MochoMocho: Thanks for your patience in the wait for my updates! I hope your offer of another cookie still stands! : )
Melissa Brite: Love you too! *Winks*
RemiRobin: I hope it's still good for you!
Moro-moro: I know I said that there would be a confrontation. But it's really still in pieces right now, so I offer you this chapter first instead! : )
Puri-chan: Please tell me that this story still gets to you! By the way, are you still inspired enough for a fanart? It will be really nice to have one to tag to this story…
WhoseYoDaddy: Well, I got someone to edit my story. It's Lokeygirl, though I'm not sure if she has the same penname here…thanks for your review!
AnonymouslyAnonymous: Are you still getting distracted by fanfics! Guess you can't help it huh? I find it rather distracting too. What with the numerous fandoms that I'm hooked on myself…! ;P
Deleerium: And I welcome you into my world too! It's always good to know that a story is able to engage its readers, if not; it's a big failure on my part. Thanks for such a wonderful review. : )
Author's notes: A big apology for taking so long to update, no excuses here…I really hope you guys are still loving this, else my fragile heart will break… : (
Good news! I've got a beta to edit chapter 2, though I won't be re-posting it yet because I want to update the latest chapter I have ironed out. My beta will still have to go through this one later…sorry for the trouble Lokeygirl! Your effort and time taken to do this is deeply appreciated! : )
Also, I apologize if I haven't replied to all reviewers in my haste to get this posted up. I hope you would understand my rush! : )
It's Never Over
Part III
He managed to catch up with them at the first turn of the block. They were ready to get on the cab waiting by the curb. He rushed forward just as Fay was getting into the vehicle and grabbed his arm. Fay turned and looked at him with a placid expression, shifting away gingerly subtly hinting to Dean to let go of him. Dean only held on tighter and pulled Fay away from the cab and the stranger sitting within waiting.
"What is it Dean? I'm off shift." Fay asked as he looked in the general direction toward the entrance of the Italian restaurant behind, refusing to look at Dean's questioning eyes. The colorful line of shop houses with their quaint ambiance, sandwiched in between the sleazy establishments with their dubious nature of business was a pleasant distraction from Dean's heat of anger. The paradox that they offered seemed to be right in line with the thoughts running through his mind at that moment.
"What do you think you're doing?" Dean asked in a low voice, trying to keep some privacy between them from the good looking stranger on the backseat of the cab, looking out at them with curious eyes.
Fay shrugged with a hapless smile. "Why ask if you already know?" he answered listlessly. This was what he dreaded; the day Dean stops cutting him any slack. He should have known Dean was a person who was easily stirred by his emotions. He should have clarified everything and broke it off in the first place, that would have saved himself from Dean's unwanted persistence in continuing their non-existential relationship.
There it was again, Dean fumed, that infuriating half smile. He hated it because it's so impossible to read what Fay is thinking about when he smiles like that.
"Doesn't mean you know better whatever you're doing."
Fay shuffled closer upon hearing the answer. He raised his hand and raked it through Dean's shaggy crown of hair before sliding down and rubbing his earlobe between his thumb and index finger. With his knuckles pressed against Dean's cheek, he feels the impossibly taut tension of his jaw muscles. He let his fingers sloped down to the lines of Dean's cheekbones, gently and reverently, feeling a different sort of strength flowing from underneath that tanned brown skin. He knew Dean was barely restraining himself with unspeakable frustration. Fay looked at the man before him and he was sure his eyes were telling Dean exactly what he felt right then. It was a look that summed up all his regrets and lost moments winding up to the awkward space of gap between them. He wondered if he would ever find another Dean in his life. Someone who would fall head over heels in love with him despite knowing what he really is?
"You've never worried about me before, don't start now." Fay pleaded with all the weight of the weariness that had settled on his shoulders for the past few months; and with that, he let his hand fall back to his side.
