Hi guys! So this chapter is much later than I wanted. I had about six hundred words left to write and Microsoft died on me. But I'm back, and all is well!
Warnings: Definitely some triggers. Mentions of sexual assault, pedophilia, kidnapping, suicide. Tread lightly, please. Angst you shall find here.
Spoilers(duh): if you haven't read the manga or seen the anime...
Disclaimer: don't own...
Quick Note: I'm pretty sure I made up a word in here. A shout out to anyone who can find it!
Chapter Five
A scream ripped through the house.
"Wake up!"
Her back arched painfully, lifting her small body off the bed only to slam back down with another scream. The blankets were a crumpled mess, tossed to the floor by the girl's violent twisting, feathers floating too serenely to the floor from a torn pillow. She poured out babbling nonsense, pleas, no, no no no no no and Mai couldn't get her to stop flailing.
"Please, wake up! It's just a dream," she tried, smoothing the girl's sweaty hair back from her face. Skinny arms slapped against her shoulders, her back but she ignored them. "Just a dream."
The arms went limp, just for a moment, before tensing and contracting again, only to flop uselessly against Mai's ribs, anchored by locked fingers in her shirt. Brown eyes open, filled with tears and Mai suddenly found herself with an armful of sobbing child. She did her best to comfort her, to decipher the stream of words punctuated by hiccups. Behind her, John ushered the others, come too late, from the room, before shutting the door behind him.
"Tell me about your nightmare. What happened?" she prompted gently, always aware of the damnable factor called time but still, finesse. In her pocket, she discreetly flicked the switch on the recorder she'd taken to carrying in case of freak, waking visions.
"H-he hurt me. He h-hurt me," the girl, (she thought her name was Emiko, but she couldn't remember for sure) muttered, hiding her face in Mai's neck almost roughly, "Ow, it hurts. Make it stop!"
"Ssh, you're alright. It was just a dream," she lied and hugged the girl tighter, "How did he hurt you?"
Emiko was trembling all over, her heartbeat wild and fluttering like a hummingbird's wings. "I d-don't know. I don't know. It hurts. Why does it hurt?!"
Shit. The spirit linked too closely with Emiko. She wasn't actually injured, but the pain felt real, and convincing her otherwise would be near impossible. An anchor, she needs an anchor. What does Ayako use for me? Fuck, she hated when this happened. Anchor, find an anchor, preferably one that doesn't include slapping….
"Tell me your name," she ordered firmly, pulling the girl back to look at her, but her eyes were tightly shut against her lingering vision. Okay, hysterical, shit. She tightened her grip on the girl's arms, pinpoints of real contact, something for her mind to latch onto over the pain. "Look at me. What is your name?"
"E-emiko," she stuttered, her coffee eyes opening but still glazed over with fear. So she remembered who she was. Good. Mai offered her a smile and released an arm in favor of stroking her hair again.
"Good girl." She cupped her cheek with a gentle hand. "You're doing very good. Now can you tell me where it hurts?"
Rapid shaking of her head, and Emiko scrambled out of her grip to sit cross-legged amidst the tangled blankets. Her arms went around her knees, hugging tighter and tighter until Mai thought maybe she'd disappear within herself. Dread settled in her stomach like a brick. Fuck, fuck fuck fuck. Her incomprehension made sense, coupled with her reluctance and oh my god, oh my god poor girl.
"It's okay, Emiko. You don't have to show me. Just tell me yes or no, okay?"
She scooted back to the end of the bed, giving the girl a wide berth in preparation for her next question. God, please be wrong. She's only seven. Please be wrong. "Emiko, does it hurt….between your legs?"
A pause, heavy breathing as both of them tried to regain their composure. One by one, every muscle in Emiko's body relaxed in defeat, until she all but slumped over with the weight of her own limbs. She kept her eyes down as she nodded.
Mai sucked in a breath. "You did so well, Emiko. Thank you."
"Why does it hurt?" her little, broken voice asked, barely a whisper in the morning quiet. Mai felt her heart break for the girl, and drew her into one more embrace.
Another lie, but she needed it, so she could move past it. "Sometimes, when dreams are really scary, our brains trick us into thinking they're real. Sometimes we even feel things that aren't real." She hugged her a little tighter. "You were very brave, Emiko. Those kinds of dreams are very scary, but you were very brave. The hurt will go away soon, I promise."
"O-okay," she whimpered, but made no move to release Mai. "Will you stay with me, Oneesan?"
She nodded, clutching the girl closely. "Of course. You should try to sleep. I'll stay with you, though, alright?"
As she helped the girl into bed, pulled the covers over her disheveled head, Mai barely kept herself together. Just a child. Always, always with all the gratitude and closure and spending time with her family there was suffering. Her job was marked by as much violence and pain as it was marked by joy. The little hand curling around her own in a vice-like grip was proof of that. She hated this sort of collateral, hated it because it was unavoidable, because even after the ghosts were gone, their damage remained.
"But why are you hunting ghosts?"
"Because it is needed."
She should've known Naru would always be right.
"Naru," he breathed unconsciously, the sound pressed and constricted in his throat. One jolt, another, once more and he was seizing, body twisting, arching and collapsing. He told him not to touch the carving. He told him.
"N—!" The scream built, tore from his faraway throat and Lin slapped a hand over his mouth, aborting the single word that revealed more than it should. Legs crossing, uncrossing, trying to soothe an agony that didn't exist, couldn't exist in Noll's body, etched into him by his damn vision. Lin recognized this reaction, the violent tremors, the lack of control. Noll learned, for his brother's sake, for his father's sake, how to hide the physical reactions for everything but this. He could hide everything but this.
"Hn…st-no!" His hand tightened across his mouth, smothering the sound and he didn't know if he did it to avoid suspicion, or so he wouldn't hear the childish whimpers seeping between his fingers. I'm so sorry, Noll.
On the floor, holding him close so he couldn't claw at his own arms as he clambered to escape. Lin had taken to rocking them gently, back and forth, back and forth, hoping the rhythm would bring his friend back quickly. He knew it wouldn't, but he tried regardless. Anything to end this suffering, or rather, to feel like he could.
Ten minutes more, Koujo endured the muffled pleading, then the gasping and having to snatch his hands as they grabbed at his throat. One jolt, another, once more and he was still at last. Recovery now, and it would be difficult.
Another minute, then blue eyes looked up at him hazily. "L-lin-n?
"You're back." Thank God. "It will hit you in a second. Hold on to me."
Dazed, blinking eyes. "Wha—?" His back bent violently, sending his body upwards, his hands digging into Lin's shirt of their own accord to keep from falling. The memories were filing back into place, sprinting across his eyes too quickly, too much but Noll had no choice but to follow them, to remember. And Lin could only watch and keep him rooted to the earth.
Then he was back for real and fighting the hands that kept him from hurting himself, fighting the images he'd seen, the pain he'd felt and he rolled, crawled away from him. Lin swallowed around a lump in his throat. If only Gene were here…
"D-don't t-touch me. K-keep-p-p—." His words were chewed and swallowed by his shuddering jaw. "K-keep away! Keep away f-from m-me!" He spat them out as if they were poisonous and skittered away like an animal, clutching his stomach in pain while he limped.
"Noll," Lin said sternly, a reminder, "Think. Your name is Oliver Davis. You are safe. It wasn't you. Just a vision. It wasn't you."
He wasn't listening. He wasn't even crying, but somehow this was so much worse. With every breath, the air rattled inside him, shoved out by his convulsing stomach with a sound like a dying lung. Pale fingers contorted against the black of his crumpled suit jacket, tearing at the fabric, angry claws. Another minute. Just one more, then I'll slap him. Just give him a minute. Beneath the shaking Lin could see some thread of Noll struggling, pulling himself back.
