Author's Notes

This is a side-story to Brother, Hear me Cry, which is an AU, and as such, this doesn't obviously adhere to canon. I don't know if you need the prior knowledge to understand this. You could always try your luck I suppose.

This reads a little funny, but I did that on purpose. Represents his mind...err, unhinging? Oh, that'll do. It's a little hard to explain.

As for the rating, I wasn't sure about the line, but fics about self-abuse (cutting being one of those) are normally in the M section, so I went with that. Nothing explicitly happened in Brother, Hear me Cry except for the shootout, so that stayed in T, but this oneshot focuses mostly on that part I left out of the main storyline for fear of not crossing the rating. So...yeah.

Parts are a true story, but it happened a few years ago so it was a little heard to dig out the details.

Anywho, enough about all that. Enjoy.

White Stained Red

Side-story to Brother, Hear me Cry. Which is worse? The fear of doing something, or doing it out of fear? What about when all you can do is run away or stop, when both lead to failure? What do you do when there's a hole you can't get out of...because neither side is letting you go?

Kouichi K & Kouji M

Rating: M

Genre/s: Angst

For the most part, he considered himself a rather level-headed person, despite his love for fantasy and the occasional science fiction medium. Language was his strong suit; science was unfortunately rather appalling compared to his other subjects, but if you asked anyone else, they wouldn't see much difference between a mark fluctuating between a B- and B+, and a group of As.

For as long as he remembered, he lived with his mother. His grandmother, her mother that is, lived a few blocks away for the first few years of elementary school...till she passed away from lung cancer when he was eleven. His mother cried; he cried. They both missed her. But they pressed on.

But she had left one thing behind: a message, a secret she could not bear to take with her to the grave. And that eventually led to him meeting his brother, and a father he had known just about nothing about.

It could have been the picture perfect ending, but reality was far crueller. While the twins were ecstatic after the initial shocks had faded and their parents over their children, it appeared that twelve years was not enough for the hostilities between the divorced couple to fade.

They agreed on visitation rights, seeing as Kousei's job had stabled for the time being, but it was near impossible to keep the two in the same room for more than five minutes at a time. Save the visits therefore, life changed very little for the two boys as they grew to fourteen years of age.

His father was rather well off, but his mother worked harder than their life was worth. He did what he could, and was allowed, namely cleaning around the house and making sure to stick to any rules so as not to add any extra worry or stress onto Tomoko's already heavy load, seeing as she wouldn't hear of him working, nor would she accept the money her ex had decided to start putting away for his son's wellbeing. And now that he thought about it, he was sure that the money was still around somewhere. He hadn't touched it. After all, he couldn't access the funds till he was at least sixteen.

He hated having to watch though; seeing his mother's health deteriorate over the years and being able to do nothing bred a large stew of emotions, but guilt was always the strongest.

Even more so, when she died. And he, nor anyone else, could really understand how.

He had been right there, right in front of her, and he couldn't explain what had happened. The best he could tell others was that he daydreamed...and it had been suspicious. But as there was no foul play, they had no choice but to accept the story.

But he hadn't daydreamed...because 'dream' was totally the wrong word. 'Nightmare' was more technically accurate, but that seemed wrong too.

He had always had a rather weird obsession with darkness; there was something about it that seemed rather intoxicating. But it...whatever it was, had felt so...different. Almost if it was alive. And worse...dangerous.

He was scared. Irrationally so he thought. He had once loved the darkness, now he needed light at every turn. The curtains would be spread wide at night, letting the moonlight shine onto his bed and provide him a beacon of hope, with the lights on for as long as he could get away with them. After all, he was too old to have a nightlight.

On days without the moon, he would stay curled up in bed with the lamp on...until Kouji yelled at him to turn it off. Then the torch under the blankets, until Kouji repeated the request. Then nothing.

But even the light didn't stop his demons.

At the start (and he realised that it had been going on for years without his notice), they were simply night terrors he couldn't remember. He would wake up trembling in bed, fearful but unable to pinpoint the cause of that fear.

But soon enough, memories persisted. The first being the chains that had bound him...and certainly not the last, though that particular image repeated often. The cold metal wrapped around every inch of skin he could feel, hard, restraining, tightening like a choker against his very life.

It was the tangibility that was responsible for most of the fear. But the simple alarm did not simply remain so, leading to a persistent horror to a paranoia that saved him from rest or the barest hint of relaxation.

