#25 Theme 10: Dead Tree - Dir en Grey; Tora/Hiroto
Title: Living Dead
Author: beyondtheremix
Theme: 010 Dead Tree (Dir en Grey)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Tora/Hiroto
Bands[s]: Alice Nine
Disclaimer: AU, steam punkish
Comments: Goes along with this song and its lyrics.
Living Dead
The sun rose in waning shadows of mercury, bone-dry trees smothered an early orange too cold to bring life to the wintry mountainside. From his window Hiroto could make out the rubbled city in the valley, overturned chapels and shattered windows of an abandoned town.
"They say we're cursed here. The granite bedrock in the sky, God's scourge on the city."
Tora only snorted and pulled him in for a quick peck. "We're not cursed; the city will keep growing like it always has." He bent to peer into wide eyes. "Ignore them. Those old ladies and crabby men are too superstitious for their own good."
Collected drops of condensation and fog slid lines down the glass.
Maybe the valley had been cursed.
It was dead now, that was certain.
Lying spread eagle Hiroto waited. The wooden beams holding their house upright crisscrossed here, in this large bedroom on the second landing. He lay in bed alone, curled to one side at night as if he still shared it with someone, something other than the morning sun.
Ticking. Creaking. Aching.
It was as if nature itself taunted them.
The wind swirled a leeward blow with the first hammering of rock, cement-caked foundation. Trees straightened against a new, dead breeze. Moisture soaked and disappeared into the cracks of the valley while the summer brought heat, evaporated cumulus, and dry wind. The oily iridescence of clouds too close to the sun melted into stark blue skies, harsh on the eyes and even worse for the soil. Then they knew something was wrong. Drought and hunger, disease and poverty.
But as soon as the ghosts settled rusty nails and shattered wood, the rain returned. Moist airs blew green to mountain summits until the once shadow of a town was an overgrown clump of trees and vegetation. Salamanders occupied the toilets of empty bars and raccoons hoarded a mass of fallen doorknobs and rusting springs.
From the first and last house built and balanced on the mountainside, Hiroto watched the valley morph and revert like mocking clockwork, flushing out homes and rebuilding meadows. From parched ditch to a working well.
Their cursed hearts.
One gifted mind.
They wanted to be left alone. They got alone.
It wasn't until the tolling of bells deep beneath steadfast floors did Hiroto register movement in the hall.
"Morning."
Tora peered round the doorframe, careful smile etched amongst his features.
"Morning."
They were hushed greetings, reminders of a new day. It's morning.
Tora stepped towards the bed and pushed the covers aside, gently shaping his arms around the fragile form beneath him and lifting Hiroto up. Muffled footsteps and creaking floorboards followed them out into the hall and down one flight of stairs, soft breaths heavy with exertion.
Hiroto rested his chin on the Tora's shoulder, shut his eyes, and waited for the moment when his bowed back would meet threaded wood and blunted steel. He fingered a corner of the woolen grey blanket placed over his lap, smiling sadly at the unraveling ends.
His chest felt heavy, body sore. If there was a ramp Hiroto was sure he'd be able to get up in the mornings, slide into his seat and wheel to the first floor. He promised it - to himself, his body, thin arms and rasping ligaments. Promised.
"No, Tora. Tora. I can do it myself."
"No. You'll hurt yourself," the other deadpanned, grabbing the younger man's legs and untangling them before effortlessly lifting Hiroto up and arranging him at the dining room table.
"I can do it myself," Hiroto repeated angrily, shoving his plate away and letting food and cutlery drop to the floor.
Silence soaked the heavy air. Soup stained the ancient rug. Hard eyes bore into the wall nearest him, frustrated and running dangerously low on patience. Tora knew he just needed the patience, needed to give this time, understanding, Hiroto's understanding, but everything was getting old, everything was happening too late.
"Fine. Do it yourself."
He threw his napkin to the floor, plate untouched, and left the room. The door to his study slammed shut and Hiroto was alone.
It was cold. In the house bedded on mountain rocks rebounding gusts rattled every window pane, cut bone deep and scoured the sand.
Beneath his blanket Hiroto shook, forcing his hands to grasp and push, inching his chair forward to see the sky. It was the least he could do. After everything. After everything and Tora still installed the floor to ceiling walls of glass. The least he could do.
