5AN: This fic is to some extent a sequel to my fic "Five Things Rachel Was to Baam", but it should be understandable without reading that fic. Might be called slightly AU because of the Baamchel and also because who the heck knows what goes on in Rachel's head? I try to plumb the depths here, but it would take a true genius to really know...or SIU.
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Five Times Baam Did Something for Rachel After Their Reunion
#1.
Baam was not confrontational. Years of experience had taught Rachel this much. While he could be stubborn in a playful argument or debate, he could never quite stick to his guns when things got serious. When she raised her voice at him in the cave, he would back down immediately. If she went so far as to yell or insult him, he would apologize over and over again. And if she ever cried, he would cry too, unable to even apologize, convinced that by hurting her he had committed some cardinal sin. And in a way, he had. He had gone against the one person who knew him and loved him, his source of knowledge and light, his only connection to the outside world. Yes, sometimes Baam could get stubborn, but Rachel always knew how to make him back down in the time it took to blink.
This was why it surprised her that he had succeeded in the tower thus far. According to her friends in FUG, Headon and Yu Han Sung and a variety of others, he did have an incredible amount of natural strength, apparently what it meant to be an Irregular. So it was not so shocking that he was strong. And he did have some strong friends to hide behind, though she wasn't entirely sure how he had acquired them. Still, at the end of the day, it took more than talent or allies to climb the tower. It took resolve, drive, and ruthlessness. You had to be able to hurt people. You had to be able to fight.
That was not something Baam should have been able to do. He hated hurting people, hated even disagreeing with him too vehemently. Rachel could not understand how he had survived past the first level. You had to fight more than unthinking fish.
She figured it out in the game of Hide-and-Seek. Hoh had a knife at her neck and was threatening to kill her even though they were on the same team (and even though she should have seen the betrayal coming—they were in the tower, after all—it still gave her a sick feeling in her stomach). The Ranker wanted to help, mostly out of pride and a dislike of Hoh as far as she could tell, but he was an idiot, a weak idiot. This, she thought to herself. This was where the stories of the heroine Rachel ended. She could climb no further as a corpse.
And then Baam emerged out of the darkness. It barely surprised her. She always associated him with dark places, half expected to see him step out of every dark corner, the shadow who somehow thought he had the right to follow the light. And somehow, his presence calmed her as it used to back when she would visit his cave. His pitifully sad eyes fastened themselves on her face, met her own eyes. Poor Baam. She was going to die here, and he was going to mourn her forever. He would never know that she had planned to betray him, and perhaps that was for the best. Although it annoyed her that he had forced his way into the tower to follow her, it calmed her to know that no matter what, Baam would remember her forever. To at least one person she had mattered, even if she hadn't climbed to the top.
She barely paid attention to the drama between him and Hoh and the Ranker, too busy composing her final thoughts and trying to breathe through the pain in her thighs where Hoh had stabbed her. But then suddenly Baam came rushing at them. She thought Hoh would slice through her neck, but Hoh was oddly still, and then Baam was pulling her to the side, pulling her to safety.
And he was yelling her name.
"Why?" she asked him. "Why did you follow me?"
He stared down at her, confused, dismayed. At her words? At the blood? She wasn't sure. He'd mounted a rescue, saved her. Called the attention to himself, yet again. She was both relieved and frustrated. She was alive, but somehow this silly little monster boy had once again become the center of her story. "I told you not to come," she said. "I told you not to follow me."
"Rachel…"
His voice trailed off as she sank into the darkness.
When she woke up, she had to think it over. Baam saving her was something new. Lately he acted like he was the hero in their relationship, like he needed to protect her, like she belonged to him. She wasn't sure she liked it. It wasn't much fun to be rescued by someone who really should be an object of pity. It wasn't much fun to be some sort of damsel in distress, especially when her rescuer was the boy she was soon going to betray.
Still, when she thought it over, the occurrence had answered at least one question. She now knew how he was managing to confront people. He confronted them for her, to protect and follow her. It was pathetic and frustrating, but yet, she had to admit, very in character. She had always known herself to be his main source of strength.
