Gah gah gah. Gah gah? Gah gah gah gah gah gah!
...and warning for unorthodox pairing and creepy-ass imagery.
*`-,--
"Arashi, babe, come sit by me!"
The priestess, though only mildly irritated, shot Sorata a glare as he patted the space next to him on the sofa.
"Sorata-san, how many times do I--"
"Aw, c'mon, I promise to be nice." His tone softened and his smile became more earnest as he leaned forward. "I promise I won't do anything outta line. Really. Not a thing. Jus' sit down next to me, that's all I'm askin' for."
Somewhere behind her, Yuzuriha giggled, and she could almost hear the younger girl give Subaru a conspiratorial nudge. The hint of "cheerleading" made Arashi want to grit her teeth and find a small animal to kick--but it was Sorata's sweet, pleading smile that sent blood rushing to her cheeks.
"Hn," she managed, and sat down on the sofa, feeling somewhat ridiculous.
"Aw, that's much better." He grinned broadly. "Now was that so bad?"
Fortunately, Subaru seemed to be aware that any more teasing might result in Sorata being dealt a good smack, and spoke up.
"Ah, if you'll give me another minute to get this tuned before Kamui-san and the others come back..."
"No problem," Sorata said. "We'll be glad to hear ya play. I mean, if you can manage somethin' tougher'n 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star', you're a damn sight better'n the rest of us."
"Oh, I'm sure that's not true!" Subaru rubbed the back of his neck, a self-conscious blush staining his cheeks. "I--I mean--it just takes practice, really--"
"Yeah, practice and the ability to not suck. Trust me, that's somethin' I really wish I had when it comes to music. 'S the only reason I don't do romantic moonlight serenades."
Some higher power must have been smiling on Sorata that day to protect him from Arashi's temper: Seiichiro, carrying a can of cheap iced coffee, stepped out of the kitchen just as the priestess was opening her mouth to say something sharp.
"So when will we get to hear you play, Subaru-san?" he asked pleasantly.
"As soon as Karen-san and Kamui-san get here." Subaru knelt and laid the violin case on the floor, carefully undoing the clasps that held it closed. "I'm afraid you'll have to sit through my tuning, though."
"That's all right." Seiichiro smiled and pushed his glasses up a little further on his nose. "You know, my wife wants our daughter to start violin lessons."
"Really? How old is she?"
"Six. Ah, actually, I have a picture--"
"A picture of what, now?"
Karen, adjusting a clip in her tousled strawberry-blond hair, sidled across the threshold with Kamui in tow as the windmaster began to rummage in his trouser pockets.
"Yuka-chan, my daughter... hold on just a moment... ah, I think this is it."
He tugged a small plastic sleeve from his pocket, the kind of thin, soft folder made to hold credit cards, and flipped it open. It was almost overstuffed with pictures, most of them showing a beaming, brown-haired little girl; one, in particular, caught Seiichiro's eye as Subaru stood up with his violin in hand, and he smiled as he slid it from the sleeve and handed it to the young onmyouji.
"There." His voice carried more than a hint of pride. "That was taken on her last birthday."
Subaru's features softened a little in a delighted smile. "Oh, she has a wonderful smile!"
"She's lovely," Karen agreed, peering over the boy's shoulder.
"Hey, share," Sorata piped up from the couch. With a little laugh, the older Seal obliged, stepping past Subaru to hand him the photograph. Arashi, grateful for a distraction from her irritation, leaned over a little to look at it as the young clanhead began to coax quiet, faintly musical sounds from the violin.
"Aw... she's a cutie. She's definitely got her daddy's eyes, huh, Aoki-san?"
"I hope not--glasses aren't much fun," Seiichiro chuckled.
"'Zat so... well, she's gonna be a heartbreaker when she grows up. Mebbe not as pretty as some--" he winked at Arashi conspiratorially-- "but then, I'm real biased."
Arashi, more startled and embarrassed than angry, had to turn her head to hide a blush.
"I see." The windmaster sounded amused. "Yuzuriha-chan, you can look too, if you like."
"Already looking," she chirped, snatching the photo out of Sorata's hand with a mischevious smile. "And, wah, she's so cute! Can I be her adopted big sister?"
"Well, I--"
And then a single, clear, sweetly ringing note cut through the conversation.
Everyone turned, or looked up; the onmyouji's face was just beginning to light with a look of satisfaction. The instrument and its owner seemed to be in perfect harmony as the note continued--just a heartbeat longer--and when Subaru let his gloved bow hand drop slowly to his side, the smile that curved his lips was one of shy pride.
"Wow," Sorata said. "Damn. Um. Mind givin' us a little more of the same?"
"Certainly."
He hesitated for a moment, as if he were trying to remember something that just barely eluded him--and then his eyes slid shut, and the smile returned as he lifted his bow again.
And he played.
The first few notes, languid and soft, were strikingly clear; though his self-consciousness still showed plainly on his face, it was even plainer that he knew his instrument and music intimately. And the music itself, lilting and faintly sad, spun out into the room with a wonderful warmth as if it were wrapping the entire group up in a single slow heartbeat...
The phone rang.
Instantly the magic was gone; Subaru's bow skidded across the strings of the violin with a hideous screech as his concentration broke. The result sounded a lot like fingernails being raked across a blackboard; everyone cringed at once, and Sorata swore quietly.
The phone jangled a second time. The young onmyouji, looking deeply embarrassed, moved towards the kitchen to answer it, but Seiichiro cut him off with a vague gesture.
