title: ageless
genre: romance / hurt / comfort / horror
pairings: shiemi/amaimon, rin/bon
warnings: death, destruction, ranting to my roommate (hi marisol) about how to make this cook
"This is a story about the
monsters and the lovers,
This is a story about how
they became the same thing."
—Emily Palermo, Love in the Time of Monsters
chapter o2: in which things begin to steadily change
Amaimon wakes to the sound of a sharp scream. His eyes snap open, half-startled, half-curious to find his wife hovering over him, hands pressed to her mouth, a basket of vegetables and herbs at her feet. "Oh my—" She chokes off the word, either by habit or by choice, and gathers her skirts together in her hands. She falls to her knees in a graceful collapse beside him, hands fretting in front of her, unsure.
"Amaimon," she says sounding winded and more awake than anyone should be this side of the morning. "What are you doing out here?"
Amaimon blinks up at her.
And blinks.
"What?"
Shiemi looks vaguely concerned. Eyes wide, an anxious flush rising to her cheeks. "You're in the garden," she says steadily, eyes searching his face. Amaimon glances around, noting that he is, in fact, in their garden. Shiemi continues, "You said you were going out for a bit and I found you out here. You scared me half to death."
Amaimon shifts. "Not to death." He murmurs and takes a breath, inhaling the sweet smells of the garden. The soft grass was freshly cut and dewy under him, bleeding through his nightshirt and creating a damp spot on his shoulder and back. The lavender bundles above him tip as if to shade his face from the rising sun.
Shiemi's garden always felt warm to him. The very soil beneath her feet warmed to accommodate her creations. Here, the greenmen ran rampant, singing and tending; a host of chuchi nestled in the old trees, buzzing at the occasional lookers-on; and a gathering of fae were housed in the larger flowers, holding courtly aspirations. All helped the garden grow.
The Earth King's wife is favored by his element, a queen even more beloved than their maker.
He leans up, the chill of his damp shirt chasing down his spine, and he presses a kiss to her lips. "I'm just taking a nap," he says lightly. "You snore so loudly; I needed some sleep."
Her nose crinkles at that and she smacks his arm, not hard, but he falls back, feigning to be wounded as she chastises him. "—you're going to mess up your neck if you sleep out here! You're scaring Nii-chan and his sisters!"
"Oh, they're fine." He groans and rolls so his head is pillowed against her knee, her bone against the hollow of his cheek. She has her fingers in his hair in an instant, brushing out stray blades of grass and wet flower petals, the perfume of the earth. He hums. "And your people slept on the ground for ages. You built mud-huts and worshiped the forest gods. They never had much a problem with it."
Shiemi snorts in a put-upon way that she does more for the effect than actual reaction. She ambles into a light-hearted conversation about all the things he never cared to learn about humans. Still her fingers worked through his hair, moving against the nape of his neck, massaging the muscle there for tension. He purrs under her hands.
He captures one of her hands, splaying the fingers wide so he can decipher the lines stitched into her palm. He presses his mouth against it, tasting soil and mint and tea leaves.
She makes another noise. Less put upon.
"—and life expectancy was quite different." She mumbles the last part, like a sleepy story-teller, though Amaimon knows she rarely brings up human life and death matters if she can help it. This must have been a vague rant, distracted, a mistake.
He smiles against her hand. "Lucky me, I've trapped you forever."
It's a joke, a jest, but she smiles and kisses his temple, making the morning worries cease from his mind.
The afternoon ambles on quite the same for them. Shiemi has work and so after breakfast she goes up to her office with an earthen mug of steaming tea and her hair braided into a knot. She has new data to decipher and papers from her online class to grade, so bothering her is out of the question.
Amaimon toils away the hours the usual way, he returns back to the garden. They have a couple new saplings in the back corner to compensate for the privacy fence they could not get approved.
Although, it was less of a garden and more of a large plot of forest preserve and yard they had landscaped and bled into submission. The end result had bloomed beautifully under Shiemi's care. From his space near the miniature orchard, he could see the frosted glass of Shiemi's private greenhouse—the one she used for work and for most of her experiments.
He surveys the sapling sprouting feebly in its mount of fresh turned soil and support bar. The glossy leaves were beginning to brown and brittle. The fresh healthy red-brown glow of the wood beginning to darken with rot.
