Until Depth Do Us Part | Sanitized Agent 3 x Agent 4 | Splatoon 2

Chapter 2: Worth the Wait

"Harder."

"..."

"Harder, Marie."

"Ryle..."

"Come on, Marie!"

"Fine! But if Nim kills me for this, it's on you," She growled, squeezing the tiny patch of the younger Inkling's skin between her fingers as tightly as she could muster. A pained yelp escaped Ryle's lips, and he yanked his head away, gingerly rubbing his already reddening cheek. "There. Convinced you're not dreaming yet?"

"M-Maybe... Cods, you're good at that..." Marie proudly smirked.

"One of the best. Don't know how that'll ever come in handy, but...I'm sure it will someday." Her smile faded as her lips drew themselves together in a line, and she sighed, the trembling breath sending shivers up and down her non-existent spine. "I can't blame you for thinking this might all be a fantasy, though -- I can hardly believe I'm going to see Gramps again after so long. Hearing him again after he talked my ear off yesterday on the phone, though...that I could do without for a while longer."

"Hee hee. Nim never really talked my ear off, even before he went off and became an agent...but I really wish he had yesterday or the day before. It would've made all this so much easier..." He groaned, his ears drooping and anxiety once again beginning to cloud his eyes.

"PLEASE STAND CLEAR OF THE PLATFORM'S EDGES AS THE TRAIN APPROACHES," A robotic voice on the speakers blared. This was really happening. This was all happening, now, much too soon, much too late, a subway of hopes, of the unknown, of the future, rapidly approaching without a way to stop it. He thought of jumping up and sprinting back into the Square, of convincing Marie to use her Brella to splat him on the spot, of being anywhere but the station where everything he feared and everything he dreamed of would collide.

"Hey, Ryle," He perked up, peeling his attention away from the train and locking eyes with the taller Inkling with a quiet hum. She met his golden, shaking orbs with a solemn, yet resolute gaze, as if she knew that something was about to go wrong and yet that everything would be just fine regardless. "No matter what happens...no matter who or what comes out of that subway train...you know Callie and I will always have your back, right?" The boy smiled, his eyes melting with pure, warm gratitude.

"Always," He softly echoed, his hearts beginning to drum out a rapid beat that reverberated and resounded throughout his entire system. He squeezed his eyes shut as the train entered the station with a blast of its horn, kept them shut as it sped past, kept them shut as the winds threatened to throw him off balance. He clenched the crumpled toothpick in his fist as it slowed to a halt, and finally, only when he heard the automated voice remind everyone to watch their step and heard the doors slide open, did he let his eyes open with them.

People streamed past him and Marie like water forcing its way around two rogue rocks until there were only three stragglers left. An old man with the huge, glittering eyes of a child...a girl with odd tentacles, her eyes sparkling with an intense curiosity of their own, and...and an Inkling, still sitting atop the train's benches, head dipped down and aimed at the floor as if he were a convict awaiting death. Tentacles wrapped in a messy ponytail whose neon green glow was almost sickening to look at. Tattered sleeves of a black sweater and exposed knees littered with cuts and scrapes the same color as his tentacles. It...it was...

"Nim..." The world all around them seemed to slow as the Inkling's head jolted up, his dichromatic eyes gleaming with alarm. One eye was a ring of the same neon green drowning in a sea of black and surrounded by a chasm of faintly glowing green. The other, a beautiful, unblemished orb of azure blue swimming amidst pearly white. And both were aimed straight at Ryle.