(no subject)
Fandom: Banana Fish
Pairing: Ash Lynx x Eiji Okumura
Theme set: Gamma
Rating: PG-13
The Last Leopard
by Kay
"But you are not a leopard." - Eiji Okumura
#01 - Ring
From their apartment, Eiji can hear the church bells every Sunday-Ash sleeps on obliviously, but Eiji will open his eyes and prop up on an elbow, studying his friend sprawled under the sunlight for the rest of the morning.
#02 - Hero
"My hero," Ash mutters, snatching the newly opened pickle jar out of Eiji's hands, and then adds, "I loosened it for you."
#02 - Hero (Take Two)
Ash doesn't believe in heroes that are covered with blood-doesn't believe in heroes period-but no one has ever welcomed a rescue attempt quite like Eiji Okumura, who has open arms and doesn't care whether Ash's right, just that he's alive.
#03 - Memory
The things Eiji remembers most about America are the most fleeting-the trill of a song, the smell of gunfire and riverwater, and Ash acting his age.
#04 - Box
Eiji keeps the box marked A.L. tucked in his closet for almost a year, pretending it's not there, before panicking because he's afraid it really isn't.
#05 - Run
It's easy to forget Eiji had been a professional athlete, but Ash sees flashes of it sometimes-the flex of his calves when he runs, the way Eiji looks to the sun first and his feet last because they already know where to land.
#06 - Hurricane
"It's like a goddamn hurricane out there," Ash pants, dragging the soaked collar of his shirt from his neck, and the towel Eiji shoves (laughing) at him smells like dishsoap and lemon.
#07 - Wings
The flurry of pigeons take off in thunderous wing claps; amidst the sound, Eiji turns to Ash with a startled expression, something like wonder and embarrassment caught together.
#08 - Cold
"If I'm sneezing, it's because you're worrying about me having a cold all the fucking time, not because I actually have one," Ash grumbles, dumping the TheraFlu down the sink drain.
#09 - Red
The poppies Bones brings back ("Ma says they make 'er sneeze, an' I don't wanna throw 'em away," he'd mumbled, sheepish) are red and wilted, but Eiji is pleased to have something to take care of that won't run off at night and almost get themselves shot.
#10 - Drink
Ash secretly likes that Eiji doesn't know the difference between a 1787 Chateau Lafite and Mad Dog, and would prefer Budweiser and Ash's warm shoulder anyway, thank you very much.
#11 - Midnight
Eiji waits up until midnight with a terrible book-after the clock chimes, he wraps up Ash's dinner in plastic with a note, slides under the bedcovers, and sleeps.
#12 - Temptation
There's just something about the way Eiji sleeps, arms reaching out towards Ash's bed, pajama shirt pushed up his back, that makes Ash avoid looking at him because he's terrified of what he'll do when he can't tear his gaze away.
#13 - View
The apartment has a great view of New York's sallow sunsets, but Eiji has something even better to look forward to in the evenings as he waits to hear the front door open.
#14 - Music
Ash takes Eiji to a concert of the classics-halfway through, a warm weight settles on his shoulder, slips of black hair tickling his jawline as Eiji sleeps, and Ash closes his eyes to Fur Elise.
#15 - Silk
The role of a banker's son means nice clothes are necessary, of course, but Eiji firmly explains to Ash after the first week that washing silk is a bad idea, so please, if he could, stick to cotton and cashmere for the sake of his "poor Chinese houseboy."
#16 - Cover
It seems like the perfect cover until Mrs. Coleman next door starts asking (loud) questions in the supermarket about what a young banker's son is doing with a "poor Chinese houseboy that never leaves the building, the dear child-carried my groceries yesterday, you know."
#17 - Promise
Ash doesn't make promises he can't keep and so everything he says to Eiji is next to worthless, but Eiji keeps these off-hand comments, these meaningless, "Maybe tomorrow we can..." words close to his chest.
#18 - Dream
Eiji wakes up with tears sliding down his cheeks-he rubs them away, bewildered and somehow sad, because he can't remember what he'd dreamt and Ash's bed is empty again.
