Gallows [OS]
Titre: Gallows
Auteur: Erwilde
Rating: R
Genre: Yaoi / OH SO MUCH ANGST I CAN'T EVEN / Vampire
Group: Alice Nine.
Pairing: Tora/Saga
Warning: Happens in the past, when people were still killed before a whole crowd and all
Comment: WELL NO I'M NOT DEAD. I had some time to write it since I'm on vacation right, but not for long <.< I still don't know why it turned out like that, it was supposed to be a pure smut at the end but whatever xD
Summary: Tora was a bit different. And when this one made a mistake, Saga was willing to pay the price.
Gallows
The rope was loose around his neck, allowing him to breathe what were going to be his last intakes of air, his eyes stuck on the wooden ground, his feet placed on a stool, waiting for it to be pushed with force and let him fall. He wasn't sad nor afraid, at least he did what was right in his opinion, there was no regret. That was what he was forcing himself to believe, if it wasn't for the thin wrists that were shaking badly between the rope, bruising them without him even realizing it because of the frictions it was causing. His fingers then felt something warm, and his mind then felt calmer, closing his eyes with resolution while grasping the other's fingers. Nobody could see it. The executioner was just supposed to test the ropes after all, before bringing him to fall and die. Nobody would suspect that instead of doing what he was supposed to do, he would hold Saga's hands tightly one last time. The warmth of those fingers then disappeared from the brunette's hands, before feeling it again against his neck, the executioner now testing the other rope with his professional calm and composure. Saga focused on this feeling, the hands lingering for a few seconds against his skin, just enough not to raise suspicion, and then opened his eyes again, staring at a imaginary spot far before him, above the crowd of people gathered all around the gallows. The reassuring presence next to him disappeared, but his eyes didn't waver.
“Die, you monster!” someone yelled, other voices slowly rising, followed not long after by some distinct “You deserve to burn at the stake!” and “You won't kill ever again!”, but Saga didn't really heard them, more focused on the presence that was no longer testing the ties, guessing how tense the man should be right now, hearing all those awful things while those people didn't know anything.
He was staring in horror as the piercing hazel eyes were watching him approaching, feeling all the guilt built up in them as the man was letting go of the limp body in his arms, his mouth moving while no sound was coming from it. Saga didn't even pay attention to the thick and crimson trickles running down the other's chin, focused on slowly walking toward him until he had the dark-haired man in his arms, clinging tightly on his shirt, gently stroking his hair to calm him down. He knew he didn't mean it. He would never kill if he ever had a choice. It was after all Saga's fault if he went to the point of starving himself ; it was Saga who had asked him to stop it out of the blue, without any preparation of any sort. His brown eyes wandered coldly over the dead body, wondering how he could hide it while still whispering soothing words to the other man who was looking more like a lost child at the moment. A lost, different child.
“I'm so sorry... I didn't want to... She just asked me if I was okay...” He heard the broken voice say, the hands gripping his shirt even tighter while his irregular breath was ghosting over his skin, cold but still warmer than the night's wind.
“It's okay, we'll find a solution, no one will ever know” Saga reassured him, waiting for the man to partially calm down, before pulling him up on his feet, rubbing his back. He waited for the dark-haired man to hesitantly lift his head before lightly putting his lips on his forehead. “No one will ever know...” He whispered, this time to himself. He would do anything to protect him.
Saga wished he could make them shut up, or remove all those words they were shouting from the vocabulary. They were useless in his opinion, except if you wanted to hurt someone. And that was exactly what they were doing. Hurting. Not him, but the person who those warm fingers belonged to. He couldn't look at him for the mere reason that it would seem weird, looking at your executioner with nothing but comfort and love in your eyes ; and because he didn't want to see the feelings the other surely had in his own right now. He already knew what he would witness, and he didn't know if he could cope with it. So instead, he took the insults and kept his head up, making the words thrown at him even worse, but he didn't care, he had to be strong, and not afraid. Throat tight, he listened to each one of their words, as if taking them in him would prevent the other from hearing more horrible things. He didn't really know why people like him were hated so much ; it wasn't as if they really looked like monsters after all, they were exactly like Saga and the persons yelling at him. Two arms, two legs, two feet and toes, two hands and fingers, two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth, skin, feelings. How could you say he was not human with all of that? That was beyond his ability to understand.
“Do you have a last word?” he heard that familiar voice ask him, blank and thick. He knew that voice, and knew what was behind it, making his chest hurt just at the memory of it. He knew what was going to happen when he would no longer be here, at his side. The man was not born a monster, but it was those people - those ones who were screaming and yelling to get rid of him - that turned him into this monster. Saga had managed to tame this monster and force his true self - his human self - to appear, come back to the surface. And they all ruined it.
“You know them.” Saga whispered, his cracking voice making him frown, and then said louder and clearer, so that everyone could hear it “I don't have have anything else to say.”