It took too long to get to the door, shivering and scraping at the heavy wood when it hurt to knock. Winters were the worst. Winters when his bones felt hollow to the touch and it ached to open his eyes. His insides were rusty and falling apart. And he needed help. He knew that.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
The minute the door pulled open he had his apology; on trembling lips he had his sorry. "I don't mean it. I need you, a lot. A-And I want you... I want you to help, I do."
Tora's eyes were soft and sad, on him, all over him, on his thin knees, and decaying outsides.
"I'm sorry. More than sorry," the older man whispered. "I shouldn't be this selfish."
Blue slate gathered amongst pointed mountaintops, high enough to drip snow and far enough to shadow sky. In the kitchen he could hear Tora, pots and pans and spoons scrape-scraping metal. And Tora.
The fog would roll out into the hills soon and rain would follow. He could feel it, smell it like a wilting flower, petals bruised and shirking at every touch. Hiroto liked the rain; the rain and wind, mountains and snow. Maybe that was why Tora moved them away from the city, separated them from the valley. Other than the secret kisses they could hardly share, in the mountains they could touch, hold hands and be one.
His skin glowed in the slants of light, almost blinding amidst the warm auburns and chalked carmines of their house. Pale like a ghost. Hiroto lifted a hand into the light, marveling at its shine, skin stretched so thin, dusty and dry, white like marble veined turquoise-green. They didn't work like before, couldn't pluck a string or slide dept chords on a handmade guitar. Instead Hiroto felt the vibrations in his chest, thrumming wood and lilting music with every gasp of his ailing lungs.
Tora appeared with the first rumblings of thunder, early flashes of light in the spaces between huddled mountains.
"Breakfast is ready."
His wheelchair creaked as he tilted his head to the side. Trusty Tora. Old, reliable Tora. Wrinkle-eyed, tired Tora. He was always quick to offer tiny smiles, a small consolation on a weathered face, exhausted and full of lines. Worry, lost nights, greying hair - it hardly looked like Tora anymore.
If Hiroto could just catch his eyes, maybe he'd be that same Tora from before. But instead cloudy hazels shied to the floor, rough hands dug into worn pockets. More silence. Tawny irises flicked close to his head then back to the ground, waiting, waiting. It wasn't disgust. It wasn't.
"Can I have a bath instead?"
He wanted water, water soaked to the skin. Water to wash off this sooty feel and these dirty glances. Water to wash and wash and wash.
"Okay."
The vertical lines of wallpaper looked so different next to the organic rolls of valley. Hiroto wrapped his arms loosely around Tora's neck and bumped up and down as they once again journeyed up the stairs. Tora smelled like cinnamon, hard and strong and soft like flannel as his muscles moved beneath cold fingers. He smelled sweet, sick and saccharine like crushed flowers and molding wood. He couldn't stand it. How could anyone stand it?
"If you need help... just call. I'll be in the other room."
Tora flicked on facets, turned on lights, and plugged in stoppers, waiting to make sure Hiroto was comfortable and safe before he left. Everything he needed sat on a low shelf, the door propped wide just in case.
Hiroto hummed absentmindedly from where he sat, undressing atop a long dais. He liked the washroom; it was gentle and calming, dipped in squared porcelain, laced with curved mirrors and foggy glass. There was a drain in the room's center, a footed tub to the side, but what Hiroto loved most was his small platform.
A foot off the ground, it connected to a side of the room where water trickled down from tiny punctures in the wall. It was like a mellow waterfall, temperate rain wall that Tora kept clean down on his hands and knees. It reminded Hiroto that he still cared. He leaned forward and ran a hand against smooth tiles, smiling at the soft arcs his fingers made in water that pooled and collected in the small dip of his tiny stage.
There had been happier times here, half-lidded eyes and eager lips. Now there were only weak knees and a back support, rainbow bubbles floating and slipping down a single small frame where they popped and drowned in the water they came from.
"Men. Did you hear? Grown men together in that house, just the two of them."
"Won't take any women..."
"Too close, it's not right."
"It's unnatural I tell you, unnatural."
"Ungodly is more like."
Dark chuckles filled the tiny pub, laughter and snide remarks, but they were empty, empty of mirth. So empty.
Hiroto quivered under his own touch. He traced the raised lines of papery skin, blooming white thorns and intricate leaflets, each scar the colored shape of rising smoke. He felt smoky sometimes, like the wispy ghosts who'd long since abandoned the rundown village now trees.
