Tacit, for un_love_you
.
Completed the 30 claims for un_love_you as one big fic, akin to Crickets from back in the day.
Am proud of this. And think I needed it.
Title: Tacit
Fandom: Tokyo Babylon / X/1999
Characters: Seishirou, Subaru; Hokuto, Setsuka, Lady Sumeragi, Kamui, Fuuma, Sorata, Kanoe, Yuuto, Yuzuriha.
Rating: Hard R. Pain, sex, disturbingness.
Words: 3800
Contains shout-outs to _leareth, velvetpaws, and akk_, by way of deconstruction.
Summary: Everything they are is built on words unsaid.
Tacit
tokyo babylon / x/1999
Mithrigil Galtirglin
for the un_love_you challenge.
--
11. thought i needed this
Mother’s lips are always cold-the cosmetics must suck them dry. They leave marks on Seishirou’s skin in shapes that could be symmetrical but aren’t anymore, thanks to her tongue swiping over one edge of the smear, or the lower lip scraping a little harder on the left. She kisses his arm, his neck, his chin, the corner of his mouth.
Physically, it’s pleasant. Mentally, it’s worth consideration.
-
22. i hate myself
He kneels in the snow, takes the boy’s hands in his own. “I’ll make a pact with you.”
-
03. this cancels out the hurt
“You must never remove these gloves in the presence of another,” Grandmother says, kneeling to his level (does that echo? It feels strange), “no matter who he is. Not even for me, should I ask. Not even for Hokuto. Not even for your doctors, or your teachers.” She puts her hands around his, sounds so serious and old, and he can’t feel her. “Do you understand?”
“I do,” he says, as formally as he knows how, then wonders if it’s lying.
-
05. you can be like me
Subaru leaves the gloves on the sink ledge and steps into the shower, staring at his hands. There’s nothing remarkable about them-but in his line of work, things that are unremarkable tend not to be, so he doesn’t distrust Grandmother for making him start wearing the gloves in the first place, seven years ago. But he brings his palms up to his face, lets the steaming water pummel the backs of them, slither between his fingers… Will they be longer, someday? Will that awkward curve near his knuckles smooth out when he gets taller? How tall will he get?
He rotates his wrists, puts his palms into the spray, stares at the backs. Will it always be so easy to see the veins under the skin? Will he get any darker? Not that it matters, if he’s the only one to ever see his hands.
And what about the rest of him? (The water hits his chest when he lets his hands down, this unrelenting, constant pressure.) He’s never really noticed or cared, but…but he’s going to grow up someday, and soon, right?
Will he look like Sakurazuka-sensei when he does?
-
02. i was wrong about you
Most likely, this looks like a date, down to the massive shared parfait and two long dueling spoons; Seishirou doesn’t mind, and Hokuto most likely revels in the attention.
“Ah, the best part about sharing dessert,” she muses, and swipes the cherry from the top of the mound of whipped cream before Seishirou can, pursing her lips to taunt before she eats it. “None of the calories count!”
He can play her game-he takes his first heaping spoonful out of the scoop of double-fudge-brownie, which he knows is her favorite, and asks, “Oh?” before closing his mouth around it.
“Yeah, so long as you’re paying for it!” She can play his game, too, it seems-his choice, dulce de leche, is on her side of the parfait dish, and she scrapes her spoon down it until a most unladylike portion of the ice cream is piled up. “That’s how we keep our girlish figures around decadent men like you.”
Seishirou smiles, slowly bearing down on brittle chocolate chunks between his back teeth. “I’d always wondered how you managed,” he says, reaching out and turning the parfait dish around a hundred and eighty degrees.
Hokuto laughs, loud enough that the patrons at the table behind her turn and smile, warmly. If only they knew. “I could say the same for you, Sei-chan! You may be gay, but even you don’t have a woman’s calorie-busting magic, and you’ve got a worse sweet tooth than even mine.”
Now that his flavor isn’t in danger, he takes a solid spoonful of it, heavy on the whipped cream. “Men just have higher metabolism.” He says, smirking, shrugging. “That must be why girls need that magic, Hokuto-chan. But I’ll be glad to foot the cost of that illusion.”
-
10. i’m broken
The big old cat that Subaru is cuddling with starts writhing, squirming free, making little hrr noises out of a drooping, disappointed mouth. Subaru’s bright blue shirt and pants are covered in scraps of its fur-little inconsistent texturing, like a conglomerate sidewalk or a stucco wall. He loosens his hold on the cat, making a face that’s confused, more than disappointed, and shifts himself, spreads his legs a little so the cat can get its feet on the floor. It does-it curls its tail around Subaru’s calf, then swats it up into his nose and struts away. Subaru laughs, swipes the back of his glove over the itch.
Seishirou watches, makes some absent mark in his chart, and rubs his knees together.
-
12. i’m drunk
Hokuto hangs up the phone-oh.
