Summary: Rin draws battle lines. Amaimon blows right through them.

Notes: Did not realize this ch was so short lmao This is what happens when I write by scenes and not ch by ch :`D Also I've been so busy this month I haven't been able to write at all T.T My brain is on strike rn and I keep drawing instead bc it's no thoughts, head empty kinda creativity, which is apparently all I can do right now ahaha. I gotta sleep instead of grind levels in Endwalker lmao The siren call of ffxiv is preventing me from focusing on writing . It's hard when I made Abdi in the game and get to watch my bastard oc run around killing shit with fire as a max height lizard man XD

Song of the Chapter: Lose You Soul by Dead Man's Bones

Rin groaned, then winced and curled in on himself with a whimper.

Everything hurt.

His eyes had gummed together, skin and lashes tugging as he slowly unstuck them, though his vision wouldn't clear, and for a moment he feared that he'd been blinded.

"Mmn," he moaned, the effort of voicing it adding to the million signals from his nerves screaming at him not to move, and fought to take himself from the pained ball he'd woken in.

If he kept lying there, it would be worse.

He closed his eyes again, breathing in a steadying breath through his half-congested nose to prepare himself, then heaving his body up through the ache in one movement.

"Ahh, god that hurts," he complained to himself as he arched like it would help him escape his own body and began lurching towards his room.

The door creaked to his bathroom when he made it, and Rin bit back a sob when his breath came out visible in the sudden chill. It was back, it hadn't left.

"Leave me alone!" He deafened himself with his own roar in the enclosed space, ears ringing again as he caught sight of the blood from a gaping mouth in his mirror. "What do you want?"

Thoughts tore themselves into a million bloody pieces in his head, whirling around with his fury at the days of getting frozen and screamed at and nearly suffocated by something that refused to communicate why it had decided he made the perfect target to attack.

Could it even understand? Ice, colder than the chill making his breath visible doused the confidence Rin had used to interact with the whatever-it-was-ghost-thing haunting him as he considered if it was even something he could bargain with. What if it never left?

What if–Rin shivered as he met gold flares and saw nothing human in them–what if he'd gotten it entirely wrong and it hadn't cared at all about him calling Yukio?

"Leave me alone," he repeated, and it came out hoarse, barely above a whisper.

Should he call his mom? Yuri had been talking with spirits for as long as he'd been alive.

But–no, he couldn't. She and Shiro had just started a case, and Rin knew how serious it was, knew they couldn't be pulled from it or innocent people could be killed because they weren't there.

And Yukio…

He had to keep this as far from Yukio as he could. What if it had wanted to use him to get to Yukio for some reason? What if it was a curse and by going to Yukio, he would get stuck with it?

Rin wouldn't do that. He'd get an exorcist before he considered letting Yukio experience what he was.

Until then–Rin inhaled a long breath, firming his gaze–he would be handling this on his own.

So, "I'm not gonna let you hurt Yukio."

There. The lines were drawn. He ignored the flare of light from the gold eyes, the ice that drew over his spine and the howling in his ears as he limped to the kitchen and brought out more sage.

Fire lit and the howling muted–still there, still clawing at his mind as if desperate for purchase, but he could think straight again. Rin set the bunch down on a plate on the table and pulled out a bottle, filling it with salt and water and mixing the two until the crystals disappeared. It splashed to the floor in a line across the window and the entry to the kitchen, Rin sparing a brief thought to why the ghost couldn't just go through the walls to get into the kitchen but shrugging and figuring it was a ghost thing he wouldn't understand.

Did that count as a salt line? Rin narrowed his eyes and snuffed out the sage, waiting.

Immediately, random items in his living room flung themselves across the barrier in what Rin could only call a fit of pique from the ghost, and he relit the sage, already knowing he'd have to buy bulk in it if he wanted to have any peace until he could think of a permanent solution.

He hadn't felt any of the icy fingers on his spine, though, so it was a partial success.

"I told you," he said, feeling stupid for talking to something he didn't know could be reasoned with, "don't mess with my kitchen."

Now he just had to get to his bedroom and hope he could seal it off too.

"Hah-haha," Rin imagined a pouting ghost as he edged his way through the barrier and darted into his room, "it's like pest control!"

"Do insects turn into ghosts too?" A frame on his wall rattled. He'd definitely pissed the ghost off with that, Rin decided. Once more, hysterical laughter bubbled in his chest, something he released in a trickle as he doused his bedroom and the window there with more of the salt water.

Finally, sage in a plate by his bedside, Rin collapsed and tried to ignore that another object in his living room shattered–probably, the ghost had managed to knock the frame off the wall. He'd deal with it later, when the constant throbbing pain in his body wasn't making it hard to think straight.

Later being a few hours when his alarm went off and Rin remembered he had to leave his room for work, and he definitely wouldn't be able to salt off the route, the bus, and the restaurant itself.

"I'm getting fired," he said to the ceiling, staring as if his situation would change if he just lay there long enough before dragging himself up and realizing he hadn't sealed his bathroom to malevolent spirits either.