Everytime he threw out the bits and pieces of himself, he expected his brother to catch and connect them. But the one really waiting for those vapid fragments was Dean, not Kurogane. In the spirit of altruism, he gathered them lovingly and glued them together into an artfully presented broken mosaic, a piece that he thought represented Fay the most. A masterpiece crafted by a most unexpected artist, inspired by a most unexpected muse. Dean had always viewed the broken pieces of him as gems waiting to be cut to perfection. Kurogane viewed them as a curiosity to be unfolded and discovered and then, after he had opened Pandora's Box and sated his curiosity; the pieces of Fay existed as one of the discarded, pieces of bitter passivity, simmering resentment, and a soul weakened by a maze of sorrows.
That knowledge instilled guilt in Fay. He had grossly belittled Dean's capacity towards love. He wondered to what extend had he misjudged Dean, how much had he miscalculated in their agreed-upon lie? He had been pretending for too long to know now, but in that moment, he saw beyond the skin that Dean wears around him; Dean is a man who carried his love quietly and unconditionally. He was cruel to the others because he already saw through their petty games of sex and lust; he is still with Fay because he understood that Fay held love the same way that he did, quietly and unconditionally and without expectations. In other words, they were the noble fools of love. Fools who would eventually be forgotten with not even an ounce of poignancy felt in their demise.
Dean snapped at Fay without meaning to. He couldn't tolerate such a blatant brush off of his presence. Not when he had been waiting on the sidelines for so long.
"I can't always be the bastard you want me to be. You know very well how I feel about you and right now, it's hurting."
Fay gave an ironic laugh at Dean when he heard the heavily intoned accusation. "And I'm supposed to be responsible for how you feel?"
"Well, we're both in it so…yeah…maybe?" Dean bit out the last word.
"Hey, are we still going or not?" The good-looking stranger from within the cab finally interrupted, lacking in patience towards the pair dallying on the pavement.
Dean bent across Fay with a tight look on his face and slammed the cab door shut without so much as a goodbye. He waved his hand to the disgruntled man as the cab drove off. Fay chuckled without mirth at Dean's actions as his eyes followed the cab pulling away, and the face of the man he was supposed to spend the night with. Lighted by the passing neon signs, the scene looked vaguely odd. He wondered how he could have thought that face to resemble his brother's at all. It was all in his head, he guessed, carrying on a charade.
"So answer me. What do you think you're doing?"
"Forgetting." Fay answered and all of a sudden he was struck by just how miraculous the way people would find each other. How had he ended up as Kurogane's brother, full of incestuous thoughts, and how had Dean come into his life as an unlikely savior for his twisted sanity? Who had worked out that connection? To really forget everything that had happened would be a joke.
"I didn't hurt you, so why are you adding me into the equation?"
"Where's the Dean I used to know? He never had so many questions."
Dean gave him a wry smile.
"Put me out of my misery, Fay. I'll let you know… you're terrible for me and sometimes… just sometimes… I wish I could let you go…" Dean muttered as he reached for Fay's hands, already cold from the night breeze swiping through the streets, "Why? Why won't you ever give me a chance to make you happy? You don't tell but I know what happened between you and your brother, you don't have to pretend in front of me."
Fay searched Dean's eyes, silently imploring him to stop breaking down his walls. He was too vulnerable. He needed his barriers to be strong and high or he might very well just snap. Although Dean had prepared himself for the truth, the silent honesty of Fay's admittance still cut him like a searing hot knife.
"Because you're real, Dean, and I don't do reality very well." He answered briskly and pulled his hands away from Dean's, trying to walk away in the other direction, trying to avoid the dozen pair of eyes that were starting to look in their direction. "Your happiness doesn't lay with me. There are many others out there who are better than me."
"But they are not you!" Dean cried out stubbornly as he followed behind Fay's hurried steps.
"Don't make me say it, Dean. It's going to hurt for both of us…"
"I don't care about it anymore!" Dean cut in before Fay could finish his sentence. "We've been hurting all this time! Look at me, I'm here! I'm always here and I want more of you than he ever will!"
"Stop being such a cliché, Dean! Stop letting me steal your life away!" Fay crossed his arms tight across his chest as he continued to walk away. He could not let it get to him now; he had barely survived the past few weeks and he kept telling himself that he was going to be strong enough for this. But the tears were coming again. He was on his knees, begging his heart to have mercy on him because, really, he was just hanging by a thread, and that black substance, the part of him that had died and that could never be revived, was being pushed beneath millimeters from the surface of his skin, and he could feel it trying to break out, trying to reveal the reality of who he was.
