Happy April Fools’ Day, everyone! Hopefully I’m not too late with this; wanted to also celebrate Karneval’s incoming anime because asdlkfjh I’m not going to get my Karneval fanart (read: tsukitachi tsukitachi/hirato tsukitachi ) done before the anime airs so -
Try not to imagine their old, wizened figures too hard? (Also, unbeta’d and completely raw. I haven’t written in a long time holy crap)
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Title | Here’s to a Longer Life
Fandom / Characters | Karneval [Akari, Hirato, Tsukitachi, Eva]
Words | 516
Summary | With the onset of old age and arthritis, Akari finally acquiesces to his subordinates’ urges to retire.
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After what seemed like an excruciatingly painful time walking through the city, Akari finally hobbled inside and through the – welcoming? – intimidating? – doors of the Circus Retirement Apartments with a rare smile on his face. It was about time that he had put down his work for Circus and take a well-needed rest from everything.
The young’uns would take care of everything now, of course.
(Fuck all the patients.)
He went inside, registered, stumbled into the next room.
And didn’t know if he wanted to laugh at everyone in the room or get the fuck away from all the confetti and obnoxiously loud music. Jesus Christ, the silly string and tickertape confetti lightly piling on his head was going to be a pain in the ass to clean later. And if streamers wasn’t enough, did they really - was that bunting?
For fuck’s sake, who picked the colors here? Neon colors of all things?
It was ghastly.
“How long did this take you all?” he finally croaked out. It came less sarcastically, less biting than he wanted. Damn old age.
“Akari-chan!” A slightly-tipsy Tsukitachi shuffled over, clapping the other – hard – on the shoulder.
He’d probably had a few more drinks than recommended…as usual, Akari snidely noted after getting a waft of the other’s breath. “You’re late, you know. Hirato and I are already on our second bottle.”
Akari absently considered the notion of fleeing right this moment, and who gives a damn about insurance because these prats never grew up and were going to make his life a total misery-
“Go spike Hirato’s drink with your meds or something,” he snapped back, leaning heavily on his cane for support.
Tsukitachi nodded towards his former coworker, slumped on the table with a drink tipped precariously from his loose hand, with a sly grin that made his face look decades younger. “Hirato’s quite buzzed right now, though I think he’s still good for a few drinks. Say, want a drink? It’ll be just like the old times.”
He was spared from saying anything in response to that when Eva hobbled over and smashed a piece of celebration cake in his face.
“Congrats on retiring. I thought you might like that,” she said with a small grin and a hair-flick. “So tell me, doctor, how’s First Ship doing without us?”
He rolled his eyes. “Just fine. Some of the new crew members could give you a run for your money.”
“What about the others?” Hirato slowly hobbled over to punch Tsukitachi in the face.
(Shit, it was going to degenerate into another all-out fight, which could possibly land them all in physical therapy.)
“Gareki’s managing to beat the crap out of everyone like he’s still fifty.” Akari grimaced when a gluttony bit of icing slid down his cheek. “We still have patients coming in because of him. And Yogi doesn’t want to retire because he loves being Nyanperona. I don’t fucking get why he likes it so much.”
“Poor Tsukumo.”
“She’ll live,” Akari snorted before going over to wipe his face and getting a fresh slice. He chewed three times, thoughtfully - “Shit, my dentures are going to get stuck to my gums again.”
