So I spent breakfast and most of a HUBS191 lecture this morning positively agonising over chapter 72, and I decided that it would be good for my mental health if I wrote something. This is it. (I sat in my room with the curtains closed and Natalia Kills' Love Is A Suicide playing on repeat. Also this is the first piece of fanfiction that has made me cry writing it. I feel strangely accomplished.)
Merely This
(And Nothing More)
Night comes slowly for Kain Akatsuki.
It comes with the creeping cold and the black-ink shadows, settles over the walls and across the floorboards, and if he tilts his head right everything goes red.
He doesn't much care for the day. There's nothing to do but sleep, and when he cannot (too often) it's too bright, too loud. He's nothing to do but think, then, close the curtains as far as they'll go and put his pillow over his head, and try to remember what falling asleep is like. And if not that, then to hell with it. The ceiling's almost interesting if you look at it through your hair. (At least, he supposes, he doesn't have to put his hands over his ears so as to try not to hear Hanabusa's sleep-talking. Surely that's something.)
But eventually, always, the night comes, and with it comes knowledge and surety and power.
See, Kain likes to think he knows what he's doing. His parents tell him he's a good, sensible child, and he would not like to disappoint them. He goes with his common sense as much as he can, and that's what makes him different to Hanabusa. He follows his head, except for the times that he can't.
The times that he can't are coming more often now. Without fail they will involve Hanabusa or Ruka, or both. It would be impossible, Kain has learned, to look out for them by making sensible decisions. He figures they deserve more consideration than just what would make sense, though, and so he loves them and does all he can.
Kain has heard rumours about Hanabusa's father. He does not bother to waste time hoping that they are not true. The best he can do is hope that Hanabusa will be alright, and his heart breaks that that will be enough.
Kain's heart has not been good to him. There are too many reasons why that shouldn't change any time soon. Kain has a reason for everything, and the reason is always the same.
Ruka.
She is everything, everything. Kain has never denied this. Nor has he denied himself the hope that one day she will know this, and one day she might let him be something to her. He holds onto it tight enough to bruise, and knows it is his biggest mistake. But it is harming no one but him, and so he holds on, and he feels it burning.
It burns brightest with the night, and so does he.
Kain does not mind burning. Something in him has been burning since the day he was born, and he knows it now. It is power. It flows through his blood and the air he breathes, and sparks under his skin like stars. And Kain knows the things he is capable of; he knows he could destroy a whole room with no more than a wave of his hand. He might not need even that.
He used to be afraid of it. That was before how he learned to control it. It is his second nature now, and it sits in his fingertips and behind his eyes, and he lies outside under a tree and burns the fallen leaves into oblivion and smoke.
It was no great effort when he sat here and threw fire into the sky, and it went further than he could see. He has not done that again, but it was necessary the first time, because he can feel that one day soon he will need the knowledge of exactly how much he can burn. He hopes he will not have the need to use it.
But a day will come. Of that much he is sure. A day where there will be fire and there will be blood and there will be a victory, but whose victory it will be is anyone's guess. Kain does not know which side Kuran Kaname is on, if he is on anyone's side but his own. If Kain is to follow him, he can only trust that the sides they choose will be the same.
And if they are to choose differently, well. Kaname knows where Kain's loyalties lie.
When that day comes, Kain will take Ruka, and he will go. If she does not wish it, he will not care. He will be selfish and he will be unfair and he will run. He'll find Hanabusa, or Ichijou or the vampire hunters, and he will fight with them. As far as he knows, they're the ones who are right this time. He can do nothing but trust that they are.
But first, he will take Ruka somewhere safe, and he will make her promise to stay. If she fights him, he will hold her hands still until she stops. If she tells him not to go, he will leave his heart. It has always been hers, anyway.
He will sit her down, lock her in, tell her he loves her, and he will go and fight. With any luck, he will win. And if he does not, then he will have done all he can, with the hope that it will be enough.
Kain does not know very much about what is going to happen. What he does know is that he is going to find Hanabusa and he is going to make sure that he is safe, and he is going to make sure that Ruka is safe, and he is going to bare his teeth and watch the world burn.
The night sinks down, and his eyes open.
It will not be tomorrow, he is quite sure of that—there's time to spare. He will spend it with the best of intentions. Things always unfold conveniently enough that there will be no surprises, and that is enough for him.
And so Kain, counting his cards and watching the clock, is waiting.
Always waiting.
For the wind to change, the world to come full circle, for the word, for the signal, for the colour of the eyes at the moment of surrender.
He can wait.
Surely it won't be long.