"Why don't you want to be happy?"
Fay heard Dean shouting behind him as he broke into a run and he didn't care who he was knocking past along the street, didn't apologize for it either. He just wanted to get away from the cacophony of this foreign scene that he had managed to submerge himself within for so many years. People in black with neon coloring in their hair and eyeliner drawn so thick around their eyes that you couldn't see the whites anymore, you couldn't see anyone anymore. Fay needed an escape from them. He kept running until his lungs felt like bursting from the lack of air, until the city night lights faded from his peripheral vision and the question that Dean had shouted to him had turned into shrills of banshees in his mind. But as his feet pounded on the black tar road and his eyes flittered over the sparse suburban neighborhood in front of him, he realized that he would never be able to hide away. There was just no place in the world for him to cover his bleeding wounds. From behind, he could hear the familiar pounding of Dean's boots and his breathless hard pants and, despite himself, Fay gave a hapless smile.
"This reminds me… I should renew my gym membership…" Dean panted out. "Either that, or I'm getting too old for this."
"This is a really bad time for a joke, Dean." Fay commented as he turned to look at Dean. Behind both of them the tar road stretched far into the dark horizon. Fay knew that the road could lead anywhere and he wondered if, just maybe, the destination would still be the same whichever direction he decided to set off in.
"Well, I can only deal with so much serious." Dean replied.
"Why can't you just leave me alone?" Fay breathed out as he looked up at the dark velvet sky, sparkling with stars, not really directing the question to Dean but wanting him to hear it anyway.
"Why can't you leave him alone?" Dean countered questioned as he stepped closer to Fay, his fingers stretching to secure a grip on the blonde's vest.
"What exactly is it that you want from me, Dean?" Fay asked loudly. This time as his eyes flicked back to Dean's green ones, he saw them turn dark with something he recognized but did not want to understand, so he looked away again as if he would be safer from whatever Dean has to say if the green-eyed man was not in sight.
Dean gripped Fay's vest just a little tighter before he answered. He knew the ways Fay would deny the care he had for him, but who would keep a substitute around for so long? Dean saw the raw vulnerability that Fay had shown him, and it proved that he meant something, and that no matter how many times Fay pushed him away, Dean was already halfway through the door.
"You." Dean said with conviction, as if the word was the only truth in his life.
"...."
Fay focused his eyes fully on Dean now, feeling the breath being sucked out of his lungs, and something else he never wanted to feel towards Dean surged up to constrict his heart, and then he felt it, the final bridge to his rationality crumbling away. It should be terrifying but all he felt was peace. He smiled so that Dean wouldn't recognize the confusion showing in his eyes. He wanted to scream at Dean to shut the hell up and get the fuck out of his messed up life, vent all his anger and disappointment at him, but he didn't. Instead, he leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss on Dean's lips. As he breathed in their mingled breathe, he wondered if everything could be better if memories could be swiped away into a blank slate.
"Go home, Dean. I need to be alone for a while," Fay said, his voice unsurprisingly unemotional.
As he watched Dean turn and walk away in resignation, the tears finally came, hot and torrential, and the apology that he whispered into the cold night air was filled with bitterness and finality.
ooooooooo
He stared at the mirror and started to clean the make-up off his face, and once the colors were gone, the sunken cheekbones and hollow eyes became imminently more pronounced. He felt pity for the men that had fallen hook, line, and sinker for his facade. Did they ever think about who the dancer on stage really was? Their short lust-filled love towards him seemed to make a mockery of the love he had felt for his brother. What kind of love did Dean have for him then? Sweet Dean, his sweet Dean. He had been so pleasantly unexpected, yet his kindness had been just one whole coil of barbed wire to his already beaten heart.
