Bolt Through The Heart (Quanxi X F.OC)

-Stressed-

(all the music linked in the chapters past, present and future have been from a playlist of mine I called simply 'Vibe' because for some reason it gives me the vibes of this fic. Don't ask, I don't know what either.)

"I am hungryyyyyyy." Long complained.

"Eat bread." Quanxi rebuked softly, reading the newspaper, the fiend was having a meltdown about not having cereal and refusing to touch any other type of food until she had does damned cereals, Quanxi almost was thinking about creating a cereal devil, all that required was someone to be scared of cereal and she had someone here she really wanted to be scared of cereal.

"Bread is baaaaad."

"Then ham."

"Ham is no good."

"Eggs."

"Eggs are yucky."

"And here I was thinking I have patience." Quanxi told herself and Pingtsi partially. "Seems I had mistaken." She wasn't all that serious, she could deal with Long's tantrum for a long while more.

"Long eat the damned biscuit!" The smaller fiend was holding the taller one by the horns and trying to shove a peanut butter cookie in her mouth so she'd stop complaining but she was not succeeding, Tsugihagi just held one of those old camera that worked with film rolls, it was a hobby she discovered not long ago, having fun taking pictures of their daily life.

"Over my cold dead corpse."

"You are a corpse!"

"You are too!"

The start of the argument was cut short by the front door being thrown open full force and bounced almost closed from the strength behind it.

Quanxi looked up but the other fiends were fast.

"Are you girls alright?" Long asked, forgetting her cereal tantrum.

Quanxi stood, folding the newspaper.

Cosmo looked anxious, stressed out and fidgety, Sei looked drained, overworked and worried, none of those being looks with which they had left earlier.

"I'll be fine, she's more the shaken up one." Sei couldn't really unhook Cosmo from her arm so she just stood there, stole a cigarette from a table and carelessly lit it inside, which she tried to avoid before since usually when she wanted a smoke was when the fiends slept timing-wise.

"Girls, what happened? Do I need to kill anyone?" Quanxi asked and Sei knew she meant that threat.

"No, I dealt with it." She muttered, looking at her, wanting to have a breather.

"You've been crying." Quanxi had forcefully and yet with odd gentleness, turned Sei's face towards her, staring at her red eyes.

"No, it was contact lenses, irritated me eyes." Sei rubbed them with the backs of her wrapped hands, as if dust had been blown in her eyes but she thought that would feel better then this had felt like.

"Contact lenses? Why?" Long asked, curious as the stitch fiend closed the door and whispered something too Pingtsi who nodded, both distancing from the group but Sei didn't watch where they went.

She felt a squeeze on her hand and squeezed back, Cosmo is the mildest of all fiends, really intelligent because of the devil she was originally but acting childishly most of the time so she was clinging too whom was safety in the previous situation even if they were home now.

"Soviet union." Sei sighed out, the nicotine in the cig doing little to calm her nerves sadly. "I thought I smelt gunpowder before Long caught up with me before the nose bleed incident in the restaurant... Smelt it again, I wasn't taking risks, I wasn't alone."

Quanxi sure looked ready to commit murder but was silently listening to the explanation and asking for details.

"You had a fight?"

"No." Sei shook her head. "I wanted to avoid it, with my birds, seeing many more of the soviet devil hunters around, followed by the gunpowder smell, I stole the lenses and dragged us in a restaurant."

"And what happened? Why lenses still?"

"I knew I needed to play it off, if I messed up it wasn't only my life in danger, Cosmo, the civilians, this country, war would be devastating, so I grabbed yellow lenses with red ring on the and popped them in."

"Those match Makima's eyes." Quanxi pointed out and Sei nodded again.

"I played up the fact that I was Makima herself to keep our asses safe as the bomb devil showed up casually and wanted to talk, probably would have fought if I messed up more then I had."

"The soviet hybrid." Long muttered.

"Yeah, I faked my way through the conversation we had, I made so many fuck ups in it, I was so stressed and shit, I just hope we are not in trouble in the future because of me." She rubbed her forehead.

"You did good, I bet it was hard." Sei felt Quanxi's hand rest on her head, it felt so heavy despite not being it, feeling she didn't deserve this praise, that she fucked up so much, Cosmo having the same treatment. "You both got back safe, that's enough for me."

"Here." Pingtsi carried over a cup for each, Cosmo grabbed it with one hand, Sei put the smoke between her pointer and middle finger to grab it. "Helps calm the nerves."

"Thanks."

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Quanxi watched the two girls snooze from the frame of the door she was leaning on, Cosmo had refuse to let the older devil go even in her sleep so they were sharing Sei's small bed, having watched them for a while, just taking them in, finally calm again.

"Pingtsi." Quanxi said, half amused half blaming.

"They needed rest." She gave a sheepish smile. "The sleeping pill was Tsugihagi's idea too!" She quickly said, pointing at the stitch fiend who looked displeased by the accusation, slapping the pointer finger down.

"I am not mad." Quanxi said, calming a brewing fight between the two fiends. "Keep an eye on them."

"What are you going?" Long asked, the hunter picking up her sword belt.

"Just to talk." Was all she said, quite displeased someone stressed her girls out so much.

The raven rested in the nest.