#19 - Candle
The dark of Eiji's eyes softens and warms with the light of a candle flickering in it, and Ash thinks this is the worst torture ever, the most idiotic joke of his life, having his breath stolen away every time he looks up from dinner.
#20 - Talent
Ash is good at shooting, killing, classifying wine, reciting literature, regrets, making Eiji miserable, and making Eiji light up like Times Square at the end of the year when everyone is looking at the snow-speckled sky.
#21 - Silence
Eiji curls his fingers into the sofa, listening quietly to the scrape, click, and clink of Ash cleaning his gun in the kitchen.
#22 - Journey
America is a journey, Eiji finds, where he has walked forward and backward, bled over, changed for, given up on, and found pieces of himself scattered around his feet that he'd never known where there at all.
#23 - Fire
On the bad nights, when Ash comes home with slick maroon on his fingers and a lost, barren plain in his eyes, Eiji imagines an entire city going up in flames and everything turning to Ash.
#24 - Strength
If you give up, I'll carry you on longer, Eiji promises, fierce in his conviction, forgiving in his devotion, and Ash sometimes has the horrible wish to fall apart once just so he can feel it.
#25 - Mask
Ash has three hundred and twelve masks to wear for the world, and each one has different colors, another sort of smile-Eiji spends more than a year methodically shredding them apart with his fingernails.
#26 - Ice
It's cold, this loneliness; Eiji curls up on the carpet and presses his forehead on the window glass, and wants and wants and wants.
#27 - Fall
In the autumn, Ash wears green cashmere that looks it's calling for spring, Mrs. Coleman tries (and fails miserably) to teach Eiji how to knit, and both of them pretend they'll still be around for Christmas.
#28 - Forgotten
Ash forgets what it felt like, a long time ago, to have someone who cares when you get home at night-now he's relearning, fumbling over the apologies, wondering when he started to care about the same thing.
#29 - Dance
Ash has been taught several modifications of the basic waltz, as well as swing, the foxtrot, and two versions of the tango-he tells Eiji this when they're almost (dangerously) drunk one night, and Eiji says, "I can't take boshi," before falling silent. *
#30 - Body
Eiji can map out Ash's body in photographs-the crooked tilt of a grin, the sharpness to his shoulders, the way his bellybutton falls inward, and the graceful instep of his foot, just in case he forgets.
#31 - Sacred
For Ash, there has to be something, just this one thing, that's clean in his life.
#32 - Farewells
Eiji can't imagine saying goodbye forever; he can't even stand the day he'll wait before Ash comes home, already eager to swallow the last, "See you soon," and replace it (even if only to himself) with, "Welcome back, I missed you, don't leave again."
#33 - World
This is the world, this is reality, Ash tells himself every morning, and almost begins to believe it before Eiji Okumura looks up and snottily retorts, "I am older than you are!"
#34 - Formal
Ash ties the bow on Eiji's tux for him, after clumsy fingers have knotted themselves helplessly trying-"It's not rocket science," he mutters, but isn't really upset at all.
#35 - Fever
Ash sleeps like the dead when he's ill (or when he's not) and Eiji wouldn't have even known he had a fever had he not brushed his fingers across the sweat-dampened bangs plastered to his forehead-the way his heart had jumped straight up into his throat was not entirely unlike dropping twenty thousand feet down in a single second.
#36 - Laugh
As much as they argue, it's when they're laughing together that Ash feels unexpectedly angry; at himself, for forgetting.
#37 - Lies
"It's not as bad as it looks," Ash mutters, but the black squelching through his fingers is testament enough and Eiji knows enough to believe in Ash even when he's lying.
#38 - Forever
Eiji makes a promise Ash won't hold him to, so he figures it's up to him to keep it.
#39 - Overwhelmed
Eiji's fingers curl around his shoulder blades and this close, Ash can smell the cheap citrus shampoo they buy-and even though he's pissed off and aching and they're standing on a trash-rotten rooftop, he can't help but hug him back.
#40 - Whisper
In his sleep, Eiji murmurs something that Ash can't decipher, and he tells himself he's just goddamn hearing things if it sounds like his name.
#41 - Wait
Eiji waits at bus stops and pharmacies, for trains and airplanes, with exhaustion and anticipation, for Ash to return and Ash to leave-all of it, unknowingly, preparing him for the end.