He couldn't say sorry personally to Dean; he didn't want Dean to hear how broken he really was. But Dean should know… if he could have normal, if he didn't love his brother, he would gladly have let Dean harvest the gems of his heart. So he sent out a message, and hoped that it wouldn't break Dean's heart, and then settled down on the bathroom floor in front of the full length mirror. Since he was going to die lonely, he might as well see to his own end. Fay wonders if he should be feeling a little less ambivalent while entertaining thoughts about dying, but death would be a nice final end. It would provide a good transition into another song, perhaps one more beautiful compared to the one he was presently embroiled in. A rewrite of the lyrics that sang of his life, a whole set of words that would deliver the sweet release he had been praying for his whole life.
He had missed Kurogane to the point of sickness, he realized. Staring at the mirror before him, he wonders if he should be affronted when he sees not himself, but just a body of scars. The pretexts of pretending, lying to himself that nothing was wrong, that he wasn't hurting as badly as he thought he was, they no longer tethered him. What else could then? Nothing, he told himself. Then he wondered if people understood those who had thought of death and the need to want to die. Dean's proclamations of his love only made it worse, as if he could be fixed and redeemed by his unwanted affection.
Should he be declared insane for this? He chuckled to himself. Wouldn't his death make the most memorable wedding gift to his dear brother? He felt that the darkness of madness should be looked upon as the most sublime expression of the human condition. Imagine being driven mad because of love. Will there ever be a more beautiful tragedy? How did love drive one to the brink of madness, drive someone to lose their own sense of self preservation and to not even protect the last of their fragility and not care about anything else in the world? Fay knew it, understood how all of it felt. He had loved so much and so deeply that he was lost. He had always quietly existed for his brother, dreaming his dreams, living to breathe the same air as him, only to see the same moon, sun, stars and sky as him.
When the tears were gone, when the pain turned into a sensation even lesser than numbness and one can't forget even when in sleep, and the drugs couldn't even keep the truth from one's heart. What else but death could one turn to? The wounds will never close and maybe he had never wanted it to. What was the point in healing himself when he was destined to be abandoned by that happiness, to be cut open time after time, once again? It must be for the best to just let it bleed out… everything would be better once he had bled dry of all emotions… anything would be better then living a life feeling like you have already died.
Fay stared for a very long while at the tube of white powder in his palm, a ticket to freedom from his life of pain. A dash of cyanide, plenty of crushed valium and heroin. That should be enough, won't it? Wasn't it depressing that everything had to come to this? He thought as he gave a cold empty smile, devoid of hope. But he had no other choice. There isn't any other choice.
"Goodbye." Fay whispered as he looked at the ghost staring back from the mirror, voice trembling as hot salty tears flowed down his cheeks, gathering at the tip of his chin and splashing onto his chest. He rubbed them away hastily, brutally. Tears meant regret; he didn't want to regret this. So he stops thinking. Somewhere in the background, the sounds of the daily grind of life continued; he could hear the faulty tap in the kitchen still leaking, dripping droplets onto the cold metal basin, outside of the apartment he could hear his neighbor jangling his keys getting ready to leave for a wild night out, and from across the hall, he could hear the message alert from his phone. But nothing matters now, all these won't be part of the world he is going to.
He lifted the tube, broke it into half and emptied everything into his mouth without preamble, without fear.
The powder tasted bitter and acrid like sharp blades running across his tongue, smelled pungent like thousands of bottles of sweet almond essence poured all around, the sweet smell of death. Fay forced himself to swallow the compound, feeling the burn right down his throat and esophagus. He choked weakly for a bit before he felt the effect coming down on fast and furious.
His tongue and mouth felt very hard and his heartbeat thudded loudly, speeding up in his ears and suddenly all the bile seemed determined to escape his stomach and intestines. He chokes a bit and slide down to lay on the cold surface of the bathroom tiles. He was getting dizzy and cold sweat was starting to erupt all over. He presumed he should be feeling far worse than this considering the state he was in right now, but he didn't. He felt light and euphoric instead, nothing horrible at all. Maybe because he knew freedom was just ahead waiting for him, and the lies, the pain, and the guilt will stop. Peace will come and all his heartache would be left behind, and Kurogane and Tomoyo would have their well deserved happiness.