His hands were gripping Saga's hips a bit too tightly, but this one didn't really care, his mind was elsewhere, those same hips rolling at his own pace even with these fingers digging into the brunette's skin. The room was silent, the only noise being their labored breath, an almost silent moan breaking the harmony before being completely forgotten, and then breaking it again, and so on. His fingers roamed over the dark-haired's glistening skin, pleased when a shudder ran down his whole body at this action, a soft smile curling the corner of his lips when he caught those hazel eyes staring at him. Saga stopped his movements, gently bending down to press a soft kiss on the other man's lips, his fingers threading into the raven hair, removing the strands glued on his forehead to get a better view. How anyone could think of him as a monster while this being was so beautiful? Saga always wondered. The man slowly sat up, a hand on Saga's back and the other one at the back of his neck, deepening the kiss while beginning to move inside him once again, their chest colliding at each one of their breathes, eating each other's moans and grunts. The dark-haired one would sometimes growl from the depth of his chest, making this one vibrate against Saga to show him something that only the brunette could understand, the slender brunette moving more frantically at that sound, as if he was gradually getting set on fire, until the moment he would be totally consumed, collapsing on the other's shoulder, still taking the thrusts until they both lied down on the bed.
Sensing the dark-haired man suddenly tense under him, Saga lifted his head, taking in sight the other's clenched jaw and closed eyes, even while his hands were stroking the brunette's back, drawing patterns that only him could know. “Tora, what's wrong?”
“Nothing” Tora said, finally opening his eyes. “It's just that I still don't understand why you chose someone like me. Sometimes I even think that I'm sleeping and when I wake up, I'll be back to my old self, and it scares me.”
Saga closed his eyes, his head still on the other's chest, before replying in a low voice “Because you're better than all those people that call themselves 'humans'.”
There was a long silence, the brunette even thought that Tora had fell asleep, before a croaked whisper was heard. “I love you.”
Saga kissed the dark-haired's shoulder. “Me too.”
He didn't want to see the tears that he knew were there.
The head of the village was no walking toward him, talking to him with words that he didn't even understand anymore, all his memories flashing before his eyes, proving that he had made the right choice by staying silent all this time. It was better this way. If they had caught Tora, they would have treated him like a dangerous beast, chaining him and beating him to death, and not as the person he deserved to be considered as. The only regret Saga had, was that it was the dark-haired man himself that had to provoke his death, as the only executioner of the village - if he had refused it would have been totally suspicious, since they weren't even supposed to know each other. They thought the 'monster' was Saga, and it was perfectly fine with him. The brunette saw the head of the village back away from him from a detached eye, having finished his speech, and then felt that warmth again behind him, taking the scent that he wasn't going to breathe anymore, and that's when he felt that something was off. Hands weren't supposed to be on the rope around his neck right now. Saga slightly turned his head to understand what was happening when his heart suddenly began to beat faster - with fear or excitement, he didn't know. But the silvery hints in Tora's eyes right now where not supposed to be here. Not now. Not ever.
Everything happened just as quickly as everything began. Everyone was too shocked to be able to react, even Saga's brain couldn't really fathom what the hell was going on, focused on Tora's silvery eyes the whole time. Even when he felt the rope around his wrists being suddenly removed. Even when he saw the rope around his neck being lifted above his head. Even when strong arms took hold of him and raised him from the stool. Even when everyone began to shout in unison while he felt himself being quickly moved out of the place where he was supposed to die, seeing the whole crowd running after him while he was just staying immobile. That's just when he reached the forest and everything stopped moving that he took in the face everything that had just happened, still looking in these silvery eyes, before beginning to shake violently ; letting go of everything that he had built up inside his chest, Tora's eyes encircling him once again, rubbing his back and whispering comforting things into his ears, exactly like Saga had done to him that day, when he had dried that woman from any blood.
“Shhhh, it's okay now...” the growl wasn't even hidden, showing in a way that he would never allow what was his to be hurt or taken from him. “Don't worry, they'll never find us”.
“Don't do that, never again, you hear me?” Saga struggled to pronounce the words, making his tongue move with difficulty as he was still struggling to keep the tears away from his eyes. “What if they had hurt you?”
“Shut up , you have no right to say something like that!” Tora's shout echoed through the trees, the silver in his eyes having now taken over every other colors that were once there. “Were you seriously going to make me kill you? SERIOUSLY?! HOW COULD YOU-”
“I didn't want them to hurt you...” Saga whimpered, looking at the ground under the display of anger. “I just couldn't let them...”
The brunette waited in silence for another burst of anger, but instead he felt hands cupping his cheeks, wet and supernatural eyes glaring at him in an attempt to make him feel bad and guilty, but all the feeling bottled in those pupils were what he really saw, and he couldn't help but let his tears finally run freely, feeling relief beyond everything else, finally realizing something.
“Take me far away from here. Let's start once again where no one knows us.”