#42 - Talk
They chat about the things that don't really matter-Ibe's photography, dinner, Kong's diet, Japan, hot dogs, books, daytime soaps, pumpkins, and laundry-but the things that do, Ash speaks with his silence and Eiji with his smiles.
#43 - Search
Ash keeps looking for a way out of this, but the chains are getting tighter around him and Eiji unfortunately believes in going down with the ship.
#44 - Hope
Every time it's given to him, Ash can physically feel it when it's yanked away-only one person has ever kept it for him in his stead, cupped safely in hands that don't know how to let go anymore than they know how to hold.
#45 - Eclipse
Eiji geeks out and bribes Bones into lending him a kiddy telescope, setting it up in the living room and insisting Ash watches with him-when the blackness falls over the moon, Ash doesn't even need the light to know Eiji's grinning at him.
#46 - Gravity
"It's like apples and shit," Alex explains to Kong, "or Ash and Eiji."
#47 - Highway
Ash has a dream about a long, empty stretch of road and his brother's carcass spilling across the cooked pavement like ordinary roadkill; under the sun, he screams, forgets his own name upon waking until Eiji, kneeling beside his bed, frantically calls it.
#48 - Unknown
"To the future," Max toasts to them with cheap champagne, and across the table Ash's unreadable gaze meets Eiji's.
#49 - Lock
Ash locks the bathroom whenever he comes home at night and dresses his wounds-it's not much, but Eiji can physically feel it, the barrier between them that widens with every secret... but oh, he still believes, especially when he shouldn't.
#50 - Breathe
It's crouching in a sewer, in the middle of a war he doesn't belong to, that Eiji tells Ash there's not enough breath left in him to say all the things he'd like.
The End
* This refers to kabuki's "shiyokumi," which means "salt collector." It refers to a dance based off a story of a peasant girl collecting salt when a samurai warrior comes along. They fall in love, but because of the class difference, he has to leave her-before he goes, he gives her his hat (eboshi, in Japanese) and green cloak as parts of his world.
Pairing: Ash Lynx x Eiji Okumura
Theme set: Gamma
Rating: PG-13
The Last Leopard
by Kay
"But you are not a leopard." - Eiji Okumura
#01 - Ring
From their apartment, Eiji can hear the church bells every Sunday-Ash sleeps on obliviously, but Eiji will open his eyes and prop up on an elbow, studying his friend sprawled under the sunlight for the rest of the morning.
#02 - Hero
"My hero," Ash mutters, snatching the newly opened pickle jar out of Eiji's hands, and then adds, "I loosened it for you."
#02 - Hero (Take Two)
Ash doesn't believe in heroes that are covered with blood-doesn't believe in heroes period-but no one has ever welcomed a rescue attempt quite like Eiji Okumura, who has open arms and doesn't care whether Ash's right, just that he's alive.
#03 - Memory
The things Eiji remembers most about America are the most fleeting-the trill of a song, the smell of gunfire and riverwater, and Ash acting his age.
#04 - Box
Eiji keeps the box marked A.L. tucked in his closet for almost a year, pretending it's not there, before panicking because he's afraid it really isn't.
#05 - Run
It's easy to forget Eiji had been a professional athlete, but Ash sees flashes of it sometimes-the flex of his calves when he runs, the way Eiji looks to the sun first and his feet last because they already know where to land.
#06 - Hurricane
"It's like a goddamn hurricane out there," Ash pants, dragging the soaked collar of his shirt from his neck, and the towel Eiji shoves (laughing) at him smells like dishsoap and lemon.
#07 - Wings
The flurry of pigeons take off in thunderous wing claps; amidst the sound, Eiji turns to Ash with a startled expression, something like wonder and embarrassment caught together.
#08 - Cold
"If I'm sneezing, it's because you're worrying about me having a cold all the fucking time, not because I actually have one," Ash grumbles, dumping the TheraFlu down the sink drain.
#09 - Red
The poppies Bones brings back ("Ma says they make 'er sneeze, an' I don't wanna throw 'em away," he'd mumbled, sheepish) are red and wilted, but Eiji is pleased to have something to take care of that won't run off at night and almost get themselves shot.
