Something was wrong with Daten City.
It had always been a dirty city, in both senses of the word. Despite being an up-and-coming metropolis, it was usually seen as more of a Chicago than a New York or San Fransisco, with even the most up-market and hoity-toity districts full of dark corners, dodgy secrets and seedy doings. Not to mention the general layer of trash, bubblegum, pigeon shit and dark soot from all the car exhausts. It was almost as if the entire city had an oily sheen to it that the glitz and glamour only accentuated.
This... was a different kind of dirty.
Panty's heels crunched through the snow as she walked through Daten Central Park. Or, rather, what had been Daten Central Park.
But as she looked around, she could see that it had it had... changed.
The once neurotically well-kept gardens and hedges were a tangle of weeds, briars and things the angel couldn't identify at a glance. The trees were sagging under the weight of unpruned boughs and what grass poked through the white blanket was almost up to her knees. The buildings on either side where showing extreme aging - stone was cracked, crumbling and covered in moss, steel was rusting and bending and glass was broken into snow-like shards. Many of the street lamps weren't on, and aside from the silvery sheen from a full moon the place was in almost total blackness.
Everything was deathly still. The only sound, aside from Panty's footsteps and her shallow breaths, was a faint wind that whipped at her hair. Where was everyone... or everything? No cars on the streets, no people, all the doors were locked... There wasn't even a single light on in any of the windows. No signs of life to be seen, not even the singing of birds or barking of foxes.
What had happened? Had some ghost, or perhaps a demon, come through the city and-
The streetlights flickered.
Panty knew what that meant by now, and braced herself. She wanted to be ready this time. No goddamn Ghost of Christmas Fuckery was going to catch her by surprise and-
A sound like the rusting hinges of an iron gate.
The thing seemed to be barely there, a shadow cast by the moon come to life. It's shape was hard to make out as it glided towards Panty, obscured by a great black cloak or shroud like a corpse dressed for the funeral. It left no footsteps in the snow, and its cape was curiously stirred, as if by a current of water or a warm breeze in opposition to the wind that blew through the park. The air around it turned even colder as it approached, the hooded head gazing eyelessly in her direction.
Fear, cold and sharp, swept through Panty's chest. But only for a moment.
"Well, look who it is," she drawled sarcastically, folding her arms. "Mister Big Dick Yet-To-Cum himself!"
The ghost didn't reply. There was a sensation of a piercing gaze being directed at her, but Panty had stopped caring. The fear had given way to frustration and annoyance. When it began to make another creaking sound, she cut it off sharply.
"Gotta tell you," she continued, "all this cryptic bullshit bein' thrown at me's makin' me real dry right now. I only came back to this shitpile of a city for a lame-ass party, and now a bunch of limp-dick, low-budget phantoms are giving me the Spanish Inquisition treatment! And those guys got it all wrong, too, bee-tee-dubs! I didn't even want to be here, and I really didn't need this!"
The annoyance was giving way to anger now. Panty's blue eyes glared furiously up at the hovering spectre.
"I mean, this is so goddamn predictable! You're gonna drag me around some bullshit hypothetical future, show me a bunch of dumb places and then try to make some plot twist a kid could see coming. And all because you wanna teach me what Christmas is really about, when we all know Christmas isn't about anything because some cunts stole it from the Pagans and tacked Jesus onto it like a badly-fitting condom!"
The Ghost still didn't do anything, which only made Panty angrier. A hand reached underneath her skirt.
"Well, fine! Go ahead, you dickless wonder! But I'm not gonna have some home-made Grim Reaper costume do it! Either you give me a face that I can hold a fucking conversation with..."
There was a flash as Backlace came into being.
The shrouded figure continued to stare at her. At least, she assumed it was staring. With no visible face, the angel couldn't tell.
Then a hand emerged from beneath the robe. And Panty's eyes widened as she caught a glimpse of something familiar within the pale, thin grasp of the phantom. Something round, something vaguely shaped like-
ZI-O!
Then the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come burst into flames. Panty shrieked and covered her eyes, almost blinded by the brilliant, almost golden fires that raged in front of her, hissing audibly.
