Title: Ending 2 - A Better End
Status: On-Going
Characters: Fang, Stella, Rosa and Anon
Rating: SFW
Classification: Serie
Author: Rangto
Summary: Two weeks after ending 2, Anon decides to face his demons and fix all of his past mistakes.


Link to Ao3 Version - https://archiveofourown.org/works/32007964


A Better End

Chapter 1: Justice

Another shitty night. Another shitty gig.

   Fang wondered what day it was, but she forgot the question. She didn't keep track of much of anything these days. Life for her had stopped being about making the most of her time on earth long ago. There was only the job now. Play a shitty gig, get paid a pittance, waste that pittance on food, rent, and hollow comforts like cigarettes, and then do it all over again the next day.

   God, she hated it so much, but it wasn't like she had another choice. Whatever 'bright' future she may have once had she tossed away the day she stormed out of her friends and family's lives.

   The rest of her 'bandmates' packed their stuff and bid her a quick and hollow farewell. Fang, in reply, only spared the most half-assed farewell in retort. With a snort of apathetic acknowledgment from the band's drummer—a somewhat buff shark-like dino—the rest of the band exited the bar. As they did, they chatted up among themselves like they were high-school buddies.

   At first, Fang let out a low hiss, almost like a vampire getting shown a crucifix of Raptor Jesus. The hiss then turned into a deep and morose sigh. The ptero spared one more look at her bandmates, a pang of regret erupting in the spot where her heart once lay. She had once told someone that people were like weeds, only existing to get stepped on while she moved ahead. Her bandmates, despite their attempts at being cordial to her, were no different. She only needed to reciprocate their comradeship enough to keep up a working relationship. They were her meal ticket, and the last thing she wanted was to alienate yet more people in her life. 'Even if that's my best fucking quality,' Fang bitterly thought. 

   With another hiss, Fang kicked the amp next to her and sighed. There was no point sparing another thought on self-pity. Pity was not going to get her anywhere in life, and it certainly wouldn’t help her find more gigs. So instead of wasting precious energy on idle and worthless thoughts, she packed away the last of her equipment. As she did, she noticed someone standing near the stage in the dimly lit bar, staring at her like she was some kind of sight for sore eyes. A human, of all beings on the planet.

   Fang scoffed at the notion of anyone—let alone a human—finding her attractive. Maybe the ape was high or drunk off his ass. Maybe he had a fetish for dinos. Maybe the guy was schizo and off his rocker. Whatever the case, he was another weirdo out to make her night that extra bit more miserable. 'As if shit couldn't be more miserable already,' the tired ptero thought.

     Fang ignored the human to the best of her abilities while she finished putting away her shredding axe in its case. Unlike everything else she owned, her bass was the one thing she took care of like an offspring. More than a keepsake from a better time, it was her only worldly possession that held real value. Sure, it also had negative memories tied to it, but they served more as reminders of what not to do in the future. A glance at the nicks and scratches on the instrument made the ptero realize the oppressive flow of time. To think that it had been almost four years since she had last spoken to her family. Four years since she had last seen hide or hair from her former friends. Friends she had so callously tossed away in a fit of rage and paranoia all thanks to a certain fucker that she had once believed had loved her for who she was, only to be proven dead wrong when he had revealed that it had all been the plan of some machiavellian bitch by the name of Naomi. As she thought of that bitch Naomi, she couldn’t help but wonder what any of her old friends were doing now. ‘Certainly something a hell of a lot better than what I’m doing,’ Fang thought with the kind of tiredness that not even a hundred years of sleep could ever hope to recover. Yet as she thought back on Trish, Reed, Rosa, and Stella, she felt unworthy of holding them in her memory. How could she when she had so readily cut them off from her life in the first place?

   There it was again; that pang in Fang's chest. That damnable pang that shouldn't exist—couldn't exist—in her hollowed state. Yet there it was, nagging at her very soul. It screamed and kicked like a child throwing the world's worst tantrum.

   Gritting her teeth and taking a deep breath, Fang gathered the last of her pitiful belongings. As she did, she forced her body and mind to go numb. What wouldn't she give right now for a smoke of whatever the fuck Reed used to shoot up his nostrils back in High School. ‘At least drinks are on the house tonight,’ she thought as she looked in the direction of the bar’s counter. Part of her pay was access to booze, something her bandmates had made liberal use of before they had started playing that night. She had abstained, not because she didn’t want to get absolutely plastered in the hopes of dulling the pain of playing for several hours straight, but more because booze—while making up about half of her daily liquid intake nowadays—also reminded her of how she had started down the horrible life path she was now in.

   A voice suddenly pulled Fang from her thoughts. The voice belonged to the human, who by that point was the only patron in the entire bar. Even the bartender looked like he had fucked off somewhere. Probably to the back to have himself a smoke or to get sucked off by some patron that didn’t have money on them.

   Feeling like having none of the usual bullshit she put up with on the daily, Fang let out a low, almost feral growl in response. "Fuck off," she hissed dryly and without so much as sparing a single glance at the human's being. She didn't even wait for a reply from the monkey as she grabbed her belongings and began making her way off the stage.

   "Lucy..." the human called out just loud enough for Fang's ears and her ears alone to catch.