#10 - Drink
Ash secretly likes that Eiji doesn't know the difference between a 1787 Chateau Lafite and Mad Dog, and would prefer Budweiser and Ash's warm shoulder anyway, thank you very much.
#11 - Midnight
Eiji waits up until midnight with a terrible book-after the clock chimes, he wraps up Ash's dinner in plastic with a note, slides under the bedcovers, and sleeps.
#12 - Temptation
There's just something about the way Eiji sleeps, arms reaching out towards Ash's bed, pajama shirt pushed up his back, that makes Ash avoid looking at him because he's terrified of what he'll do when he can't tear his gaze away.
#13 - View
The apartment has a great view of New York's sallow sunsets, but Eiji has something even better to look forward to in the evenings as he waits to hear the front door open.
#14 - Music
Ash takes Eiji to a concert of the classics-halfway through, a warm weight settles on his shoulder, slips of black hair tickling his jawline as Eiji sleeps, and Ash closes his eyes to Fur Elise.
#15 - Silk
The role of a banker's son means nice clothes are necessary, of course, but Eiji firmly explains to Ash after the first week that washing silk is a bad idea, so please, if he could, stick to cotton and cashmere for the sake of his "poor Chinese houseboy."
#16 - Cover
It seems like the perfect cover until Mrs. Coleman next door starts asking (loud) questions in the supermarket about what a young banker's son is doing with a "poor Chinese houseboy that never leaves the building, the dear child-carried my groceries yesterday, you know."
#17 - Promise
Ash doesn't make promises he can't keep and so everything he says to Eiji is next to worthless, but Eiji keeps these off-hand comments, these meaningless, "Maybe tomorrow we can..." words close to his chest.
#18 - Dream
Eiji wakes up with tears sliding down his cheeks-he rubs them away, bewildered and somehow sad, because he can't remember what he'd dreamt and Ash's bed is empty again.
#19 - Candle
The dark of Eiji's eyes softens and warms with the light of a candle flickering in it, and Ash thinks this is the worst torture ever, the most idiotic joke of his life, having his breath stolen away every time he looks up from dinner.
#20 - Talent
Ash is good at shooting, killing, classifying wine, reciting literature, regrets, making Eiji miserable, and making Eiji light up like Times Square at the end of the year when everyone is looking at the snow-speckled sky.
#21 - Silence
Eiji curls his fingers into the sofa, listening quietly to the scrape, click, and clink of Ash cleaning his gun in the kitchen.
#22 - Journey
America is a journey, Eiji finds, where he has walked forward and backward, bled over, changed for, given up on, and found pieces of himself scattered around his feet that he'd never known where there at all.
#23 - Fire
On the bad nights, when Ash comes home with slick maroon on his fingers and a lost, barren plain in his eyes, Eiji imagines an entire city going up in flames and everything turning to Ash.
#24 - Strength
If you give up, I'll carry you on longer, Eiji promises, fierce in his conviction, forgiving in his devotion, and Ash sometimes has the horrible wish to fall apart once just so he can feel it.
#25 - Mask
Ash has three hundred and twelve masks to wear for the world, and each one has different colors, another sort of smile-Eiji spends more than a year methodically shredding them apart with his fingernails.
#26 - Ice
It's cold, this loneliness; Eiji curls up on the carpet and presses his forehead on the window glass, and wants and wants and wants.
#27 - Fall
In the autumn, Ash wears green cashmere that looks it's calling for spring, Mrs. Coleman tries (and fails miserably) to teach Eiji how to knit, and both of them pretend they'll still be around for Christmas.
#28 - Forgotten
Ash forgets what it felt like, a long time ago, to have someone who cares when you get home at night-now he's relearning, fumbling over the apologies, wondering when he started to care about the same thing.
#29 - Dance
Ash has been taught several modifications of the basic waltz, as well as swing, the foxtrot, and two versions of the tango-he tells Eiji this when they're almost (dangerously) drunk one night, and Eiji says, "I can't take boshi," before falling silent. *
#30 - Body
Eiji can map out Ash's body in photographs-the crooked tilt of a grin, the sharpness to his shoulders, the way his bellybutton falls inward, and the graceful instep of his foot, just in case he forgets.