This was unreal.
They were unreal.
He wasn't real.
"You done?"
Hiroto wasn't surprised by the almost silent footsteps that padded over to grab a thick towel and cover his marred skin, turn off the water and hoist him away from the small holes swallowing up the last of his false rain. Outside the sun shone a dampened pale glow, hidden by the dark clouds that flickered in and out of view.
The rain had stopped.
Pressed into the mattress Hiroto held his hands out, obediently accepting the freshly laundered clothes from beneath his hooded towel. Heavy footsteps trudged back and forth in the house. He could make out the spray of pressured water and the smell of ammonia, Tora cleaning his waterfall before mildew had the chance to cling to its insides.
Hiroto wondered what he was supposed to use for his aching chest, his dirty heart. It didn't beat like it used to.
Draped across Tora's front he could always feel the difference, the stark contrast between his slow thumps and the other's patterned breathing. Tora hummed life between them. Hiroto could barely get his blood to flow.
Thump. Slump. Thump.
He felt Tora flinch as his shirt rode up and calloused warm fingers gripped cool sides.
Slump. Thump. Thump.
The touch burned and felt good, he wanted more but Hiroto knew better than to ask.
Thump. Thump.
Instead he waited to once again be arranged in his chair, let the sun do the heating for him.
"You don't have too..."
Tora paused at the kitchen's entrance.
"You shouldn't carry me anymore..."
He said it to no one in particular, voice resigned and eyes trained on the swaying treetops. But there was only ever Tora to hear.
"I'm too heavy..."
Slump. Slump.
Tora's back was slumped, curved thin with despair and layered in anxiety that years of work, days spent carrying Hiroto up and down the stairs, hadn't helped. He kept the house running, kept it clean, kept the food coming; he did everything and he wished it were enough.
"You're fine."
"You're fine, Pon."
"It's okay, everything's going to be okay."
"I'll fix it. I'll fix you."
"Don't worry."
It used to be straight. Everything used to be straight; one long, narrow line that took them to happily ever after in a cottage on the hills, birds chirping and smiling faces in the valley. Tora stood tall and Hiroto was strong beside him, but they couldn't have that.
What difference was there between one love and another?
People rejected them. People cursed them.
"It isn't natural. God will punish you."
Hiroto tried to smile. They kept to themselves in the mountains.
And nature accepted them, painted Tora's garden green while the town shriveled at their feet.
"They say we're cursed here. The granite bedrock in the sky, God's scourge on the city."
Cursed, cursed, cursed.
His breakfast sat untouched as Tora tidied up, but finally it was taken away.
He felt old. They felt old. He knew how deep it cut, to see and feel what his body had become. But they really didn't care, not anymore. Now it was just routine ins and outs, passing ups and downs. Sometimes Hiroto looked in the mirror and didn't see purple lips and sunken eyes. Sometimes Tora looked and Hiroto's skin gleamed honey life in the setting sun.
"I'm tired... Tora, I need..." It was barely a breath but Tora was already at his side, pulling, lifting, then placing him on linen sheets. White. Tora liked white. Somehow Hiroto looked more alive surrounded in pure white. He parted the curtains to let in more of the midday sun and checked to see the other was asleep before he left, once again propping the door wide.
Biting peeling lips, Hiroto's eye slid open as soon as receding footsteps ended. He pulled himself up against the carved headboard and watched the light play amongst shadowy leaves and spiny branches. In the glass of a dresser opposite the bed's end, Hiroto watched himself lean to the left and pull out a packet of Tora's smokes, matches and an ashtray. They were dusty and hadn't been touched in years.
He lit one, smiling wryly at the familiar curdle and knowingly acrid bite. He wouldn't smoke it. Instead he set it down in the ashtray on his lap, smelling rather than tasting.
Fingers curled in his hair, grasping, tugging, searing kisses that burned his belly and drifted lower.
Hiroto's hands slid to undo the buttons of his nightshirt, skeletal fingers on jutting ribs and a sharp collar bone.
Tick. Thump. Thump. Tick.
For the last time he pulled open the door to his heart, watched his life flash black and white through glassy eyes as cool air brushed his warm insides. Wooden clogs and metal levers clicked and whirred inside him, hummed a sampled heartbeat, clung to a stolen soul. Rusted, molding, broken strings, mildew and decay that Tora couldn't fix, couldn't keep clean and healthy and working.
