LEGAL DRUG (GOHOU DRUG) FANFIC
LEGAL DRUG (GOHOU DRUG) FANFIC
Title: Sanguine
Written By: RinoaDestiny (Ann Koo)
Author's Comments: Another toughie but eased over with some gaming, reserved brain space, and listening to Metal Gear Solid 4 music for days on end. XD
CHAPTER 18
This time, he's the one who's dreaming. If Rikuo had any nightmares, he wasn't aware of them. In his sleep haze – the world where past and present merge and offer imaginings beyond comprehension – he sees himself as a child again. It starts off familiar, with him sleeping under a tree thick and green with leaves. The sun's shining, casting dappled blue shadows on the grass, his shirt, his skin, and his hair. A light cool breeze passes over him, ruffling folds and inducing mild goosebumps.
It's a beautiful day.
Like déjà vu, his sleeping self knew what would happen next. He's had this dream before. Kei, his sister – his twin – comes over the hill, dressed in her pretty purple kimono. They talk and the conversation turns from lighthearted to serious, as his sister snuggles next to him and tells him her fears. The main one, she's told him time and time again, is that he'll vanish. She's afraid of that because of his name. Like the wind, he'll slip from their grasp, from the grounds where he lives and once gone, untraceable.
It's not something Kei can bear. He knows it.
So, he consoles her. Tells her that he won't leave, if only for her sake. His sleeping self is aware of that lie, because he does leave. He leaves and never turns back, even if guilt keeps him remembering her and those days in the sunshine and grass on the Kudou estates. But the dream moves forward, irrevocably, and suddenly, she's the older one, holding his face in her hands. He remains young, wide-eyed by her transformation.
It's not a pretty one.
Kei is older, years beyond his imagination and there's a light in her eyes bordering on sinister. He's never seen her like this before and it scares him. Her hair's the same pale shade of brown. Her eyes are still green; yet, darker and intense, like the leaves shadowed by other leaves. He's suddenly cold, seeing her gaze that pins him so that he must stare back and she smiles. Beautiful but chilling. A butterfly with ice as its heart. She moves slightly and a sweet tinkling of bells follows.
He remains still, unable to move. He does not know this creature.
She speaks. Her voice is mature, rich, and soft. It's deceptive and each word is like a string laid by a spider. Ensnared, he can only listen. "Then promise me. Promise me that at my side...I'll always have my sweet brother." She – Kei, he has to remind himself as young boy and older self – extends a hand, pinky finger hooked.
He's never sure if he agrees. All he remembers is the warmth of the sun and the greenery around him. The breeze drifts past, carrying him away from it all.
It's Rikuo's strangled cries that awake him, throwing him from one dreamscape to the next. Kazahaya doesn't remember much but the sensation of his feet against the cool floor, his hand closing around Rikuo's, and how hard the other boy's fingers clench around his. How loud the other's voice is, breaking into gasps and half-sobs. At how his world shifts and changes, dwindles and expands from the grass and sweet smell of spring to the ice-cold chill and rancid stench of steel and blood and things kept secret – revolting; always kept encaged in the dark.
His voice is hoarse, scraped raw from his protests and screams and they throw him aside. It's as if he sees himself from the outside, sprawling in an uneven heap, streaking blood behind him. He can't move his arms; his hands refuse to obey him and his fingers uncurl. He's weak and everything hurts and he closes his eyes because she's there. Someone kicks him, hard, and he cries out because it hurts so badly. Sniggering and he wants to die.
Someone grabs his hair, raises his head, and strikes him across the face so that his lip splits. "Open your eyes, boy." He knows this voice, knows who it is, and inside of him, he does die. A second blow, so hard that his cheek swells. "Goddamn it, open your eyes, worthless little fuck!" He wants to die, to disobey, to kill the man beating him but it's out of his hands. One eye is swollen and his mouth is dry. A third slap, and he hears her gasp. Cry out his name.
