WIP Bel + Fran fic "insomnia"

[possibleapocalypse]

 Living with the insane has given me insomnia.

This may not seem like an irrational reaction to being kidnapped into a household of psychopaths, maybe even a justifiable reaction, but in all honesty it’s more of an inconvenience. Those idiot prince’s knives- they do sting, but I’m not going to die from them. Don’t look at me like that, please. A back full of knives is useless against a top magician like me.

He should learn that someday.

He should learn a lot of things. Like how to react to outside stimuli without stabbing the nearest object, or living creature- though, I guess that’s an object in his eyes. Ah, that’s another thing he needs to learn. Everything doesn’t belong to him. I went through his wallet. He only has overdue credit cards. I doubt he even pays rent. Therefore, he should stop taking my stuff and commandeering it into the “princely kingdom”.

He doesn’t even have one. I’m not an expert on royalty and their practices (I have no interest in learning of my captor’s insane ways), but I’m fairly sure killing your entire family and running away to Italy disqualifies you from any royal throne.

…

If he even had a claim to a royal throne in the first place. That idiot prince and his brother- I’m thinking that they made the entire thing up, to cover for some embarrassing or shameful past. They are pretty delusional. I don’t think I should trust them on a story neither of them can get right. One says he buried the other, one says he was alive…. Plot holes like that would get bad reviews on any TV show, you know.

Ch.

It’s not like I particularly cared what his past truly was if it was a lie created by that screwed-up head of his. He’s insane now, and that’s that. Whatever took that prince’s mind and twisted it so much- it’s really not my concern to know, nor was it ever supposed to be. Forgive me if I seem blunt. There’s really no other way to be with a person like that.

Ah, now you’re asking about the “nor was it ever supposed to be”.

Well, it wasn’t. I wish it still was. At this point, I should stop hoping I’ll ever get what I wish. I should’ve understood that with the second kidnapping. I’m a dreamer. Forgive me again, please.

Not literally, of course. My insomnia prevents that. And it’s why Bel-senpai’s past is the “nor was it ever supposed to be”.

I really should have just stayed in bed.

------

3 AM is too early and too late to be awake when a perverted transvestite insists that you wake up at seven in the morning to eat breakfast- usually something fatty, of course, “to get some meat on those tiny bones! ~<3”.

It makes me sick.

It does because I’m never hungry then. I’m the midnight snack kind of guy, or the snack all day type. I like to choose when I want to eat, what I want to eat- but then again, I should really stop wishing for the ability to have choices in my life.

So I snack at midnight when I’m awake or, as the case might have been then, 3 AM, and pick at a plate in the morning. The one thing that stupid hat is good for is blocking out annoying noise, like the complaints of said perverted transvestite or the laugh of an annoying prince.

It had become routine- go to the kitchen, get milk, peanut butter, some crackers and chocolate- in that order-, eat for 15 minutes and go back to bed. In this insane household, it really is nice to have some semblance of normality, a routine that never changes.

But of course, my idiot coworkers/housemates had to ruin it. Or in this case, one tiara-clad housemate.

No, it’s not a crown. That thing is a tiara.

As I said before, it was three AM, and I had started my routine once determining that this was a night to do so. As usual, I was in the kitchen, in my shorts, hat off and on the counter next to me, glass of milk already poured. Half way through scooping out the peanut butter onto a chipped plate –the same one as always-, my elbow slid out and hit the glass, spilling the stuff all over the floor.

As my bad luck would have it, it made a loud noise as well. If you’ve never lived with assassins before, you won’t know the meaning of “good hearing” in your lifetime. Paranoia actually pays off if you’ve ever so much as dropped a pin on a tile floor while sneaking to steal a sleeping prince’s knives.

My hands shot out automatically and placed that stupid hat on my head- a precaution against the idiot prince’s possible arrival, of course. Commander didn’t care much, boss and Levi even less so, and that perverted peacock only considers it “cute” for reasons I don’t want to know. The idiot prince- he’s the only one that forces it on my head.

I waited for the steps as I hurriedly tried to clean up the mess- the glass really had gotten everywhere, perhaps it was better to use an illusion to cover it up until this stupid paranoia had passed-

Oh. There were the steps. Judging from the gait, loudness, and spacing of steps, I already knew it was-

….Bel-senpai.