"I'll get it. Don't worry."
"Sorry," Subaru murmured, fidgeting. Karen gave him an encouraging smile and gestured for him to come stand near her.
"It's okay, Subaru-san. I thought you did very well."
Arashi, still having trouble shaking off the music's warm spell, tried to concentrate on Seiichiro's end of the phone conversation. It wasn't easy with Yuzuriha and Kamui beginning to join Karen in reassuring Subaru they'd liked the performance, but if she concentrated hard enough on shutting out the noise, it fell away neatly and left her with a sharp focus.
"Hello, this is the Imonoyama residence... No. No, this is Aoki Seiichi--yes, I am one of them. May I ask--what? You've--yes, as soon as we can--do you know how--? All right, then, we'll be over as soon as possible... yes... thank you."
"Hey, you."
The priestess startled; Sorata was grinning over at her.
"Wh... what?"
"Nothin'. Just wanted to know what you were thinking... you looked like you had somethin' real serious on your mind." He winked before adding, "You look right pretty when you get that look, y'know that?"
...well, that was unexpected. She blinked, hoping she didn't look like she'd been caught off-guard, and tried to think of something appropriate to say--
"Everyone... we have to head over to the Diet Building."
Seiichiro, leaning against the doorframe on the kitchen threshold, looked unusually pale. His expression was almost unreadable, except for a faint sadness which was just beginning to steal across his features.
"Aoki-san? What's up?"
The older Seal removed his glasses, slowly, closing his eyes.
"It's Princess Hinoto," he murmured. "She's dead."
* * *
The best thing about clove cigarettes--at least, the best thing about them at this very moment--was that the smoke was strong enough to cover the smell of blood.
Sumeragi was faintly surprised at how easy it had been for him to get into the Diet Building. He'd only had to mention his name, and the nervous young man by the elevator had stepped aside with a respectful bow. No one had given him a second glance as he left. The adrenaline rush this time had been incredible, too--intense, almost feverish, but so brief that his hands were trembling by the time he'd come back to the Government Building.
Though he'd washed his hands once below ground in the Diet Building, the oily, slippery feel of blood still clung faintly to his skin. This time he knew it wouldn't fade unless he returned to the Tree, but... he couldn't go back to Ueno. Something about the prospect of hearing that chorus of voices again made his skin crawl. He needed to be in a warm room with another human being. He needed to somehow trick himself into forgetting he'd killed three people in the space of five hours.
And, much to his surprise, he found his thoughts straying to one particular person, and to the taste of bitter chocolate and cinnamon on his tongue.
Yuuto had been sitting by himself, nursing a clove, in the room where they'd had tea earlier. One cup and its saucer still sat in the centre of the table--though now the green liquid was no longer in the cup but above it, weaving intricate geometric patterns in mid-air as if moving to the strains of some music Sumeragi couldn't hear.
He stood in the doorway a moment or two, just watching, before Yuuto noticed his presence. The watercaster flashed him a smile, offering out the cigarette as the tea cascaded back into its cup.
"Finished with your errand, Sumeragi-san?" he asked pleasantly.
"Yeah... thanks."
He took the cigarette and inhaled deeply. Despite the fact that the room was relatively warm, he felt as if there were a cold breath of air constantly following him, chilling his skin--probably the result of standing in the rain earlier, or his encounter with the Tree, or both.
"...ah, Shiyu-san! Just in the nick of time. Won't you join us?"
The ever-so-slightly hollow ring in Yuuto's tone made Sumeragi turn, and he took in the broad tall shadow of a man standing in the doorway. He was vaguely certain he'd seen this person somewhere before, but couldn't quite place the square line of his jaw or the wide span of his shoulders.
"Ah." The syllable was almost a rumble. "I don't smoke, Kigai-san."
"Neither do I," Yuuto replied gleefully. "Join us anyway."
"No thanks."
And with that, he was gone.
Yuuto tsk'ed and pulled the pack out of his jacket pocket, tapping out another slim black cigarette. "Sorry. He's not very social."
"He's another one of the--?"
"Yes. Have a seat, Sumeragi-san, this is a very comfortable couch."
He had to fight not to blush--which was frustrating, considering he didn't know why the embarrassment rose in his throat--but reminded himself that Yuuto was in effect a colleague and thus deserved a polite response.
"Thanks," he murmured around his cigarette, and sat down next to him. God, it was getting chilly in this damn room. He hadn't remembered it being this cold this morning... or maybe he was coming down with something? He didn't get sick often, so he tended to forget what it felt like when he did--
"Sumeragi-san?"
He blinked; Yuuto was watching him with a spark of concern in his blue eyes.
"Are you all right? You look cold."
Sumeragi tried to come up with a witty response about his inherited coat, about the air conditioning, about something. He tried to think of an intelligent way to brush off the other man's words, to show that he could be just as pleasantly frustrating.
He tried, but what he managed after a moment of silence was, "I do?"
"You're shivering."
I'm also an idiot, he scolded himself, as he shifted to pull the coat tighter around his shoulders. "Oh, I'm just... a little chilly, is all. I don't think this coat has a thick enough lining for winter."
Yuuto fingered the dark-green scarf around his neck, toying with the fringe almost idly. "There are ways to compensate for that, you know."
...compensate? The Sakurazukamori couldn't help but frown in confusion--what the hell was Yuuto getting at?
"Here."
And in one fluid motion, he lifted the scarf from his own shoulders and looped it around Sumeragi's neck.
