Showdown
By Vasiliki, Mar-Apr 2003
Warnings: Violence, yaoi (male/male) situations, angst.
-.-.-.
He stood in the yard of the Government Buildings, his white pants flapping in the wind.
'A strange twist of fate made us friends.'
He discarded his kanji-embroidered jacket, the black 'aku' a flag at his feet.
The hitokiri's eyes were slit and golden; his lethal hands steady on his reversed blade.
'I am the only one who can stop you. And I will.
Sano! No matter what stands between us, I will.'
(Why, Kenshin, why? I've loved you. You're betraying me, you're breaking my heart. Death at your blade will be painless compared to the martyrdom of living after this. Keeping me at your side with the wordless promise of a repetition of our only tryst, of a satisfaction of the passion that is consuming me, eating me alive, bringing me a willing victim at the tip of your sword, and then discarding me like a valueless object. Why? How can I live knowing that the only time that someone spoke to me those words was a lie?)
(Sano. I wish you would stand back, and not fight me. Ten years I've lived wandering and defending my beliefs, my dreams of a new era. This is who I am. I won't betray my way of living for your sake. I can't. I would loath myself afterwards. Stand back, Sanosuke. Leave.
Do not fight me. For the sake of your life.
Do not touch me. For the sake of my sanity.)
He was approaching. His eyes were dark like branches of winter trees and fathomless. The sakabatou was out of its sheath faster than the eye could see, dew drops flying. Sanosuke sprang and then he was upon him, his right fist gripping the blade, his blood running down its shining length.
"Sano!"
His left hand grabbed Kenshin's hakama and tore it from his shoulders. The bloody fingers grabbed Kenshin's hair, a 'snap' was heard, and the red mane poured down the slender back. The bloody palm got lost in the thick hair, while the left arm became a vine around the rurouni's waist, holding him close, bare chest against bare chest.
"Sano!!!"
Eyes full of storm, and a mouth agape, that was eating at his lips, his neck, his face. A note was rising and rising, louder and louder, noise vibrating inside his skull. His vision was red, his pulse was thundering, the world was one more bloodied nightmare.
There was no now, Kaoru, dojo; there was only the Bakumatsu, death, lamps that were cut first thing to the ground, darkness like Sano's eyes… no, not Sano's, this hungry stranger's abysmal eyes.
Ambushes, quick as lightning, dangerous like this young man's feverish skin;
blood, red like the voracious tongue that had entered his mouth;
katana, arching like his own spine, his slender hips thrown forwards, his powerful calves stretched behind him for leverage;
godspeed; death; kill; death; blades; death;
death;
death.
"Unnhh!"
Sweat was dripping from his temples, and his face was bent, only the scar visible through the flames of his hair, brow touching the man's shoulder. And it was not a stranger, no, now he saw, he was Sano, Sagara Sanosuke. Enemy who befriended him; friend, who betrayed him and became enemy. The traitor kissing him goodbye. What was he now, after what they'd just done? Who?
"Stay with me!"
A raucous whisper from a constricted breathless throat. Kenshin raised his head, and looked, and the dark eyes were less dangerous now, not aggressive anymore, and yet more dangerous than ever because of that. His own eyes hid behind their lids, refusing to acknowledge the vulnerability they saw, because if he didn't name it, it wouldn't gain substance, it wouldn't become more than a fleshless shadow. His own flesh was sticky, and the bare chest he leaned on sweaty.
He drew back. He put distance between their bodies. Sadness poured out of his being. His friend, traitor, enemy… lover, his mind added unexpectedly, startling him, and his violet eyes widened. He took steps backward. Sano's open face was stricken, like the summer sky when breached by a lightning. Kenshin apologized.
"Suman! This was a mistake. I… I don't want to lose you over it!"
A flash of hope in the unmoving darkness. An intake of breath. The offering of an extended hand.
"Stay with me!"
Kenshin was stricken by the repetition. This was one thing he could not do. His life was his own, he was not bound to any person and place, he was a rurouni roaming the roads of injustice to keep people from harm. And now… now he'd be doing harm to a comrade for whom he cared a lot. Yes, a compare, this was the word; a companion; a partner. He bowed his head deeply and remained silent.
Something broke in Sanosuke's heart. Something in his eyes died.
But life went on.
--------- 7 years later ---------
A fresh spring day, with the sun overhead, deep rich yellow like ripe peach flesh, Himura Kenshin was sitting on a Tokyo riverbank, breathing the flowers in the breeze. He was feeling at peace. His thoughts drifted. He had lived so many years in the same city. So many years bound in the same place. Strange, for him who once took all paths open to a man, and often the untread ones as well. Who was free to not sleep a second day under the same roof, if he so pleased. Who was held by nothing.