"Too close, it's not right."
"He's sick."
"It's unnatural I tell you, unnatural."
"He only has a month left."
"Not right."
"Make preparations."
"Ungodly."
This was unreal.
They were unreal.
He wasn't real.
"Hiroto..."
Tora stood at the doorway, tobacco filling his nostrils.
He didn't say anything, simply walked in, pulled back the covers, and for the first time in a long time, got in.
"They say we're cursed here. The granite bedrock in the sky, God's scourge on the city."
"They say it's unnatural, we're unnatural. That we shouldn't be together."
"They say I'm a demon. Dead walking. Bad luck for the city."
Hiroto's hands wavered above the sheets, pulling out a match and striking up fire.
Tora said nothing, simply taking the box of matches and lighting his own.
"We don't care anymore."
He said it to no one in particular, eyes trained on the rigid mountaintops. But there was only ever Tora to hear.
"We don't care."
This time Hiroto turned and they locked eyes, eyes that glittered a new light, some sort of acceptance, forgiveness, repentance for all the things that had gone wrong.
They smiled their first real smiles in a while.
Then Hiroto dropped his flaming match, dropped it straight into the aching hole sunk deep in his chest, straight into the corroding metals and rotting wood.
Tora lit the entire box of matches, dropped each stick one by one onto the wooden slats surrounding their bed; lit the crisscrossing infrastructures and white, white sheets.
"We don't care," he whispered, curved lips brushing a heated ear, hands tugging Hiroto closer.
"I'm sorry."
Slow. Sensual burn. An eternity on end.
From the first and last house built and balanced on the mountainside they watched their own room morph and revert like mocking clockwork, simmering to ashes that would soon ferment the ground and feed the soil. From parched ditch to a working well, their tears slipped past parted lips and brought on new life.
"We're not cursed," Tora snorted. "We're a miracle."
A/N:
I'm slightly ashamed of this, but I do adore that song :D
I probably should have given this more time, but I wanted to post before things got busy XD
Comments? I hope it isn't too vague for you to understand.
Archive
Author: beyondtheremix
Theme: 010 Dead Tree (Dir en Grey)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Tora/Hiroto
Bands[s]: Alice Nine
Disclaimer: AU, steam punkish
Comments: Goes along with this song and its lyrics.
Living Dead
The sun rose in waning shadows of mercury, bone-dry trees smothered an early orange too cold to bring life to the wintry mountainside. From his window Hiroto could make out the rubbled city in the valley, overturned chapels and shattered windows of an abandoned town.
"They say we're cursed here. The granite bedrock in the sky, God's scourge on the city."
Tora only snorted and pulled him in for a quick peck. "We're not cursed; the city will keep growing like it always has." He bent to peer into wide eyes. "Ignore them. Those old ladies and crabby men are too superstitious for their own good."
Collected drops of condensation and fog slid lines down the glass.
Maybe the valley had been cursed.
It was dead now, that was certain.
Lying spread eagle Hiroto waited. The wooden beams holding their house upright crisscrossed here, in this large bedroom on the second landing. He lay in bed alone, curled to one side at night as if he still shared it with someone, something other than the morning sun.
Ticking. Creaking. Aching.
It was as if nature itself taunted them.
The wind swirled a leeward blow with the first hammering of rock, cement-caked foundation. Trees straightened against a new, dead breeze. Moisture soaked and disappeared into the cracks of the valley while the summer brought heat, evaporated cumulus, and dry wind. The oily iridescence of clouds too close to the sun melted into stark blue skies, harsh on the eyes and even worse for the soil. Then they knew something was wrong. Drought and hunger, disease and poverty.
But as soon as the ghosts settled rusty nails and shattered wood, the rain returned. Moist airs blew green to mountain summits until the once shadow of a town was an overgrown clump of trees and vegetation. Salamanders occupied the toilets of empty bars and raccoons hoarded a mass of fallen doorknobs and rusting springs.
From the first and last house built and balanced on the mountainside, Hiroto watched the valley morph and revert like mocking clockwork, flushing out homes and rebuilding meadows. From parched ditch to a working well.
Their cursed hearts.
One gifted mind.
They wanted to be left alone. They got alone.