Ha.
Sei-chan probably knows just when Subaru fell asleep-Hokuto would ask, but it doesn’t look like Sei-chan’s awake either. She has to rub her eyes and double-check, seriously, it’s adorable. Subaru’s still down there on the floor, back against the foot of the couch, feet flopped sideways and hat sort of cradled in his lap under one forearm. His other hand’s tented on the floor next to Sei-chan’s foot. That’s because Sei-chan’s leg is dangling off the couch and draped over Subaru’s shoulder, socked toes wriggling just a little next to Subaru’s hip. (Cute socks today, Hokuto thinks to herself-maybe one too many colors in the stripes?) And the rest of Sei-chan is sprawled across the couch like a big stuffed toy, shirt rumpled and collar undone and his tie spilling over the edge all the way to the carpet. It’s a really nice tie, the thin kind, shiny warm orange if you look at it in one light and black from the other direction. Sei-chan’s glasses are askew and his face is turned into the cushions. At the corner, he’s biting it a little. And one of his big grabby elegant hands is hanging onto the fabric bunched up around Subaru’s knee.
Dork, Hokuto thinks, and tiptoes over to the coffee table to gather up the rest of the sake service.
-
19. this isn’t about you at all
Subaru is almost seventeen-a fortune-telling computer spat that out, months ago-and looks it. Not when he’s in motion, no, his naiveté detracts from that, and his fierce determination even more so, like a caricature humanizing a cute cartoon dog. When he’s blushing? Even less mature than that.
When he’s still. Maturity settles on him when he’s still. Asleep-dead hollow weight-flushed with unconscious arousal instead of embarrassment-maturity. It shows in his body when Seishirou runs his hands over it, reddening and tightening the skin. It shows in his breath, quickening, darkening. It shows in his voice when Seishirou makes it break, in the bared teeth and dug heels and hips that aren’t sure how to thrust.
It shows when Seishirou withdraws, just to watch, and Subaru, still sleeping, tries to take care of himself, his own gloved hands an effective but imperfect substitute.
-
16. i want to break you
Hot sap drips in through all the cuts the bark makes and all Subaru can think is I loved you, I loved you.
-
18. i pity you
Hokuto grimaces. Bad enough that she’s probably ruining her brother’s shikifuku just by wearing it, but on top of that it had to be April and there had to be rain the other day and there had to be a puddle in just the wrong place on her way past the police box and into the park.
Then she sees him, looking at her out of one eye like a bird, standing straight where he could be leaning against the massive tree. Sei-ch-no, Sei-chan never existed. Sakurazukamori.
The left leg of the hakama sticks to her shin a little more than it should, drags just a bit when she walks to meet him. Whatever happened to dying with your boots on? she thinks, and shouldn’t laugh.
-
24. i want you to hate me
The filter of the cigarette tastes like nothing at all, not really-like wiping his mouth with a paper napkin. Maybe it’s because the scent’s always been around him, somehow. Not always-just one year, one year-but if Seishirou burned his impression onto Subaru in as little as a minute, back when his skin was malleable (and not so long ago), just think of how much damage a year could do. Or don’t. Don’t think of it as damage, any more than a sculptor damages a marble block.
Subaru holds the paper between his lips, has to use his teeth to keep it in place-slips with the lighter, scrapes his thumb through the gloves. Sparks flicker but the flame doesn’t hold. And then again. And then again.
He takes the cigarette out of his mouth, nestles it into the crook of the ashtray, and bites down on the middle finger of his right glove instead, pries it off with his teeth. Seishirou’s impression, indeed-the pentagram-brand is just under that skin, just like the butane in the lighter, waiting to burn. It’s easier to light up, with it bared. Subaru manages to get the flame going, at least. Before he can change his mind or waste the effort, he pinches the cigarette in his gloved left hand and gets the end lit. He puts the filter in his mouth again, sets the lighter down and switches hands because it’s slipping.
It smells and tastes like it’s supposed to.
And then he starts coughing.
-
14. i'm awake and you’re breathing
It shouldn’t surprise him, it really shouldn’t. Not if every dream like this he’s had has been about waking up to find it real. Not if every time he’s touched himself before he’s wanted other hands. Not if he knows-knows-that Seishirou used to do this when Subaru was sixteen, touch him and touch him and bring him to the edge and leave him there, not-not if-not if it hurts, so much, not just being hard in Seishirou’s hand but knowing that he stayed. To gloat. To ruin.
Sweat soaks his bed. He can hear the fabric of Seishirou’s suit, scratching against it. Over him. Blocking out the glow of Subaru’s alarm clock. The arm that’s not-reaching down, curled-stroking-the arm that’s not that is pressing up hard into Subaru’s sternum-all of his weight-could crack his ribs-
“Please,” Subaru chokes. His hips thrust up, stutter. “Please.”