Amaimon sighs and reaches his claws into the soil, feeling around for the root. It just needs a little incentive, like all things, to grow and blossom.
It was an unseasonal decision. In fact, an un-regional one too. But, he had assured Shiemi he would make it work so they would have large gnarling trees like in faerietales.
He reaches out through the soil, reaching in and within—
He knows undoubtably, he can make the plant grow to his bidding. Earth is his element, dictated to him in ceremony by spilling his lifeblood into the earth's core to gain its power many, many years ago. Since, he has held an unquestioning monopoly and authority over all things earthen and natural.
But this time, when Amaimon digs his nails into the soil, coiling his fingers with the baby's hair roots, he feels nothing.
A simple, overwhelming nothing.
Not the pulse of the tree, not the root of dehydration, not the sweet death of rot—
Just nothing.
Simple as death.
He digs another hand into the soil, curling his fingers together and reaching, but nothing comes.
When Amaimon enters through the kitchen, Shiemi is making lunch while talking on the phone with her mother. She throws a smile over her shoulder at him and gestures to her cell phone with a spoon. "—yeah okaa-san, yes, Amaimon just walked in."
There is a confusing pause of static and then a half-hearted hello for him. Amaimon raises a brow at this, but doesn't bother to return the nicety. As he passes behind Shiemi, he plants a messy kiss on her temple, smearing the dirt from his chin onto her cheek.
"Wash your hands!" She squawks at him and he waves, impish and circles the kitchen island to the deep sink under the window sill. Shiemi returns to her conversation, explaining his actions to her mother and hmm-ing and uhh-huh-ing every so often to her staticky chatter. She is determined not to burn the white bean chili on the stove.
Amaimon tunes her out as he soaks his hands in the great pot of water, she left the vegetables in. His fingers dance atop the prime bell peppers a riot of yellows, greens, and reds. Not a spot, not a splotch, not a hole. Perfectly formed and grown.
He stares out the window, puzzling over the garden and the tenderness in his hands.
He had uprooted the tree in a fit of anger. Torn the sapling from the ground and tore its sinewy, spiny body piece by piece by piece. He had been surprised to feel that it hurt. Him and the tree. In his fit, the soft, smooth bark had ripped at his palms, fighting him as he tore it from existence.
But he felt it fight.
He felt the subtle, screaming heart of it that withered and shrieked as he killed it.
He feels much calmer now.
Soaking his hands in the cool water until his claws retract to normal, until his head stops spinning, until the panic subsides and he can think.
He wants to put his head under the cold water and sleep for a year.
He peers up at the host of tinier plants Shiemi has on the window sill, too small for the garden yet not delicate enough for her greenhouse. Inquisitively, he lifts one hand from the water to sink a nail into the soil of a cherry tomato plant. The soil is a bit dry, brittle even, but not neglected, not dead. Shiemi just has yet to make her rounds to them.
He presses in with just a touch of power, just a drop, and the cherry tomatoes bloom. The stock pushes up from its clay pot, spilling lazily over the side with the fruits of its labors swelling on the counter like bright, red rubies. Beautifully.
Its just as it should be.
Just as he's always done.
He hears the click of the phone belatedly as Shiemi puts her hands around his waist. "Sorry, okaa-san wanted to tell me about the shop. I just called her to double-check the recipe." He fists the hand towel twice and tosses it back on the counter, worries forgotten.
He turns in the embrace to lean against the counter, but feels uncomfortable under her weight.
Normally, he is the clingy one. The one tangling his fingers in her hair, kissing her knuckles and wrists, pinching the fabric of her skirts, sprawling out at her feet like a lazy cat while she works. But the shock of his power—of the sapling—has him on edge.
Shiemi leans listlessly against the line of his body with the line of hers. The full, soft curve of her calms him down and he rubs his hand down the valley of her sides. "You tired?" she asks.
He smiles at her, a challenging one. "Not tired," he relents and presses his mouth against her hair. He breathes in the scent of her. Not yet showered. The earthy smells of soil and camellia and smoke blends with the smell of peppers and sleep. A wonderful blend of an easy day. Later, after she showers, she will smell like lavender and rose oils. Even later, maybe sweat.
But there is something underneath her scent.
Something not plant-based or recycled air.
