Title: Routine
Pairing: Asami/Fei Long
Rating:
PG
Summary: Fei Long likes to think about the day when
Asami finally dies.
Disclaimer: Viewfinder belongs to Yamane Ayano. I'm merely having fun writing about her characters. ;-)
A/N: My first Viewfinder fic and unsurprisingly enough, it's about Fei Long. -G- I became a huge fan when I first came across his backstory, and by extension, the Asami/Fei Long relationship because it was complicated and difficult and this was the first time I'd actually seen Asami be somewhat human.
It took me a while, but I finally got to writing a Viewfinder fic—though, I have to say, if it wasn't for clubsion's weekly themes, I probably wouldn't have been as inspired. -g-
Not beta-ed, so all mistakes are mine. (I'd be grateful if anyone points out anything though -g-)
Fei Long likes to think about the day when Asami finally dies.
He likes to think that the day Asami's blood stains his hands, he will at last be free of the past; of the guilt, the pain, and the betrayal that clings to his skin like a leech. He likes to think that once Asami is gone, so will the memories and the wistful longing (mixed with hate, always mixed with hate). The memories, he can tolerate, but the longing...the longing, he can never forgive.
So, he thinks about Asami dying daily. He thinks about killing Asami himself, in various scenarios (a bullet to the gut, because he wants Asami to hurt and dying is too easy, or a knife to the throat, Asami helpless and enraged), and in various times of the day (morning, just as Asami wakes, disorientated and confused, though it is hard to imagine Asami confused; or late at night, when Asami is off-guard and alone). He thinks of hiring someone to kill Asami, but it never lasts for more than a few seconds. Fei Long wants Asami to know. He wants it to be personal.
He wants Asami to feel what Fei Long had felt, seven years ago, but more. After all, it wasn't as if Fei Long had spent the past seven years feeling nothing.
---
In the morning, when Fei Long wakes to a painful ache in his head, the first thought that comes to his mind is, it's Asami's fault. He spends the next thirty minutes thinking about Asami's death until Tao brings in breakfast.
For the next twenty minutes, Fei Long talks with Tao, letting Tao's presence soothe away some of the pain. Asami is forgotten in those twenty minutes.
When Tao leaves with a half-empty tray (he was only able to convince Fei Long to eat about half the food), Fei Long can feel the blanket of melancholy wrapping around him again. He thinks it's Asami's fault for being so memorable that Fei Long can never forget. He thinks he is betraying the love he holds for his father, by not hating Asami enough, even though he has tried and tried. He thinks if only Asami would just die, then everything will be right again.
This last thought remains in his mind as he gets up from the bed and goes into the bathroom. It stays until Fei Long is dressed, and then disappears when he meets up with his Baishe members. He can't afford to be distracted.
---
When Fei Long is home again, he heads straight to the whiskey. He pours himself a glass and drinks it all in one go, letting the smooth burn and flushed warm wash away the day. To think, he muses, that he would once have been drunk with this one glass. His hand tightens until his knuckles are stark white against the glass, before he pours himself more whiskey to celebrate the fact that he is still frustratingly sober.
He is different now: not naïve, not vulnerable, controlled, powerful, hates Asami. He will never again be like he was before: naïve, vulnerable, weak, in love with Asami.
He tells himself this every day and night, when he is not thinking of the hundreds of ways he will kill Asami. He tells himself this even as the whiskey burns in his stomach, as body slumps down onto an armchair, and his mind becomes nothing but memories and images, pieced together to tell a story Fei Long has been reliving for the past seven years.
---
Fei Long doesn't dream. If he does, he won't remember it in the morning, because it will only make him tense with anger and desire, with shame and betrayal, and the fleeting thought that if only...
As long as Fei Long can tell himself he thinks of killing Asami almost every hour of every day, he can forgive himself a little for that small piece of disloyalty. He won't forgive himself for the desire, the longing, the stabbing pain at Asami's betrayal, but he can for that tiny stray thought. He has, after all, already paid for it. His hatred burns and plans for Asami's death are vibrant in his mind; he doesn't forget, even for one second, what Asami has done to him, but sometimes, Fei Long doesn't think of Asami, bleeding, dying. Sometimes, Asami is alive and whole, and Fei Long stands before him, gun pointing to the ground. (This is all he will allow before he banishes it from his mind).
Most of the time though, Fei Long likes to think about the day Asami will finally die, slow and painful, looking up at him with awareness, with the full knowledge of his fate. He likes to think about how free he will when it happens; how the memories will stop haunting him, plaguing him with unwanted feelings and knotting him in guilt for not being a good son; and most of all, how he will finally have some peace with Asami gone from his mind.
He likes to think about killing Asami, except for the times when he doesn't, but Fei Long is a good son and a strong leader—he reminds himself he will never be as weak and naïve and in love with Asami as before—so he makes sure those times are rare.
It doesn't work as well as Fei Long wants it to, but he keeps trying anyway.