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shirolynx · 1 year ago

Text

«Priorities»

Summary: You have an ability that erases your memories when you overuse it, and Verlaine is not very happy about it.

Warnings: a little angst (?), sfw

A/N: First post! Sorry if it's confusing or messy. I just felt like writing something about him!🎐

Word count: 2886

You tiptoed through the hideout, trying to get to your room without being seen by anyone. Being ignored by everyone outside was not so hard since it was really early in the morning, so it was going smoothly… until you stepped into the underground shelter. Something inside you told you that you should be more careful than before, that you had to get to your room without being seen by anyone. The blood in your clothes should be the reason why you had to be careful to not be seen, but you didn’t feel like that was the main reason.

All you knew was that you had to get to your room and get cleaned up.

You went past the large training rooms, but stopped when you were about to turn in one corner, just when you heard slow footsteps coming towards you. You looked around to find somewhere to hide. You were focused on that task, but you noticed right away when the footsteps stopped near you. If you tried to look around the corner, you were sure you would see that person a couple of meters away, standing in the hallway. So, you didn’t move, waiting for the person to do something.

“Just come out already,” his voice was clear in the silent hallway.

You slowly obeyed, first showing your face. You had to get through that hallway to get to your room. But as you saw his tired face, you instantly knew your gut had been telling you to avoid him at all costs. You stood in front of him and hid your hands behind your back, somehow threatened just by his stare. One of his hands was holding a book, and his free hand found its way to his hip, clearly waiting for you to say something. You couldn’t help but look at the white gloves he was wearing, not daring to hold his intimidating gaze.

“Good morning, sir.”

Verlaine sighed tiredly as he looked at your clothes. He knew what had happened just from the way you had addressed him.

“Again?” You felt chills when something inside you recognized his exhausted tone. You knew him, you had definitely seen him before. You just couldn’t remember.

“Sorry.”

“You don’t even know what you’re apologizing for, do you?”

You swallowed and shook your head, feeling scolded. And, oddly enough, also feeling a sense of familiarity. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.

Verlaine was upset. He was tired of this situation. When you were brought to be trained, he was aware of your ability and the enormous drawback it had. Your ability was greatly useful; you could go back in time, up to 5 seconds into the past. But using it more than five times in a short amount of time caused memory loss. It didn’t just erase some random memories; it almost wiped off everything from your mind. Therefore, when you were brought to him, you didn’t remember anything. And Verlaine didn’t even know where his boss had found you, he just knew he had to train you.

But he already found it bothersome how you were so careless about your ability. He thought you relied too much on it, and he was irritated by how you didn’t care about losing your memories. Verlaine never told you how much it bothered him, though. He just had to train you. But how could he train you if you were going to forget everything he was going to teach you?

Much to his surprise, you already had some basic knowledge of fighting and stealth. You were a fast learner, so it angered him even more when you came back from small missions you were sent to without remembering anything. But, somehow, you did remember everything he taught you. Maybe it was muscle memory, or that you learnt everything to do it automatically, as if it was breathing. It was innate. And lucky enough, you also remembered where the hideout was, so you always returned.

But that wasn’t enough. Verlaine still reluctantly kept on training you, never understanding why you weren’t so worried about your memories. He knew that you could start remembering if there was something that could trigger those memories, but it was extremely risky. And having to make you remember stuff over and over again was starting to annoy him more.

“Is any of that blood yours?” he asked, pointing at your clothes. You looked down at your shirt.

“No, it is not. I’m fine.”

“You better be fine; you have training after lunch.” He walked past you. “Go take a shower and eat something before you have some rest.”

You nodded before obeying. It was 6 a.m., so you hurried to get cleaned. When you walked in the resting room after the shower, you found that man there, reading in a chair. The view was, once again, oddly familiar. He didn’t take his attention away from the book when you took an apple and sat on another couch, eating slowly. You sighed quietly when you noticed he didn’t care at all about your presence.

You still threw some glances at him, trying to remember his name. You didn’t find it strange when he told you that you had training that afternoon. In fact, your gut told you he was your instructor. You didn’t remember how your relationship with him was, but he was clearly mad at you, so it wasn’t a good one. It made you feel beyond uncomfortable.

You supposed he despised you.

And you were not wrong.

