From promises to swears and oaths... eh, still not troubling
Where Geno and Alejandro keep breaking the ice more as the latter talks about himself and Ramirez, with all sweet and sorrowful memories together.
No one's POV:
-
If Geno was never being dragged to follow and fulfil his destiny, if he hadn't experienced, heard and learned what he had witnessed so far but was still finding himself in a similar situation in the afterlife as of now, his first reaction would still have a sad sensation but wouldn't think much about it later.
"Oh no... Welp, my condolences, move on."
But having experienced Grief himself, realising rather and embracing that he was in such state, and understanding throughout his journey how it worked for monsters, how much worse they could be affected than the humans, to recognize the signs, had him a little more changed.
As Alejandro was skipping next to him while they were wandering on the land of the dead monsters and describing things from his alive days, whatever he could remember, Geno was mainly looking forward, only ever so, giving little glances at the puppy with the same shocked and sad expression, empty eyesocket and slightly clenched teeth.
Even for the one face he despised more than others on the ship, a lot was suddenly explained. Ramirez... he had lost more than just a wife. Geno stared at the little dead puppy next to him being so happy and clueless of what he was trying to comprehend and accept.
It almost looked and felt in that moment as if all and whatever happiness Ramirez had before joining piracy ended up to the dead. It was now next to him, skipping and jumping happily, giggling throughout his narrations. That Alsatian wasn't just Grief-striken once, but twice and somehow still holding on...
"... Me and sissy almost got stung by the wasps, but luckily we jumped in the water and they left us alone! Then we were laughing. Papi wasn't laughing though, because we had become all dirty and muddy. When we returned home he was scolding us for being unable to keep ourselves clean for even an hour, but then he stopped and just send us to take a bath, another bath! Aw man!"
Shoot, the kid was still rumbling and Geno was barely paying attention! He hurried to shake his head left and right and take a quiet breath in, then out. He stopped walking. 2 seconds later Alejandro stopped too, confused and surprised.
"Hey, kid..."
"Yeees?" The puppy asked confused, still clueless of what was going on inside Geno's mind. The skeleton huffed.
"Can we sit down for a moment? Ya see, you might not feel tired, but I'm still alive and can still get pretty tired." He said.
"Okie!^w^ Besides it gets a little difficult talking and skipping, I loose focus of what I'm saying!" Alejandro immediately agreed and sat next to Geno looking up to him with perked up hollow eyes and a wide smile on his muzzle. Both unsettling and cute. "Oh oh! Shall I tell you about that one time when-?!"
"Buddy, wait..." Geno cut him off gently and respectfully. The puppy looked at him confused as he tilted head to the right.
"What?"
"I uuuh... would like listen to more of your own little adventures and all..." Whatever he had hear anyways. "... but may I ask somethin' else for ya to tell me? If you can."
"Alrighty!" Alejandro nodded fast. Geno internally crossed himself 3 times.
"... How... was your dad? As a character I mean." The little boy looked at him with curiosity. "Was he... good to ya?"
Great oh great! He was sticking his nonexistent nose into the dogface's past! But Alejandro seemed to be getting into thinking mode then for a few seconds.
"... He was very serious... Strict... Ummm... He scolded us often for being naughty and getting ourselves in trouble. He often hugged and told us stories to sleep- oh! He was petting us! Hee hee..." There he got sad. "... He was crying often. Calling mami, asking why she left him. His eye would turn completely black then. But then he would catch me looking at him crying, then stop, he was telling me to come close to him and then we would hug. And then his eye was going back to being grey! After all times he would cry and then hug me, in the night him and us would all fall asleep together. A maid had told me once that when still babies, he let no one from the staff of the house feed us, he would do it himself. When we grew up a little, many times he took me and sissy to his work, watch what he's doing! Many who were sick, or hurting, he would advice them on how to feel better. He was talking funny, saying many strange words. Me and sissy trying to repeat these words was ending up with us laughing." Unconsciously Geno chuckled together with Alejandro. "... He was crying a lot more when I started getting seriously sick. Most of my memories are short and random. Yet somehow I remember better the ones where I couldn't see."
