Disclaimer: Kaori Yuki is a goddess, and I am nowhere near her talent. ::bows down::
Warnings: light sap, light angst, AU, deathfic but kinda not because of the reincarnation thing. You were warned.
Pairings: Kira/Setsuna

Important! Assume that Katan's waiting a few more years before waking up Rociel, and Kurai's waiting a few more years before stealing Alexiel's body. :)

Blurring

Kira sometimes wonders what would have happened, if things had been different.

He'd had a feeling, somehow, that this lifetime would have been different than all the ones before – that something would have changed in Alexiel's ever-repeating story. He'd had a feeling that . . . maybe Setsuna would be the one to break the cycle. Would be the one to wake up. Would be the one to give Alexiel back to him.

Except it didn't quite work out like that.

Sara leaves, without telling Setsuna. She sends him a letter, once, saying she is happy in England with her new husband, and for him to move on in life without her. Setsuna takes it to heart; Kira notices the tear stains.

After receiving the letter, Setsuna gradually sinks deeper and deeper into a depression, to the point where Kira thinks he can't take care of himself, and so he forces the younger boy to move in with him. Even if Setsuna is destined to die a young and tragic death, he won't let it be from simple malnutrition. Not while he's around.

Katou comes round, sometimes, when he's too strung out from drugs to drag himself back home. Kira tells him to take the bed next to Setsuna, and sometimes thinks he sees a strange form of sympathy crossing the foul-mouthed boy's face.

Kira wonders what he sees, when he looks at Setsuna.

Kira used to see Alexiel. Only Alexiel, with her long black hair and cold eyes. And then he realises he hasn't seen anything black or cold when he looks at Setsuna, for a long time.

Katou sometimes comes to him, when the drug-clouded nightmares are too bad. Kira lies back and lets him ride his cock, knowing the other man escapes from a bad trip this way, grounding himself in hot, solid flesh.

Katou only comes to him once while Setsuna's living with him. Kira knows Setsuna watches them, and that makes him hotter than Katou ever did.

They carry on as normal for a while longer after that. Setsuna slowly rises out of his depression, still missing Sara but not with as sharp a pang as before. Kira decides not to tell him about the tear stains, or the one broken, long-distance phone call he received because Sara just wanted to hear a friendly voice.

He supposes that the unselfish thing to do would be to put them both on a plane to England, to go and drag Sara back with them.

He wonders why he doesn't do it.

Little by little, in slow, baby steps, Setsuna heals a bit more. He looks sad sometimes, staring out of the window at something only he can see, but the rest of the time he acts like normal.

And if Kira occasionally hears him crying at night, he doesn't say anything. He just wonders why it makes his chest hurt.

One day, Setsuna asks him what relationship he and Katou have.

Kira thinks, and says, "We don't have one."

Setsuna then wants to know why Katou was in his bed that one time, and Kira just shrugs and tells him Katou needed comfort he couldn't get anywhere else.

Setsuna sits there for a moment, staring at the tabletop. Kira watches him, the sunlight streaming in through the window burnishing his gold-brown hair and setting a glow in his gold-brown eyes, and wonders why his chest feels tight.

He's not expecting Setsuna to come to him that night.

"I need comfort I can't get anywhere else," Setsuna tells him, pain written large on his face. "Help me, sempai?"

So Kira undresses him slowly and kisses every part of Setsuna he can reach. He runs his hands over the other boy's skin, and thinks that Setsuna is hardly a boy any more. He fucks him slowly, giving Setsuna the kind of comfort he needs, even if it's so very different from Katou's.

When Kira wakes the next morning, Setsuna is gone. He finds him in the kitchenette, and fucks him against the counter. Setsuna bites his lip rather than call out, and even though Kira is the one fucking him he knows the other man is thinking of Sara, and wonders why that makes his chest hurt.

He knows . . . he knows this isn't what Setsuna needs, not really. And he wonders why he doesn't care.

They settle into a routine, quickly and easily. Both had dropped out of school when Setsuna's depression began, and Kira had been relying on his father for support. He decides it's time to stop that, however, and gets a job as a bartender in an up-town club. He forces Setsuna into taking a job as a waiter there, just so he doesn't have to worry about the blond man while he's working.

He wonders when worrying about Setsuna became normal for him.

Kira thinks he likes their routine. Every morning Setsuna wakes before him and starts cooking breakfast. Kira rouses a short while later, and follows him into the kitchenette where they fuck against the wall, or the floor, or the counter. Setsuna complains about having to make breakfast again, but he smiles while he cleans up their mess and finds something else to cook.

Until work starts in the evening, the day is their own. They go out, or stay in, or sometimes don't even manage to leave the kitchen. It's easier to clean up, anyway, Setsuna reasons out loud.

Kira wonders what the tight feeling in his chest is, that never seems to leave.

One day, he wakes up and Setsuna is still in bed with him, sprawled on his chest and grinning down at him. Kira tilts his head at him quizzically.

"I'm not going to forget Sara," Setsuna tells him, still smiling, "but I guess this means I can love two people at once." With that, Setsuna jumps off him and walks quickly out of the room.

Kira lays still for a minute, and suddenly realises what the tight feeling in his chest is.

He gets up slowly, and wanders towards the kitchenette. Setsuna's back is to him, and Kira thinks he sees it tense slightly when the dark-haired man enters. He walks up to his lover – his lover – and wraps his arms around him, pulling Setsuna's back against his chest.

"I love you," he murmurs into the hair the brushes Setsuna's neck, and wonders how he didn't realise it before. Then Setsuna turns in his arms, and Kira thinks that breakfast can wait a while.

Later in the day, Setsuna leaves to get some fresh milk.

He doesn't come back.

After searching for hours, Kira discovers that a drunk driver crashed into the pavement where Setsuna was standing, and killed him instantly, and he wonders how he could have forgotten about Alexiel's curse.

In reality, he knows why. Setsuna. . . .

Setsuna was not Alexiel.

Kira returns to their apartment, and sets everything in order. He writes his father a note, telling him he's sorry, and then wonders why he even cares. He thinks it has to be Setsuna's fault, if only because Setsuna made him feel so many other things.

He smiles as he releases his hold on the body he inhabits. He thanks the original Kira for the loan of his flesh, and rises up above the mass of Tokyo's inhabitants, searching.

It will most likely take him years, he knows. Sometimes he's missed whole lifetimes entirely, and found his self-appointed ward twenty or so years later as a tiny child.

He hopes it won't take that long.

As he begins his search, he wonders who he's looking for.

[Owari]

Minor title explanation point: I couldn't think up a good title for this fic, and "Blurring" was the closest that seemed to fit. Basically, I decided on that one because Kira knows he's feeling stuff, he just doesn't know what he's feeling, so his emotions are "blurred". Crappy, I know. .