I prepared myself for the knives, looking down and touching my hat once again just to make sure it was there. When it was apparent that I had the appropriate head gear for my visitor, I leaned against the counter, looking back up at the doorway.

It was Bel-senpai, of course. I was not surprised at all.

But it was something about his appearance that did surprise me. Normally, the idiot prince always had that stupid grin on his face, one you’d see on the face of the main villain in those movies from America that play at midnight. That lazy prince- he was always too lazy to dress himself properly, re-wearing too-loose shirts for days on end, but he did always shave his face. Beards had gotten a bad reputation with the lightning pervert around, I guess.

That night, though, I saw a different prince. Like me, he was wearing a simple top and shorts, standard pajamas for this mansion. It made washing a bit easier. Unlike me, and unlike anything close to a normal appearance of his, he had a light layer of stubble on his chin, a sour-looking expression on what little I could see of his face and a bottle of unidentifiable (and probably Boss’) alcohol in his hand in lieu of those idiotic knives. Instead of that psycho-slasher grin, a small frown was on his face- a curious, analytical frown, not the angry, pouty one he gave when I pointed out an unsavory fact.

He looked…almost normal. Like any man you would find awake at three in the morning, not a trained assassin since before puberty. With that tiara gone, he merely looked like rather unkempt 26 year old you may find on one of the subways, one that you gave an extra seat of room between you and him. He looked like the type to go eat at a cheap café, or to watch TV for an entire Sunday. Like a guy who walked past one of our bases, knowing nothing about this stupid organization, knowing nothing about what goes on and what’s not stopped from going on.

It was almost disturbing how normal that prince looked at three in the morning.

We stared at each other in dead silence for one minute exactly. I would know. I saw the clock.

“…What are you doing, toad?”

His words had a slight slur to them, the bottle in his hand most likely the culprit. But at the same time, they weren’t accusing. If I was a bit less intelligent and a bit more naïve I would say he was genuinely curious.

“…”

“A midnight snack, Bel-senpai.”

Simple. Simple and short. I stuck to those kinds of words out of simplicity. I didn’t know what a drunk Bel-senpai was like and I didn’t want scars to prove that I had found out.

At my words, however, he did nothing more than look at the clock, and then at me once again, that frown still there.

“It’s three in the morning. Not midnight.”

“…”

“….Thank you, prince obvious.”

Clearly he did not understand common expressions. Clearly he was able to hide some knives somewhere.

Clearly he was too drunk to throw a knife as well. It only bounced off the hat. The time I have spent looking at knives being thrown is enough to know their patterns, and this was a very sloppily thrown knife for a prince that could perform plastic surgery on a person’s face in seconds.

I couldn’t eat my midnight snack that day. Ugh.

He shuffled, didn’t stroll with pride as he usually did, toward the table, pulling out a chair and sitting down heavily. The bottle that was in his hand was slammed on said table, as if that was supposed to alert me to the fact that he had sat down. Thank you, senpai, but I don’t have a hair-shield to clog up my ears.

“Ushishishi~”

It was almost like he was trying to break the silence that had suddenly developed. Really, would you want to say anything to a psychopathic, drunk prince who then looked like a hobo?

No. You wouldn’t. Please let me make that decision for you.

“The frog can’t sleep, ‘mm? Levi or Luss giving you nightmares?”

It wasn’t like their faces weren’t from a horror movie –there’s no way those winkles couldn’t be anything but poorly-fitted rubber masks-, but much to my displeasure, I had gotten used to seeing them.

“No, senpai. I was just planning your murder, when you surprised me and I had to hide the arsenic. I’m so disappointed. That’s all. Would you like some milk?”

Instead of the usual knives and walking away I came to expect from making a remark like that, the idiot prince began giggling, those snickers eventually turning into laughs that I knew would wake up the rest of the mansion if he didn’t quiet down.

“Ushishishishishi! Ah’, you’re reminding me of the day when I finally got even with that cockroach. It’s just so satisfying to plan out a good murder, isn’t it?~”

That really wasn’t the reaction I was expecting, and apparently it showed in my silence. The prince’s stupid grin only grew wider.

“Hey, froggy~ Maybe the prince will tell you a few stories, to make you sleep better and stop your pathetic attempts at the prince’s life.”

