Haunted.
1. Drink.
T: This fic has been inspired by the beautiful 'Eric's song' by Vienna Teng and I ask you all to listen to it at some point to see why! This is a slight foray from my usual X parings (though they are also mentioned) so for those squiked by the thought of Kamui and Subaru together (even briefly) should turn away now! I do not own the characters or indeed the inspiration for this plot bunny!
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He'd stepped out of his apartment with the intent of buying some groceries and of picking up the prescription of anti-depressants that had been waiting for him at the chemists for a week now.
Yet, as always, he'd only made it as far as the pub that skulked in the shadowed corner at the edge of his street.
The place was noisy and it smelt of a unique combination of stale tobacco and bear that always turned his stomach, annoyances that were easily dismissed once he'd drunk enough.
Sometimes there'd be someone new in the crowd and the regulars would bate them into crossing over to him and violating his personal boundaries.
Most of these individuals got the hint to leave him be fairly quickly, occasionally one would see only his fragile outer shell and, confident that one such as he could be of no real threat, would continue to push their luck.
Usually those who'd continue on would leave with a broken bone or a blooded nose as a future reminder to think before they acted, though there had been one occasion where an 'assailant' had had to be escorted away in an ambulance…
More often than not, however, he'd be left alone with his drink and, the alcohol numbing the pain, he'd take stock of the world about him.
Today, as every other day, he saw little other than beer swilling drunkards who were too emotionally stilted or too wrapped into themselves to have somewhere else to be.
He'd sold his soul to protect those men and this dive…had given over his life so that they could continue to destroy theirs…
He pushed at that and ordered another drink in order that he might better drown out the sound of metal scraping upon metal that was echoing in his mind.
It'd been nine years since the world had been 'saved'…
…nine years since he'd used the Shinken to end things once and for all…
…nine years since his 'victory'.
He'd gone back to the diet building, his hands still stained with blood and he'd been told, in a cold clinical manner, that he was the last…
…that the other Seals were dead.
He'd asked for an explanation and the Princess had given him just that…had told him the terrible truth and then…
He'd woken in hospital a week later, coated in bruises and bandages.
The doctor informed him that he'd been pulled from the wreckage of the Diet building by an unknown gentleman who had not given his name and when he's ask for a description the elderly man had replied,
"There was something odd about his right eye."
There'd been only one logical conclusion to the stranger's identity after that and he'd appreciated the relevance of the other coming back into his life at that moment.
He'd searched the other out and they'd gone down to a bar and talked together of the pain in their lives.
Drunken foolishness had brought him to Subaru's apartment and the lingering traces of his desire of the other had furled them into the same bed.
He'd woken warm and secure in the embrace of the other's arms and for a single moment he'd found the peace he'd so desperately needed since the last terrible battle.
For a year they'd stayed together, clutching to one another in the eye of the impending storm and learning, simply for the presence of the other at their side, to forget the threat of the squall and to live for the instant.
It was a task that had proven more complicated than they had believed it might, the ghosts in their pasts having gripped hard to their hearts.
Sometimes he would find the other glancing out of the apartment window, one hand set against his right eye and the other pressed to his heart and sometimes it would be himself who would become lost, his ears straining to hear the final whispered words of a dying man and his hands recalling the sticky warmth of Fuuma's blood.
Yet it was only when he had asked the other about his eye…about the nature of those final words…that everything had turned truly sour…
When it had became clear that their ghosts would never truly let them go.
He'd pushed the other out of his life after that and for seven years he'd been alone with his memories, the alcohol and the pills his only sure rest bite.
The juke box in the far corner of the bar stutters into life and he listens, as well as he can amid the hubbub, to the gentle melody of the piano and the emotion in the singers voice as she sings, in English, of the comfort of having a trustworthy someone at her side.
He glances towards the corner and is unsurprised to find the other there, the smile on his lips so small that he is tempted to believe it insignificant.
Yet for the other to smile at all had been a rare thing even during their year together and for him to smile without clear cause…
He gestures to the empty chair opposite him, the murmurs this gesture causes pulling another small, yet sincere, smile from the other.
The other orders two drinks from the bar and then comes to claim the offered seat, his eyes lifting a moment to asses him before he remarks,
"You are drunk."
"It's better than the alternative."
"Which is?"
"Using my anti-depressants recreationally." There is a reproach clear in the other's mismatch gaze and, smiling in as a disarming a manner as he can, he enquires, "I'm allowed some way to push the memories away, am I not?"
"Yes but I am not certain that Fuuma…"
"If you wish to keep that arm I'd stop that thought there." He remarks as he gestures to the other's right arm.
"You have changed since the last that we were together."
"And you were the one to change me."
The other shivers at the phrase and, for a moment, he closes in on himself. When the other's posture again relaxes he enquires,
"Why are you here?"
"I missed you."
"Then why wait all this time to see me again?"
"I only discovered you were here last week and it's taken me that long to decide the best course of action."
"Why chose to see me then? It'd only end badly after all."
"Perhaps and yet…it made sense to be together, did it not?"
"Yes."
"Then why not try again?"
"Because of the hurt we have endured and because of the scars we can not quite hide." He remarks as he gestures first to the other's right eye and then to the scar that runs just below his collar bone.
"Scars that did not matter while we were at one another's side."
"Not to begin with, no, but then my jealousy got the better of me and I became possessive…began to demand things of you that you could never give…"
"We do not have to be lovers, Kamui….simply having you at my side was enough to drive the nightmares away."
He knows that he should say no…knows that he should stop this madness before it escalates again into something other than it should be and yet…
…there is a warmth in his stomach that is not caused by the drink and already he feels his melancholy slipping a little.
He knows, in a hazy sort of a manner, that he is smiling when responds, "Then let us try to be friends, shall we, Subaru?" and that he genuinely means both the words and the expression.
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T: Next chapter Tuesday, until then listen to the song and R+R!