By then, others could see the change in his routine, but he remained blind to that. Already, his large expanse of a world was receding into a small circle, not even encompassing his peripheral vision but still somehow consuming it.

Sometimes, he felt power, strange and foreign, flowing through his veins. His first thought was to blast the chains binding him into dust...but other things seemed to happen instead. First, it was his mother, then random accidents that could have been passed for clumsiness while ranging from simple to severe...if it hadn't been for those walking nightmares.

His sanity was unhinging; he was freezing at every fluttering shadow and barely sleeping. That he could tell, despite the cardinal rule of insanity: crazy people did not realise that they were crazy.

Forget rules. Something was definitely wrong.

Those chains barely left, and many a time, he found himself picking up a knife to simply hack them off.

But some rational part of his brain stopped him.

After all, even in the darker hours, there was enough of him to tell the stupidity of such an action.

And he would put the potential weapon of freedom down again. And it would sit, clean still mocking him. Mocking what he called rationality. Mocking his weakness. Mocking his fear.

But it got worse, and he found himself returning all too soon. And again, he would put it down and turn away.

But it was tempting. Too tempting.

Rationality told him it was no solution. But rationality failed to give him a solution.

Fear gave him one. Escape.

Rationality disputed it. After all, it was a web that continued a downwards descent. Once in, one would only ever be drawn deeper into the dark labyrinth.

But the darkness was choking. Any little thing would turn him off. And by now, his brother, father and stepmother were all out of their minds with worry.

The room was no longer a sanctuary. The moon shining into his bed and the little cavern beneath his raised blankets no longer provided a safe haven against his demons. The soft covers felt stiff and cold, like a steel edge digging into his skin...

His mind would suddenly be consumed in a frenzy; he was just lucky it went unnoticed.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps, if it had been noticed, things wouldn't have gotten as far as it did.

But the spiralling path that fell from his feet seemed inevitable.

After a little while, he became rather adept at hiding things from others. They assumed it was simply the rebound from his mother's death. He let them. It was easier that way.

But on his own, he let the darkness consume him. What choice did he have? He couldn't fight.

He found he was rapidly forgetting things. Simple things at first; things that really didn't matter. But as the days progressed, he found blank period in which nothing could be really pinpointed with clarity save the black haze that continuously surrounded him.

Steel, that glittering beacon of release, still beckoned to him.

The grip in his palm was comforting...yet it still held to tangible fear. The knife balanced precariously as the bindings scratched, but always, always, he would put it down.

Rationale had long since lost the fight. It was fear vs. fear now. Fear of doing, or doing out of fear.

A paradox he would have loved to try and find a resolution too, but not when his sanity was riding on the balance.

Sometimes, steel would already be cutting steel before his grip fell and sense returned. But was sense really returning? Or was it simply a different sort of illogic? But all the same, the prospect of the pivoting point, the choice that would permanently set him down a path while delay simply brought the gate looming closer...that alone was saving him from one fate.

But drowning him from another.

And the gate, the iron-wrought steel that clamped tight around him, it looked closer...and then closer still.

The blade danced across his fingertips before falling into the tunnelling tunnel.

Nearer and nearer...

...and nearer still...

And soon enough, it became from a hurdle to overcome to a simple breath of air to breathe.

Unescapable.

Inevitable.

And the blade danced, slashing at the bindings...and cutting them loose.

Red blossomed where silver had for so long bound. Freeing his chains, giving him a rare breath of clarity and freedom...

...which gave way to a rationality long since drowned in darkness, and horror and panic rose inside as the sharp sting registered.

Crimson dots fell from the pallid white skin, before he hastily swung the faucet and washed it away, the clear stream of water streaming pink as the few drops of blood surfaced. Desperate thoughts flew through his head as he waited, heart in his throat.

A few drops. That was it. He could have almost breathed a sigh of relief, covering it up with a simple band-aid and savouring the lucidity it had given.

Foolish. He knew. He shouldn't have done that. He knew. He knew was digging himself into a deeper hole.

But at that stage, any form of release was sufficient.

Any at all.

Hide...or run?

Really, he should have known better. He did know better, to be honest. Not that it mattered.

But after having jumped the initial fence, there wasn't much resistance between the ones that followed.