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#2.
It wasn't that Rachel didn't have allies before. In fact, her allies were excellent. Androssi and Akryung had been on her team from the very beginning, and Androssi was quite possibly the strongest Regular on this level of the tower. Baam included.
But Baam accumulated allies and friends as if it were his favorite hobby, and socializing were all he'd done all his life, which, of course, was utterly erroneous. As he had once clung to her, somehow convincing her to keep on coming down to his cave day after day after day, he now clung to about twenty different people, half of them thoroughly capable and advanced warriors, especially considering how close to the bottom of the tower they were.
It annoyed Rachel. Why should that boy, the boy who had spent all his life in darkness, whom she'd had to teach how to even speak human language or wear clothes, have so many friends when she had only a few? What was it that attracted them to him? It was unfathomable that so many people were making such a large mistake.
In the end, though, it didn't make much of a difference. Because whatever Baam had, in the end, he ended up sharing with Rachel.
Koon was already somewhat attached to her and had been since the Crown Game, when he had learned that she and Baam knew each other in the first place. But the day after the game of Hide-and-Seek, he came to her bedside and sat down next to her.
"You've been injured," he said, as if it were news to her when she could barely even move in bed without gasping from pain. The healers had done their best but they had said they would have to let the rest heal naturally. Of course, they had told Baam the damage might never mend and the others as well, telling only Rachel herself of her eventual complete recovery. But recovery was slow.
"Yes," she said. "I suppose it was bound to happen eventually. I'm not very strong, after all."
"I'm sorry," Koon said.
"It's fine."
"No," Koon said. "I had no idea Hoh was going to be targeting you, and I should have known. I cannot apologize enough."
Rachel stared at him. They weren't even on the same team, either in the game of Hide-and-Seek or in the long run. They had barely even spoken to each other, even discussing Baam. And somehow Koon had taken her on as a responsibility. Koon Aguero Agnis, a member of one of the ten families, one of the best allies she could possibly have climbing the tower, had somehow decided they were what, friends? She finally found her tongue. "It was not your fault. I appreciate your efforts on our team's behalf."
"For Baam, I would have done more," Koon said. He smiled, a touch painfully. "I suspect you feel the same."
Of course. Still only because of Baam. But she nodded.
He touched her arm gently. "Don't worry, Rachel. You will not be hurt again. And I swear I will find a way to bring you and Baam both up the tower with me."
Others came to her bedside, in ones and twos, in small groups and individually. Ship Leesoo expressed his regrets while Anaak Zahard side-eyed him and Hatsu silently nodded encouragement. Rak Wraithraiser visited and made cringe worthy comments about her and Baam and future baby turtles. One day she woke to find Laure's bedroll lying on the floor next to her own bed, Laure quietly snoring away. He stayed there, sleeping, for a few more hours, and when he woke he simply told her good morning and levitated himself out of the room.
When Androssi came to visit, she was not terribly surprised, considering they had been together from the beginning. But Androssi's opening words were not to ask about her health or express regrets about her injuries. Instead, she said, "So, you and Baam?"
Rachel raised an eyebrow.
"I guess I can see it," Androssi said. "The two of you are similar enough." She sat down on Rachel's bed. "You both have a certain draw. You seem different from the rest of us monsters."
Rachel wanted to scream. She wanted to say that she and Baam were nothing alike, and that Baam was a monster after all, an inhuman creature meant to stay in the dark, even if he was doing so well masquerading as a normal Regular. Instead she smiled and said, "You aren't a monster, Androssi."
Androssi smiled back, bitterly. "Thanks." It was clear she didn't believe a word Rachel said. "How long have you known him?"
"So long I can't remember anymore."
"It must be nice," Androssi said. "Having someone like that on your side."
"I guess it is," Rachel said.
None of the people who came to visit her, who liked her because of Baam, understood anything. They somehow saw her as an extension of Baam, when really it was the other way around. They thought she ought to be grateful for his worship, when it hung like a ball and chain around her neck. But that was all right. Baam had done her a favor again, sending his powerful allies to her side. When he was gone, she knew, they would all belong to her.
