Chapter 2; the black horse
Chapter 2; the black horse
The world was far damper than Seishirou's usual desires, and Fuuma found himself wondering why his brother had chosen that world at all.
The rain dripped onto his glasses, blurring up his vision until he shook the water from his face with a slight expression of discomfort, dragging his feet from the mud.
He knew that somewhere, somewhere in this mud-pit of a world, that his brother, his brother's obsession and his brother's obsession's twin were all together, making Hitsuzen reconsider whether or not having the three of them in the same space was a good idea.
The air crackled with barely contained lightning, and Fuuma found himself practically clinging to the trees in a vain attempt to find shelter as he worked his way farther into the world, trusting only the pulling of a Wish to guide his path.
There was a soft hissing sound, and he whipped around to see a silhouette of a girl, slender and finely built. She smiled through the rain, her green eyes the only truly visible thing about her, and pointed through two trees twined so closely together they might have been like the briars of silly old folk songs, growing from the hearts of dead lovers to tie around each other, supposedly the plant versions of the lover's souls.
He didn't need to question for a moment whether or not it was wise to follow her directions. Her Wish, unfulfilled in life, shone just as clearly in death.
"I want them to be happy." He wasn't sure whether it was the echo of her words, or just the strains of a Wish fluttering into his mind from across the thousands of plains stretching between them.
The ground solidified slightly as he pushed his way around the trees, and then there was a path, clear enough to have been sculpted out from the picture of wilderness.
There were footprints, mostly faded and filling with water by the second, but he knew who lay at the end of it.
Seishirou.
Subaru.
Kamui.
Fuuma needed no urging from the ghostly girl lurking in the corners of his eyes as he followed the path, heedless of the fact that each step was a risk of sacrificing his shoes to the bog gods of the world.
The trees thinned out suddenly, and he stopped before his momentum could take him too far.
What he saw, was an incredibly interesting tableau unfolding. Kamui, crouched on the ground, looking somewhere between murderous, lost and proud.
And his brother and Subaru were locked in a stance somewhere between destruction and rebirth, Subaru's hand resting right where the tiniest flickers of heart lay in his brother's chest, slender and white against the black and soaked fabric. Seishirou's sword lay in the mud, the hilt sinking into the earth peacefully, as if it were no longer needed, and his face was the least guarded he had ever seen it.
They were all locked into the moment, and the frailest disturbance would shatter the glass illusion that it threatened to be.
Green eyes in the forest flickered and vanished, her purpose done for the moment.
The thing that broke the scene was not Fuuma's appearance, but rather the shaky breath that Seishirou released, too uncontrolled for him to be feeling like anything less than the entire world was collapsing beneath his feet.
Subaru's response was to move from that cautious touch to a full-fledged embrace, concealing his face in the shoulder of the taller man. His brother did not return the touch, but the very fact that he did not push it away spoke infinite volumes.
Kamui stood up, violet eyes slowly losing their emotional turmoil as he locked all the feelings away. Fuuma noted with not just a hint of interest that his already usually taunting clothes were soaked to his body and black bangs clung to his face, dripping water down his cheeks like unshed tears. The vampire opened his mouth to say something, but his eyes flicked to the surprising duo and he shut it again.
That was probably for the best. Fuuma was sure that he wasn't even on his brother's 'kill' list, but the circumstances were definitely not the best, and he suspected that Seishirou might use instinct first and premeditation second if startled.
He walked over to the vampire anyway, amused by the flicker of a Wish that rose from him only to be squashed so firmly that it made the puddles of mud look like mountains.
At last Subaru let go, shivering a little and looking much smaller than usual when his long coat was clinging to him, drenched wings hampering flight instead of allowing it.
Seishirou broke the silent scene, looking straight at the person who had simultaneously shattered and rebuilt his perception of something. "You're going to freeze in that, Subaru-kun." he said with a hint of his normal self. Though his voice shook the slightest of slight amounts, nobody was foolish enough to say anything.