He smiled. Somewhere in between the dark and light as he flittered out of consciousness, he saw the memories of him and his brother light up in flames and crumble to dust. He smiled again. He was alone even when he was dying, but he reconciled himself with that fact. It was alright. He didn't need anybody and nobody needed him. Perhaps the saddest truth of all was that there wasn't a shred of love or anyone for him to cling on to in the end. And, Fay thought before he passed into unconsciousness, was that Love in its twisted nature was a malicious bitch: her offering of happiness like black blood flowing full of poison.
ooooooooo
Dean knocked harder on the door. His yells rang through the hollow corridors of the level where Fay's apartment was situated at. He noticed a few lights being flicked on, knows that he is waking the neighbors up but he couldn't bring himself to be bothered with it. The incessant ringing of a mobile phone ignored by the occupant inside the apartment caused an eerie chill that coalesced on the surface between his skin and the atmosphere surrounding him. He plastered himself against the opaque windows and tried to peek through the blinds; the darkness gave away no signs of anything gone amiss, yet, the restful quiet resonating from within the apartment when the phone stopped ringing seemed so very wrong. He heard the blood roaring in his ears, the forceful pounding of his heart against his ribcage and the random buzz of the flickering fluorescent tube above his head, reminding him of each passing seconds. It should have meant something, but his frantic mind couldn't think of anything apart from getting through the door infront of him.
The message sent by Fay an hour ago had sent him into a frenzied panic.
"Maybe next time, Dean. Maybe next time I will choose better."
He didn't understand what next time meant in context but he knew it was definitely not something to sleep on. Within seconds he was running back, heart in his mouth, tracking the route where they had separated. When there was no one there, he headed for Fay's home, cursing at the minutes he had wasted. He should have known. He should have kept quiet. Fay did not need him to be a lover right now. Fay needed to keep working on the stage. That was the only thing keeping him grounded to the living.
The pre-dawn light was already infusing the sky with various shades of dark purple and mellow pinks by the time he reached Fay's block and he found himself praying suddenly, praying for day to not come because he didn't think he had the courage to face what was ahead, if he had guessed correctly that is. Are prayers from the faithless heard? Do God sift through their cries and decide if the person chanting those prayers deserved his help or not? The irrational thoughts ran through his mind as his feet pounded against the asphalt road. He didn't realize that he was scared shitless, but he felt his body move, did what was required of him to get Fay the help his battered body needed. He wouldn't realize it until later when everything was over, and the doctor was telling him that everything was alright and that Fay would survive, and when he would make the inevitable call to that somebody that had started this fucked up drama.
oooooooooo
One can slip into another reality so seamlessly that one won't be able to realize it, Kurogane thinks. There was no sluicing of zero temperature water on his skin jarring him. He couldn't even manage a reaction to what has been told to him over the phone. The dull dial tone is the only thing that he is able to register. The handset was still pressed tightly along his cheek, cupped against his ear. He wishes someone was still on the line. He wants to hear another voice, preferably someone telling him that he's been pranked, not the nurse's voice, non-emotive like the newscaster announcing another natural disaster from the other end of the world, like it's none of his business because it's too far away to affect him. But this is too morbid, too painful to be a joke.
Fay is in hospital. Fay had committed suicide.
He looked down at the notepad. The scribble was barely illegible and he doesn't remember writing down the details. He should be panicking by now, knows that his parents have to know about this and the questions that will follow later. But now, he needs to move. He forced himself through each movement, constantly forgetting what he was supposed to do next, only remembering his destination where his brother now lay. He doesn't trust himself to drive and hailed a cab instead. On the way there, his palms bleed from the tension and the pressure of nails cutting against skin. Again, he doesn't register the sensation and everything after was ran on autopilot till he was standing beside the bed ensconcing the fragile frame of his brother, staring blankly at limp blonde hair and a all too pallid face, rough cotton blanket pulled right over the shoulders with his left wrist exposed till the elbows, plugged with plastic tubes of saline and some drips he couldn't recognize. At this point, he's really praying that someone would just backhands his face so he can wake up from this nightmare.
