a/n: basically what the encounter in the forest could've been. It's really ramble-y.
Tohru thinks he's totally out of luck. He's been out of luck for a long time now, and it goes back farther back than the moment he met Natsuno, or Megumi, or even since his life began. He thinks his bad luck started before he was born on this despairing planet, in this forsaken town, probably before he was conceived, even. He heard his parents talking once about how he wasn't planned after all, and he thinks it would have been better if he hadn't been born at all. Megumi would never have flung herself off the deep end over jealousy, and he would have never have had to kill Natsuno.
Not that he actually killed him, apparently.
"You..." Tohru is trying very hard not to turn tail and run. He's trying very hard but he's retreating anyway, one backwards step at a time. Natsuno is leaning up against one of the trees, maybe five feet away, and he doesn't look murderous like Tohru thought he would. He doesn't look anything really; like he's had the life sucked out of him. By his best friend's avaricious mouth. He's pale, not a trace of colour to his sallow skin, but his eyes are deep and blue and they glow. They gleam at him out of the shadow of the weepy tree he's standing under, and Tohru realizes they aren't the same anymore because Natsuno is a jinrou. He's like Tatsumi, standing a level above the okiagari and Tohru begins to shake.
He doesn't think he's feeling fear, maybe something closer to resignation, but he's shaking because the guilt is crushing him again. It's shutting him down again, faster this time, because instead of haunting his waking dreams he has to face Natsuno in the real world; he has to await Natsuno's judgement because he won't fight it. If Natsuno decides to kill him and send him spiralling out of his undead existence, he might just let him. He has nothing anymore, nothing to live for, not even a life to do so with.
Natsuno takes a step toward him, Tohru takes another step back. He's not sure why he's avoiding the imminent but Natsuno is intimidating now, with his glowing eyes that haven't wavered from his for a single moment since they caught, and he's a jinrou. He could do horrible things to him, because Tohru is too wrapped up in Natsuno is alive to do much else besides stare and back away.
His back hits a tree and Natsuno is there, in front of him so they're toe to toe, and Tohru can't go anywhere, can't even back up. He won't stop looking at him, won't stop staring, seeing him, looking straight through him. Tohru doesn't want to be seen, he hasn't since he was turned, and he thinks Natsuno might be doing it on purpose. He's always been extremely good at reading people, situations, everything, even if he never used to utilize that knowledge.
"Stop it." He whispers the words before he can clamp his lips shut. Natsuno doesn't even blink.
"I'm not doing anything." He says, and he sounds like Natsuno, the old Natsuno, and Tohru could cry. He doesn't, but his head hits the trunk of the tree when he looks up at the night sky through the myriad of crooked branches. He bites his lip hard, trying not to be aware of their proximity and the steady pulse he can hear in Natsuno's throat. Jinrou, still alive, heart still beating, and Tohru can't remember the last time he ate. That's why he's out; he's supposed to be tracking down his next meal because he's gone too long without.
"Natsuno..." Tohru hisses through his bloodied lip. He's not sure what he wants to say.
"None of the okiagari can be forgiven. None of them." Natsuno says quietly, sternly, and swipes a thumb across Tohru's bottom lip to clear it of blood. "Not even you, Tohru." He presses the bloodied thumb to his lips and a pink tongue slips out to lick it away.
"I didn't expect forgiveness. Not from you." He says, equally quiet but a lot less stern, and watches Natsuno frown slightly at the taste of metal and rust on his tongue. "Never from you."
"Of course you didn't." Natsuno says, somehow closer still, and Tohru wants to melt into the tree. He wants to be anywhere but in front of Natsuno, trapped by the intensity and caged by his own unwillingness to part with his only friend and the jinrou he... sired. It's chilling to think of it that way so he doesn't. He's gotten good at blocking things out since he rose from death. He almost excels at it now.
"How could you possibly expect forgiveness," Natsuno continues and feigns disinterest, but Tohru sees the venom in his eyes like red dye dropped into a glass of clear water. "When I offered you a way out, and you didn't take it. Refused it. I would have given you my blood and we would have left together. We could be out of here by now, Tohru, we could be half way around the world if we wanted to b-"
"No! We couldn't be! It wouldn't have worked!" Tohru might be yelling, or just talking loudly against the vast stillness of the forest, over Natsuno's gently toxic tone. "Don't you get it yet, Natsuno? We can't coexist! We can't. We can't. I... I can't. None of us could because the instinct is there to kill, not just feed. It hurts not to, it... it hurts too much!" He's exasperated and annoyed because he thought Natsuno would understand, but he's still talking about how they could have run and it makes Tohru sick because, what if they did? What if Tohru went with Natsuno? What if Natsuno was right and they could have coexisted?
"You can't say that with conviction because you never tried. You have no right to talk like you knew what the outcome would have been." Natsuno replies steadily. He's still two inches shorter than Tohru but his presence has outgrown both of them. He's impressive and he's beautiful, even as a monster. The one that Tohru turned him into.
