Disclaimer- Don't own the boys. they are the brain children of CLAMP.
Well, merrily i plod along on this one, due completely to the requests and prodding of reviewers and friends, both on and off this site. it still amuses me that this was going to be a one shot. definately not done with the story...methinks it needs another chapter or two. anyone who might want to help me beta the thing should drop me a note. i am horrid at editing my own writing. and not near patient enough to do a good job on it. and, as always, reviews are my most favorite thing in the world after a good nap. lyrics this time from "Away" by Breaking Benjamin
-fireun
"Cold am I
I'm beside myself
Because there's no one else
Have I grown
So blind
Only god could save you
If you knew your way to the light
So fly away
And leave it behind
Just stay awake
There's nowhere to hide"
Subaru stumbled through the city, awkward in a way that would have appalled those who new him. His equilibrium was gone, his sense of place in the world, and the placement of the world itself. He knew he had lost something back on Rainbow Bridge, but he had thought it was a tangible, sticky red, cooling on his hands and clothes, not something as intangible as feeling. It terrified him, the alien prospect of letting the world touch him, and touching it back. He was young again, huddled frightened and crying in bed…
But this time his sister was not there to curl up with him, soothe him and share the burden.
Someone had been…
He didn't want to let that thought in, to let it finish its message with the accompanying impressions and expressions held so tenuously at bay.
'Who'd have seen this coming? Subaru Sumeragi. A coward.' That voice…that thrice be damned, beloved voice…
Leave me alone….
'You don't even admit I am here. How can something that does not exist be persuaded to leave?'
Damn you…Seishiro….
'Not completely right, Subaru-kun. Half way there, Subaru-san.'
Unexpected. No. An epiphany that was violent in its debilitating, shocking effect. Past and present juxtaposed, finally allowed to meet, converse, draw conclusions, leaving Subaru to falter, to depend on the support of a building side to keep him upright.
"Kamui." He gasped, his breath frosting slightly in the early morning chill, allowing the revelation of a lifetime to gain life and recognition.
"I see you
Cause you won't get out of my way
I hear you
Cause you won't quit screaming my name
I feel you
Cause you won't stop touching my skin
I need you
There coming to take you away"
Kamui- who had been his solace, his savior, and the bane of his existence. His mirror image, in pain and experience. It had hurt to look at him, to merely meet the gaze of those wide, anguished eyes, for Subaru knew exactly what they were reflecting. He had been there. Was there.
Misery loves company, but only to a certain extent.
He needed to help Kamui, he couldn't help but want to be there to ease things along for the boy. But he didn't need to empathize with him. He didn't need to feel that anguish, feel his own reaching out for understanding and comfort. Damn if he wanted to rely on another like that ever again. It never had occurred to him that Kamui was indeed his mirror, even in this, and that he was hurting him.
He was the product of a great love, the greatest betrayal, and a reconciliation attempted amidst an impressionists nightmare of splattered red. He had given everything to Seishiro, his love, his hate, and in the end his understanding- and the bastard had left him. It is never pleasant to realize you are repeating a history you revile.
Kamui, having endured hell and stayed standing, wanted nothing more than the affection he had grown used to in Subaru in the time before that psychologically apocalyptic confrontation on Rainbow Bridge. Kamui who had been patient, and concerned…
Who had finally been driven to send him away.
'Proud of yourself, Subaru-kun? Proud of the strength you showed that boy, in denying him an ounce of comfort or concern? Always polite to a fault, always concer…'
"Shut the hell up." He snarled, dripping venomous anger, a catharsis of every foul, nasty thought he had had since realizing in the end he had lost. He had canned it all up, the sour taste of fear, bitter resentment, tangy nervousness, and melting love; everything he had come to associate with Seishiro through the years. He had locked it in a corner of his fragmented psyche, along with every association those things had with anything else in the world.
He had lost then, and damn it he had managed to fuck it up and lose everything again.
"Frail and dry
I could lose it all
But I cannot recall
It all wrong
Don't cry
Clear away this hate
And we can start to make it alright
So fly away
And leave it behind
Return someday
With red in your eyes"
There was something utterly depressing about the fact that Subaru's favorite white coat still hung, perfect and still, on the hook by the door. Everything about that man had been prefect in the end, everything but the little imperfections that make life interesting, that allow affection to gain that special tinge that turns it into love.