It wasn't until the tolling of bells deep beneath steadfast floors did Hiroto register movement in the hall.
"Morning."
Tora peered round the doorframe, careful smile etched amongst his features.
"Morning."
They were hushed greetings, reminders of a new day. It's morning.
Tora stepped towards the bed and pushed the covers aside, gently shaping his arms around the fragile form beneath him and lifting Hiroto up. Muffled footsteps and creaking floorboards followed them out into the hall and down one flight of stairs, soft breaths heavy with exertion.
Hiroto rested his chin on the Tora's shoulder, shut his eyes, and waited for the moment when his bowed back would meet threaded wood and blunted steel. He fingered a corner of the woolen grey blanket placed over his lap, smiling sadly at the unraveling ends.
His chest felt heavy, body sore. If there was a ramp Hiroto was sure he'd be able to get up in the mornings, slide into his seat and wheel to the first floor. He promised it - to himself, his body, thin arms and rasping ligaments. Promised.
"No, Tora. Tora. I can do it myself."
"No. You'll hurt yourself," the other deadpanned, grabbing the younger man's legs and untangling them before effortlessly lifting Hiroto up and arranging him at the dining room table.
"I can do it myself," Hiroto repeated angrily, shoving his plate away and letting food and cutlery drop to the floor.
Silence soaked the heavy air. Soup stained the ancient rug. Hard eyes bore into the wall nearest him, frustrated and running dangerously low on patience. Tora knew he just needed the patience, needed to give this time, understanding, Hiroto's understanding, but everything was getting old, everything was happening too late.
"Fine. Do it yourself."
He threw his napkin to the floor, plate untouched, and left the room. The door to his study slammed shut and Hiroto was alone.
It was cold. In the house bedded on mountain rocks rebounding gusts rattled every window pane, cut bone deep and scoured the sand.
Beneath his blanket Hiroto shook, forcing his hands to grasp and push, inching his chair forward to see the sky. It was the least he could do. After everything. After everything and Tora still installed the floor to ceiling walls of glass. The least he could do.
It took too long to get to the door, shivering and scraping at the heavy wood when it hurt to knock. Winters were the worst. Winters when his bones felt hollow to the touch and it ached to open his eyes. His insides were rusty and falling apart. And he needed help. He knew that.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
The minute the door pulled open he had his apology; on trembling lips he had his sorry. "I don't mean it. I need you, a lot. A-And I want you... I want you to help, I do."
Tora's eyes were soft and sad, on him, all over him, on his thin knees, and decaying outsides.
"I'm sorry. More than sorry," the older man whispered. "I shouldn't be this selfish."
Blue slate gathered amongst pointed mountaintops, high enough to drip snow and far enough to shadow sky. In the kitchen he could hear Tora, pots and pans and spoons scrape-scraping metal. And Tora.
The fog would roll out into the hills soon and rain would follow. He could feel it, smell it like a wilting flower, petals bruised and shirking at every touch. Hiroto liked the rain; the rain and wind, mountains and snow. Maybe that was why Tora moved them away from the city, separated them from the valley. Other than the secret kisses they could hardly share, in the mountains they could touch, hold hands and be one.
His skin glowed in the slants of light, almost blinding amidst the warm auburns and chalked carmines of their house. Pale like a ghost. Hiroto lifted a hand into the light, marveling at its shine, skin stretched so thin, dusty and dry, white like marble veined turquoise-green. They didn't work like before, couldn't pluck a string or slide dept chords on a handmade guitar. Instead Hiroto felt the vibrations in his chest, thrumming wood and lilting music with every gasp of his ailing lungs.
Tora appeared with the first rumblings of thunder, early flashes of light in the spaces between huddled mountains.
"Breakfast is ready."
His wheelchair creaked as he tilted his head to the side. Trusty Tora. Old, reliable Tora. Wrinkle-eyed, tired Tora. He was always quick to offer tiny smiles, a small consolation on a weathered face, exhausted and full of lines. Worry, lost nights, greying hair - it hardly looked like Tora anymore.
If Hiroto could just catch his eyes, maybe he'd be that same Tora from before. But instead cloudy hazels shied to the floor, rough hands dug into worn pockets. More silence. Tawny irises flicked close to his head then back to the ground, waiting, waiting. It wasn't disgust. It wasn't.
