Sequel to Grey Sky. Also contains a reference to The World Ends With You.
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Ja'far is scared.
Everywhere he turns, there they are. The noise. Fangs and claws and wings and steel and blood and all he sees when he closes his eyes is crimson, bloody crimson, it's all he can see so he doesn't close his eyes. Doesn't sleep. Instead he runs. Down the streets hunkered under towering buildings, reaching toward a slate-grey sky, but no matter where he turns they chase him.
His feet burn and his legs ache and his chest feels empty, so damn empty, but his hands hurt. Running, always running, leaves no chance to stop and release all the words pent up and pounding in his skull, blazing though his blood, and they build and build and he feels like he's about to explode.
Ja'far is tired.
Tired of running. Tired of hunkering in shadowed alleyways in freezing rain, tired of scrounging for food from the dumpsters, tired of the looks of disgust and disdain he receives on an almost daily basis. The pity, though - that's the worse, because Ja'far knows that he's too empty - too far away - to be given anything akin to sympathy.
All the streets look the same, anymore. The buildings and the people, too. The color is bleeding out of the world, like the stains all over his limbs and back from where noise have tagged him, and everything's slowly blending to a pale grey. He can't see the blue sky anymore, or the green of the grass, or the pale glow of sunrise. It's all grey, and the rain is the only thing anymore that retains any color (besides the noise and crimson every time he closes his eyes) - pale, pale blue, sheeting down into a world of silver monochrome.
Ja'far feels empty.
He doesn't remember much of his childhood, save that smiles and safety were few and far in between. After he left home, any chance of either of those feelings vanished entirely. He was a mutt, a stray dog, mangy and detached from society - nothing that anyone would want to get close to.
His hands are burning, and that grows to be one of the few sensations he can feel anymore.
One day the world loses its color completely, and all he sees is grey, grey, grey (save for red, burning red, violent red, every time he closes his eyes) everywhere he looks. He can't take it - what little left unbroken to him would be shattered ere long - so when he finds a stray roll of cloth in a back alley near a fabric store he picks it up in shivering trembling hands and wraps it slowly, so slowly, around his eyes, his straggled pale hair. He doesn't really need to see, anymore - the noise can be perceived through other means (static and buzzing and burning) and his other senses grew sharper as his eyesight failed.
He keeps his eyes open behind the blindfold, though. He doesn't want to see grey, but he will break if all that's left to him is crimson stained red.
Ja'far grows to love the rain. It's cool touch on his face feels like the soft fingers of something he lost long ago. It draws away the dirt and stains scuffing his limbs and drowns out the static, and he knows - should he remove that blindfold and look to the heavens, that silver would be glowing down from the sky in a way sunlight never could.
One day when he's huddled for protection against the nearest wall he can find - he may like rain, but gentle rain, not pounding biting rain like this - when suddenly he feels something he hasn't in a long while. Safe. He raises his head, warily, the stray dog looking out of the hidey hole he's buried himself in, and it registers - the rain isn't hitting him. Above the rain and roar of the city, he senses someone close to him - his mind struggles to supply the right word - sheltering him. He's simultaneously baffled, nervous, and curious. Ja'far reaches out, tentatively, and when the other doesn't move away or hit him he continues the moment until his hand is resting on cool plastic and warm, warm skin.
He's so warm. That's all Ja'far can think of. Warmth, like he hasn't felt for a long time. Carefully, he reaches up, using the tips of his finger to map his way to the other's face. Belatedly he realizes that maybe this is a strange thing to do, but the warm puff of a friendly breath against his palm draws away his fears. His fingers trace strong features, kind features. Someone who would look good smiling. Long hair - longer than he can trace, must fall down his back - and earrings, but obviously masculine. And Ja'far feels safe.
(He wants to take off his blindfold, see for himself who this familiar stranger is. Yet at the same time he can't bear to see him in monochrome.)
(He's not sure if this makes him a coward or not.)
"Thank you," he whispers.
The other speaks, and Ja'far relaxes further - yet at the same time - the sense of nostalgia overwhelms him. He could listen to that voice forever - screaming safety and comfort and understanding - and the other is asking him if he needs to go anywhere, and all Ja'far wants to say is let me stay with you but static fills his ears. The noise.
And he wants to cry inside. No. Not the noise.
Idon'twanttoleavehim-
But he knows what he has to do. Ja'far whispers a query about their whereabouts, and requests that the other takes him about a block - he doesn't, he can't drag away from the other just yet, even if that puts him in danger (selfishselfishselfish, but Ja'far needs to cling to something or he's going to fall completely).
And that powerful yet gentle hand is cradling his, and they're moving, and Ja'far's trying to desperately memorize every part of this moment - touch, taste, sound, smell. He doesn't want it to end, but all too soon, they stop, and the static is louder. He whispers again. "Thank you. Again."
"Sinbad." Ja'far's momentarily confused, but realization dawns and he immediately memorizes every nuance of how that name is said in that deep voice. Sinbad.
He whispers his own name back. He can barely hear it over the static of the coming noise. Ja'far wants to cry. He turns instead.
Then, behind him, desperately - "What color are your eyes?"
The world stand still.
Ja'far tilts his head back. Feels the cool touch of the rain. His eyes... he can't honestly remember. But he wants to give the other something. Some memory. Then it hits him.
He turns around. Reaches out, finds those strong features. Gently coaxes his head up. Whispers, "Look."
And he senses wonder.
Ja'far can feel dampness that isn't rainwater slipping down his cheeks, and suddenly the endless murmur of poetry in his blood prompts a recollection in his mind's eye. And he leans forward, a hair's breath away from the other, standing on his tiptoes, and murmurs,
"I have stood at the edge of the world once or twice...
And thus found that silence is seldom an ending."
The other says something, and Ja'far can't hear it - but he knows what was said. His lips quirk in a sad smile, and on impulse he closes those last few centimeters to press his lips to the other's cheek. Ja'far feels the other's eyelids close. Wonders what color irises they hide.
One heartbeat.
Two.
And Ja'far turns and slips away, first walking, then running, soundlessly, desperately. He hears the noise, rising behind him.
But for the first time, he can feel again. Maybe he won't break quite yet.