"Come on, Noll. You're almost there. It'll be over soon," he spouted, a flood of encouragement he'd heard from someone else, from Gene. Lin felt more helpless than he could ever remember feeling. It wasn't like this last time, during the Urado case. He'd waited calmly while Noll slipped into some sort of trance, and tossed his jacket over him to prevent shock. He didn't see the effect it wrought on Noll's mind then. Now, now he could see, and it was so obviously hell.
"Lin." He was still quivering all over, but the heaving had ceased. "Lin, the g-girl, the one who—carved her n-name. She was r-ra—."
Frustration bloomed along his brow as he tried to fight the lingering stutter. The onmyouji knelt to his level, and rested a heavy palm on the top of his head. His hair was warm and damp with sweat.
"Not right now. Recover, then we'll talk."
For a moment, he looked as if he'd fight him, but then every muscle went limp at once and he looked up at the older man with flat, emotionless eyes. "Alright."
There was no reason, no fault of personality or heart that could possibly explain the unnecessary suffering Noll was forced to confront, no failure that deserved knowing what he knew, understanding death the way he did. But he never broke, nor did Koujo ever expect him too. Within his friend was a well of strength as deep and full as the well of misery. The only force with enough power to break him now was himself. For that, Koujo was proud.
Proud, and frightened. Terribly, unutterably frightened.
Honestly, with all the ruckus this morning, how the hell was she still asleep? The screaming orphan was bad enough, but Ayako thought for sure the mysterious thumping in Naru's room would draw her attention, as they were neighbors and it so clearly suggested that Naru was having a vision. But no. She was asleep.
"Evie-chan, wake up. It's almost noon!" she insisted, punctuating her greeting with a bright stab of sunlight from the window after yanking aside the curtain. Well, it was only ten, but she was shooting for some urgency. If Naru's vision was bad enough, they'd need all hands on deck just to deal with his temper.
Ayako turned to the mass on the bed, prepared to actually drag her by her feet to the floor, when she noticed something odd. Evie wasn't moving, save for the heaving effort of inhaling and the contorting of her brow into a look of pain. In fact, every limb seemed heavier than it should, as if they were chained to the mattress individually. Like she couldn't move. Her skin was white and clammy, glittering with sweat and translucent beneath the midmorning sun. Ayako was very used to sights like this, to the obvious, deathly appearance of the sick, yet somehow, she'd missed the colorless wax of her cheeks during their conversation earlier this morning, even when she complained of a headache and left to lay down. It wasn't there when they talked, but it couldn't have sprung up over two hours, either.
She climbed onto the bed beside the unconscious empath. "Evie-chan. Can you hear me?" The back of her hand pressed into her forehead, and it was cool and damp. "Evie-chan!" Nothing. This wasn't normal heavy sleeping. She was all but shouting in her ear, and she still didn't wake up. If her stomach wasn't rising and falling with breath, Ayako would've thought she was dead.
"Evie!" She tried once more, and took a deep breath. She'd have to slap her. Her hand reared back in preparation when she felt a twitch. Then another, and another, and suddenly Evie was convulsing, writhing, grabbing at her as if to haul herself out of her sleep. Black eyes snapped open, so black that Ayako couldn't find her pupils. Irrational fear crawled up the back of the doctor's neck. She didn't look human with her eyes so wide and dark and her limbs contorting like that.
"Uh-n," she choked, clutching her stomach and then she was gone, rolled to the floor with a thud and darting out of the room. Ayako sat there, staring at the sweat-stained sheets, wondering what the fuck just happened. It took a minute for her instinct to kick in and send her running after Evie towards the bathroom. Only the light, she thought, half-tempted to slap herself for thinking stupid superstition while someone needed her.
"Evie? What's going on?" Her voice echoed off the tile strangely as she followed the underlying sound of gagging and retching to one of the stalls.
"Damn it," a hollow voice responded, spoken into the toilet and punctuated by a sickly sloughing. "Every time I think it's through—." She was cut off by another bitter flood, inadvertently proving her own point. Ayako wanted to laugh in relief. Aside from the vomiting, she sounded pretty much normal. Just a trick of the light, then.
She invaded the stall, ignoring the acidic stench and kneeling beside her makeshift patient. "It's best to just let it come."
"Yeah, probably." Evie dry heaved, once, twice, a third time and when nothing came, she rocked back onto her bottom and wiped the sweat from her forehead. "It's still gross."
"How long have you been sick?" Two fingers at her wrist to count the beats. Elevated heartbeat, low temperature, clammy and pale skin, nausea. Sudden drop in blood pressure. Possible illness…pregnancy, maybe, combined with sickness could be evident of elevated estrogen…..
"A few days. I think it's…just a…" she sort of trailed of, clutching her stomach and wincing in time with the clenching of her fingers. Her eyelids blinked rapidly. "Just a flu, probably." Wrong, no fever.
Ayako made a noncommittal noise at the back of her throat while she checked the other woman over. People always seemed to want to beat her to diagnosis, which was unbelievably annoying and time-consuming. She was the doctor. She could figure it out perfectly well without their uneducated input.
"Is there any possibility of you being pregnant?"
Her eyes went wide again and she sputtered a nervous laugh. "Oh god no. The last time I had sex was, well, you know, and that was the first time in almost two years."
The doctor in Ayako absorbed the information and scratched pregnancy from her list. Too early, the body wouldn't be reacting like this. The normal, very human, very woman part of Ayako was a little flabbergasted at her nonchalance (and a little scandalized at the stagnation). Damn girl. She longed to interrogate her for an explanation, but alas, Doctor Ayako was in charge at the moment and insisting on professionalism.
"Well, I can't really tell you much without a blood test. Let me know if it gets worse." She helped the smaller, bolder woman from the floor. "You should go get a glass of water. Umi-san will help you if you need it."
Evie nodded and thanked her and went on her way, all the while walking like nothing happened, like she was perfectly healthy and hadn't just half-way regurgitated her own stomach. Ayako watched her easy trek in disbelief. Their little talk last night had been informative, but evidently not nearly enough. There was definitely something very odd about their newest team member. Mai's instincts were on the right track, as per usual.
"….there's something...off about her. I can't tell exactly what it is. Like there's something bad inside her, but she's good."
Whatever it was, Ayako hoped they figured it out soon, preferably before someone ended up in a hospital.
For about an hour, Mai stayed with Emiko, her little arms locked around her neck as she slept heavily, but peacefully. It wasn't until Juri-san came to relieve her by slipping into her place that she even let herself think about the girl's reaction. The screaming, the not-there pain, what it all meant. She didn't want to acknowledge the obvious truth, but then, she'd learned by now that ignoring an issue did little to resolve it. After a short trip to her bedroom to compose herself, she made her way to the base, steeling herself with every step. Lin would be there, reviewing the monitors. She could recount her findings and be done with it for a while. She'd play with the kids, maybe help Chiyo-san with lunch preparations while Naru looked into it. Right now, she just needed to talk to someone and then she'd be fine.
The base was humming with activity by the time she strolled in. Pretty much everyone hovered around the monitors or lounged on the couches while Naru presided in his chair. As per usual, she thought, amused, the king always has a throne. She found her own unspoken spot on the longest sofa and sank into the worn cushions gratefully, hoping for a moment of quiet before their Mai-senses tingled.
"Are you alright, Mai? You look a little shell-shocked."
Yep. There it was. She looked up to find Bou-san's face invading her personal space as he leaned over the back of the couch. Just like Spiderman. Upside down and everything. Well, he wasn't really upside down, but close enough.
She offered a smile and a dismissive hand waving him away. "I'm fine."
"Okay," he said quickly. Too quickly, which gave her the feeling he was probably going to get pushy on her. "…..so did you get anything?"
