the flight of the lion.
"I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?" - Ernest Hemingway
For thelovemafia, as a tribute to your awesomeness, and because your birthday is some time today or tomorrow (but never mind that, timezones will not overcome the power of our combustion ♥). I noticed you're somewhat partial to amnesia stories(?) and this is not quite the same but I hope you'll like it anyway.
Assumes Mukuro does not kill Guido Greco, but appropriates the body and its addled inhabitant. Leonardo Lippi introspection. Involves character death; gen with male/male subterfugetext.
Leonardo Lippi wakes to a hallway, wind whistling over his shoulderplates and the low-ceilinged lightlessness of sector four. He can see the turbines from a distance, naked cables swinging in the draft. He takes a halting step, then another, and rediscovers his usual timid gait on the third. Alone in the inhale of trying to be silent and not quite succeeding, he remembers he is a folder-filer, a boy of twenty-one raised on dreams of spaceships, and he has engineer parents in Varese, and all of their curiosity, and none of their smarts.
He should maybe be worried that his pay packet this morning said Administrative Assistant and he's being transferred tomorrow and his boss's boss knows his name, but for the moment he's more concerned about his newfound tendency to wander in his sleep.
-
"Sir?"
He looks around for a second before he notices the phone in his hand.
"Y-Yes?" Nervous trill, fingers clutching the receiver. He's out of luck; there are no memos on the desk, just a tin of pens and a calendar that someone's flicked to the wrong month. Micro-sleep, he judges, squeezing his eyes shut. Again.
"Would you like the begonias wrapped as usual?" She doesn't sound irritated and that's what's nice about salesladies; they get paid to deal with your incompetence.
"A-As usual?" and she's running over details; this is the approximate delivery time, and are you aware that there's an additional cost for off-season hybrids? Thank you for your continued patronage!
He frowns at the dialtone, tries to recall when he's used that florist before.
-
Just beyond the closed-in walls of his nightmare, it takes a moment to see this tiny room with heavy doors is not a prison, just his bedroom, and the silver mesh isn't locks or chains, just the bottom of Frou's bunk, and the cloudy roar isn't detonation but - well, it could be detonation, or maybe the tech department is test-driving another one of their toys.
He slips off the mattress, pulls on his boots and stamps his feet to dispel the disembodied sensation. He likes nighttime, likes the idea that the hours are his to dwindle, no one to suggest Byakuran sure prefers them pretty; coffee-boy; or he's somehow fallen short of being worthy. So there's no one to call friend in a multinational corporation but thirty-seven minutes past one, he'll walk with enough heel to shame any officer.
-
"You're losing time, you say." The doctor speaks slowly, as though he's coming to the end of a long rumination and not just rehashing the symptom. His thin, white features are curious, and he taps his clipboard, fingers showing off the shape of his bones.
"I have - blanks," Leo tries, gripping the stool with one hand and waving the other to convey emptiness. "I open my eyes and I don't know what I've been doing. I thought it was Tuesday." (It's Saturday, three weeks after the Tuesday in question.)
"Isn't that a common complaint," the doctor sighs, lifting knobbly appendages to comb back his hair. He sounds almost disappointed, scratches the mole at the corner of his nose. "Stress," he diagnoses, picking up his pencil, "It's the monotony that does it. Every day seems the same."
The next time Leo wakes, he is half-convinced it was all a dream. Aggravatingly, there's a bottle of anti-depressants on his dresser.
-
"Leo-kun?"
Leo freezes, takes stock. Two marshmallows in his mouth, powder on his lips and an open bag in front of him. (So this is what they call 'caught in the act.')
"I can explain!" he blurts, hands jerking in an aborted gesture (to hide, to defend, to something). His throat protests the attempt to swallow without chewing; his eyes water. Byakuran laughs lowly in his ear, plucks a pink specimen from the plastic and clips it between his teeth.
The arm descends again, and he realises their position, and his breath stutters; pressed up back to chest and fighting the impulse to bare his jugular and he fears for the skin at the nape of his neck. Byakuran's touch is cool, explosive, and he smells metallic-sweet; his hand drops to palm Leo's heart, and could the world really end on a night as quiet as this?
"Please," he exhales, with no clue what he is begging for, only it seems like a good idea, and his mind has run away from him.
When the pressure eases, his shirt is crooked; nothing left but to mourn for a body that is not his.
-
The blue glow throws shadows over the flexing plane of Byakuran's back, and Leo recognises the man beneath as Frou's friend. He tries not to look at Byakuran, the pale column of his body, knows with certainty that a meeting is being missed somewhere, and his eyes catch on the quarry instead, rebuke on his turned-away face. His adam's apple is sliding like an unsteady light fixture, alternately fisting table and fisting air, and once in a while, he utters a prayerful vowel.
Leaving quietly, Leo's head is blank. Odd to be wearing glasses, is his only thought, and the world is a strange place, familiarly numb.
-
He sets down the cup of dark roast, envelopes tucked under his arm, carefully spooning in the vanilla creamer. He's gotten past this morning's sly tease, the email is sitting finished at his desk, and Byakuran is returning from lunch soon; all in all, the day is off to a promising start.
When the darkness sets in, he's waiting for the punchline that doesn't come. Instead, he lingers in the pause before hitting send, and someone takes a vacuum nozzle to his head. He has always been waking, startled into another moment he can't keep track of. Now this, a blind dive, a tumultuous blackness that unlocks his skin and sends a torrent of spiders shuddering over his soul.
