( That hand, his hand, their fingertips binding. Sumeragi Subaru making bounty of himself on Lord Taizan's altar and under the saccharine of Seishirou's perusing mouth, knuckle to knuckle, finger to joint. There is no heat to the gesture, less of the proprietary welcome. One oral addiction rapidly exchanged for the next. )
Why don't you stay here? ( In the friendly carcass of Manhattan's despoiled civility turned fictive lovers' nook. ) You were always good at playing house.
( Trailing after Hokuto's skirts like a depleted, fumbling puppy. Artlessly accepting captivity in Seishirou's chaotic ambulance-driving schedule. Eating, wearing, agreeing with whatever was put before him.
Seishirou's mouth lingers over the same fingers, cunning. )
Would it be so unreasonable? I'd make your breakfast every morning. You could restore your wards by midday and gouge my chest in the afternoon. Think about it.
[ Subaru flinches in a way he'd long sought to suppress. His knuckles bloom with a likewise heatless tension; memories release into the ambient hum of the Murmur. Native to him, invasive to it. Seishirou doesn't need the ornamental pall of illusion for it, for his clasped fist to overturn its handful of petals in a slow, salient dance downward. Catching light, submerged, sinking. Only he can leave him drowning in calm and crystal waters, able to break the froth but not the surface tension guilt inflicts. Of all his capabilities, forcing hurt from his heart has never been one of them.
Ask. And he did. Look, and he does. ]
I was... never as good at pretending as you were.
[ Only too slow, always one clattering footstep behind. In the way of living, and loving, and killing too. Until there was only stillness left. His words lack the bite of his actions. ]
So you understand, of course. Why I have to decline.
( But he isn't startled or aggrieved past the ripening bruise that his ego refuses to ingest for its malignity. Shame, shame. A nine-year-old Sumeragi Subaru was beautiful, baptised in another's ruin, he was beautiful in blood. Atheism could only strike men who've never peered such elusive dawns-swaddled divinity.
And he's such a vicious, small-toothed, petty creature now. A cautious refusal to a crude invitation, and it was a waste, this domestic interlude all a waste, not a single truth shared. The boy — and he is her little infantile monster now — speaks with his grandmother's mouth. Fleetingly, Seishirou thinks to break it.
Instead, he frisks the breast pocket of a suit coat that's seen increasingly tamer days for a tobacco reserves that never materialise. Old habits, futuristic deaths. Time is a construct. )
You'll change your mind, of course. But I won't be available then. ( Like all the love songs say. Subaru should know. They've exorcised the hauntings of so many pop sirens. ) Your problem, Subaru-kun, has always been time. You never know when you're running out.
( His hands come back clean, ruse played out. He watches Subaru with the impotent pride of a man only fate could ever impoverish. )
The exit is to the left. ( But Sumeragi Subaru knows that. )
[ An aggregate sum: nine years' worth of warm steel and pettiness is the kintsugi of Subaru's heart. Any memory or mistaken identity could have crippled him of his newly minted ethic, no longer distracted by playing house. He is no master of the pieces, but he has kept them all in spite of the dereliction. A smile politely cultivated, ripped down like untacked wallpaper, the embracing bend of arms over his shoulders now sunken with self-prescribed rot. And all the advice of the world turning did Sakurazuka Seishirou have — the polished gleam of hatred for the city they slept in.
He wonders how it feels to have made him this way, to twist his magic until strength drips thick from the wring of its corners, but he finds the instinct to ask divested from him. He thought he would be better at holding the words of a dead man up to the light of his life, but maybe he had it wrong. Maybe it's that it doesn't feel any particular way at all.
A worse answer than the parting threat, in truth. One he might've also carried straight down into Tokyo Bay, were he allowed it.
Gifts exchanged, he leaves this altar of light shapes and imprinted shadows. ]
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no subject
Why don't you stay here? ( In the friendly carcass of Manhattan's despoiled civility turned fictive lovers' nook. ) You were always good at playing house.
( Trailing after Hokuto's skirts like a depleted, fumbling puppy. Artlessly accepting captivity in Seishirou's chaotic ambulance-driving schedule. Eating, wearing, agreeing with whatever was put before him.
Seishirou's mouth lingers over the same fingers, cunning. )
Would it be so unreasonable? I'd make your breakfast every morning. You could restore your wards by midday and gouge my chest in the afternoon. Think about it.
no subject
Ask. And he did. Look, and he does. ]
I was... never as good at pretending as you were.
[ Only too slow, always one clattering footstep behind. In the way of living, and loving, and killing too. Until there was only stillness left. His words lack the bite of his actions. ]
So you understand, of course. Why I have to decline.
no subject
( But he isn't startled or aggrieved past the ripening bruise that his ego refuses to ingest for its malignity. Shame, shame. A nine-year-old Sumeragi Subaru was beautiful, baptised in another's ruin, he was beautiful in blood. Atheism could only strike men who've never peered such elusive dawns-swaddled divinity.
And he's such a vicious, small-toothed, petty creature now. A cautious refusal to a crude invitation, and it was a waste, this domestic interlude all a waste, not a single truth shared. The boy — and he is her little infantile monster now — speaks with his grandmother's mouth. Fleetingly, Seishirou thinks to break it.
Instead, he frisks the breast pocket of a suit coat that's seen increasingly tamer days for a tobacco reserves that never materialise. Old habits, futuristic deaths. Time is a construct. )
You'll change your mind, of course. But I won't be available then. ( Like all the love songs say. Subaru should know. They've exorcised the hauntings of so many pop sirens. ) Your problem, Subaru-kun, has always been time. You never know when you're running out.
( His hands come back clean, ruse played out. He watches Subaru with the impotent pride of a man only fate could ever impoverish. )
The exit is to the left. ( But Sumeragi Subaru knows that. )
no subject
He wonders how it feels to have made him this way, to twist his magic until strength drips thick from the wring of its corners, but he finds the instinct to ask divested from him. He thought he would be better at holding the words of a dead man up to the light of his life, but maybe he had it wrong. Maybe it's that it doesn't feel any particular way at all.
A worse answer than the parting threat, in truth. One he might've also carried straight down into Tokyo Bay, were he allowed it.
Gifts exchanged, he leaves this altar of light shapes and imprinted shadows. ]
I hope you sleep well tonight, Seishirou-san.
[ He exits, to the left. ]