Title: '129'
By Sei-chan-1999
Summary: The screaming filled up every part of Subaru's head; his own voice in everlasting agony, day and night, a tortured orchestra of an infinite number of emotions pounding through his skull until he couldn't tell what separated the physical pain from the emotional one from near insanity. SeiSub.
Warning: A SubKam fan's very first SeiSub fic. Hints of SubKam.
Rating: K+
Disclaimer: I do not own Clamp or their characters. All rights to the original authors and artists of X. I claim nothing for myself. *breaks into violent sobbing and angsting*
This story, in my opinion, feels better if you listen to 'Sweet Dreams (are made of this)' by Emily Browning while reading.
XXX
'129'
By Sei-chan-1999
Most of the Seals, at some point of time or the other, had screamed.
Subaru could start out with a mental checklist and strike them off one by one to record when they had ever made public display of their emotions in one inarticulate and silence shattering cry.
Shirou Kamui.
He never wanted to recall that image ever again; the broken portrait of a blood drenched and nearly crippled boy, half insane already, clutching the head of a dead girl with her eyes serenely closed as her blonde hair mixed with strands of his black ones. Kamui screamed, mindless of the world and crimson liquid pooled around him. He'd stopped for a moment, stared at them blankly, completely disoriented and then fallen into himself before anyone could grab him and force him to stay in a place he didn't want to.
Kamui screamed quite a lot. He still did.
He would have to do it some more soon.
XXX
Nekoi Yuzuriha.
Well, she screamed for a lot of things; when she'd seen her lifeless leader partially crucified to a stone and the girl falling to pieces before her eyes.
When someone was going to get hurt.
When someone was going to die.
Or when she heard the ice cream parlor opening up. She liked her desserts too much.
She was, after all, a child.
XXX
Kasumi Karen.
She didn't scream as much. She was much more reserved and Subaru had come to wonder how she did it so many hours a day. Was it quiet endurance, a sense of being eternally miserable or just a part of her nature?
Maybe she just didn't feel the way the others did.
Until she forced him to go shopping with her to buy new clothes for him after the fight on Sunshine 60 (according to her, it was an act of providence that his other coat had been destroyed in battle. It was awful and supposedly made him look like a gangster) and she had seen an 80% discount on a brand of high heels she liked.
She screamed.
For a moment, Hokuto was alive and by his side again.
XXX
Aoki Seichiirou
He was clam, mild-mannered and quiet. He'd only screamed once as far as Subaru was aware.
He'd invited all the Seals to a friendly dinner over at his house and Subaru had accepted, mostly because he knew Kamui would be there and it was a relief to let someone else do the cooking for once.
After the meal, his daughter had gasped and started to choke, gagging and trying to claw at her own throat.
He'd screamed then.
Subaru had been the one to grab the toddler, tip her over and gently push against her tiny wind-pipe until she'd shuddered in his arms and snorted a pen cap onto the flooring, before turning and planting a sticky kiss on his cheek as thanks.
He'd thought blushing was something you could outgrow.
But the image of even their most silent member….screaming….haunted his dreams.
It made a pleasant change from his usual nightmares.
XXX
Kishuu Arashi.
He had been certain that even if the world was ending, despite their best efforts as Seals, she'd use the same voice at that time she used when she spoke to him or the others. Unchanged. Emotionless. Stoic.
A voice that was never raised over a normal speaking volume in the time he had known her.
Until the cockroach had come along.
God. That scream.
Kamui had been feverishly rubbing goose-bumps from his arms for a whole ten minutes after the six legged creature had been captured by a triumphant Sorata and freed with the melodramatic ceremony of a decorated knight vanquishing a hideous beast and saving the princess.
Subaru was sure that Arashi wouldn't hear the end of it until she died.
XXX
Arisugawa Sorata
It was easier to list the things he didn't scream about. He was loud, noisy, rash and screamed whether it was during battle with a Dragon of Earth or his high school homework.
He was just another child.
XXX
Sumeragi Subaru.
No one knew it. No one had certainly ever heard it.
But he screamed the loudest of them all.
XXX
For a short while, he'd let himself soak in the silky layers of the pleasant illusion wrapped around him, yet making sure he didn't fall into it headfirst and lose his sight. It had been rather enjoyable at the time but to look back at now…he felt disgusted with himself.
He'd let himself believe in his own lie.
The lie that Kamui could maybe understand his pain…the way someone else in his past life had nearly done.
That maybe…their feelings could defy the ones they belonged to.
Until he realized the sixteen-year-old couldn't hear him screaming.
Subaru took a deep breath and screamed.
"Thanks for helping me," Kamui said in return and Subaru stared at him, stunned and shocked, but with hurt and disappointment coursing through him.
At least, Kamui saw that, if nothing else.
"Is something wrong, Subaru?" the teenager asked him anxiously, getting up from his seat at their usual study spot to get a better look at his face.
