Fanfiction by Azusa Kuraino
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By Azusa Kuraino, AzusaEris@aol.com
author's notes:
This story has a shounen-ai flavor to it. I will not be held responsible for any
offense taken. If you don't want to see that, don't read it.
Email me at AzusaEris@aol.com or erica.drescher@gte.net.
"On the Edge of Night"
When he was sure he was safely removed from view, he allowed himself to sink to his knees on the floor as hot ribbons of tears streamed down his cheeks.
He had never imagined it could hurt this much. He had never imagined anything
could hurt this much.
He mouthed his friend's name as his body began to quiver; his chest felt as if if it had been impaled with something as sharp and burning cold as ice, and then the strength of his voice failed him.
Alone in the night, he wept.
I wish I were dead. I wish I were dead. I wish I were dead. The words seared a hot trail across his thoughts, endlessly repeated like a mantra. His body curled
around a shapeless lump of despair, a palapable sickness that choked his lungs tight and filled his chest with nausea.
Don't be sad, he pleaded with himself internally. Don't cry. It's all right, Kahr. It's a dream, a bad dream, and like all dreams it will fade with the dawn. Just wait for the
nightmare to end; wait and you can wake up and Sigurd will be there for you, and everything will be all right.
He drew in a breath and held it; his hand contracted to a twitching ball.
And now... you can wake up.
His long nails bit into the skin of his palm; his lungs burned with the strain of deprivation. He opened his eyes.
At that moment, he would have sacrificed anything for the sake of finding himself tucked listlessly into a slightly berumpled bed, trembling with the pain of a fading
nightmare. But the world remained all too terribly real: he crouched, shivering, on the floor, face and uniform sprinkled with tears, alone in the room and Sigurd gone forever.
Too weak to manage even a curse of rage, he pressed his head against his knees.
The thought How could he... echoed in Ramsus's head.
Traitor. Deceiver. He does not deserve your loyalties.
And it sickened him, more than anything else, that he could not bring himself to
hate Sigurd for doing it.
How very much more bearable it would have been if he could have hated the man
who had professed his loyalty, his alliance-- even, for the love of God, his affection-- to be a calculated lie. Hate would have, at least, been a grain of power for him to feed off of-- but his emotions fell short; he could not muster the will to feel even that little bit of fury.
Was it because of his own weakness, or because of the despair in his heart siphoning away his strength to feel anything besides misery? Or... something else?
Drawing himself out of his huddled posture on the ground, he rolled over languidly and lay with arms and legs outstretched, facing the ceiling and unable to move: bound and crucified by his own despair.
Oh, God, I can't stand it. He wanted to curl up against something, to have something, someone, to latch over until the nightmare was over. So cold, so cold...
The ghosts of sensation began to wash over him, and he gave a tiny indeterminate cry, nuzzling his face against those ethereal memories of touch. Warmth and softness; a light whisper of breath...
Sigurd's hands, gentle and supple as leather against his face, his neck, his shoulder. So cool on skin that burned with the exhaustion of exercise, of training...
Oh God... why am I thinking about this now? I mustn't... I mustn't torture myself
by thinking of what will never be again...
Memories. He closed his eyes, and fire danced in his soul.
("...you look nice tonight, Kahr. That shirt suits your eyes.")
("...don't put yourself down that way. I like you quite a bit, and if that doesn't
count for anything with you, I'll be very insulted.")
("...so tired... aren't you sore? Let me rub your shoulders...")
("Kahr...")
No one else had been so kind to him, ever. Not in the same way...
...that faintly magical sort of charm he possessed, that mysterious way of making Ramsus feel as if he were tasting sunlight and touching music. God, what a stupid, contemptible little boy he was! There was nothing extraordinary about Sigurd in particular; nothing he gave to Ramsus that could not be elicited from others. Nothing but common kindness...
And yet... and yet...
And if Sigurd was to be believed, it had all been a farce. A lie.
A choked noise fought and clawed its way up his throat; rolling over, he began to batter his fists furiously against the cold floor. Breathless with sobs now, he attacked the floor haplessly, fingers raking over it until they were rubbed red and aching; still he continued to fight against he knew not what, until he had exhausted himself. He curled at last into a quivering little ball, thinking only that if someone chanced to see him in this state right now, he would be too humiliated to live.
He could not heal it; he could not reconcile it. To think those sweet mysterious
little kindnesses, the hands that held and petted him so gently were forever lost now-- oh, that was enough of a dreadful bitter thing, but to think it had all been a lie, all
along...
How could it have happened-- how could he have permitted such a thing to go on, unbidden? How could a lie have become so terribly important to him, and how it have gone on so long-- so very long-- without his ever fathoming the truth? The heart of a fool deserved no pity...
