This isn't exactly required reading for this little series. You can read it if you want, but it's mainly me pissing about their attitudes and what might be in for them when they all kick the bucket. (Also, As A Note Ch.1 has been republished. I think it's a little better. Maybe not as sadistic... what the Hell am I saying--I don't remember what the Hell I wrote. Enjoy.)
Zero was not a patient man. He had not been patient when he was a child, and now, nearly twenty years later, he was still a bit of that child. He didn't like his position, and he didn't want to be dead quite yet. Or, at least, he didn't want to be dead without enjoyable company. His brother eyed him oddly over their scratched vinyl table. They had lingered in the hospital, Zero now uneasy to move and leave his family. The steam of coffee did nothing to revive him.
"If you're just going to sit around inhaling caffeine, it isn't going to do you any good." He opened his eyes, looking coldly at his brother. Death had done fewer favours to their relationship than quiet evenings in the garden.
"Don't expect me to automatically get used to this. You hung around me for a good decade; I'll stay as long as I want." Ichiru's smugness took a hit from the comment, but he shrugged it off,
"Suit yourself. You always were the stubborn one." Zero winced, glaring up at his twin just as the man conveniently looked away, whistling something random. They were sitting casually in the hospital's cafeteria, every now and then tilting back cups of coffee they had to retrieve by themselves because nobody was going to take their order. Every now and then, Ichiru would turn his head and talk to someone Zero couldn't care about, then explain to him, with the same giddy smugness he'd had since his brother had died, that it was an ex patient. Zero didn't ask any more questions about it, but Ichiru seemed very content to talk as long as his brother would listen. Which the twin did very well, for all of his stubbornness.
They had been staying in the hospital for a few days, Ichiru getting acquainted with various burn patients, victims of homicides and double-suicides. Zero seemed touchy whenever Ichiru talked about it. He didn't want to think himself dead, yet. He really wasn't ready, now that he had reached the endpoint. Having just suicide victims and an annoying sibling to chat with was taxing him and gently scrubbing away the reservation he'd had until the moment the blood had worn off. The very last thing he could remember was Kaname running up the stairs, shooting with lightning speed to Zero's room while the man collapsed by the door. He could remember hearing sobs, which made his heart pang guiltily, because he'd wanted to leave with the clearest conscience possible. He punched his brother when the boy told him half-suicide victims related to him: lovers without love, accompanied by the tendrils and wraps of woe and depression as their relatives and partners stayed on the sidewalks or in asylums, no longer waiting for them, no longer remembering. It chilled Zero to the bone.
It surprised him that Death was not a usual visitor of the Common Room they all seemed to share. The cafeteria was the very nerve centre of the hospital, thrumming with the life on which the ghouls and ghosts fed hungrily. Zero found it pathetic and distasteful, but when he thought about it, it was fairly lonely not having someone to talk to, or someone to watch and protect. They weren't exactly all alone in this, and he could see people that were fairly happy with their choices, but others crept and crawled through the walls, floors, and halls, resisting the gentle, solemn peace and rare happiness, and instead joining the shrouds and cocoons and shades, some becoming those very beings. Zero was a very lucky fellow. Ichiru turned to him, snapping him out of his daze.
"This man here," he pointed. His hair was getting longer, "wants to know how you got to connect with Kaname." Zero stared blankly at the empty space beside his brother. He'd been told that some people didn't want to be seen, but was still wary of them, and not quite ready to accept the whole idea.
"What?" he asked, earnestly. Ichiru made a face.
"The wire—how'd you do it?" Zero took a look at the wire, still suspended from his lips, still leading to the man in the maternity ward,
"Tell him to mind his own business." Ichiru did. Apparently, the man went away. If someone didn't want to talk about something at this point, it probably wasn't worth sharing.
Zero felt the line move a little, noting Kaname's changes in mood. He got up from the table, picking up his coat (even though he couldn't very well get cold, unless he wanted to,) and walked out. Ichiru followed him casually, looking bored and chastened by his brother's constant, disapproving glares. He'd already made peace; he was just waiting for his other half to do the same, and that would take another two people who were annoyingly insistent about staying alive.
They walked through the wards and halls, Zero still seeing only the nurses, edging by carts and tables and wheel chairs while things just seemed to move out of the way for his brother. The younger continued to whistle, saying something about being 'in tune'. Zero didn't bother listening.
Making it to Yuki's room, Zero stopped, peering in. Ichiru pushed him aside, and as soon as he reached for the door knob, a nurse walked over and opened it, allowing them enough time to slip in while she performed a check-up on the woman and her child. Zero's heart swelled, Ichiru looking around the room in boredom.
