Pairing: Byakuya Kuchiki x Ichigo Kurosaki
Music: King of the Faeries, by Fathom
Word count: ~ 2200
Rating: T
A/N: This comes from watching the Torchwood episode "Small Worlds," and seeing this absolutely wonderful take on faeries. The type of death in this story is lifted from that episode.
Prompt 48: Adore
The first time it happens, Byakuya is twelve, left for the summer with an uncle who has an unfortunate predilection for pretty young boys. His family either does not know or does not care—if the latter, it is because the uncle is close to the Prime Minister, and has much influence. The Kuchikis will forgive almost any deviance if the person committing it has power.
Byakuya spends as much time as possible out of the house, deep in the woods that climb with stately splendor up the mountains abutting his uncle's property. They are wild and dark and grand and beautiful, and Byakuya would be willing to remain among the trees for days, were he given the choice.
It is in the depths of the woods, while hiding from his uncle's greedy eyes, that Byakuya happens upon the clearing.
It's beautiful, a wide space like a small meadow that stretches between the two arms of the mountain. Surrounded on all sides by forest, it should feel strangled, threatened, but it does not. Instead, it's one of the loveliest things Byakuya has ever seen, a rich swath of emerald green beneath a covering of vibrant bluebells. That in itself is odd, because bluebells aren't native to Japan, and this area seems too wild for someone to have come out and planted them here.
Nevertheless, despite the meadow's mystery—or perhaps because of it—Byakuya is drawn out into it, stepping carefully through the graceful stalks, heavy with their flowers. A soft wind rustles the trees around and sets the boughs to dancing, and Byakuya smiles. He hasn't felt this peaceful since the last time his mother held him and told him that she loved him—years ago, now, because by family custom he is a young man now, and cannot be coddled.
The sun is warm and soft on his shoulders, sweet like honey. He laughs, and there must be some strange echo in this place between the mountains, because he is almost certain he hears someone laughing back.
He stays out that night until long after dark, and comes back the next day as soon as the sun rises.
But something has changed.
Now, instead of being confined to the meadow, the bluebells are spreading—have spread, in a way that should not have been possible in the space of one night. They stretch out like a carpet beneath the trees, filling the air with their soft scent and turning the shadowy dimness of the forest to blue-violet. They're almost to the very edge of the forest, and Byakuya knows there's nothing natural about this.
But he's a child still, for all that he's a Kuchiki, and this is a thing of wonder. He won't question it, not until he must. Instead, he makes his escape into the fragrant indigo twilight of the forest, hearing sweet, bell-like laughter on the breeze.
Ten days before his thirteenth birthday, his uncle comes into his bedroom in the middle of the night. He tries to touch Byakuya, tries to grab him, even as Byakuya tries desperately to flee. He is terrified as he has never been before, careening through the dark house with the sound of heavy breathing on his bare back.
Help, he cries.
Help me.
Anyone.
His uncle rounds the corner after him and stumbles, hands flying up to claw at his throat. He gasps and chokes on nothing, tumbling to the ground.
But it is not nothing.
Byakuya watches the indigo petals tumble from his uncle's lips and think distantly, Bluebells. He's choking on bluebells.
They're lovely and perfect, the same ones that he wandered through all afternoon, and their sweetness fills the house until he cannot breath for the smell of flowers.
Outside the window, someone laughs. Soft, kind. Wild.
Ours, the voice says.
Ours to hold.
Ours to protect.
Ours.
The housekeeper finds him there in the morning, huddled up against the wall in only his pyjama pants with sweet, dew-kissed bluebells spilling over his feet.
His uncle is dead, and Byakuya cannot feel anything but thankful.
Ours, the voice whispers as his family comes to take him away.
Ours.
Safe now.
Don't cry.
Byakuya squares his shoulders, dries his eyes, and walks away without looking back.
The scent of bluebells follows him all the way back to Kyoto.
It happens again when he is sixteen, coming home from kendo practice in the rain. There are three men, tall and armed with knives, and Byakuya has only his umbrella. Against one, perhaps he would be fine, but three are too many even for a Kuchiki.
But the rain smells of bluebells and sun-filled meadows, and Byakuya whispers, "Help," under his breath.
They laugh at him for it, hearing the small plea, and die that way. The bluebells spill from their mouths in streams, more than when Byakuya's uncle died, many more bluebells than he has seen since he left that indigo-drenched wood behind. The flowers fall into the puddles left by the rain and float gracefully there, brilliant against the dimness of the street. Byakuya, because he is a Kuchiki and must always do his duty, calls the police and sits down in the rain to wait. There is a wild, half-hysterical laugh bubbling in his throat that he knows will be echoed if he voices it.
Instead, he asks quietly, "Who are you?"
Laughter again, sweet and wild, and there is a man kneeling before him in the street, heedless of the rain. His brilliant hair is the color of a daylily, and his eyes the rich, warm brown of freshly turned earth. He looks like any other young man with a bit too much rebellion in his blood, but Byakuya has seen those eyes looking at him through a darkened window before, heard that laughter as an evil man died, and he knows that this creature is not a man. Not human.
"Not 'what,' Byakuya Kuchiki?" the creature teases softly. "Only 'who'?"