The binds returned, tightening, suffocating...and it felt even worse, now that the foggy sense of freedom lurked just within reach.

Outside, he simply shut himself off. Inside, he strayed, further and further from the path of light.

Darkness in. Darkness out. He laughed bitterly to himself. It summed up his roller-coaster ride to hell quite well.

He couldn't even see beyond the open door.

Black, silver and red. A three chrome world.

'Kouichi?'

He strayed from physical contact. He had for awhile now. For so long that his family and friends had considered it simply another quirk in his behaviour.

It was those chains mostly. Those accursed bindings wrapped tightly around every inch of his body. In retrospect, the warm grip of another human hand should have felt like nothing similar...to anyone else. But darkness was in control of his world, and any restraint at all threatened to suffocates.

Something still lived beneath his skin. The small rakes of blood which grew in both number and magnitude let loose a little of that. But something dark still swirled underneath, something that haunted his insufferable headaches even as his vision danced the tide of despair time and time again. But it was rare now; even pain it seemed was being slowly devoured by the black hole.

He didn't understand. He couldn't understand.

Kouji knew something was wrong. So did his parents. He denied, of course, but with each course, the denials grew weaker as their stance grew stronger.

But the journey to hell had already begun.

Something seized his wrist. It was supposed to have been comforting, but the world had twisted far beyond recognition.

He suddenly screamed and pulled away. But not before whatever new shackles has tightened.

It was too much. Resistance time did after all shorten dramatically after the first barrier is crossed.

He could hear voices now; he could occasionally. In fact, he always could, but it was mostly like a bitter honey flowing through his ear canal, soft like the wind and about as understandable. Solidly, in the company of others that is, he would focus and distinguish those voices from others. When he couldn't, others simply assumed he was daydreaming.

But with the manacles pulling him away, choker tight about his throat, he would forget.

Blindly, he reached out, the chains offering no resistance. Hands enclosed around something sharp, edges digging into the pallor of almost white skin...but something was shrieking, screaming in his ears. Like a caged bird. And those chains were holding him back.

Here, they had never held him back! This one reprieve at least, they had allowed.

He fought wildly, limbs failing in the outer world as they remained, barely able to move, in the hallucination of binding cuffs.

No control. The knife slashed wildly, cutting through whatever paused in its path.

Something wrapped around his fingers, attempting to force them apart. But he fought. His sanctuary, his only saviour now, the only path to freedom...he couldn't let it go.

His head spun. The darkness danced again, the vivacious vulture's dance...but something was different now. Something warm was spreading down his arms, tricking to his fingertips where the temperate hovered a moment, before tipping and falling, spreading across his knees and feet.

Something burned, but he couldn't tell what. The chains, for the first time since he had started this dance, remained binding and strong. But he was letting go of them...just as he had always wanted.

'Kouichi?'

The one voice pierced through the content haze that was starting to replace the pain and darkness that seemed to eternally plague him. There were a lot of things buried, many he would have realised in a heart's beat...if it hadn't been pounding towards a new haven.

The content rhythm lolled him away, away from the foreign voice calling him back up the rabbit's hole. He didn't want to go back there. Why would he?

All that was there after all was the same trap he had tried to escape.

But whether he had truly escaped here, having crossed the uncrossable line, or simply dug himself deeper, was a question he lacked the presence of mind to answer.

Only worry could be detected. And he allowed the laugh to bubble to the surface.

Why worry? It was inevitable after all.

When all you can do is climb out or go under...when both lead to the inky black expanse.

Like a fly caught in a spider's web.

The hungry stomach awaited.

Darkness clouded. An eternal darkness, offering a reprieve.

Something that was denied, as each new thump drove him one step away.

A sound of pain bubbled on his lips, and something hard tightened around his wrists.

Another scream worked its way to the surface, to be shushed...and then soothed, as a stinging pain, a different one, entered his world.

'Just relax. Everything's going to be okay now.'

Okay? No, it would never be okay. Not as long as he remained in this web.

His last rest had been denied.

But he gave in. He slept.

He had lost the war. But it raged on without him.

A new day. A new dawn. And he would not even remember.

It didn't matter though. He was already as deep in as he could go.

Wasn't he?

After all, those marks on his wrists, never to fade, were enough of a proof.

Weren't they?

The cycle had already begun.

It would reach an end...eventually.