She sighed internally. She would've preferred to talk to Lin. He'd keep it clinical and detached. Bou-san, he'd worry over her, not the pertinence to the case. "I did." Maybe if I'm vague, he'll give up.
"So….?" No such luck. Her, well, she wasn't sure what to call the feeling, but whatever it was, it was giving way to irritation. Noticing her potential temper, he backpedalled, "Sorry, but Big Boss is on the hunt for anything. This case is taking too long."
Well, she couldn't persecute him for that. Naru did seem a little antsy. Especially during dinner last night. His elbow had been all but glued to hers the entire time, and he hadn't bothered to move it, which meant he was either fine with it, but Naru and physical contact were mutually exclusive terms, or he was so preoccupied that he didn't notice. She was thinking more the latter. In any case, she should probably give Bou-san something. At the very least, his reaction would draw enough attention that Naru and Lin would take over. Here goes nothing…
"It doesn't fit. I know the boy is responsible, but Emiko had a first person dream and—." Her breath caught in her throat and she choked around it. The bruises on her neck pulsed at the unfortunately familiar sensation. But she swallowed and dislodged the air and breathed again.
"And?" he prompted gently, resting a hand at her shoulder.
Get it out and be done with it. "She was raped. I thought she might have been possessed, but by the time I got to her room, there was nothing to feel. It just doesn't make sense," she griped to herself suddenly, pressing her fingers to her temples as if that would sort out her tornado of facts, "If that happened to the boy, wouldn't he show another boy? Why Emiko?"
"Slow down Mai. We don't have to know right this second." The hand at her shoulder tightened to a comforting pressure. "You sure you're alright?"
Everything sort of deflated in her. He was right; they had time. "I'm fine. She'll be fine too."
Mai couldn't handle the soft, concerned eyes he was watching her with, didn't want to see his fatherly look, so she let her own eyes wander to distraction, where they fell, as per usual, on Naru. Sitting at the table on his throne, a cup of tea in one hand and a file in the other, his constancy was grounding. His gaze jumped from side to side and she could track the blue as they followed the words across the page. Utterly normal, but then something was missing. Or off. She wasn't exactly sure. Normally, she hazarded, his self-confidence bled into every movement, but the way he moved now lacked his patented narcissism. He shifted in his seat uncomfortably, which was weird because she'd never known him to squirm uselessly. Such an overt expression of his feelings just didn't happen.
Her scrutinizing eyes narrowed of their own accord, and she saw it.
Lin was doing his rounds in the base, dropping files and charts into laps with his severe grace. There was nothing menacing in the way he moved from one person to the next, but he drew close to Naru, just for a second as he passed his chair, and Naru flinched. Minutely, barely a movement and if she hadn't been watching him so closely she would've missed it. Her brow furrowed as she looked at him, the way his eyes glazed over and how he shifted and squirmed like a cornered animal, familiarly. He didn't look up while Lin spoke in his low, discrete voice, kept his study to his file, ashamed like she'd never seen him. Her heart broke even as the connection slammed its way into her precarious tranquility; Emiko had moved like that, trying to escape pain that didn't exist, that she couldn't understand. Emiko had looked like that, as if it were her fault. Oh god.
Her eyes had widened sometime during her deducing, and a hand slapped over her mouth to smother a gasp. "Oh, Naru."
He looked up then, and she could feel everyone watching her, trying to discern the water in her eyes and the horror in her voice. Beside him, Lin opened his mouth once, twice, but he couldn't quite manage the words. It didn't matter anyway. Naru was out of his seat in a heartbeat. Long fingers wrapped around her arm as he dragged her out of the base.
His hand was shaking.
She waited until they were safely tucked away in the hallway to explode. "Naru, oh god. Are you alright? I didn't know, I'm so sorry, I didn't think I just—."
"Mai," he tried, watching her evenly but she didn't notice. Her heart was sick at her own realization, her mind spinning and she just couldn't stop the flood of words. She offered a stream of comfort, unsure if it was meant for him or for herself.
"I should've been there. Or something, but Emiko needed me and oh god you saw what she did! You felt it." She had forgotten about this part. That with his deadly PK came his traumatizing psychometry too. No one would ever just give Naru a break. "And I have to go and cause a scene on top of everything! I'm so sorry, Naru! I'm so stupid, so—."
"Mai!" His sharp tone sliced through her words and suddenly his hands were cradling her face, shocking her into silence. An unhelpful blush bloomed along her cheekbones. They trembled still, but they were warm, a little unexpectedly rough as his thumbs wiped away the tears that spilled over. Absentmindedly, as if he didn't know what he was doing. "I'm fine."
Spoken so resignedly, it gave her the resolve to laugh bitterly. "Somehow I doubt that."
He gave her a long, steady look, face carefully blank but she could see the emotions swirling underneath. Pulsing like a second heartbeat. Then his hands dropped from her face, so quickly she wondered if they'd ever been there at all. They had been though, and her skin tingled at the phantom feeling.
"It wasn't the first time, nor, do I expect, will it be the last."
Mai wondered distantly if she weren't turning green as the implication churned in her gut. He'd experienced plenty of death and pain, she knew, but somehow this was worse. For anyone, especially someone like him, proud, assured, strong, to be brutalized like that, multiple times, then to potentially face it again? She wanted to heave out the thought. She wanted to keep him in her sight forever, if only to make sure he never suffered that again. An unrealistic notion, so she kept him now, regarded him in silence the way he regarded her.
In the quiet, things immerged unbidden, images and old fears she'd overlooked. She was almost surprised that Emiko hadn't uncovered them, but then, she didn't really know the girl. Naru, though, she couldn't separate herself from him if she wanted to. Her compassion identified with him. I'd almost forgotten. There was a glaring difference were memories picked up and stored. He could separate them. She couldn't.
Not forgotten, buried.
"I'm not sure how much it—how much it matters to you, but…" She stepped a little closer with her impulse. He followed the step curiously. "I'm here, if you ne—want to talk. About this, or anything." Her stare trained to a spot on the wall behind his head. She'd never told anyone. "It's not exactly new to me either."
Almost too quiet to hear, and she turned on her heels to flee before he could decipher the meaning. But he was quick, quicker than she'd remembered. He caught her wrist before she could take her first step. His eyes, when she gathered the courage to see them, were wide, jaw-clenched, brow low and menacing. He looked furious. "What—."
"You don't need to hear it now, but I'll tell you soon," she relented, even as she pushed to hide. Which was ridiculous. She'd proffered the truth as a distraction, something to ground him and something to share. She shouldn't run from the consequence of her own decision. It helped, anyway. He was distracted, but then talking about it might be counterproductive. Later.
He let his grip slip enough to catch her hand. "Will you?"
"Of course." Mai let her eyes blatantly sweep over his haggard appearance pointedly and smiled. "You should get some rest. I'll tell the others you weren't feeling well."
He barely seemed to hear her as he stared unblinkingly at their clasped hands. The tension around his eyes was gone, though, and aside from looking very tired, he looked healthier. Satisfied for now, she made to pull away, but his hand held hers tighter.
"Thank you, Mai."
Before the breath even filled her lungs to speak, he was down the hallway and gone.
Her head was still spinning.
"Taniyama-san, can you angle camera eleven more to the east?" Lin's tinny voice requested over the walkie-talkie at her hip, and she complied numbly. Equipment checks weren't exactly the most exciting points of her job, but typically she mustered a little more vitality. At the very least, she would've extended a cheerful 'Roger that Lin-san!' if only to imagine the resulting grimace. But no. She couldn't even begin to try. That's just how fucked her mind was right about now.
She'd whittled away most of lunch swallowing her anguish on Naru's behalf and tamping down her own repressed trauma. There was only so much agony she could soothe in one day before she burnt out. Then again, maybe if she'd held onto it a little longer, she wouldn't be in this predicament. With no distracting compassion, she was left with three very confusing facts.
