ARMISTICE

"Disarm you with a smile/ Cut you like you want me to" –Smashing Pumpkins ("Disarm")

"The killer in me is the killer in you/ My love/ Send this smile over to you." –Ibid.

.!.!.!.

Mukuro asked a question, "What becomes of a child unloved? Do they continue childhood or do they immediately enter adulthood because of the lack of ability to truly live as a child?" And then she looked at me like I was supposed to know. Not that she ever really expects me to. She probably doesn't think I'm a smart guy- okay, I may not be. It doesn't matter. It's not my fault that I don't wanna waste time talking about the definition of nothingness. I can't sit and think. It would drive me insane.

I really don't wanna think about my childhood. What's technically my childhood. People always glamorize that time of your life and put it in some goddamn gold plated frame. Talking about playing constantly and innocence and bullshit like that. And I'm supposed to think I missed out.

"Or is it locked inside you? Waiting to come out?"

If I didn't remember almost every damn thing that happened in my life, I would say my first memory was picking up the sword I have with me right now. Being abandoned was my real first memory. I was… Hell, how old was I when I made my first kill? I could barely walk and barely talk. Guy was seven, eight, nine, ten times my size. Look on his face told me he didn't think I would do it. Slashed his throat and I saw there and watched his jugular squirt its contents everywhere like some glorious fountain. I know I wanted to kill for a long time. I even knew back then that was what I wanted to do the most, that it was the thing I was really looking forward to.

…I think so?

And Mukuro gave me this look. She really wanted me to say something. She had this look like I took forever just to get it to come through. If I wasn't so sure she always had that look on her face when she talked to me, I would have believed that I really took forever to respond. I said, "Hell if I know. You tell me."

"If you don't want to answer, don't answer."

Yeah. Sure. I answer and she gets mad and if I don't answer she still gets mad. Will I ever win here? "Well, hell, what do you want me to say? That it's all pent up and a seven year old version of yourself is waiting to come out and dance in the rain or make pillows or whatever it is you people do and I'll suddenly start playing with blocks and wait for someone to give me a glass of milk and a hug?"

"…I like both of your options."

The hell? "Hug yourself. I won't touch you because you're sad. This is why you get pets."

She shrugged. I really hoped that she wasn't trying to hint at anything. I'm not a touchy-feely person and she knows it. Neither is she, now that I think about it. "So when does innocence disappear? At what age?"

"Children aren't innocent. The first thing I ever said was 'fuck' and I knew damn well what it meant back then too."

"No you didn't."

"No, I did. I remember they made a bet as to whether I would say some guy's name first or if it would be that. That's what happened." Or maybe I know what it means now and I connected the context. Who knows.

She just sat there, trying to figure it out, probably. Can't say she didn't know the feeling. "You know I couldn't speak until I was nine?" Not that I'd call her out on it. "Considering that people act like me talking about puking in a trashcan would sound gorgeous and that I could probably talk you into taking meth- convince you you're a catgirl, whatever floats your boat- it doesn't sound true but it is. People used to think I was brain damaged or mentally retarded, er, challenged. But I just never picked up real speech in the few times someone actually talked to me. I mean, I could say yes and no and 'I wish you would' but I never really developed much after that for some reason. I could understand people but I couldn't speak to them. It was like I was trapped in my own head. Not that I wasn't already a shell at that point."

Not much to go off there. What's more to say? We were two fucked up kids.

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Murder… I remember that it's in my nature. That's what those whores said. I remember it came up at some point and Mukuro called bullshit on it. Apparently she doesn't believe it's completely innate. She does think that we all have it in us to commit murder- commit any crime really- it's just that only a few of us are actually really capable of it for whatever reason made it okay in our minds. She thinks that some of us are just taught to live in a way that would drive a person to suicide if he (or she) did it. I asked her if those who do it are stronger or weaker. She told me it depends on what my views of murder are- if it can be justified. I think she thought it was weak. I didn't ask what she thought. I knew I wouldn't get the answer out of her anyway.

Hell, maybe it is in my nature to kill. Nature's just a bland word anyway. No one's proved the level of our nature if there's any nature left for us anymore. If it is, I guess this means that I'm tamed if there is a nature. Haven't slit anyone's throats for the hell of it lately.