But you two never had a big argument. You couldn’t say anything back when Verlaine scolded you, because most of the times he had his reasons when doing so.

So, you just had to get out of there as soon as you could, to let that man live in peace.

“When will the training be over?” You asked him lowering your voice, scared to upset him even more by distracting him from his reading.

He took a moment before answering, “Depends on you.”

He turned the page, and you took the chance to look better at him. He had bags under his eyes. Then you tried to look at the title of the book, and something in your mind clicked.

“Have you been reading all night? When I left last night, you had just started the book.”

Verlaine raised an eyebrow, seeming curious. “You remember now? I guess this is a new record, you usually take much longer to start remembering.” He paused, and you diverted your gaze, not willing to distract him anymore since he didn’t even answer your question. “But I bet you still don’t remember my name.”

You tried really hard to remember, but you couldn’t. “I’m sorry,” you finally said.

“At least now you know why you’re apologizing.”

His passive-aggressive comments started to annoy you.

“Right,” you scoffed before standing up and throwing the scraps of the apple to the trash can, situated on a corner of the resting room. You found scraps of a pear there, too. Your mind clicked again. “I’ll go to sleep. You should sleep too, Verlaine.”

His eyes finally landed on you as you started to walk away. “You’re definitely breaking records this morning. I didn’t have to tell you my name this time.”

But you didn’t look back, and you didn’t see him again until training time. You had slept for a few hours, but you were still terribly tired. And he clearly noticed that. At least he left his rudeness aside during your training, and you stayed as quiet as you could. Once it was over, you sat on the floor drinking some water. Verlaine watched you silently, leaning on the wall with his arms crossed.

“I don’t know what you do out there that you have to rely so much on your ability, but I will take a wild guess by what I see here. You still must increase your speed and learn to react fast. You think too much before making a decision.”

You nodded, “I know. In my defence, today I was really tired”.

“If you had come back earlier, you would have had more rest, and we could have had training this morning.”

“I can’t choose when to be called for a mission.”

“But did it have to take you eight hours to complete that mission? After so much training?” He closed his eyes, trying to remain calm.

You didn’t like the disappointment in his voice. And it irritated you that, despite him knowing you had memory losses, he acted as if you still should know how to do everything fast and perfectly.

“Is that the reason why you are angry?”

“It is not. I just don’t understand you,” he finally admitted. “Why would you overuse your ability time and time again, knowing very well you’ll forget so much? Don’t you feel bad about it?”

“Why would I feel bad?” You frowned, feeling attacked.

“Don’t you feel alone?” Verlaine paused, watching how the question shocked you. Your grip on the bottle of water tightened a bit, and your gaze turned to the bottle, not knowing what to answer. “You don’t remember anyone. You don’t know where you came from, and you don’t have anyone close to you that can help you remember. So far, you usually remember stuff because I’m here. I suppose you overuse it because you want to help those around you that are affected in a fight. But is it worth it, being alone as long as you help others? Do those strangers help you remember, or help you feel less disorientated, when you lose your memory after helping them?”

You already knew you were being used as a weapon. Assassinating was no ordinary job, and being good at it was difficult. You had some innate talent for it, that’s why you were brought there in the first place. But Verlaine's words were harsh, and they triggered something in your mind that brought back a few more memories.

He had never talked to you like that. You remember him being distant at first, training you as strictly as possible. But you now remembered him telling you once that the training was usually brief, and the best results were always assured. The training was taking longer than it should, and maybe that was part of the reason why he was upset about you forgetting. But what he was saying had nothing to do with it.

“I understand having to repeat stuff to me is really annoying to you. And I understand that having me here for longer than it should because the memory losses affect the training might hurt your ego and patience. But I don’t understand why you’re bringing up the fact that I’m alone.” You stood up, still not wanting to look at him. You were hurt by that thought.

Verlaine didn’t want you there, he was tired of your shit, and when you had to leave, there wouldn’t be anyone else to help you remember.

“I bring it up because the fact that you overuse your ability means that you are way too selfless. I know for a fact that you don’t use your ability to help yourself. So, I just wonder how you manage to get through that loneliness while someone else goes home to the people they love.”

“How are you so sure that I don’t use it for myself?” You walked towards him, willing to confront him, feeling more hurt as he spoke.