A problem he encountered the second he moved from his room and entered a bathroom that could have been the walk-in freezer at work, glacial, even after he turned on the shower as hot as it would go and stepped in, glaring at the viciously snarling entity in the mirror.

"You're not going to be the reason I get fired," Rin hissed as he scrubbed himself under the burning water, skin reddening while goosebumps rose because the air was like the dead of winter despite the steam.

He threw on layers to combat the chill and slammed his door shut. Part of him waited for the moment he'd get drowned under the pressure again like the two times now that he'd fallen beneath the ghost's assault, but the longer he just had to contend with bitter cold and a voiceless scream, the more he suspected that those specific occurrences were somehow limited.

Maybe the ghost wasn't able to do things like that all the time, maybe–Rin flicked his gaze to the window of the bus, watching red glinting from the blood splattering in rivulets only he could see–the ghost didn't have the energy to attack him like that.

It gave Rin a measure of control back knowing he would have some space between those dangerous attacks.

His gathered confidence lasted until he got to work and shivered. The cold made his hands shaky as he tied on his apron, and he got another side-eye from Godaiin. How to tell your coworker you're shaking because there's a spirit haunting you, and you're not actually on some new kind of drug during work hours?

Luckily, the rush of the lunch crowd stopped any deep conversation about Rin's health.

The vicious face Rin ignored in the reflective surfaces and the mirror when he had his bathroom breaks, pretending it wasn't there the best he could do.

"You smell…aromatic, Rin," Shiemi hesitated in saying when she sat with him for lunch later.

"Aro-what?" Rin tried to figure out what she meant. Did he smell bad?

"Like an herb?" she said, trailing away as her brows scrunched in confusion as if she was trying to place what he smelled like.

Oh man. Rin withheld a wince, his smile twitching with the effort. "Yeah, just cooking with sage a lot at home recently."

He made it from work, The blood in every reflective surface and claws in his back and chill seeping into his core refused to leave until he was in the safety of his own kitchen, cooking with a bundle of the new batch of sage he'd picked up on the way home.


It continued for Rin, a new routine he developed after his nerves had burned out on the terror of seeing blood and hearing things shatter in his living room he cleaned until it was barren of anything that could be moved without considerable force.

Instead, the walls rattled, old pipes hissing and spitting when he turned on faucets, and his path between rooms became a new way to see how loud his spirit could get at being ignored.

Some days, the sage burned low, and the salt lines in front of his rooms had to be renewed and he woke up panting from another dream of drowning in his own blood around something blocking his lungs. It left his kitchen alone, at least. Even on those days he hadn't renewed the lines in time or ran short on sage.

Though just because it no longer threw things around in his kitchen didn't mean he could escape the shearing cold that flayed his nerves to the barest thread and left him breathlessly cold trying to flick a lighter. The line on his front entrance lasted barely long enough to matter. Just opening his door to leave in the morning wore it too fast, weakened enough that the ghost probably laughed at him for even bothering at this point.

Questions about how much sleep he was getting started coming more frequently from Shiemi, and Godaiin had started offering to cover shifts for him if he needed the time off.

Worst of all, Rin hadn't called Yukio. Hadn't called him, and hadn't gotten a call. He'd tried, but his exhaustion made it seem monumental to keep at it, not when he was sure Yukio must have been truly annoyed by now.

Maybe if Rin had been less tired, he would have tried harder.

His attempts to manage the ghost were next to useless. Speaking to it got things thrown at him, and every two-bit website was a toss-up between a complete hoax, or some goth's fansite for the occult.

The fact that the sage and salt methods had worked at all, Rin attributed to a minor miracle and his mom's intuition.

He considered sending messages to those spiritual sites and telling them his tried and true method, but that was probably the shallow sleep he'd been getting talking, and not anything sane.

Mom would know. Rin's eyes squeezed closed around that thought. When he opened them, Godaiin sent him another worried look Rin tried to pretend he didn't see. His eyes burned, though at this point he knew it wasn't from chopping onions, the purple bruises were dark enough to see in the stainless steel reflection.

Yuri would talk to his ghost and it would probably tell her what it wanted and not throw things at her or invade her dreams and freeze her all day at work.

And Rin…

"I'm fine, Shiemi," he said for who knew what time, back aching in the chair and Shiemi's worry clear.

"Rin," she murmured, her hand was warm when it settled on his and he blinked without comprehending it for a moment. "When's the last time you slept?"

"Last night!" he said, maybe too quickly. And he had slept, but his body had begun waking up with a rush of adrenaline, expecting an attack at any moment, even on the nights the sage burned strong and the salt lines had been renewed.

"Are you eating well?" Shiemi's mouth moved, but Rin found his gaze falling to the table.

As the words drifted past his ears, the water in his glass stained, a slow, creeping spread like dye had been dropped into it. "Are you drinking enough?"

Her question made him look up to see her make a pointed glance at the cup.

Shit. He was too tired to argue or think of an excuse. Rin smiled and it felt brittle as he raised the glass and drank like it wasn't viscous and metallic on his tongue, like it was just the tea he knew he'd put in it earlier.

