Lies.
T: Because I had to really! Spoilers for up to and including chapter 135, slash and a great deal of angst. I do not own anything you see here apart from the back story for the twins something that I assured will vanish soon enough!
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He had first met the Hunter while he had been searching for something to eat, the inherent danger, as well as the shear power that surrounded the man drawing him to the other.
He'd talked, cordially, presented and being presented with a front and then he'd fled as far from the man as was possible.
He'd warned his brother of the other and as was normal for the other Subaru had chided him for his over protectiveness, the words seeming somehow empty.
He'd not had cause to dwell on this fact until he'd met the Hunter again, the meeting this time orchestrated by Subaru. He'd watched his brother with the other, watched the devotion and the fascination with which the other regarded the Hunter and he'd realised, with a terrible certainty, that the Hunter had stolen his precious brother from him.
In the following months he had tried to gain back the depth of attachment that had existed between them before the Hunter had come, had tried to turn Subaru's mind towards other interests and even to the thought of moving on from the town.
Each suggestion had been met with a gentle rebuff, his brother cautious enough in his wording that he never directly refused Kamui anything.
He'd begun to fear that he would have to live his life always like this, with a wall of concealed lies and the illusion of the Hunter between them always and then…
He recalls still the day that the Hunter had been injured for his brother's sake, recalls stumbling upon his brother curled tight against himself, his skin so very cool to the touch and the vivid ochre of his lives blood stark against the pallor of his skin.
He'd held the other tight and listened as he'd imparted the tale of the Hunter's sacrifice, of the blood he had given in order to save the other, of the unravelling of the Hunter's illusions and his brother's desperate want to simply die at the other's hand.
He'd been selfish then, forbidding Subaru from going anywhere without him and making again the suggestion of leaving the town.
Subaru had regarded him a moment and then, an insincere smile on his lips, he'd said,
"If you truly wish to move onwards, to escape the memories of this day, then you should talk to Ichihara-san."
He had gone to see the woman despite the rumours that surrounded her and the misgivings these rumours had placed into his heart. She had looked at and through him, then, a dangerous smile on her lips, had told him,
"The thing you wish so desperately for can not come true, for the past and the mark it leaves upon all hearts, is a thing that not even the greatest of magic can erase."
"What of my wish to travel beyond this town, beyond the memories contained within it, with Subaru at my side?"
"To see new sights, experience new atmospheres and travel beyond the borders of your world is something your brother has long yearned for, that you must ask for his wish to be granted, that he must concede his desire and the joy he would have experienced at its fulfilment, is the price he has had to pay." Her smile becomes something more than it had been and, touching him once upon the forehead, she said, "You have the gift to travel now beyond this city, beyond even this world, but I do not think you shall so readily escape the Hunter, for he too wishes to live out his life with Subaru at his side."
He had little liked hearing this truth and it'd taken him the barest of instants to decide that he would not tell his brother of the Hunter's wish, to decide to do what he had thought never to do and lie to his brother.
The first world to which they had 'fallen' had been a dirty, impoverished, place and the sadness he'd seen always in Subaru's eyes as they'd travelled about the cities of that world had spurred him to move onwards a little swifter than he might, otherwise, have done.
The instant they had fallen into the second world an alien power had called out to his brother and, weak still from his 'encounter' with the Hunter, his brother had relented.
For three years after that he'd protected the water in which his brother resided, had tainted his skin with the blood of thousands whom he would not, otherwise, have slain and had lingered despite the ever present threat of the Hunter stumbling upon them.
The presence of the leader of those from the tower within the world, the fire and the disconcertion that other placed always in his stomach had made everything so much worse, had added to the blind chaos that his life had become without the calm of Subaru's presence at his side.
Then the boy had come.
He'd felt the influence of the Hunter upon the other almost instantly, the threat that influence posed to his dear brother eroding his control and pushing him further than had ever gone before.
Even that strength had proven all but useless against he boy and he'd found himself, for the first time in many long years, unable to do anything other than watch.
The bitterness this realisation had placed in his heart, the worry of the power that boy held and every other tiny triviality had faded away the moment that his brother had awoken.
Clawing away the foolish jealousy that had risen in his heart as he'd watched Subaru's care for the girl, as he'd grappled with the fact that his brother had stirred simply for her sake, he'd come, at last, to Subaru's side and, for the briefest of instants, all had been well again.
Then relief had spilled his precious secret from his lips and suddenly the joy of their reunion had fled from Subaru's eyes.
With those hollow eyes and an insincere smile his brother had listened to the pain the boy had created and, guilty for his part in it all, he had again requested aid from the witch.
His brother had had, again, to pay the price of having another fulfil his wish, the witch requesting also a little of the other's blood, the manner in which she had phrased the request making it seem as though that precious liquid had also been included in their original contract with that woman.
It was the first that he had been given any cause to hope that his brother had not given the Hunter his blood freely, and, spurred onwards by the joy such a thought gives him; he offers his own blood in exchange for Subaru's.
Chaos had again surrounded his and, as seemed to way of things, the one from the tower had come, again, into his life.
The revelation that this other is the Hunter's kin pumps anger through his veins and, though there had been no prompt, he strikes out for the other.
Subaru saves him from the other and yet, looking at the sadness in his brother's eyes, he can not feel glad for this act. This is something he does not understand until he hears the yearning in his brother's voice as he requests after the Hunter's fate and sees the pain in the other's eyes as the truth of Hunter's pursuit is again uttered. These things tell him, better than any words, that Subaru wishes to be found…wishes still to die by the Hunter's hand.
As they watch the other travels leave this world he thinks to mention this reasoning to his brother, thinks to air out the hidden yearnings that lie between them in order that they might try to again flee the taint of the Hunter.
The words stifle in his throat and he leaves them unspoken, this a choice spurred by the realisation that there is now more between them now than the Hunter. He does not yet know what the other barriers are or, indeed, if, like the Hunter, they are things that shall always linger there between them, all that he can be certain of is that he yearns still for the impossibility of things returning to how they had once been.
Hope is a thing that he has long since learned to distrust and yet, as his hands find Subaru's, he can not help but cling to that emotion…can not help but hope that perhaps, together, they can achieve what even the most powerful of magic can not and erase the shadow of the past.
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T: Keep hoping, Kamui, keep hoping! Hopefully I've answered all the questions I've raised, if this does not, however, prove to be the case then let me know!