A/N:
Hails: Don't even ask, this happened because two people with great ideas are not very cooperative. Like, damn... (I secretly think Faisalliot is mocking me for saying Rin should become a furry like Galra!Keith.) But anyway, here's my contribution. (Have this because Only Human is on hiatus while I figure something out.)
Part 1: Sprout
Roses bud and bloom. They are given thorns to defend themselves but are clipped with every trial and tribulation. It marks change and romance, but roses to roses, each to their own, the rose eventually passes.
Sunday, December 18th, 2011
Tragedy befalls like a flash of lightning. People die, environments fluctuate, and crimes are committed. Yet Time stops at the plea of no man or woman. It is with great dignity that Time moves forward, manipulates the sun and moon, rises and lowers the tide, embellishes peaks and dulls mountains to hills. It is what no one had enough of. It devours all, slays kings, and rusts iron.
As time befalls, so does change. Whether reluctant or not, change flows with time and alters what we see and hear and taste and feel. It coerces every race to adapt and modify itself using change. It starts slow and painful and reaches the climax, and once the pain subsides we are left with newfound beauty and grace, such as the wings of a seraph or the poise of serpent.
Change and time slow for no one person. Not even fate's favored ones, such as the cursed to eternal damnation and agony.
Agony is the word to describe the devil spawn's day. Rin had been so overridden with torment and tears that he could hardly shift without sending himself reeling. He had forced himself to clamp down, to stifle every pained moan and guttural lament which he was capable of. Anguish tore its way through his body, striking sensitive areas, pounding away at his muscles, lighting his veins on fire; a white hot fire that ached his every labored breath.
Rin hissed as affliction caught him in the back of the head. He clutched his stomach tightly and growled something feral, reaching for the next bottle of pills he had been choking down all day. The vehement shaking in his body Rin wrote off as having overdosed on painkillers. He clutched the bottle in his hands, reading the warning labels. Rin understood this, Yukio had even mentioned the thought of painkillers before his awakening. Overdosing was not the way to go, no matter how tempting it seemed to ignore the warnings.
One pill for children, two pills for teenagers, and four pills for adults. Only consume once every six hours. Consult your doctor.
This was knowledge Rin had already been aware of. His brother wasn't training to be a doctor for nothing, but that still didn't ease the pain. Rin slammed the bottle back onto the desk with a vexed snarl. He bared his teeth with the pain and refused to consume more than the healthy rate. He'd practically overcompensated, he needed to let it be. Rin kept telling himself that it was just a stomach bug... with intense muscle cramps and bone growth pains. He'd get better in a few days and then he'd go back to school.
A wave of nausea slammed into him, startling Rin into upright sitting position. He leaped off the bed, his socks momentarily intervening his balance. He slapped one hand over his mouth at the sudden movement and another over his stomach. His first panic ridden thought was somewhere along the lines of 'Shit, where's the trashcan?'
There was none...
Rin bolted out the door, heavy footfalls sounding until he entered one of the bathrooms. He located the nearest stall and emptied the contents of his force fed stomach. It all resembled the same wretched pulp he had swallowed merely hours before. Rin couldn't fathom what was happening, especially considering that earlier that morning when Yukio tried to get Rin to eat something simple to soothe his stomach, it backfired and melted into some disgusting, white paste on his tongue. After that, a horrified Yukio had forced Rin to choke down every bite of rice so Rin wouldn't starve himself. He had since then went to visit the unhelpful headmaster.
As Rin leaned over the toilet, dry heaving the last of what he could muster, his nausea returned and made his head spin. Rin forced himself to stand up and flush the toilet. At some point, he submerged his head in the sink and drank some water to wash away the taste of bile and stomach acid. He teetered back his room unsteadily, collapsing back on the mattress as soon as he could. Nothing relieved the pain, but he could try resting anyway.
He closed his eyes, curling up into a ball to minimalize as much movement as possible, and therefore minimalize as much pain. After sprinting to the toilet to puke his guts out, all Rin could do was try to evade anything that may set him off worse. In his black, hazy resemblance of sleep, Kuro joined him. The black cat snuggled into Rin's side affectionately, radiating warmth and comfort. Some bit of the pain relieved itself with Kuro's loving actions, allowing Rin to sleep for another few hours.
By the time Yukio had come home, Rin had made two more visits to the bathroom, slept an approximation of three hours, and stifled his sobs as the torturous aching in his body increased tenfold. It seemed Kuro nor Ukobach could no anything to soothe Rin; not through food which Rin had promptly turned his nose up at or Kuro's attempt at a tongue bath. Yukio had disapproved of Rin consuming more meds, much to his chagrin.
