"Talk of Dreams"
by Acey
Two--Condolence
"'I don't want Church to be dead! He's my cat! He's not God's cat! Let God have his own cat! Let God have all the d--- old cats He wants, and kill them all! Church is mine!'" -Stephen King, "Pet Sematery"
His human mother had gone to sleep some hours before, and he had made his feeble excuse-- an exam, more studying. She had smiled at that, deception not a trait of the young man she knew, and for not the first time he had felt ashamed.
But Hiei was coming, the one part of the murderous equation that would not change its value upon any others' change, no matter-- so long as a single other variable remained.
Twelve, according to the luminescent digital clock beside the kitchen counter, flashing neon green in the drape of gloom that blurred the edges of the room despite the lamp he had turned on, like time and movement will blur a photograph. Twelve ante meridians, minuit, the witching hour, the numbing hour, the black hour when all but the night shift are in bed-- and himself tonight, the books open on the counter. He glanced at the page numbers: 254, a map of the Americas in the Robinson Projection, in his history book. 188 in the next book, biology, a food chain above the text, 301 after that in a hardback book on the required reading list, held open by a metal paperweight in the shape of a panther.
The hardback was easiest to get to (it was some George Orwell novel) should his mother awaken, though it wouldn't do him too much good. He mused on how he would get out of such, then decided it didn't matter anymore.
Kurama picked up his pencil, let it roll around the countertop boredly, slowly, making a clicking sound as it slid into the books. If he flicked it hard enough it would rebound, he found, with all the excitement of a student with homework in every class.
He suddenly stopped the pencil mid-roll with his finger, looked up, saw the familiar figure coming inside.
"Hiei."
The variable was missing. Kurama could tell by the look on his bronzed face that it was-- the emptiness of gaze, the slight heaviness in his gait. But then, he had known it was happening as had everyone else, even Yusuke, so oblivious to Keiko's growing madness, saw the signs.
Yusuke, coming back to her house every day. The closest the former delinquent had come to seeing the insanity had been directly before the funeral, a time he would never have wished repeated. Then the denial had come between the curses.
"Keiko's put all the blame on herself, you know-- she'll probably be all right soon, though, as soon as I tell her how far behind she'll be in algebra, oh, she'll panic then, won't she? Won't she, Kurama-- she'd better; I doubt she'll really get behind, but she's being so stupid these days... it wasn't her fault..."
It was a gallant, blind effort, as pitiable as it was noble. Lesser things had driven minds over the edge, greater men had failed at pulling minds back to sanity. The news was all around Yusuke, he guessed, the remarks behind his back too loud for him to not hear, cruel, unwary of Yusuke's fists now held to his sides in abject defeat, though they knew not and cared not what of.
"Did you hear? Urameshi's girlfriend cracked up. Guess one've those other nerds'll wind up valedictorian while her parents haul her off to the nearest loony bin-- they'll have to soon enough, yeah..."
Why he had not stopped coming to the school was beyond him. Perfect attendance for the first time since grade school-- like as not they talked of that, too.
But how they talked of the one gone in the ordeal was the worst, the part where Kurama could imagine those fists so long held down almost put up again, a flash of the old Yusuke back on the playing field. When they talked about Keiko he could dismiss it as idiocy in his denial. When they talked about the one in the grave he could not claim it empty.
These thoughts ran through Kurama's mind as he looked at the fire demon next to him. He had come, after all, and a glance told him the passing had affected Hiei as well, though pitifully indirectly. The demon's eyes knew nothing of sacrilege but that of one's soul, and perhaps that was more than enough. He said nothing for a second or two, eyes focused on the redhead, boring in with a strange sort of indignity and blame. He was wearing his usual black clothes, white strip of cloth tied over his third eye, shoes with points on the end. On his deathbed, Kurama probably would be able to recall that outfit, more because of its spareness and its regularity than anything else. It was all the same, all mundanely, wrongly the same. Incorrect because it was the same when everything had changed-- as though life really should turn from the path it is taking and start anew and differently once other's lives are shattered and gone, as though habits should drop or reverse themselves without needful provocation. It didn't matter if the boss of rock and roll, the Queen of England, and the richest man in the world committed suicide on the same day, Hiei would be in the same attire, a psuedo-undertaker to pluck a flower from the horrid cascades people sent the bereaved, pin it to his pocket, yes, and--
Kurama turned his mind from this disrespectful morbidity. Death was what had brought Hiei back to the human realm, and now death had become Kurama's own simile for everything.
"There's been no consoling her."
Kurama attempted to avoid Hiei's gaze, and failed. He had expected that, had known that would be. How could she be consoled, when the one that meant the most to her had gone to the one place she could never follow him to?
"I hoped she'd--"
"Did you think I didn't? But there isn't much we can do about it, is there? Not much. I never thought she thought so of him."
"I'm sorry."
He was. Yet his own apology was hollow because of its sheer futility. He was sorry. Sorry was for pushing into people on accident, breaking vases, shouting without cause. Sorry was a solvent, a cheap glue with provisos attached to every drop-- CANNOT REPAIR in bold capitals preceding a paragraph-long list: adultery, lying, stealing, heartbreak, abuse-- and death on his pale horse. Revelations.
