The Problem with Pretty Things Ch. 2...
Title: The Problem with Pretty Things
Rating: T
Genre: Angst
Characters: Seishirou, Subaru
Summary: When Seishirou runs across an exceptionally pretty thing on the way home… well, what’s wrong with keeping it?
Word Count: 2,087 incomplete
Chapter 2
Pureblood
There were wards on the door, of course-powerful ones-but they were designed more to keep unwanted attention and visitors out than to keep him in. He had never had a reason to go out before-on the contrary, there had always been an irrational fear that the world outside the door was the same hell of cold streets and burning houses he still sometimes saw in his nightmares. Outside wasn’t safe. Outside there was pain and distant screaming and death. No, Seishirou had never had to worry about him staying inside before. Subaru felt a bit guilty about that as he slipped out the door, but he was quickly preoccupied…
The hall was empty, but Subaru felt totally exposed standing there, knowing anyone could walk in at any time and find him there. For a second he wanted nothing more than to duck back into Seishirou’s apartment where the walls would block out the world and it would be safe, but that would have been counterproductive. So, eyes wide and clinging to the wall, he crept along, skirting the closed doors quickly. There was an elevator at the end of the hall.
Subaru makes it outside and is absolutely terrified at first by the number of people everywhere. He ends up taking refuge in an alleyway. He tries for a few minutes to work up the courage to talk to one of them, remembering how awkward speaking had been at first…
It had made things very difficult at first though. He had tried on numerous occasions, for instance, to talk to Seishirou the way he’d talked with his parents and his brother and his grandmother, but the man never seemed to hear or respond, insisting instead on babbling nonsensical sounds, until Subaru had given up and tried imitating one of the more frequent vocalizations:
“Subaru-kun.”
Seishirou had turned to him, startled, and made him repeat it. And eventually he’d figured it out, though it still felt unnatural twisting his tongue around complicated sound patterns.
While he’s thinking, a girl comes out of one of the backdoors in the alley behind him.
A ways away, Sei has realized that Subaru is gone and uses the marks to start tracking the boy down.
Subaru decides it’s now or never.
“Ah…” Subaru removed the hood of his cloak with nervous fingers as she headed toward him. “Pardon me. Would you be willing to part with some of your blood?”
The pink purse came out of nowhere, flying violently over his head as he ducked.
“Who do you think I am?!” the woman demanded, feet apart, eyes narrowed dangerously. But Subaru barely had time to blink. The next second she had one high-heeled shoe in her hand, brandishing it at him threateningly.
“Wait! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean…” Subaru jerked back, avoiding the spiked heel of the shoe as it was brandished at him and holding his arms up in front of him in defense. “Really…”
“Pervert! Freak!” She stomped toward him, swinging the shoe before her.
“I wasn’t trying to…” Subaru protested. He ducked the shoe that was flung at him then, but didn’t manage to get out of the way of the second, and it thunked broadside into his face.
“Stay away from me!” the woman shouted, before snatching up her purse and storming off down the alley.
In the wake of her departure, Subaru slumped to the dirty, wet concrete, wondering where he’d gone wrong. Morosely, he licked the back of one hand and rubbed daintily at his bruised cheek and sore nose. Humans… Humans weren’t nice at all.
A dark chuckle from behind him had him whipping around suddenly, startled. A man stood there, in the darkness, hair as white as the moonlight.
“Having difficulty?” The man’s mouth didn’t move when he spoke and Subaru gasped, eyes widening.
“Ah!” Realizing suddenly that he was sitting in a grimly alleyway having just been caught being accosted by a human woman and anything but presentable, he hurried to stand up. “You… You’re… like me.” It had been so long since he’d seen another of his own kind. So long. To be able to communicate properly again, like he remembered, was such a relief. To know for sure that there were others out there, that he wasn’t alone, that this man was like him, understood him… it was a sudden and sharp sense of camaraderie. He stared up at the man, awed.
“What’s a little pureblood like you doing all the way out here?”
Subaru blinked. “Pureblood?”