Naru had sat beside her at dinner. Purposefully. Initially, she'd taken the gesture as a sort of silent Naru-apology, the lingering contact just a consequence of their proximity. Yet despite her earlier deflecting, she was finding it difficult to believe his elbow touching hers had been anything but deliberate. Especially in the face of more recent…developments…
Naru held her face. An intimate gesture, even if he wasn't entirely aware he'd done it in the first place. He was trying to draw her attention, and initiating physical contact was probably the easiest impulse to fulfill, her more rational side argued. However, the part looking for some deeper meaning insisted, that didn't negate the fact that his first impulse was to cup her cheek, rather than a more friend-zoning pat on the shoulder. Her skin still tingled where his warm hands had rested.
Naru held her hand. Another intimate gesture that just didn't make sense. Naru didn't do these things. He didn't comfort that way. She remembered all too well the cup of tea, the quietly whispered 'are you alright,' the coin, the half-smiles. He didn't touch. He kept a distance. He—
Mai stopped her internal, vaguely schizophrenic diatribe mid-rant. It was stupid to focus on only past examples. He could've changed. Two months wasn't very long, but then, hadn't she flipped out on him for assuming she hadn't grown at all? And she didn't know much about him in the first place. She knew him, every little nuance and habit, but next to nothing about him. She hadn't even known his name until three months ago. It was possible, probable that he was just avoiding touch to avoid making connections. Plus, she reminded herself mercilessly, he'd just witnessed something horribly traumatizing. Anyone would be thrown for a loop by that. He meant to comfort her, to ground himself and her. No more.
Satisfied that she wasn't misreading his actions to pander to her own longings, Mai scanned the floor plan with more vigor.
"Camera seven needs readjusting. It's only filming the wall," Lin ordered without really ordering, something she imagined only he could pull off. With everything right in Mai-land, she set off towards the third floor.
One camera down, fifteen more to go.
Lin was losing patience with these people. Which was a feat, really. If the average person possessed a sizeable pond of patience, his resembled more the combination of all the oceans. But between watching Mai silently argue with herself over a monitor for about ten minutes and witnessing a wide-eyed Noll stare unblinkingly at his hand, he was seriously considering knocking their heads together just to see what would happen.
It didn't help that he knew what had caused all this. When Noll dragged Taniyama into the hallway for a 'private' discussion, he'd forgotten about the camera and condenser microphone set up about three feet from them. Thus Lin had been privy to the show of near unbelievably physicality on Noll's part (though he'd refrained from listening in. Madoka didn't have that much influence over him). He could practically see Taniyama explain it away to something more comfortable. And Noll, well, he'd never really known what he was thinking, but it probably followed along the same lines as Mai.
It was an issue when even he was caught up in Noll's emotional strife.
"All done Lin-san!" Mai chirped brightly through the walkie-talkie, and he shook the stupidity from his thoughts. They had a case to focus on.
"Thank you. You can return to base now." In his peripheral, Noll rather violently returned to reading his file. Lin almost smirked. "Tell Naoki-san to head over as well. She's in the kitchen."
Her giggle sounded exponentially more irritating through technology. "You call your girlfriend by her last name?"
"Goodbye, Taniyama-san," he replied shortly, clicking off his radio with satisfaction. One deep breath, held four beats, then released, slowly, out four beats. He didn't move for a minute, focusing on his breathing, as he settled back into his realm of tranquil detachment.
"Lin-san?" Father Brown greeted uncertainly, swiveled in his chair to face the outwardly stoic Chinese man.
Koujo managed to look at him without scorn, having entirely banished the distracting melodrama. "Yes?"
His blond curls were smashed by a pair of comically large headphones that made him seem younger, like a child trying on his father's shoe. Reviewing audio, as he was supposed to check temperature differentials. Once again, he felt the need to punish himself severely for his lapse into irrationality.
"Around 5:30 this morning, the mics picked up some strange sounds." Without further prompting, he unplugged his headset and turned up the volume.
For about twenty seconds, the shifting air buzzed through the speakers, punctured here and there by the occasional creak of settling beams. A memory of Luella chatting about old houses, how they seemed to breathe with their age stole his focus.
"It should be right around here." As if on cue, the audio feed crackled, shot through with a piercing whine, then fell back to the white noise of early morning. John held up a hand, urging his attention. Silence, then a thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Faster and faster, and even rhythm as they tumbled one after the other. Lin turned the volume louder.
"Footsteps?" Takigawa queried, leaning over John's shoulder to watch the feed dance across the monitor.
Lin nodded. "It sounds as if they are running, perhaps coming down the stairs."
"I believe you're correct about the stairs. Mic number eight was in the lobby near them." John cut the audio and leaned back in his chair, expression thoughtful. "We're definitely dealing with a spirit, if you'll forgive me for stating the obvious. Yet with all the mounting evidence, I feel as if we haven't gotten very far. It's…disconcerting, to say the least."
"I agree, Brown-san," Noll interjected primly, and the three men turned back to face him directly, "Though I believe the stagnancy is simply a matter of discussing the connections between our experiences. Easily remedied."
Lin discreetly waved his shiki to disperse in search of their missing members. "Should we have a meeting before dinner?"
"Yes. Gather the others."
A familiar white orb breezed across her vision, sort of bobbing like a lure. Baiting her. Masako watched it with interest for about a minute, ignoring its near-playful attempts to guide her down the hall. No, she wouldn't follow, Lin-san. Not if the feeling behind her eyes had any significance.
I shouldn't be alone, she thought, flashes of remembered fear echoing across her thoughts, the smell of blood tickling her nose before she snuffed out the memories. Shouldn't but she preferred it to fielding Matsuzaki and her endless complaints, felt the most controlled when she faced a spirit unencumbered. She wasn't really alone, anyway, walking the second floor. After lunch, it was the time of day when the teenagers retreated to their rooms or a friend's for their daily ruminating. Music hummed in the hallway, a thousand clashing genres, as she crossed the threshold into the only silent space.
Naru had asked that the two boys sleeping here were moved after she recounted her experience with the half-formed apparition. The room felt cold somehow, without the prevailing warmth of life. Only a camera and a microphone for companions as she sat on the nearest bed, carefully in frame. Pressure built behind her eyes, a warning, a signal. She waited.
"Masako-chan, Naru's calling a meeting before dinner!" Mai's voice blipped through her radio, but most of her didn't hear it and the part that did ignored it. She was too focused. The corner of the room was beginning to warp, a veil settling across her vision and she couldn't look away, not when she was so close.
"They won't bother us. Please, let me see you?" she urged gently, relaxing her face into her typical serenity and waited. All she could do.
Her skin pimpled, hair raising as cold air seeped from the walls. Fatigue, suddenly, and a prickling sense of hopelessness but she kept her eyes forward and her smile sweet and her fear dampened. He was gathering energy, building himself. Just a bit more.
"Let me help you. Talk to me," she lilted, keeping her words from last time. No surprises, he might not bulk. She could see a silhouette now, an undulating outline that steadily filled. An arm, a leg, fingers, those eyes, the empty, flaring green. Just a bit more. "Please, show me."
More features blinked into focus, one by one. His nose, wide mouth, half-defined jaw, wrinkled shirt, torn pants, slim shoulders, long neck, bruised throat. She filed away every detail in case the camera couldn't capture him clearly. Young, maybe thirteen, fourteen. He glared at her with his wild eyes. His mouth opened and shut as he gasped for unfulfilling breath. One hand curled in on itself, grasping something she couldn't make out.
"Thank you," she breathed warmly, maintaining her façade. Fear crept up her neck, along her arms. Such old pain reverberating in her head. "Can you tell me your name?"