Subaru laughed, the sound wholly unexpected and almost forced in the tense energy that permeated the clearing. "I don't freeze so easily." he said softly, the emotion leaking from his voice as rain ran down his face, following the trails undoubtedly colored by tears. "And you don't either."
Kamui had an expression on his face that left little doubt that if he'd had less pride, he'd be pouting.
Not that it wasn't completely obvious already.
He smiled at them, deliberately ignoring Seishirou's niggling little Wish for the two of them who obviously weren't Subaru to just go away already and let him figure out his mess himself. "I've only been here for a short time, and it's already freezing. And wet." he added with a smirk. "I'm sure that if we hold onto each other tight enough, that we can all make the jump to the same world at the same time."
Kamui glared at him, looking drawn out enough that he would tolerate his comments less than usual, and his fingers twitched with the obvious desire to claw the smirk off of his face.
Fuuma ignored it with just the smallest amount of difficulty, and looked at the other two. "So how about it, want to find somewhere a little less wet?" he offered again.
Seishirou hovered on the edge of indecision, yet Subaru summoned up a trembling smile, bangs sliding into his eyelashes and framing his face more prominently than usual. "That would be nice." he said softly, and all the fight went out of the other two, which from Kamui, was to be expected, but was really quite unusual from Seishirou.
They made an odd circle, Seishirou unwilling to let go of Subaru's hand, and Kamui unwilling to let Seishirou have that kind of pull over Subaru, clenching Fuuma's hand so tightly he thought that all of the blood might have been cut off. Seishirou's grip was just as clingy, but less physically painful.
The sky opened and swallowed them up, falling away in drops bigger than the rain, and they were moving.
The room that opened up off of the crumbling outer walls was thankfully largely undisturbed by the passing of nature, and though thick dust coated everything, it looked rather like the inhabitants had just left it the way it was, intending to come back to it.
It was a creepy image all together, and if it weren't for the fact that the new world that they had landed on was also raining, Fuuma wouldn't have been so thrilled about its relative lack of disturbance.
Kamui had gone from being concerned and almost human in his vulnerability, back to being the vampire who whipped out his claws at the slightest innuendo in anything less than the most shallow of statement. If it weren't for the fact that Kamui had a thrill of life that was more potent in his aggressive energy, Fuuma would have found it annoying.
Also the way that he pursed his lips was ridiculously adorable.
But now they had hit a standstill, in which Kamui, drenched and bedraggled, stood in one of the doorways, dripping water and agitation in equal measures, locked in a dark staring contest with his brother. The reason for this would be the green-eyed vampire clinging to Seishirou, yet looking back at his twin with an obvious amount of trepidation, unable to choose whether to stay with Seishirou or go with Kamui.
"Subaru." Kamui said, tension tightening his tone until it was a strangled shadow of itself. "Come with me, we'll be fine on our own."
There was a smug undertone to Seishirou's smirk, except that the smirk itself was all smug, and it was almost calculated to throw the vampire into a flailing state. "Subaru-kun seems to be interested in staying right here." he purred, arm encircling the smaller teen right next to him.
Kamui visibly seethed, but did not respond in the way that Seishirou anticipated. Subaru cast a look back and forth at the both of them, the strands of faint annoyance rising to the surface of his eyes. Just the tiniest little pieces, and would have been invisible if it weren't for the fact that the two of them had been bickering with stealthy insults and catty remarks since they'd gotten out of the rain.
Even he was starting to find it quite tiresome, and it was really amusing to watch them find every way possible to make their mutual dislike of each other clear while trying to keep Subaru from knowing.
"Just because you're holding onto him doesn't mean that he wouldn't come with me if you let go." Kamui sniped, losing some of his hold on his temper. "Subaru. Come here."
His brother's eyes narrowed, and he pulled Subaru closer with all of the attitude of a child with a favorite teddy bear. "It's his own decision."
Fuuma could feel a Wish that rose itchily from the source of the argument, and Subaru had a tension slowly rising up in his shoulders that neither of the combatants seemed to notice.