#31 - Sacred
For Ash, there has to be something, just this one thing, that's clean in his life.
#32 - Farewells
Eiji can't imagine saying goodbye forever; he can't even stand the day he'll wait before Ash comes home, already eager to swallow the last, "See you soon," and replace it (even if only to himself) with, "Welcome back, I missed you, don't leave again."
#33 - World
This is the world, this is reality, Ash tells himself every morning, and almost begins to believe it before Eiji Okumura looks up and snottily retorts, "I am older than you are!"
#34 - Formal
Ash ties the bow on Eiji's tux for him, after clumsy fingers have knotted themselves helplessly trying-"It's not rocket science," he mutters, but isn't really upset at all.
#35 - Fever
Ash sleeps like the dead when he's ill (or when he's not) and Eiji wouldn't have even known he had a fever had he not brushed his fingers across the sweat-dampened bangs plastered to his forehead-the way his heart had jumped straight up into his throat was not entirely unlike dropping twenty thousand feet down in a single second.
#36 - Laugh
As much as they argue, it's when they're laughing together that Ash feels unexpectedly angry; at himself, for forgetting.
#37 - Lies
"It's not as bad as it looks," Ash mutters, but the black squelching through his fingers is testament enough and Eiji knows enough to believe in Ash even when he's lying.
#38 - Forever
Eiji makes a promise Ash won't hold him to, so he figures it's up to him to keep it.
#39 - Overwhelmed
Eiji's fingers curl around his shoulder blades and this close, Ash can smell the cheap citrus shampoo they buy-and even though he's pissed off and aching and they're standing on a trash-rotten rooftop, he can't help but hug him back.
#40 - Whisper
In his sleep, Eiji murmurs something that Ash can't decipher, and he tells himself he's just goddamn hearing things if it sounds like his name.
#41 - Wait
Eiji waits at bus stops and pharmacies, for trains and airplanes, with exhaustion and anticipation, for Ash to return and Ash to leave-all of it, unknowingly, preparing him for the end.
#42 - Talk
They chat about the things that don't really matter-Ibe's photography, dinner, Kong's diet, Japan, hot dogs, books, daytime soaps, pumpkins, and laundry-but the things that do, Ash speaks with his silence and Eiji with his smiles.
#43 - Search
Ash keeps looking for a way out of this, but the chains are getting tighter around him and Eiji unfortunately believes in going down with the ship.
#44 - Hope
Every time it's given to him, Ash can physically feel it when it's yanked away-only one person has ever kept it for him in his stead, cupped safely in hands that don't know how to let go anymore than they know how to hold.
#45 - Eclipse
Eiji geeks out and bribes Bones into lending him a kiddy telescope, setting it up in the living room and insisting Ash watches with him-when the blackness falls over the moon, Ash doesn't even need the light to know Eiji's grinning at him.
#46 - Gravity
"It's like apples and shit," Alex explains to Kong, "or Ash and Eiji."
#47 - Highway
Ash has a dream about a long, empty stretch of road and his brother's carcass spilling across the cooked pavement like ordinary roadkill; under the sun, he screams, forgets his own name upon waking until Eiji, kneeling beside his bed, frantically calls it.
#48 - Unknown
"To the future," Max toasts to them with cheap champagne, and across the table Ash's unreadable gaze meets Eiji's.
#49 - Lock
Ash locks the bathroom whenever he comes home at night and dresses his wounds-it's not much, but Eiji can physically feel it, the barrier between them that widens with every secret... but oh, he still believes, especially when he shouldn't.
#50 - Breathe
It's crouching in a sewer, in the middle of a war he doesn't belong to, that Eiji tells Ash there's not enough breath left in him to say all the things he'd like.
The End
* This refers to kabuki's "shiyokumi," which means "salt collector." It refers to a dance based off a story of a peasant girl collecting salt when a samurai warrior comes along. They fall in love, but because of the class difference, he has to leave her-before he goes, he gives her his hat (eboshi, in Japanese) and green cloak as parts of his world.