He can't say anything.
She screams and he tries to reach out but Toshiya's boot grinds his wrist to the floor. "Rikuo!" She's crying and he can't do anything because the pain's too much. He can't think. There's blood beneath his knees and he swallows some when Toshiya hits him and he bites his tongue. A blur, everything...and he vomits, bringing up nothing. His stomach aches; twists and stabs him inside and he doesn't want to think about the mess they've made of him.
In front of her.
She cries out his name again. Someone snarls. She screams. He opens his eyes at that but it's too late. He can't scream or cry. There are no tears left. She falls and falls and there's blood everywhere. She's too close to him, still and it sprays onto him, hot and heavy and sickening, so that it crawls. He throws up, retching, unable to remove the smell of her and his fingers draw lines of red on the floor. On his skin.
Murmuring and cruel laughter. He can't see anything but her. The gaping gash in her throat. Tsukiko, he tries to say but his throat closes and he chokes on the tears he can no longer shed. Tries to reach out for her...wants to touch her...but it hurts to move and he's so tired. Different fingers in his hair, in him but he can only think of her lying there and it doesn't matter what they do to him anymore.
"Quiet bitch, isn't he, now?"
His throat aches...she's lying there...he's failed her...agony bursts him open, tears him to meat and bone...think of her...his screams turn inward...why...why...why? Hands on him...it doesn't matter...Tsukiko...blood...so much blood...screams...are they his...she's dead...he's...he's...
Shuddering, he goes still. Listens. He cannot speak.
Blood drying on his knees, in his hair. A bruise darkening on his wrist. Tsukiko, in blood and he...tearing, torn, broken and shattered and the endless, remorseless sundering, knifing that hollows him and smashes him...breaking...merciless...thudding of bone against steel. He listens and all he hears are the echoes of his silent screams. His body quivers, writhes from the violence but he's looking at her and there's nothing left.
She's dead and he's...
It no longer matters. Nothing does. He shuts his eyes. "That's enough," he hears someone say and he's lying there, bloodied and used. She's dead and she saw. Saw what he was...saw what he became. It's enough to make him cry but he can't and the smell of blood is so cloying, he feels like throwing up.
That's when he smells rain and he knows it's not her.
The sweat beading the younger man's forehead was cool to the touch. Wrapping the comforter closer around himself, Kazahaya tugged at the corner of Rikuo's but the boy made no move to take it or push him away. Even now, in the dark with the city lights shining dim and hazy, he could see the downward curve of Rikuo's eyelids. It was hard to tell if he was asleep or halfway to it but the incident beforehand made that unlikely. If anything, Rikuo was awake and keeping to himself. And possibly, nauseous.
"Rikuo, are you...?"
A flicker through the eyelids. A slight opening of the mouth. He'd never expected to be here, on the rooftop post-Valentine's Day in his blankets braving the chill. Rikuo'd left him no choice, stumbling out here barefoot and ill. Gathering his wits and grabbing a few blankets, he'd gone after him, forfeiting shoes. The toilet could be flushed later. What he worried about was Rikuo throwing up his dinner. Besides the time when he tried re-introducing Rikuo to food, he'd never known Rikuo to have a bad stomach.
And there was that dream. No. Two dreams.
"Rikuo," he said and assayed to hold his hand. Immediately jerked it back – so much blood...she saw... – and shuddered. Wiped his fingers clean, even if they weren't stained. From his dream to that...that horror. Why was Tsukiko killed? Why was...? Kazahaya snapped his mind shut; barred that inner voice from asking its questions. No. No. He didn't want to know why in regards to Rikuo. He didn't want to know what they exactly did to him in front of Tsukiko. Or why Rikuo...
Silence. Too much of it. He knew what that meant.
He'd thought that, too, would subside.