But the sight of his brother's chest gently rising and falling, the quiet beeping of the machine set up by the side of his bed and the sharp tang of antiseptic in his nose, won't let him get away. He's snapped back from a cold place into the one where he currently is in, breathing in air thick like smog and remembering with bewildering clarity how Fay's lips taste against his and how Fay's face flashes, bright shade of pink on the tip of his cheekbones when he comes keening in his embrace, remembers the sound of Fay's laughter whenever he snorts liquid or whatever he happens to be consuming, out of his nose when he's surprised, remembers the tender caresses of Fay's fingers on his face, and he squeezes his eyes together and clutched the fabric of the hospital scrub Fay is wearing, unable to stop the tears from falling. It's only the soft ahem from the doctor standing at the door that stops him from completely falling apart. She has warm hazel eyes and an apologetic expression that's rarely seen on medical staff nowadays.
"Are you family?" she asks softly, her right hand that is holding the clipboard containing the vital statistics of Fay hangs by her side. Kurogane nods in reply. "Are you his brother?" she asked again, eyes looking straight into his probing for something. For what, he doesn't know.
Kurogane gives another terse nod in reply.
"I've called your parents, they should be here soon."
"What…" Kurogane asks with a slight shift of his body towards his brother and a grim tightening of his lips, unable to voice out the full question without fearing that it would come out in a scream instead. She walks forward and Kurogane catches the name on her tag, Dr. Strommer, as she reaches out with an arm and guides him to the couch opposite the bed, gesturing for him to take a seat.
"Your brother OD on heroin and there were traces of cyanide in his blood. I would have pinned it down to an addiction he might have, but further tests shows no contamination of drug abuse. Are you aware if he was suffering from depression, or some other traumatic event?"
Kurogane looked away from her and bite the inside of his cheeks. He's not sure if he could provide a reasonably believable answer. For a moment, he wants to let go and relieve himself of their unspeakable secret, wants someone to pronounce judgment on him but he thinks about their parents. They don't need to know this. He lies instead. It's not hard to do so considering the amount of times he had done it.
"Not that I know of…how is he?'
"He's in a coma right now but he's going to be fine. If his friend brought him in any later, we would have lost him. But the amount of cyanide he ingested might cause a delayed onset of Parkinsonism or other neurologic sequelae, we can't do anything about that."
"Meaning?"
"Put simply, it's postural instability. We are not sure how soon it will manifest or the severity of it. He might suffer from vertigo, problems with sight and constant disorientation. We have supportive treatment and how well he recovers will vary greatly. What does your brother do?"
"He works as a dancer."
"It's not advisable for him to continue. At least not till he has completely recover…" she faded off leaving the 'if he recovers' unsaid. Though, Kurogane hears it all the same and knows that he will bear the guilt of crushing his brother's life for the rest of his. It's not until this moment that the repercussions of their serendipitous affair fully sank into him. He staggers up from where he's seated to back beside Fay again, reaches for his brother's hand, absorbs the quiet weight of it and whispers his name. He keeps repeating it until he understands what he truly wants, and promised to himself that the love that they have between them, will not cost them anymore than this. Because he doesn't want to think that he's too late to salvage what's left of the pieces of their hearts. Because he finally knows that he can't bear the loss, can't live knowing that Fay won't be beside him every step of the way and that nothing will ever be alright again, not without Fay.
ooooooooo
Miyaki looked anxiously at the clock on the wall, her hand twisting the handles of the railing by the bed in an aggravated manner. She looked down at Fay shaking her head, and whispering endearments all mothers say when their children are sick. George sat beside her, expressionless and strained. He wonders if she understands that Fay won't be able to hear all of this.
"I don't know why he would do this, George…Kurogane told me just last week that he was doing fine." She said in half sobs.
George looked at his wife and pulled her by her shoulders to lean against him. He can't find the right words to say to ease her worries.
"He's alright now, pumpkin. He's going to be alright." He said softly as he rocked her gently in his arms, trying to believe what he is repeating in her ears.
