Himura Kenshin stood at the edge of the river, his mind wandering as it often did. Fireflies passed him by in a green symphony of light, and he began to remember the summers past when he had watched the fireflies pass through the memories he had made there. They were memories of him and Kaoru, of him and all his family in Tokyo. His mind began to also wander to the many battles he fought for the peace that he was living; Jin-e, Shishio, Enishi ... Reminiscing made him feel tired, but more than that he felt at peace. Having the past truly in the past was the best thing he could have wished for. He had beaten the evils that tried to take his peace away; there was nothing left but the future. He closed his eyes for a moment and turned his mind to other things.
The fireflies whisked around another figure standing in the shadows of a great willow tree. He stood tall, black clothes clinging to his figure. The clothes made Kenshin have to look twice before he knew who it was. Sanosuke was wearing uncharacteristically western clothes: black shirt and a dark blue pair of slacks, but he wore his normal black slippers and red headband, the only remnants of Japanese dress left on him.
"Sanosuke?" Kenshin called out. "Is that you?"
The other man opened his mouth, but no words came out, as if they were floating somewhere in limbo. He closed his mouth again, gritting his teeth as the words burned inside him, chewing away at his soul. Kenshin could sense something was wrong. He took a few steps forward. "Are you alright?" Kenshin's eyes narrowed.
Sanosuke's mouth worded something that Kenshin couldn't hear. So Kenshin came closer and a familiar scent attacked his nose. He tensed up, eyes going wide. It was something he had hoped he would not smell for a long time.
"I just ..." whispered Sanosuke, barely audible. He looked to the ground and let himself pause.
"Tell me, Sano," Kenshin urged on.
"I ..." he began again, a little louder. "Before I tell you, you gotta know that I didn't mean it, Kenshin. You gotta know that!" His voice began to break desperately, a reminder of how young Sanosuke really was.
"I know it, Sano, I know," he said, "but what happened?"
Sanosuke sighed deeply, his breath shaking. He held out his right hand, which was shaking badly enough that he had to hold it with his other. Kenshin recognized the stains on his friend's hand immediately as blood. Sanosuke had been in many a fight, and Kenshin had seen Sano twice as messy as this but he knew in his heart that something about this was different. Kenshin recognized the desperate look in Sano's eyes and the shaking in his body.
"I didn't mean to Kenshin I just ... he had a gun. And I got so mad..."
Kenshin placed his hand over Sanosuke's, steadying it.
"I owed this guy some money. He came by my house tonight ... he pulled a gun on me, saying I would be 'an example' to all the other people that owed him money. I hit him once. Just once, I swear."
"Sanosuke, perhaps you should have refrained from using your Futae no Kiwami," Kenshin said, trying his best not to sound in any way threatening.
"That's just the thing! I didn't use it! It was a normal punch! I didn't want to kill him! I didn't want to kill him ... I just wanted to get him away from me."
Kenshin's hand tightened above Sanosuke's. It was the only thing he could think of to do.
"I'm sure you can say you were defending yourself. Perhaps the police will be lenient," suggested Kenshin.
"I'm not letting the cops arrest me. I can't go to jail, not over an accident."
"They might not ..."
Sanosuke backed off, taking away his hand. "Yeah, and they might chop off my head and put it on display!"
Kenshin made a soothing movement with his hands. "Perhaps now is not the time to be discussing the police. The first thing we should do is get you cleaned up." Kenshin walked to the edge of the river and waved him over. Sanosuke had to take a moment to recompose himself before walking over to the riverbanks to kneel next to Kenshin.
"Got anything to wash with?"
Kenshin shook his head. "No, I'm sorry."
Sanosuke just nodded. He plunged his hands into the river and the cold water sent a satisfying chill through him. He could catch brief glimpses of the crimson in the water as it washed away. He then felt a pair of hands cover his own and begin rubbing them together. He looked over to see Kenshin working to clean the more stubborn spots in his hand. Sanosuke couldn't get over how domestic Kenshin looked. It was morbid: "Was this the way he looked washing blood off himself back in the revolution?" he wondered. Not being a person used to this strange kind of pampering, Sanosuke would have asked Kenshin to stop, but something about the warmth of the rurouni's skin made Sanosuke feel calmer and more secure. So he let him continue.
"These clothes look like policemen's clothes. Where did you get them?" asked Kenshin with obvious suspicion.
"Saitou gave them to me."
Kenshin stopped his scrubbing and looked up and into Sanosuke's eyes. "Saitou? Did he have a part in this?"
"Kind of. I mean, no. He wasn't there when I ..." Sanosuke looked away, still unable to discard the image of Magori's body lying amidst the debris.
Kenshin allowed an appropriate amount of time to pass before asking: "How did you come to wear his clothes?"
"I woke up at his house tonight. He gave me these clothes to borrow. Mine were all ... messed up."
"Messed up? How did they get that way?"
Sanosuke chortled. He let his head hang between his shoulders. "I honestly don't know."
Kenshin looked up at Sanosuke's forehead and saw something curious. "May I?" Kenshin asked, pointing to Sanosuke's headband. With a bit of reluctance, he removed it and handed it to Kenshin before putting his hands back into the water.
"Your headband, it also has blood on it," Kenshin said, examining the tattered cloth.
"Oh yeah, that," Sanosuke said, not wanting to sound bitter but achieving it anyway. "If you want an answer about that, I honestly don't have one. I just woke up at Saitou's and there was all this blood on me. Man, I can't believe I forgot about that. It feels so far away."
If it were at all possible, Kenshin began to look even more worried. "Where did the blood come from?"