Upon being asked the incomprehensible question about his condition, Yukio bit his lip and told the painful truth.
"I spoke to Mephisto about it, but all I got was a lecture about how beautiful bodily change is for a demon," Yukio admitted. He mixed together an olive green concoction of herbs of which Rin couldn't name if his life depended on it. "He told me that it would be terrifying but the results would be... 'marvelous,' is the word he used, but I'm not sure I want to repeat that."
"None of that makes any sense," Rin muttered bitterly.
"I know, that's why I immediately decided to go through some books on demon development," Yukio said. He turned to his brother with mortar bowl, removing the pestle from it. Rin sat up reluctantly as Yukio approached him with the medicinal substance. "And I found that around fourteen to sixteen human years of age, demons and half-bloods will undergo a type of physical change that affects every part of the body. It wasn't much information, but remember that talk dad gave us about adolescence?"
"Yeah..." Rin trailed off with uncertainty. "Wait, are you saying-"
"Oh! I get it!" Kuro made a noise somewhat resembling a meow and a growl. "You're going through esschara!"
'Esschara.' Rin repeated the word, cocking his head. It was deep and sounded with a sonorous, throaty timbre. It resembled something someone might say in a Eurasian country, like Russia or Belarus.
"You mean... it's basically just puberty!?"
"On a Gehennan level, yes, that's basically the simplified version of it." Yukio held the medicine in front of Rin's face. Just the stench was enough to make Rin sound a pathetic noise and start gagging. "Come on, Rin. I know it doesn't look good, and it certainly won't taste good either, but according to the recipe Mephisto gave me, it's the only thing you'll be able to eat without you puking it up. It's supposed to help ease the aching. Cooperate with me, please."
"Fine," Rin grumbled and opened his mouth for a spoonful of the gritty brew. Almost instantly after Rin had tried to eat, he opened his mouth again to reveal that the mixture had gone a sickly white color and became disgustingly pasty. Yukio promptly had a hand over his twin's face, clamping Rin's jaw down when his brother tried to throw it up. Rin reluctantly swallowed, sticking his out tongue in disdain.
Rin grudgingly consumed the whole bowl. After a while, it became routine to choke everything down, but it worked nonetheless. Rin sighed in defeat once he had managed his task, falling back down onto his pillow with a flump. He curled up tightly, Kuro sliding down from the desk nestling himself between Rin's hips and midriff where it was comfortable. The gentle purring had Rin yawning and falling asleep in paltry moments.
"Enjoy your rest, young Okumura," Mephisto chuckled. "A few hours of stillness for you and it's all downhill from here." Mephisto flexed his hands, leaning back into his chair with a pleased hum. "You, the Blue Exorcist, have much to endure. You'll lose your handle on humanity first, let's see you take it."
'I wonder what would happen if I stabbed Ukobach with a holy knife.' Rin slapped himself instantly after that invasive thought entered his mind.
Yesterday, after his sick fit, his body seemed to maintain homeostasis. Ukobach ended up making sukiyaki, which Rin had gladly partaken of. Whatever Yukio had given him worked like a charm in healing him, because it was over with quickly. Unsuspectingly enough, however, he had been plagued with multiple invasive thoughts that he couldn't control during and after class, which had been particularly stressful.
One thought about Shiemi almost had Rin falling out of his chair, and how whenever he thought of her it was always in the manner that she had been impaled on a the Kurikara. Her heart hanging off the tip, still beating strongly with red tendrils of blood staining her gorgeous slender body in gore and the metallic substance that had infected Rin's nightmares.
It was her forlorn, broken voice that really tipped him off, however. 'Why, Rin?
That was his friend, for God's sake! Why would he ever imagine killing her? Why would he ever picture killing any of his friends; of killing off Yukio? Especially after they had been so supportive?
With every second that passed, Rin felt as if his grip on reality was slipping. Disturbing images kept popping into his head, and some, frankly, were quite sexually inappropriate. Rin didn't even know he had such an imagination. It sent riveting chills down his spine, made him sick to his stomach. With a deep breath, all Rin could do was hope that nothing got worse today and pray to God Almighty for peace of mind.
But it seemed that every deity in existence really did hate his guts because his groaning symptoms from yesterday returned to scorch him alive like hellfire. That, added with Rin's blurring vision and inability to think straight left him helpless. All Rin could do in the next few minutes was empty his stomach once more in the bathroom. When Yukio had come back from a mission late the night and saw Rin in moaning in pain again, he found that Rin now had a fever to add to his symptoms.
At this point, all Yukio could do was hope that Rin didn't suffer too much through this ordeal. Because once Rin came out of this with the saving grace of stubborn animosity and resilience, he wouldn't quite be the same.