"Couldn't... see?" Geno asked hesitantly.
"... I remember I woke up one day. I opened my eyes and then... I felt my chest hurting. I was coughing fast, my body burned, especially my head. It was a sudden pain, uncontrollable. I yelled and asked for papi to come help me while sissy was also calling for him. I looked at my hands, the fingers had started... melting. And... as papi entered my room, my eyes..." The boy paused and looked away as if trying to remember the correct words the describe what happened next. "... my eyes... They were gone. I had fallen back asleep but I was still awake."
"You mean you couldn't see anythin'? As if at a state of having your eyes closed?" Geno asked. Alejandro nodded.
"Yes, but... I couldn't feel my eyes? As if they weren't there anymore. Dissapeared like bubbles! Just liquid running down my face. I remember I was feeling so much pain I fainted. And from that day on, I couldn't see anything. Just hear, smell, touch... constantly feel pain. My chest was hurting. I was constantly coughing and spitting saliva. Sometimes it was becoming way too bitter... from the blood. Yucky. Sissy was crying and constantly trying to hug me but papi wasn't letting her close to me. The wounds I had gotten because of the illness could get further infected and infect her too... I couldn't draw as my hands had almost melted off. Or from what sissy would describe, looking like they were at an advanced state of... ummm... leposie?" Leprocy. "My legs too. Sometimes I would shake violently and it was getting hard to breathe. It was then when I was feeling the fever in me growing bigger. Everywhere, on me... But I endured, because I knew papi would do his best to help me feel better. I kept being happy and cheerful to not discourage him. Even though I could hear him crying quietly in the distance when he was thinking I was sleeping. On the day before I ended up here, I remember him hugging me despite having warned sissy that my wounds were infectious and couldn't be touched. He was apologising for being unable to help me feel any better, that he was... useless. And that got me sad..."
Wait, which was the first original question? How had the narration ended up to this point? Geno listened more and more petrified and horrified. And even more sad. The boy was describing him situations familiar to himself.
High fevers. Seizures. Parts of his body not melting but mainly cracking. Coughing up blood. He had the memory of being told by his mom that less than a year old his right eyesocket had melted off and went almost completely blind.
How desperate must have they felt with him and perhaps that was exactly the case for the doctor with Alejandro! Geno looked again at the puppy, looking forward to nothing with a blunt expression.
"And... didja tell him anythin'?" He asked softly. A few seconds later a smile formed on the puppy's face and his tail started sweeping the floor of the afterlife as it wagged.
"No ploris papi, t'estimo!😄"
"Ow, what was that? Ah yeah, what's left of my soul breaking..." Geno thought as he gripped his ribcage tightly. Him and Alejandro stayed silent for many seconds before the latter started talking again.
"... Jo també t'estimo. Papi held me closer and told me that as he kept crying louder. I had fallen asleep in his arms a while later. When I woke up again though, I was alone. A long later, my body started hurting again. I started crying and screaming, calling for help. Then, I felt a strong pierce through my chest. It hurt for a moment a lot more. Then all of a sudden all pain stopped... I realised I could see the essences around me, looking back at me. For a moment I had think I had been cured, since I was able to see again. But then I learned I was dead. And I'm here ever since..." The puppy waved his hand around. "I was sad, scared and crying. I started calling for papi, then for Izabella to get me out of here, not leave me alone. But then mami came..."
"Wait a minute." Geno tried to do the math to clear the confusion from what the boy had just said. "If Izabella died at childbirth, at least from what had been implied, then how come he talks as if she's still alive... Oooh." Of course. "So your mami and sister have the same name?" He asked. Alejandro nodded.
"Yup... Papi missed mami a lot, that's why he named sissy like that. Besides she looked like her. And mami replied to me calling that name. Even though I was asking for Izabella then, to see mami, recognising her not only because sissy looked like her but from a painting of papi and mami together, made me excited and happy. Especially when mami looked at me closely and almost started crying. Oh, sembles el meu Andreu! She said."