He doesn’t. He makes Subaru-finish, but-but that’s not what he was asking for.
-
28. obliterate me
“Please” is all Subaru says when he gets like this. “Please,” as if he trusts Seishirou to know what he wants. As if he doesn’t know what he wants, himself. It’s fascinating-it’s dangerous, really, even suicidal. How can he put his trust in Seishirou? How can he expect Seishirou to even care what he wants? How can he trust that the hands on his neck won’t snap it, that the fingers in his mouth won’t rip out his teeth, that the force of every thrust won’t break his spine? He can’t trust what Seishirou’s mouth says-how can he yield to what it does?
“Please,” Subaru says-chokes, gasps, whimpers-as if perhaps he doesn’t even care.
-
29. you want this
It’s dark again when Subaru wakes up, for the Tokyo definition of dark; twilight, threaded with billboards and marquees, red sky at night, sailors take flight. He guesses he’s been asleep for fifteen hours; a glance at his answering machine says it’s closer to forty.
Everywhere still hurts.
The cut on his instep? Sealed but stinging, every terry of the carpet like a rusty nail. The burns on his neck and arm? Crusted over, white and fire-gold scabs still rimmed in black ash that tightens and stretches and cracks if he so much as thinks of moving. Half-rotten swathes of dried blood on his shoulders-bruises and crescents on his neck, his chest-soreness everywhere else, persistent soreness and stickiness that starts at the base of his spine and spirals to everywhere else like the pain has its own lymphatic system. It probably does.
And then he remembers just how he got those wounds.
He stares at himself in the floor-length mirror for so long that the shadow of the windowsill sinks into the wall, disintegrates.
Stepping into the shower and washing that away is more painful than the sex was.
-
07. prove it
“Why?” Yuzuriha’s hands quiver into little fists around tufts of grass. “Why do you love him? Why do you let him do this to you?”
“I want to believe it makes him happy,” Subaru answers.
He can’t tell if she’s angry or scared, really-the outburst sounds the same. “Well it doesn’t make us happy to see you like this. Doesn’t our happiness matter just as much to you?”
There’s an answer. He doesn’t have to say it aloud.
-
17. wish i didn’t love you
“Kamui really looks up to you,” Sorata is saying- “I can understand if you want your own life and all, I mean, we’re just kids and you’ve got work. But even if you don’t stay here with us, you know you’re always welcome, and I think it’d be really good for Kamui to see you a lot. And for you to see Kamui a lot. There’s a lot you can teach him, you know? I mean, that the rest of us can’t.” He grins, like there’s an obvious more-to-what-he’s-saying that’s crossed beyond innuendo into earnest implication.
Subaru knows how big the monks at Kouyasan are on this sort of thing.
“You’re right,” Subaru sighs, “and I understand. But so do you.”
-
01. you were right about me
“You make it so easy, Subaru-kun.” He pins Subaru’s hips squarely with his own to the vertex of the table, pulls on Subaru’s trapped wrists so the younger man’s feet scrape futilely where the floor should be. His neck is bared, sinews throbbing under pale, breakable skin. Seishirou purrs, approvingly, “How can you let your guard down like this?”
Subaru’s dangling legs-spread, suddenly, and lock around the small of Seishirou’s back. The answer-another question-is on a moan, but unsettlingly decisive. “Am I?”
-
06. i want to need you
“So I know what you want,” the Twin Star finishes, “but as for why? Ha. Can I help being a little curious?”
With a smile he doesn’t bother to suppress, Seishirou taps the bowl of his spoon on the parfait’s rim. It doesn’t ring much-he’s savoring the ice cream, slowly. It’s good enough to warrant that, perhaps the best dulce de leche he’s ever come across. A shame about the shop itself, though. It’s next.
The Twin Star sitting across from him, though, has pretty much inhaled his. “How did you manage to entangle yourself with the Sumeragi?”
Seishirou shrugs. “Change,” he answers, “is a compelling concept.”
-
21. you’ll do
The fingers in Subaru’s eye-socket aren’t long enough.
-
13. i want to hurt you
“And I don’t even know if I like it,” Subaru concludes-and it feels like a conclusion, not just the last of what he wants to say but like a resolution, and Kamui thinks No, no, no as loudly as he can.
The terries of the carpet are creeping up Kamui’s feet. He holds Subaru’s hand tighter, presses it between both of his like he could put power, real power, his power behind it and melt their skin together. So they could stand against the world, against destiny-against everything. He doesn’t. He’s not sure why he doesn’t. He could.
Subaru sighs, sinks deeper into the pillow, the bandages cleaner than the sheets. It occurs to Kamui that there’s a way to hold hands back and Subaru’s not doing it. He says, not weakly but distant, “Once…more than once I dreamed of hurting him back, like this. The way he hurts me. That I didn’t just give him a reason for it, that…that it was me holding the knife, cutting out his eye.” The words aren’t stable, the voice isn’t either-Kamui tries to ground him, wonders if listening can ever be enough, decides that no, it can’t.
