"The Darkest Night" (Part 3/4?)
by Sakura no Miko
Pairing: Subaru/Seishirou
Warnings: Major, major disturbing content involving various forms of suicide/euthanasia, abortion, and outright murder. Worse, actual sympathy and glorification of such actions. Anyone who values life as a "gift of God" or whatever deity/power you choose should probably stay away from this 'fic. Oh, and character deaths, yaoi, angst…the usual for these two.
Summary: A view of the lives of the two healers.
Disclaimer: Um. What clever quip can I make this time?
Ah. Here we go. In my world, we would say:
"It's raining, it's pouring,
The CLAMP girls are snoring.
They woke up then and all blushed red
'Cuz Sei and Su were snogging."
Until that's true, I can't own these characters.
Subaru had found, of late, that his life had changed. His mind…his flesh…his heart. This work he'd taken up was changing him, and he didn't know that he'd ever go back to the way he was. Or even if he'd want to go back.
It was warm—too warm for his tastes. But it would be another fall, soon. And then…winter. Ice, and snow, and long, dark nights.
Not now, though. Now it was high summer, the garden in bloom, the days long and full of work. It was a quiet day, and Subaru was grateful. His hands…still hadn't quite regained their steadiness. Not after that last…the last killing. Seishirou wouldn't even tell him why. He just smiled, that infuriating smile, and told Subaru to keep his mind open.
…yes. The killings were the hardest thing of all to accept.
He'd been alive—alive—like this for…nearly two years, wasn't it? He hardly seemed like the wet, wraith-like sixteen-year-old boy he'd been when he arrived. But the pain was still there, whenever he saw something—though the moments had become fewer—that reminded him of her, his Hokuto, his dearest sister.
Four years, that. Four years since he'd been at her side. Three since her death. Two since he chose life, here.
The numbers helped him. Cold, calculating…just like Seishirou's eyes. He'd learned to live with the man, through all his stoicism, all his fits of anger and darkness. They were fewer now, too.
Seishirou Sakurazuka was a strange man. Nothing changed that. In his old life—for that was what he thought of his childhood, now—he would have never liked the man, never trusted him. Never…believed him. He was too cold, too uncaring.
Seishirou had tried to explain it to him, on a cold night when the snow piled so high they could move far from their home. His mother—and he called her, lovingly, "beautiful," with such softness in his eyes as Subaru had never seen before or since—had also been a healer, and a murderer. Their family had taken such tasks as their own long ago. He tried to explain that he had, from childhood, lived among the dead and dying.
He didn't lie, and Subaru found that trait his most endearing. Others might have tried to justify their actions. Death is good, and right. A part of nature. The end of suffering. A new plain of existence. Subaru had heard all of them, from desperate or well-wishing victims.
Seishirou said, so blunt, yet so…elegantly, delicately almost, that he simply saw nothing wrong with the killings.
"There will always be another," he'd said, the fire blazing and casting dark shadows on his face. He looked more pensive than usual. "Another child can be born, another husband or wife married. A child will soon take his parent's place. What does it matter if one dies? He'll simply be replaced…forgotten."
"And I…" He'd paused, a movement that, to this day, Subaru found mesmerizing. "I don't see why it's any different than killing a beast, or breaking a plate. No one cares about those things. Why are humans different?"
"It doesn't hurt you?" Subaru whispered back, his breath caught in his throat. His eyes watered, from the heat or the smoke or the conversation. His body had still been small and frail at seventeen.
Seishirou's eyes narrowed, and for a moment, Subaru thought he might have touched some long-lost memory, some empathy, some wisp of humanity. "It hurts to see the flowers fall," he said simply. "They're so…beautiful. I wish they might live forever." His voice was wispy, dreamy almost.