She hadn't been ready at all, as it turned out. She thought she'd been ready for yet another rehash of that old book, or to look upon her own wrinkled corpse, or just... some dude. This was the entire opposite of those. And while part of her mind realized that she couldn't register a single drop of actual heat from what should have been an inferno the size of a small cow, the rest of it was too busy reeling to take note of that properly. Backlace had slipped from her grasp to land somewhere in the snow.
When the light died, the smoke that filled the air had a nauseating ozone reek to it. The moment she felt her eyes stop stinging, the blonde Anarchy sister caughed, spat and opened them again.
And gaped.
She'd only had this figure described to her once. Apparently, on rare occasions, Kouta had dreams about his various future selves - the strain of averted prophecy still weighed on his mind. But one of the most prominent ones, aside from the dark, imposing figure of Emperor Zi-O, was... this. The polar opposite. Shining gold and silver, somehow radiant and filled with hope despite looking like a tangle of watch straps and clock hands. A faint light, opposite to the shadowy cloak that had loomed over Panty, illuminated her face.
Lord Zi-O, Benevolent King of Time, regarded her for a moment.
Then he lifted his hands, and steam hissed from around his neck as he pulled the latches free. And Panty realized she had no idea what she expected to see underneath the helmet. Anyone could have taken the mantle of Zi-O in those alternate timelines. Someone they knew, or someone completely different. It might even have been a woman, for all she knew - if they finally decided everyone was a King, no matter if you-
When he pulled the helmet off, her jaw nearly dropped off its hinge.
"...Geek Boy?"
The face was sharper, with hints of stubble. The hair was longer, tied back in a ponytail that now swung free with the helmet removed. And there was a scar or two on the once-clear skin. But the keen, clear eyes of green stared back at her in the exact same way she knew, and the corners of his mouth were turned up in the same gentle yet confident smirk.
There was no doubt about who it was.
"Hi, Panty," he said. His voice had changed too - no longer mousey, but deeper and oddly smooth, like honey being poured over warm coals. Hearing it, while bizzare, made Panty, ah... tingle in all the ways she enjoyed, and she found herself putting on her usual smirk whenever she saw a man she fancied for the night.
"Fuck," she purred, "you've filled out. Is this who Stocking's gonna be fucking in the next, I dunno, ten years?"
"Maybe" said the future Kouta, shifting his weight. "Or maybe not. Think of me as a reflection of what may be - what I could be. The future is fluid, like an ocean, and the ripples from a single thrown stone can spread wide."
"Ooh, you charmer." Panty's eyes had wandered downwards, and licked her lips at what she saw. "Does Future Stocking mind sharing? Because I'd spread wide for you, if you get my drift~"
"Subtle as an elephant in clown makeup." Lord Zi-O shook his head, the smirk widening. Then his eyes seemed to catch something to the side of where he was standing, taking his attention away briefly. He lifted one gloved finger and pointed in that general direction.
"What's that?" he asked.
Panty turned, following the line of his finger. What was what? All she could see was the white expanse of snow that covered the park. And barely even that - a sea-fog had rolled in, unnoticed until now, covering the city in a shimmering haze that turned the lamplights into gaussian blobs. The angel strained with her eyes, trying to make out whatever it was-
She saw it.
She stared.
Then her eyes widened.
"Oh, no!" she wailed. "My own tombstone! I'm dead! Oh, what horrible fate befaaa-hahahaha-"
She doubled over, holding her sides, shoulders shaking. The laughter quickly turned into strained wheezing as she ran out of breath in short order, and when she paused to draw in breath it all rushed out again in an even harder bout of laughter. But it wasn't her usual hysterical giggling that she saved for drunkenly watching comedy shows, or for when Stocking humiliated herself. There was an edge to it, a hard and sarcastic edge like a rusty knife.
The future Kouta let his hand fall, staring incredulously.
"...what's the joke?" he asked, after a moment.
"Sorry, sorry!" Panty gasped, wiping a tear from her eye as she fought for breath. "It's just... I'm real sorry to have to tell you all this, but... I take back everything I said about wanting to fuck you. Because this thing-"
She whipped around, eyes blazing. The anger was back.
"This entire thing has been a complete waste of time and dick!"
