eschaton
0.
Akutsu hangs around, sort of, until the third year of high school. He doesn't bother going to first period much, and even then only shows up long after class has started -- when he enters, he always flops down in a desk at the back and glares at the teacher. Often, he doesn't show up until lunch-time, cigarette in hand as he struts through the school gates. It's rumored that he has a job, during school hours when he shouldn't be working, but when they ask Dan about it he just shrugs helplessly and says he really doesn't know, and Minami says that he gave up on trying to figure out Akutsu three years ago so there's no way he'd know, either.
Sengoku thinks that it's their own bad luck that no one thinks of asking him.
1.
It's the math teacher who finally works up the nerve to call home and ask just why it is that Akutsu's been gone for so long -- nearly a month now, and Dan still doesn't know where he's gone. Because Akutsu's gone, this time, not just temporarily absent but really gone, even though it takes the freshman three weeks to realize it, three to accept it, and three months before he thinks he's maybe alright with it.
Sengoku doesn't let himself think about it long enough to mind.
Calls home don't get an answer, and the math teacher even goes to Akutsu's home just to find it empty and boarded up, no explanation given. Their neighbors can only answer with muffled sounds of annoyance and tired glares, "Oh, them, they moved out a while ago. No, didn't say where they were going, sorry."
2.
Five months later, Akutsu opens the newspaper and finds yet another reason not to go back, because now there's one less person he knows there.
Five years later, he still thinks of it sometimes, less angry but more distant. He thinks of working at the airport, then decides that he's not that kind; if other people happen to die because of stupid errors in the control tower, it's certainly not his fault.
3.
He comes home to the blue glow of the television set, which he could have sworn he turned off before he left, and his brows draw down in the beginnings of a scowl. He flicks the lightswitch on, trying to ignore that there's someone sprawled out on his sofa, remote in one hand and beer in the other, staring at the TV with an air of boredom. Red hair is set afire in the light, as he twists up to blink at Akutsu over the back of the sofa.
"Oh, hey." Sengoku grins at him, teeth too-white compared to his ruddy lips. "You're back," and that's an outright lie, because Akutsu is still gone, has been for years now, "Finally. Doing okay?" The can clinks against the glass top of the coffee table before Sengoku spreads his arms over the top of the sofa, tilting his head back to stare at Akutsu upside down. This, he decides, is the best way to do it, because Akutsu looks more like Akutsu this way, and less like some pale stranger all wrapped up in tight cords of muscle and sinew.
"You really should lock the door, you know," Sengoku's frowning, edges of his lips curled towards the high white ceiling. "What if somebody came in?"
"You already did," Akutsu says, kicking the back of the sofa his uninvited guest is occupying. "Besides, I don't have anything important."
Sengoku just hmms at him, eyebrows raised in high arcs.
"So get the fuck out of here, would you?" This time, Akutsu does what he meant to all along; his fist connects with Sengoku's face with a satisfying thud.
4.
Akutsu gets a new lock for his door, always checking and double checking it to make sure it's properly locked and no one can get in, whether or not he's there. It seems to work out well enough, for a while. No one had gotten into his apartment in all the years he'd lived alone, save for Sengoku; it isn't any real surprise that no one tries now.
There are no problems until five weeks later, when he comes home to the four o'clock news, choking on cigarette smoke and watching the ashes fall, like dominos and empires laid to waste. The door's still locked when he comes home, and this time he's entirely certain he'd turned off the television before leaving; he turns it off every morning.
He doesn't bother asking how Sengoku got in this time; he doesn't want to know. He just snarls, turning on his heel to storm out the door. Feeling a little childish, he slams the door, deciding he doesn't care what the neighbors think. They don't think much of him anyway; they can go ahead and get whatever ideas they damn well please. An hour's spent sitting on the steps, smoking nearly half a pack of cigarettes. When Sengoku doesn't come down after an hour and five minutes, Akutsu snarls again -- frightening one of the neighborhood children -- and goes back to his apartment.
Sengoku sits up and grins at him, tossing the remote aside to raise one hand in a lazy salute. "You really should quit, you know. Cancer and all that."
"Shut up. Fucking hypocrite."
"Hmm, nope, don't feel like it. I'm allowed to nag you, anyway."
"So are you gonna leave anytime soon, asshole?" Akutsu lets out an exasperated breath, too harsh and angry to be called a sigh, and shoves his hands into his pockets to keep himself from strangling the other.
"Yeah, actually. And so are you, 'coz there's this party I wanna crash." Sengoku lets his head drop against the arm of the sofa, and he stares over at Akutsu with a nearly thoughtful expression. "You've got free time, I've got connections, they've got some good alcohol, and we've got no reason not to."
"How the hell do you know I have free time? I've got plenty of shit I need to do. Asshole."
Sengoku lets one shoulder rise and fall in what could be called a shrug. "Chalk it up to luck and intuition, and don't you dare try to deny it."
"Fuck you."