But perhaps Subaru only imagined the words. Seishirou's voice snapped back, cold and harsh and empty. "Why would it hurt me? They're just…flesh. Creatures. Horrible, ugly creature that somehow have the will to keep living long past the end of their days. Humans are simply another animal, living in this world, trying to survive." His face was dark, almost disappearing in the flickering light. "I feel nothing when I kill them. Nothing at all."
Subaru looked at his hands, taking a moment to enjoy the light breeze. He'd trembled to see Seishirou at work. He truly didn't care. Death was…nothing to him.
There were so many people who wanted death, for so many reasons.
The suicides were the easiest to watch. His first…had been a suicide. They all had their own reasons, but Subaru felt glad to see them die, rather than sad. After all, he knew all too well the pain they were feeling.
But their eyes…
Seishirou had been so right. Subaru could remember the very first time a death-seeker had shown up at their home, just after Subaru had taken on his new life. He just stood there, for minutes or hours, however long it took for them to take notice of him.
It was as if he were blind. His eyes stared—there was no other word—vacantly into the distance, past them, past their home, past life itself. They called to him, but he couldn't hear them. It was as if he were blind and deaf and dumb, all at once.
Seishirou was mercifully quick with him. One strike. Clean through the heart.
But when the body slumped over, it was Subaru who leaned over to help move it. He cried, even though he felt a deep sense of satisfaction, of happiness at the gentle passing. He cried as they buried the body, under the gorgeous garden not yet in full bloom. And when Seishirou tried to comfort him, he wept until all the blood was washed away from their hands.
So it wasn't hard, on that day that seemed so far away, when another young man so like himself came and asked boldly for death. The boy smiled sadly as Subaru whispered a quick apology for his inexperience. It wasn't as bad as he'd thought.
"My love, my dearest Hanako," the boy whispered, unmistakably lovesick, unmistakably happy. "Thank you so much, kind healer." He died not a moment later, his lover's name on his lips, a peaceful smile on his face.
His hands were so red, Subaru thought. Just like Seishirou's had been. Seishirou had come up to him then. Delicately grabbing Subaru's red hand with his own, so white, checking for any injury, any cause for pain. Subaru had smiled. "It's not my body that hurts," he'd said, those troublesome tears leaking again. He was so happy, so happy to have helped the poor boy…and so agonized in his heart over the brief candle he'd snuffed out. "My heart…" he'd tried to explain, but Seishirou silenced him.
It didn't hurt, but he couldn't stop crying.
He didn't cry as much now, he realized. Then again, it wasn't as if Seishirou had him kill often. He didn't even watch most of the murders.
Suicide didn't bother him, not at all. He'd come to realize that many of the people who came were, like he had been, too scared to do it themselves. Many believed that they would be punished by the gods. Others were simply unable to summon the courage.
The way they smiled when they finally got their wish, the names of lost lovers or loved ones on their lips, was touching. Even the few who flinched, or began to cry, had that sense of completion about them. What was pain? What was grief? It meant nothing to them, not anymore.
No, it wasn't fear. It was…pride. He straightened up. He was proud to bring these people what they wanted, what they needed. Nothing broke his heart more than those blank stares, the utter downfall of their spirits, the death-like existence that could give no pleasure, no hope, nothing even remotely like life.
But the moment fizzled. This wasn't about the suicides. It was about the children Seishirou had murdered, right in front of him. He knew Subaru hated the death of a child the most, and he'd made him watch. To top it off, he hadn't even given a reason. 'Keep your mind open.' Ha. There was nothing that could justify Seishirou making him watch that blood bath.
She'd been beautiful—but, then again, that was her job.
The woman had been the first of a long line of woman and girls looking for death. Not their own deaths—the deaths of their children.
She was what a person of Subaru's class might call a "courtesan." Seishirou was blunt. She was a whore. He wasn't trying to be cruel, just blunt. It seemed that he disapproved less of her, and more of her customers.
Seishirou prepared the potion with practiced speed.