Natsuno is pressed up against him and Tohru struggles, trying to free himself, to get away, but hands have his arms pressed back against the tree. Natsuno shrugs his jacket off one shoulder, leaving a pale neck just under Tohru's nose. He tries not to breathe in because all he can smell here is Natsuno, and blood, and he's so hungry he could die. He's nuzzling his nose into the warm skin, as warm as he remembers the sunlight to be, without even realizing it. Tohru gasps, shakes his head, and throws himself as far back as he can. Natsuno's still pressed to him though, ducking his head and brushing his own teeth against the underside of Tohru's jaw, and for a moment Tohru sees red.
"Natsuno, stop." He tries to pour all the hostility he can into those two words, but it amounts to very little while he's so sick with thirst.
"You're hunting, aren't you? Why not take blood from someone who can't die, rather than turn another innocent human being?" Natsuno says sharply, commandingly, and his words echo over the the skin his mouth is settled against. Tohru trembles, his indecision always his downfall, and finally gives in when Natsuno kisses his jaw with some kind of tenderness, the kind that he wanted from Ritsuko but would never have.
His teeth slide against Natsuno's neck, finding the place where his pulse beat the strongest and dipping into the skin there. He feels Natsuno stiffen but he can't stop at this point, and he doesn't think Natsuno wants him to because his hand is in Tohru's hair, holding him there. He drinks slowly, letting the blood drag over his tongue. It tastes different from before, but not necessarily in a bad way. He can't put his finger on the difference, doesn't really care to, but it's warm and smooth against his throat and that's all that matters.
Natsuno's head drops against his shoulder, his whole body seeming to surrender before Tohru stopped. When he did, retracted his teeth and pressed his tongue against the twin wounds, Natsuno's eyelashes fluttered against his neck. It felt funny, ticklish almost, and then Natsuno's hand drop from where it had been cradling Tohru's head. His hands move to the collar of his jacket and Tohru looks away a little sadly. He always feels regret after feeding. It doesn't matter that Natsuno can't die from it because Tohru already as good as killed him, so the regret is doubled anyway.
Natsuno says something against his neck and the words fan out over his skin again, and it sounds an awful lot like, "I love you."
"What?" Tohru pulls back a little, out of the embrace he failed to realize turned into an embrace, and stares. Natsuno stands straighter, looks him in the eye, and he's too close. At least he's not hungry anymore, so he can focus on Natsuno's glowing eyes and pale skin, and maybe that's not a good thing. His eyes absorb him, swallow him up in their unearthly glow, and Tohru can't read them at all.
"I love you." Natsuno repeats, sounding so quietly serious that Tohru almost believes him.
"This... this isn't the time to joke, Natsuno." His hands, still on Natsuno's shoulders, squeeze gently. He doesn't really want to panic but it's not exactly every day that he gets a confession of love from his undead ex-best friend. The one that he killed, and the one that just let him drink his blood. Again.
"I'm not kidding. I love you. I loved you before all this. I don't even know why." He says it drily, like it's a fact that Tohru deserves to know just in case they both die sometime in the future. He gets the feeling that's an imminent fate. It doesn't matter they're both standing here, face to face and breathing against one another, it's all just too fleeting. Tohru knows that now, and Natsuno seems to have always understood.
"That's..." He still doesn't know what he wants to say. His hands don't leave their post on Natsuno's shoulders, and it's Natsuno who shrugs them away.
"Don't panic. Nothings going to come of it anyway. We're as good as dead." He pauses, turning back to display the half-smile that Tohru found so endearing on him when they were alive, and presses a hand to the side of Tohru's cool neck. His fingers are hot, like sunlight or warm tea, and they brush the skin just underneath his jaw with incredible care. "Besides, you love Ritsuko, don't you." It's not a question because Natsuno already knows the answer, but Tohru flinches anyway.
"Natsuno-"
"You never did stop calling me that." Natsuno interrupts, still half-smiling and still just a few inches away.
"I think it's a nice name." Tohru replies genuinely, and Natsuno rolls his eyes. It all feels so normal, so surreal, and Tohru gets lost in it for a moment. He loses himself in the desire for it to be this way, for he and Natsuno to be best friends again with nothing but the future to look forward to, and he's struck by a fierce melancholy when he comes back to himself.
"I'll see you around, Tohru." Natsuno tells him, only a little sarcastically, as he pulls away and turns to leave. He's only a few feet away when Tohru stops him, grabs his hands and pulls him back in. He doesn't want him to leave because when he does their last shred of normalcy will depart with him.
"Natsuno, wait, please." He's not expecting Natsuno to turn sharply, stare at him for a long, intense moment, and then lean in to press his warm lips to Tohru's. It's barely a kiss, so soft and chaste and not really what either of them wants, but they don't have time for anything else. There's a clock ticking somewhere and they both can hear it, ringing in their ears like a countdown.
"First and last." Natsuno says quietly, sadly, and then he's gone before Tohru can stop him again.
There's something infinitely sad about it all, about Natsuno's hopeless fixation and Tohru's bleak indecision, but neither of them really have time to dwell on it. They both have a destiny to face and it won't end well for either of them, but at least this much has been settled. There's closure in at least one aspect of their lamentably short lives, and while it's not much it's enough to get them through the colder nights. Natsuno will face his end bravely and Tohru will finally make up his mind, but for the moment they find comfort in the knowledge that someone out there still thinks of them.
And that is enough.