“Were they dreams, or nightmares?” Kamui asks, just as shakily, just as almost-weak.
Subaru’s one uncovered eye regards him soundly, somehow delves into both of his own. “When I was sixteen, they wouldn’t have been dreams.” He breathes. “They started a long time after that.”
-
15. this is my desperation in action
“You two seem to be in some sort of contest,” Yuuto observes-and makes no pretense about observing. “You’re the only ones of us who have succeeded in destroying kekkai, you know.”
Seishirou does.
Yuuto enumerates with the hand he holds the saucer in, not the cup. “You take out Nakano-he gets the Sunshine 60. He takes out Shibuya, you overtake him with Shinjuku and the Yamanote all at once.” He smirks: “It’s right out of a sports season; you’ll be three and three, and the underdog pulls through.”
Seishirou smirks back, huffs condescendingly. “Not so much. If it’s a game, I’ll win it.”
-
26. i can be like you
It’s hard to tell, like he’s trying not to be noticed, but Kamui is definitely standing closer than he was a second ago. Subaru catches that-doesn’t quite catch Kamui’s eyes before he turns them down-keeps tying Kamui’s school tie like he hasn’t seen at all. But the toes of Kamui’ socks are overlapping his own, in a second-warm, thicker socks than Subaru’s, white wedging between black.
And just a second after Subaru had made it pretty clear that Kamui can never make him happy.
Not clear enough, apparently.
But he doesn’t stop tying Kamui’s tie.
-
09. always wondered what this’d be like
“His true wish,” Seishirou repeats to himself, around smoke and warmth and the slight chap of his lips from the dry, iron air. Ashes gather, then loosen and drift, spreading through the crossbeams, filtering out of sight. Without depth perception, watching things get farther away has been a compelling cognitive dissonance; they don’t get smaller, don’t fade-they blend into the flat haze, the background that overwhelms this world. (Subaru never has. Perhaps that’s why Seishirou-)
The cigarette slips from his lip, falls, crumbling, out of sight.
-
23. you remind me of me
Some of the chill October air has seeped in through the cracks beneath the windows. It’s threading through Subaru’s hair, the strands on the top that are carving wet abstractions in the mirror in front of them as Subaru sinks down it, knees giving, arms slack. He’s trembling. Seishirou lets him, holds on to Subaru’s sharp unsteady hips and pulls out before he’s dragged to the floor as well.
Jagged trains of sweat smear down the mirror’s face, from Subaru’s arm and chest and cheek. Seishirou stands back, appraises that, appraises Subaru, this mess of panting ribs and taut, slick skin, crumbling spent to his knees on the hardwood floor. With a firm prod of his heel Seishirou compounds that, sends Subaru sprawling on his back. Subaru’s eye is wild, dazed, half-lidded with the unkempt, sweat-soaked bandages that fully cover the other side. Seishirou runs his foot through the semen spread on Subaru’s abdomen, presses his instep into the dangerous valley between Subaru’s ribcage.
But for all the ragged breath, Subaru’s heartbeat is steady, accepting, slow.
-Chill October air indeed, if Seishirou is shivering as well.
-
27. i win
Vertebrae press between Subaru’s fingers; Seishirou’s bones are smooth and slick. Subaru pulls his hand out, dazed, and wishes they were sharp.
Seishirou smiles, whispers, everything.
-
04. i need to want you
Subaru used to wonder what his gloves were hiding.
Now he never wants to see it again.
Or he would, if there was still something there.
-
08. i’m cruel
Fuuma calls him Sakurazukamori, just like everyone else who knows. It’s respectful. It reminds him of who he should be. Who he’s been made to be. There’s not a person left in this world who can-should-will call him Subaru-kun.
He doesn’t wish there was.
And at least he doesn’t see Seishirou when he looks at Fuuma anymore.
-
20. i hate you, you bitch
Kanoe is the first-only-girl-woman-that Subaru has ever kissed.
She slides her hand down the front of his jeans. He wonders if Seishirou had ever been with a woman.
-
25. you remind me of someone
“I thought you said he Wished to erase the marks of any other man.”
“He did,” Fuuma admits, but doesn’t let go of Subaru’s wrists or stop stroking his jugular. “So as long as I don’t bite, he can’t complain.”
“He’s dead,” Subaru says, “he can’t complain at all.”
Fuuma’s petting sharpens-nails. “Good point.”
-
30. mine
Seishirou’s eye is weaker than Subaru’s, but doesn’t get any worse as time goes on. Subaru stops squinting, doesn’t care what he sees, covers them both up with sunglasses, anyway. If he uses Seishirou’s eye, it’ll wear down. That’s unacceptable. It’s the only part of Subaru’s body that he’ll ever care about.