Kaname sat in the chair beneath the window, head leaning down, eyes focused on his son while the nurse asked his wife a few questions. Harue beamed when the twins came in, thrashing in his father's arms, still wanting to play with Zero's hair. Smiling, Zero leaned down and, for the first time, Harue felt the man. His smile widened, and he giggled and gurgled like the babe he was. Kaname seemed a little perplexed, but excited in any case as he tickled his son and urged him to help scare away the sadness Zero saw clinging to him.
Ichiru inspected a few books on the nightstand, still uninterested in the scene. He wanted to get back home. He was quite thirsty.
"Hello, Harue. How are you?" Zero waggled his finger at the baby and watched him bite it, smirking when the child's gums folded around him. The boy truly was incredible. Kaname continued to tickle him while Zero played and joined him, first grabbing the baby's little nose, then playing with his tiny feet, and ending with a squirming, bouncing belly that jiggled with delight. When Zero pulled away, he seemed very disappointed that Kaname hadn't noticed. It was downright killing him. Ichiru picked up on that, finally getting interested.
"They don't hear you. Even those that believe in you won't see you." Zero kept gazing at the baby, whose cheeriness warmed him.
"I know. Maybe it would be a good idea to get going." On cue, the nurse exited the room, smiling back at the family and allowing the brothers enough time to squeeze by. They stood in the hallway, Zero clutching his coat unsurely, not quite knowing what to do. Ichiru leaned on one leg, hands in his pockets, watching his brother with his hair just covering his eyes. He opened his mouth, quiet for a moment,
"… What exactly did you do to him?" Zero seemed a little dazed, pursing his lips. Ichiru preferred chewing his. They started walking,
"Whatever do you mean?" Ichiru knew every one of his brother's games: semantics weren't his style. He closed his eyes, walking around trolleys and nurses and doctors as gracefully as ever. His brother clearly made an effort not to run into anyone, unused to the fact that they probably wouldn't get out of his way. After they got into the elevator, (as Ichiru had reached for the button, a squat man of about forty emerged from the doors) they stood silently together, ignoring an old man with a radio and an I.V. who seemed insistent on reviving freeform jazz.
"I think you should start talking about this before it eats away at you. You don't want to end up like the rats in the walls," Some scratching on the roof of the room emphasised his point; if you didn't face reality, you turned into something that more than shunned it. Zero looked a little grey,
"I need a drink. You drink, right? I didn't pour an extra glass every pitcher for naught, right?" Ichiru looked at him for a moment, his red hair tie jingling as he moved his head,
"I do, and thank you," he smiled genuinely, "I really did like that." His smile was warm, but Zero had a hard time reciprocating it. His brother placed an arm around his shoulder affectionately, playing with his hair, "It's hard to smile here, at first. You have to find a reason. Most of them don't. Consider yourself lucky that you have a damn good tutor." They stayed like that for a couple of floors, until the door opened, and they walked into the lobby. Dodging wheel chairs and cases of the common cold, Zero glared at his brother, who effortlessly walked, nearly godly, to the front entrance, with an aged redheaded woman to open the door for him. Zero had to wait a few moments before some rugged cyclist shoved past. Ichiru only smiled; waiting for him to catch up.
-
Back at Zero's estate,(after an hour-long taxi ride with a marine biologist, they'd had to walk two hours up a hill,) they raided the pantry for some lemons and sugar, Zero mixing up a batch while Ichiru played with the clapper his brother had been given as a gift. When the elder tried, he frowned as it remained on, and continued stirring when Ichiru clapped once more, and it turned off. "I have seniority," he explained.
They walked out onto the patio, Zero laying down in his comfortable lounger, Ichiru standing beside him, right next to his tree and his ashes. His brother looked up for a moment,
"… I'll talk."
"Finally!" Ichiru said exasperatedly, arms swinging. Zero's eyes narrowed and he smiled, unhindered.
"But you have to answer a few of my questions." Ichiru kept standing, nodding, waiting for the man to get started,
"... When we were at the Academy and a few months before the showdown, I had a breakdown and was left with no choice but to go to Kaname for compensation," Ichiru kept nodding, not exactly wanting to imagine his brother in such an intimate position, even though he'd seen much more in his years following the creepy bastard, "That started the majority of the disgust and fights between us; I couldn't bear the memory of him; he couldn't stand the sight of me." He continued with a sigh, sipping his lemonade every two sentences or so. "A few days after the fun starts, one of his friends gets the shit beat out of him, and barely makes it. We throw down and barge in, he funs around with his uncle, and I come in, swinging a sword around. Bad guy dies, but not without taking a couple of chunks from the both of us." The next was a sigh entirely on its own, "He has Yuki to go to, while I have nobody, really. So before we even leave the fucking battlefield, he falls on me, nearly passing out, and tells me to drink before I die, essentially. Yuki is nowhere to be found—a very good place to hide—and her guy's just about dead. I'm not too bad, so I, in all of my goodness and grace, let him latch onto me before he kills himself with effort." He stalled for a moment, a contemplative look in his eyes that made him look stunned and frozen. Ichiru had a hard time dealing with him when he looked like that: it seemed like he was thinking something so terribly private, it was rude to look at him. After a few moments, he refreshed his glass, and Ichiru popped in with a half-question,
"So, you actually let some leech drink you 'til it was bloody full?" He held out his glass for Zero to pour more in. They resettled, and went on sipping and talking.