He was silent, floundering, sucking in air and hacking it out. All the while he watched her, looked through her, and tugged at the something in his hand. She kept rooted in her seat. Exude warmth, light, home. The mantra slugged against the thumping thickness in her veins. They studied each other in the lull of her pressing, but he didn't see her even as he heard her. He looked through her.
"What is your n—." His head jerked suddenly, sharply to the side, dragging her question back down her throat. Cricking repeatedly, too quickly for her vision to follow and his face became a blur, his eyes a gleaming streak across his translucent skin.
"Let me help you," she tried, but her voice whistled between her teeth too pleadingly. He stopped, mid-twitch, frozen in his repeated agony. Masako swallowed around the scream in her throat. He didn't even look human, face contorted, eyes blazing, fingers ripping at his thigh. Someone, help me.
She chewed through the terror. "I can help you, Hideyo." Her hand slapped over her mouth, as if to contain the name before it could reach him.
Too late. "I'll kill him," he growled. "I'll kill him." His voice stabbed at her ears, discordant, clashing against itself. "I'LL KILL HIM!" A scream, a roar, raw and amplified a thousand times by his rage, by his fear and she clawed her ears. Her body fell back with the force of it, bouncing across the mattress. The floor seemed to rattle and buckle beneath the legs, and only when she heard the first scream, the first thunk of something hitting the ground did she realize the entire house was protesting with him. Footsteps stuttered as they fled down the hall, sobbing, shattering glass. She held her head in her hands as the ceiling paint dusted her in flakes. A little girl wailed one long, sustained pitch of fear.
"Naumaku san manda bazaradan kan!" The words tore through him as his own voice rent the afternoon and he was gone. As quickly as he'd appeared, he'd dissipated into shadows.
"Damn," Takigawa muttered to himself, prying himself from the doorway to her side, "Are you alright, Masako-chan?"
"I'm fine." She allowed him to haul her to her feet, to bear her weight to the hallway. The children were gathered there, some clutching possessions that had fallen, silent as they shuffled past. Her ears were still ringing when they reached the staircase.
"I have her. She's safe," he relayed into his walkie-talkie, "We'll meet you at base."
Funny, Masako thought, fighting the urge to glance behind her, where the green would be waiting, I don't feel very safe at all.
Even two months ago, Mai would've glanced from face to face, tracking the thoughts in their furrowed brows, steepled fingers, squirming in the silence. Now she looked very much like the rest of them. Deep in thought, silent as the grave. You're missing something. You're missing something big, that oh-so helpful (pain in the ass) voice chimed in, mockingly in her perplexity. So many variables that didn't line up, and the thing from this morning? If they weren't walking in circles before...It felt like they were all stuck playing someone's messed up game, and that someone wouldn't tell them the rules. Or even that they were playing in the first place.
Bou-san broke first. "I guess we should start from the beginning. Mai was attacked at the office. A floating spirit."
"That would suggest the spirit is attached to Hamasaki-san, not the house, wouldn't it?" John ventured as he rolled some beads between his fingers. A rosary, she realize belatedly. She'd seen him fiddle with it when he was particularly worried, but hadn't bothered to identify it until now. Strange what leaps her mind would make when she thought hard through confusion.
"Not necessarily," Naru countered from his seat at the head of the table. They'd pulled it out, away from the wall so they could bunch around their scattered notes. He kept his black case book firmly in hand. "If the entity associates Hamasaki-san closely enough with its memories, it could latch on to her for a brief period."
Lin nodded. "I tentatively agree. If the spirit were truly attached to Hamasaki-san, my shiki would have had more difficulty severing the connection."
"Additionally, Mai's initial profile suggests the age of the spirit to be at least forty years. The matron is only thirty-eight, too young to have any involvement in its demise." He looked pointedly away from her, utterly missing the beatific smile she beamed his way. He cited me in an argument, she internally squealed with no small satisfaction.
Excited as she was, his theory ruled out a possibility she couldn't overlook. "Unless he targets the matron of the orphanage as a model for the person he blames. Like at the Yoshimi inn. The ghosts there attacked the family and spiritualists, not the guests, because the yebisu blamed them for not worshipping it." Was she imagining things, or did he look almost…impressed?
"Possibly, but that would not account for the three attacked men. Based on your profile, which has been confirmed by Hara-san's contact with the entity today, and the incidents with Ryouko, we've identified the ghost. Miyata Hideyo, aged fourteen, hung himself in his bedroom after his sister allegedly ran away in 1953. Why would he attack the matron for committing suicide?"
"Also, you and I have both heard him say 'I'll kill him,' Mai. Him. Attacking Hamasaki-san as a proxy doesn't seem to fit with his anger," Masako added, and Mai suddenly remembered that there were other people in the room.
"Maybe Hamasaki-san isn't the proxy, but the attacked men might be," Ayako put forward, her russet eyes drifting over a faxed copy of Yasu's notes.
"But the men were adopting girls. Why would he attack them for that?" Bou-san was quick to remind her. Though Mai couldn't say for sure that he was baiting her. He sometimes got a little too excitable during these discussions.
Luckily Ayako didn't take it that way either. She sat back primly in her chair, smoothing the file across the table's glossy surface. "I don't think we have enough information to figure out his motive yet. Mai was right about him being volatile though. The rapping sounds today were a pretty severe escalation."
"I'm worried about that. Before, it was easy to block out his emotions, but now…" Evie interjected, rubbing at her arms as if to soothe away pain. "I can feel them, like my skin is burning. He's getting stronger."
"I agree with Naoki-san. The spirit is devolving quickly. When I spoke to him, he seemed to struggle with keeping himself manifested. Rather than lacking energy, I fear he couldn't contain what he possessed," Masako confirmed. Mai noted the troubled glaze over her violet eyes. She'd talk with her tonight, maybe during dinner. Make sure she was alright.
Bou-san probably saw it too. He was protective like that. "Then we should wrap this up as soon as we can. So what do we know for certain?"
"We know his identity," Ayako offered, her voice pitching in that weird, half-hopeful, half-resigned sort of reaching.
Mai looked at her hands where they sat folded in her lap. "He killed himself."
"He's dangerous," Evie finished simply, biting her thumbnail. Mai didn't understand it. How could so much happen and so little be drawn from it? A feeling was growing, stretching inside her, pushing out certainty and laying down unnamable dread. Something bad was going to happen, something worse. Mai felt like they were clambering.
"It doesn't seem like much," John echoed her thoughts grimly, the rosary dangling from his fingertips like teardrops. No one responded for a suspended moment. They looked at their files but didn't read the words, or at Naru, whose eyes had fallen down and to the right, the way they always did when he was thinking through too many thoughts.
He set his book down on the table with a gentle slap, and his team looked to him. "It's all a matter of connections. At the moment, we lack key information that could tie what we've gathered together."
Mai wasn't appeased. "Well what about this morning? Emiko-chan had a first-person dream about being raped. Why would he show her that, if it happened to him? Why not a boy his age, instead of a girl half his age?"
"It was female." His voice was hollow, nearly a whisper but with too much tone.
"What?"
Naru glanced at her. "The person in the dream was a girl."
"How do you know?" Ayako asked the question she'd hoped to avoid. He didn't look away from her, but then, he didn't seem to shut down either. Mai held his gaze with a soft smile.
"I experienced the same vision when I touched a carving on my headboard."
Silence, then Bou-san was the first to break again. "Shit, Naru."
"It's possible that Emiko-chan synced too closely with an imprinted memory in the house." The resident monk went ignored. "However, the likelihood of that occurrence without a precedent of psychometric abilities is exceedingly rare. As it stands, there may be a second entity."
Her vision bobbed and it took her a second to realize she was nodding. Naru hadn't looked away from her. "I thought I felt a presence in the room before I woke her up. I think you're right, Naru."