---
-
Completed the 30 claims for un_love_you as one big fic, akin to Crickets from back in the day.
Am proud of this. And think I needed it.
Title: Tacit
Fandom: Tokyo Babylon / X/1999
Characters: Seishirou, Subaru; Hokuto, Setsuka, Lady Sumeragi, Kamui, Fuuma, Sorata, Kanoe, Yuuto, Yuzuriha.
Rating: Hard R. Pain, sex, disturbingness.
Words: 3800
Contains shout-outs to _leareth, velvetpaws, and akk_, by way of deconstruction.
Summary: Everything they are is built on words unsaid.
Tacit
tokyo babylon / x/1999
Mithrigil Galtirglin
for the un_love_you challenge.
--
11. thought i needed this
Mother’s lips are always cold-the cosmetics must suck them dry. They leave marks on Seishirou’s skin in shapes that could be symmetrical but aren’t anymore, thanks to her tongue swiping over one edge of the smear, or the lower lip scraping a little harder on the left. She kisses his arm, his neck, his chin, the corner of his mouth.
Physically, it’s pleasant. Mentally, it’s worth consideration.
-
22. i hate myself
He kneels in the snow, takes the boy’s hands in his own. “I’ll make a pact with you.”
-
03. this cancels out the hurt
“You must never remove these gloves in the presence of another,” Grandmother says, kneeling to his level (does that echo? It feels strange), “no matter who he is. Not even for me, should I ask. Not even for Hokuto. Not even for your doctors, or your teachers.” She puts her hands around his, sounds so serious and old, and he can’t feel her. “Do you understand?”
“I do,” he says, as formally as he knows how, then wonders if it’s lying.
-
05. you can be like me
Subaru leaves the gloves on the sink ledge and steps into the shower, staring at his hands. There’s nothing remarkable about them-but in his line of work, things that are unremarkable tend not to be, so he doesn’t distrust Grandmother for making him start wearing the gloves in the first place, seven years ago. But he brings his palms up to his face, lets the steaming water pummel the backs of them, slither between his fingers… Will they be longer, someday? Will that awkward curve near his knuckles smooth out when he gets taller? How tall will he get?
He rotates his wrists, puts his palms into the spray, stares at the backs. Will it always be so easy to see the veins under the skin? Will he get any darker? Not that it matters, if he’s the only one to ever see his hands.
And what about the rest of him? (The water hits his chest when he lets his hands down, this unrelenting, constant pressure.) He’s never really noticed or cared, but…but he’s going to grow up someday, and soon, right?
Will he look like Sakurazuka-sensei when he does?
-
02. i was wrong about you
Most likely, this looks like a date, down to the massive shared parfait and two long dueling spoons; Seishirou doesn’t mind, and Hokuto most likely revels in the attention.
“Ah, the best part about sharing dessert,” she muses, and swipes the cherry from the top of the mound of whipped cream before Seishirou can, pursing her lips to taunt before she eats it. “None of the calories count!”
He can play her game-he takes his first heaping spoonful out of the scoop of double-fudge-brownie, which he knows is her favorite, and asks, “Oh?” before closing his mouth around it.
“Yeah, so long as you’re paying for it!” She can play his game, too, it seems-his choice, dulce de leche, is on her side of the parfait dish, and she scrapes her spoon down it until a most unladylike portion of the ice cream is piled up. “That’s how we keep our girlish figures around decadent men like you.”
Seishirou smiles, slowly bearing down on brittle chocolate chunks between his back teeth. “I’d always wondered how you managed,” he says, reaching out and turning the parfait dish around a hundred and eighty degrees.
Hokuto laughs, loud enough that the patrons at the table behind her turn and smile, warmly. If only they knew. “I could say the same for you, Sei-chan! You may be gay, but even you don’t have a woman’s calorie-busting magic, and you’ve got a worse sweet tooth than even mine.”
Now that his flavor isn’t in danger, he takes a solid spoonful of it, heavy on the whipped cream. “Men just have higher metabolism.” He says, smirking, shrugging. “That must be why girls need that magic, Hokuto-chan. But I’ll be glad to foot the cost of that illusion.”
-
10. i’m broken
The big old cat that Subaru is cuddling with starts writhing, squirming free, making little hrr noises out of a drooping, disappointed mouth. Subaru’s bright blue shirt and pants are covered in scraps of its fur-little inconsistent texturing, like a conglomerate sidewalk or a stucco wall. He loosens his hold on the cat, making a face that’s confused, more than disappointed, and shifts himself, spreads his legs a little so the cat can get its feet on the floor. It does-it curls its tail around Subaru’s calf, then swats it up into his nose and struts away. Subaru laughs, swipes the back of his glove over the itch.
Seishirou watches, makes some absent mark in his chart, and rubs his knees together.