"Not necessarily; I was woozy, too. S'long as he could stand, I didn't have to haul his ass across the battlefield. I didn't have to hand over a quart or anything. Anyway, I get him to a room and let Yuki fawn over him, his lackeys cleaning him up and all. When I try to leave, one of them stops me, and tries to get me to go another room to do the same ritual." He snorted, "Apparently, I gave off the impression that I was drunk, I was so light headed, and pretty much collapsed on the floor. A while later, I wake up, and Kaname's in my room, writing at this desk. He's perfectly fine, and when I try to look under the sheets and check out the damage, I barely have a paper cut. Turns out, the bastard essentially drugged me while I was half-conscious." He stopped for a long gulp, and Ichiru had a hard time registering the last statement.
"So, he slipped you a pint when you couldn't help yourself?" Zero nodded, "So he intentionally bound you to him?" Zero nodded. Ichiru looked bewildered in the college sort of, 'Whoa, man, that's fucked,' way. "Damn. I took him for a bit of a chivalrous guy, but none of them seem that friendly to each other, are they?" Zero snorted again,
"No; they aren't in the slightest." They were quiet for a moment. Ichiru could see he was having a hard time dealing with his current position. Not a foot from his lover, and the man hadn't even noticed. He didn't dare think in the beginning Zero's experience in death would be the same as his, (he'd taken it much more lightly than others) even though he had at first been distraught about his inability to find his Mistress. After failing too many times, he returned to his brother, and found comfort in the warmth earth the man had placed him in. Standing by him every lazy afternoon, downing a few glasses while the breezes went on and Zero read aloud classics they both knew, though he could always sense with an uncomfortable shift the desperate starvation the man endured; never whole; always torn between his friends and his own mindset. Ichiru had barely bothered to touch the subject of Zero's thoughts toward the pureblood in the decade and-a-half he'd been dead, but now that they finally had the chance to really talk, it seemed it was the only ground left to cover.
They poured more glasses, and Ichiru sat against the chair, Zero rubbing his shoulder while he groaned appreciatively.
"I droned on quite a bit. Why don't you start talking?" Ichiru groaned again, leaning over a bit more while Zero kneaded his back,
"What do you want to know?" Thinking for a moment, the elder popped the question,
"What happened when you died?" Ichiru looked up at him for a moment, thankful Zero hadn't stopped with the backrub. The look in his brother's eyes was pure curiosity. He wondered if the man had bothered to think about what the experience might have been like, considering the circumstances under which his death occurred. All in all, it was a little insensitive. Still, he resettled, and allowed the trade, groaning 'lower', and 'to the left' every now and then between phrases.
"My last thought was that I would be reunited with Lady Shizuka. My last sight was that desperate look on your face just as I closed my eyes. A few minutes later, I find myself alone in that little outcropping. There's a trolley with some coffee, and not a soul in sight. I know I'm dead—I can't feel that damn pain in my neck—so, figuring it couldn't hurt, I grab a cup and take a sip. When I put it back down, I refresh it, and pour another cup, expecting company." He paused, sighing in deep satisfaction as Zero hit a particularly tense knot.
"So you met Death?"
"Mm. I found out later most people don't get to see it as quickly as we did, and its appearance is almost never the same. It looked like a guy who might work at Headquarters, maybe in assignment logging or keeping. In any case, he looked pretty normal, maybe a little short, so I hand him the extra cup and he tells me to take a walk with him." Zero nodded, much in the same fashion his brother had, "We talk a little about what happened, my thoughts about Lady Shizuka, you, and my options, and by this time, I can tell he's a pretty down-to-earth guy. He starts showing me the different forms we can turn into, and what the sects are divided into—you saw a bit at the hospital, what with those creepy-crawlies—and what I can do to prevent that from happening." He sighed again when Zero finished, wiggling his shoulders and laying back, still pretty straight, when Zero put a hand on his head and soothingly started petting him. He almost purred. "We get to the point where he asks me, very blatantly, about you. A little stunned, I tell him I can't answer a few things, and he smiles, only it wasn't offensive or rude. In that cheesy, 'I won't make you say it, but I know' kind of way. He tells me about the plans for my body, and what happened to Lady Shizuka."