"I should have known something wasn't right…how could anything be right when he refused to come home at all?" Miyaki continued her voice trembling and George can feel the wetness soaking through his shirt. He steers them slowly out of the room. Miyaki follows docilely, too distress to do otherwise. He sits her out on one of the armchairs littering the corridors and kneeled down infront of her, sharing his paternal grief with her in silence, listening to her soft mumblings of lamentations towards herself. That she should have known. The fact that her baby is still alive brings no comfort to her compared to the whys that was still unknown to her, which had pushed Fay to desire death.
How could she know? How would the life of his guileless wife be if she was told the truth?
There are stories in George's life that he chose not to leaf through again, but to understand the senseless giving away of such a young life, he needs to peer deeper into another time. He's seen the start; he just needs to stop ignoring the details that led the family here. George releases his hold on his wife, presses a reassuring hand on her shoulder before he walked to the window and just stands there, looking out at the sprinklers in the garden of the hospital. He concentrates on the view outside, avoiding the reflection on the window. His face disintegrating into the grime stuck on the glass, the eyes looking back at him are a whole patch of dark and he sees the age of his life festering in the lines on his face. He's learned a lot throughout his life and the things he knows are the undeniable truths of life. There are things that happened for a reason, there are things that are destined to pass, when one seeks, one is sought, when one chases, the other will follow, when one sleeps, one is awaken and when one lives, one will also die.
When Fay makes his bed, he had already decided that it will be Kurogane who lies in it.
He's seen it before one innocuous summer day when his boy was still his baby, before he stops thinking of him as his son, and starts seeing him as an abomination. He's vowed never to speak of it again. Now he regrets his choices, perhaps he could have sorted out the mess in Fay's head before everything exploded to the surface. Now, he's lost both his boys. There is nothing that he can say to himself to make everything better. He could kneel forever infront of the lord questioning what want wrong, asking why the fates of his children were damned from the start, but the sins of his children are his to carry. Perhaps he had planted the seed of evil himself when he was young, when he has no faith or belief. He has no right to question. He has no right to demand for neither mercy nor justice, only to bear the passing of his family's secrets.
"Dad?"
George turns at the voice of his eldest son, hears the helplessness in Kurogane's voice and looks up to a weary face, so burden and broken with guilt. He almost forgets how young his boys truly are. They are not as well versed in the ways of the world as he thought them to be. He should blame himself for letting them fly too soon. Yet he can't keep the burning shame spreading across his chest, or the anger making him clutch his hands into fists. He feels the thump of his pulse in the veins along his neck and the tiny spasms of his muscles as he fought to control the bellowing rage swelling in him. He stands to walk to the other end of the corridor, out of earshot of his wife, glances behind to see Kurogane give his mother a comforting hug before pulling away to follow him.
Yes, he tells himself, he is mad. He is mad at Kurogane for not knowing better. He's the elder. He's supposed to know better. But he says nothing, does nothing when Kurogane settles and leans beside him by the ledge of the window. Because George understands that he is only human, only an ordinary man, and ordinary men knows not of the mistakes they made, just like how the day will never know the darkness of night. He knows not of his own foolishness until everything is over and lessons are learnt too late. He just lets the inevitable silence loom over them, wait till Kurogane breaks and spills.
Some things he already knew. Still, there are others, and those are the ones he needed to know.
Kurogane looked down, scruffs his canvas shoe against each other, pressed his back stiffly against the glass of the window and tried to blink away the hysteria threatening to burst forth. He doesn't know where to start because he can't start from anywhere. What was he supposed to say? There is no starting point, there is no middle ground and the truth is as ugly as it gets. The words stutter before they are out and Kurogane chews on the inside of his lower lip, and promptly loses steam. He loathes himself for all the running away he has done. It's not the first time and it won't be the last time, but he can't avoid this time. Fay had dealt out his consequence, he can't run away. He can't let things spiral further out of control.
"I…we…" he tries to get the words that are their story on his tongue past his lips. They melt and spread and stick themselves on his tongue like bitter molasses, make him speechless. He scraps his teeth on his tongue, hard so it draws blood, wakes it up from its stupor and he starts again. "We were togeth…"
And just like that, George thinks he had heard enough, that that is all the confirmation he needs. He doesn't need anything else to prove or disprove of what goes on behind closed doors when his sons are together.
