when the world stops looking

guremahi:

fandom: tales of symphonia
ship: zelos/colette
word count: 6.2k
rating: g
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Colette
likes to watch Zelos, sometimes.

Though
their first meeting was far from perfect (and admittedly a little hazy, from
Colette’s side), she’s found that he doesn’t seem very bothered by it at all.
He flirts with her, just as he does with Sheena, Raine, and Presea, and while
Sheena insists this isn’t a good thing, Colette doesn’t mind too much. And
she’s found that, while he doesn’t really like to show it, he can be nice, too.

(During
nights where they are not fortunate enough to make it to an inn, he always
finds his place next to her. Despite no longer suffering from the symptoms of
her angel transformation, she has found the transition overwhelmingly
difficult; sleep still does not come easily to her, but it doesn’t seem to come
easily to Zelos, either.)

At
first, they didn’t talk a lot. When they did, it was just one-liners, jokes and
overused pick-up lines, always met with a smile from Colette. She understands
why they others get irritated with him, but she also notices that when everyone
looks away, his eyes gloss over a bit, as if he is suddenly relaxing, even
though his body language tries to tell them that he is always relaxed.

Colette
supposes she has spent a large portion of her life putting up faces, too.
Perhaps that’s just the reality of their twisted fates, as Chosens.

Her
masks and Zelos’s are different, though. When Colette is trying to appear
strong so that nobody will worry about her, Zelos is laughing and joking and
dismissing everything that’s wrong. But Colette wonders, sometimes, about some
of the things he says; loosely-veiled remarks about his discontentment with his
life, with the Chosen system, with the politics of Tethe’alla and somewhere in
there the thought of running away from it all. The rest of the party
dismisses it, says that’s just how he is, but Colette isn’t so sure if they
should.

She
wonders, sometimes, if his jokes are not really jokes at all.

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