The man stepped forward, closing the distance between them, and reached out. Subaru stood still as he approached, only blinking shyly as large hands cupped his face, tilting it a bit one way and then the other, examining him. Cold hands. Cold fingers against his face. Not like Seishirou’s would have been, but Subaru didn’t complain. The man tipped his chin up then so that Subaru’s large, emerald eyes were staring straight into his burgundy ones, totally trusting. “Have you lost your way? Would you like me to help you find it?”
“I…” Subaru stuttered, a physical sound this time, caught in the fingers that had slid down to his throat and were even then stroking the smooth skin there. Subaru swallowed under that touch, leaning into it dazedly.
“Someone’s been taking good care of you.”
Subaru blushed, partly from the heat of the man’s assessing stare, partly from shame to think it was so obvious that Seishirou had had to take care of him. If he hadn’t been resolved to prove that he wasn’t dependent on the man before, he was now.
“I’m sure I can figure out how to provide for myself.”
The stranger chuckled. “I doubt that. A sheltered little pureblood like you, you don’t even know your own powers, do you? You can’t take care of yourself…” He smiled suddenly-a smile that was just a little too wide, a little too bright, and Subaru felt unease skitter restlessly where the man’s fingers still touched him, stroking his throat placatingly… the same way one might keep a particularly flighty cat docile and unassuming. And he had a single second to realize how foolish he’d been. “All the better for me.” Then his head was suddenly jerked viciously to the side and sharp teeth tore into his throat.
Subaru gasped-jerked in the man’s grasp. It hadn’t occurred to him to avoid his own kind-he’d never had any reason to be wary of them. Humans were the ones who destroyed homes. Humans were the ones who killed.
Desperately, he slammed extended nails through the man’s shoulder, and the man released him with a snarl to clutch at the wound. But Subaru didn’t have any experience fighting, and what he gained being agile and quick, he lost in practical knowledge. The moment the man let go, he whirled around and flung himself in the other direction, only to be brought up short as the man lunged after him, hooking an arm around his waist and dragging him back, squirming and kicking. A rough shove sent him stumbling into the stone wall to the right, striking his arm and forehead, before he was forcibly spun around.
“You should never have come to my city…” Teeth at his throat again-clamping down tightly. Tight enough to make it difficult to breathe.
“Your city?” Subaru repeated, wheezing and dazed.
“I’m the one the city chose. I won’t stand for the presence of purebloods here!”
The man’s mouth against his throat was making Subaru slightly nauseous. Not the pain, not the loss of blood, but the connection formed by his blood running inside the stranger. He could feel the other man, his presence, with acute awareness. It was a sickness inside him, the stranger’s mind, and he felt it as the corrosion of acid, the bitterness of bile on his tongue. He gagged and tried feebly to pull away from it, but the man pushed brutally past his defenses, breaking them apart like so much glass. And then there was nothing between them anymore. Nothing to keep that sickness out. And it touched him…
The ensuing shriek was internal, not a sound that broke past his lips, but an agony beyond the point of physical expression, ringing in his head. A sound that ceased to have meaning as the man’s corrosive kiss consumed his consciousness. The ensuing explosion seemed to sear the very air from his lungs.
“Open to me!” Shattered, damaged memories rained down in bits and pieces.
The world disappeared into white heat-he could feel the flames. Burning him. Real flames-orange and yellow. The smoke stung his nose. The terror. Someone tugging on his arm, begging him to turn around, to get out. The hallway outside the door was an inferno, and as he stepped into it something broke behind him. The grip on his sleeve was suddenly gone. Cut off. Amethyst eyes through the fire, screaming his name, crying. There was screaming the other direction too. Their parents’ bedroom. And the heat. Blinding him, stinging his eyes. He cried out desperately, Okaa-san! Otou-san!
The nightmares he’d locked away broken open by that sickness. Inside him. Touching him this way. Subaru gasped. Gasped again. Choked. He didn’t want to relive those memories!
