What has gotten to me? These days just inspires me to write thoroughly twisted versions of my beloved R and K. -sigh- Oh well, the little break with writing these darker materials may be good for me (or not...) I don't own as always.
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Garbage
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It smelt of garbage and cigarette smoke.
Cheap tobacco and unwanted waste.
He wanted to throw up as another rat scurried beside his boot, he could hear their quiet squeaks just as he encountered the body sitting beside the rusted bin. His face was grimy and the place was dark, he could just taste the spoiled fruits on the tip of his tongue.
He crouched down.
Careful, as he made sure the hemming of his coat didn't touch the wet scuffed ground.
"Are you… dead?" The question was dry and rather emotionless as he reached out, hesitance at the tip of his fingers, as if he was afraid the body had some sort of contagious disease.
There was no reply but he knew the other wasn't dead. He could hear them breathing, quietly but heavily as his chest heaved in all its strength, hoping to take a gasp of air that could slowly revive the body's soul and perhaps more effectively, the physical wounds that littered across the skin.
Their lips parted, but only barely.
A raspy scrap of a sound whimpered from behind those lips before the air hungrily ate away at it. But the other heard it, that quiet muffled raw cry for help, perhaps, for pain, definitely, for death, no way.
His hand touched his hair, brushing a lock from his face. Pale, gray, drained of the colors that the healthy usually would have blushed across their cheeks. His lips were dry and cracked, blood crusted over his skin and his features were heavily rimmed with a dark shadow.
"Let's go." This time it was no longer a question, that curious stage have came and passed with neither of them caring for it much. Now it was time for actions. His hand reached out and grasped on to black fabric.
"H… ur… t…s…" Each letter came out of his mouth as if they were separate words that could make up a sentence.
"I know."
His arm wrapped around his waist, fingers prodding for injuries that have not yet somehow etched themselves together. He was somewhat distracted, at the smell of garbage, at the heavy body, at the rats that continued to gnaw on his nerves. His attention was spread thin, like a stretched cobweb at the corner of a house, ignored and thoroughly focused until those nosy mothers came poking around with their brooms.
"S… t… o… p…" It wasn't a plead, but a rather weak protest that the other paid no attention to. He stood up; dragging his limp body along, he was pulled to his feet and now stood on scratched up knees, leaning heavily against the equally dark figure on the cobbled street.
"Shut up." He didn't want to be rude, at least not too rude, after all he still had an image to keep up whether the other really noticed or not. Better safe than sorry as people often put it.
"Sor.. r… y…" It was those annoying words ripped from its string that connected them together to make sense.
"Didn't I tell you to shut up already?" His voice wasn't particularly sharp but neither was it particularly rude, it was just a statement telling the wounded to seal those lips before blood started to spill, from him or from him, it didn't quite matter.
And from the corner of his vision, he saw him open his mouth, a tiny slit. But he masked it with a slow glide of his wet tongue to soften the texture of his bloody lips.
"Y… u… c… k." Guess his lips didn't taste so good as he stuck his tongue out, it would have been considered cute if not for the terrible pain that he was drenched in.
"Idiot." He rolled his eyes and his hand tightened on the other's waist, pulling him up straighter as he swung the other's arm around his shoulders, boosting him higher on one side of his hip. They stumbled with slow and messy steps, one hand against the wall for support and one around the other to hold upright, it was a rather difficult procedure as they had to rest a minute or two after every three steps.
And then he suddenly lurched forward, head thrown to the front, chin pressed between his collar bone before the contents of his stomach emptied out on to the ground with a sickening splat. Now not only did the man in his arms smelled of garbage, he also smelled of barf and sour rotten food.
Guess he was sick and wounded.
Not such a great combination.
What a troublesome night.
But he still didn't know why he did it.
He couldn't understand why he stopped to go back and save him. It just didn't make any sort of sense in his head. And it made him just a bit sick as he could feel the tight restrictions it made in the back of his throat, but he was not bothered to the point where he too would lean over and throw up along with him.
He simply tugged himself out of the other's weak grasp and steady his shoulders as another wave of nausea passed through him, shaking every bone and knocking the last of his common sense out of his body. He reached over and pulled his hair back, each lock in his palm, trying to help despite how foreign this idea was.