-
12. i’m drunk
Hokuto hangs up the phone-oh.
Ha.
Sei-chan probably knows just when Subaru fell asleep-Hokuto would ask, but it doesn’t look like Sei-chan’s awake either. She has to rub her eyes and double-check, seriously, it’s adorable. Subaru’s still down there on the floor, back against the foot of the couch, feet flopped sideways and hat sort of cradled in his lap under one forearm. His other hand’s tented on the floor next to Sei-chan’s foot. That’s because Sei-chan’s leg is dangling off the couch and draped over Subaru’s shoulder, socked toes wriggling just a little next to Subaru’s hip. (Cute socks today, Hokuto thinks to herself-maybe one too many colors in the stripes?) And the rest of Sei-chan is sprawled across the couch like a big stuffed toy, shirt rumpled and collar undone and his tie spilling over the edge all the way to the carpet. It’s a really nice tie, the thin kind, shiny warm orange if you look at it in one light and black from the other direction. Sei-chan’s glasses are askew and his face is turned into the cushions. At the corner, he’s biting it a little. And one of his big grabby elegant hands is hanging onto the fabric bunched up around Subaru’s knee.
Dork, Hokuto thinks, and tiptoes over to the coffee table to gather up the rest of the sake service.
-
19. this isn’t about you at all
Subaru is almost seventeen-a fortune-telling computer spat that out, months ago-and looks it. Not when he’s in motion, no, his naiveté detracts from that, and his fierce determination even more so, like a caricature humanizing a cute cartoon dog. When he’s blushing? Even less mature than that.
When he’s still. Maturity settles on him when he’s still. Asleep-dead hollow weight-flushed with unconscious arousal instead of embarrassment-maturity. It shows in his body when Seishirou runs his hands over it, reddening and tightening the skin. It shows in his breath, quickening, darkening. It shows in his voice when Seishirou makes it break, in the bared teeth and dug heels and hips that aren’t sure how to thrust.
It shows when Seishirou withdraws, just to watch, and Subaru, still sleeping, tries to take care of himself, his own gloved hands an effective but imperfect substitute.
-
16. i want to break you
Hot sap drips in through all the cuts the bark makes and all Subaru can think is I loved you, I loved you.
-
18. i pity you
Hokuto grimaces. Bad enough that she’s probably ruining her brother’s shikifuku just by wearing it, but on top of that it had to be April and there had to be rain the other day and there had to be a puddle in just the wrong place on her way past the police box and into the park.
Then she sees him, looking at her out of one eye like a bird, standing straight where he could be leaning against the massive tree. Sei-ch-no, Sei-chan never existed. Sakurazukamori.
The left leg of the hakama sticks to her shin a little more than it should, drags just a bit when she walks to meet him. Whatever happened to dying with your boots on? she thinks, and shouldn’t laugh.
-
24. i want you to hate me
The filter of the cigarette tastes like nothing at all, not really-like wiping his mouth with a paper napkin. Maybe it’s because the scent’s always been around him, somehow. Not always-just one year, one year-but if Seishirou burned his impression onto Subaru in as little as a minute, back when his skin was malleable (and not so long ago), just think of how much damage a year could do. Or don’t. Don’t think of it as damage, any more than a sculptor damages a marble block.
Subaru holds the paper between his lips, has to use his teeth to keep it in place-slips with the lighter, scrapes his thumb through the gloves. Sparks flicker but the flame doesn’t hold. And then again. And then again.
He takes the cigarette out of his mouth, nestles it into the crook of the ashtray, and bites down on the middle finger of his right glove instead, pries it off with his teeth. Seishirou’s impression, indeed-the pentagram-brand is just under that skin, just like the butane in the lighter, waiting to burn. It’s easier to light up, with it bared. Subaru manages to get the flame going, at least. Before he can change his mind or waste the effort, he pinches the cigarette in his gloved left hand and gets the end lit. He puts the filter in his mouth again, sets the lighter down and switches hands because it’s slipping.
It smells and tastes like it’s supposed to.
And then he starts coughing.
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14. i'm awake and you’re breathing
It shouldn’t surprise him, it really shouldn’t. Not if every dream like this he’s had has been about waking up to find it real. Not if every time he’s touched himself before he’s wanted other hands. Not if he knows-knows-that Seishirou used to do this when Subaru was sixteen, touch him and touch him and bring him to the edge and leave him there, not-not if-not if it hurts, so much, not just being hard in Seishirou’s hand but knowing that he stayed. To gloat. To ruin.
Sweat soaks his bed. He can hear the fabric of Seishirou’s suit, scratching against it. Over him. Blocking out the glow of Subaru’s alarm clock. The arm that’s not-reaching down, curled-stroking-the arm that’s not that is pressing up hard into Subaru’s sternum-all of his weight-could crack his ribs-
“Please,” Subaru chokes. His hips thrust up, stutter. “Please.”