But the screams were dying away now, replaced by the pop and fizzle and roar of the fire, gnawing at the posts with tongues of flame. It forced him back. Then part of the ceiling collapsed, the burning air engulfing him in a suffocating wave, scalding his lungs, and he turned and ran, terrified. Hands reached for him from the darkness at the door, hands catching and clawing at his clothes. Someone was laughing. Well, look at this! A little monster!
Subaru thrashed, tried to ward off invisible hands, but there was a jaw locked around his throat, clamping down on him hard-a stranger holding him immobile while rifling through his nightmares like one might browse for a good book. But he was barely aware of that, because…
Cloth tore, caught in callous fists, shredding in long strips. What do you know, they are the same underneath. Laughter again. He bit the hand that jabbed at his mouth and was released with a curse and a sharp kick in the ribs. Pavement tore into his cheek, cracked against his shoulder. Then he was running. Someone swore again. Get him! Bring him back! Footsteps pounded on the pavement. Terrified, he scrambled around a corner, running down the length of the alleyway fast as his feet could fly. Behind him there were voices, calling, cajoling, breaking into horrible laughter, Come back little monster! We just want to play a bit more! The taunts chased after him. Shadows loomed suddenly huge on the wall before him, getting clearer. He pivoted and raced in another direction, fear a constricting fist around his heart. But it didn’t matter how far he ran, there were always people shouting, steps behind him, shadows dogging his steps, dancing on the walls. It closed in on him till the shrieks rang deafeningly in his ears, the shadows reached out in every direction in an all-consuming dark wave. He sobbed once-a sad, sorry little sound in the stillness. He wasn’t sure when he collapsed…
“What amusing memories you have…” There was a hand at the back of his neck. A moment of confusion when he was released from the grip of his memories, but they still echoed in distant screams in his mind. Someone, the stranger, pushed the hair at the nape of his neck aside. “What the…?” But before the sentence could be finished, a sword swept out of the darkness, piercing through the stranger’s side. It was black, the hilt trailing away into a long tail in its wielder’s hand.
Seishirou pulled the sword free and watched with empty amber eyes as the other man curled briefly around the wound, finally straightening with a feral smirk.
“How dare you…”
Seishirou didn’t respond, eyes flickering briefly to Subaru, who had dropped to the pavement, strings snapped, eyes wide and staring.
“What did you do to him?” But the other man wasn’t listening.
“Don’t you know I’m the one the city chose!” He lunged forward, nails extending before him, clashing with the sword, other hand jabbing under the weapon. Seishirou pushed away, momentum carrying him back and out of range.
“I have no use for you. Neither does this city.” Not when Subaru needed him. The sword in his hands melted.
Sei kills Shinji Nagumo (if you've seen the TB OVAs, then you know who that is) and takes Subaru back home.
Author Note: Ugh, this chapter is a mess. I almost don't want to post even this much. The flashbacks are broken and confusing, Subaru's line asking for blood sounds stupid (though truthfully, nothing I've tried there makes it sound less stupid, so maybe it's not possible to win), it's missing transitions like crazy, there was supposed to be another scene...
I can't remember the entire plot for this. It was long and involved. I think Subaru escaping Sei's wards here makes him suddenly apparent to people who have been searching for him, presuming him dead for all these years, namely his family. So Kamui comes after him, trying to persuade him to come home, but Subaru's home is with Sei now, and while he's not completely adverse to visiting, he wants to stay with Sei more. When it becomes apparent Subaru isn't going to come of his own volition, Obaa-chan sends servants to kidnap him, and when she realizes just how much Sei has influenced him over the years, decides that the only way to get her grandson back is to erase his memories. So when Sei comes to get him, Subaru can't remember who he is, and Sei and Obaa-chan end up getting into a fight that results in Obaa-chan's death. Meanwhile, Kamui, who was unaware of recent developments, comes in on the tail end of things, with Sei killing Obaa-chan, thinks Sei is the one to blame for everything, and ultimately attempts to save Subaru by getting him out of there. And that's where TRC starts.
Part of the reason I was stalled on this fic for so long is the age gap between Sei and Su. Something happened in there to stop Sei aging, and I was totally stumped trying to figure out what to do about it (this is what I get for trying to match things up with TRC).