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#3.
"We're going to take the test from the Administrator," Baam told Rachel. "I talked to him myself. Now it's settled."
Rachel nodded. Koon had told her he would make sure she could go up the tower, but at the end of the day she trusted FUG to bring her up. This was part of their plan, and she was not surprised it was moving smoothly. "What was he like?"
"He was very big," Baam said. "The size of a mountain. And I think he wanted to eat me." He shrugged. "Other than that, he was pretty friendly."
Of course he thought the Administrator was friendly. Baam would think a crocodile was friendly until it bit his head off, the proof of that being his friendship with Rak Wraithraiser. Baam assumed that none of his friends had any ulterior motives in their alliance, even though one of those friends was Koon Aguero Agnis, an infamous schemer who had proved himself untrustworthy to Baam himself already, even if he hadn't actually betrayed Baam yet. Baam had befriended Anaak, hostile to nearly everyone outside of Hatsu and occasionally Ship Leesoo. He had practically romanced Androssi, the detached princess of Zahard who could care less about her own teammates. Of course he thought the Administrator was friendly. Rachel sighed. That, coming from Baam, was not reliable information in the slightest.
"You told everyone that you were an Irregular," Rachel said.
She half expected, then, the conversation she'd been waiting for ever since reuniting with Baam. The accusation ("you stole my invitation!"), the anger and betrayal, the resentment for stealing his legitimacy, his place. She tensed herself, ready to shoot back, to tell him she had taken his place because it was really hers to begin with, because she was the one who was meant to climb the tower, because clearly his invitation had been a mistake.
Instead, he shrugged. "It was bound to come out eventually."
She bit her lip. The people who really mattered, FUG, had already known that he was an Irregular, that he had opened the tower doors himself. Still, he was so nonchalant about revealing to his allies that he was essentially a monster and a criminal. "Aren't you afraid?" she asked.
"What do I have to be afraid of?" Baam said.
She stared at him. "They might hate you."
"Koon doesn't hate me, and neither does Rak," Baam said. "They've talked the others over to our side as well." And of course he just assumed he and Rachel shared a side, no matter how many times she'd told him otherwise. "As for the rest, I don't really care. If I have you, I don't care what anyone else thinks about me, Rachel."
Rachel closed her eyes. She couldn't bear to look at his earnest smile. "Then let's climb the tower together."
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#4.
He spent every spare moment by her side. To be fair, for the last couple weeks before the test with the Administrator, that wasn't as much time as one might assume. He was very busy—combat training with Androssi and Anaak and Hatsu, training his shinsoo skills with Laure who would actually bother to stay awake for a few minutes, praying at Hoh's grave, and talking with all of his other friends, especially Koon and Rak and recently, oddly enough, Ship Leesoo. Everyone made demands on his time and he never seemed able to refuse them. But still, whenever he was free, brief snatches during the day and long, languorous hours late at night, he came to her side, as loyal as if she were still his only light in a dark and empty cavern.
He liked to talk to her. He talked about memories from the cave days (dull, she remembered all of them and none of it had been as rosy as he seemed to believe) and the new friends he'd made (dull, she knew all of them and could see a million misconceptions he had but hesitated to correct him) and the adventures they would have after the next test (frustrating, to sit and smile and play along when the FUG had promised her that after the next test she would never have to see his face again). She would smile and talk to him and ask leading questions and wonder how he missed the fact that all she really wanted to do was grab him by the hair, smack his face against the headboard of the bed and ask him where he got the gall to act as if, now that they had left the caves, they were equals.
They did little else but talk. Sometimes they played the same childish games they used to play, word games and guessing games that were far too simple for Rachel. Baam liked to pretend she was still the young girl who had first come to visit him. Perhaps it was understandable. After all, that simple girl had loved him.
One day, Baam came to her room with a brush and hair tie in hand and asked her, half bashful, "Can I braid your hair?"
Rachel touched her hair. She'd had it up in a ponytail most of the time lately—simple, practical, time efficient. Baam was very good with braids, though. He could do basic ones and fancier ones, having years of practice working with his own and Rachel's hair during some of their calmer and longer conversations.