"What did happen to her?" Zero handed him his glass. Ichiru muttered a 'thanks', and took a gulp.
"He didn't tell me everything, but I've learned that it's a little different for people who don't have anything tied to them." Zero looked puzzled, so he elaborated quickly, "I mean, I had you, so I stayed and whiled the days away with lemonade and good books. You have Kaname, so you'll probably stay until he dies, and he until Yuki, and it'll probably end there—she strikes me as the devoted type. In any case, Lady Shizuka's lover was already dead, so she was more than happy to accompany him. According to him, if you're happy enough as is, and don't really want anyone to interfere, you just sort of… wander off into your own little world. This entire planet is plagued with people we can't even sense."
"Mind-boggling," Zero murmured, concluding the woman's tragically romantic getaway with her lover. He got up and walked into the house, "Go on," He said through the open door of the breakfast nook,
"Anyway, he tells me I can get pretty good at getting stuff done for myself while I wait for you, so I start with what you give me: drinks and good reads." Zero walked back out, 'mm-hm'ing with two glasses in one hand and a bottle of cognac in the other. Ichiru thanked him as the man handed him one, talking while he poured and sat down, screwing on the cap. He drank it slowly, surprisingly enough. "He tells me I can have people do stuff for me so I can go places. Open doors, delay flights—I got to go to Aruba—and I got pretty good at it. We stop for a moment and keep drinking the coffee, when he tells me what's going to happen while I'm dead, just to fill me in." Zero stalled for a moment,
"What did he tell you?" He said hesitantly, curiously, and a little uncomfortably. Unaffected, Ichiru went on,
"That you're pretty much going to be the only one mourning my death, and a bit about how long I'm going to have to stay in Limbo before we can go off on our own; before it can be just the few of us instead of hundreds of millions of other unlucky bastards." Zero didn't know what to say,
"So, my thing with Kaname screws with that?"
"Indeed it does." Ichiru looked contemplative in that moment, a slow smile curling his lips while he looked at his brother pointedly. Zero was a naturally guilty person, and he loved indulging in it.
"… I'm very sorry."
"Don't be; I like people." His brother whacked him on the shoulder and downed the rest of his glass, refreshing it shortly. Ichiru wiggled his childishly in front him, a sweet look on his face. He got whacked again before Zero poured him more.
"So, does this mean I have to tell something again?" Ichiru thought for a minute,
"I don't have much else to say. Like I said, he was a pretty down-to-earth kind of guy. We didn't really talk about much outside of comfort. After that, I hunted Lady Shizuka for a few years before coming back to you and the lawn," He looked at his brother affectionately, "I followed you damn-near everywhere." The affection turned to something more of a dirty tease as his eyes became suggestive. Zero waited for him to take a sip and countered him,
"You must have gotten an eyeful; Kaname and I fucked more often later on." Sure enough, he choked and spewed amber all over his black jacket. He cringed,
"A man should never have to witness something like that!" He said indignantly,
"You could have left the house for a few hours. It wasn't as if I was keeping you there." Ichiru growled distastefully as he stripped the jacket and checked his shirt for any stains, finding one on the collar, he growled again,
"I couldn't leave; we're drawn to the emotions of the bastards we're tied to. That's why it took so long for you to leave the hospital. Kaname was keeping you there." They didn't talk for a bit, until Zero piped up,
"What position was your favourite?"
"Would you shut up?! Nobody should have to see that shit. God knows it scarred me for life," He rubbed half of his face and muttered a few death-threats. The irony almost killed them again. Zero kept laughing at him every now and then, the younger scowling and biting back before his brother would ruffle his hair and pour him another glass. They were pretty buzzed when a car drove up around two in the morning.
They walked into the house as a key rattled in the lock. The door opened and Kaname came in, looking like Hell, eyes red and face white; Zero realised he'd been crying in the car. Ichiru watched his brother watch the brunette as he hung his coat, sniffled, and walked to the kitchen. The liquor cabinet was still open, but he didn't notice it, stopping at the counter and doubling over, elbows on the marble while he held his head in his hands.
"You can talk to him, you know." Ichiru said distantly. He thought of leaving the room for the sake of their privacy, but didn't want to leave his brother alone; just because you can talk doesn't mean someone can hear you.
"I'm sorry, Kaname." Clichéd, but there was no other sound to challenge the man's sobs. Zero could hardly bear looking at him, and it seemed Kaname couldn't bear thinking about him. Ichiru faded into the background, grabbing a chair and sitting down for the endurance. He lit a cigarette from his pocket and took a drag. Two a.m. left a lot of time before a winter sunrise.
