Author's note at bottom. As usual, I cut some choruses and bridges because the songs are too damn long.
--
Tourniquet
I tried to kill the pain
But only brought more (so much more...)
I lay, dying
And I'm pouring
Crimson regret
And betrayal
Depression wasn't a wonderful thing. He could feel the utter weight of it drag him down as if he was drowning, and he hated the water. Suguru couldn't remember a time when something like that hadn't lurked in the corners of his mind. Perhaps when he was a child in his mother's arms.
Suguru had just come from a concert. It had been long and hard, and with Akuma still trying to apologize to him it hadn't been very fun. He missed the times when music had just been fun.
Brown eyes looked at the ground and stayed there. He remembered this warehouse, every step leading him deeper into it. He remembered dodging around the pipes in a rough parody of hide and seek, setting up the keyboards here so it wouldn't bother anyone. And he could remember laughing.
He was still wearing the clothes from the concert, his black clothes and the white denim jacket. Falling into the corner, he pushed up his sleeve. There would be twin slashes on his forearms, wrist to elbow, for all of his life. The white of the jacket dipped into the blood, sullying it.
"Suguru?" Akuma yelled, looking around the warehouse. "I thought I saw... SUGURU!" Akuma fell to his knees before his lover, looking into the blurry brown eyes. "Suguru, you can't--" The dark head bowed over Suguru and he found the knife taken from his numb hands.
"I'd follow you anywhere, Suguru..."
The bright sunlight blinded his eyes as Suguru awoke suddenly, body covered in sweat and tears. He hugging his knees to him, he rested his head on them. His breathing labored on, hard and loud, as he scrabbled to retrieve his mind from the past.
'He's alive... Why didn't he--?'
"Suguru?" The dark-haired keyboardist looked up curiously. This was his apartment, there was no doubt, but who was in it? Then he remembered. They had brought him back, and Tatsuha had stayed with him to make sure he didn't do anything stupid.
Suguru didn't know why he would bother. Why, somehow, Tatsuha could see past a whole crowd just to see him. Suguru had always tried to be nondescript, ever since he had lived with his uncle after his parents death. He tried to blend in, to hide, even in shrouds of forest dark hair and flashing brown eyes. Yet somehow Tatsuha had seen.
The ebony-haired monk slid Fujisaki's door open and walked inside. Suguru watched him silently as he threw himself into a chair. There was no hesitation in his step, no sign that he might be worried. None. Tatsuha was truly a unique man.
"Hey. Do you want something to eat? I make a really mean omelette. Or maybe pancakes, though I'm not really so..."
The corner of Suguru's mouth twitched. He was babbling. "I'm fine for now," he said, voice husky from the laughter that had torn through his throat like he had swallowed glass. He was fine for the moment, but with Akuma alive he really didn't know how he was going to stay that way.
--
I'm dying, praying, bleeding, and screaming
Am I too lost
To be saved
Am I too lost?
Akuma was bitter and irritable, and completely gave in to every 'bad boy' image presented to him. That was what Suguru loved about him, though. Because beneath whatever new façade Akuma had decided to take on, he was sweet and loved people as much as he could.
Suguru was willing to bet that this new irritability was one of those new façades. It was possible that Akuma was actually stressed by their new fame. In fact, he probably thought that he was. The fact remained that Akuma loved being bad almost more than he loved fame. Putting the two together was putting together a match and a tub full of fireworks. Something bad was going to happen.
Suguru shot him a glance out of the corner of his eye, sidelong and with a bit of sorrow and love. Akuma was Akuma, and so it remained. Akuma Seti would scream and he would rage, but somewhere beneath that Suguru knew. He knew that Akuma loved him.
A small smile played across Akuma's lips once Suguru looked away. The long-haired boy was so sweet, and being loved wasn't something that Akuma was used to just knowing.
But Suguru was Suguru, and there it remained.
--
My god, my tourniquet
Return to me salvation
My god, my tourniquet
Return to me salvation
"I don't like talking at concerts." Once again, the words were short, soft. "Seti always did that, and I never liked to. This is on the last album that Seti and I did together. So just listen."
Tenshi's eyes flared as he stepped back from the crowds and his adept fingers sprang across the keyboard with a life of their own, twisting and turning but never tripping over each other. He wove a complex melody through the sheer power of the clear notes, undeniably puzzling but also undeniably beautiful.
As he sang, Tatsuha watched him from backstage. He was so deft in the placement of his fingers, so completely immersed in the song and the emotions that came with it. It was like he had bottled every emotion into his songs and it only came out when he sang. And that was what made these newest songs so good, despite the fact they weren't the Fallen Angel norm.
Tenshi could feel the monk's dark eyes burning between his shoulderblades and let his hair fall across his cheek. He didn't want to be seen, not like that. Not with some sort of understanding or pity. He didn't want that in any way. He had to do this himself, the way he always had. He had to find out what was best for him.