Rating: T
Genre: Angst
Characters: Seishirou, Subaru
Summary: When Seishirou runs across an exceptionally pretty thing on the way home… well, what’s wrong with keeping it?
Word Count: 2,087 incomplete
Chapter 2
Pureblood
There were wards on the door, of course-powerful ones-but they were designed more to keep unwanted attention and visitors out than to keep him in. He had never had a reason to go out before-on the contrary, there had always been an irrational fear that the world outside the door was the same hell of cold streets and burning houses he still sometimes saw in his nightmares. Outside wasn’t safe. Outside there was pain and distant screaming and death. No, Seishirou had never had to worry about him staying inside before. Subaru felt a bit guilty about that as he slipped out the door, but he was quickly preoccupied…
The hall was empty, but Subaru felt totally exposed standing there, knowing anyone could walk in at any time and find him there. For a second he wanted nothing more than to duck back into Seishirou’s apartment where the walls would block out the world and it would be safe, but that would have been counterproductive. So, eyes wide and clinging to the wall, he crept along, skirting the closed doors quickly. There was an elevator at the end of the hall.
Subaru makes it outside and is absolutely terrified at first by the number of people everywhere. He ends up taking refuge in an alleyway. He tries for a few minutes to work up the courage to talk to one of them, remembering how awkward speaking had been at first…
It had made things very difficult at first though. He had tried on numerous occasions, for instance, to talk to Seishirou the way he’d talked with his parents and his brother and his grandmother, but the man never seemed to hear or respond, insisting instead on babbling nonsensical sounds, until Subaru had given up and tried imitating one of the more frequent vocalizations:
“Subaru-kun.”
Seishirou had turned to him, startled, and made him repeat it. And eventually he’d figured it out, though it still felt unnatural twisting his tongue around complicated sound patterns.
While he’s thinking, a girl comes out of one of the backdoors in the alley behind him.
A ways away, Sei has realized that Subaru is gone and uses the marks to start tracking the boy down.
Subaru decides it’s now or never.
“Ah…” Subaru removed the hood of his cloak with nervous fingers as she headed toward him. “Pardon me. Would you be willing to part with some of your blood?”
The pink purse came out of nowhere, flying violently over his head as he ducked.
“Who do you think I am?!” the woman demanded, feet apart, eyes narrowed dangerously. But Subaru barely had time to blink. The next second she had one high-heeled shoe in her hand, brandishing it at him threateningly.
“Wait! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean…” Subaru jerked back, avoiding the spiked heel of the shoe as it was brandished at him and holding his arms up in front of him in defense. “Really…”
“Pervert! Freak!” She stomped toward him, swinging the shoe before her.
“I wasn’t trying to…” Subaru protested. He ducked the shoe that was flung at him then, but didn’t manage to get out of the way of the second, and it thunked broadside into his face.
“Stay away from me!” the woman shouted, before snatching up her purse and storming off down the alley.
In the wake of her departure, Subaru slumped to the dirty, wet concrete, wondering where he’d gone wrong. Morosely, he licked the back of one hand and rubbed daintily at his bruised cheek and sore nose. Humans… Humans weren’t nice at all.
A dark chuckle from behind him had him whipping around suddenly, startled. A man stood there, in the darkness, hair as white as the moonlight.
“Having difficulty?” The man’s mouth didn’t move when he spoke and Subaru gasped, eyes widening.
“Ah!” Realizing suddenly that he was sitting in a grimly alleyway having just been caught being accosted by a human woman and anything but presentable, he hurried to stand up. “You… You’re… like me.” It had been so long since he’d seen another of his own kind. So long. To be able to communicate properly again, like he remembered, was such a relief. To know for sure that there were others out there, that he wasn’t alone, that this man was like him, understood him… it was a sudden and sharp sense of camaraderie. He stared up at the man, awed.
“What’s a little pureblood like you doing all the way out here?”
Subaru blinked. “Pureblood?”