So he stepped in on behalf of the one who's opinion actually mattered, with a grin that concealed his own thoughts on the whole thing. "Why not instead of arguing over where Subaru-san's interests lie, you two can go and find whatever Kamui needs, and give Subaru a break from the sound of you both cat-fighting over him."
Okay, so the part of keeping his own thoughts on the situation quiet had failed miserably, but it got the point across, and both parties shot a slightly guilty glance at a relieved Subaru. Well, guiltiness wasn't really something that Seishirou ever showed, or even seemed to have, but there was a level of emotion that applied to Subaru and Subaru alone.
Kamui scowled and whipped around, the damp strands of his hair sticking to his neck in a way that was very relevant to his interests. "Tch. Subaru, make sure you rest, and don't feel afraid to hit the other idiot in the room." he said over his shoulder, everything about his posture suggesting that the only reason he was doing this was for his brother.
Seishirou let go of Subaru slowly, sliding his fingers down to grip Subaru's hands with just enough force to be possessive. There was a moment where they looked at each other, just looked, and then Seishirou was walking out after Kamui, as proud as a cat.
The room was awkwardly silent for a moment as the sound of Kamui's blurred comment targeted at his companion faded out, then Subaru let out a breath he'd probably been holding the entire time. "Thank you Fuuma-san." he said with one of those gentle smiles that had probably caught Seishirou's attention in the first place. "I wasn't sure I could get them to stop."
Fuuma resisted the temptation to tell him that he had so much unknown control over the two of them that they would probably even make a genuine effort to be nice to each other around him if he actually stood up and said something about it. Instead, he just smiled back at the vampire. "If they have to spill blood on anything, I'd prefer that they did it where it was only the two of them. It takes forever to clean up off of my clothes."
Subaru didn't laugh at his comment, and instead brushed at one of the dusty couches, watching the clouds spiral up into the ancient air with an oddly black expression on his face. "Kamui may act really nasty to you, but he does like you." he said at last, the words calmer than anything that his brother might have said.
Fuuma felt a completely different smile slide onto his lips, walking over to help Subaru with removing the dust from the furniture. "I was starting to wonder." he said with a level of ambiguity, allowing the vampire to fill in wherever he was planning on going.
Subaru glanced at him with a trace of his smile brushing at his lips. "You're good for him." Another cloud of dust rose up, almost invisible in the darkness of the room.
He let the silence stand between them again, and watched the dust with a small amount of difficulty spiral gracefully to earth. Somewhere off in the distance, there was the sound of breaking wood, and Subaru huffed out a quick breath of air that disturbed the falling flakes of age. Then he turned to face Fuuma, his green eyes flickering cattily in the shadows. "So I'm entrusting him to you, because I know he'll be happy."
Then green flashed to gold warningly, and he didn't have to say anything more.
Fuuma nodded once. "I promise." he said, allowing the serenity of something he would never be able to deny fill his tone until even the quiet sound rang out gently against the walls.
That flat gold faded back to green, and there was another loosening of tension in the room. Then Subaru turned and walked off towards a corner of the room. "There's a fireplace over there, and it has fuel in it. Would you help me start a fire?"
Fuuma moved with more caution through the room than the vampire needed, the other not hampered by the darkness of the room at all. "Sure." he said with amusement as there was another smashing of wood somewhere else in the house.
Either Kamui and Seishirou were taking out their frustrations on each other, or they were keeping it to snotty comments and breaking down the doors instead.
He knelt down with some difficulty next to the smaller teen, pulling out the flint that he had learned the hard way was very useful. "Is there anything that will catch quickly?" he asked, trying to make out the blurs in the dark for something like strands of dead grass or paper.
Subaru made a soft sound of affirmation. "There's some really thin material on top of the wood, and it's quite dry." Hands that were almost pale enough to be a lamp in the darkness reached out and brushed against something that crinkled at the touch.
