Part 2: Rainbow Colors

He preferred Fay when he was asleep because it meant he would still be there later, he wouldn't run until he woke up again. But he didn't like to watch. It was painful the way Fay shielded himself, wrapping his powers so tightly around himself that the markings on his back burned red at the tips. That kept him hidden, safe, and yet it was dangerous in its own way. It meant he could never sleep for very long, and that his sleep was never comfortable. He'd wake up before the burning marks spread more than a few inches inward. Kurogane was always careful not to do anything that would wake him sooner than that. So he held him, knowing that if he let go, even for a moment, he wouldn't be able to touch him again without waking him up.

He held him and memorized the markings all over again. The tattoo was black and sleek, looping and sprawling over Fay's back in graceful sweeps. He thought the shape was that of a bird more than anything, the way the edges curled at his waist like talons gripping his hips, and the wings that arced up to dip over his shoulders. There was a crest on the back of Fay's neck, half hidden by his pale blonde hair. Kurogane could still see it, though. It had been burning since Fay kissed that man in the airport, either because of the power he'd used then, or the contact itself. And he knew those scrawls were as hot to the touch as the wingtips circling Fay's upper arms. He'd seen it in the airport, and again in the bar, as clearly as he could see it now. The markings were deep red when Fay rebelled...and pitch black when he killed.

Kurogane had always seen colors. He hadn't thought anything about it as a child. His mother had called him blessed for being able to see auras, and she'd helped him to learn what the different colors meant. That was how he'd known his parents were dead long before he entered the house. The death had curdled and seeped through the cracks like smoke. He'd seen it before on the sick and the dying, and he saw it more when he got older, when he started to seek those people out. Not the sick and dying, but the ones who were healthy and still reeking of that dark aura. And he learned that the colors were much more vivid on those with powers as strong as his own.

He'd never meant to stalk mutants in particular. His mother had always told him to use his talent to help people, to protect people, and he'd adhered to that for years after her death. He was called a lot of things during that time. A vigilante because he refused to be controlled, limited, by joining a police force. A mercenary, because he was rumored to kill by request. Above all else, a mutant who killed his own kind. As if murderers who were mutants were somehow less evil than ones who were not.

He'd never killed by request, but the rumors had spread anyway, especially among mutants. Some approached him with hopes of recruiting him to their cause, something about mutants disappearing around the world to prevent rebellion, as if he had anything to do with that. He hadn't been rebelling against anything. He'd simply been striking back at the sort of people who'd ruined his life. Others had come looking to kill him, for fear they might be targeted next, or to buy him. He'd taken care of the former and, sometimes, listened to the latter. It had gotten to the point where he had trouble finding targets on his own and he hadn't known what to do when he wasn't fighting someone, protecting someone, even nameless strangers.

Fay was a mistake. Kurogane had suspected as much when the man had first come to him with a photograph and a story so outlandish he'd nearly killed him on the spot.

"I heard you can tell a murderer just by seeing him," the man had said. "If you don't believe me, all you gotta do is find him and you'd know the second you saw him, right?"

Kurogane had sneered and told him he had heard right. He would know on sight, just like he could see the murderer standing right in front of him. The man had bolted, taking his blood money with him. But he'd left the picture.

Kurogane still had that picture. He'd thought about destroying it once, the second time Fay had run from him. He hadn't because it was beautiful. And he knew that it was the only photograph of Fay he'd ever have unless they found a way, someday, to remove the marks from Fay's back. Even then, he knew he'd never see Fay with the innocence he'd had in that photo.

It was the innocence that had made him look around. That man had brought him a photo of a child, five or six years old, and swore the kid had grown up to be a psychopath who tortured and murdered people at random, and had powers that kept him from being seen, even when he was out in the open. Kurogane hadn't believed a word of it, but he'd found himself looking at that photo again and again, a little child with trusting sky blue eyes and a shy smile, sitting crosslegged on a red carpet that brought out highlights in the golden blonde hair falling to the floor around him, and holding a tiny black kitten with hands so small Kurogane wondered if he himself had ever been that young. He'd looked at that picture and worried about the unknown child, about what would happen to him if that man found someone who would take his blood money and hunt the boy down for him.

Finding Fay was too easy. Kurogane still didn't know how rare his talent really was. He knew Fay could sense things about people in a way that was similar to the auras he saw, but it wasn't the same. Fay said he smelled the death, the evil, that he felt it on his skin when he came too close to certain people, but he didn't see it. Kurogane saw. And the more powerful a person was, the brighter and more vivid the colors. Fay was a beacon from the very first.

He saw him from a distance and the colors were so bright they stood out over the crowd. The years had changed that little boy in the picture into a willowy man who was almost too pretty to be real. His hair was shorter, but it fell around his face the same way, accentuating his features just so. His eyes were shielded, duller and yet sharper at the same time, and completely missing that trusting innocence they'd had. But the color was as pure as ever. Kurogane would have recognized him even without the impossibly strong aura surrounding him. As it was, he would have had a hard time not seeing him.