Kamui glared at the coat, upset that it was making him depressed, pulling the sting out of his anger to leave only that heavy lethargy of emotion behind. Subaru never went anywhere without that coat…
He was probably cold right now…
"Why the hell should I care. The bastard isn't giving me a second thought, unless it is in relation to his fucking coat." In a instinctual attempt to alleviate his discomfort, Kamui launched a shoe at the offending article of clothing.
It missed.
Which, for some reason, Kamui found infinitely amusing, in the same way a trauma victim will cackle at their predicament. "I suppose I could set the thing on fire. That would get rid of it." For a good twenty minutes, that seemed a viable option, destruction a comfortable norm, a pleasantly clichéd way to end a lovers squabble.
Lover.
For all his faults, for his damning cold perfection, Kamui still loved Subaru. It had matured, moved beyond a need to cling to another human being to the solid, secure feeling of enjoying another's company. Which had become an impossibility in Subaru's more current mindset. It was a losing proposition to attempt to stand on equal footing with someone who seemed to want to take care of you but not care for you.
"I see you
Cause you won't get out of my way
I hear you
Cause you won't quit screaming my name
I feel you
Cause you won't stop touching my skin
I need you
There coming to take you away"
Lover.
He hadn't wanted to use that word, hadn't wanted to feel the displeased anxiety that accompanied the designation. There had been so little of recent where there has been such an intense surplus before. It hadn't burned itself out…the gasps and frantic embraces hadn't vanished, they had matured like a good vintage into something settled, but no less significant.
One evening, on a bridge in Tokyo, Subaru had looked up at Kamui with eyes so broken, the horrified eyes of an animal in a trap, whirling with a frantic sort of incomprehensible pain…And then they had glassed over.
Kamui had held onto him, soothing him back to the world with gentle words and quiet moments. But as time passed, it became apparent that not all of Subaru had made it back. Somewhere in those opaque eyes that lack of comprehension lingered, or so Kamui assumed.
He missed the quiet laugh, the cranky mornings, the indecorous frustrations that had colored a vivid Subaru. This perfection, this median of humanity, was infuriating and unlivable.
Contemplating a white coat alone in an apartment littered with the fragments of a frugal man's life, Kamui remembered a pained expression that had slid through mismatched eyes as he had demanded the other man leave.
Maybe…there was something in there worth digging for. Even if he had to kick Subaru out of the house at least once a week…
"I see you
Cause you won't get out of my way
I hear you
Cause you won't quit screaming my name
I feel you
Cause you won't stop touching my skin
I need you
There coming to take you away"
It was a familiar step, settled below the mailbox, chipped on the edge and worn from endless feet exiting and entering. It was a step he had lingered on and smoked near countless times. Now it was a step for him to sit on, lacking anywhere else to go. He was too scared to knock and beg admittance. The newness of the fear had almost as much power as the fear he had of facing the boy again. Neither allowed him any closer than this well worn, cold stone step. So he sat, unlit cigarette in hand, the sickeningly sour hint of bile lingering in the back of his mouth. He must have gotten sick somewhere along the way, oblivious as a drunk to his bodies distress.
Subaru didn't know what to do, had nowhere else to go. And he was cold. That was enough to pull a sob from his already abused throat.
'Crying, Subaru-san?' That voice was quiet now…concerned….it was almost comforting. Subaru closed his eyes and leaned back.
Into a very solid form.
"Why are you crying Subaru-san?" That voice was very real, echoing the commentator in his mind. Subaru stiffened, caught without a clue as to how to react, caught vulnerable.
A tense moment passed, and then something familiar was draped over his shoulders.
"You forgot your coat." A pause, and then "You're freezing, Subaru. Come inside."
Animegoil - thanks so much for all of your reviews! and i agree, the image of kamui actually kicking subaru out is rather hilarious!
Exie- i know you are reading this, and i blame the fic!bunnies on you. it is 3:30 in the morning and i am working on a fic.