"The presence of a second spirit could explain the unusual targets of the boy's attacks. Considering the potential age of the spirits, it is possible that their energies and memories have intertwined. The boy could attack by the second spirit's prompting," Lin hypothesized in his centered focus. He had a way of talking to himself even as he spoke to the rest of the group.
"I can't be sure of that. The emotions I'm feeling are definitely from the boy." As Evie interjected, Mai felt strangely detached from the conversations around her. Had his eyes always been so dark? Cold yes, but not an unwelcoming kind of cold. Like the chill that promised snow. A lull fell over the group, but she barely registered it, caught in a half-spell she hadn't meant to fall into.
And Naru snapped it with the turning of his head. "I'll reserve opinion on that for now."
"So what do we do?" There was something distinctly giddy about Bou-san's question.
"We keep investigating. After dinner, check the cameras and microphones for damage and displacement. Evie, Mai, deal with children. Make sure they're quiet tonight." He turned to Masako with as close to a gentle expression as he'd ever managed with her. "Hara-san, get some rest. Matsuzaki-san will stay with you."
They felt his dismissal build, Bou-san half out of his seat, when the first bell sounded. Ring. Ring. Ring.
Mai stifled a giggle as Naru glared at his own pocket with apprehension before he actually plucked his phone from the fabric and set it on the table. Far away from him, as if it were disease ridden. Two guesses who it is. Bou-san already looked sort of green in preparation.
"Hello Big Boss! I believe I've compiled all the relevant history. What can I do for you now?" Yasu's technology-warped voice inquired cheerfully from the center of the table. She was pretty sure they were imagining the emphasis on the 'I'. Like he knew that Naru was doling out assignments.
"Is that Yasuhara-san?" Evie whispered to Lin, who nodded with a pressed sort of grimace. Hm. So that's what Lin hiding a smile looked like. "Why haven't you guys tested this kid? His timing is so obviously supernatural."
"Am I interrupting something?"
"No," 'Big Boss' replied crisply, turning his glare to Evie rather than wasting it on inanimate objects. If Mai hadn't known that they were raised together, Evie's immunity to his glare would've given it away. Only frequent exposure could lessen its effects.
"Alright then. I've faxed over the remaining files. I managed to wrangle the Miyata case files from the local police."
"Yasuhara-san, given the time you could draw blood from a statue," John commended lightly, smiling warmly at the phone. Mai barked out a surprised laugh, elbowing the priest playfully.
"Good one, John-kun!"
Yasu chuckled. "Such faith. I appreciate it."
"I have nothing for you now," Naru interjected firmly, killing the laughter with his own special brand of no-nonsense. "Be prepared for further instruction, but for now you can attend to personal matters."
"Hear that Bou-san? We can have a Skype date tonight! See if Lin-san will lend you his laptop."
"Shounen," the Unfortunate One ground out between teeth, "stop that."
"That was anticlimactic. You should work on your threats. Maybe Big Boss will tutor you if you ask nicely." Mai had to give him props. He managed to seamlessly include both Lin and Naru in his nonsense while simultaneously embarrassing Bou-san. Evie was laughing raucously beside her very unamused…uh, significant other (Mai wasn't sure what to call their relationship, but somehow referring to Lin-san as a 'boyfriend' just felt wrong). Her own outward humor was limited to a few giggles behind her hand to avoid Naru's wrath, but she supposed a newcomer wouldn't be prepared for Yasu's uniquely clever ridiculousness. That, and she figured Evie would laugh just to annoy Naru.
"Keep your phone on," Naru warned tonelessly, and they all sputtered their goodbyes before he ended the call. His external irritation was minimal, but who knew what depth of rage lingered beneath the surface. Mai gave the group about five seconds before they'd scatter. Hell, she'd be up first if she spotted the slightest ripple.
One. Two. Three—Naru was suddenly glaring at empty seats. It was almost cartoonish, the way the papers fluttered in their wake.
Yasu really did have perfect timing. Just when they were all about ready to snap, he chimed in and broke the tension. The air felt more breathable when they regrouped after assignments, sans Ayako and Masako, who were probably thrilled to be banished to their shared bedroom. Naru was attempting kindness. He was just ignoring their mutual distaste for each other in favor of precaution. Mai smiled to herself. He isn't a robot, she reminded herself, glancing at the object of her musing. Her own little mantra so she wouldn't ever forget, no matter how he pushed her, that he had a heart.
She curled up close to the arm of the couch, knees tucked into an oversized sweatshirt she'd pilfered from Bou-san months ago, and let the roll of after-dinner drowsiness sweep her into silent half-lucidity. Naru was watching her with a sort of amused softness and she watched him back through heavy eyelids. Her body hummed with the first tingles of exhaustion, but it was a pleasant feeling, combined with the simple joy of being with her family and having those blue eyes to look at. There was something thrilling in tracking their quiet spark and warmth. It kept her rooted to consciousness even as she felt the tug of sleep.
"Tea, Mai-chan?" A white t-shirted torso blocked her view, but she couldn't be angry once she'd identified her intruder. Evie had elected to make the tea tonight, both freeing Mai to sink into the couch cushions and sustaining the weirdly good mood Naru seemed to have fallen under. Despite her stomach jolting incessantly whenever she came near and the whole maybe-she's-evil-maybe-she's-not thing, Mai could've kissed her.
"Thanks Evie-chan," she replied slowly and retracted a hand from the overlong sleeves with some (flailing) difficulty. The porcelain was comfortingly hot against her palm as she let the steam waft over her face. A sweet floral scent, laced with something fruity and mild. Jasmine, probably a blend, and naturally sweet as it flooded across her tongue.
When she looked back at Naru, she'd lost his eyes to the oncoming tea. Typical. Bereft, she followed Evie's dancing walk around the room, doling out cups to John and Lin at the monitors, skipping Bou-san who'd passed out on the loveseat. She seemed to purposefully leave Naru for last, very slowly passing him his cup. Mai idly wondered if she'd pull it back just out of his reach, like playing with a cat. No, the tea would spill and then Happy Naru would leave. He glared warningly as if the thought had occurred to him too, and her quietly tinkling laugh filled the room like a breeze. Mai smiled dopily, giggling as he snatched the cup from Evie's fingers without spilling a drop.
Stop her. Her stomach lurched and she rocked unsteadily to her feet. A flood of ice down her spine and she was shaking, clutching her shirt as the voice reverberated in her thoughts. Stop her. Stop her. No one had noticed her yet. Too focused on the monitors, the tea, the teasing. Mai watched her hand reach with painful clarity, her own skin tingling, vision too bright. Hypersensitivity, her brain catalogued without her. Evie had stopped laughing, brow furrowed even before her fingertips skimmed the fabric of his suit jacket. Stop her, the voice insisted. It was too late.
Thud.
"Evie!" A fluttering of movement, sweeping aside papers she'd taken with her to the floor, the empty tray still gyrating along the floor. Mai stood separately, frozen by her thumping heart, while Lin cradled her head, while Naru checked her pulse and John radioed Ayako and Bou-san jumped back to consciousness.
"Taniyama-san, call an ambulance," Lin directed, severity pitching his voice lower.
"No." A moan, prolonging the word, dipping into a growl as she lost air. Evie twisted her head in his lap, a shaking hand fighting to press against her own forehead. "Don't be…so…dramatic. Again."
He chuckled and helped her upright, even letting her sort of lay against his chest. If Mai weren't still fighting off the vestiges of her weird psychic flip-out, she'd find it cute, the way their taciturn Lin-san was taking care of her. But her legs were wobbling beneath her meager weight and her stomach ached and she needed to sit down before she ended up on the floor too.