Subaru hadn't asked what happened, not then. He could scarcely believe that the woman wanted to kill her unborn child. He was spared the pain of seeing the death of a child further along until well into his second year as a healer-apprentice, when the deaths were already numbing him.
It was simple, if he didn't think about it. The woman just had to drink the potion. All of it. Then the child would…would…
Subaru trembled at the thought.
It wasn't until he spoke to one of them that he understood. He'd silently handed her the potion—a pretty little girl, with blue eyes and gold hair, only just as old as he was—and looked away, unable to watch.
"You're disgusted, aren't you?" she'd whispered.
"Yes," he'd replied truthfully, hardly able to meet her gaze.
"I can't care for the child," the girl said simply. She didn't try to flower it up, or offer an excuse. Subaru's gaze steadied. "My son, or my daughter—just another mouth to feed. I can't…" She'd smiled with teary eyes. "I can't even care for myself without…without these jobs. These filthy jobs, these filthy lords who sell us out. If I had a girl, they'd take her, you know that? They'd take her from me and make her a whore,"—she spat the words out—"just like me. And they'd kill a boy. Can't have a defender, after all. Or you know, they might take him and make him one of their bodyguards. I'd never know him, not even if they gave me to him as a reward for his hard work. I'd never…never know his face."
"I didn't know," Subaru said.
"Well, now you do," she said, and swallowed the potion in one gulp.
The whores, the slaves, the poorest of the poor—all of them came, in droves, seeking some way to keep their children from becoming whores, slaves, the poorest of the poor.
Subaru pitied them.
But, lately, he'd begun to think…that maybe it was better this way.
He stood up, needing to stretch his legs. His body felt awkward, tall and long and…strange. He'd grown more clumsy physically, yet more skilled. He could do almost anything Seishirou needed.
It wasn't a bad life, he reflected. He was learning the art of healing, and it gave him a keen satisfaction. Seishirou had shown him only the most rudimentary methods of killing, and rarely, if ever, called on him for such tasks. More often, Subaru was tending to the patients' needs—their food, their bedding, their medication. He could do all the chores with almost inhuman speed, and he found it easy to assess patient's needs well before they voiced them.
He was satisfied. He didn't know why, or how, but…
He found it all so enjoyable. Making dinner after a late-night surgery, waking at the crack of dawn to soothe a sick child, or simply watching Seishirou's mastery at the healing arts…
Seishirou…
He was part of it, Subaru supposed. The man still puzzled him. He said he felt nothing—and, often, it seemed exactly so, but…
Sometimes, there was such a gentleness in his eyes. When he took a moment to tend the garden—and it was the most glorious garden Subaru had ever seen—he seemed happy, content. The way his fingers danced over the fragile camellias, before plucking a perfect blossom to amuse one of their younger patients, or the way he leaned back against the blooming cherry blossoms, deep in thought over some little thing…
He was so different, in those moments. Which one was the real Seishirou, Subaru wondered once. The man? The healer? The murderer?
Subaru clenched his hands. He needed to apologize for storming out. He'd been so sickened by the senseless deaths. But…Seishirou wouldn't hurt him on purpose. Not him. There…there had to be a reason.
He took a deep breath. Then he remembered. No, Seishirou had already left. He was performing a killing for one of the older members of a local family.
The "mercy" killings, as someone had once called them, were by far the least disgusting to him. They were, in theory, closer to the suicides, but far less tragic.
It was mostly the elderly. They were sick, dying, at utter peace with their gods and their fates. Many were quite happy to ask for death. They didn't even flinch.
Their children gathered around, each one smiling a smile tinged with sadness. They would miss their parents, their aunts, their cousins. Those wise old smiles; those stories of days long past, filled with something more than these days; those gentle lessons that would be passed on to children and children's children.
They would be missed so terribly, but…it was better than leaving them in pain and suffering, wasn't it?
Subaru smiled. The image was so warm. He almost…wished his own family were so open-minded, to embrace the next life instead of clinging to their power, their headship until they were weak and stupid and unable to see past their own pain.