   At hearing that old, almost forgotten name, Fang felt bright hot rage bubble in her. It threatened to consume the dino as she whipped around with eyes like daggers at the heckling ape. 'How did he know? Who the fuck is he?' Fang questioned herself as she kept her vicious glare on the human.

   As if to answer Fang's question, the human stepped forward and into what remained of the stage's lights. His plain gray slacks and black long sleeve shirt made him look like was planning some kind of crime. Yet, he didn't look like a hobo or junkie. For starters, she could see muscles underneath his loose-fitting clothes. Despite the human looking like he had just about zero fucks left to give, he still carried a presence that the ptero couldn't quite pin down. If anything, it reminded her of her father's presence, something he got from being in the police force. Unlike other humans, the one now starting her in the eyes had little in the way of remarkable facial features. If she was looking at him from a distance, she would even swear he had no discernable face to speak off…

   Then it hit Fang like a freight train going at a hundred miles an hour. The rage she felt at the human who had dared to disturb her then blunted. Something about the man felt familiar, like some long-forgotten memory calling out to her... one barely audible in the din that was her usual maelstrom of recollections and regrets. Then she remembered. She remembered that face, those barely visible eyes of his, that blank yet unforgettable expression that she had fought so hard to kill recollections of.

   The fire inside fang's soul turned to acid.

   'You... YOU!' Fang venomously thought. As more and more memories she had believed long buried rose up to the surface, she grit her teeth. The force on her jaw was so tight that it made her teeth ache and her gums quake. A torrent of emotions began raging inside the ptero. None good, and none that she knew how to handle without violence. "What do you want!" the dino hissed so chillingly that her words could freeze the very sun.

   The human wordlessly stepped closer to Fang. As he did, the ptero noted how he was now very clearly not the human she remembered, yet still was the human that she had once believed had loved her for who she was.

   Anon...

   Fang clenched her hands into white-knuckled fists, her claws digging into the flesh of her palms, drawing blood in the process. Whatever pain she might have felt was utterly overwritten by the rage in her soul. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to rip Anon's heart out with her bare hands, all the while showing him his still beating black heart as the life slowly left his eyes.

   Fang took one step towards Anon. Without wasting a second, she brought her arm back, and with all the strength she could muster after a night of plucking away at her bass, loosed a punch directed at Anon's right cheek.

   As the sound of a scaled fist meeting soft human flesh echoed through the abandoned bar, Fang couldn't help but feel some catharsis. It was several years late and far too late to make any difference, but as she felt her first bury herself in Anon's cheek, she felt... a release.

   Fang couldn't help but smile ever so faintly.

 

Anon, despite his every instinct telling him to dodge and counter-attack, stood tall and firm. The first now buried in his face was something he knew he had coming for three years now. Had he been his old high-school self, he likely would have flown across the bar and landed on top of some table. Years of training in the navy had toughened his body, and years of well-earned hazing from his comrades had tempered his soul.

   Not one day had passed since his return that he hadn't thought about melting into the background. Being a nobody had been his goal for the longest time, so when he at least achieved his goal of being a nobody, that was when he realized what he had lost in the process. 

   And he hated himself for it now more than ever.

   When Lucy struck him with all her might, Anon squared his shoulders and took it like the man he should have been four years earlier. He had a lot to make up for, and it was probably far too late to make a real difference for him...

   ...But he owed it to Lucy to make up for his fuck-up.

 

To Fang's surprise, Anon took her punch without so much as flinching. At first, she wondered if she was that weak, but as Anon's cheek turned a dark shade of red and rose a few millimeters in inflammation, her doubts evaporated. If anything, it was Anon who had gotten a hell of a lot stronger.

   Anon turned his head to once again stare Fang in the eyes. Fang, for her part, put away her surprise at Anon's resistance (or numbness) to once again glare daggers at him...

   ...Except that when Fang's eyes met Anon's, she felt overwhelmed by the deep sorrow in them.

   Fang's previous hostility deflated as the sadness in Anon’s eyes overwhelmed her. Little by little, the fire and acid in her soul vanished as she began to realize that the human now staring deep into her eyes was as damaged—if not more so—than she was. The sadness she could see was but a fraction of the emotion she could feel in his gaze. There was so much more just hidden away under the surface... 

   "Lucy..." Anon whispered as he took another step forward towards the girl he had once loved, yet the one girl he had fucked everything up with because of his selfishness and apathy. "What happened to you?"

   Fang, despite wanting nothing more than to kick Anon in the testicles and run away to hide from the feelings in her heart, shook her head in denial. Goosebumps coursed through her body as for just one moment, she let herself remember what Anon had been to her... and what she had been to him, and how they had both ended it so unceremoniously, almost as if all those hours spent together, all those laughs shared, all that happiness bounced between the two of them had meant nothing.

   Without another word, Lucy closed the last of the distance and wrapped her arms around Anon’s chest. Anon, in turn, returned the embrace, doing his best to cradle the woman he had loved and so carelessly hurt years ago.

   As the night outside grew colder, Anon and Fang—broken and beaten by a cruel and uncaring world—found a small semblance of comfort in each other's embrace. It wasn't enough to heal the wounds or to undo all the mistakes the two had committed in their life, but for just one second, it didn't matter...

   

Just for one second, it was a good place to start again...