Kouta frowned. "Panty-"
"No, shut up!" Panty began to pace, heels sinking into the snow. "This is exactly what I was saying - I saw this hackneyed bullshit coming a mile off! Garterbelt shows me what I was like a few years ago, right? Well, whoop-de-fucking-do! I already lived that shit! The past is who I fucking am! There's no point in showing me that shit unless I'm somebody's dementia-riddled granddad in a care home trying to remember the last time I ever got hard!
"And speaking of granddads, ol' Harry Potter shows me the present! Oh, wowee-wow, how amazing is that?! It's almost like, I dunno, I'm living it right now?! What fucking good does it do to show me the stuff that's already happening, you wrinkly piece of shit?! Especially shit that I don't care about, done by other people who I don't know and certainly aren't going to cum inside me in the future?!"
"And then there's you. The big, scary future. And what wonders do you have to show me, you dickless Paco Robane reject?!"
Panty stopped pacing and turned to the Ghost, glaring. He hadn't moved.
"I'm gonna die."
She stifled a bitter, exasperated laugh.
"Of course," she deadpanned. "Of course I'm gonna die. But guess what? Everything dies. Stocking is gonna die. Geek Boy is gonna die! Gartlerbelt is gonna die! EVERYONE I KNOW AND LOVE, AND EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING ELSE BESIDES, IS GONNA FUCKING DIE! AND WE'RE ALL GONNA GO WHEN WE SHOULDN'T!"
The echoes of her scream faded away into the cold air of the park. The blonde felt her throat sting from it, and realized that she'd gotten into the fake Kouta's face in her fury. His expression hadn't flickered, and she didn't know if it would have been better or worse if he'd reacted in any way.
She stepped back and breathed in deeply, fighting the tornado in her chest.
"So what," she hissed, "do you get out of showing me all this? Besides a boner?"
Lord Zi-O - no, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come - looked at her, in almost the same way Garterbelt and Jim Dale had done. And when he spoke, his voice was in the same level tones they'd used.
"Panty... where do you think you are right now?"
Panty's face dropped. She turned.
And saw, instead of the tombstone, a bench. And herself. And...
--------
"You used me!"
Panty groaned, rubbing her forehead. "Look, Geek Boy, I had bigger problems to deal with than-"
"You laughed!" Angry green eyes flashed from beneath an unruly mop of orange hair. "You stood there and laughed at me! Like we hadn't just-"
"Listen!" Panty snapped. "I appreciate all that, and I get it, but there was a giant penis demon underneath the city! The fuck did you want me to do? Not kill the thing?”
Arms folded in frustration. "Oh, so that makes it totally okay to not catch me and let my penis unlock a gateway to Hell! You could have just killed Corset and be done with it!"
"And then what? Some other shithead demon with world domination plans comes along and tries the same shit in ten years?" Panty was rubbing her temples by now. "And then we kill him, and another comes along, and another? You think it's a good idea to just let Cthulhu's randy cousin sit under the city forever? I was the permenant solution to that problem!"
She let her hands fall, mixed annoyance stirring in her. What it was mixed with, she didn't know, but she wished it wasn't there. She tried to distract herself from it.
"Besides," she said, with a small laugh, "you did look kinda funny in there. Squirmin' like a big ol' ginger cat stuck in a cardboard box."
She looked over to the other person, hoping the smile that had come over her face would disarm them a little. But when she saw they were trembling quite visibly, not reacing in the least, the smile faded instantly. God, why did they have to make everything such a fucking mess? Couldn't they see what she was getting at, that what she did was the right thing in the end? The annoyance came back, stronger than ever
"You know," she grumbled, "you're being pretty fucking selfish. I went out of my way to give you what you want, and you're still giving me shit?"
A bark of laughter. "Really? You think the sex was all I wanted? Is that it?!"
"Hey, I wanted it too!" Panty protested.
A snort of derision. "Yeah, just so you could get your powers back, right?"
"If you forgot, there was a giant demon cock about to cream the entire world!" growled Panty. "I thought that was kind of the deal!"
"You said you came back because you realized what you felt for me!" The boy's face was growing red by now. "The hell does that even mean now?! Was that just something you said to get my pants off, or did it not mean what I thought it meant?"