"What happened?" Ayako demanded as she all but burst into the room, and it was back, that soothing but firm 'Doctor' voice she'd noted earlier that week. Penlight in one hand, she knelt at Evie's level and tracked her pulse with the other, shooing Naru away in the process.
"Nothing too bad. I just fainted. It happens sometimes, when a spirit continuously projects its emotions," the empath explained, breathy but steady in her rhythm, not so halting as she was before. Something in her voice shifted, the inflection dipping as if there were a 'but' in her thoughts. Ayako didn't miss it either.
"But?"
Evie sat more upright, relieving Lin of his chair duty, and rubbed at her arms. "It felt different. I mean, it was definitely a psychic reaction, but I felt…too much. Hyperaware, I guess, like I could feel the air on my skin. I couldn't decide if it felt good or awful." She laughed sardonically. "It was overwhelming to say the least."
"No kidding. Are you alright now?" It was Bou-san who asked the question. Ayako was too busy thinking in doctor mode.
"I'm fine. A little jumpy, but it's gone for the most part."
The resident doctor jumped suddenly, eyes wide before she smoothed her features into something very close to unreadable. She patted Evie's knee comfortingly. "Well, you didn't hit your head on the way down, and your pulse is normal. You should probably go to bed soon."
Warning bells were chiming in Mai's head. She could be imagining it, but after all the strange things she'd seen she didn't have much need for imagination. Ayako was speaking around something. No one else seemed to notice it, except for Naru. His expression was unreadable as he scanned the pair for some revealing factor. The moment had passed, the unspoken understanding severed, and Mai tamped down her frustration. It wouldn't help anything to focus on personal issues during the case. It also doesn't help to keep secrets, her mind added oh so helpfully. She barely restrained herself from groaning.
"I think I'll head up now, if Lin-san would be so kind as to help me," Evie baited sweetly, turning to bat her eyelashes and making a show of being overtly girly. He rolled his eyes.
"By help, do you mean carry?" Mai snorted. Sometimes she wondered if they forgot that there were other people in the room. Glancing at Naru (who looked blatantly disgusted, well, for him), she got the feeling they did. Often.
Evie nodded seriously. "Yes," as if it should be obvious.
"I see." He hummed noncommittally, eyeing her with a clinical interest. "I think you can make it on your own."
"You're no fun."
Mai laughed outright. It was too much weirdness. Too much talking. She was used to a steady, radiating silence from Lin-san, or the occasional moody outburst that was limited to about three sentences. Not teasing. So she laughed away the talking, laughed so they'd remember that they weren't alone. They turned their perplexed faces to her. Victory!
"Good work, Jou-chan. I can only handle so much Lin-speak," Bou-san whispered in her ear, which didn't help her laughing fit at all.
"I can walk with you, Naoki-san," John, who'd been sort of quietly observing and struggling to follow, offered kindly, "I wouldn't trust myself to carry you up the stairs, but…"
Evie smiled beatifically (and a tossed a vindictive glare in Lin's direction). "I think a shoulder to lean on will be perfect, Brown-san, thank you."
Naru stood suddenly, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'll be retiring as well." Short, dismissive. It killed her laughter sufficiently. She caught the underlying message though, and couldn't fight off a smile. Escape.
"Why don't we all go to bed? It's been a long day," Ayako suggested, looking distinctly bewildered.
"Extremely long. Which of course means I get the first monitor shift," bemoaned a nap-ruffled Bou-san as he dramatically plopped down into the rolling chair, waggling a half-menacing finger in the direction of his sniggering girlfriend, "I'll be coming for you soon, baby. Just you wait."
She rolled her eyes good-naturedly and pressed a kiss to his hair. "Goodnight Houshou."
"Night."
Naru had apparently reached his threshold for emotional acknowledgement and fled to the stairs. Lin and John formed a half-perimeter around Evie as she hobbled out of the room, her hand waving jovially above their shoulders.
"Let's go Mai."
She let her pseudo-mom guide her out of the room drowsily. With the excitement settled, her nerves filing back into place, exhaustion flooded her veins full force. Tomorrow. I'll interrogate her tomorrow. Half-asleep as phantom hands guided her into bed, tucked a blanket across her chest, smoothed her hair back. She thought she heard a 'goodnight,' a lingering hand on her forehead. But the black was creeping around her, sweet and senseless. No hand, no words. She sunk deep.
"Just be quiet."
Naru wasn't hiding. He was removing himself.
"Be quiet!"
The kitchen was empty. Quiet.
"Be quiet!"
Shapes in the darkness, the soft, domestic inkiness that was always stained through with some measly light. A red light from the oven, one of the hulking, metallic shapes. Such an industrial room, he thought, with all the stainless steel and the machines he'd never found names for. The room was cold too. Made cold by that instinctual fear he could never outrun. Ghosts, not just memories lingering in the walls. Gene was never afraid.
"Be quiet, or so help me…"
He pinched the bridge of his nose hard between his fingers, letting his nails dig into the flesh. It will heal by morning. The pain was slight and comforting. Real, compared to the voice trailing off its threat within his head. It was too early. He hadn't had the time to lock it away.
"Ssh, be a good girl. That's it."
"Damn it," he whispered, letting the English curse fall dangerously from his raw, bitten tongue. There had been blood in his mouth when he woke up, a little bit of flesh in his tooth that he plucked away with a detached sort of disgust. Copper taste and agony from everywhere, from nowhere. He could feel that shooting pain now, the stretch and wrenching that he shouldn't feel. The not-there bruises on his throat, he could feel. The burn of an antique slap. Not that fucking ache. Torn apart by a piece of him that didn't exist, because it was a piece of her.
It wasn't the first time. Not even the most brutal. But the youngest. Fuck, the youngest. She didn't even understand. The looks, the first touch, then the next and the pain and that part of her she didn't know. Just a man who hurt her and liked it and tore her apart and snuffed her out.
"That's it."
Something rang in his ear, pitched high, grating. His hands covered his ears and he longed to disappear into a better memory, to the smell of hay and leather and warmth and untreated pine. A throbbing began in his foot, so real that his mind forgot the phantom ache and he looked at his leather clad appendage. For a moment, he thought it looked too small, too stunted. Then he saw the metal molded around his shoe. The cabinet, folded in around the force of his kick, the ringing nothing more than reverberation. He sighed.
"It's not exactly new to me either." A new voice, and he could've groaned in relief. Or torture. Just a different kind. A gentler kind.
Mai. Somehow, no matter what he thought about, his mind turned to her. The few months he'd been in England, when his mother would pet him too much without looking at his face and his father would hide at the office, a part of him would conjure her image so clearly that he wondered if maybe she'd followed him. He was starting to believe she had. At least, it would explain why she was never far from the forefront of his thoughts. Why everything she said crawled beneath his skin.
"It's not exactly new to me either." Why he raged at the implication of her near-cynically spoken comfort. Why he found himself intrigued by her willingness to offer herself for invasion, only to protect his own mind from it. Why that damn psychosomatic warmth, that damn illusion was back.
I don't understand.
Yes you do. Gene again. Never far from his thoughts either. Ice beside the warmth.
I don't want to understand.
Why?
His psyche halted with all the anticlimacticism of pressing a pause button on an overrated movie. Why? Because it would mean acknowledging a part of me that is irrational and pointless. Because it would mean letting someone take another piece of me. Because it would mean uncertainty. Because it would mean…
Love?
He let his head tip towards the cool smoothness of the metal counter. Something like that. I don't know. Not yet.
Soon? That same anticipation his brother managed to lace with every word he said. Too real. The shriveled cold inside of him thought maybe, terribly, that it was him. Not a vaguely schizophrenic manifestation of his loss, but Gene connecting the line.
