Elaine was walking along the scenic trail for one of the less populated parts of the city, and saw Pain with someone else on a small cobblestone bridge. She walked closer and noticed it was Skyler that was with Pain, he had become her nephew a while ago when her sister gave him a new body. She was far behind them as she stepped onto the bridge, and noticed they were holding hands. She thought that was adorable and grinned to herself.
"Pain?" she called for him cheerfully.
Both Pain and Skyler took their hands away from each other lightning fast and looked at her with fear in their eyes.
"Oh don't worry about me, I'm not a bigot." She shrugged, a smile still on her face.
"It's- It's not that." Skyler put his hands in his pockets as his face flushed gray, his blood was black so instead of red cheeks they were gray.
"What is it then, dear nephew?" she asked.
"Nobody knows we're dating yet," Pain piped up. He was wearing the prosthetic that gave him the ability to talk and eat and look like a normal human, but he did tell her it started to hurt after a while because the adhesive would start to come apart after a while of talking or eating.
"You expected nobody to see you two holding hands?" Elaine asked, confused.
"This place is pretty out of the way though, to be fair," Pain said.
"How long have you two lovebirds been together?" Elaine questioned further.
"We got together a few days ago." Skyler looked down.
"You two are already holding hands? Good job, that's a lot of progress. Have you two snuggled yet?" She grinned widely.
"That's a very innocent thing to ask." Pain scratched his cheek.
"Well you two have only been together for a few days, remember?" She asked.
"I get you, and no, not yet, maybe sometime next week though?" Skyler looked to Pain.
"A snuggle date? I'm in." Pain smiled at him.
"How cute, you two do make a great pair, the height difference is especially cute." She pointed at both of them.
"What does height have to do with anything?" Skyler asked.
"It's this weird thing in shipping called 'smol and toll', don't ask." Pain covered his face with a hand.
"Shipping? What's that?" Skyler asked.
"Again, don't ask." Pain shook his head, his hand still on his face.
"Oh yeah, you're a Fudanshi, aren't you?" She asked Pain.
Pain took his hand off his face quickly and put his index finger up to his lips and made a hushing noise.
"He's not supposed to know what that is," he whispered harshly.
"A what now?" Skyler looked confusedly at Pain.
"I'm not telling you what that is, I prefer to keep that kind of stuff secret," he said.
"I'll probably forget what it was when I get home so I won't even be able to search it, left my smart phone at home on accident, all I got is my dumb phone." Skyler smiled and took out a purple flip phone, the same kind that Zlyena gave her when she was young.
"Ah that, you have one too? So you've talked with Zlyena?" she asked.
"Yeah, I did some battle training stuff with her, didn't really know how to use my powers before that." Skyler shrugged.
"That scar on your right eye looks pretty bad, did you get it checked out?" Elaine pointed to Skyler's scar on his right eye, a black one that ran straight down the middle of his eye, ending right before his cheek, and starting an inch above his eyebrow.
"I got it checked... Don't worry about that." Skyler's smile faded and he put the phone in his hand back into the pocket of his black trench coat. He took his black gloved hand, which had room for his claws, and ran it through his short black hair.
"He told me his eyes used to be green, before he was reborn," Pain desperately tried to change the subject, pointing to Skyler's black colored eyes.
"A lot of shit changed about me when I was reborn, black blood, remember?" Skyler looked to him.
"Yeah I remember, how could I forget something like that? I remember every time you blush, and you've been doing a lot of that recently." Pain smiled.
"Oh, really? I have?" Skyler blushed gray, and tried to hide his face in the collar flaps of his coat.
"Yes, you have." Pain nodded.
"Haha, how cute. If a guy I would be with blushed so much, I would tease him. Softly, of course." She grinned and lightly pointed her index fingers at him.
"Lucky we're related so that won't ever happen, thankfully." Skyler gave a sigh of relief.
"I'm not about that life, you'd be right about that." She nodded.
"Are you trying to get stuff like that squared away so someone doesn't think about... You know... Stuff they shouldn't be?" Pain asked.
"Don't underestimate my knowledge, Pain, I know a great many things." She grinned mischievously. She wouldn't tell a soul how much she knows, that would be cheating, even though she was cheating either way. She wouldn't go through so much suffering for nothing, she hoped that whatever higher power there was would let her live.
"You're being weird again, I can tell." Pain put his hands on his hips and looked at her with disdain.
"I'm not, I'm just letting you know how smart I am." She continued to smile.
"I know, I already know." Pain sighed.
"Good, I'll make sure you won't forget." She poked his nose and let out a short giggle.
"Hey, hands off," Skyler piped up.
"Don't worry, I'm not flirting with him. He's not Hex, I have no interest." She waved her hand, but couldn't help but glimpse a look of slight hurt on Pain's face.
"Were you just getting jealous?" Pain grinned and looked up at him.
"N-no I... Fuck, I guess you got me there." Skyler sighed.
"How were you the one to ask me out first?" Pain put a hand to his forehead, some of his hair was brushed down to become bangs on the left side of his head.
"By the way, what's with the hair change?" she asked.
"I thought since I'm completely different to Hex, I would change my look a bit." He took his hand off his face and rubbed the back of his neck with it.
"I think it's cute." Skyler hid his face behind his collar flaps again as he blushed gray.
"Thank you, but why didn't you say anything about it until now?" Pain looked to him.
"Oh, well it's your hair not mine, I didn't really mind it or I would have something negative." He peeked over his collar flaps a little.
"Anyways, I'll leave you too lovebirds alone." She grinned and walked off.
"I'll be back by nightfall." Pain waved.
"See you later." Skyler popped his head out of his coat collar and waved.
She was happy for Pain, he had been having trouble with women a lot, they either kept dying or breaking up with him. Funnily enough it seemed that she was having the same trouble, or at least she was previously. She hoped that nothing bad would happen to Damon, or she wouldn't know what to do.
Read the rest of the book here: https://www.moonquill.com/book/113