"Hey, stop and think for a fucking second, you red-haired cunt-waffle!" snapped the angel, now thoroughly losing patience. "If I hadn't fucked you, then we'd all be goddamn dead by now! And why did it matter at that particular moment if I had actual feelings for you or not?! You got to bust a nut inside me, and then I got to save your sorry ass and the entire city on top of all that! What, was that not good enough for you, you whiny little brat?! You not satisfied?!"
A pause.
And then the boy stood up, and she realized what she'd said.
"I saved your sorry ass, too," he hissed. "I pulled you out of the fire back at Rock Foundation, before those demon girls could kill you. I helped you get your powers back. I was there for you, at the lowest fucking point in your life. And apparently this is the gratitude I get."
Panty paled. "Wait, no-"
"You knew I had feelings for you, and you still didn't care. Even at your lowest, you were still scheming to use me. I was just a means to an end. Everything I did for you didn't matter just so long as you could get your rocks off and your powers back. You didn't really care about me or Stocking or anyone else, just that you got to be the bigshot heroine at the end of the day. Just like normal."
"No, that's not-"
"Stop." The green eyes blazed with hurt and fury. "Just stop, Panty. I gave you a chance to explain yourself, but you clearly haven't learned a fucking thing. I might be a loser, but I'm not an idiot. I know when I'm wasting my time."
He reached down, took the duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder. He took one last glance at the stunned angel, and for a moment his expression wavered. When he next spoke, his voice, while still an angry hiss, had a quaver to it.
"I'm just sorry I didn't figure it out sooner."
And with that, Briefers "Brief" Rockefeller turned his back.
Panty watched as he walked, strides long and fast, his back and fiery red hair retreating from sight. Tears were beginning to leak from the corners of her eyes, and she opened her mouth, trying to say something, but the words stuck. The boy continued to walk, and she continued to watch, until he was gone
Then, as the Panty of the present watched all this from where she stood, she degraded.
The pace was shocking. First, her hair lenghtened and her figure filled out, reacing adut hood in the blink of an eye. Then, just as quickly, the other Panty suddenly began collapsing in on itself. Her blonde turned to steely grey, her skin wizened and wrinkled and her figure became crooked and bent. The red dress faded and became ragged and full of holes, her shoes worn and tattered. But always on her face that same expression of desparing shock, of realizing what she'd just thrown away.
Then she collapsed, her body crumbling, turning to fine dust. A dust that blew away on the wind, leaving the bench empty.
And on the bench, it read:
In loving memory of
PANTY F. ANARCHY
Died of a broken heart on December 25th, 2010
-------
"I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE!"
Panty was on hands and knees, digging her fingers into the snowy earth beneath her. Tears streamed down her face, hidden by the messy blonde hair. Her teeth were bared in a grimace as she fought - and failed - to contain the hysterical sobbing.
"But you're always here," retorted the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. "You haven't moved. I didn't bring us here. You did."
She didn't look up. She could feel him standing over her in that stupid gaudy gold armour, staring down with his stupid face. But nothing she could think of could solve that problem. No retort, no pointing of a gun, no curse word would suffice. Because the bench was in front of her, and it was all rushing back - the frustration of trying to pick the right words, the realization that she'd screwed up, the cold horror upon figuring out what she'd lost. And that it was her fault.
And now there was somebody in her life that was almost an exact copy. Who wore a goofy smile and cooked for her and was just as adorably awkward yet secretly kind of badass. He had brown hair and wore a magic singing belt, but that was a minor bump in the comparison. And Stocking had got to him first, and she hadn't had the time to articulate everything going on in her head before she realized it was too late again.
This was why she didn't want to go back to Daten City.
"You... you gold-plated asshole!" she gasped out. "Do... do you have any god damn idea what it's like?! DO YOU?!" She looked up, glaring with mixed fury and grief at the young man standing over her. He didn't reply, staring down at her with an almost blank face, giving her nothing. She dropped her head and sobbed once more.
"You... you were so much like him," she croaked.
"But I'm not him." The Ghost didn't move.
"You vanished for three months!" Panty choked, feeling the wetness in her eyes. "Then you came back a monster, and I didn't realize... You were in the hospital because of me! Do you know what that was like?! You nearly died, and..." The grief caught up with her, and her shoulder shook with the uncontrollable hiccups and sobs, all while the ghost knelt down beside her, his face unmoving.
