Meki/Yuku - Original fiction - #18 - Vanity
Title: Scars Like Wedding Rings
Fandom: Original fiction.
Characters: Meki/Yuku
Theme: #18 - Vanity
Rating: PG
Summary: And is this what it should be? / Well--is it? --Patrick Wolf, 'Augustine'
Disclaimer: Meki and Yuku are mine. It is advised they remain mine, because they're really just two sick bastards I can't imagine anyone else wanting.
He can identify the old scars now, mostly, though he hasn't had the greatest time ever realizing half of them are Yuku's fault-tiny, circular burn scars up and down the abused veins of his arms and switchblade patterns in his stomach, wounds made permanent to bring up the recollection of bruises and scrapes long faded. He has not lived in sweaters to hide presumable remnants of youth gone terribly wrong, he has lived in sweaters to essentially prevent the rest of the world from thinking marriage really is a bad idea.
Although this is not to say he would be stupid enough to actually marry Yuku. (It's illegal, for one thing.)
There's a thinner, more faded scar on his hip, in a shape he's always had trouble discerning, but now he puts a callused finger to the sharp ear tip and recollects having the fox carved there. He wonders, now, if he'd have let Yuku do that if he'd been sober, but he already knows. The truth is in the newer words cut beneath it.
He is unfortunately discovering that his self-consciousness remains long after the memories come back, though before he'd just assumed he'd stop caring about the questions asked once he knew the answers himself. He has healed since Shi's fall, but now, in place of paralysis and blood and broken bones and being unable to leave the house, there are only more scars, and they are larger and more gruesome than even the gash line on his collarbone. He turns his back to the mirror to inspect the still-pink claw scrapes and curses, and it is not unlike glancing over a red-matted shoulder in Nagekawashii.
It's the one on the shoulder itself that gets him, though. It is barbed wire recreated in puffy tissue, and he knows why it's there-he can remember it too well for his own liking, and consequently he's spent the past few years running from fences with guns against his forehead, wishing like hell he knew who or when, but now that he thinks he has access to most of the shards of his mind, he still can't place a face and it's still too blurry to do anything with.
Yuku is leaning against the doorframe, watching him half-curiously and half-warily with a cigarette balanced between his fingers. Meki can see the reflection, he's just ignoring it while he tries to look away from the mirror so he can find clothes. His skin is too sensitive to towel-dry yet, so water drips from his legs (glass scars on his knees from crawling in filth and a five A.M. name on his ankle that is illegible without the memory) and into the carpet while he pulls open drawers to find long-sleeved things with high necks.
"Why are you wearing that?" Yuku speaks up, incredulously, when Meki eventually pulls out a sweater that barely leaves his chin uncovered because today he is not feeling that open to the stares of strangers who shouldn't know and wouldn't understand anyway. "It's eighty degrees out."
"I know," Meki responds, not answering the question at all, and then he stops. "Yuku?"
Yuku glances around for an ashtray and ends up flicking ash into Meki's teacup. Meki resists the urge to shove the cigarette down his throat. "Yeah?"
"Where'd I get this?" he asks, lifting a hand to the barb scar (it hurts to touch, but not because it's fresh). He cannot get a good enough grip on the image to know if Yuku was even there or not, but Yuku remembers more about Meki's life than Meki does, so he's decided, bitterly, that Yuku should know.
Yuku flinches for less than a second. He crushes out the cigarette and strides over to Meki. "Me," he says, abruptly, lying through his teeth.
Meki stares at him flatly. "I don't think so." Before he can ask again, however, Yuku is reaching into his pocket and pulling out a knife, wrapping one arm around Meki's neck and using the other to sink the blade into the point of one of the barbs.
Meki shoves Yuku away from him before Yuku's pulled back his weapon, sputtering out curses with one hand clamped over the cut. It's not overly-deep and it doesn't hurt that much beyond the initial sting, but drops of blood seep through the cracks in his fingers. "What the hell did you do that for?" He doesn't know how he ever considered this sane or okay. He only knows he did, undeniable with the proof standing beside him and holding a knife.
"It's mine now," Yuku answers, completely flippantly. He closes the switchblade and starts out of the room, and Meki takes a deep, shaking breath and goes to find a towel. His head is in fragments. His thoughts are sporadic. He doesn't know how he can survive this.
What he really can't remember, he thinks, feeling like it's his heart that just got sliced open instead of his arm, is why he bothered with Yuku in the first place.