…All I remember from my past anymore is that I was angry. I don't really feel like it anymore. It feels like a ghost of me looking back on it right now. Like some ghost of me was the terror of… of wherever I was at.

The kills?

I remember I would go straight for my victim's arteries because of that fountain of blood that was somehow so fascinating and beautiful for me. If I was getting desperate I used to cut at my arms and watch the blood drip. I stopped when I was maybe ten years old, when I realized that there is only one time you should be doing that.

I also remember that my favorite part was always the struggle, gave it more of a thrill and more of a possibility of bloodshed. When I was bored during the kill, I would open up the guy's chest and just sit there watching their heart pulsing. When I was feeling lucky I would cut out their heart. If I was even more confident, I would cut off their extremities and perform a dissection. I'd start out by taking their intestines and see many times I could wrap it around the nearest tree. I'd cut open their stomach and roll out the acids in it. Occasionally I'd stuff their liver in their mouth and make them eat it, or at least watch them choke on it. Roll out their eyeballs from their sockets and cut them in half, watching the liquids inside drip out, and sometimes I'd perform a lobotomy on them. Poke a hole in their heaving lungs or just do one and cut open the other. Cut the heart in half. And when I was done being creative, I would cut them in half- each and every piece of them. I knew enough back then that would make an extremely amateur surgeon.

A victim asked me why once. I used to think it was fun and that was the answer I gave them. Most kids had toys, friends, and siblings to play with and ants to fry, but I had weapons as my source of sanity. Recently I've been thinking I was just pissed off the whole time- or that's what I was told anyway.

There is no nature, is there?

Either way, I walked away never feeling any better.

.!.!.!.

"How old were you when you made your first kill?" Mukuro asked me. I would have answered if I knew. At least this time she took the hint that I really didn't know. "Well, I was probably out a few months before I made my first one. Older than you when you did it, I'm sure. What was it like?"

"He was an arrogant prick and if I could I would have killed him twice for each of those traits. I picked up the sword and he started laughing at me and baby-talking at me. I slit his throat as he laughed. There was a lot of blood. I also got beaten pretty bad for it- they needed that guy for something. Not that they didn't already do it. But the asshole deserved it."

"Did he really? Deserve it?" I could see where she was going with this and I didn't like it. "Seven years old and how many months after that… Someone saw me. It was a man. Ragged looking man with a beard. He asked me if I needed help. That was all he did. I looked terrified; I suppose that was why he asked me that. But he just wanted to help, that's all he wanted. I saw him come to me and thought he was going to… He was going to… to do what my father did to me. Looking at me I was just scared and angry. They are the same thing… You know that?"

"In what way?"

She sighed. She stared at her hands and started clenching and unclenching them. I did really not like where she was going with this. "You feel angry because of pain or fear. If you're in pain, you get angry at the person who caused it, yourself for doing it, or at any other possible causes. For fear… You're standing in line to get something but you have a meeting to get to that's soon. You're getting angry because you're afraid you won't make it there. It makes sense, right? So really I was just afraid all that time. Probably still am for different reasons. You were probably afraid of acceptance or in pain due to the lack thereof." And then she stopped completely. I lied to myself at the time by thinking she as waiting for me to come in and argue like she usually does. I didn't even bother. Still- I really don't care about my past anymore. I'm beginning to doubt it made me who I am right now. I'm not exactly sure how I got here. But I knew what she was going to say even before she said it. "…So, do you ever have trouble living with it? Can you sleep at night okay? Or…?"

Honestly I don't. Like I said, I don't care about my past anymore. I don't care that I did it. So sue me. It won't change anything. I knew she could tell I was lying when I answered. I don't know how she does it but I was still able to make a lie in front of her face. "Yes. Sometimes. I get nightmares, too."

I doubt that going the other way would have changed the outcome… "I… I can't really sleep at night and… Maybe I was always an insomniac and never realized it but I have trouble sleeping at night. In addition to whatever's wrong with me because of my time with my father. Sometimes I remember the looks on their faces begging for the mercy I never gave them and- and- and…"

That was it. "Mukuro, what is bringing this up?" She shrugged. Great now she's using my own device. "Who said something to you? Is someone making threats?"

"Nothing brought it up, Hiei."