He doesn’t. He makes Subaru-finish, but-but that’s not what he was asking for.
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28. obliterate me
“Please” is all Subaru says when he gets like this. “Please,” as if he trusts Seishirou to know what he wants. As if he doesn’t know what he wants, himself. It’s fascinating-it’s dangerous, really, even suicidal. How can he put his trust in Seishirou? How can he expect Seishirou to even care what he wants? How can he trust that the hands on his neck won’t snap it, that the fingers in his mouth won’t rip out his teeth, that the force of every thrust won’t break his spine? He can’t trust what Seishirou’s mouth says-how can he yield to what it does?
“Please,” Subaru says-chokes, gasps, whimpers-as if perhaps he doesn’t even care.
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29. you want this
It’s dark again when Subaru wakes up, for the Tokyo definition of dark; twilight, threaded with billboards and marquees, red sky at night, sailors take flight. He guesses he’s been asleep for fifteen hours; a glance at his answering machine says it’s closer to forty.
Everywhere still hurts.
The cut on his instep? Sealed but stinging, every terry of the carpet like a rusty nail. The burns on his neck and arm? Crusted over, white and fire-gold scabs still rimmed in black ash that tightens and stretches and cracks if he so much as thinks of moving. Half-rotten swathes of dried blood on his shoulders-bruises and crescents on his neck, his chest-soreness everywhere else, persistent soreness and stickiness that starts at the base of his spine and spirals to everywhere else like the pain has its own lymphatic system. It probably does.
And then he remembers just how he got those wounds.
He stares at himself in the floor-length mirror for so long that the shadow of the windowsill sinks into the wall, disintegrates.
Stepping into the shower and washing that away is more painful than the sex was.
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07. prove it
“Why?” Yuzuriha’s hands quiver into little fists around tufts of grass. “Why do you love him? Why do you let him do this to you?”
“I want to believe it makes him happy,” Subaru answers.
He can’t tell if she’s angry or scared, really-the outburst sounds the same. “Well it doesn’t make us happy to see you like this. Doesn’t our happiness matter just as much to you?”
There’s an answer. He doesn’t have to say it aloud.
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17. wish i didn’t love you
“Kamui really looks up to you,” Sorata is saying- “I can understand if you want your own life and all, I mean, we’re just kids and you’ve got work. But even if you don’t stay here with us, you know you’re always welcome, and I think it’d be really good for Kamui to see you a lot. And for you to see Kamui a lot. There’s a lot you can teach him, you know? I mean, that the rest of us can’t.” He grins, like there’s an obvious more-to-what-he’s-saying that’s crossed beyond innuendo into earnest implication.
Subaru knows how big the monks at Kouyasan are on this sort of thing.
“You’re right,” Subaru sighs, “and I understand. But so do you.”
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01. you were right about me
“You make it so easy, Subaru-kun.” He pins Subaru’s hips squarely with his own to the vertex of the table, pulls on Subaru’s trapped wrists so the younger man’s feet scrape futilely where the floor should be. His neck is bared, sinews throbbing under pale, breakable skin. Seishirou purrs, approvingly, “How can you let your guard down like this?”
Subaru’s dangling legs-spread, suddenly, and lock around the small of Seishirou’s back. The answer-another question-is on a moan, but unsettlingly decisive. “Am I?”
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06. i want to need you
“So I know what you want,” the Twin Star finishes, “but as for why? Ha. Can I help being a little curious?”
With a smile he doesn’t bother to suppress, Seishirou taps the bowl of his spoon on the parfait’s rim. It doesn’t ring much-he’s savoring the ice cream, slowly. It’s good enough to warrant that, perhaps the best dulce de leche he’s ever come across. A shame about the shop itself, though. It’s next.
The Twin Star sitting across from him, though, has pretty much inhaled his. “How did you manage to entangle yourself with the Sumeragi?”
Seishirou shrugs. “Change,” he answers, “is a compelling concept.”
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21. you’ll do
The fingers in Subaru’s eye-socket aren’t long enough.
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13. i want to hurt you
“And I don’t even know if I like it,” Subaru concludes-and it feels like a conclusion, not just the last of what he wants to say but like a resolution, and Kamui thinks No, no, no as loudly as he can.
The terries of the carpet are creeping up Kamui’s feet. He holds Subaru’s hand tighter, presses it between both of his like he could put power, real power, his power behind it and melt their skin together. So they could stand against the world, against destiny-against everything. He doesn’t. He’s not sure why he doesn’t. He could.
Subaru sighs, sinks deeper into the pillow, the bandages cleaner than the sheets. It occurs to Kamui that there’s a way to hold hands back and Subaru’s not doing it. He says, not weakly but distant, “Once…more than once I dreamed of hurting him back, like this. The way he hurts me. That I didn’t just give him a reason for it, that…that it was me holding the knife, cutting out his eye.” The words aren’t stable, the voice isn’t either-Kamui tries to ground him, wonders if listening can ever be enough, decides that no, it can’t.