"I was so mad," she half-coughed, half-croaked. "I was so mad... he'd left me again..."
"Panty," said the Ghost, calmly. "I can't be who you want me to be. I'm never going to be him. You have to accept that and move on."
"How..." Panty inhaled, swallowed and tried again. "How can you do that? After all that you did? When... when you hurt someone so bad, they cut you out of your life?!" Her body trembled as she fought to contain even more sobbing, tears dripping to the snow and melting it beneath them.
She didn't see the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come flicker like a TV screen with bad reception, transforming briefly into Gartebelt and back again.
"I didn't know!" she spluttered. "I... I didn't know what I felt for him! F-for Brief! There was so much going on, and I was so wrapped up in being me! I treated him like fucking dogshit because I couldn't understand what those feelings were! I didn't want to understand! And when I did, it was... too late! Too late to tell him!"
"Tell him what?" asked the Ghost.
"I don't fucking know!" The tears were pinpricks of heat on her face. "Sorry? I love you? Literally anything! But I'd hurt him so bad, and he thought... I was trying to trick him again! That it was another lie! And..."It stuck in her throat. She couldn't say it. Couldn't say what wanted to come next.
But he was right.
She had used him.
She looked up at the bench again. Hoping, perhaps, that maybe the writing had been sponged away. But her own name blazed back at her like a mocking stain of juice on a white bedsheet, and she dropped her head again. She could still feel the Ghost standing next to her, offering nothing. Neither rebuke nor comfort. She didn't know which would be worse.
"Ten years," she wheezed. "Ten fucking years. And it's still too late."
"'Ain't ever too late," came Garterbelt's voice. "But this might be your one chance left, Panty. You gots to go back and make things right. That's the only way."
The extra voice didn't register at first. A thousand questions were roaring through Panty's head.
"When are you supposed to let this stuff go?" she croaked. "When... when do you try to make amends? When does sorry mean anything?"
"Well," came the voice of Jim Dale, "what better time than Christmas? The Season of Goodwill to All Men?"
That got her attention. Panty looked back, and saw the apparition flickering back and forth between shapes like scrambled cable TV. For a moment it had Jim Dale's face, then Garterbelt's head on Lord Zi-O's body, then the helmeted head upon the robed torso, all fighting for position. The air had grown oddly dark, and the air tingled like bubbles on her skin. The lights all around the city were flashing like a rave gone horribly wrong.
"This is where you are now, Panty," said the Ghost, all three voices melding and fading into each other. "Where you've been for the last ten years. But now you need to ask yourself 'where do you want to be? Where do you need to be?' And this is something only you can decide. You can either stay here and condemn yourself to this, or you can make that first step and change your future for the better. And in an hour from now, you're going to have to make that choice."
Panty blinked. There was something in the Ghost's hand...
"I'll see you there, Panty."
Kouta's voice.
Click.
ZI-O!
-------
She was back in the motel.
She blinked, feeling the wetness of tears, her skin still tingling from cold. What had happened? Had she been anywhere? Had she even moved? Did she really see Garterbelt, Jim Dale, Lord Zi-O? Had she just been tripping on bad wine? What... what was any of...?
She stood there for a minute, trying to put it all into a timeline and failing miserably. Her chest still heaved from grieving exertions, her breath coming in gasps. Her dress didn't feel wet from snow, nor did her shoes. But she remembered everything, sharp as as if she'd been there. The words Stocking and Kouta had spoken at the coffee shop. The taste of shitty pizza and booze in her mouth. The sting of...
Her eyes glanced at the clock.
For a moment, it didn't register. Then the words hit her like a sledgehammer.
"And in an hour from now, you're going to have to make that choice."
An hour from now.
"Fuck me!" she cried, and bolted for the door.
-------
"Where the fuck is she?!" hissed Stocking.
She and Kouta were at the party. The Rock Foundation had, naturally, laid on everything, and it was exactly the kind of thing you'd expect from a corporate shindig. Two long tables were carpeted in food and drink, ranging from heart-endangeringly fatty to tooth-rottingly sugary. The walls were lined with gaudy Christmas decorations in colours modern society continued to try and convince people were festive - purple, blue, lime green etc. The room was mostly occupied by men in suits and women in dresses, either workers here en sufferance, executives and councilmen trying to ride the coattails of Daten's most successul corporation or socialites looking for a good time.