Somewhere between his forehead and his collarbone, Sumeragi felt something shudder and give way.
He was so like Seishirou. So very like him, teasing laughter and beautiful eyes and all; even the way his tousled sandy hair spilled across his forehead reminded him of the assassin. But Seishirou had never gotten quite this close--he would have remembered a jolt like the one that threatened to make the muscles of his shoulder twitch and shudder when the watercaster's hand grazed his lapel. Sumeragi had no word for it, and didn't want one: all he knew was that Yuuto was close to him, breath just brushing the edge of his jawline, intoxicating warmth and that damn beautiful empty smile that taunted him like the glittering edge of a knife...
"Better?" Yuuto murmured, and Sumeragi felt heat stinging his cheeks.
"Much," he said weakly, and hoped the other man couldn't tell it was a lie.
* * *
The yumemi, in death, looked like a handful of shattered porcelain.
Her kimono was spread wide around her, great wide wings of stained and torn silk; there was blood in her white hair and under her fingernails, and one of her perfect small hands lay half covering the jagged hole where her heart should have been.
It was all Kamui could do to keep his knees from giving out.
He couldn't get used to the physical reality of death. True, by now he was intimately familiar with the slaughterhouse blood smell, the conclusive stillness that covered corpses like a veil, the various brown and black and red tones of blood. But the fact that a now-lifeless bunch of limbs had once held a psyche, a voice, a person, and that that person had gone somewhere he couldn't follow--that, he could never get used to. It was unfair; it made him want to cry and retch and rail at whatever Heaven had chosen him.
But then, maybe that was why he'd been chosen in the first place.
"Kamui-san?"
The voice that pulled him back from his thoughts was Seiichiro's; the younger Seal was dismayed to see how pale and bereaved he looked.
"Um. Yeah?"
"Subaru-san found one of the Princess' bodyguards."
"One?"
Wordlessly Seiichiro glanced at the floor, his eyes tracing a path towards the yumemi's corpse. Kamui followed his gaze, curious; he saw that one of the tiny golden bells had been ripped off the shoulder of Hinoto's costume, and now lay silent and glinting on the floor inside a messy semicircle of sakura petals.
Kamui's eyes widened.
"But... how could...?"
"Seiichiro-san! Kamui-san! Come quick!"
Subaru--who had insisted on coming with them to help--had discovered Hien, staring sightlessly into space with dull eyes, curled into a ball in the very furthest corner of the antechamber. Her once-vibrant costume was stained almost the colour of mahogany with blood, and for a terrible moment it looked like she had suffered the same fate as Hinoto--and then a single tear slid down her cheek, and her lips stirred faintly with a short breath.
"Did you find Souhi-san?" Subaru asked, glancing up at them.
"No... what's happened to--?"
"She's locked inside her own heart now," the onmyouji murmured. "I can try to bring her back, to tell us what happened... but it'll be difficult."
Kamui tried not to shiver, but nodded his consent. "Do what you need to. We'll be right here."
He smiled his gratitude, then knelt beside Hien and placed a gloved hand on her forehead. The stream of Sanskrit that fell from his lips, soft and vaguely musical, soon trailed off into a murmur as his body relaxed into unconsciousness.
* * *
The dreamscape was a ruin.
It looked like it might once have been something like a traditional family house or a dojo; now, where Subaru imagined he might once have been able to walk uninterrupted through a wide, spacious hall, he had to pick his way over fallen beams, splintered floorboards, shreds of strong thin paper from the wrecked walls. Dark and rusty stains spattered the floor underfoot; overhead was a mass of black and starless sky.
"Hien-san?" he called, softly.
At the other end of the hallway, the shadows blurred slightly. One shape, tall and long and very black, began to move slowly along the wall towards him. With a little effort of will he forced himself to climb over the collapsed form of what had once been a doorframe--carefully, as something had already eaten away holes in the once-solid wood of the threshold floorboards--and haltingly picked his way towards the shape.
As he got closer, the shape became a silhouette, and the silhouette became a human, a tall man who stopped walking as Subaru drew near. The stranger, dressed in an elegant black coat a little too big for him, was strikingly beautiful in a very sad way--though his right eye was milky-white (probably blind, Subaru thought), his left eye was vibrant green, full of the sort of coldness people develop when they have been alone too long to envision being anything else.
The young onmyouji swallowed hard and tried to ignore the feeling that he knew the stranger's face.
"Excuse me--"
If the older man had any idea what Subaru wanted, he didn't let on. He merely lifted one hand--long and graceful and covered in dark blood--and laid his palm against a panel of wallpaper, dragging it slowly down the clean, pale surface. An ugly smear of red split the pale-yellow panel like an open wound.
"I'll kill you, you know," he murmured.
A quiet sob came from somewhere behind him. Subaru looked past the stranger to see Hien lying on her side, much the same way as she had been when he'd found her, her eyes fixed in terror on the long streak of blood that now cut across the wall.
"Hien-san!"
Her eyes found a focus on him, briefly, and she whimpered; something moved Subaru to turn around. The man in black had been replaced by Souhi, who smiled at him for just a brief instant before an explosion of blood and pale sakura petals tore her chest nearly in half. He flinched as she began to tumble forward, heading straight for him--and then in a flurry of soft pink, she was simply gone, leaving nothing behind but a chilly breath of air and a snowfall of petals.
"I should have noticed," Hien murmured, her voice broken and hoarse. "It's my fault."