He leans more insistently against her and she, unknowingly, cuddles more up to him. The fluffy, softness of her cardigan filling his arms. "Mhh, it's so cold in here."
The comment draws a line through his focus and Amaimon leans back a bit to eye her. He had not sensed her illness when it came on, not until the last time when her body was too racked with chemicals and bile to produce much else. Could have caught it earlier, the doctor had said. Still, she does not look sick or pale or chilly.
Then again, she hadn't before.
As if sensing his worry, Shiemi leans up to him, kissing his chin and then his mouth. The sweet pecks of her kisses taste like tea, like basil, like her. He chases the taste, thoughts diverted again.
"I should start breaking out the winter clothes." She hums noncommittally, an explanation, but not. "They say winter is coming early this year."
Amaimon is not sure who they are and has never deigned to ask, but he feels in his bones an early winter is upon them. A season of hibernation, quiet, and relief from school. They will switch the air systems in the house, tend to the garden in the late morning when the sun is high, put up a tree, and crack hazelnuts by the fireplace.
And if he is good enough, Shiemi might make the Japanese Christmas cake he likes and she rarely makes.
Her body is warm against his, warm and flushed from the sweater and the greenhouse and cooking over the oven stove. He brushes his thumb over her cheek. Then, brow ticking, he brings his thumb to his mouth and then proceeds to wipe his spit-covered finger across her cheek.
She rears against him, squealing. "Amaimon!"
"You have a smudge of dirt."
"Then let me wipe it off with a towel!"
"No."
The days continue much the same. They house the tiny plants and wrap hay and blankets around the others while winter descends. Shiemi is busy with finals and work, so he spends much of his time preparing preserves and soaking the so-so plants with enough power to last them through winter.
He has no more of those mix ups. Those strange moments of unfeeling, of nothing.
He finishes his work early and Shiemi rewards him with kisses, with cake, with sweets.
They arrange poinsettias around the house, they decorate, they force the hobgoblins roosting in the attic to wear Santa Claus hats. On a dreary gray day, Amaimon leaves a letter to Satan Claws in his stocking and hears Shiemi's crack of laughter from across the house.
They are settling in, cozying up, and everything is as it ought to be, until the letter arrives.
Shiemi is usually too busy to get the mail, so Amaimon tends to comb it. Bills, letters, trash.
This one, however, this tricky thick envelope with heavy paper and thick, creamy stationary slips through his fingers and somehow lands on Shiemi's work desk.
He is trying his hand at cake making when she comes into the room, flushed and half-spilling her reindeer mug of coco mint tea when she waves the letter above her like a flag. "I got offered a job!" She announces and it's like a cannonball soaring to flight and landing in his chest.
The buttermilk batter spills over the side of the bowl, drippling lazily across the polished wood counter top. Amaimon stares at her, blinks.
"You have a job." He says as if this is obvious and then wonders if he has missed anything. Did Shiemi mention quitting? Being fired? Deciding to give up teaching at a human university and spend all her time taming hobgoblins in Osaka?
She smiles, brightly. "I do!" She says and, without losing steam, she squeals again. "I do, but not from an exorcist organization." That is more by design than by choice. Her illness left her too sick and too weak to deal with anything more powerful than low level demons. And although Shiemi's taming abilities were amiable, the organization refused to put her danger.
Because of him most likely, but Amaimon would never ease that threat of revolt if it keeps his bride safe and out of hands to his otherkin.
"But, but—" She is bouncing now. Her legs winding with muscle, preparing to spring, to leap, to kick the sky. "I got a letter from Mephisto. He said a space opened up for a Taming professor at True Cross. He's offering me the job, on a trial basis, of course, but—"
Amaimon feels his claws lengthening in kind. Mephisto. He should have known. He should have realized.
Shiemi waves the envelope and he can still catch the bits of glamor clinging to the paper. A notice on the water bill morphing into a personal letter. His brother's human name scrawled in inky black. A coy, toiling promise of danger on the horizon.
okay, once i switched to first-person i started getting into this. I feel like I can really capture amaimon's quiet, obsessive, love in this tense. as well as shiemi's innocence, neglect, and their strange skewed love story.
i enjoy this and i hope you do too. so please, drop a kudos or tell me a line you liked or a characterization you enjoyed or just to say hi and how strange and cool with pairing would be.
- cafeanna