“Because you are the most talented person I have ever trained.” Verlaine didn’t move as he said that. He wasn’t threatened at all by the fact that you were now standing in front of him, feeling hurt and angered by his truthful words. “You wouldn’t get badly injured easily.”

You should have felt proud of that. Verlaine admitting you were his best trainee should have been something to be proud of. But you couldn’t.

“Then haven’t you thought that maybe I don’t mind forgetting because I just want to forget?” This time, he was the one to raise his eyebrows in surprise. “You’re training me to kill. Haven’t you thought that maybe I want to forget atrocious things I’ve heard, said and done?”

“If you care so much about others, you shouldn’t be here in the first place.”

“I had no choice. I might not remember what happened before I ended up here, but I can tell you for sure, I had no choice.” You took a deep breath, trying to calm down. “I’m sorry that my weakness affects the training because I put others as a priority, when my priorities should be you and your training. So, since you clearly don’t care about others, including me, you have two options. You can teach me how to not care enough to overuse my ability for others, or you can tell your boss to let me go because I’m not as prodigious as he thought. Being alone is something I’ll have to get used to eventually, no matter if I lose my memories or not.”

You noticed how the surprise in his face faded. And, for the first time, you even saw a faint glow in his eyes. He unfolded his arms and took a step forward, and to your surprise, Verlaine raised his hands and placed them carefully but firmly on your jaw, making sure you didn’t divert your gaze from him.

“You are finally making progress; you just found out your biggest weakness. Now, listen to me; you can’t stop caring about others, that’s not something you can learn. But I want you to be good enough to help others before anything happens, so that you don’t have to use your ability and go back in time. If you can do that, you won’t feel so alone, because you could at least remember me.” He showed a small smirk. “So, I want you to remember what you just said. I need you to finally analyse your situation and set your priorities right. Even if you think that forgetting will help you feel better about killing... It won’t be that way. If you keep forgetting, or if you end up not caring for others, then there’s nothing out there that will keep you fighting. You don’t want to end up like me, do you?”

You didn’t answer. You tried to focus on his words and on his soft voice, but you were also distracted by the feeling of the leather of his gloves touching your face and neck, and his soft gaze. It was the first time Verlaine had spoken to you so softly. It was as if he had finally set aside the hatred he felt towards you.

Verlaine knew deep down he hated how you were losing yourself because of others. He found it terrible how you couldn’t even see that you were being used by coworkers who just pretended to be nice; how uglily they were using a kind soul for their own benefit. He tried to hide that hatred with other reasons, because he knew that if he had just told you, you wouldn’t have cared at all. And now he understood why you wouldn't have cared.

Because even if you had forgotten —even if you remembered and then forgot over again— you both had shared memories he really cherished. You had spent more time with him than other trainees had, and that meant you got to see more of him. You always asked him about his favourite books, about the poetry he always wrote, and about his opinions on different matters. And sometimes, you even got to see him smile genuinely at your voiced thoughts. He felt upset about him remembering and you forgetting all the conversations you both had had, somehow feeling a bit closer than usual. Because he somehow appreciated how you asked him things without being invasive.

But Verlaine now understood that the things you did outside were affecting you heavily, and that’s why you wanted to forget every once in a while. Your desire to erase those things from your memories was bigger than holding your memories of him. He couldn’t blame you because of it, but still, he couldn’t help but feel hate building up inside him because of it. He selfishly wanted to be more important than that, and he wanted you to see that erasing your memories was never a true solution.

And now, Verlaine knew what he had to do.

“Your training will end once you don’t have to rely on your ability,” he let you know, slowly letting go of your face. “I won’t let you go until you don’t feel weak, and until you learn to remember.”

His kind voice brought tears to your eyes.

“You don’t think that training me is a waste of time?”

“I don’t think that at all. But you can’t rely on me to help you remember every single time, so you must stop this.”

Verlaine waited for you to say something else with the same small smirk on his lips.

“I’ll stop using it,” you accepted.

“Good. I’ll make sure you don’t regret anything. You don’t have to care so much about how long the training will last in the meantime.”

#bungou stray dogs x reader #bsd #bsd x reader #bsd paul verlaine #bsd verlaine #verlaine x reader

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