He closed the remainder of his schoolbooks, propped against the desk should his mother come. The fire demon beside him did not even bother with a sneer at the childishness, the immaturity-- the irony of it. And Hiei kept on, uncharacteristically pressed.
"None of this should have happened to her."
"No."
"None of it."
"No."
Hiei kept the same expression on his face as he spoke, like one of the robots in a manga, mechanical, though the tone had changed, become laced with grief. He was trying, Kurama could see that, all only the barest composure maintenance. Hiei had an odd idea of himself as the sneering rogue, as much a gentleman as a Rhett Butler, cool, unbothered by stupid emotions.
Except when it involved her, her, the angel of his life, always sweet, always kind, always a beautiful symbol of something more, something he never felt he could be. He relegated himself to phantom, to secret guard and protector, perpetually there and watching to ensure there would be no more upset, no more miseries in her life. Yet even he could never manage to stop death.
The facades shed themselves one by one, and with the shedding he felt a near-imperceptible disgust he only recognized as Hiei spoke his next words.
"Why did she have to go with him that day, take him up like the fool he was? She was tortured by his race, yet she befriended him-- loved him."
He did not reply immediately. Hiei's grief was for one still alive. The body in the coffin had perhaps meant something to him, before he turned and saw the sister that would never know him as brother, her tears turning into gems before they hit the floor.
"Because he was good to her," he finally said, without varnish to mask or soften the words. He did not let a moment linger on before saying the rest. "Because he was good and no one else acknowledged it, or even recognized it for what it was. She did. After five years shut up like an animal she knew what kindness was."
"Kindness I could never give her. And he will never give her." The dark figure's tone changed again, became colder, harder.
"He gave her his life," and Kurama stood, suddenly angry. "He gave her his life, wasn't that enough for you? What more could he ever have given her? Or are you too bitter, too blind to understand that? Kuwabara was killed saving her, to give you the chance to mourn her mourning. Why won't you let this pettiness and jealousy behind, Hiei?"
He stopped himself suddenly, then plunged ahead.
"You're more concerned about how it's affected Yukina than Kuwabara's being gone."
The fire demon's eyes were like a dark idol's, flashing with anger, hands clenched at his sides. Kurama sitting was taller than he was standing, Kurama standing made him appear the smallest of dwarfs.
(no consoling her)
"You have no idea."
Hiei strode out of the room.
...
by Acey
Two--Condolence
"'I don't want Church to be dead! He's my cat! He's not God's cat! Let God have his own cat! Let God have all the d--- old cats He wants, and kill them all! Church is mine!'" -Stephen King, "Pet Sematery"
His human mother had gone to sleep some hours before, and he had made his feeble excuse-- an exam, more studying. She had smiled at that, deception not a trait of the young man she knew, and for not the first time he had felt ashamed.
But Hiei was coming, the one part of the murderous equation that would not change its value upon any others' change, no matter-- so long as a single other variable remained.
Twelve, according to the luminescent digital clock beside the kitchen counter, flashing neon green in the drape of gloom that blurred the edges of the room despite the lamp he had turned on, like time and movement will blur a photograph. Twelve ante meridians, minuit, the witching hour, the numbing hour, the black hour when all but the night shift are in bed-- and himself tonight, the books open on the counter. He glanced at the page numbers: 254, a map of the Americas in the Robinson Projection, in his history book. 188 in the next book, biology, a food chain above the text, 301 after that in a hardback book on the required reading list, held open by a metal paperweight in the shape of a panther.
The hardback was easiest to get to (it was some George Orwell novel) should his mother awaken, though it wouldn't do him too much good. He mused on how he would get out of such, then decided it didn't matter anymore.
Kurama picked up his pencil, let it roll around the countertop boredly, slowly, making a clicking sound as it slid into the books. If he flicked it hard enough it would rebound, he found, with all the excitement of a student with homework in every class.
He suddenly stopped the pencil mid-roll with his finger, looked up, saw the familiar figure coming inside.
"Hiei."
The variable was missing. Kurama could tell by the look on his bronzed face that it was-- the emptiness of gaze, the slight heaviness in his gait. But then, he had known it was happening as had everyone else, even Yusuke, so oblivious to Keiko's growing madness, saw the signs.
Yusuke, coming back to her house every day. The closest the former delinquent had come to seeing the insanity had been directly before the funeral, a time he would never have wished repeated. Then the denial had come between the curses.
"Keiko's put all the blame on herself, you know-- she'll probably be all right soon, though, as soon as I tell her how far behind she'll be in algebra, oh, she'll panic then, won't she? Won't she, Kurama-- she'd better; I doubt she'll really get behind, but she's being so stupid these days... it wasn't her fault..."