It was as if he had been allowed to taste, just a few times, of a strange and lovely liquor like nothing else in the world, a deliciously intoxicating elixir, and then had it torn from his lips just when he'd had quite enough to be sure that nothing would ever again compare. Everything would be different, now, terribly different, and when he tried to comprehend the inescapable reality of this new life-- life without Sigurd-- the despair twisting at his insides began to transform into a cold whimpering emptiness.
Stop. Even as hot tears began to sear down his face, he filled himself with a shuddering breath, tried to ration out the situation. He was grieving over a lie, and mourning as if the man was dead and not merely absent. He was composing an elegy for deception. What reason was there for him to think the lies of that traitor should have had any bearing on his life? And yet, though it made perfect sense, his body refused to listen: the tears burned, burned against his skin, as if all the warmth inside him was pouring away, contained in these little drops of fire.
There will be others. He wiped his tear-slick face clean with a halfhearted sweep
of his arm. It's hardly as if he was the only one in the world to show you affection. There was still Hyuga. Hyuga, whose first loyalty had always been to Sigurd, even when Ramsus had used his power of influence to win his friend a position as an Element... who had been strangely silent in the wake of Sigurd's betrayal, as if it was something he had known all along, some bit of hoarded knowledge denied to Ramsus.
No, Hyuga was not Sigurd, and his attentions were not the same... They were hardly unwelcome, to be sure, but they lacked that... that essence which defied all attempts at naming. That inexplicable thing that sparkled in Sigurd's eyes when he smiled, that aura of warmth which had kept Ramsus unerringly at his side... that magical liquor, whatever under heaven it had been, that had made him feel so deliriously giddy, so drunken with life that he shivered.
Sigurd. God... if I couldn't trust you, who in the world can I trust? No, there was
no innate goodness in being human; their way was to deceive and connive, to choose
convenience over loyalty in the times when it came to their own personal interests. He was fighting for the lot of a race of cowards and liars, and this... this had been his reward. There was no one left for him now; no one and nothing.
Oh, God, if I could only freeze the world and everything inside of me...
He remembered the endless nights of awakening, reeling, from dreams of whispered voices and cold laughter, of conversations that swam endlessly through the dark mires of his mind during waking hours...
(.....A living weapon..... an archetypal form to surpass all humans.....)
(.....A wasted experiment.... worthless..... garbage.)
Those shadowy mists of childhood memories, where ten years had transpired in what seemed like two or three-- what had been wrong with his memory, then? Where had he come from? He was still not entirely certain of the answer to that question... It had been easy, so very achingly long ago when those dreams needled at him night after night, to childishly fathom the idea that he was something slightly more, or slightly less, than human.
("....To be human is to feel, Kahr. If you close yourself off to your emotions, if you stop letting yourself feel, you resign your status as a human being... I learned that the hard way. Please, don't forget that.")
He had said that. When had it been? Back in those days when they first met, or not so very long ago? It no longer mattered, at any rate...
The tears had dried to a sticky film on his cheeks; his breath emerged from his lips in tiny gasps.
Was this what it was... to be human? That essence of feeling which Sigurd had waxed so poetic over? This pain, this damned pain for which blood and darkness now seemed a minute price to pay for surcease? Was clinging to it his last chance to reckon himself among the members of the human race?
If someone tore the heart from my chest now, I would bless the ground he walked upon...
The sadness was gone; the fury was gone. He could no longer muster even a glimmer of regret over his apathy.
If this was being human...
If this pain was the price, he would gladly resign that coveted status. He would a thousand times rather cling to the identity of that superior being, he who was to be above all humans and their attendant pain and longings. He whose duty was to reclaim his birthright from the wretched son, the cursed one whose mere existence had brought him so much agony...
("...this thing is... useless.")
...That thought was just enough to dissuade him from reaching for the sword on his wall, to purge the pain from his very blood with that wicked blade.
The world would go on, and in time he would rejoin its foolish march in rank and file: but he knew, knew all too terribly well, that he would not be the same as before. That light was gone; the man whom Ramsus had once called friend had stolen away with it, and he had no choice now but to stumble for a glimmer in the blackness.
"You look sad..."
A brief heartbeat.
"Would you like a hug?"
He was silent.
Finally, an answer: "Yes... I think... I would..."
"Why, Kahr..." Concern shimmered in those indigo eyes. "You look so upset. What's the matter? Let me comfort you..."
"No. It's just that..."
"Just that?"
"No one... ever touches me."
"No one?" And the slender arms wrapped around him, and for the first time in so
very long he felt the rhythm of another human being's heart, beating beside his own.
A memory, a flash... He shook it off.
"Not... for a long time."
Why... why won't you let yourself relax? This is just... Just what he did. You can
have it back now... finally. You don't need to be... to be alone any more...
It's the same thing. The same feeling.
...Isn't it?
And the indigo hair fell, obscuring the face of the one who clasped him tight, so that he could not possibly have seen the thin, knowing smile which creased her lips in the
darkness.
~Fin.~
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