"Mm, sure." Sengoku stretches his arms above his head, rolling his shoulders and fixing Akutsu with an almost cat-like smile. "You're always welcome to, you know."
5.
Akutsu isn't quite sure what it is he's thinking, two weeks later. He doesn't miss Sengoku, exactly, just sort of wonders where the other's gotten off to this time and why he's not back yet. Then again, they hadn't exactly parted on a high note -- he'd kicked Sengoku out of bed, on accident, and then wound up yelling that Sengoku should just get the fuck out and never come back again, if he was going to whine so much about something Akutsu hadn't even meant to do, and anyway, he should have expected it, never mind that there was no way Sengoku could possibly know he was a restless sleeper.
It's just sort of annoying, how Sengoku had come and taken the only important thing in his damn apartment from him, and then hadn't bothered coming back. Two weeks isn't really anything, measured it up to nearly six years, but it sure as hell feels like it. He tries not to think about the fact that maybe six years was worse.
6.
"If you like my sofa that much," he declares, the instant he closes the door, ice-pale fingers trailing on the doorknob, "Why don't you just steal it already? That way you won't have to keep coming back here."
"Aww, c'mon. You know you don't want that. Prick." Sengoku's taken up his now near-traditional place on the couch, sprawled across it with his head on the armrest and one arm flung over the back.
Golden eyes frost over, like the sun going behind a cloud, "This is seriously fucked up, you know. We are. Or you are. Or I am. Whatever."
"Took you long enough to figure that out, Jin." Sengoku's laugh isn't quite amused, laced with fire and wraiths of smoke. "How'd you guess? Was it when you up and left in the middle of high school, or maybe when that kid managed to get himself killed, or when I managed to track you down? What?"
"Hn." This time, Akutsu does sigh, warm breath leaving his chest, a spiky brittle coldness taking its place.
"Yeah," and it's very cold indeed, as if time is stumbling backwards and maybe it's winter again, except it was less lonely back then, before Sengoku had found him again.
And in the background, a pale soft-voiced reporter tells of the last of the cherry blossoms and the end of the world, and neither of them pay any attention to the rise and fall of her voice; all they pay attention to is tanned fingertips on deathly pale skin, to heat and friction, and all they hear is their own ragged breathing.
7.
The ten o'clock news is going on about tennis and then of an earthquake in southern Japan, and under normal circumstances, Akutsu would have ignored it and continued sleeping. There's a few things that seem off, though, so when he first wakes up, he stays awake. The first thing is that the TV is still on; he usually unplugs it at night, after he's done with it. It's an odd, useless habit, but it lets him know when Sengoku's decided to show up, which is what matters.
Sengoku usually leaves well before he wakes up, in this demented little ritual of theirs; not once in the past few months has there been any sign of Sengoku's existence except, once when they were particularly rough, a dark blood-stain on his sheets. It hadn't come out. Akutsu always wakes up alone, and for that matter, so does Sengoku, so he's caught a little off guard when he realizes that Sengoku's staring at him with an odd little half-smile.
It's so utterly off from what's almost become routine that Akutsu can't help but ask, voice high with confusion and maybe annoyance, "What the shit are you doing here? Aren't you usually gone by now?"
"Maybe I didn't feel like it, yet," and he might be smiling, or it might be a trick of the light.
"You don't stay," Akutsu answers, too sharply. "That's never how it's worked before."
"Things change, sometimes," and this time, it's obviously a smile, airy and a little distracted.
The television provides the only light save for what little city light manages to filter through the thick, heavy curtains. They were good at blocking the light, strong black cloth that rarely moved except in strong winds, which was exactly why Akutsu had bought them. The pale green glow isn't enough to make much of a difference.
"Besides," Sengoku goes on, and despite Akutsu's dull, dark-edged glare. "Besides, you're tired of this shit too, aren't you?"
"Whatever," and he's trying to shrug it off, now, write this conversation off as nothing. "Why now, huh?"
"Why not now?" With a shrug, Sengoku flops onto his back to stare up at the ceiling. The bedroom ceiling is just as blank and impersonal as in the living room, and Sengoku decides he rather likes it. "It's not like we're gonna live forever."
"Fuck that!" Akutsu sat up, tossed his head back in something resembling a laugh. "I'm gonna stay alive until it's all over. I ain't dying 'till the fat lady sings, the cows come home, and nuclear winter comes down on my god-forsaken head. I'm gonna live for-fucking-ever."
This time, Sengoku's laugh is all lightness, a phoenix taking flight over the ocean. "Oh, of course. Fame, right?"
"Che. You probably aren't even here, you know. This is all some stupid dream, I bet." Akutsu stares at the television, where a calm reporter talks of revolution, of war and the fall of dictators, and he thinks that maybe he should watch the news more often. "This is messed up."
A second passes, and Sengoku lets out an odd sound from somewhere in the back of his throat; a choked-back laugh trying to rebel, to fight its way out without permission. The sheets are still dirty, Sengoku's strangely pleased to notice as he sits up again, resting on his side with his head propped up on one of his hands. "Here, gimme that."