Kouta and Stocking were among the latter category. But the expression on Panty's face as she checked her spider-web themed watch and balanced a slive of yule log with the other hand was the opposite of one having a good time.
"Eight o'clock exactly, I told her!" she seethed over the tired-old Christmas Number One being played by the band. "And she's half an hour late! I thought I could fucking trust her to keep a schedule, but apparently not!"
Kouta finished his sip of champagne and looked around, shrugging. "Maybe she's held up?"
"Held up, my tits! There's no traffic this time of night aside from cabs!" Stocking shoved her watch back into her pocket, frowning. "I swear, if she's diddling another douchebag in some alleyway somewhere, I'm gonna-"
"Oh, there she is."
Stocking turned. And, true to Kouta's word, was Panty, wearing the dress she'd picked out as she came through the door. Her sister immediately approached, fists balled.
"There you are, you skank!" she snapped,. "Where-?"
She stopped. Something didn't look right with Panty. Her expression was uncharacteristically stoic, and her makeup seemed a little smudged around the eyes, as if she'd been... crying? When the blonde angel looked back at her, there was something in there - something almost haunted, yet determined beyond belief - that made the goth's expression change.
"...are you okay?" she asked. "You look-"
"Rough, I know." Panty's voice was level - and it never was. "I've... been through a lot today." She looked around, scanning the crowd with the intensity of an eagle looking down at a rabbit.
Then she said something odd.
"Where is he?"
Kouta tilted his head. "Who-?"
But Stocking got ahead of him, as if she'd understood on some base level what her sister was after.
"He's on the balcony," she said, taking a mouthful of yule log. "Said he was waiting for you. You've already kept him for half an hour, so-"
But Panty was already making a beeline for the french windows, pushing through the crowd to do so. Kouta watched her leave, then turned to his girlfriend, brow furrowed.
"What's this about?" he asked.
At that moment, the band struck up a tune that was definitely more to the duo's liking. Stocking put down her plate and grinned at him.
"I'll tell you later. Now let's waste these motherfuckers on the dance floor."
-------
He was definitely older than the last time she'd seen him. Ten years will do that to you. Yet everything that she remembered about Brief was still there. The same intense green eyes, the same red hair, the same freckles. She knew him as Brief, the bushy-haired, green-jumpsuited nerd who pined after her yet had the constitution of a wet mouse when it came to sex. But tonight, with his hair combed back and the clean white suit, he was Briefers Rockefeller, CEO of the Rock Foundation and an adult.
He turned on hearing her footsteps. He didn't seem surprised to see her at all, considering that his eyes didn't widen or his face turn red as it used to do.
"Hi, Panty," he said.
Panty paused, and failed to swallow down the lump in her throat. "H-hey."
He turned to face her, champagne glass in one hand and the bottle in the other. Her footsteps were faltering and slow as she approached, constantly aware of too many little things. Her dress rustled, the way it clung to her hips, the smudged mascara, the one lock of hair she couldn't make behave-
"You look amazing," he said, simply.
That caught her off-guard and stopped her in her tracks. It took her a moment to remember she was supposed to say something back.
"You too," she said, and winced at hearing her words come out as a croak.
Brief smiled and handed her not the glass, but the entire bottle. Good, they were still on the same page about that, at least. The bottle was already open, and Panty took a swig that would have made even the most hardened drunk cry “steady on” in protest.
“Stocking told me everything,” Brief said, completely unfazed. “Sounds like you had quite the adventures since you left Daten.”
“Yeah, well, anything’s better than this place.” Panty wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “And that includes fighting a prick dressed as a crocodile, among other things.”
Brief mimed looking offended. “Oh, come on. Daten’s not all that bad! Remember when you and Stocking were gonna be big movie stars?”
“And then that loli goth bitch leaks your sex tape to the internet because you cut out all her scenes?” Panrty gave a sharp bark of bitter laughter. “Oh, yeah, real glamorous. Not to mention the district where a bunch of people threw up and made a disgusting vomit ghost.”