“Were they dreams, or nightmares?” Kamui asks, just as shakily, just as almost-weak.
Subaru’s one uncovered eye regards him soundly, somehow delves into both of his own. “When I was sixteen, they wouldn’t have been dreams.” He breathes. “They started a long time after that.”
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15. this is my desperation in action
“You two seem to be in some sort of contest,” Yuuto observes-and makes no pretense about observing. “You’re the only ones of us who have succeeded in destroying kekkai, you know.”
Seishirou does.
Yuuto enumerates with the hand he holds the saucer in, not the cup. “You take out Nakano-he gets the Sunshine 60. He takes out Shibuya, you overtake him with Shinjuku and the Yamanote all at once.” He smirks: “It’s right out of a sports season; you’ll be three and three, and the underdog pulls through.”
Seishirou smirks back, huffs condescendingly. “Not so much. If it’s a game, I’ll win it.”
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26. i can be like you
It’s hard to tell, like he’s trying not to be noticed, but Kamui is definitely standing closer than he was a second ago. Subaru catches that-doesn’t quite catch Kamui’s eyes before he turns them down-keeps tying Kamui’s school tie like he hasn’t seen at all. But the toes of Kamui’ socks are overlapping his own, in a second-warm, thicker socks than Subaru’s, white wedging between black.
And just a second after Subaru had made it pretty clear that Kamui can never make him happy.
Not clear enough, apparently.
But he doesn’t stop tying Kamui’s tie.
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09. always wondered what this’d be like
“His true wish,” Seishirou repeats to himself, around smoke and warmth and the slight chap of his lips from the dry, iron air. Ashes gather, then loosen and drift, spreading through the crossbeams, filtering out of sight. Without depth perception, watching things get farther away has been a compelling cognitive dissonance; they don’t get smaller, don’t fade-they blend into the flat haze, the background that overwhelms this world. (Subaru never has. Perhaps that’s why Seishirou-)
The cigarette slips from his lip, falls, crumbling, out of sight.
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23. you remind me of me
Some of the chill October air has seeped in through the cracks beneath the windows. It’s threading through Subaru’s hair, the strands on the top that are carving wet abstractions in the mirror in front of them as Subaru sinks down it, knees giving, arms slack. He’s trembling. Seishirou lets him, holds on to Subaru’s sharp unsteady hips and pulls out before he’s dragged to the floor as well.
Jagged trains of sweat smear down the mirror’s face, from Subaru’s arm and chest and cheek. Seishirou stands back, appraises that, appraises Subaru, this mess of panting ribs and taut, slick skin, crumbling spent to his knees on the hardwood floor. With a firm prod of his heel Seishirou compounds that, sends Subaru sprawling on his back. Subaru’s eye is wild, dazed, half-lidded with the unkempt, sweat-soaked bandages that fully cover the other side. Seishirou runs his foot through the semen spread on Subaru’s abdomen, presses his instep into the dangerous valley between Subaru’s ribcage.
But for all the ragged breath, Subaru’s heartbeat is steady, accepting, slow.
-Chill October air indeed, if Seishirou is shivering as well.
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27. i win
Vertebrae press between Subaru’s fingers; Seishirou’s bones are smooth and slick. Subaru pulls his hand out, dazed, and wishes they were sharp.
Seishirou smiles, whispers, everything.
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04. i need to want you
Subaru used to wonder what his gloves were hiding.
Now he never wants to see it again.
Or he would, if there was still something there.
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08. i’m cruel
Fuuma calls him Sakurazukamori, just like everyone else who knows. It’s respectful. It reminds him of who he should be. Who he’s been made to be. There’s not a person left in this world who can-should-will call him Subaru-kun.
He doesn’t wish there was.
And at least he doesn’t see Seishirou when he looks at Fuuma anymore.
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20. i hate you, you bitch
Kanoe is the first-only-girl-woman-that Subaru has ever kissed.
She slides her hand down the front of his jeans. He wonders if Seishirou had ever been with a woman.
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25. you remind me of someone
“I thought you said he Wished to erase the marks of any other man.”
“He did,” Fuuma admits, but doesn’t let go of Subaru’s wrists or stop stroking his jugular. “So as long as I don’t bite, he can’t complain.”
“He’s dead,” Subaru says, “he can’t complain at all.”
Fuuma’s petting sharpens-nails. “Good point.”
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30. mine
Seishirou’s eye is weaker than Subaru’s, but doesn’t get any worse as time goes on. Subaru stops squinting, doesn’t care what he sees, covers them both up with sunglasses, anyway. If he uses Seishirou’s eye, it’ll wear down. That’s unacceptable. It’s the only part of Subaru’s body that he’ll ever care about.
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