It took a few strikes of one of the chipped stones carefully removed from the rest of the block to create a spark solid enough to catch on the strange material, and soon the faint orange light of fire was starting up, making Fuuma's eyes water in pain from the sudden light.
Subaru appeared to have no such trouble, and went back to trying to clear off the furniture, raising clouds into the air that sparkled in the light like glittery fireflies. Then he stopped, and tilted his head to the side. "They're coming back." he said with no doubt in his tone of who it was.
"Is it just me, or is it brighter in there then when we left?" Kamui's voice echoed, sounded more pleased than when he left.
"I could say it was just you, but then I would look foolish once we got there." Seishirou's voice was light with the pleasure he gained from messing with people's heads.
Subaru smiled again, his whole face glowing gold and rose in the firelight that grew stronger with each passing second. Fuuma sat down on one of the less dusty couchs with a smirk and waited.
It was only a moment before purple and amber eyes materialized out of the shadows in the door. "Oh, I see there's fire." his brother greeted, two comforters hanging over his shoulder like dead bodies.
Kamui darted in at that comment, before seeing that it was all contained and Subaru was just fine. Fuuma would have felt slighted by this fact if it weren't for the fact that Subaru had actually waved Kamui off with a laugh. Then the twin he preferred, stalked over to stand next to him, tossing one of his own comforters over him without actually looking.
The action of it raised yet another cloud of dust, and Fuuma fought down the urge to cough as Seishirou entered the room, looking more polished than Kamui, who had gained a rumpled quality as he dried off, the long coat wrinkling up till it wasn't quite so richly elegant.
Fuuma considered the pros and cons of offering to help warm up the vampire who kept casting glances at the fire with a catlike temptation to curl up next to it, and decided he rather liked his skin attached to his body.
His brother stood next to the fire, a shadow in the flickering light as he said something to Subaru, the sounds too quiet for him to pick up. Whatever it was, Subaru blushed a coral color that was darkened and gilded by the firelight, and smiled.
It was so obviously something private between them, that Fuuma turned away instead of snooping, allowing them at least the illusion that it was only the two of them, and chose to focus on his vampire instead. "So did you fall through any doors, or just break them?"
Kamui snorted in disdain. "Your brother was showing off the entire time, and broke several walls. And killed a colony of mice to filch a blanket for them. But I guess I can tolerate someone who's controlled enough to shatter a wall and not even get any dust on him."
It was probably as much concession as he would ever admit about Seishirou, and suggested that they hadn't only been searching for blankets, but also talking.
So he reached up and caught one of those slender wrists, deceptively fragile looking, and pulled the startled man down to lie on him. Kamui let out an undignified squawk as he fell down on top of him, and he almost put his claws through Fuuma's shoulders.
The very fact that he stopped himself before impaling him was enough to send waves of pleased fire through his chest.
Kamui bared fangs at him. "What are you doing you idiot?" he hissed, the tone low enough that the two wrapped up in each other probably wouldn't notice. "Let go of me."
Fuuma let go of his wrist- and then wrapped his other arm around Kamui's shoulders, pulling him to an awkward resting position, where Kamui's ear was resting against where his heart beat just a little faster than usual. "You're cold, I'm not." he said by way of lack of explanation. "Relax."
The vampire huffed, and glared at him, but there was a level of fiery anger that wasn't there, and a part of him thrust up a fist in triumph at the fact.
The fire burned peacefully, and Subaru eventually broke away only to sit on one of the couches, underneath one of Seishirou's spoils of war, looking peaceful.
Seishirou stood against the wall right behind the old furniture, all signs of his much earlier break in composure erased and melted away like they'd never existed, watching the drowsy vampire turn his glasses over and over in delicate fingertips, apparently admiring them. There were the traces of an honest smile flittering about his lips, as if they were a butterfly too uncertain to get close enough to see if the flower was really a flower.
Fuuma watched the strange caring that his brother was watching Subaru with, an obsessive desire that was nevertheless too gentle to destroy the vampire who was practically his opposite.