He decided to wait in the house. Surely Seishirou would be hungry when he returned? He'd just been to the market the day before, and there was plenty of food to prepare a nice dinner for the two of them. He would apologize for being so hasty in his anger.
The other mercy killings bothered him. He wasn't sure why.
The maimed were inclined towards death as well. Most were young men—boys, even—wounded in war. They came back and chose death over a life unlike the one they'd had before. Subaru couldn't imagine their pain. He'd watched an amputation once. The screams haunted his dreams for days.
Still, they were just suicides under another name. All of them were, really. The only true killings were…
He swallowed. Seishirou said it didn't matter, but it did to him. No matter what he'd tried to think about it, killing the insane, the idiots, truly disturbed him.
Maybe it was their eyes. Like the death-seekers, they had blank eyes, uncomprehending, unseeing. But such bright, innocent eyes…
They didn't even comprehend that they were being led to their deaths. These people were no different than animals. Subaru looked at them and saw the world through Seishirou's eyes. Why, then, did it unnerve him so?
He tried, so desperately, to be like Seishirou, not to cry or flinch or torment his heart with morals. But he couldn't see the world with Seishirou's eyes. Humans were still...special to him.
Even those who had no will to live…those who wanted to protect the children they loved before they were even born…those who saw their long years at an end…those who couldn't even see life with human eyes…
He felt his heart ache at every death. Maybe Seishirou saw it. He'd never again tried to integrate Subaru fully into his lifestyle, his ways of dealing with his patients. Only the gentlest, most willing people were sent to die at his hands.
He sighed, putting his mind to the task at hand. Fish, he decided, with some rice. Simple, but filling.
Subaru's hand absentmindedly ran over a paper. That evening's news, he recognized. It must have come just when Seishirou left.
He moved to push it away, but the headline caught his attention. A mass suicide in the nearby town. Against his better instincts, he reached to read it. His heart tightened.
A group of slaves who were to have been auctioned off—families with children—apparently killed their children, then themselves, rather than be torn apart by the auctioneer's block. How horrible, Subaru thought.
But he couldn't, for the life of him, decided which fate would have been worse for the poor slaves—their lives torn apart or this…this terrible tragedy.
His eyes flicked to the pictures.
And he let the paper drop to the floor.
Subaru had awakened early that morning to the sounds of desperate knocking at the door. He went to answer it, Seishirou behind him.
He didn't recognize the people standing before him. A man, a woman, three children. But he knew their marks. All of them, their hands branded with the familiar symbol of the lord who ruled in the nearby town.
Seishirou spoke quickly, quietly, with the man. He nodded, once, and led them slaves outside. Subaru's eyes widened. This was where Seishirou preformed the killings. Surely…
The first child fell before he could say anything. He looked back, wildly, to the adults. Tears streamed down their faces, but they only watched, with dark eyes.
The second, dead without a word. But the third—only a baby, barely able to walk, cried and clung to the woman. "Mama," he cried.
"Shh," the woman whispered, cradling the boy in her arms. "Be a good boy. Follow your sisters. It won't hurt, I…promise…"
"Mama," the boy whimpered.
"This way, they'll never pull us apart. Never ever," the woman whispered.
Subaru stared back at Seishirou. No, no, he wanted to plead. No, he wouldn't…he wouldn't…
These weren't death-seekers. They weren't half-formed babies. They were innocent children. Innocent, but that their cruel parents wanted them murdered. No, no…
"Seishirou…please…" Subaru whispered, choking on the words. Even as he whispered them, he knew. He could see it in Seishirou's eyes. The same coldness…the same heartlessness he always saw.
The woman led her child to Seishirou. He leaned down on one knee, talking in soothing words to the boy, luring him with sweet, false promises…
Subaru turned away. He couldn't watch, but he heard…
"Thank you," the parents whispered. He heard their retreating footsteps. He trembled. His eyes stung, burned. He…he…
"…how could you!" It was like a curse. "…how…how…I…" He couldn't speak, he was so angry, so disgusted, so utterly and painfully miserable.
