Title: Is It Enough?

Author: JadeHeart Gravitation
Warnings: angst
Author's Notes: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed. I'm so pleased that people are enjoying these little snap-shots of thought from Yuki and Shuichi. I quite often borrow images from both the manga and the anime as to what best seems to fit the story.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this, they belong to the creators of 'Gravitation'. Chapter title from the Avil Lavigne song, 'Anything But Ordinary'

Chapter 4: And Leave Me Here to Bleed

Yuki strode through the terminal, his long legs outdistancing most of the other passengers as they exited. Soon - soon he would be home.

His fingers twitched again, feeling the urge to have a cigarette. In a moment, he promised himself, standing close to the carousel to collect his bag. He pushed his hands into his trouser pockets, not realizing what a striking figure he made and completely oblivious to the admiring glances cast his way from both women, and men.

The harsh lighting in the terminal buildings hurt his eyes, but he felt he'd look damn foolish to wear his sunglasses when it was actually the middle of the night. He twitched his shoulders, feeling the tight muscles complain. He was looking forward to having a long hot bath when he arrived home. He could almost feel it now; the warmth soaking into his aching limbs, easing them, relaxing him. He could get Shuichi to scrub his back. His young partner had very dexterous fingers, strong and firm, but flexible from his years of playing his synthesizer. Yuki would never admit that a massage from Shuichi could turn him into a quivering heap of jelly with delight and his mind usually to mush to match. He would usually have to feign falling asleep to resist the temptation to snuggle into the youth's body and purr. He would never live it down if he did that!

Where were the damn bags! He frowned darkly as the carousel remained still and silent. Damn it, how long did it take them to do their jobs! His stomach grumbled and he grimaced. He wasn't actually hungry but his overly-abused stomach was reminding him that it didn't cope particularly well with just alcohol swirling around inside.

He spotted a vending machine nearby and strode across to it. Slipping some money in the slot he pulled out a coffee. A burst of caffeine would do him good. He cracked the can and took a drink, delighted to feel the warmth slide down his throat. He shivered a little as the caffeine entered his system quickly on his empty stomach and he felt the familiar buzz. Ahh, he sighed to himself, taking another swallow. Yes, that felt much better. He leant back against the wall to finish his drink, out of the way of the other milling passengers.

He squinted up at the lights glaring down. Damn lights! To hell with it, he thought taking out his sunglasses and slipping them on. Too bad if others thought he was strange to be wearing them at night. The lights really did hurt his eyes!

He felt his fingers wrap around his phone again and pulled it out. Automatically he called up the stored messages and began scrolling through them, one by one. They were all from Shuichi. Any he had received from other people had been deleted immediately after being dealt with, more often than not simply after reading them. Only Shuichi's did he keep.

There were a lot of them. He shook his head slightly as he continued to read. How Shuichi managed to find the time to text to him was a surprise in itself. Personally, Yuki hated modern technology, his only concession to it was his beloved laptop. He rarely bothered with texting by phone, no matter how often Shuichi had tried to coax him into doing so, saying it was a wonderful way they could keep in touch when they were apart. Yuki had just informed in that he could send the texts but don't expect replies. Shuichi had taken him at his word and would bombard him with messages when ever he was away. Yuki's only concession was the odd one word reply – mainly yes, no, maybe, perhaps, or the more common ones were idiot, moron or brat! If the messages went to two words it was usually 'shut up'!

Yuki's aversion to modern technology even went so far as to refusing to leave messages on any phone, unless it was an extreme emergency. He refused to waste his valuable time in talking to an inanimate object. If the person wasn't there to take his call then they could wait until he was good and ready to speak to them, and they could call him! So no matter how many messages Shuichi would leave, if Yuki called back and the youth didn't answer Yuki wouldn't leave a message.

He continued to scroll down the messages. It was like a travel log of Shuichi's tour, every day was explained out to him, comments about the trip, the concert, the other people with him, he told Yuki all about it. Yuki snorted. With all this the brat won't have anything new to tell him when he gets home! He reached the end and shoved the phone back into his pocket. It had only been today that there had been no messages. Probably because Shuichi was on his way home so there wasn't any point in sending a text.

Yuki dropped his now empty can into the nearest bin. The carousel still remained unmoving. Gods, what a pain! He hated this waiting around. It was such a drag. Though he should be used to it by now after all the touring he had done, but he didn't remember it being so boring the first time he traveled. Arriving in New York all those years ago, he didn't remember finding it boring at all.

His thoughts turned inwards. New York, what a place. Even now he didn't know if he liked the place or hated it. It had once been his haven, then his Hell. Now what was it?

When he had returned to that city later in search of his missing past, it had seemed the place was determined to send him spiraling towards insanity, stripping everything from him. He had thought he had come to terms with his past but his fleeting memories that had been surfacing were proving to be more detrimental than beneficial. That was why he had gone back there. He had to know, to try and learn from the past. He had to stop running away and hiding from that time. It was the least he could do for everything that Shuichi had gone through for him.

He hunched his shoulders, feeling a cold shiver run down his spine. Even now, after everything that had happened, that time still haunted him. Would he ever escape it? Was it right that he should escape it? He had done a terrible thing that day. He knew that Shuichi, and Tohma, both kept telling him that terrible things had been done to him so it all balanced out. But the difference was that he was alive….and Kitazawa was dead.