Letting him play with her hair the way he used to seemed like a surrender to the way everything used to be, to the way she used to be. And things weren't the same between them, not anymore. But no one had touched her so intimately in a long time, and it had been a while, in particular, since anyone had made her feel pretty. So she turned around and offered him her scalp, and he ran the comb through her hair, firm and gentle, and began to twist the strands of hair around each other in the same slow, sure way he always did.
"Have you braided anyone else's hair since coming up here?" she asked him.
"Whose hair would I braid?" he asked.
Not Androssi's, for sure. She probably wouldn't have minded, but her hair was far too short and she seemed to prefer it looking a little boyish. Anaak's was probably long enough but she probably would have punched Baam if he had tried.
"Maybe Koon's," Rachel said. He was certainly prissy enough.
Baam laughed.
When he had finished twisting and manipulating her hair into something more elaborate, she turned and around and asked, "How does it look?"
"Pretty good," he said. He didn't ask if she had a mirror. Probably he had forgotten that they were in luxurious accommodations instead of in the caverns below. She had only brought a mirror down there a couple of times. Generally it had been more useful to bring food.
"Pretty good," she teased him. "Is that any way to talk to a lady?"
He blushed. "Of course you look beautiful." He leaned closer. "Rachel…"
She wasn't quite sure what he wanted, but she had a decent guess. He was lucky enough that, after him standing so close to her for about fifteen minutes now, and all the soft glancing touches of his hands, she wanted the same thing. She leaned forward as well and sealed his mouth closed with her lips.
He wasn't what one could call talented at kissing or making out. Everything he knew she had taught him, and he was never as enthusiastic as she might have preferred. But he responded to her signals exactly the way she wanted him to, well trained. And there was something about kissing someone who already knew you so well. It wasn't exactly erotic, but it was comfortable. Safe.
When she leaned away he was smiling, a pleased and relieved smile. "You've forgiven me, then."
And of course he remembered. She never kissed him when she was displeased with him, even if she wasn't angry enough to yell.
"I wondered if you were still mad at me for following you," he said.
She shook her head. And it was true. She wasn't really mad at him anymore. He was still a child in so many ways. He could never really be blamed for the silly things he did.
"I'm glad," he said.
And he leaned in and kissed her again.
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#5.
Rachel and Baam both knew that the stars in the sky were not real stars. They were an illusion conjured by Shinsoo, bright and eerie but immaterial in the end. Still, they were the closest thing to stars that Rachel had ever seen, and she liked to watch them, attempt to count them in their odd, swirling constellations, that sometimes even would change from one night to the next.
She took her hovering chair out to the balcony every other night now, and stared up at the sky. She knew that if she went far enough into that sky, she would eventually hit a ceiling. There would come a point where she could go no further and she would have to stop, and there would be no stars there either. But it seemed to stretch up eternally, mystical, vast and empty. She reached a hand out to the fake stars, promising herself that someday she would see the real ones, and breathe in the fresh air that would accompany the real sky.
Baam, of course, didn't care about the stars. No matter how many times she tried to explain their allure to him, he would only crinkle his forehead in confusion and say, "I guess they sound nice."
Tonight was no different. He stood beside her on the balcony as she stared up at the fake sky, the fake stars, longingly and lovingly. His gaze was somewhat similar, but it was not directed at the stars. He only looked at her.
"Am I your star, Baam?" she wanted to ask him. "Do you see me as unreachable? Am I your light?" She thought his answer would be yes. How nice for him, to have a star he could hold in his arms, could kiss on the lips and speak to in a human tongue. How nice to have a star just warm enough to hug, not hot enough to burn nor made cold by distance. How nice to have a dream that you could see with your own two eyes, a dream that would see you back.
And yet, she knew, he could never be a star to her. And so she would never be able to want him or love him the way that he loved her. Still, perhaps that was only right. When stars collided, they formed supernovas and black holes. The way he loved her, a planet orbiting her star, was far safer, even though she knew all too soon she would expand and her flames would swallow him up.