“I remember that one. Took three days to clean out the stink.” Brief shuddered.
“And look at you!” Panty gestured up and down Brief's body with her free hand. "Ten years ago, you were a useless, dickless nerd! Now you're Mister Big-Shot Kingpin with billions of dollars, a corporation, white suits, foie gras and... I dunno, a hot tub? You got one of those?"
"Just a small one. And only three cars."
"Fuck, only three?! Geek Boy, smell the coffee! You're set for life! Even if your dad was a prick with dollar bills up his asshole twenty-four-seven, he set you up for life!"
Brief snorted. "The nicest thing he ever did for me. Overshadowed, of course, by the shitpile of a city he and Corset made together. Now I'm spending half my inheritence cleaning it up - sorting out the schooling, getting public transport back on its feet, new homes..."
"Well, you can't do a worse job than either of them."
"Oh, no."
Silence fell brtween them. The two stared out into the cold night skyline of Daten City. Somehow, despite the rampant air pollution from skyscraper and street light, the stars stood clear and bright, pinpricks of white in the inky canvas above. Behind them, the manufactured, corporate-approved, design-by-committee festive spirit blundered mindlessly on, punctuated by self-satisfied cheers or laughter. Below, cars and pedestrians raged against each other in a bid to make their Christmas the best ever, ready to claw each other to pieces over the last gimmicky action figure on the shelf.
All of this punctuated by sips or swigs of champagne from the duo, two tiny islands of silence amidst it all. No half-hearted season’s wishes, no empty platitudes or small talk. Nearness, for the moment, was enough for them.
Then Brief turned to look at Panty.
"Did you want to talk about it?" he asked.
Panty looked back at him. His green eyes showed no malice, no hurt or bitterness or betrayal. They were the same eyes she found herself irrevocably drawn to when she first saw them, ten years ago. The same eyes she saw, filtered through the faint blue mood lighting of the fish tank that separated her from them. The same eyes that gave her the same look of warmth, openness and understanding that had pulled her in. No hints of what had occurred those ten years ago, though he clearly remembered,
The words of the Ghost - Kouta? Zi-O? - came back to Panty in a rush. She inhaled.
"I'm..."
Her mind scrabbled for the usual excuses, and realised with horror how they'd sound now. She let the breath go in a rush.
"Oh, I don't know," she groaned. "What... what can I say? It's been ten fucking years, Brief. Ten years of me not being in this shithole city, dealing with an asshole priest forcing me to do my job for cosmic beings that I hate. If I knew what to say, I'd have said it by now."
She put a hand over her face. Great, Panty. Your one chance to make amends, and you’re fucking up already. Tripping on the first hurdle and landing tit-first into a sandpit full of scorpions. Or camel spiders. Those guys looked like they gave real nasty-
Her rapidly-derailing train of thought came right off the rails when a hand found her shoulder. She looked, and found it was attached to Brief, sending the same warmth into her body his eyes were doing. The smile was back on his face
"Take your time."
Panty paused, waiting for the punchline. When none came, she took another deep breath and tried again.
"I... I hurt you. I get that now. And I wish I didn't take ten years for me to get it, but it did. Because I've... been through a lot of shit. The kind of shit that punts you in the cunt and says ‘Bitch, what the fuck are you doing?"’. Not that I didn’t try to pretend. The same old booze, fast food, kinky sex. Better to pretend everything's normal than to look in the mirror and realize hey, I’m a dumbass with no life skills and a fatal case of narcissism. I knew things were different, that it wasn't like living with Garterbelt anymore, but... it was the only way I could cope.”
She raised the bottle to her mouth, thought better of it and lowered it again.
“It didn’t work. I had to learn shit real fast to get into society, and the man don’t give a fuck if you don’t got those tax forms. Talk about wakeup call after wakeup call. But it... never went away. Not even when the business got started, not even when I could get back into the swing of things. That memory of who I was, what I said and did, was always at the back of my mind. Like a fucking brain tumour. Telling me that... nothing good I did mattered because I..."
She swallowed, and suddenly her voice was hoarse, her eyes watering.