Could anything justify him taking the life of those men? It wasn't as though his life had been in danger. They hadn't wanted to kill him, at least to his knowledge. They just wanted to use his body. So was it right for him to have killed them? Surely that wasn't right, no matter what anybody said.

He shoulders shook a little as he felt his stomach cramp. Damn it, he thought as he brought a hand up to cover his mouth. Not now, not here! He tried to get his feelings under control He wouldn't break down! He wouldn't! Not any more!

He took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm himself. It was in the past, it was finished with. So why did it still make him want to throw up whenever he thought about it?

He squeezed his eyes shut, thankful that the sunglasses hid them from view. The events of that night were still vague in places. The main things that occurred he could remember clearly now. He remembered those but other points he couldn't, and Tohma refused to tell him, even after all these years. He had tried asking Mika once, thinking her husband would have told her, but she had simply shrugged and denied all knowledge, saying that when she had asked Tohma had stated it was over with and not a topic to be raised again. Mika knew then that it was pointless her trying to continue to push for an answer. She knew her husband well enough to know when he would divulge nothing more. So Yuki knew that he would probably never know the whole truth either.

But in some ways that wasn't what was important anyway. It wasn't the aftermath that was important, it had been the actual events leading up to that point. The feelings that he had experienced, so many emotions that he had never dealt with in his sixteen years of living at that time. Feelings of betrayal, of real terror, of complete confusion. Feelings of wanting to die.

His stomach cramped again and he almost doubled over. Oh, shit! He turned and quickly made his way across the floor to the restroom nearby. Shoving through the doors he was relieved to see that he alone. He leant over the basin, breathing raggedly as his stomach continued to pain him. He gritted his teeth. I. Will. Not. Be. Sick, he growled to himself, gripping the porcelain hard. I. Will. Not!

Slowly the cramps eased a little, leaving him feeling shaky and exhausted. He ran some water into the basin and splashed his face, the contrast of the cold water against his flushed skin sending a shiver through him. He looked at himself in the mirror. Damn him, though who he was really cursing he wasn't completely certain. Himself, or Kitazawa? Or….

Was he cursing Shuichi? He watched a drop of water fall from his fringe. Did he blame Shuichi for being responsible for dragging all those memories to the surface? Did he blame him for being so persistent in wanting to know about his past and what he was really like that Yuki had had no choice but to remember it all so he could tell him? Did he blame Shuichi for loving him, even after learning the truth that he was a murderer, so he had felt obligated to truly remember everything about that time? It was for Shuichi that he had gone in search of those missing moments, despite how much it had torn him apart.

The last time he had returned to New York he didn't know anymore who he was or why he was there, his mind had been in such turmoil. Had he wanted to lay the ghosts to rest, or to die and join them as he felt that he should have? He remembered sitting on the dirty floor in that long-forgotten apartment; the broken pieces of other people's lives scattered through the rooms in the form of the empty bottles, dilapidated couches, splintered wood and torn carpet. He had looked at that damage and yet seen instead the room as once he had known it. Clean, tidy; Kitazawa had always been a neat person. Yuki had never even seen a bottle of alcohol there yet that day there had been, and more than one. Kitazawa had turned from being his mentor, his friend, his one and only love, to a terrifying demon who tormented him. And for that he had died.

He remembered sitting in that broken down apartment, gun in hand, remembering, experiencing all those emotions once more; the terror, the fear, the horror at his actions, and the aching emptiness that had filled his heart as that one small sound from long ago had stolen everything away from him.

He remembered the blood from that day. Sitting there in the dark, he swore he could still see it, pooling across the floor. A hand, the flesh white in stark contrast to the dark red that surrounded it. He could see it, he could smell it, filling his senses and making him almost gag.

He remembered how he had wanted to die as well. He had watched the blood spread further, creeping slowly away from the vessels that had contained it, crawling insidiously closer and closer to him as though hungrily reaching out to devour him also. He had watched it draw closer as he knelt there weeping silently, shaking, staring at the person he had loved with all his heart, seeing those dull open eyes looking back. No warmth, no laughter, touched those orbs, they were empty. Like his heart. And like the bodies before him, his heart had bled, although completely unseen. It had bled until there was nothing left. Until he was completely empty, in both heart and soul.

Yuki straightened up, brushing his wet hair back from his forehead, his gaze steady. He was still alive, still living. He hadn't died that night, or at any other subsequent time. Whether he should have or not, was a moot point now. He still lived, and his life had eventually taken a strange turn. He still lived, and there was someone who insisted that he go on living. Suddenly it seemed that his heart wasn't so empty any more. Slowly it seemed that he could once more feel the warmth of his blood flowing through his veins and filling his heart. Shuichi had threatened to die if Yuki left him, swore to follow him no matter what and no matter where, to always be there for him. He refused to accept that Yuki should be anywhere else but with him, even in death. Yuki snorted, as he straightened his shirt collar and jacket. That idiot!

He exited the restroom to see the carousel turning. Finally! He crossed the intervening distance and reached it just as his own bag came into view. He clasped the handles and walked away. It would be good to get home, and Shuichi would be home soon.