“Ah, your stories will put me to sleep, Senpai. I guess that’s one way to do it.”

A snicker.

“You already know about my cockroach brother, froggy?”

That battle was a while ago, but it really wasn’t hard to forget about someone who looked exactly like your eternal tormenter with a mullet. The story, my doubts aside, wasn’t particularly hard to forget about either.

“He looked like a hairier version of you. Other than that, it was really hard to tell you two apart, Rasiel.”

Oh, did that provoke a reaction. The familiar feeling of being turned into a human cactus flooded me as at least twenty knives hit my person at the same time, one even getting in my forehead. His fingers tensed around the bottle, and that prince almost looked ready to follow in Boss’ footsteps and throw it towards my skull.

“Don’t ever call the prince by that name, toad. Don’t you ever mistake us again.”

His voice was a low hiss- slurred, of course, but a hiss nonetheless. A hiss not unlike a weasel’s- or a mink’s, actually.

“But you could use that mistake to your advantage, senpai. You could pretend to be him and perhaps claim a title that isn’t completely fake.”

Slam. That time the bottle came down with threatening undertones. I could even feel a bit of boss’ aura radiating from the idiot prince, a glare under those bangs forming.

“He was the fake one, he was the one who cheated like a commoner, who stole my title away from me, fucking idiot toad.“

I never had heard him swear like that. It was almost as if he was actually channeling Boss. If Boss was able to die anyway. They really made him seem like he was invincible.

But then, to my silent surprise, his scowl slid away and that disgusting smile appeared once again.

I have to see Bel-senpai’s gross grin every time I look at him, which is far too often. He’s always smiling, especially on gory missions, and it’s always genuine at those times. He actually enjoys it, the twisted-up prince.

This time, it was clear from across the room that he was faking it.

“Ushishishishi! Frog, you don’t know anything. Perhaps the prince will be kind enough and explain for your tiny amphibian brain.”

Sliding back into his chair, Bel-senpai kicked his feet up on the table, looking at the ceiling, that fake grin still on his face. The bottle in dangling hand, he swung it back and forth a few times.

“It wasn’t just his guts I hated. Those idiots who called themselves my parents favored that cockroach.”

I had to keep myself from scoffing. Here was the “unloved” excuse that villains usually gave in movies, to try to explain away their insanity and gain forgiveness for it. I hated those sorts of excuses. But I didn’t want a bottle to my head either.

“Maah, always giving him those sorts of special things- toys, clothes, extra weapons- ‘shishi, it was clear what bias those peasants had in our fights.”

He brought the bottle up to his lips, taking another sip.

“Even if I was beat up bad, they’d always go to him first. The royal blood was spilling from me, aaaaallll over the floor, and he’d get a nurse for a tiny scratch. They used to tell him to make sure to beat me real good, just in case I would die from my injuries. That would’ve taken care of their-“

He gave a scoff and a very quick frown.

“…Accident. Just because ‘Siel came out first, he was the better son. Those imbeciles had such simple minds, mm?”

But the grin returned again, and he chuckled that annoying laugh.

“Those peasants couldn’t see what a treasure the prince was, no, they were much too foolish. Much like yourself, frog.”

“In fact, they were so focused on that fake gem of a son, that they ignored the prince’s glory. Once, after a reaaaallly bad fight ‘Siel and I had-“

Bel-senpai paused. He almost seemed like he was actually thinking over his words, rather than spouting everything that came out of that twisted brain of his. Taking a chance at his silence, I climbed up on the edge of the counter, my legs dangling over the side. He didn’t even seem to notice.

“Ah, the prince had a broken leg, he remembers now. My cockroach brother had a few cuts on that horrid face of his and my father dragged him away. The prince, the prince was so distracted by that royal blood alllll over the place that he doesn’t remember what that insignificant man said to the servants, but  I was dragged away to my room. And do you know what they did?”

The bottle was pointed at me, still half full at this point. Bel-senpai apparently wanted to correct this by taking a large gulp from it. I really had no interest in knowing what they did to him, but considering what I could only imagine would happen if I refused, I gave a sigh and decided to play along with this stupid game.

“Did they put you in time out?”

His grin almost turned maniac.