“I fucked up, Brief. I used you and I hurt you real bad. You could have been the best thing that ever happened to me, and I treated you like garbage because I couldn’t grasp my feelings like a shitty fucking teenager. And I wish I’d rehearsed something, some kind of ‘sorry’ or ‘yes, but’, before I came in here, but there isn’t. There isn’t one. Because you were right, I was a colossal bitch to you, and you bent over backwards for me when I was at rock fucking bottom, and, and-“
“Panty.”
A pair of arms yanked her away from the balcony and wrapped around her, pulling her against a warm body.
She froze for a moment. This wasn't what she thought would happen. This had to be some kind of sick joke. Any moment now he was going to start agreeing, telling her how horrible she'd been, how he still hated her after all these years. He couldn't have just... forgiven her.
But he didn't let go. He kept holding onto her, stroking her back between her shoulder blades. His body warm against hers, smelling of expensive cologne and hair product and champagne and just the right amount of man...
The urge to be bitchy, badass Panty Anarchy vanished with a pop.
"Oh, Geek Boy," she wailed, "you fucking dweeb!"
She collapsed against him, sobbing hysterically. Her arms found themselves wrapped around him, clinging to him, to Brief, the one she thought she'd lost and had found her again. She sobbed, ugly and choking sobs, fat tears staining the shoulder of his white tuxedo. She clung to him as if he wasn't real, as if he would slip away at any moment, and he held her close, nothing but warmth and kindness and the faint scent of vanilla. She had a vague feeling that people were watching this through the double doors, but she didn't care.
Brief said nothing. Not until the sobs had petered out and it was just ugly hiccups and gasps. He seemed to be looking elsewhere, out over the city somewehre.
“You know,” he mused, “I was kind of an asshole, myself. No spine, no self-confidence and no clue. Obsessed with some woman who showed me nothing but contempt but making no real effort to try and improve myself. Every chance to get what I wanted, but always holding myself back because I didn't think I was good enough. You actually kind of kicked me awake on that day. I might have become some desperate nice guy on an internet forum long ago.”
Panty sniffed. "Or a serial killer."
"Either or."
They held the embrace just a little longer. Then Brief pulled away, and Panty looked up into his eyes. It was the same gaze that she saw out of Kouta, but by now the comparison had utterly collapsed to dust. Brief wasn't Kouta, Kouta wasn't brief. She'd been clinging to the other boy in the vain hope of keeping that memory down, of trying to repeat it all over and do it better. But this...
"It was ten years ago, Panty," he said. "I know it still hurts. I could see it hurt back then, and it still does. But there's always another day. Always another chance. If I can move on, if I can leave it behind and make something new, so can you. You're Panty Anarchy. You're strong. You don't care what anyone else thinks. You storm ahead in a blaze of gunfire and sex appeal and you don't give a fuck as long as you're making your own way."
He held up a handkerchief and dabbed at the blonde's watery eyes. Smudges of black came away, but neither cared.
"I've always believed you could," he finished.
Panty sniffed, unsure if she should file this under 'heartwarming' or 'incredibly fucking cheesy'. She was vaguely aware she looked a mess, and also aware that Brief didn't care, and the two cancelled each other out nicely enough that she didn't want to think about either of them.
"I just..." She brushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead. "I wish I could have... said literally anything else. Like 'sorry'. Or 'I love you'. Anything that wasn't my usual bitchy self. And-"
His fingers found her chin. She stopped.
"Now you have."
The sound of drums from indoors mixed with the hammering of Panty's own heart in her ears. In the frozen second of time that followed, the revelation struck her like a hammer blow to the skull. This was for real. This was her second chance. Her moment to move away from that bench in the park. The moment to pick herself up and try again, to move away from it. Even if it had been ten years, then she could still decide where she wanted to be. Where she needed to be.
And now, she knew where that was.
His breath was warm on her lips.
"Merry Christmas, Panty," he breathed.
She smiled back.
"Right back 'atcha, you dork."
And then she let herself get lost in him.
-------
Somewhere, in the distant void between the physical and the astral, someone might have said the immortal quote that accompanies every and any rendition of this particular story. But Panty and Brief were occupied, as were Kouta and Stocking. And whoever or whatever the Ghosts were, if there were even three or even Ghosts at all, their work complete, had returned to whatever layer of reality they had come from.
Some things, perhaps, are best left unsaid. They speak for themselves.
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