"Rikuo, are you all right?" In response, the other psychic shivered, worming deeper into the blankets offered. Not a word was spoken and from the looks of it, Rikuo heard him but was far beyond his reach. Lost inside his nightmares, most likely. Something about this one chilled Kazahaya. There had been violence and degradation in the others as well but the complete brutality and efficiency of it all – that was part of it – shocked him. It was worse than Yoshiro's torture with glass and although he didn't know the half of the trauma inflicted on Rikuo by Toshiya and his thugs, he knew that it killed Rikuo.
Not in the actual sense, no. But Tsukiko was murdered and Rikuo...
Rikuo had lost everything in that moment.
That was what Rikuo told him when he could speak again. That he was dying and he, being slower at the time and understanding less, took that literally. Whereas, ever since Toshiya laid his hands on Rikuo and allowed his men to do the same, Rikuo's dying took time. Never allowed a physical death – Eichiro, he remembered, had the responsibility of keeping Rikuo alive – Rikuo's death took different forms. Death to a fighting spirit. Death to a strong mind. Death to willpower to survive. Death to health.
The last, however, was the worst. Death to a loved one, which in turn, was death to ideal. Kazahaya had felt before, in other memories and other names spoken, how intense and obsessive Rikuo was about Tsukiko. Felt that desire about her – wasn't sure in what way; yet, was aware of it by how strained Rikuo looked if he'd mentioned family. There was that one time when he overheard Saiga-san telling Rikuo about finding something – that had been interesting. Rikuo was furious and he had no idea why.
Now, he knew. Wished that he didn't.
Rikuo had gone searching for Tsukiko, only to lose her right in front of his eyes.
It was the final act needed to destroy Rikuo. And Rikuo had...he'd given up. I've lost everything. No surprise, then, that he'd asked for death. Had asked bitterly, right to his and Saiga-san's face about why they didn't leave him to die in an empty alleyway. Kazahaya glanced at the curled form huddled next to him. Rikuo had let someone abuse him because nothing else mattered. Because the sole reason for his life was dead only a couple feet away from him. Because Rikuo was weak, injured, and heartbroken, chastising himself for a failure that wasn't any of his fault. It was a death to both sides, if he, Kazahaya, wanted to see it from that angle.
It was true. Both had died on that same day. In the same hour and minute. But only one truly died while the other suffered a living death. The cruelest torture imaginable.
No wonder Rikuo craved death so badly.
His eyes having adjusted to the dim midnight light of the city, Kazahaya looked again at Rikuo. Saw his hands clenched around the comforter, gripping, and the slight sheen of the whites of his eyes. It was too dark to see green. "Rikuo?" It was silent but the expression on the boy's face wasn't like that dead, empty mask that he'd witnessed all too often. Scooting a bit closer, he got a better glimpse.
This wasn't any normal illness. The smell of blood is so cloying...
"Rikuo, why did they...?"
Eyes shifted towards him and then away. Rikuo wasn't replying but this time, Kazahaya got a sense it had nothing to do with him. None of the blame was pinned on him. Instead, the silence stemmed from Tsukiko's sudden and shocking death, which from the nightmare, was ever present in Rikuo's mind. Vivid, with emotion and all senses alert – astonishing, considering the amount of pain – and all of it too much to bear. He had enough trouble processing the entire dream without becoming ill.
How had Rikuo managed, since that time, to function with that in his head?
Living death. He had no idea what that felt like. Next to him, Rikuo seemed content to remain the night here, instead of sleeping in his bed in the warmth. Another set of closed walls. Rikuo had been thrown aside to land on the floor, mistreated in front of Tsukiko. She had screamed for him. He could still hear her voice resounding in his head through the memory. She'd screamed over and over until her throat was cut.
For Rikuo. For someone no longer capable of defending either her or himself.
It was a damning memory. He felt the hurt and despair and self-loathing that drowned the minutes of it in a slow, ever-rising tide. Rikuo must've been going mad with that image – blood everywhere in pools of red – and attempting to brave through it just because...because Rikuo was Rikuo, broken or not. Tonight, for whatever reason, was the limit Rikuo could take. It brought to mind many hysterical nights when Rikuo blabbered incoherently about knives, blood, and Tsukiko.