Akuma hadn't been like that. He had always known perfectly well what was right for him and when he found otherwise he bullied through it as if he knew it all along. Akuma had been false and sweet and absolutely in love with him. Tenshi had to wonder if he still was.
It was like an ache somewhere deep in his soul to know that Akuma had been hiding from him when he had loved Akuma so much, so deeply. And it made him want to scream.
The song ended. "I... There will be a brief intermission now."
He bolted.
Backstage was empty except Tatsuha, for once. He hadn't been expected to take a break for another four songs, but he had needed it. His cousin might not have wanted him to do this concert considering the circumstances, but he had needed to.
"Suguru?"
But then, what was need?
Do you remember me?
Lost for so long...
Will you be on the other side, or will you forget me?
He had needed Akuma so much and this was what had happened. He missed Akuma so much, but he couldn't give into this. He couldn't just give up everything, his entire life, just because of someone else's problems. Yet despite all that, he couldn't give up hope either.
"Suguru, are you all right?" Tatsuha asked anxiously, touching the young keyboardist's shoulder. Tenshi spun around and buried his head on Tatsuha's shoulder, breathing in the warmth of his neck.
"Why do you see me?" The words were muffled against the cloth of Tatsuha's shirt. "How can you just see past everyone and see me?"
Tatsuha blinked, stumped, and the first words that he thought were the first that came out of his mouth. "Because you're perfect."
And Tenshi laughed. "Far from it." He drew back and big brown eyes blinked up at Tatsuha. Suguru was so small, so delicate, but he was so strong. You could feel it from him like an inner gravitation that pulled you in. "You know..." A pale hand traced Tatsuha's cheek. "I think... that you're Fallen too." A finger brushed against the corner of one of the monk's eyes. "It's in your eyes."
--
Suguru sat on his couch with his legs curled under him, trying to read despite his thoughts. He couldn't give up life because of Akuma, but he couldn't stop mourning him either. He refused to stop either. He loved living and he loved Akuma, but those things didn't have to not co-exist.
"SUGURU! We've come bearing pizza!" Shindou shouted, door banging open. "And ice cream! And strawberry pocky!" The pink-headed whirlwind bounced into the room like a monkey on crack. Although crude, it was true. Shuichi was very strange.
"And I have come bearing some food you will actually enjoy," Hiroshi said dryly, pushing back dark russet locks of hair. "Or at least get to eat. Shuichi brought just about enough for him and his stomach."
"I can't eat this much!" Shuichi protested, hefting his three pizza boxes. Suguru stifled laughter. Truth being, Shuichi could. He guessed that he was forgiven. He didn't think that Shindou would stay mad at him for long anyway, considering who was being discussed, but he had worried.
He had never had many people he considered friends, always being an odd and quiet child who had spent more time at a keyboard than outside. He consider Shuichi a friend, though, and even more so Hiro. He didn't want to lose those friendships. He didn't want to lose whatever he had with Tatsuha, either.
--
I want to die!
My wounds cry for the grave
My soul cries... for deliverance
Will I be denied Christ?
Tourniquet
My suicide
Suguru's eyes traced over the harsh planes of Akuma's face, drifting over the soft lips and the hard-as-diamonds eyes. Akuma had been his best friend for a long time, but he had always loved him and been fascinated with him. Ever since he had met the Fallen that day he had wanted to stick by his side forever.
"Why do you do that?" Akuma's words were harsh, as always, but that didn't mean he was actually being cruel. He was just gruff sometimes, and more than a little confused on how to show affection. It had been Suguru's good luck that he always understood what Akuma was trying to say. "Like that. Staring at me, I mean."
Suguru smiled softly, brushing long green-black strands of hair away from his face. "Just because, Seti. Don't worry about it."
Akuma snorted and looked a way, a flush high on his cheeks.
Suguru linked his hands behind his head, feeling the long, thin line where there were a few strands of white. His head had been scarred once so deeply it had destroyed the color pigment, but he tried not to think about that anymore. Not since he had met Akuma.
Still, it didn't change what he felt. Because what he would do within the next few days wasn't Akuma's fault; it was his own. Whatever sadness persisted in him, whatever depression he felt so deeply that it shook him, wasn't Akuma's fault.
Maybe things were messed up, but sometimes messed up was all right. Even if he felt like everything was fine with Akuma now, even if he could forgive him for his mistakes, that didn't mean that what had happened before was gone.
After the concert tonight, he supposed it would all be gone.
--
Sorry! A day later than I said, but some relatives showed up for Thanksgiving and I was at my sister's over the weekend, so I couldn't work on anything. Chapter out next week sometime, probably. Maybe two if I hit a snag.