Subaru saw a slant of light open up somewhere at the other end of the hall, saw two children with the same face playing and laughing and learning together.
"We've never been apart. We've protected each other all our lives. We were planning..."
He saw the twins, slightly older, reading. He saw one braiding the other's hair. He saw one confide excitedly to the other about the prospect of a first kiss, a beautiful cousin who had come to teach them how to sense magic in people and buildings and objects.
"...we were planning to go home... for our birthday... because it's our twentieth..."
He saw a doll-like hand come up to touch one twin's face, heard a childlike voice murmuring heartfelt words of welcome.
Somehow he tore his eyes away and knelt at Hien's side.
"Hien-san, listen to me."
She looked up, and her brown eyes were overbright with despair; her fingers worked slowly, curling and uncurling around a few bloody sakura petals.
And Subaru hugged her, suddenly, tightly.
"If you want to stay here, that's fine," he whispered. "I know I can't understand your pain, not even a little bit. And I know that part of you may never stop mourning her, because she meant so much to you. But, Hien-san..."
Her slender frame trembled with what might have been the beginning of a sob. Subaru brought a gloved hand up to stroke her hair, soothingly, slowly.
"Hien-san, she was your sister. She loved you. She would have wanted you to be happy, to live your life. And... that'll take time. I understand. The others will, too. But she wouldn't have wanted you to spend your life grieving over her... not when you can honour her memory with your smile."
There was something warm on his neck--tears. Hien's hands came up to grip his jacket as a choked noise shook free of her throat.
"I--I--miss her--so much--"
"She's not gone," he murmured. "Not as long as you still love her."
"I don't know what I'll do..."
"I know. You don't have to. But I'll do everything I can to help you--and so will Kamui-san, and Karen-san, and all of the others."
Around them, the dreamscape began to grow greyer, the ruins blurring slightly. Subaru nearly startled, but then realised that Hien's sobs were slowing. She was slipping from her catatonia into a natural sleep, and when she woke from that, the hallway would be only a memory of a bad dream.
"Are you tired?" he whispered.
There was a very long pause. The air around them was heavy, warm, fuzzing out everything at the edges. A steady sound--the slow rasp of her breathing--washed in slow rhythm in his ears as she relaxed into his shoulder.
"Yes."
He woke to find Hien curled up against his knees, nestling towards his warmth as if he were the last safe thing in the world.
* * *
Sumeragi didn't stay in the building long, choosing instead to go back to his apartment and try to find a little comfort in sleep. Though strange jolts of almost-electric energy swept through him when he thought of his borrowed scarf (now buried in the folds of his coat on the chair by the door), several deep breaths easily banished those thoughts, and he found his thoughts running in comfortably empty circles after a little while.
He was almost asleep when it happened.
The Tree's presence caught him up, swept him into warmth and comfort like a mother cradling her child.
My Sumeragi. My child, My guardian. Let Me show you how I reward My faithful.
He tried to come up with some sort of respose, but he was so heavy with the rush of affection, so tired...
You give Me the power of the dead... and I can show you the things you most wish for. I will weave the love they felt in their lives into your dreams, into the things you have wanted for so long.
Sumeragi felt like he was falling, slowly, drifting into shadow on a current of warm air and feathers. I don't understand.
Let Me show you.
And the dream took hold in the next breath he drew.
* * *
First there was darkness, and then there was Him.
The other details filtered through slowly: the click of Sumeragi's lighter, the dark-brown taste of cigarette smoke in his mouth. Rainbow Bridge loomed like the walls of some immense white prison around him.
"It's not your wish to kill me, is it."
Sumeragi closed his eyes. He could feel Seishirou's warmth just behind him, could nearly feel the warm breath stirring the hairs at the back of his neck.
"Look at me."
He couldn't disobey. Fighting the little flashes of pain that struck the insides of his lungs every time he breathed, he looked up into Seishirou's face--and, as he always was, found himself amazed at the man's sheer predatory beauty.
And then, quite unexpectedly, Seishirou's hand--still dripping with someone else's lifeblood--was on his cheek. The gesture should have made him flinch, should have made him scream, but the warmth was too tantalizing to resist...
"Why, Subaru-kun?" The assassin's voice was softer than usual. "I thought you hated me."
Sumeragi felt pain lance briefly through his chest; tears stung his eyes. "I... I tried to."
"You should have."
"I know, all right? I know. It's just--I couldn't stop--"
"Couldn't stop what?"
He had to take a deep breath before continuing, his voice nearly a whisper.
"Loving you."
Seishirou's hand slipped from his cheek and travelled down the curve of his throat, coming to rest just over his heart.
And then he smiled.
"You were wrong," he said softly. "I haven't killed in weeks."
And, sure enough, the blood--no more than an illusion--was already fading from Seishirou's long fingers.
The tears, miraculously, didn't spill over; though the vision in his good eye blurred fiercely for a moment, the wild joy that broke free beneath his collarbone took over his entire being.
Seishirou smiled again, and this smile--like the first--was genuine.
"Your heart is pounding, Subaru-kun," he murmured. "But then I suppose some things never change."
And then he leaned forward, and before Sumeragi could fully process what was happening, the older man's lips were pushed lightly against his. There was a brief moment of shock--or was it fire, turning his veins and very thoughts to hot gold?--and then his eyes slipped shut, and the kiss became deeper, endless time-defying layers of perfect delicious sensation...
When he woke, there were tears on his face, but when the revelation that he had only been dreaming took hold, he wept late into the night.