Dammit, woman. "It's the same thing that's making you leave?"

"I'm looking for you."

"You should ask me instead of going on some quest to find me. I don't care if it makes you feel more adventurous to look for someone without having a clue where they are. It doesn't change the fact that you're gone too long. Are you really that worried about me?"

She just stared at me for a while. "Don't worry about me."

What the hell. "…Because you can take care of yourself."

I know it wasn't what she wanted to hear. Maybe she didn't know whether it wasn't what she wanted to hear or not doesn't matter. She still was stopped just for a second. "…Yes."

"Look, Mukuro. Whatever the reason it is you're asking, it doesn't matter. You killed a bunch of people. I killed a bunch of people. There's absolutely no denial on any end of the argument. You feel bad about it. Does it change the fact that you did it? No. Can you ever do something to make up for it? Can you find a way to fill in whatever gap you may have left? Not exactly. Can you ever do anything to change it? No- no matter what you do it always happened. You can't do anything for the person you caused pain, really, but you need to get it into your head that you need to at least let it go at some point. You finding redemption is all you really can do about it."

"You're right." It annoyed me that she didn't bother to argue about it this time. I didn't know what else to say. She stood up. "I'm going out."

"Then I'm coming with you."

"Don't."

"Dammit, Mukuro."

"Don't." And then she walked away. No, I let her walk away. I should have followed her anyway.

See, it's shit like this that makes me hate power like this. It gets to your head and when it's gone, you get depressed and try to get it back. Or that's what happens most of the time... Taking Mukuro's word for it- there's no absolute to life.

They say that power corrupts. They're wrong. It doesn't take power to corrupt a person; people are already corrupt. If children can kill just because they're angry or scared or because they think it's fun, if people can steal without remorse, if people can rape their child, if they rape another person and run away, if they can drive others to suicide, if they can torture for gain, then in the end we're just corrupt to the core and we never know it. There's never a silver lining in this thing we call our nature. No, what power does is make asses and/or idiots out of us. It's like a goddamn drug. The higher up you are, or the longer you have that power, the more addicted you get. And when it's taken away you end up going cold turkey. Have you ever met someone who did well on cold turkey? It's not corruption that makes this kind of thing happen. Just addiction.

Right now all I can do for Mukuro is watch. If I make her admit what's going on, whatever would there be to say? I already said I'm not a touchy-feely person. I'm not exactly a comforting person. I normally would think of begging for comfort as a sign of weakness. That's how I used to be, anyway. That's not all of who I am anymore.

She leaves for as long as she wants. It could be hours or days. At one point it was a whole month. And the worst part was that I never knew if she'll be coming back. (Even though she did make a comment saying that all the methods of suicide can't kill her. Really, it just means that I'll never knew if she finally found her method or if she's just wandering aimlessly. Either way, the thought really stings like a bitch.) She'll come back and stare at the wall the rest of the day. I come in the room and see that's she's there but I never ask where she's been. I wish I would do it but I can't. All I can see is that she comes back more and more torn up inside.

What the hell is she doing that does this to her?

I really wish I would just ask already. I wish I could tell her I come see her, or at least make sure she's there, for a reason. That I just sit in the room when she's not there and wait for her to come back. I wish I could get past this shell of who I used to be out of the way for just a second so I can do it. I want to save her as much as she saved me.

I can't break this damn habit of mine, but even so, I still want to be the one who wipes away her tears. Just this one time.

"All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Was right here in my arms."

-Depeche Mode ("Enjoy the Silence")

.!.!.!.

ARMISTICE

.!.!.!.

NOTES: Hey there it's me again. This was actually supposed to be Hiei reflecting on his past killing sprees. Somehow this guy decided to go the other direction and talk about Mukuro falling into some sort of a depression because… I dunno, because she has nothing else to think about. It sounds corny but it… You know what I'm saying. Hiei's always this corny when I write him in the first person for some reason. He's more of a bad ass when it's from Mukuro's perspective for some reason.
…She must like the bad boys then. Also the fuck like made me think of that youtube video "Fuck Planet Earth." I'm such a bad person. (doesn't care)

I DON'T OWN YU YU HAKUSHO BUT I DO OWN A DR. PEPPER THAT I ALREADY DRANK.