A woman in the center of it all, splashed scarlet.
Why hadn't he seen it sooner? Followed his gut instinct?
"Don't ask me. I don't want to remember. I want to forget it all." A thin voice, as brittle as its speaker. The blankets were pulled in closer, held tighter, and Rikuo's eyes were pale in his face. "You shouldn't have looked."
"I didn't mean to –"
"I know you didn't."
A girl dead. A boy, almost a man, who should've died long ago. Assailants who should die, because they'd ruined two lives. All for what? What was the reason behind murdering Tsukiko? For torturing Rikuo in front of her? Why all the excessive brutality in that moment? What did this incident lead up to? And why did Rikuo...
Why did Rikuo smell rain? Indoors, nonetheless?
"Rain?" he asked, as if to no one. "But you were inside, weren't you?"
No answer.
How did that come into play? And what about his own dream? It was the second time he dreamt it and both times, it startled him. Kei was supposed to be cheerful, curious, and concerned. Not obsessive or creepy, with eyes the color of a cat's or with the expression of one on the prowl, hunting. Was he the prey in that dream? It could easily turn into a nightmare, if that was the case. He didn't want that. He didn't want that to become reality.
Rain. Why did that remind him of something?
"Rikuo, we can't sleep up here. It's still too cold."
"It doesn't matter to me anymore." Rikuo's eyes were shut. "You can go back."
He doesn't want to return downstairs, back to the apartment. "I can't leave you here. Saiga-san and Kakei-san will kill me if anything happens to you."
"It doesn't..."
"I know. Since she died." If Rikuo was going to be evasive, he'll work his way around that. "But you survived. You escaped. If you wanted to die, why would you...?"
Who or what could've given Rikuo a motive to live after all that? The Rikuo in that nightmare had already surrendered and tossed his life away because of Tsukiko's death. Tsukiko was crucial to Rikuo's wellbeing and with her out, it was simple. There was nothing left to live for, unless someone or something else mattered. But there was no one else at that time in Rikuo's mind – just a blank slate blotted by blood.
So when did those mentioned "green eyes" become important?
"I didn't escape because I wanted to." What? "I escaped because someone helped me to."
"Who?"
"Someone who couldn't tolerate seeing me like that."
That could only mean one person. "Was it Eichiro?" The one who tended to Rikuo, who cursed Toshiya, and knew Rikuo better than he did in certain ways. "What did he say to you?"
"Things."
"How did he without being..."
"He's good at what he does." A sigh. "I hope he's safe."
No more blood shed at your expense, you mean. Not so soon after Tsukiko. Are you afraid I'll be added to the tally, too? "Well, if I meet him, I'll thank him."
"You don't want to meet him. I don't." A slight shift in the blankets. Another development, here. Why wouldn't Rikuo want to...? "It's bad news if you see him now."
"Why?"
No response. They had speculated that a possible third party was involved. Could that be Eichiro's part in this? What role did he play, besides watching over Rikuo's health? He didn't seem to support either side – Toshiya or Yoshiro – and now, knowing that he'd assisted in Rikuo's escape, pointed to an entirely different agenda. There had to be other reasons for that, besides perfect altruism and a strong distaste for abusive acts. That, too, was a mystery to be solved.
Many of those, it seemed.
"Did you always have a weak stomach?"
Laughter that cut. Kazahaya winced to hear it. "Only recently."
"I'm sorry you had to see that, Rikuo."
Silence. Beat. Beat. Beat. "That's not the only reason why." Rikuo grimaced, twisting his features and Kazahaya glimpsed the tautness of his cheekbones. The downward turn of his mouth. "Ask Saiga if you want to know. I'm sure he'll give you the details."
"It's not something I want to know, do I?"
"No."