Who is all he needs, because Byakuya already knows what he is. The bluebells gave it away, if it was ever truly a secret to begin with. "Fey," Byakuya tells him, drawing his knees up against his chest and trying to compose himself, trying to act like a Kuchiki although he is very, very wet. "You're a faerie. The bluebells are sacred to your kind."
The faerie smiles at him like he's done something particularly clever, and offers his left hand. In the cradle of his palm lies a perfect bluebell the color of a summer sky.
"Humility," he says, pressing it into Byakuya's hand. "Constancy, gratitude, and everlasting adoration. That is what a bluebell means. But do you know what else it is called, Byakuya?"
He is gone between one moment and the next, just before the flashing lights announce the arrival of the police. Byakuya curls his fingers around the delicate stalks and holds tightly, inhaling the sweet and gentle scent. He looks down, and the blue is vivid enough to hurt his eyes.
"Dead Man's Bells," he whispers, to himself and to the one he knows is watching, "because the faeries use bluebells to mark those they're going to kill."
The laughter that whispers through the rain is just as feral and beautiful as he remembers.
It's possible he should be frightened, but he is not.
It becomes a constant after that. The bluebells are everywhere, in his bedroom, scattered over his futon, tucked inside his schoolbag. The maids find them in the bathroom and the library, and whisper about spirits and cleansing. Byakuya ignores the whispers except for a brief moment of disdain, and accepts the flowers as a part of this strange new life.
He keeps a vase of them beside his bed, and in every room he frequents. This, the maids do not remark upon.
The faerie watching him is not always kind, is not always good. Byakuya learns this when he returns late one night after walking Hisana home. As he enters his room, the bluebells rustle, and he is there, perched on the corner of the table and frowning.
"Yes?" Byakuya asks him, setting his bag down by the door.
There is fury in those brown eyes when before Byakuya only saw gentleness. The faerie leans forward, and the wind outside howls like his temper given form. "You are mine," he hisses. "What good is she?"
Byakuya stills in the process of unpacking his books, his mind flickering to kind, sweet Hisana with her tender smile, and then back to the image of a man unable to breathe past the bluebells filling his lungs.
For the first time since that first night, his blood runs cold.
"Do not harm her," he grinds out, and it takes all of the emotional repression he has perfected over twenty years as the Kuchiki heir not to shout the words. He spins to face the faerie, meets those burning eyes as the garden outside is lashed by an unforgiving wind that screams past the house, never quite touching. "Do not touch her, or I swear that I will bind you with salt and iron. I love her, do you understand?"
For a moment, Byakuya thinks that he will die like those men, with petals in his mouth and the taste of bluebell nectar in the back of his throat. But instead, the faerie takes a step back, and there is something quite like grief in his ageless eyes.
"Love?" he repeats.
Byakuya draws himself up to his full height—taller than the faerie, now, he notes absently. "Yes, love," he affirms. "I love Hisana, and she loves me. I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I don't know why you think that I am yours, but I am not."
"I see." The faerie takes a step away, and then another, before he turns back. "One favor?" he asks softly. "Grant me one favor, and I will leave you forever."
Somehow, that draws Byakuya up short. He never expected the faerie to simply leave. But it is for the best, he tells himself. It is better this way.
"Ask," he says, hoping it will not be too much. This faerie has saved his life twice over, though, so he won't begrudge him anything.
"A name," the faerie says simply, and his eyes are like the earth when it is newly rent, the ground where an earthquake has ripped it open and left it vulnerable. "Give me a name before I go."
It cannot be so straightforward, Byakuya thinks, but it really is. There is nothing but honesty in that otherworldly gaze, nothing but a bone-deep adoration that Byakuya has never been permitted to see before. When the faerie looks at him like that, it is easy to remember that he has indeed saved Byakuya from two horrors, and Byakuya feels a sharp ache in his chest that might be guilt, but he pushes it down and offers, "Ichigo. First protector. Will that do?"
The faerie tips his head as though weighing the sound, and then smiles ever so slightly. "Ichigo," he echoes. "That is…good." He steps forward, all but pressing himself against Byakuya, and leans up on his toes to press gentle lips to Byakuya's temple.
It's like being kissed by music.
Ichigo draws away again, stepping back, and offers Byakuya another small smile. "Call my name," he says, "if there is ever need. I will not come unless you do, Byakuya Kuchiki. Farewell."
A breath, a rustle of wind, and the faerie is gone. The presence that has hovered around Byakuya for almost ten years now has vanished, and he is alone.
It is what he wanted. Hisana will be safe from the creature now.
Byakuya wonders why he suddenly feels so aching lonely.
He stands before her grave in the twilight, and lays down a bunch of pink and white roses—I miss you still and always will, they mean. He does, and he will, but it has been a year now. He has mourned. And he misses what he used to have, the happiness that followed him like the scent of bluebells on a warm summer day.
Hisana gave him five years. Byakuya only hopes that a faerie's attention lasts that long.
"Ichigo," he murmurs into the deepening shadows, and then he waits.
With a whisper, bluebells shimmer into existence around him, a carpet of indigo blossoms that stretch out across the family cemetery and towards the distant trees.
There is laughter on the wind, wild and kind, and Byakuya smiles.