The colors had caught his eye immediately, and he'd stepped back against a building so he could watch him without being pushed around by the people bustling down the sidewalk. It had been midday and the street was disturbingly crowded. Kurogane had stared and wondered, faintly, how everyone could be walking past the blonde without at least sensing the energy he had around him. There were too many colors and it was too thick. Normal people had a single sheath, different shades entwining close to their bodies, or thin and drifting away when they were sick, exhausted, or dying. Kurogane had noticed that mutants tended to have thicker auras, more colors, more layers, and more pronounced shadows. He'd never seen anyone like Fay before.

Fay didn't have layers. He had...feathers, almost, with tendrils wisping out at random as people brushed past him, as if his energy were curious and friendly, briefly taking on the different shades of those around him as they made contact before settling into a rainbow swirl. Kurogane had stared at him and thought of his mother, of the butterflies in her garden, and how she'd warned him not to try catching them with his fingers because he'd rub the dust off their wings and they wouldn't be able to fly. And then Fay had noticed him and the colors had changed so suddenly he wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes.

That wild aura drew in sharply, like a flame sucking itself inward, and a black skeleton flared into sight. Kurogane hadn't know what he was looking at, but he'd thought of it as a skeletal outline, black marks close to Fay's body, and again, fainter, on the outside of his aura. And as the energy drew tight, those two black outlines matched until Kurogane couldn't see any color at all. That was when he'd seen the death tinting Fay a dark smoky gray. There wasn't any of the curdled evil thickness to it, but he'd recognized it immediately as being old, and nearly as heavy as his own. They'd locked eyes across the way, just one sharp moment of shock on his part, fear on Fay's. And then he'd bolted.

Kurogane never had learned exactly what it was Fay did to keep normal people from noticing him. It was too difficult to get straight answers from Fay, particularly about things like his own powers, or his past. But he'd known from that moment that Fay was somehow manipulating the entire crowd, everyone on that street, everyone but him. Because not a single person noticed when Fay darted away from him, twisting and ducking around people like a shadow. No, not a shadow, he'd moved like wind. And Kurogane had followed because he was sorry, he hadn't meant to scare him, and because he was intrigued, he'd never seen anything like him.

He'd lost him on the other side of the street when Fay had jumped, caught a ledge of the closest building and somehow flipped himself up and across the roof. His first thought was that Fay's rainbow colors should have been visible, should have been flaring into the shape of wings if he were going to fly away. His second thought was that he'd been followed, maybe even used, because there were suddenly far too many people on the other side of the street with dark auras, and he wasn't the only one moving in the direction Fay had gone. He couldn't shake the idea that he'd been used to find Fay after all, that making Fay leave the crowd had somehow made him visible to the people looking for him. And so he had more reason than ever to chase after him.

Fay didn't get far before he was brought down. Literally. Something hit him in the side of the neck and Kurogane saw him reel and fall three stories, only to land in a safe crouch on the cement below. Kurogane reached him in time to witness one of Fay's offensive powers for the first and last time. Fay dropped to his knees with his left hand curled tight over his neck and his eyes locked on the man who approached him. It wasn't the man who'd taken him down, but it was the only one in the open that Kurogane saw. Fay's right hand rose to write in the air and that skeletal outline over his aura...pulsed. Kurogane saw it as black and red, expanding for a brief flash of that rainbow energy beneath the outline, before locking it up tight again. The man who'd been approaching Fay was thrown back, but Kurogane suspected he was dead long before he crashed into the wall.

Silence followed and once again Kurogane had the impression he was the only one who could see Fay. That black outline was so tight against Fay's body that he wondered if it would cut into him and leave bloody trails all down his torso. Then Fay's eyes had locked with his again and he'd realized the man was crazy. He had to be because his eyes were terrified and deadly at the same time, and he was smiling as if he were a few seconds away from laughing. A moment later Fay pulled his hand away from his neck and looked down at his palm. He did laugh then, but it annoyed Kurogane more than it disturbed him, because it wasn't a crazed laugh, it just wasn't an appropriate reaction from someone who'd been hunted down like an animal.

"I think I've been poisoned," Fay had said, with completely inappropriate amusement in his tone, and another soft little laugh. He'd looked up and smiled wider. "You're not one of His. Would you mind helping me to a hospital? They must have used too strong a dose because I feel like I'm dying." He laughed again and shook his head, his hand going back to his neck, and his smile lighting on Kurogane as if he were in on the joke. "Oh, but someone's going to be in so much trouble if this kills me."

Kurogane sometimes wondered what would have happened if Fay hadn't passed out then. If Fay had kept talking, he might have realized sooner that the man was a lunatic and decided then and there to have nothing more to do with him. As it was...

He sighed down at the fragile looking blonde sleeping beside him. Fay was crazy, but he had reason to be. Kurogane knew enough to accept that, even if it made life hell for them both. He hadn't walked away back then and now he never would. Fay was...Fay. There was no one else like him in the world and Kurogane had him. Maybe only for the night, a day, or two before Fay was compelled to run again, but he had him now and he'd hold on as long as he could.

.-.