"Oh." This time, he was quiet. Contemplative. Looking at Rikuo and seeing the tension fraught in his face. Dark in his eyes. The bones of his healed hands jutting under the surface of skin. The scars were starting to fade – some of the smaller ones – leaving behind shrunken raised lines of flesh. As for the others like the lacerations, those were darker; would always be. The bruises on Rikuo's face and arms were gone but the ones on his chest and lower extremities continued to discolor and disappear.
It had been a month and a half.
"How...how badly did they...?"
"Enough." A familiar expression – one that he didn't like seeing. "Almost couldn't walk out of there."
"But you did, didn't you?"
"Eichiro helped." Was that all he was going to get? "Not going to let me die in there, he said. Had no choice. None of us did."
The same mantras repeated ad nauseam. No choices. It doesn't matter. Kazahaya let them slide, unwilling to argue with Rikuo over them. They weren't trivial but tackling Rikuo's entrenched mindset was going to take patience. He couldn't go flying into it expecting miracles or blurting out niceties and demanding that Rikuo change overnight. Tsukiko was dead, savagely murdered. Rikuo was here, with him, watching the stars – or not – and dying a slow death by the seconds. There was no room in their world for miracles or untainted hope.
He felt that shadow just as well as Rikuo did.
"It's getting colder, Rikuo." Kazahaya pulled his comforter, curling it snugly around him. He couldn't sleep out here – the chill would kill him. "We need to go back."
"I can't."
Right. The goddamn walls. Rikuo's mind was still stuck there, trapped in that memory. Sweat-soaked sheets. A toilet that needed to be flushed. Where else could they go? Not downstairs, since the store was wrecked and he didn't want his foot sliced open by glass. He also didn't want to bring Rikuo into the ruins of his making, accidental or not. The burden of guilt was already stronger than he'd liked. Adding to it would crumble the foundations of whatever strength Rikuo was using not to collapse.
By no means did Kazahaya wish to accelerate his death.
"Rikuo," he said, gauging every word, "what if you slept in the kitchen or by the front door?"
"It's still..."
Still too close to his reality, perhaps. Damn. "What if I asked Saiga-san to help us set up something here?"
"He'll do that?"
He blinked. He'd never thought Rikuo would ask such a question. "I'm sure he will." I hope he sees the humor in me waking him up this late. "After all, Saiga-san's surprised me before. Knitting, cooking – what else can he do?"
"Other things."
It was a Rikuo-esque statement. To the point, without detail, and vague, as if expecting him to figure it out on his own. Fortunately, he already knew what "other things" Saiga-san did when he wasn't sleeping. A lot of it was keeping them safe and alive. It was also keeping Rikuo's whereabouts as secretive as possible, despite the major setbacks Rikuo's destructive abilities unleashed. He only hoped Saiga-san wouldn't think him mad if he suggested a temporary camping ground on the rooftop.
For Rikuo. He had to remember that. Everything was for Rikuo.
"Come on." Kazahaya offered a hand; hoped that Rikuo's mental shields were up. It wouldn't do for him to relapse back into the same memory. "We'll be back here shortly."
Rikuo's fingers engulfed his, which was comforting. His roommate still stood taller than him, even with that slouch in his shoulders and that, too, was reassuring. If some things never changed, at least he knew where his foundation was. Funny how that worked. But without Kei – try to forget that person in the dream – Rikuo was the only other person he could rely on. Someone exactly his age. It all made sense even more now that everything's twisted and tangled.
This time, there's no snow or ice.
"I'll get something for your stomach tomorrow, Rikuo."
"You don't have to."
The smell of rain. The charnel reek of death and blood. "I want to."
Silence. It has a different vibe to it. Rikuo squeezes his hand slightly and in that extraordinary way, he understands. Communication without words. He knows without looking back; without reading Rikuo's face. Was it like this between Saiga-san and Kakei-san?
"No problem, Rikuo."