The man stepped forward, closing the distance between them, and reached out. Subaru stood still as he approached, only blinking shyly as large hands cupped his face, tilting it a bit one way and then the other, examining him. Cold hands. Cold fingers against his face. Not like Seishirou’s would have been, but Subaru didn’t complain. The man tipped his chin up then so that Subaru’s large, emerald eyes were staring straight into his burgundy ones, totally trusting. “Have you lost your way? Would you like me to help you find it?”
“I…” Subaru stuttered, a physical sound this time, caught in the fingers that had slid down to his throat and were even then stroking the smooth skin there. Subaru swallowed under that touch, leaning into it dazedly.
“Someone’s been taking good care of you.”
Subaru blushed, partly from the heat of the man’s assessing stare, partly from shame to think it was so obvious that Seishirou had had to take care of him. If he hadn’t been resolved to prove that he wasn’t dependent on the man before, he was now.
“I’m sure I can figure out how to provide for myself.”
The stranger chuckled. “I doubt that. A sheltered little pureblood like you, you don’t even know your own powers, do you? You can’t take care of yourself…” He smiled suddenly-a smile that was just a little too wide, a little too bright, and Subaru felt unease skitter restlessly where the man’s fingers still touched him, stroking his throat placatingly… the same way one might keep a particularly flighty cat docile and unassuming. And he had a single second to realize how foolish he’d been. “All the better for me.” Then his head was suddenly jerked viciously to the side and sharp teeth tore into his throat.
Subaru gasped-jerked in the man’s grasp. It hadn’t occurred to him to avoid his own kind-he’d never had any reason to be wary of them. Humans were the ones who destroyed homes. Humans were the ones who killed.
Desperately, he slammed extended nails through the man’s shoulder, and the man released him with a snarl to clutch at the wound. But Subaru didn’t have any experience fighting, and what he gained being agile and quick, he lost in practical knowledge. The moment the man let go, he whirled around and flung himself in the other direction, only to be brought up short as the man lunged after him, hooking an arm around his waist and dragging him back, squirming and kicking. A rough shove sent him stumbling into the stone wall to the right, striking his arm and forehead, before he was forcibly spun around.
“You should never have come to my city…” Teeth at his throat again-clamping down tightly. Tight enough to make it difficult to breathe.
“Your city?” Subaru repeated, wheezing and dazed.
“I’m the one the city chose. I won’t stand for the presence of purebloods here!”
The man’s mouth against his throat was making Subaru slightly nauseous. Not the pain, not the loss of blood, but the connection formed by his blood running inside the stranger. He could feel the other man, his presence, with acute awareness. It was a sickness inside him, the stranger’s mind, and he felt it as the corrosion of acid, the bitterness of bile on his tongue. He gagged and tried feebly to pull away from it, but the man pushed brutally past his defenses, breaking them apart like so much glass. And then there was nothing between them anymore. Nothing to keep that sickness out. And it touched him…
The ensuing shriek was internal, not a sound that broke past his lips, but an agony beyond the point of physical expression, ringing in his head. A sound that ceased to have meaning as the man’s corrosive kiss consumed his consciousness. The ensuing explosion seemed to sear the very air from his lungs.
“Open to me!” Shattered, damaged memories rained down in bits and pieces.
The world disappeared into white heat-he could feel the flames. Burning him. Real flames-orange and yellow. The smoke stung his nose. The terror. Someone tugging on his arm, begging him to turn around, to get out. The hallway outside the door was an inferno, and as he stepped into it something broke behind him. The grip on his sleeve was suddenly gone. Cut off. Amethyst eyes through the fire, screaming his name, crying. There was screaming the other direction too. Their parents’ bedroom. And the heat. Blinding him, stinging his eyes. He cried out desperately, Okaa-san! Otou-san!
The nightmares he’d locked away broken open by that sickness. Inside him. Touching him this way. Subaru gasped. Gasped again. Choked. He didn’t want to relive those memories!