"Keep your mind open," Seishirou said, so simple, so normal. He smiled, as if he were satisfied with the brutal job he'd just done. As if nothing were wrong. As if nothing had happened.
"…you…" Subaru couldn't look at him, not with the words he couldn't say filling his heart. Hatred. If he looked, he was sure to say…
…something he would truly regret…
"Subaru," Seishirou said, soft words close to his ear, "don't be this way. Don't go back to weeping and carrying on every time you see me do this." He sighed, just like a tired parent. "I thought you were over all this."
"But…they…"
"Subaru,"—and Subaru was so angry, because Seishirou was saying his name on purpose, trying to soothe him from a pain that couldn't be soothed—"why? Why this, after so long?"
And perhaps, if Subaru's ears had not been shut in his anger, he might have heard something like confusion in Seishirou's voice. "Because you killed them for no reason!" he shouted, suddenly so furious and frustrated he couldn't hold back, couldn't temper his words or his feelings.
Seishirou moved to touch him, and he flinched. And gods, if he didn't move, he swore he was about to strike the man.
"Subaru," Seishirou said again, and his eyes were softer now, so unlike the cold eyes that watched death upon death without flinching. "I—"
"Don't," Subaru hissed. "I can't…I can't even look at you, Seishirou." He looked away firmly.
He walked away, the only thing he could do.
Subaru sank to the floor.
He didn't know how long he sat there, his mind throbbing, aching. He heard footsteps, but he didn't want to move. The candle had blown out at some point. Maybe he should have been afraid. It could have been anyone wandering in the house, really.
"Subaru?"
Seishirou's voice. Seishirou, kneeling down next to him. Seishirou, grabbing his hands lightly, examining them.
"I'm...not hurt," he whispered, instinctively understanding Seishirou's concern. How stupid he must have looked, sitting their on the kitchen floor, food left on the countertops, in complete darkness.
"But you're not alright," Seishirou said softly. He paused a moment. "You're still angry?"
Subaru shook his head. "No," he said, realizing that it was still dark. Seishirou probably couldn't see him. Maybe that was a good thing.
"I…apologize," the man said finally, his voice stiff.
"For what?" Subaru wished he could see Seishirou's face. His voice was so…strange.
"For making you angry…this morning. I," he paused again. His voice was oddly soft and formal. "I shouldn't have made you watch."
"No, I should apologize to you," Subaru said back. "You were right. I should have kept my mind open. I…" He grabbed at the paper, pushing it towards Seishirou. For a moment, he forgot that the room was still dark. "You killed them…because of this, didn't you?" His voice rose, and he choked on the words. "They were slaves, weren't they? They wanted you to…help them stay together…forever."
The paper was pulled from his hand. He heard it rustle in Seishirou's hand. "Yes," Seishirou said finally. "Yes, they were the slaves. They didn't want to be sold. But…you're wrong."
It was so dark, and Subaru wanted to see Seishirou. But he could only move his fingers against Seishirou's hand, still next to his. "Wrong about what?" he whispered.
"This," Seishirou said simply. "Did you think I was helping them, with this?" Subaru heard the paper, heard it crumple and rip angrily.
Subaru was silent. He didn't know what to say. "I don't understand."
"You were furious, this morning. And now, you don't care at all. You're…you're happy, now!" Seishirou's voice was unsteady.
"Happy?" Subaru repeated. "No…of course not. But I'm not angry, either. You," —he smiled, even though he was scared, scared of the strange note of uncertainty in his voice, in Seishirou's voice— "I thought you were just killing them because of their parents. If I'd known, I…I wouldn't have been mad."
"But why?" Seishirou's voice shook again. "Why does knowing who they are or why they did it change your mind?"
"Because…" Subaru searched for the words.