Reaching out, he takes Akutsu's hand. At first it seems like he won't do anything except rub his thumb in lazy circles over Akutsu's palm, humming a faint tune under his breath. Suddenly, though, he yanks Akutsu's hand towards him, head darting down to catch Akutsu's fingers between his teeth. Just as quickly, Akutsu jerks his hand back, eyes widening and narrowing, expression shifting swift and awkward like stop-motion animation.
It's not in Akutsu's nature to yelp, but he very nearly does, making a strange mix between a squawk and a growl. "You just fucking bit me! What the fuck?! You go even crazier or something? You better not have rabies."
"It hurt, right?" Sengoku grins up at him, eyes half-closed, still and dusky. "It's proof that we're real. You and I, we're alive, and we're gonna live forever." He pauses before adding that, "Besides, my bites are lucky!"
Akutsu snorts, rubbing at a patch of red on his neck with his now-injured hand. "If your bites were lucky, then I'd have better luck, dumbass."
Sengoku grins at him, eyes not much more than dark slits of blue-green. "We'll just have to try again, then, won't we?" He leans forward, pulling Akutsu's hand away so he can lap at the milk-white skin of Akutsu's throat, smiling the smile of a cat with a dish of cream it has no intention of sharing.
8.
Six AM comes around, and Akutsu comes with it, eyes blinking open and shutting just as fast when he realizes there's light streaming in through the curtains, which are wide open and tied back with what look to be neon green shoelaces. Finally surrendering, he counts the stains on the ceiling for a while before clambering out of bed and pulling on an old pair of boxers that he finds on the floor. Somewhere, there's the smell of eggs cooking, and it takes Akutsu a while to realize that it's coming from his own kitchen. The bedroom is just off the living room, and the kitchen is just off from that, so it doesn't take him long at all to stumble to the kitchen, glaring about vaguely, still all sleep-crusted and half-asleep. "The fu'?" he mumbles, voice rough, sandpaper in his throat.
"Breakfast?"
Sengoku's taken to showing up more often, and he's fine with that, but the rare times that Sengoku stays worry him most of all. This is the first time that Sengoku's cooked for him, and it is decidedly odd.
"You plan on leaving anytime soon?" Not yet awake enough to be annoyed, Akutsu yawns.
"No, not really," Sengoku's hands deftly manuever a large wooden spoon, as he pokes at the eggs in a rather unorthodox way. He might be making scrambled eggs or he might not; it's hard to say. "Besides, you don't want me to."
"Don't jump to conclusions." Trudging to the refrigerator, Akutsu pulls out a carton orange juice and, pulling the cap off with his teeth, drinks it without a glass.
"So I'm wrong, then?" Sengoku sounds more amused than anything else, letting out another one of his weightless, effortless bursts of laughter..
"That's not the point, asshole."
"Oho. Of course it isn't." Sengoku runs a hand through his sleep-mussed hair, in a rather pathetic attempt to get it under control.
"Right."
"Yup." A pause. "Breakfast?"
"Yeah, whatever. You'd better not be trying to poison me or anything."
"Aww, as if I'd do such a thing!" Sengoku laughs, resuming his assault upon the battered egg yolks. "You better be grateful. This isn't easy, y'know," but he makes it look effortless, hardly paying any attention as he does whatever it is he's doing.
"Of course it isn't. Which explains why you're paying so much fucking attention, right?" Sengoku doesn't answer.
The kitchen table isn't glamorous, just a four-by-four piece of formica standing on spindly metal legs that bend and sway without any real provocation. The dull green surface is coated in a patchwork of burns and stains, and a fourth of the surface is covered in papers that Sengoku moves haphazardly to the counter before sitting down.
"Did I say you could move those?" His eyes are a little like molten metal, burning heat simmering just beneath the surface, a little like a mirage, in miniature..
"Nope," that's when Akutsu realizes another piece of his territory has been -- not exactly stolen away, not exactly commandeered, but it certainly wasn't his anymore. Not his alone, at least; somehow, without his permission, Sengoku has managed to become something like the vice-president of his personal space. His own little empire is falling to pieces, in the midst of some strange one-man revolution that he can't bring himself the fight against.
It's all made worse by the fact that he can't bring himself to mind very much.. "Just ask if you're gonna move shit around, okay? I might need to find it again, or something," because of course, Sengoku will be around enough that he'll be moving other things, and it's better to have something akin to rules for this sort of thing, because it's impossible to be sure just how Sengoku will manage to interpret unstated rules.
----
silly, pretentious author's notes:
OK, so this thing started as a drabble request for Ebbie, and I SWORE
it was finished. Then I rewrote it, which explains this thing (which is
at least twice as long).
The challenge was to start a fic with the line "He came back home to the four o' clock news, choking on cigarette smoke and watching the ashes fall, like dominos and empires laid to waste." The original started with that, sure, but I kinda... changed things around, and made it a lot longer than it needed to be, so it doesn't start with that anymore WHEE.
Concrit welcomed with open arms.