Tired eyes.
Cigarette dangling between lips.
Callused hands tucked in coat pockets.

The hollow echo of the sirens sounded so distant, and yet the source of the noise wasn't too far from the park.

From the swingset, the alleyway where the crime had taken place was barely visible. There was a small throng of people gathered around - pedestrians, police officers, paramedics - and the police cars and ambulances were there to clutter it up even more. The most that could be seen was the man being loaded up into the ambulance; it seemed like he hadn't died yet. Maybe that was a good thing.

Raindrops dripping from his hair.
Feet stomping in the puddles.
An arrogant little grin on his face.

The dark clouds clashed together in the sky; the sun hadn't come out yet. Snowflakes spiraled through the air, tickling eyelashes. Gloved hands released the chains of the swing and began rubbing against each other; gradually, it all started coming back.

Pulling a cooking knife out of the coat, stabbing the man in the stomach. The man had crumpled around the knife, collapsed to the ground. Memories flowed along with the pulse of the sirens, memories of how the blood spilled and stained the snow, how the knife couldn't be pulled out, no matter how hard it was tugged. How that man had howled out those dreadful, dreadful screams. It had felt so surreal, so far away, like something out of a dream.

Head tilted up.
Wind lashing at his hair.
"You live, you learn, you grow," he said.

In the off-balance of the early morning, a crow skewed through the air and landed by the swingset with a raspy caw. It hopped about for a bit, and then began pecking at snow-covered shoelaces.

A quiet sigh was lost in the cacophony of sounds, a quiet wisp of warm steam puffed out into the air. The swings squeaked as the weight was lifted from them. Footsteps crunched through the snow and ice; snowflakes were already beginning to dust over them.

I think about you a lot, Nagi. I'm still trying to figure out why.


A/N: Somewhere, a dog barked.

Huzzah! Watch me dick around with the characters as I please! Don't worry; I won't take too many liberties.

Yeah, in case you skipped the summary, you'll know that this story is very AU. Very very AU. So AU, it hurts.

This is a response to yet another challenge, though this one has been rolling around in my head for a while. To give you an idea as to what you should expect, I'll say that I've been inspired by a combination of insomnia, The Dear Hunter, the Vampire: The Masquerade games, and believe it or not, Scott Pilgrim. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I guess I'll take this idea and run as far with it as I can. Which probably means not for long, since my ADD-ridden imagination will jump over to some other spontaneous idea.

Annnnnd I'll just shut up now.