"I can't!" Geno screamed internally and almost threw his hands in the air.
"I was happy I had finally met mami. But I was sad because papi and sissy weren't here with me. I had the chance at least to hear more about him. Sounded like him and mami were both happy as long as she was alive and they were together..." Alejandro stopped talking for a moment to think. "... before we were born..." He hugged his knees and turned head to look away from Geno silent.
"Hey... what's up?" The small skeleton asked. The other didn't reply and just exhaled from his nose sharply. Geno thought for a moment, having understood anyways what had just bothered the little boy but asked to see if he would confirm.
"Have you ever been simply sitting down and just blame yourself for things you or anyone couldn't know would happen?" Alejandro asked eventually. Yup, Geno had understood. He huffed.
"Many times." He started. The other turned to look at him curious. "But not for the same reasons as yours. I had think I was responsible for my own family's destruction. For bein' unable to do somethin' to prevent... bad stuff from happenin'. Until I met and made a very good friend, I used to firmly believe that. And also believe that because I was unable to defend anybody I cared about, it was always my fault if they got hurt. And I pushed 'em away." Alejandro looked down thoughtful, his tail wagging slowly as he thought.
"Still, mami ended up here because of me and sissy. Indirectly or not, didn't I..." He didn't complete his sentence. Geno thought for a few seconds before an answer hit him.
"And if you think your dad would be holdin' any, the slightest grudge towards you, would he still go through all the way, trouble and effort trynna heal you? Would he spend nights cryin' for ya, seeking again and again to save you?" Geno shook his head left and right. "Has he ever once in the little time you've been alive blamed you for your mom being dead?"
"... No?" The puppy's expression turned sad. "For that never, but then, why everytime he comes here and I approach him he tells me to get out of his face and stop reminding him of... that day?"
"Wait, wha-?!" Geno flinched. "Everytime he comes here???"
"Um, ye. Sometimes he falls in this land and he has holes on his forehead, side of his head or the back. Other times his arms are bleeding nonstop. Sometimes he has stabs on his chest. He yells at me to leave him in his misery and that it's all his fault for destroying this family. That he wants to properly die already but without having to see me or mami."
"How-... How many times?" Geno asked hesitantly. Alejandro looked up as he started counting with his fingers. When the small skeleton saw that he had counted all fingers on his hands and started counting again, this time he couldn't hold himself back from doing it and crossed himself 3 times. "What the actual Hell Ramirez?!" He thought. "Okay okay, I get it." He stopped the puppy. Alejandro looked at him sad.
"... If he cares and loves me and sissy, why does he push me away before he ascends back to the living? Why can't he let me see him from closer again, talk to him calmly?" Alejandro's ears dropped and shut his eyes. Geno thought again, still silently shocked from what he had hear a while ago. Only about a minute later he huffed.
"... To grieve deeply means to have loved truly." He whispered.
"Hm?" Alejandro did.
"Your dad loves you kid. So much that your absence hurts him. You and your sister, you were his consolation when your mom ended up here. He could have lashed out at you. He could make you miserable. But you were what was keeping him from going crazy because of his Grief and sadness. He was wise enough to hold onto you and appreciate you instead of being constantly miserable for loosing your mom. With you too gone, he... lost an even bigger part of himself too. He had the responsibility to protect you and keep you away from any harm, but feels he has failed completely by not saving you. And by seeing you, he's reminded of what he considers is his failure to keep you alive. He's guilty... and I think he simply can't look you in the eye, thinkin' you're dissapointed."
"But I'm not!" The puppy interrupted.
"I see it." Geno wasn't even sure if he was saying the completely right things to the little boy.
Though aside trying to make the child feel better, he was saying out loud all conclusions he had make out from the knowledge he had gained the past few weeks together with all tremendous things Alejandro had just told him about himself and Ramirez.