Ah, but what brought these thoughts? His mind was disobedient, lately. He found himself gazing at the void, Kaoru-dono caught him not to be paying attention to her words, and his steps guided him to the gambling houses during his evening promenades, where he stood in the quickly darkening twilight, listening to the sounds of laughing, cursing, fighting from inside.
Kenshin shook his head violently and he resumed watching the flowing river. But now he was unsettled. He could not find his previous peaceful state of mind. And how peaceful was it, really, if it could be shattered so easily? He averted his eyes. His mood had been spoiled.
A light rustling from behind him alerted him to an uninvited presence. The hitokiri instincts had never left him, in all his years of living in the dojo. Once a hitokiri, always a hitokiri. He shuddered. The man behind him, because that someone was a man, emanating male energy, didn't move. He could feel his eyes boring in his back. Suddenly, he was afraid to turn and see who's there. He was equally afraid that nobody will be there.
His senses had been playing weird tricks to him lately. He smelled peach blooms when he was passing by a pretty woman, saw light reflecting off the edge of a blade from the corner of his eye, heard familiar loud laughter in empty side streets, dipped his fingers in the water basin when he was washing the rough clothes (some things never change…) and touched silken skin instead, drank clear sake and tasted thick blood going down his throat. He might have been surrounded by ghosts, as far as he could tell. Therefore, he didn't want to turn around and find once more that his world was not the same with the world all others around him were living in.
'If you want me to leave, just say so.'
His head snapped upwards. His ghosts had never talked to him before now. Elusive smiles, spring laugher, angry glares, yes, but not direct speech. Was his mind taking it a step further? Would he become insane, before long?
'You don't even want to look at me, Kenshin?'
Tangible bitterness. Was this really happening? Was this a dream? The river was reflecting the sun too brightly, dizzying him. The spring sounds had become a loud cacophony in his ears. The flowery smells made him feel drunk, made him want to vomit.
'Saa na. I guess I shouldn't have expected anything else. And yet… I was. Specially when I visited the dojo and found out that you and Jou-chan never got married. Old fool me had hopes that at least part of our friendship had survived. You said that you didn't want to lose me over that mistake, Kenshin, and you never did lose me. But I lost you because of it.'
The voice was sad now, quiet, and it ended in a whisper: 'Everything we had shared disappeared, because of one terrible act of foolishness. You can be truly unforgiving, when you want to be.'
Kenshin had sprung to his feet and was turning around, just as the last word was being uttered.
'Sano!'
And sure enough, there he was. Standing under the golden sun, golden and dark himself, with his tanned skin and ebony wild hair. Rough cheeks, and his trademark white jacket nowhere in sight. Sanosuke found himself being pushed a step back, because of the power of an ex-rurouni crushing on him, and weaving strong arms around him.
'Sano. Sano! You are real, real!'
Was it relief that he felt at that moment, Kenshin holding him tightly as if nothing terrible had ever taken place between them, as someone overjoyed to see a good friend returning suddenly after years of absence? Was it wistfulness? Was it hope?
'Yes, Kenshin, I'm real. And I've been a long time away from home. It's good to see you again.'
And one of his big palms rested on Kenshin's back, while the other cupped his head. Was life starting anew for him now?
.-.-.-
Sanosuke had to learn again an old lesson, a lesson he had been taught the hard way, when Sagara-taicho was slain. Life is not fair. It never was and it'll never be. These are the rules of nature, which cannot be changed by men, for they are above them. After his initial burst, Kenshin kept on treating him the same way he had always treated him. A best friend, a companion, a member of the Kenshin-gumi. Warm friendship, strong friendship, brotherly friendship, but never anything more.
And Sano's entire being yearned for exactly that more. He had thought that Kenshin's presence and friendship would be enough for him, after so many years with neither, but his body seemed to believe that nothing had changed since the night of Katsuhiro's and his attack to the government buildings. The same fire, the same passion running in his veins, the same desire for everything that was Kenshin, every single thing, as if they had never separated, as if the last seven years had not existed. Even if he could have the redheaded swordsman in his bed, to do as he pleased with his body, he would not want to, because he was burning for Kenshin's soul as well.
Unfortunately, the fact that Kenshin had not married Jou-chan had seemingly nothing to do with any imaginary feelings for Sanosuke that the latter had secretly hoped existed. Kaoru was always smitten with him, probably still waiting for him to make the first move, to declare his love, to ask her to become his wife. Sanosuke could not see that happening anymore, not after Kenshin had not done anything in the seven years of Sano's absence. There was one thing, however, that he couldn't understand. If it wasn't love for Jou-chan, then why did the rurouni remain in the dojo for so long? He was a wanderer, a believer in doing good wherever he was needed, bound in no single place. That was his excuse for denying Sanosuke's offered hand and heart, on that moonless night, long ago. So, what had kept him there? Questions that can't be answered, it's better to have not been thought of in the first place, worried Sano, sitting on the porch, his gut wrenched in anxiety and fear.
.-.-.-