...and warning for unorthodox pairing and creepy-ass imagery.
*`-,--
"Arashi, babe, come sit by me!"
The priestess, though only mildly irritated, shot Sorata a glare as he patted the space next to him on the sofa.
"Sorata-san, how many times do I--"
"Aw, c'mon, I promise to be nice." His tone softened and his smile became more earnest as he leaned forward. "I promise I won't do anything outta line. Really. Not a thing. Jus' sit down next to me, that's all I'm askin' for."
Somewhere behind her, Yuzuriha giggled, and she could almost hear the younger girl give Subaru a conspiratorial nudge. The hint of "cheerleading" made Arashi want to grit her teeth and find a small animal to kick--but it was Sorata's sweet, pleading smile that sent blood rushing to her cheeks.
"Hn," she managed, and sat down on the sofa, feeling somewhat ridiculous.
"Aw, that's much better." He grinned broadly. "Now was that so bad?"
Fortunately, Subaru seemed to be aware that any more teasing might result in Sorata being dealt a good smack, and spoke up.
"Ah, if you'll give me another minute to get this tuned before Kamui-san and the others come back..."
"No problem," Sorata said. "We'll be glad to hear ya play. I mean, if you can manage somethin' tougher'n 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star', you're a damn sight better'n the rest of us."
"Oh, I'm sure that's not true!" Subaru rubbed the back of his neck, a self-conscious blush staining his cheeks. "I--I mean--it just takes practice, really--"
"Yeah, practice and the ability to not suck. Trust me, that's somethin' I really wish I had when it comes to music. 'S the only reason I don't do romantic moonlight serenades."
Some higher power must have been smiling on Sorata that day to protect him from Arashi's temper: Seiichiro, carrying a can of cheap iced coffee, stepped out of the kitchen just as the priestess was opening her mouth to say something sharp.
"So when will we get to hear you play, Subaru-san?" he asked pleasantly.
"As soon as Karen-san and Kamui-san get here." Subaru knelt and laid the violin case on the floor, carefully undoing the clasps that held it closed. "I'm afraid you'll have to sit through my tuning, though."
"That's all right." Seiichiro smiled and pushed his glasses up a little further on his nose. "You know, my wife wants our daughter to start violin lessons."
"Really? How old is she?"
"Six. Ah, actually, I have a picture--"
"A picture of what, now?"
Karen, adjusting a clip in her tousled strawberry-blond hair, sidled across the threshold with Kamui in tow as the windmaster began to rummage in his trouser pockets.
"Yuka-chan, my daughter... hold on just a moment... ah, I think this is it."
He tugged a small plastic sleeve from his pocket, the kind of thin, soft folder made to hold credit cards, and flipped it open. It was almost overstuffed with pictures, most of them showing a beaming, brown-haired little girl; one, in particular, caught Seiichiro's eye as Subaru stood up with his violin in hand, and he smiled as he slid it from the sleeve and handed it to the young onmyouji.
"There." His voice carried more than a hint of pride. "That was taken on her last birthday."
Subaru's features softened a little in a delighted smile. "Oh, she has a wonderful smile!"
"She's lovely," Karen agreed, peering over the boy's shoulder.
"Hey, share," Sorata piped up from the couch. With a little laugh, the older Seal obliged, stepping past Subaru to hand him the photograph. Arashi, grateful for a distraction from her irritation, leaned over a little to look at it as the young clanhead began to coax quiet, faintly musical sounds from the violin.
"Aw... she's a cutie. She's definitely got her daddy's eyes, huh, Aoki-san?"
"I hope not--glasses aren't much fun," Seiichiro chuckled.
"'Zat so... well, she's gonna be a heartbreaker when she grows up. Mebbe not as pretty as some--" he winked at Arashi conspiratorially-- "but then, I'm real biased."
Arashi, more startled and embarrassed than angry, had to turn her head to hide a blush.
"I see." The windmaster sounded amused. "Yuzuriha-chan, you can look too, if you like."
"Already looking," she chirped, snatching the photo out of Sorata's hand with a mischevious smile. "And, wah, she's so cute! Can I be her adopted big sister?"
"Well, I--"
And then a single, clear, sweetly ringing note cut through the conversation.
Everyone turned, or looked up; the onmyouji's face was just beginning to light with a look of satisfaction. The instrument and its owner seemed to be in perfect harmony as the note continued--just a heartbeat longer--and when Subaru let his gloved bow hand drop slowly to his side, the smile that curved his lips was one of shy pride.
"Wow," Sorata said. "Damn. Um. Mind givin' us a little more of the same?"
"Certainly."
He hesitated for a moment, as if he were trying to remember something that just barely eluded him--and then his eyes slid shut, and the smile returned as he lifted his bow again.
And he played.
The first few notes, languid and soft, were strikingly clear; though his self-consciousness still showed plainly on his face, it was even plainer that he knew his instrument and music intimately. And the music itself, lilting and faintly sad, spun out into the room with a wonderful warmth as if it were wrapping the entire group up in a single slow heartbeat...
The phone rang.
Instantly the magic was gone; Subaru's bow skidded across the strings of the violin with a hideous screech as his concentration broke. The result sounded a lot like fingernails being raked across a blackboard; everyone cringed at once, and Sorata swore quietly.
The phone jangled a second time. The young onmyouji, looking deeply embarrassed, moved towards the kitchen to answer it, but Seiichiro cut him off with a vague gesture.