"Because?" Subaru longed to see the expression of Seishirou's face, but he couldn't move. If he could see, he thought, he might see something he'd never been able to see before. "If I kill one child, or one old man, one broken heart or one unborn child, what is the difference?"
"Because each life is special," Subaru said back. Now he was getting angry. "Don't you see that?"
"And I feel nothing when I kill them. Young or old, sick or healthy."
"Don't say that," Subaru whispered back. It made him sick, the very thought. How could he not feel anything for those…innocent children? How...could anyone not feel—
Subaru's heart tightened.
Seishirou had told him, told him over and over again, that he didn't care, that he didn't feel. It was him, Subaru, who came up with all these stupid reasons, excuses, purposes. It was him who couldn't believe Seishirou's words.
He felt terrible. He knew, he knew Seishirou didn't feel anything. But he refused to believe it. He still selfishly expected the healer to put up with him and his stupid feelings…to always agree with his morals...to always make him happy.
He imagined the way Seishirou had smiled at him, the blood still wet on his hands. Arrogant, mocking—completely and utterly Seishirou. But there was no hatred there, no joy or blood-lust, no pleasure in the killings.
…nothing at all…
Subaru moved to get up, feeling a sense of contentment. He understood. He lit one of the candles, blowing out the match carefully. In the flickering light, he could finally see Seishirou's face. Outwardly, he didn't look any different. But the little things began to add together—the gradual slumping of his shoulders, the ways his lips almost curved downwards, the ways his hands seemed to shake, ever, ever so slightly. Just like a confused child.
"I can't help what I feel," he said, watching Seishirou from the other side of the candle. "And I can't understand your…lack of feelings."
Seishirou's eyes almost lit up. "I can't understand why you need to feel everything so much," he said, deliberately mimicking Subaru's own calm remark.
It was surreal. The thin candlelight flickered. They could only barely see each other. Yet here they were, more open than they'd ever been before.
"I like to have a reason for people to die. It makes me feel better. Like I'm helping them, not…hurting them," Subaru said breathily. He was stunned at his forthrightness.
"Hurting them?" Seishirou repeated. His eyes narrowed. "It's too fast for them to feel anything."
"Not that kind of pain."
"What kind, then?"
"The kind that…makes people sad. That makes people cry." His next words were hushed, and he looked away. "Because most people do care if someone dies."
A question was at the tip of Seishirou's lips, but he swallowed it. "Foolish," he said, contempt covering up anything else he might have felt.
"If that's what you want to think," Subaru said. He took a deep breath. He'd thought…maybe, just maybe he might make the man understand, make him feel something, anything. But he'd failed.
"Another person will always come along," Seishirou said, and his voice was cold again. "That's the way the world is. One person dies, and another takes his place. On and on. There's nothing to cry about."
Subaru heard his steps, heard him walk away. The food lay, untouched, across the counter. He felt better, in some ways—but so much worse in others. Some part of him was comforted by the fact that Seishirou had a reason to kill, just like him, but he realized, much more clearly than ever, that it was coincidence, chance. Seishirou truly didn't care.
He wished the world were as simple for him as it was for Seishirou. He wished he didn't need this complex web of reasons, of soothing, soothing reasons for the dark job he'd taken up. He wished someone could replace Hokuto in his heart so easily.
But no person was replaceable. If only Seishirou could see that…
Author's note: That came out…differently than I expected.
I'm giving some deep and serious thought as to how to end this story. I actually have quite a bit planned out—but I'm starting to wonder if it's really the ending I want.
It's an odd story, but…this wasn't even my original idea. I actually started envisioning this story well after Subaru has already become a full-fledged healer. "The Darkest Night" was only meant to be a short prequel about Subaru and how he became a healer. But as it turned out, this story has more than eclipsed my original idea. I'm not even sure if I want to end up using those ideas about Subaru's later life.
Well…just wait and see. I guess that's all I'm saying.