Naru sighed again, relishing in the feel of his diaphragm pushing up, his lungs shrinking, his ribcage closing in tighter. He was sad, so he sighed again, and let the simplest emotion he understood ride out of him on his breath. Enough, he thought to no one but himself. I've had enough for tonight.
Gathering his sanity bit by bit, shoving his stolen memories back to some dark file in his mind, he extracted his foot from the cabinet door and stood. No more hiding. His footsteps clacked against the sterilized tile floor on his way to the equally sterilized push-doors. Around him a dozen pale, black figures walked in an arrogantly steady stride, warped by shaped metal. Except for one. The mirror above the sink, a sink, showed him steadily.
Pale skin from English rain, dark blue eyes, almond and foreign even to himself. He matched here, to an extent. Not his too-pink tone or his sea-water eyes but the shape at least. Thin, nicely shaped lips, curvy in an almost feminine degree. They formed a pretty smile if he bothered. They were smiling now, softly, a sad sort of smile that didn't even really count. Funny, he couldn't feel himself doing it. He touched a hand to his lips, felt them drawn down and sagging beneath residual anguish. Not smiling at all.
A jolt.
The hand in the mirror hadn't moved.
Connecting the line.
Too much softness in the angle of his jaw, his face two years ago. Too much light in the eyes.
Connecting the line.
The face in the mirror tilted. His head stood straight and unyielding. Smile turned true.
A kick to the stomach, a wrench down his throat.
"….Gene?"
"I'm going for a ride."
Noll didn't acknowledge him. No need to. It was their unspoken schedule; Noll took his dappled gelding along the easterly trail in the mornings and Gene rode his palomino mare on a haphazard path in the evenings. Weather permitted. He really only spoke in benefit to their guests, but they were around so constantly that they would've guessed where he was heading anyway.
The beauty of predictability.
"If you wait a minute, I'll come with you," Evie offered, stretched languidly across the couch in the library, her torso half-slipping off the cushions to the floor. Gene highly doubted her minute would be any shorter than ten.
"Find me, you can join me. Until then…" Without looking back, he half-walked, half-tumbled down the gentle hill to the stables.
"He's impatient," commented a still supine Evie from her precarious perch. She too went ignored, as currently Koujo and Noll were competing in who could look the most stern and unfeeling while meditating. She would roll her eyes, if not that she made the same face. Evidently emptying one's mind led to a sour expression.
For about fifteen minutes, she contented herself with tracking their steady breathing, falling into a half-trance herself, all the while mustering enough vitality to roll out of the rather awkward position she'd slowly slid into. It was a quiet, uneventful evening thus far. Not too warm for July, perfect weather for throwing open the windows and airing out the musty smell of decaying books. The quiet hum of insects and the nearby city was hypnotic and lulling and eased the mind into idleness. She was loathe to ruin her own spell, but the impulse to follow Gene's pastime was overpowering. Feet over head, she rolled to a crouch, falling off the sofa with a kind of accidental grace, and retraced her cousin's jovial steps.
Outside, the cool evening wind had stirred the insect singing louder. Her feet skipped along the dirt path that led to the stables in time with their polyrhythmic music. She probably looked crazy, legs flying and twisting nonsensically. Pirouetting past the old farmhands' cottage that Luella had been restoring for two years, an arabesque outside the barn. She needed to practice anyway.
A sharp whinny greeted her as she all but cartwheeled through the door Gene had probably left open, then the warm smell of the horses, the sweetness of hay. Evie loved it here, but not as much as the twins. They practically lived in the hay loft. She was pretty sure that Noll had a sizable stack of books up there. In the tack room, she slipped on Luella's spare boots. She'd take Luella's horse too, a tall, brawny half-Shire that liked to take off at the slightest kick.
She was slipping the bit past the velvety lips nibbling at her palm when she felt it. One single knock. Muffled screaming in her ear, not the tone of screaming, just the feeling. It happened so little that she'd almost forgotten it. Thought she was going mad for a moment before it dawned on her.
The link. Fuck.
Gene.
Flying down the path that led to the creek, she barely held on to the thundering animal beneath her. Too caught up in listening, tracking the slightest drop in the single, screaming note. Closer and closer to the man-made creek, louder and louder in her head until she yanked viciously at the reins, slid off the horse before he'd slowed completely. She found him. God, she found him.
Fallen off his horse.
"Jesus, Gene," she cried, kneeling beside him where he was sprawled and muddied by the edge of the creek. An initial scan revealed no blood, no unnatural bending of limbs, no protruding bones. No horse either, and a stirrup still hooked around his foot. "Wake up."
He didn't stir, but she could feel his breath puff evenly against her wrist. In her own mind, she felt along the walls, knocked until she found that hollow spot that let Gene in, and screamed too. His eyes snapped open and he jolted upright.
"Damn it!" His eyes crossed and he fell back again, catching himself on his hands. "Remind me not sit up so fast. I have a killer headache."
She could've slapped him. In relief, of course. "No shit. What the hell happened Gene?"
"How did you find me?" Evading the question. Probably something stupid, then.
"The link. Speaking of which…" She looked behind her questioningly. "Where's the other one of you?"
"I have to consciously call him. 13 years, and we still don't do it when we black out," he explained almost self-deprecatingly, as if he could control the extent of his abilities. "Put a ghost to our necks and we call each other just fine, though."
Evie rolled her eyes. "Well, I guess if you're making stupid jokes, then you're not dying. Would you explain what happened?"
"I fell jumping the creek. I think the stirrup strap was dry-rotted."
Her skeptical look was enough prompting.
"I might have been standing up when it happened." He didn't look the least bit ashamed.
"Stupid boy." She helped him to his feet. "You're lucky I was already at the barn when I heard you."
He grinned slowly, a sneaky, too innocent grin that gave him one dimple and didn't fool her in the slightest. "If you don't tell Mum, I won't mention the time you played dress-up with her nighties."
"Nice try. She already knows about that one." They walked back towards the barn, where Gene's horse was probably heading towards anyway in search of grain. Luella's gigantic mount lazed behind them, picking at leaves as they passed through a smattering of trees.
"What about the time you bullied Noll into dance lessons?"
"She put me up to it." Gene laughed, wincing as he clutched his ribs and waving it away just as easy as his laughter. She wondered if her face was concerned. Sometimes she forgot to make facial expressions.
"Just a little sore." His face went decidedly mischievous. "I've got it."
"I doubt it."
He ignored her. "What about that time you and Lin-sensei snuck out to the pond and—."
"Fine! You win! I won't tell her," Evie promised past her fiery blush. "And don't call him that. It makes him sound so old."
"He is old."
"He's nineteen, you little freak," she challenged almost playfully, elbowing him in the ribs before she remembered he was hurt there. Whoops. He was placating her before she could even begin to apologize though. Laughing away the pain again. She had to smile. Gene was such a contradiction sometimes, sneaky and conniving at the same time he could be unbearably kind.
They walked in silence the rest of the way, stopping occasionally to let the horse graze some patches of sweet clover. She could sense his contentedness blanket along her skin like a summer daze, could see the intimate smile he gave to the reddish evening light. In her head she could faintly hear the feeling of laughter just beyond the edges of her mind. Infinite ways of knowing all was good in their microcosm.
At least until he did something stupid again.
CLIFFHANGER! Don't get used to them. I'm too impatient for that. Sorry about the angst too. At least Yasu knows how to break the tension.
On a more general note: I have several stories in the mix, which might be ready eventually (I have writer's ADD), including a potential sequel to this one, a very angsty one, a very, very angsty one, and a fluffy one. Vague enough for you?
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I got a review for some more Mai and Naru interaction, and I hope I delivered. I'm definitely self-important enough for a little fan-service. Review if you found the made-up word and I'll give you a shout-out! (no cheating, honor system people) And as always, if you find a mistake kindly let me know and I'll do my best to fix it. Thanks!