"I'll get it. Don't worry."
"Sorry," Subaru murmured, fidgeting. Karen gave him an encouraging smile and gestured for him to come stand near her.
"It's okay, Subaru-san. I thought you did very well."
Arashi, still having trouble shaking off the music's warm spell, tried to concentrate on Seiichiro's end of the phone conversation. It wasn't easy with Yuzuriha and Kamui beginning to join Karen in reassuring Subaru they'd liked the performance, but if she concentrated hard enough on shutting out the noise, it fell away neatly and left her with a sharp focus.
"Hello, this is the Imonoyama residence... No. No, this is Aoki Seiichi--yes, I am one of them. May I ask--what? You've--yes, as soon as we can--do you know how--? All right, then, we'll be over as soon as possible... yes... thank you."
"Hey, you."
The priestess startled; Sorata was grinning over at her.
"Wh... what?"
"Nothin'. Just wanted to know what you were thinking... you looked like you had somethin' real serious on your mind." He winked before adding, "You look right pretty when you get that look, y'know that?"
...well, that was unexpected. She blinked, hoping she didn't look like she'd been caught off-guard, and tried to think of something appropriate to say--
"Everyone... we have to head over to the Diet Building."
Seiichiro, leaning against the doorframe on the kitchen threshold, looked unusually pale. His expression was almost unreadable, except for a faint sadness which was just beginning to steal across his features.
"Aoki-san? What's up?"
The older Seal removed his glasses, slowly, closing his eyes.
"It's Princess Hinoto," he murmured. "She's dead."
* * *
The best thing about clove cigarettes--at least, the best thing about them at this very moment--was that the smoke was strong enough to cover the smell of blood.
Sumeragi was faintly surprised at how easy it had been for him to get into the Diet Building. He'd only had to mention his name, and the nervous young man by the elevator had stepped aside with a respectful bow. No one had given him a second glance as he left. The adrenaline rush this time had been incredible, too--intense, almost feverish, but so brief that his hands were trembling by the time he'd come back to the Government Building.
Though he'd washed his hands once below ground in the Diet Building, the oily, slippery feel of blood still clung faintly to his skin. This time he knew it wouldn't fade unless he returned to the Tree, but... he couldn't go back to Ueno. Something about the prospect of hearing that chorus of voices again made his skin crawl. He needed to be in a warm room with another human being. He needed to somehow trick himself into forgetting he'd killed three people in the space of five hours.
And, much to his surprise, he found his thoughts straying to one particular person, and to the taste of bitter chocolate and cinnamon on his tongue.
Yuuto had been sitting by himself, nursing a clove, in the room where they'd had tea earlier. One cup and its saucer still sat in the centre of the table--though now the green liquid was no longer in the cup but above it, weaving intricate geometric patterns in mid-air as if moving to the strains of some music Sumeragi couldn't hear.
He stood in the doorway a moment or two, just watching, before Yuuto noticed his presence. The watercaster flashed him a smile, offering out the cigarette as the tea cascaded back into its cup.
"Finished with your errand, Sumeragi-san?" he asked pleasantly.
"Yeah... thanks."
He took the cigarette and inhaled deeply. Despite the fact that the room was relatively warm, he felt as if there were a cold breath of air constantly following him, chilling his skin--probably the result of standing in the rain earlier, or his encounter with the Tree, or both.
"...ah, Shiyu-san! Just in the nick of time. Won't you join us?"
The ever-so-slightly hollow ring in Yuuto's tone made Sumeragi turn, and he took in the broad tall shadow of a man standing in the doorway. He was vaguely certain he'd seen this person somewhere before, but couldn't quite place the square line of his jaw or the wide span of his shoulders.
"Ah." The syllable was almost a rumble. "I don't smoke, Kigai-san."
"Neither do I," Yuuto replied gleefully. "Join us anyway."
"No thanks."
And with that, he was gone.
Yuuto tsk'ed and pulled the pack out of his jacket pocket, tapping out another slim black cigarette. "Sorry. He's not very social."
"He's another one of the--?"
"Yes. Have a seat, Sumeragi-san, this is a very comfortable couch."
He had to fight not to blush--which was frustrating, considering he didn't know why the embarrassment rose in his throat--but reminded himself that Yuuto was in effect a colleague and thus deserved a polite response.
"Thanks," he murmured around his cigarette, and sat down next to him. God, it was getting chilly in this damn room. He hadn't remembered it being this cold this morning... or maybe he was coming down with something? He didn't get sick often, so he tended to forget what it felt like when he did--
"Sumeragi-san?"
He blinked; Yuuto was watching him with a spark of concern in his blue eyes.
"Are you all right? You look cold."
Sumeragi tried to come up with a witty response about his inherited coat, about the air conditioning, about something. He tried to think of an intelligent way to brush off the other man's words, to show that he could be just as pleasantly frustrating.
He tried, but what he managed after a moment of silence was, "I do?"
"You're shivering."
I'm also an idiot, he scolded himself, as he shifted to pull the coat tighter around his shoulders. "Oh, I'm just... a little chilly, is all. I don't think this coat has a thick enough lining for winter."
Yuuto fingered the dark-green scarf around his neck, toying with the fringe almost idly. "There are ways to compensate for that, you know."
...compensate? The Sakurazukamori couldn't help but frown in confusion--what the hell was Yuuto getting at?
"Here."
And in one fluid motion, he lifted the scarf from his own shoulders and looped it around Sumeragi's neck.