Subaru shook his head and closed a few of Kamui's notebooks propped up in front of him before sliding them back across the table.
"It's nothing."
He was speaking to his unfaithful heart.
He reached out, touched Kamui's cheek fondly and left the boy standing in wonder there.
Just another child. That's all.
XXX
The screaming had started for him after his fight with Seishirou-san, on Nakano, when he tried to walk away, reliving every moment of the battle in his mind, going over their shared words and actions again and again, until the tiny frustrated whispers in his mind grew to a crescendo that refused to descend.
The screaming filled up every part of Subaru's head, his own voice in everlasting agony, day and night, a tortured orchestra of an infinite number of emotions pounding through his skull until he couldn't tell what separated the physical pain from the emotional one from near insanity.
It had gotten to a point where he'd thought of dragging himself to a doctor at two in the morning when the chaos kept him awake every night and was a constant soundtrack to his sleep during the day.
Sumeragi Subaru couldn't stop screaming. He was drowning in an oozing black sea of his own shrieking voice, trapped in his own mind and whether he went under or came back up, it just got louder.
XXX
Shinjuku Metro Station.
It was rumored to be the biggest train station in the world and one of the most crowded too.
Subaru stood there, much too close to the tracks, letting the acrid wind from the dark tunnel blast him as a warning before the train pulled in at the stop.
When the door opened and people spilled out and others leaked in, he moved away, usually towards a bench or a nearby shop for a smoke.
He had vaguely hoped that the din of the station would minimize the screaming in his head but under the harsh tube lights and with more noise and jostling, he was adding a migraine to his already disturbed mind.
He let himself get pushed by the crowd's movement until he was a good fifteen feet away from where he had started off standing. He turned, slightly lost with humanity pressing into him into all sides and let conversations fly over him like an ocean's spray.
"What do you mean, the train's left?! Can't you even …."
"I can't believe we had that much homework yesterday, I didn't even finish half of…"
"When you're free, could I schedule an appointment for a quick visit at…"
"Thank you for intimating me with the details. I'll get back to you as soon as…"
"You forget to take the keys again, how many time do I have to…"
"At this rate, you're going to become another salary man and…"
"Can we go on a date tonight? Pleeease?"
Subaru took a sharp breath and spun where he was, searching for one sole voice amongst everyone around.
"Thank you for intimating me with the details. I'll get back to you as soon as…"
He found him half hidden within the booth of a public telephone, a little niche that saved him from being crushed and tossed around like a worm in the rain.
The other man stood before him, half in the motion of placing the awkward and chunky receiver back into its cradle while the silver wires clanked around him.
He was as impeccable as Subaru was ruffled. There was surprise for a minute on the other's face but it was quickly wiped off.
Subaru breathed out his name in spite of himself.
And that was when the screaming within him came to a halt.
Seishirou replaced the phone carefully, his movements revealing nothing of his thoughts. He took a moment to pull the heavy coat into position and elegantly straightened his tie.
Then, still gazing into Subaru's face, he used two fingers to pull down a pair of sunglasses from his dark hair over his eyes before smiling coolly.
"Excuse me," Seishirou said politely and Subaru stood there, the numerous things he wanted to say all tangled up into a burning fused mass in his throat that wouldn't let him do anything but hastened the grief that was always there inside, that he'd never really shed for the past nine years.
"Excuse me."
Seishirou repeated it but his voice had a harder edge to it now, as if he were losing patience.
When Subaru showed no signs of moving, Seishirou closed the distance between them and pushed roughly past Subaru. The edge of Seishirou's briefcase banged Subaru's waist and his shoulder drove into Subaru's, making him stumble a step back before Seishirou joined the rest of the crowd and melted away with them.
Subaru fell into the vacated booth and caught the phone box to keep himself upright.
The screaming was back, harder than ever.
XXX
"Subaru, please tell me what's wrong!"
"It's nothing, Kamui."
"Why do you keep saying that, when both of us can see that it isn't true?!"
Subaru winced at the level of Kamui's frantic voice and pushed his head harder against the wall, trying to block out his own screams as well as Kamui's, as he pushed the fist of his hand against the side of his head in a weak attempt to squeeze the pain out.
His hand was wet with tears when he pulled it away.
Kamui grabbed his arm to get his attention.
"Subaru, I'll do anything, I swear. Do you need a doctor? What happened today morning?"
"It's a headache. It'll go, Kamui. Please."
He gently pulled himself free of the tight hold, his message clear.
Kamui bit his lower lip so hard that Subaru was afraid the reddened skin would burst, but before he could stop him, the teenager stalked out of the room and on his way out, slammed his clenched fist into the door so hard that Subaru heard the wood splinter.
He would find red stains on it later.
XXX
Subaru was at the station again three days later.