She glanced away from the shinsoo stars to meet Baam's eyes, so full of longing. She smiled kindly. "Does it bore you to look at the stars, Baam?"
"I'm not bored," Baam said.
She shook her head. "You've never wanted the stars the way I do."
"I guess I don't understand it," Baam said. "But that's fine. I'll still do everything I can to see them with you."
Gently, she squeezed his shoulder. This, she knew, was as close as he would ever get to stargazing with her, and he didn't even enjoy it very much. But, just for tonight, she was glad for his company.
"Thank you, Baam," she said. "You are very patient with me."
Baam smiled and said, "I'm fine as long as I'm with you."
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+1 Time Rachel Did Something For Baam
#1.
The final test was odd. Sitting in a bubble with Baam far underwater, having to trust in their friends to protect them while they were shuttled through the water to some mysterious tunnel with little control over their own fates. It all felt surreal. With the waves far above them and no sound but the movements of the water and Baam's comforting voice, it was as if she and Baam were the only people in the world. And in some ways, she thought to herself, it had always been like that. Ever since she met the mysterious boy in the cave so long ago, he had become so much a fixture to her life, a fixture to her very being, to the point where she could no longer tell which of them was the parasite.
Baam, she knew, was in fighting mode. He was fully focused in his battle against the giant eel, convinced that they would die if he did not succeed. Rachel knew he was right, but she could not gather the energy to match his desperation. She also had a task to do, and she did not think it would be hard. But first she would have to steel herself to do it.
Huffing, he turned to her. He had won the battle. She supposed properly she ought to clap, congratulate him, slap his back. He was bleeding. Hypocritical to the end, she asked him if he was okay.
"Rachel," he said. "Let's go together."
"…Baam?"
"Wherever you want to go," he said. "I'll take you."
He stretched out his hand to her. But his hand was still covered in blood. She sat up straight, reaching towards the barrier that separated them on the raft. He was still a fool. He still thought she wanted to climb with him, wanted to be with him. After all this time, he still thought he was enough.
He couldn't live up to his word. FUG would make sure of that. If they both came out of this test alive and intact, she was sure they would kill her or at least make it so she would never climb any further on the tower.
She'd asked FUG whether, if she did what they asked, they would let Baam die. They hadn't answered her. She thought that was answer enough.
She had once thought that she would leave Baam behind in the caves. There, she had thought, he might die of loneliness and despair, and in some ways she had thought the idea poetic, a suitable end for him. He had come farther than he ever should have, and she was almost proud of him for a moment. The little boy of the shadows had become almost a man. Almost human.
In one fluid motion she stood and pushed him out of the bubble.
His eyes were wide open as he fell. He didn't even try to regain his balance. That was right. She was his goddess, his star, the one who had given him all he had in life from the very beginning. If she chose to push him away, to push him from the light, well. That was her right.
It was better this way, she told herself. Baam would be hurt if he continued to climb the tower as he was. FUG would kill him, or Zahard's agents, or someone else. At the very least he would lose his innocence. He would no longer be the boy she in some ways loved, nor even the man he aspired to be. He would become a monster in fact. Small dark things could become so terrible when placed in the light.
Here he could die. Die as her sacrifice, die helping her to reach the top. And hadn't that always been her dream? Helping her climb the tower?
"I'm sorry, Baam," she said. "You should stay here."
She did it for him. Because he would always love her and want her to get what she wanted, and this was the only way. She would remember him, as heroine. That was the most she could do for him.
"Goodbye, Baam," she murmured, as she watched his body float away. "Goodbye."
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AN: So...If you liked this, feel free to read the prequel fic, "Five Things Rachel Was to Baam", a very similar fic that takes place in the pre-canon era. This fic was actually inspired by a review on that fic by Nagikae. That and the powers of procrastination. Never underestimate the powers of procrastinating homework with fanfic.
Anyways, welcome to the good ship Baamchel...and by good, of course, I mean super one sided and dysfunctional. I find myself enjoying this ship more and more. It's still more or less my NOTP, but it's super fun. Rachel is such a jerk. I hate her. I love writing her.
Reviews are always appreciated! Feed the beast.