Leonardo Lippi never wakes again, a small death against a huge sky.
For thelovemafia, as a tribute to your awesomeness, and because your birthday is some time today or tomorrow (but never mind that, timezones will not overcome the power of our combustion ♥). I noticed you're somewhat partial to amnesia stories(?) and this is not quite the same but I hope you'll like it anyway.
Assumes Mukuro does not kill Guido Greco, but appropriates the body and its addled inhabitant. Leonardo Lippi introspection. Involves character death; gen with male/male subterfugetext.
Leonardo Lippi wakes to a hallway, wind whistling over his shoulderplates and the low-ceilinged lightlessness of sector four. He can see the turbines from a distance, naked cables swinging in the draft. He takes a halting step, then another, and rediscovers his usual timid gait on the third. Alone in the inhale of trying to be silent and not quite succeeding, he remembers he is a folder-filer, a boy of twenty-one raised on dreams of spaceships, and he has engineer parents in Varese, and all of their curiosity, and none of their smarts.
He should maybe be worried that his pay packet this morning said Administrative Assistant and he's being transferred tomorrow and his boss's boss knows his name, but for the moment he's more concerned about his newfound tendency to wander in his sleep.
-
"Sir?"
He looks around for a second before he notices the phone in his hand.
"Y-Yes?" Nervous trill, fingers clutching the receiver. He's out of luck; there are no memos on the desk, just a tin of pens and a calendar that someone's flicked to the wrong month. Micro-sleep, he judges, squeezing his eyes shut. Again.
"Would you like the begonias wrapped as usual?" She doesn't sound irritated and that's what's nice about salesladies; they get paid to deal with your incompetence.
"A-As usual?" and she's running over details; this is the approximate delivery time, and are you aware that there's an additional cost for off-season hybrids? Thank you for your continued patronage!
He frowns at the dialtone, tries to recall when he's used that florist before.
-
Just beyond the closed-in walls of his nightmare, it takes a moment to see this tiny room with heavy doors is not a prison, just his bedroom, and the silver mesh isn't locks or chains, just the bottom of Frou's bunk, and the cloudy roar isn't detonation but - well, it could be detonation, or maybe the tech department is test-driving another one of their toys.
He slips off the mattress, pulls on his boots and stamps his feet to dispel the disembodied sensation. He likes nighttime, likes the idea that the hours are his to dwindle, no one to suggest Byakuran sure prefers them pretty; coffee-boy; or he's somehow fallen short of being worthy. So there's no one to call friend in a multinational corporation but thirty-seven minutes past one, he'll walk with enough heel to shame any officer.
-
"You're losing time, you say." The doctor speaks slowly, as though he's coming to the end of a long rumination and not just rehashing the symptom. His thin, white features are curious, and he taps his clipboard, fingers showing off the shape of his bones.
"I have - blanks," Leo tries, gripping the stool with one hand and waving the other to convey emptiness. "I open my eyes and I don't know what I've been doing. I thought it was Tuesday." (It's Saturday, three weeks after the Tuesday in question.)
"Isn't that a common complaint," the doctor sighs, lifting knobbly appendages to comb back his hair. He sounds almost disappointed, scratches the mole at the corner of his nose. "Stress," he diagnoses, picking up his pencil, "It's the monotony that does it. Every day seems the same."
The next time Leo wakes, he is half-convinced it was all a dream. Aggravatingly, there's a bottle of anti-depressants on his dresser.
-
"Leo-kun?"
Leo freezes, takes stock. Two marshmallows in his mouth, powder on his lips and an open bag in front of him. (So this is what they call 'caught in the act.')
"I can explain!" he blurts, hands jerking in an aborted gesture (to hide, to defend, to something). His throat protests the attempt to swallow without chewing; his eyes water. Byakuran laughs lowly in his ear, plucks a pink specimen from the plastic and clips it between his teeth.
The arm descends again, and he realises their position, and his breath stutters; pressed up back to chest and fighting the impulse to bare his jugular and he fears for the skin at the nape of his neck. Byakuran's touch is cool, explosive, and he smells metallic-sweet; his hand drops to palm Leo's heart, and could the world really end on a night as quiet as this?
"Please," he exhales, with no clue what he is begging for, only it seems like a good idea, and his mind has run away from him.
When the pressure eases, his shirt is crooked; nothing left but to mourn for a body that is not his.
-
The blue glow throws shadows over the flexing plane of Byakuran's back, and Leo recognises the man beneath as Frou's friend. He tries not to look at Byakuran, the pale column of his body, knows with certainty that a meeting is being missed somewhere, and his eyes catch on the quarry instead, rebuke on his turned-away face. His adam's apple is sliding like an unsteady light fixture, alternately fisting table and fisting air, and once in a while, he utters a prayerful vowel.
Leaving quietly, Leo's head is blank. Odd to be wearing glasses, is his only thought, and the world is a strange place, familiarly numb.
-
He sets down the cup of dark roast, envelopes tucked under his arm, carefully spooning in the vanilla creamer. He's gotten past this morning's sly tease, the email is sitting finished at his desk, and Byakuran is returning from lunch soon; all in all, the day is off to a promising start.
When the darkness sets in, he's waiting for the punchline that doesn't come. Instead, he lingers in the pause before hitting send, and someone takes a vacuum nozzle to his head. He has always been waking, startled into another moment he can't keep track of. Now this, a blind dive, a tumultuous blackness that unlocks his skin and sends a torrent of spiders shuddering over his soul.
Leonardo Lippi never wakes again, a small death against a huge sky.