's a good question, mate," he declared. "You said you wanted to wait to talk about it until we got home." He shut the door and wrung some of the rainwater out of his fluffy hair. "So, where the heck were you after the attack?!"
Alister grunted, pulling off his trenchcoat slowly. "It's a long story," he replied. Now that the coat was off, the others could see more of the bandages covering Alister's various wounds. Valon shuddered when he remembered seeing Alister being slashed by the Silver Fang. Those wounds were on his upper back, concealed mostly by the tanktop, but part of the bandage over them was visible.
"We thought you were dead for so long," Raphael spoke again, his voice cracked as he came over to the younger man. Part of him wanted to embrace Alister, as he thought of him as a younger brother, but none of them were especially overly affectionate with each other, so he did not.
Alister looked at him, his gray eyes calm and peaceful. He was happy to be home, and he knew that both of his friends were happy to have him back again. "I know," he said quietly. "I'm sorry about that. I came home as soon as I could."
Long into the night, after he and Valon changed into dry clothes, Alister explained of what had happened to him while he had been nursed by to health by the good monsters, in their dimension. Both Valon and Raphael were stunned, but they supposed it was logical enough for the good monsters to take Alister back with them after the battle.
"Why didn't they come find us?!" Valon asked in vexation.
"I wondered that as well, once I was recovering enough to be able to think clearly," Alister answered. "The Dark Magician Girl said that they weren't sure where I belonged, and that I was so severely injured that they thought they should just take me back with them instead of trying to find you and Raphael." Idly he rubbed at his right arm, where his friends could still see the vague outline of a scar.
Raphael shook his head slowly. "You were gone for weeks," he stated, hating the memories of those past weeks.
Alister nodded. "And I was near the point of death for most of the time. They didn't think I was going to survive."
Valon grinned. "But you did, chum." He paused, blinking as another realization came to him. "Why were you in the cemetery anyway?"
Alister grunted. "I was going to come home when I was returned to this dimension, but I happened to be near the cemetery and I saw your motorcycle there, so I went in. I knew that you and Raphael probably thought I was dead. When I saw you, you looked quite forlorn, so I sat on the bench with you and you know the rest."
"Yeah. . . ." Valon still felt ridiculous that he had not realized that he had been talking to Alister all that time. But he knew that Alister was right and he had been quite upset, so he had not paid much attention when the voice had sounded like his "deceased" friend's.
"It's good to have you back," Raphael said then, and firmly meant it. "We missed you."
Alister nodded. "Valon told me that both you and he were blaming yourselves for what happened," he said. "But you realize that you couldn't have stopped me? I wanted to do what I did so the two of you could get away. You couldn't have changed my mind, Raphael."
Raphael sighed. "I know," he replied quietly. And he had known, but in spite of that he had still blamed himself.
"Well," Valon spoke up, "everything can get back to normal around here, right?" He grinned impishly, looking from Alister to Raphael.
"That depends on what you mean by normal," Alister answered. "I'm too weary to argue with you tonight."
"That's not what I meant!" Valon retorted, cuffing Alister on the shoulder (but first making sure that Alister did not have an injury there).
Raphael just shook his head, watching them. Already things were sliding back into place. He had the feeling that the two might start arguing soon, whether Alister felt he was too weary or not, but Raphael found that he was actually relieved. Alister was home.