A twist of Subaru's smile, and he was taking the thin frames and placing them onto his own face, sliding them on with acute precision.
...so Subaru wasn't exactly his type, and Fuuma wasn't going to go after him even if he weren't subconsciously claimed by his brother with fatal consequences for any interlopers, but he was allowed to think that Subaru was insanely cute in those, with the golden edges slipping down the bridge of his nose slightly, bright green eyes blinking tiredly.
From the flash of interest in Seishirou's eyes, clearly that little tidbit of strange attractiveness had been noted, liked, and filed away for a later time.
But Subaru's blinking came more and more often, and there were longer and longer pauses between when his eyes opened again.
His brother took the smallest of steps, just enough to rest a hand on damp black locks possessively, and Subaru closed his eyes for good, his breathing evening out into the soft rhythm of sleep.
It was probably a good thing that Kamui had long since fallen asleep on his own couch, fingers twitching occasionally in whatever dream he walked in, or Seishirou might have had to stop an attack from an enraged possessive twin.
Fuuma was expecting a few claws from the other anyway, once Kamui woke up and saw what he had chosen to be his pillow.
Not that Fuuma minded by any stretch of the imagination having his lap used by such a pretty claw-prone vampire who was more cat-like than anything else.
He cast another look up towards his brother, and saw that the smile seemed to have taken root, leaving a burning fire in Seishirou's one eye. He also seemed uninterested in removing the glasses from Subaru's face.
It was something really unusual, that he hadn't raised a fuss when Subaru had taken them from his face, or spent any time at all touching them, or even wearing then, when usually they were the thing held closest to his heart.
"Onii-san," he began softly, taking care to keep his voice pitched quietly enough to not wake the slumbering duo. "Why do you still have those glasses anyway?"
That burning look vanished from his eye, and Seishirou fixed him with a penetrating look, well remembered as the look that he got whenever he was 'in trouble'.
But then something relaxed in his posture, and he turned his gaze to the floor. "They're mine." he said, and those two words could have been all that were needed to explain it.
But he continued. "Oh, I was given many things when we were younger. But all of them broke, or weren't really mine in the ways that mattered. I had them, but they meant nothing."
"But then Mother gave me these, when it was clear that I was a little foresighted." There was a smile somewhere between violent and sweet toying with his mouth again. "They did nothing."
Seishirou ran a thumb over Subaru's hair, disturbing the fine strands momentarily before they fell back into place. "But they were mine, something that only I had, and only I was allowed to touch. And for that reason, they were...important."
Fuuma smiled at the strange sense of sentimentality that his brother possessed. Only Seishirou would have something completely useless to him as his 'treasured possession'. "So Subaru is allowed to touch them because...?" he prompted.
There was a sweet knife's blade of a smile on his face now. "Subaru-kun is also mine, so those of what is mine are allowed to interact."
Fuuma fought down the urge to laugh. Pure Seishirou logic right there.
The fire burned a little lower, and Fuuma thought about putting another dusty log on so that it wouldn't go out. But that would involve disturbing his peaceful vampire, and he couldn't bring himself to do that.
Thankfully, Seishirou appeared to have picked up the art of mind-reading, and he crossed over, graceful enough not to disturb the dirt and dust resting in unwieldy piles on the floor.
As a spray of sparks splashed up from the log falling in awkwardly, Seishirou's grace not extending to things that he discarded, Fuuma found a compulsion of weariness rising up over him, a desire to relax and sleep with his vampire, if only in the innocent sense of the term.
Seishirou returned to his state of sentinel over Subaru, looking as awake and alert as ever, even though he had to be as tired as any of them.
But he was watching, and Fuuma deemed it safe to try and rest for a little while.
So he closed his eyes, the rhythms of the fire light on the walls imprinting themselves in waves of thousands of colors against black on the insides of his eyelids.
He watched them until they blurred and faded away, along with the hours.
-a/n-
We hope you liked it! please leave a review and the next chapter will be updates soon. Authors; Phoenix To Flame and Fields Of Paper. Thank you for reading!