"Have you talked to Yukio?"

Rin froze, hands clenching until he thought the glass would shatter and cut his hand to ribbons to bleed him all over the table.

"No," he spoke the admission, mind forced to the last text he'd sent and never received a reply from, and that it had been a few days ago. "No luck."

"Oh, Rin," Shiemi said while tears welled in her eyes. "I'm sorry."

Was any of it real? Things weren't feeling solid lately. The red in his glass should have been freaking him out, would have, a few weeks ago, but now it just joined the things making his head spin with vertigo.

"He told me he'd call when he was free," Rin said as if he hadn't already told Shiemi that last week. Several times he'd almost taken the train to Yukio's apartment, or his parent's house, or the university. He'd almost called Yukio and told him he was coming and to get ready for him because they were getting lunch and he wouldn't take "No" for an answer.

Then a chill would pinch his nerves and Rin would remember that the last thing Yukio needed was to get pulled into Rin's mess. He was the older brother, and Yukio shouldn't have to get tortured by crazy ghosts that refused to leave despite the very clear cold-shoulder he was giving it.

"I'm just going to wait," he repeated himself and his decision, glaring at the red in his glass and taking a drink to spite the damn ghost filling it with nightmares. "Maybe once mom and dad get home from the case I'll talk to them."

He just had to wait.

"That could be another month, Rin, I-" Shiemi started, then gasped.

In Rin's hand, the glass had cracks.

His gaze narrowed on it, tunneling while a glacial frost coated his insides and kept him in frozen terror as the glass lifted from his hand too numbed to stop it.

More cracks appeared in patterns like frost, Shiemi whimpered, confusion warring with building fear the longer the glass stayed suspended without any apparent force keeping it there.

Then it shattered.

Water stung at Rin's skin as he jerked towards Shiemi, with a wordless shout. Had glass gotten in her eyes? Was the red on her skin more hallucinating or was she bleeding from the shards? Rin's hands shivered as he watched them check over the stains on her shirt and in her hair, searching for wounds or some sign that she'd been hurt.

"Shiemi-hey, Shiemi!" He panicked, breaths growing shorter as tears began to glitter on her lashes. "Hey!"

"Rin!" A hand at his shoulder yanked him back, Godaiin moving in to speak in a calm voice until Shiemi slowed her thrashing movements and opened her eyes. They were wet with tears, but– Rin's gaze skittered over her–they were just tears, not blood. She hadn't been hurt. Oh god, she hadn't been hurt.

It had been the ghost. Rin stared in dawning comprehension, a chill in his body that had nothing to do with the one he lived with every day now, and everything to do with the realization that he hadn't ever considered it would go after the people around him, except he had, he'd been worried about Yukio–why hadn't he realized-

"I have to go home," he said as if from miles underwater where not even the light penetrated; speaking from a place that made his blood crawl and ears ring and mind travel dark paths.

"I'm sorry, guys," the apology left, and he left in between flashes of fear and worry on his friends' faces.

He had to get home. The need moved him on autopilot, and Rin found himself on the bus at a strange time of day. It was almost entirely empty, just a lone person on there with him, staring in quick glances like Rin was dangerous.

Rin felt dangerous.

His veins thrummed with an energy that left him light, weightless, like he would shake right out of his skin.

And his gaze met the gold flares and blood in the reflection he stood before and stayed flat. On his peripherals, the man was covered in blood, but everything was muted. Even the ghost barely touched Rin, a gentle cry in the back of his mind, ice dancing over his body that had grown numb to colder temperatures the past few weeks. It seemed desperate, clawing, the lower volume made up for by the frantic way it rattled in his head.

'You're nothing to me,' he wanted to scream. Rin hoped the indifference chilled the ghost as much as it had put Rin through and he hoped it took the way he stepped from the bus and his slow walk to his apartment for the dismissal it was.

"You're nothing to me," he said in a bitter rasp through bared teeth, and used it to strengthen his legs up the last few steps to his apartment.

"I'm not gonna let you keep hurting me like this," he spat to a merciless cold and gripped his hand to the door, twisting and pulling it open. "I'm not letting you hurt anyone else!"

"I'm gonna exorcise you back to whatever shitty dimension you belong in," he said in a hiss, a promise, taking a step forward. "I'm-"

Rin froze so still he could have been paralyzed.

Air wouldn't move in his lungs. His legs had become blocks of ice that wouldn't budge even to tremble like they had before.

His eyes–Rin stared straight ahead, incapable of moving even if he'd been physically able to–his eyes caught a reflection of light glancing off a thin line just at the perfect level for him to catch himself on if he'd completed his step.

What he saw didn't make sense, even after he identified what he looked at, what it was, what would have happened had he continued on his path.

What did make sense for one terrible moment, was the sight of the delicate pink flowers on a single stem strung on the end of the tripwire pulled across his door where it would have blinded him upon entering his own house. The flower floated in the cold breeze, taunting Rin.

He recognized that flower. He'd grown up fearing it.

A twinflower.


End Notes: Oh noooo. Also sorry, Shiemi, Amaimon had to make a point XD