“Ushishishi! Those idiots put the prince in his room, and then forgot about him. They locked the door from the outside and didn’t come back for days, frog. They even forgot to give the prince his meals and treat his leg, as they should have immediately.”

His giggling didn’t stop.

 

 “I couldn’t move, I couldn’t eat and those fools couldn’t even hear me calling for them, giving them prince’s orders that they should’ve followed. The servants were useless as well. The prince’s ears could hear them outside and yet they couldn’t hear his orders. Mah’, they were as incompetent as you, frog.”

And just as suddenly, those giggles died down.

“It was about three days before they gave me water. For the next four, the prince had to eat toothpaste.”

The first time Bel-senpai told me of his family, I listened, but to be perfectly honest I discarded that information after hearing it. Ah, please don’t get me wrong, I did like fairy tales. Not just those involving idiotic princes throwing whatever available object that could cause hemorrhaging at each other. It was a boring story, and I could count all the plot holes.

This one wasn’t as boring, and I was slowly beginning to regret that it wasn’t. I’m not the kind of guy that likes to pry into people’s information. I don’t care enough. But this was like being on the other side of a confessional, and I didn’t like being on the confessing side in the first place back when I had to go to church.  

Unfortunately, the idiot prince was being his usual oblivious self again, and he continued on, the smile becoming more and more like the ones you see on people who have had their bodies snatched by aliens in the movies.

“’Shishi! Ah’, those idiots who called themselves my parents couldn’t see at all how useless it was to encourage us to fight, because the true prince would win eventually, of course. He wouldn’t just die like a rat, like they wanted him to, just because he wasn’t that cockroach.”

He didn’t even let me respond to that. In fact, he continued talking almost too fast, his voice becoming a bit more maniac than his usual creepy tone, if that was even possible.

“They gave him allll the weapons he could want, just so they could see me die and get it over with. But the prince, the prince was too smart and always managed to steal from him and escape before he ended the fights for good. But that angered their simple brains, of course~”

Bel-senpai rose his hand up into the air, trying to grasp at the light for a moment, before it came down to slide under that wall of hair he calls a fringe. He rubbed at his forehead, sliding his hands over his eyes. Well, where I assumed his eyes were.

“Another fight, ‘Siel and the prince had just started using knives. I got him reaaaall good that time. Aaaaah, Froggy, you should’ve seen the disgusting blood that flowed out of that insect. And the true prince didn’t get a scratch on him.”

I almost interjected to say that’s probably the only time he walked away from a fight with the hairier twin without any damage. But, I was thinking at that point that silence was doing me good. So I just stared, waiting for him to continue, and cursing my curiosity about his violently tragic life.

“Shiiii…” That stupid laugh of his comes out in a single breath as he breaks his crazy pace of speaking. “Father was maaad at me. Reaaaaallllly-“ Maybe he was putting on more of a slur to be more dramatic, but I think it was more the bottle’s fault- “…angry. He yelled louder than Boss, and beat me harder too. But Father was more creative. Nah, froggy, he was better at giving out punishment than a bottle to a noisy shark’s head.”

Like a dog trained to drool at a bell, he took a drink at the mention of Boss’ name. It seemed like a dark kind of toast to me. Maybe he was thanking for not being his dad, whatever that of guy was.

“Siel didn’t get me at all that time, so the stupid cockroach had Father replace him in our fight. He was more ape-like than Levi, toad. He was huuuuuge~.”

“I guess anyone’s pretty big when you’re a tiny kid, Senpai.” I would know.

“Shut up.”

It was quick and to the point, un-slurred and un-provoking. For the first time in a long time, I don’t think he wanted to get into a verbal fight with me. Maybe it’s because I clearly always win, or maybe it’s because he actually wanted to tell me all of this. I realized I really was a priest to this depraved sinner. Or something similar. Neither of us was holy.

“He was huge, but he was more cowardly than you, frog. He grabbed Siel’s knife, and you know what he did?”

Once again, that impatient prince didn’t want for an answer.

“He cut the prince up~ He made my royal blood spill everywhere, just like Siel’s , but he was a little smart, froggy. He cut the prince where no one would see, so no one would question what had happen to the prince at the next ball. Aaah, I hated those stupid things, they were pointless, but father was all about appearances.”

Like Father like son in fashion and violence sense.