It was a gallant, blind effort, as pitiable as it was noble. Lesser things had driven minds over the edge, greater men had failed at pulling minds back to sanity. The news was all around Yusuke, he guessed, the remarks behind his back too loud for him to not hear, cruel, unwary of Yusuke's fists now held to his sides in abject defeat, though they knew not and cared not what of.
"Did you hear? Urameshi's girlfriend cracked up. Guess one've those other nerds'll wind up valedictorian while her parents haul her off to the nearest loony bin-- they'll have to soon enough, yeah..."
Why he had not stopped coming to the school was beyond him. Perfect attendance for the first time since grade school-- like as not they talked of that, too.
But how they talked of the one gone in the ordeal was the worst, the part where Kurama could imagine those fists so long held down almost put up again, a flash of the old Yusuke back on the playing field. When they talked about Keiko he could dismiss it as idiocy in his denial. When they talked about the one in the grave he could not claim it empty.
These thoughts ran through Kurama's mind as he looked at the fire demon next to him. He had come, after all, and a glance told him the passing had affected Hiei as well, though pitifully indirectly. The demon's eyes knew nothing of sacrilege but that of one's soul, and perhaps that was more than enough. He said nothing for a second or two, eyes focused on the redhead, boring in with a strange sort of indignity and blame. He was wearing his usual black clothes, white strip of cloth tied over his third eye, shoes with points on the end. On his deathbed, Kurama probably would be able to recall that outfit, more because of its spareness and its regularity than anything else. It was all the same, all mundanely, wrongly the same. Incorrect because it was the same when everything had changed-- as though life really should turn from the path it is taking and start anew and differently once other's lives are shattered and gone, as though habits should drop or reverse themselves without needful provocation. It didn't matter if the boss of rock and roll, the Queen of England, and the richest man in the world committed suicide on the same day, Hiei would be in the same attire, a psuedo-undertaker to pluck a flower from the horrid cascades people sent the bereaved, pin it to his pocket, yes, and--
Kurama turned his mind from this disrespectful morbidity. Death was what had brought Hiei back to the human realm, and now death had become Kurama's own simile for everything.
"There's been no consoling her."
Kurama attempted to avoid Hiei's gaze, and failed. He had expected that, had known that would be. How could she be consoled, when the one that meant the most to her had gone to the one place she could never follow him to?
"I hoped she'd--"
"Did you think I didn't? But there isn't much we can do about it, is there? Not much. I never thought she thought so of him."
"I'm sorry."
He was. Yet his own apology was hollow because of its sheer futility. He was sorry. Sorry was for pushing into people on accident, breaking vases, shouting without cause. Sorry was a solvent, a cheap glue with provisos attached to every drop-- CANNOT REPAIR in bold capitals preceding a paragraph-long list: adultery, lying, stealing, heartbreak, abuse-- and death on his pale horse. Revelations.
He closed the remainder of his schoolbooks, propped against the desk should his mother come. The fire demon beside him did not even bother with a sneer at the childishness, the immaturity-- the irony of it. And Hiei kept on, uncharacteristically pressed.
"None of this should have happened to her."
"No."
"None of it."
"No."
Hiei kept the same expression on his face as he spoke, like one of the robots in a manga, mechanical, though the tone had changed, become laced with grief. He was trying, Kurama could see that, all only the barest composure maintenance. Hiei had an odd idea of himself as the sneering rogue, as much a gentleman as a Rhett Butler, cool, unbothered by stupid emotions.
Except when it involved her, her, the angel of his life, always sweet, always kind, always a beautiful symbol of something more, something he never felt he could be. He relegated himself to phantom, to secret guard and protector, perpetually there and watching to ensure there would be no more upset, no more miseries in her life. Yet even he could never manage to stop death.
The facades shed themselves one by one, and with the shedding he felt a near-imperceptible disgust he only recognized as Hiei spoke his next words.
"Why did she have to go with him that day, take him up like the fool he was? She was tortured by his race, yet she befriended him-- loved him."
He did not reply immediately. Hiei's grief was for one still alive. The body in the coffin had perhaps meant something to him, before he turned and saw the sister that would never know him as brother, her tears turning into gems before they hit the floor.
"Because he was good to her," he finally said, without varnish to mask or soften the words. He did not let a moment linger on before saying the rest. "Because he was good and no one else acknowledged it, or even recognized it for what it was. She did. After five years shut up like an animal she knew what kindness was."
"Kindness I could never give her. And he will never give her." The dark figure's tone changed again, became colder, harder.
"He gave her his life," and Kurama stood, suddenly angry. "He gave her his life, wasn't that enough for you? What more could he ever have given her? Or are you too bitter, too blind to understand that? Kuwabara was killed saving her, to give you the chance to mourn her mourning. Why won't you let this pettiness and jealousy behind, Hiei?"
He stopped himself suddenly, then plunged ahead.
"You're more concerned about how it's affected Yukina than Kuwabara's being gone."
The fire demon's eyes were like a dark idol's, flashing with anger, hands clenched at his sides. Kurama sitting was taller than he was standing, Kurama standing made him appear the smallest of dwarfs.
(no consoling her)
"You have no idea."
Hiei strode out of the room.
...