"Fay…I loved him so much, you know?" George whispers softly cutting off Kurogane mid sentence, fixing his gaze on his wife instead of his son as he speaks. "He was so small the first time I saw him in your mother's arms, thought I would never let him go. But he grew up and you became the center of his world."
"Dad." He can't seem to say anything apart from murmuring 'dad' over and over again; his whole being set on standby flight reaction. He's extremely finicky with his dad being so calm. There's a huge part of Kurogane that wants to hide his face from his father's eyes as he speaks. Somehow he knows. He would know wouldn't he? Some mothers know best, his father knew better.
"For a long while, I thought he'd only worshipped you." George says as he remembers the unusual intimacy he spots in their interaction, but at that time still unnoticed by Kurogane and the pause George has before the next sentence hangs like a suspended guillotine, waiting to slice through the thick heavy tension between them.
He wants to say it out, expose his own little secret. Let his eldest son know about the searing shame, anger and betrayal he felt, still feels to this day, and that can never be put into words when he saw his baby's eyes closed tight, hand stuffed under his shorts and panting out a name that shouldn't be called out in such circumstances. It was a memory too sinful, too immoral, and too obscene and one he cannot force himself to completely forget, or to remember in Technicolor details either. It sits in his memory bank, out of focus where the vague outlines of it are enough to remind him of what happened. He failed as a father from that moment, choosing to hate his son instead for something he didn't know better. He diminished his responsibilities as a father towards Fay and transfers his misplaced hopes to Kurogane, refusing to talk about what he had seen in fear that it will somehow contaminate Kurogane if he were to even learn about it in the slightest detail. Of course, it occurs to him now that the effort was one huge futile exercise. He looked around the corridor, sees nurses and patients lingering about in the space around them and surrenders his urge to lose control. It's not a dialogue to be had in a public place like this.
They don't need to know his failures. They don't need to see the skeletons left drying in their closets.
Kurogane closes his eyes and tries to control his staccato breathing. He doesn't wonder how his father knew and he won't ask because he can't deal with the grievances his father has towards them now. But dad needs to know what his heart will follow; the time for forgiveness is too early and he wonders what does one do when one did something that was never supposed to happen.
"I'm sorry, dad. But I love him. I really do…"
Sorry.
George hears.
Sorry.
It's just a five letter word. Take them apart and they don't mean a thing.
Sorry.
It is irrelevant to a family that no longer exists.
Sorry.
He's not feeling it right now.
Sorry.
"I want you out of my house and you're not allowed to tell your mother anything." The words came out too cold, too calm.
"Dad…?" Kurogane repeated not understanding, tail spinning from the final call his dad just laid out to him.
"Don't…" George says and feels the progressive rage build up again, and feels like gutting himself as he quests for the right thing to say. He gives up within a few seconds when he realized he can't bring himself to look at Kurogane, or even to choke out another word. He feels his son turns to look at him, and he feels his hurt and confusion but he will not react to that violence possessing him. He's too afraid that if he strikes out, he won't be able to stop.
He hears Kurogane step away, footsteps unsure and frightfully hesitant. He hears the regrets that will be haunting him for the rest of his life, he feels the bitterness in the membranes of his skin and thinks about how life will continue at home and how does it feel for Kurogane on the inside. Mostly, he thinks about what kind of a person he is. Ineffectual, he surmises. That's the kind of person he is. He thinks about how relentlessly one's mistake chases after oneself, and it will be years after before he comes to the conclusion that he is the one who failed them all. He cannot forgive himself and won't let anyone say otherwise to him. And he would hate himself for it, because from the start he was only concerned for himself. How he felt about the involuntary love Fay has for his brother, the shame that would follow his family name, his reputation, what the church would say and the inability to deal and nip that sinful emotion from the start.
He is their father, they are both his sons…how is he ever to accept this? He is the father who had presented his sons with both hands to the devil for the sake of his own peace, and he knows amongst them, who had sin the most.
TBC