Fandom: Original fiction.
Characters: Meki/Yuku
Theme: #18 - Vanity
Rating: PG
Summary: And is this what it should be? / Well--is it? --Patrick Wolf, 'Augustine'
Disclaimer: Meki and Yuku are mine. It is advised they remain mine, because they're really just two sick bastards I can't imagine anyone else wanting.
He can identify the old scars now, mostly, though he hasn't had the greatest time ever realizing half of them are Yuku's fault-tiny, circular burn scars up and down the abused veins of his arms and switchblade patterns in his stomach, wounds made permanent to bring up the recollection of bruises and scrapes long faded. He has not lived in sweaters to hide presumable remnants of youth gone terribly wrong, he has lived in sweaters to essentially prevent the rest of the world from thinking marriage really is a bad idea.
Although this is not to say he would be stupid enough to actually marry Yuku. (It's illegal, for one thing.)
There's a thinner, more faded scar on his hip, in a shape he's always had trouble discerning, but now he puts a callused finger to the sharp ear tip and recollects having the fox carved there. He wonders, now, if he'd have let Yuku do that if he'd been sober, but he already knows. The truth is in the newer words cut beneath it.
He is unfortunately discovering that his self-consciousness remains long after the memories come back, though before he'd just assumed he'd stop caring about the questions asked once he knew the answers himself. He has healed since Shi's fall, but now, in place of paralysis and blood and broken bones and being unable to leave the house, there are only more scars, and they are larger and more gruesome than even the gash line on his collarbone. He turns his back to the mirror to inspect the still-pink claw scrapes and curses, and it is not unlike glancing over a red-matted shoulder in Nagekawashii.
It's the one on the shoulder itself that gets him, though. It is barbed wire recreated in puffy tissue, and he knows why it's there-he can remember it too well for his own liking, and consequently he's spent the past few years running from fences with guns against his forehead, wishing like hell he knew who or when, but now that he thinks he has access to most of the shards of his mind, he still can't place a face and it's still too blurry to do anything with.
Yuku is leaning against the doorframe, watching him half-curiously and half-warily with a cigarette balanced between his fingers. Meki can see the reflection, he's just ignoring it while he tries to look away from the mirror so he can find clothes. His skin is too sensitive to towel-dry yet, so water drips from his legs (glass scars on his knees from crawling in filth and a five A.M. name on his ankle that is illegible without the memory) and into the carpet while he pulls open drawers to find long-sleeved things with high necks.
"Why are you wearing that?" Yuku speaks up, incredulously, when Meki eventually pulls out a sweater that barely leaves his chin uncovered because today he is not feeling that open to the stares of strangers who shouldn't know and wouldn't understand anyway. "It's eighty degrees out."
"I know," Meki responds, not answering the question at all, and then he stops. "Yuku?"
Yuku glances around for an ashtray and ends up flicking ash into Meki's teacup. Meki resists the urge to shove the cigarette down his throat. "Yeah?"
"Where'd I get this?" he asks, lifting a hand to the barb scar (it hurts to touch, but not because it's fresh). He cannot get a good enough grip on the image to know if Yuku was even there or not, but Yuku remembers more about Meki's life than Meki does, so he's decided, bitterly, that Yuku should know.
Yuku flinches for less than a second. He crushes out the cigarette and strides over to Meki. "Me," he says, abruptly, lying through his teeth.
Meki stares at him flatly. "I don't think so." Before he can ask again, however, Yuku is reaching into his pocket and pulling out a knife, wrapping one arm around Meki's neck and using the other to sink the blade into the point of one of the barbs.
Meki shoves Yuku away from him before Yuku's pulled back his weapon, sputtering out curses with one hand clamped over the cut. It's not overly-deep and it doesn't hurt that much beyond the initial sting, but drops of blood seep through the cracks in his fingers. "What the hell did you do that for?" He doesn't know how he ever considered this sane or okay. He only knows he did, undeniable with the proof standing beside him and holding a knife.
"It's mine now," Yuku answers, completely flippantly. He closes the switchblade and starts out of the room, and Meki takes a deep, shaking breath and goes to find a towel. His head is in fragments. His thoughts are sporadic. He doesn't know how he can survive this.
What he really can't remember, he thinks, feeling like it's his heart that just got sliced open instead of his arm, is why he bothered with Yuku in the first place.