"Saitou gave me the lamest answer: it's mine apparently. Of course, he's full of shit. I don't have a scratch on me."
"This happened before you ... killed that man?"
"A lot happened before I killed Magori," he replied.
"Man that sounds weird," Sanosuke thought, a shiver running through him as he suddenly noticed how numb he had become. "Kenshin must think I have no remorse."
"Perhaps you should tell me exactly what happened now," Kenshin said, guiding Sanosuke's hands out of the water. He looked down and saw that his hands were shivering in the cold, but he hadn't felt it until he looked down at them. He rubbed them together in a futile attempt to get warm.
"Okay, sure," Sanosuke agreed, blowing on his hands. He began to tell Kenshin everything, from seeing Saitou at the edge of the riverbanks to running away from the scene at his home. He especially divulged in Saitou's tale of the shapeshifters. It was less divulging, really and more ranting about how stupid the older man must have thought he was.
Kenshin stared off into the distance, remembering hard-fought battles with Saitou and the Shinsengumi. "As hard as I think, I can assume no other reason for Saitou to tell you that: he must want something from you. There's nothing else to gain."
Sanosuke snorted. "First he wants me to disappear, now he wants something from me. Oh, how the wheel of fate turns..."
Kenshin smiled weakly, and it never reached his eyes. Sanosuke saw the falsity there and sighed. "Kenshin, you don't have to humor me. I know what I did was serious. I didn't come here to get my mind off of it. I came because you would know what to do."
Kenshin nodded, letting his expression become blank and impassive. "I know."
"I mean, what do you do when you've accidentally killed someone? And there's no way to convince anyone other than somebody like you that it really was an accident."
"Perhaps you should confess to the police," he suggested again. "Even if they don't believe you, they might be lenient, maybe even ..."
"Like hell I'm going to the cops," Sanosuke growled, folding his arms over his chest in a very childish way. "Don't suggest that again."
"I should have expected as much." Kenshin smiled a bit, and that time it was true.
"Ah. Now there's the Kenshin I like to see," Sanosuke tapped Kenshin's cheek with his fist as a fake punch. "I needed to see that."
Kenshin laid his hands over Sano's bandaged fist and looked deeply into his friend's eyes, compassion shining through those violet windows. Sanosuke felt the warmth in the swordsman's grip as if there were coal under his skin heating him. It felt unbelievably soothing on his cold hand. He leaned in closer and pressed a chilled cheek against Kenshin's warm skin, but then he kept leaning, farther than he meant to. He finally collapsed into the circle of Kenshin's body.
"Sanosuke?" Kenshin cried out, trying not to fall over.
"You're warm," he said, without thinking.
"Oro?"
"I just am tired all of a sudden." His voice came out slow and quiet. It was as if the warmth from Kenshin's hands had traveled through his entire body, surrounding him like a blanket. He could feel himself falling deeper and deeper into sleep, although he struggled to stay awake.
Kenshin could tell Sanosuke was intent on resting. "Perhaps you should stay here at least for the night. I can't think of anyplace where you would be safer."
"Won't Kaoru get pissed off?" Sanosuke mumbled.
"Let's not worry about that now, alright?" Kenshin wrapped his arms around Sano's back. "If you're this tired, you need sleep. But we can't sleep next to the river, alright?"
Sanosuke just nodded and moaned, crawling closer to Kenshin.
"Really Sano, we ought to walk up to the dojo before you fall asleep."
"Mn-hmn," mumbed Sanosuke. He shoved into Kenshin a bit more to get warmer, but only ended up sending he and Kenshin sprawling out onto the grassy earth.
"Erm... Sorry," Sanosuke said, pushing himself up onto all fours. He looked down at Kenshin who laid on his back staring up.
"It's alright. I just got a little crushed, that's all," Kenshin said, his eyes out of focus and wandering.
Sanosuke chuckled, collapsing back onto Kenshin. It felt good to laugh, as if he hadn't in ages. He decided to roll over when a strained "Orooo" came out of Kenshin.
"Sorry, sorry about that," he laughed and laid an arm over his eyes.
The atmosphere sobered up quickly. Sanosuke let himself sigh and was suddenly glad he had covered up his eyes: he could feel himself tearing.
"Sanosuke, com inside now. We should go before it gets too late."
Sanosuke gave no answer. Some time passed before Kenshin spoke again.
"Are you alright?" He asked. "We really should get up to the dojo if you're so tired."
"Do you hate me?" Sanosuke whispered.
Kenshin was silent for many long moments. "I can't hate you, Sano."
"I was too stupid to know my own strength. How could you not hate me?"
"Because you didn't know. You had no intent to take life. I believe that is second-best to not killing."
"I wish I could believe that," Sanosuke said. "But I don't think I do."
Kenshin stood up and leaned over Sanosuke. He held his hand out, offering. "I believe it."
Sanosuke took his hand and pulled himself up. He clasped onto Kenshin's arms and opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted.
" I didn't know you two were rose-boys," chuckled Saitou's voice from where he was hidden in the shadows.
Sanosuke jumped out of his skin and backed away. Kenshin was in front of him in a flash, his hand hovering over the hilt of his sakabatou.
Saitou slowly stepped from the shows and drew his katana. He stepped forward, his sword held with the tip pointing to the sky.
"I warn you now Saitou, do not try to come closer. I do not wish to fight with you tonight."
Saitou only smirked and did something neither Kenshin or Sanosuke thought they would ever see Saitou do: he threw his katana to the ground where it rolled until it stopped before Kenshin's feet. He could only stare at Saitou in astonishment, whose smirk never waned.
"Such overreaction. The way you two are jumping around, it's as if I just killed someone."