But the screams were dying away now, replaced by the pop and fizzle and roar of the fire, gnawing at the posts with tongues of flame. It forced him back. Then part of the ceiling collapsed, the burning air engulfing him in a suffocating wave, scalding his lungs, and he turned and ran, terrified. Hands reached for him from the darkness at the door, hands catching and clawing at his clothes. Someone was laughing. Well, look at this! A little monster!
Subaru thrashed, tried to ward off invisible hands, but there was a jaw locked around his throat, clamping down on him hard-a stranger holding him immobile while rifling through his nightmares like one might browse for a good book. But he was barely aware of that, because…
Cloth tore, caught in callous fists, shredding in long strips. What do you know, they are the same underneath. Laughter again. He bit the hand that jabbed at his mouth and was released with a curse and a sharp kick in the ribs. Pavement tore into his cheek, cracked against his shoulder. Then he was running. Someone swore again. Get him! Bring him back! Footsteps pounded on the pavement. Terrified, he scrambled around a corner, running down the length of the alleyway fast as his feet could fly. Behind him there were voices, calling, cajoling, breaking into horrible laughter, Come back little monster! We just want to play a bit more! The taunts chased after him. Shadows loomed suddenly huge on the wall before him, getting clearer. He pivoted and raced in another direction, fear a constricting fist around his heart. But it didn’t matter how far he ran, there were always people shouting, steps behind him, shadows dogging his steps, dancing on the walls. It closed in on him till the shrieks rang deafeningly in his ears, the shadows reached out in every direction in an all-consuming dark wave. He sobbed once-a sad, sorry little sound in the stillness. He wasn’t sure when he collapsed…
“What amusing memories you have…” There was a hand at the back of his neck. A moment of confusion when he was released from the grip of his memories, but they still echoed in distant screams in his mind. Someone, the stranger, pushed the hair at the nape of his neck aside. “What the…?” But before the sentence could be finished, a sword swept out of the darkness, piercing through the stranger’s side. It was black, the hilt trailing away into a long tail in its wielder’s hand.
Seishirou pulled the sword free and watched with empty amber eyes as the other man curled briefly around the wound, finally straightening with a feral smirk.
“How dare you…”
Seishirou didn’t respond, eyes flickering briefly to Subaru, who had dropped to the pavement, strings snapped, eyes wide and staring.
“What did you do to him?” But the other man wasn’t listening.
“Don’t you know I’m the one the city chose!” He lunged forward, nails extending before him, clashing with the sword, other hand jabbing under the weapon. Seishirou pushed away, momentum carrying him back and out of range.
“I have no use for you. Neither does this city.” Not when Subaru needed him. The sword in his hands melted.
Sei kills Shinji Nagumo (if you've seen the TB OVAs, then you know who that is) and takes Subaru back home.
Author Note: Ugh, this chapter is a mess. I almost don't want to post even this much. The flashbacks are broken and confusing, Subaru's line asking for blood sounds stupid (though truthfully, nothing I've tried there makes it sound less stupid, so maybe it's not possible to win), it's missing transitions like crazy, there was supposed to be another scene...
I can't remember the entire plot for this. It was long and involved. I think Subaru escaping Sei's wards here makes him suddenly apparent to people who have been searching for him, presuming him dead for all these years, namely his family. So Kamui comes after him, trying to persuade him to come home, but Subaru's home is with Sei now, and while he's not completely adverse to visiting, he wants to stay with Sei more. When it becomes apparent Subaru isn't going to come of his own volition, Obaa-chan sends servants to kidnap him, and when she realizes just how much Sei has influenced him over the years, decides that the only way to get her grandson back is to erase his memories. So when Sei comes to get him, Subaru can't remember who he is, and Sei and Obaa-chan end up getting into a fight that results in Obaa-chan's death. Meanwhile, Kamui, who was unaware of recent developments, comes in on the tail end of things, with Sei killing Obaa-chan, thinks Sei is the one to blame for everything, and ultimately attempts to save Subaru by getting him out of there. And that's where TRC starts.
Part of the reason I was stalled on this fic for so long is the age gap between Sei and Su. Something happened in there to stop Sei aging, and I was totally stumped trying to figure out what to do about it (this is what I get for trying to match things up with TRC).