Somewhere between his forehead and his collarbone, Sumeragi felt something shudder and give way.
He was so like Seishirou. So very like him, teasing laughter and beautiful eyes and all; even the way his tousled sandy hair spilled across his forehead reminded him of the assassin. But Seishirou had never gotten quite this close--he would have remembered a jolt like the one that threatened to make the muscles of his shoulder twitch and shudder when the watercaster's hand grazed his lapel. Sumeragi had no word for it, and didn't want one: all he knew was that Yuuto was close to him, breath just brushing the edge of his jawline, intoxicating warmth and that damn beautiful empty smile that taunted him like the glittering edge of a knife...
"Better?" Yuuto murmured, and Sumeragi felt heat stinging his cheeks.
"Much," he said weakly, and hoped the other man couldn't tell it was a lie.
* * *
The yumemi, in death, looked like a handful of shattered porcelain.
Her kimono was spread wide around her, great wide wings of stained and torn silk; there was blood in her white hair and under her fingernails, and one of her perfect small hands lay half covering the jagged hole where her heart should have been.
It was all Kamui could do to keep his knees from giving out.
He couldn't get used to the physical reality of death. True, by now he was intimately familiar with the slaughterhouse blood smell, the conclusive stillness that covered corpses like a veil, the various brown and black and red tones of blood. But the fact that a now-lifeless bunch of limbs had once held a psyche, a voice, a person, and that that person had gone somewhere he couldn't follow--that, he could never get used to. It was unfair; it made him want to cry and retch and rail at whatever Heaven had chosen him.
But then, maybe that was why he'd been chosen in the first place.
"Kamui-san?"
The voice that pulled him back from his thoughts was Seiichiro's; the younger Seal was dismayed to see how pale and bereaved he looked.
"Um. Yeah?"
"Subaru-san found one of the Princess' bodyguards."
"One?"
Wordlessly Seiichiro glanced at the floor, his eyes tracing a path towards the yumemi's corpse. Kamui followed his gaze, curious; he saw that one of the tiny golden bells had been ripped off the shoulder of Hinoto's costume, and now lay silent and glinting on the floor inside a messy semicircle of sakura petals.
Kamui's eyes widened.
"But... how could...?"
"Seiichiro-san! Kamui-san! Come quick!"
Subaru--who had insisted on coming with them to help--had discovered Hien, staring sightlessly into space with dull eyes, curled into a ball in the very furthest corner of the antechamber. Her once-vibrant costume was stained almost the colour of mahogany with blood, and for a terrible moment it looked like she had suffered the same fate as Hinoto--and then a single tear slid down her cheek, and her lips stirred faintly with a short breath.
"Did you find Souhi-san?" Subaru asked, glancing up at them.
"No... what's happened to--?"
"She's locked inside her own heart now," the onmyouji murmured. "I can try to bring her back, to tell us what happened... but it'll be difficult."
Kamui tried not to shiver, but nodded his consent. "Do what you need to. We'll be right here."
He smiled his gratitude, then knelt beside Hien and placed a gloved hand on her forehead. The stream of Sanskrit that fell from his lips, soft and vaguely musical, soon trailed off into a murmur as his body relaxed into unconsciousness.
* * *
The dreamscape was a ruin.
It looked like it might once have been something like a traditional family house or a dojo; now, where Subaru imagined he might once have been able to walk uninterrupted through a wide, spacious hall, he had to pick his way over fallen beams, splintered floorboards, shreds of strong thin paper from the wrecked walls. Dark and rusty stains spattered the floor underfoot; overhead was a mass of black and starless sky.
"Hien-san?" he called, softly.
At the other end of the hallway, the shadows blurred slightly. One shape, tall and long and very black, began to move slowly along the wall towards him. With a little effort of will he forced himself to climb over the collapsed form of what had once been a doorframe--carefully, as something had already eaten away holes in the once-solid wood of the threshold floorboards--and haltingly picked his way towards the shape.
As he got closer, the shape became a silhouette, and the silhouette became a human, a tall man who stopped walking as Subaru drew near. The stranger, dressed in an elegant black coat a little too big for him, was strikingly beautiful in a very sad way--though his right eye was milky-white (probably blind, Subaru thought), his left eye was vibrant green, full of the sort of coldness people develop when they have been alone too long to envision being anything else.
The young onmyouji swallowed hard and tried to ignore the feeling that he knew the stranger's face.
"Excuse me--"
If the older man had any idea what Subaru wanted, he didn't let on. He merely lifted one hand--long and graceful and covered in dark blood--and laid his palm against a panel of wallpaper, dragging it slowly down the clean, pale surface. An ugly smear of red split the pale-yellow panel like an open wound.
"I'll kill you, you know," he murmured.
A quiet sob came from somewhere behind him. Subaru looked past the stranger to see Hien lying on her side, much the same way as she had been when he'd found her, her eyes fixed in terror on the long streak of blood that now cut across the wall.
"Hien-san!"
Her eyes found a focus on him, briefly, and she whimpered; something moved Subaru to turn around. The man in black had been replaced by Souhi, who smiled at him for just a brief instant before an explosion of blood and pale sakura petals tore her chest nearly in half. He flinched as she began to tumble forward, heading straight for him--and then in a flurry of soft pink, she was simply gone, leaving nothing behind but a chilly breath of air and a snowfall of petals.
"I should have noticed," Hien murmured, her voice broken and hoarse. "It's my fault."