The beads of sweat were brushed off like unimportant comments not worth noting.
And then he soothed his back, hands hesitant and just a bit awkward as his fingertips followed the gentle bump of each section of the spine. He could not vocally voice his opinions (just statements, never actual care if people still believed in jokes like those) and he watched with a small grimace decorating the dark.
Bright yellow lights flashed as it turned the corner.
Illuminating an eerily taunting blast along the stone street, casting shadows longer than expected. The wheels swerved and bumped along the cobble stones in a slow stride of a midnight drive. It passed by without another lantern glare, probably assuming their shadows were just another drunk and whore stumbling to make it back to an inn.
He looked up, grazing his sight across the black metal car before it finally disappeared around another corner of dark bricks and bright windows. The bright lights it left behind flickered blinding dots in their eyes.
And his hand ran down his back one more time and he finally stood up straight, although a bit wobbly as he applied pressure on his scratched up knees. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand he stuck out a sickly colored tongue.
"…okay?" It was a sentence that conveyed the message across with a quirk up at the end. He received a weak nod and a small breath that escaped his dirty lips.
Just fine.
But the words could barely leave his lips, just lingering along his mouth, swirling in that foul taste on his tongue. His head was spinning and he no longer bothered with trying to distinguish the messy blur of yellow, white and orange lights that swarmed his vision, gave up in trying to decide whether they were streetlights, headlights or warm lamps behind opened windows.
He rather welcomed the dark hazy dots that slowly consumed his sight.
And then a sharp pain dragged his attention back from the clouds, tearing him through the air to land with a splat on the ground, blood pooling as realization dawned on him. He just got slapped. "Don't go to sleep."
The command was soft, quiet as it took him all his will to pick up the last syllable.
"O… k… ay…" He slowly slurred the words, from between the pain and nauseous feelings building up from all around him. He really did sounded like a lost drunk if only his voice was heard.
"I will slap you again if you do."
He didn't seem to mind abusing the already injured; guess he didn't care much for a dead comrade if only the mission allowed. A thin tug of an incomplete smile lingered on his lips before it was too much of an effort to keep it up, he let it slide and he leaned his head on the other's shoulder, content as he moved his legs numbly against the cobble streets.
Feeling another drop of blood, gliding down from the cut on his leg.
The place was disgusting as he kicked another garbage can out of the way; the clatter of metal was loud and resounded in their ears because of the sudden change in volumes. From quiet barely heard whispers to the sudden contact between metal and bricks. It shook them both awake with a jerk at the collar. But he still didn't understand why he was bothering to do all this?
He walked back over to the one leaning against the walls; fingers limp as he clawed uselessly at the bricks to hold himself up. He tugged him up, hands wrapping around the other's waist, hoisting him back to a better position, grimacing as the other's bloody fingers brushed across his skin, leaving behind smears of blood.
"Stop hurting yourself."
He gave another nod, not really listening as it had become too much of a chore to take in these words that no longer made much sense. Because with time and the lack of care he would die, that was for sure. From loss of blood or whatever that would come up, he would've died. But he just had to arrive there, crouched down near the garbage can and picked up the battered soldier from the ground.
As a friend, as a comrade, as an enemy or even a lover.
None of these positions were in any way an excuse of why he did it, at least according to him that is. He swallowed the dry taste in the back of his mouth and tightened his hold on him, hearing the shallow gasps of breaths being taken in and the faint but sure beating of a heart behind his cracked ribs. He was going to live, that's for sure now as he saw the motel standing in the street.
And it could've been said that it was on pure impulse of why he did it. Why he followed that Akuma, watched as it attacked, looked when he plummet to the garbage before killing it off. And then picked him up, bloody but not yet broken before they both staggered back, blood on his once clean coat and the taste of vomit in the other's mouth. But both equally like garbage.
Perhaps it was just cold dry impulse that now stung like salt on a wound.
XXX Kuro
If you don't know who he, he, and he was, don't fret. I meant for this to be a little confusing on that aspect. I didn't give off any physical discriptions of them, so you could guess from the way they acted. (I had the characters in mind when I was writing it but I think it could work the other way...) XD So review?