"... So... Is that why he doesn't want to see me and mami?" The puppy asked as his ears started perking up.
"I think so." Geno replied. Many seconds of silence later Alejandro scooted closer to the small skeleton.
"You talk as if you've met papi yourself. Have you really met him?" He asked staring him right in the eyesocket. Wait, right. Geno had just started asking questions about the doctor but never once had he mentioned he had gotten to be seeing his face for something more than a month.
"... Kinda." He admitted.
"Where is he right now? Well... currently? What is he doing?" The boy asked. Geno rubbed the back of his skull trying to think on how was he going to break the news to the puppy. Was he going all the way or trying to walk around the truth?
"Well... you see..."
"And please don't walk around the truth." Alejandro suddenly said, causing the smol skeleton to flinch. "I might have died at 5 and at times fall back on acting like it, but my mind has slowly developed more during my stay here. Papi taught us that lies are for the weak. Whether you're the one telling them or hearing them. Whatever it is you're going to say, don't hold back and I'll handle it."
Geno huffed, but nodded and started telling the puppy monster first that some serious reasons had lead him to be taken by pirates. And that was where the puppy boy's dad was, part of the crew, serving as their main doctor. The half-siren described from the times him and Ramirez had interacted.
All that he had made out about his character, judging all he knew on the surface... until the very moment Alejandro found Geno and introduced himself. The 5 year old hadn't utter a single sound as long as he listened to Geno, just looking slowly to all directions thoughtful and calm.
"... That's all I've seen during my stay with the pirates and... seeing your dad." Geno finished and waited to see the other's next reactions.
"So... is he still sad?" Alejandro asked. Geno nodded.
"I had think he was simply angry at anything and anyone for no reason. But yeah, sad too, for serious reasons." Alejandro thought.
"... When you go back to the living, can you promise me something?"
Oh boy. Promises. Here we go.
"Sorry kiddo, I don't really like makin' promises." Geno said.
"Then listen to it and then judge if you can handle this promise." Alejandro insisted calmly. The small skeleton huffed and nodded him to speak. "... If you tell papi that you saw me and talked to me, tell him that he doesn't have to feel guilty for not managing to save me. That I'm not dissapointed, nor do I love him any less. He tried, that's all that matters to me. And if he ever comes back here, that he doesn't have to run away from me."
If.
There was the option for Geno to not say anything about all that, Alejandro was giving him the choice to not say anything!
"If?" He asked to make sure the boy hadn't say that accidentally. It took a few seconds for the child to understand what was that question reffering to, but then he nodded.
"If you do tell him, I only wish he can stop blaming himself and not drown any further to guilt and grief. If you don't, maybe that's right from its own perspective too. He hasn't mentioned me to anyone, right?"
"Nope."
"And perhaps the mention of me to him might pressure him further. Consider whether telling him or not." Geno closed eyesocket and sighed.
"Alright. I can keep that promise."
"Pinky swear?!" Alejandro suddenly went from serious to excited again, rather anxious like an actual child that wants to make sure whatever it wants will be done.
"Nah, pinky swear wouldn't work. We can't touch."
"Shoot, right!" The puppy placed a hand on his chin trying to think of another way. He sharply turned to face Geno. "What will you be swearing to?"
Ah great. They went from promises to swears and oaths. Still, that promise Geno had taken was giving him the choice not to tell Ramirez anything. He placed a hand on his chest.
"I swear... on whatever's left of my shattered soul and keeps me alive that if I do tell your dad we talked, he'll hear whatever it is you want him to hear." He said. A few seconds of thinking later, the puppy relaxed and started wagging his tail faster.
"... Okie!" Then he stood up and looked at Geno happily. "Say, since you're the only other one around here with my illness and you are not running away, would you like it if we were doing something else-? Oh! Do you like singing?!"
3370 words. *pat pat x1.000.000.000*
*watches you as you've been buried on the ground or flattened by the pats*
aw :3
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