Subaru saw a slant of light open up somewhere at the other end of the hall, saw two children with the same face playing and laughing and learning together.
"We've never been apart. We've protected each other all our lives. We were planning..."
He saw the twins, slightly older, reading. He saw one braiding the other's hair. He saw one confide excitedly to the other about the prospect of a first kiss, a beautiful cousin who had come to teach them how to sense magic in people and buildings and objects.
"...we were planning to go home... for our birthday... because it's our twentieth..."
He saw a doll-like hand come up to touch one twin's face, heard a childlike voice murmuring heartfelt words of welcome.
Somehow he tore his eyes away and knelt at Hien's side.
"Hien-san, listen to me."
She looked up, and her brown eyes were overbright with despair; her fingers worked slowly, curling and uncurling around a few bloody sakura petals.
And Subaru hugged her, suddenly, tightly.
"If you want to stay here, that's fine," he whispered. "I know I can't understand your pain, not even a little bit. And I know that part of you may never stop mourning her, because she meant so much to you. But, Hien-san..."
Her slender frame trembled with what might have been the beginning of a sob. Subaru brought a gloved hand up to stroke her hair, soothingly, slowly.
"Hien-san, she was your sister. She loved you. She would have wanted you to be happy, to live your life. And... that'll take time. I understand. The others will, too. But she wouldn't have wanted you to spend your life grieving over her... not when you can honour her memory with your smile."
There was something warm on his neck--tears. Hien's hands came up to grip his jacket as a choked noise shook free of her throat.
"I--I--miss her--so much--"
"She's not gone," he murmured. "Not as long as you still love her."
"I don't know what I'll do..."
"I know. You don't have to. But I'll do everything I can to help you--and so will Kamui-san, and Karen-san, and all of the others."
Around them, the dreamscape began to grow greyer, the ruins blurring slightly. Subaru nearly startled, but then realised that Hien's sobs were slowing. She was slipping from her catatonia into a natural sleep, and when she woke from that, the hallway would be only a memory of a bad dream.
"Are you tired?" he whispered.
There was a very long pause. The air around them was heavy, warm, fuzzing out everything at the edges. A steady sound--the slow rasp of her breathing--washed in slow rhythm in his ears as she relaxed into his shoulder.
"Yes."
He woke to find Hien curled up against his knees, nestling towards his warmth as if he were the last safe thing in the world.
* * *
Sumeragi didn't stay in the building long, choosing instead to go back to his apartment and try to find a little comfort in sleep. Though strange jolts of almost-electric energy swept through him when he thought of his borrowed scarf (now buried in the folds of his coat on the chair by the door), several deep breaths easily banished those thoughts, and he found his thoughts running in comfortably empty circles after a little while.
He was almost asleep when it happened.
The Tree's presence caught him up, swept him into warmth and comfort like a mother cradling her child.
My Sumeragi. My child, My guardian. Let Me show you how I reward My faithful.
He tried to come up with some sort of respose, but he was so heavy with the rush of affection, so tired...
You give Me the power of the dead... and I can show you the things you most wish for. I will weave the love they felt in their lives into your dreams, into the things you have wanted for so long.
Sumeragi felt like he was falling, slowly, drifting into shadow on a current of warm air and feathers. I don't understand.
Let Me show you.
And the dream took hold in the next breath he drew.
* * *
First there was darkness, and then there was Him.
The other details filtered through slowly: the click of Sumeragi's lighter, the dark-brown taste of cigarette smoke in his mouth. Rainbow Bridge loomed like the walls of some immense white prison around him.
"It's not your wish to kill me, is it."
Sumeragi closed his eyes. He could feel Seishirou's warmth just behind him, could nearly feel the warm breath stirring the hairs at the back of his neck.
"Look at me."
He couldn't disobey. Fighting the little flashes of pain that struck the insides of his lungs every time he breathed, he looked up into Seishirou's face--and, as he always was, found himself amazed at the man's sheer predatory beauty.
And then, quite unexpectedly, Seishirou's hand--still dripping with someone else's lifeblood--was on his cheek. The gesture should have made him flinch, should have made him scream, but the warmth was too tantalizing to resist...
"Why, Subaru-kun?" The assassin's voice was softer than usual. "I thought you hated me."
Sumeragi felt pain lance briefly through his chest; tears stung his eyes. "I... I tried to."
"You should have."
"I know, all right? I know. It's just--I couldn't stop--"
"Couldn't stop what?"
He had to take a deep breath before continuing, his voice nearly a whisper.
"Loving you."
Seishirou's hand slipped from his cheek and travelled down the curve of his throat, coming to rest just over his heart.
And then he smiled.
"You were wrong," he said softly. "I haven't killed in weeks."
And, sure enough, the blood--no more than an illusion--was already fading from Seishirou's long fingers.
The tears, miraculously, didn't spill over; though the vision in his good eye blurred fiercely for a moment, the wild joy that broke free beneath his collarbone took over his entire being.
Seishirou smiled again, and this smile--like the first--was genuine.
"Your heart is pounding, Subaru-kun," he murmured. "But then I suppose some things never change."
And then he leaned forward, and before Sumeragi could fully process what was happening, the older man's lips were pushed lightly against his. There was a brief moment of shock--or was it fire, turning his veins and very thoughts to hot gold?--and then his eyes slipped shut, and the kiss became deeper, endless time-defying layers of perfect delicious sensation...
When he woke, there were tears on his face, but when the revelation that he had only been dreaming took hold, he wept late into the night.