He didn't understand it himself, couldn't comprehend if it was a need to get closer to his other half, his counterpart…to feel whole again or if it was because the noise subsided when he was with Seishirou-san.
Or if it was because he loved the Sakurazukamori.
Subaru shuddered and waited, not exactly sure where he'd spring out from…if he'd come at all, but he needed to do this, no matter how much it hurt.
Shinjuku station was rumored to be one of the most crowded stations on the planet.
He was looking for one man.
The odds were ridiculous. He was a shame. A disgust to his name, his family, his clan and everything he had ever stood for.
Subaru refused to leave.
The screams tormented him with a vengeance.
XXX
He saw him. When he did, the cries of his mind went quiet for a few precious minutes and that was enough to bring Subaru to the station every day, like a starving child entranced by the scents of a bakery.
Seishirou wore his customary suit again and had a bound book with its place marked and tucked neatly under an arm as he walked briskly past where Subaru stood. Subaru looked away, fully prepared to be disregarded again.
Then Seishirou stopped.
And stepped back to face the twenty-five-year-old.
"Excuse me," Seishirou said again, just as he'd done before and Subaru stared at him, tongue tied once again at the way he was being addressed. It left him immobilized.
Anyone would've thought they had never met till that very moment.
"Your shoe-laces are undone," the older man pointed out with a smirk and in the time Subaru looked down and up again in astonishment, Seishirou had vanished.
He screamed. No one even glanced at him.
XXX
This time, Seishirou had been right behind him the whole time.
Subaru turned around to see the thirty-four-year-old absorbed in the newspaper he held open before him as he sat on a nearby bench, seemingly unaware of the activity of dozens of people around them. He scanned the Japanese characters rapidly, a smile gracing his features every now and then as he read something of interest or grimacing at something else. Seishirou held the sheets firmly when a strong wind threatened to rip them from his grasp, yet managing not to crush the paper. He never lifted his eyes from his paper and rested a precautionary foot against the briefcase on the ground next to him while he read.
Subaru knew he was pointedly being ignored.
There was no way Seishirou could have not realized the fact that his direct nemesis was standing less than ten feet away from him.
That knowledge alone was enough to set off the noise in his head as it reached fever pitch levels and for the first time, Subaru was sure that he would die right there, killed by something immaterial and intangible within his own being and that was ridiculous, after everything he had faced, that the agony that emanated from himself hurt more than anything the world could bestow upon him.
He screamed his lungs out, fighting the urge to double over and give it everything he had to leave himself an empty corpse on the station's sterile floor with nothing, not even air inside him, when a hand touched his face and someone said his name.
He looked up, delirious, half-blinded but he knew whom it was.
"Subaru-kun," Seishirou repeated and Subaru unconsciously pushed into the hand that wandered down to his throat almost casually. The fingers splayed across sensitive skin that felt raw and chafed even though he hadn't really ever said anything out loud for at least a week.
Seishirou's hand was icy cold and he shivered as one of his fingers accidentally slid under his shirt, touching the overheated skin there. He felt the other man's hand move as he swallowed hard.
"Subaru-kun," Seishirou said, with a tone of finality, "That's enough."
The screams stopped right there, like the tantrum of a child amongst horrified guests who'd caught sight of his dreaded parent approaching. They just disappeared and Subaru knew that they wouldn't be back.
His mind sagged a little with the sudden lack of weight pressing into it from all sides and when Seishirou dragged away his hand, Subaru didn't feel the need to stop him and hold on.
Seishirou met his gaze one last time before turning away, walking back to his bench and collecting his things before he went through another entrance. Subaru didn't even bother to try and see where the train through that entrance was headed.
He wouldn't be a fool to ask for more than what he'd been given. When he did that, everything else was taken away.
A lesson that was twisted into his life so inextricably that he wouldn't even try to defy its bonds.
Subaru leaned against a cold wall and tried to clear his mind.
He loved the Sakurazukamori.
Seishirou-san could infuriate him, drive him to the point of insanity, destroy his life, change his Universe, break his laws and hear as well as silence his muted screams in a world where every other person just took away from him and then came back and took some more.
He loved Seishirou-san.
How could he not?
THE END.
XXX
Author's Note:
My sincere thanks to JapFreaky for encouraging me to write my very first SxS fic even though I am a die-hard SubKam fan. I hope this doesn't disappoint.
The whole 'screaming in my head' is something that happens to certain individuals under a lot of stress. It's called the 'Exploding Head Syndrome' in its most severe and chronic form, if I am correct. But in Subaru's case, I think it's more of an unconscious need for attention and acknowledgement from Sei-chan. You can take it any way you like.
So, the title of the story came about because 129 decibels is the level of the loudest scream ever on record, captured in the year 2000.
Please read, review, and/or comment and let me know what you think. It'd be my pleasure to do the same for you anytime.