"Can I have a bath instead?"
He wanted water, water soaked to the skin. Water to wash off this sooty feel and these dirty glances. Water to wash and wash and wash.
"Okay."
The vertical lines of wallpaper looked so different next to the organic rolls of valley. Hiroto wrapped his arms loosely around Tora's neck and bumped up and down as they once again journeyed up the stairs. Tora smelled like cinnamon, hard and strong and soft like flannel as his muscles moved beneath cold fingers. He smelled sweet, sick and saccharine like crushed flowers and molding wood. He couldn't stand it. How could anyone stand it?
"If you need help... just call. I'll be in the other room."
Tora flicked on facets, turned on lights, and plugged in stoppers, waiting to make sure Hiroto was comfortable and safe before he left. Everything he needed sat on a low shelf, the door propped wide just in case.
Hiroto hummed absentmindedly from where he sat, undressing atop a long dais. He liked the washroom; it was gentle and calming, dipped in squared porcelain, laced with curved mirrors and foggy glass. There was a drain in the room's center, a footed tub to the side, but what Hiroto loved most was his small platform.
A foot off the ground, it connected to a side of the room where water trickled down from tiny punctures in the wall. It was like a mellow waterfall, temperate rain wall that Tora kept clean down on his hands and knees. It reminded Hiroto that he still cared. He leaned forward and ran a hand against smooth tiles, smiling at the soft arcs his fingers made in water that pooled and collected in the small dip of his tiny stage.
There had been happier times here, half-lidded eyes and eager lips. Now there were only weak knees and a back support, rainbow bubbles floating and slipping down a single small frame where they popped and drowned in the water they came from.
"Men. Did you hear? Grown men together in that house, just the two of them."
"Won't take any women..."
"Too close, it's not right."
"It's unnatural I tell you, unnatural."
"Ungodly is more like."
Dark chuckles filled the tiny pub, laughter and snide remarks, but they were empty, empty of mirth. So empty.
Hiroto quivered under his own touch. He traced the raised lines of papery skin, blooming white thorns and intricate leaflets, each scar the colored shape of rising smoke. He felt smoky sometimes, like the wispy ghosts who'd long since abandoned the rundown village now trees.
This was unreal.
They were unreal.
He wasn't real.
"You done?"
Hiroto wasn't surprised by the almost silent footsteps that padded over to grab a thick towel and cover his marred skin, turn off the water and hoist him away from the small holes swallowing up the last of his false rain. Outside the sun shone a dampened pale glow, hidden by the dark clouds that flickered in and out of view.
The rain had stopped.
Pressed into the mattress Hiroto held his hands out, obediently accepting the freshly laundered clothes from beneath his hooded towel. Heavy footsteps trudged back and forth in the house. He could make out the spray of pressured water and the smell of ammonia, Tora cleaning his waterfall before mildew had the chance to cling to its insides.
Hiroto wondered what he was supposed to use for his aching chest, his dirty heart. It didn't beat like it used to.
Draped across Tora's front he could always feel the difference, the stark contrast between his slow thumps and the other's patterned breathing. Tora hummed life between them. Hiroto could barely get his blood to flow.
Thump. Slump. Thump.
He felt Tora flinch as his shirt rode up and calloused warm fingers gripped cool sides.
Slump. Thump. Thump.
The touch burned and felt good, he wanted more but Hiroto knew better than to ask.
Thump. Thump.
Instead he waited to once again be arranged in his chair, let the sun do the heating for him.
"You don't have too..."
Tora paused at the kitchen's entrance.
"You shouldn't carry me anymore..."
He said it to no one in particular, voice resigned and eyes trained on the swaying treetops. But there was only ever Tora to hear.
"I'm too heavy..."
Slump. Slump.
Tora's back was slumped, curved thin with despair and layered in anxiety that years of work, days spent carrying Hiroto up and down the stairs, hadn't helped. He kept the house running, kept it clean, kept the food coming; he did everything and he wished it were enough.
"You're fine."
"You're fine, Pon."
"It's okay, everything's going to be okay."
"I'll fix it. I'll fix you."
"Don't worry."
It used to be straight. Everything used to be straight; one long, narrow line that took them to happily ever after in a cottage on the hills, birds chirping and smiling faces in the valley. Tora stood tall and Hiroto was strong beside him, but they couldn't have that.
What difference was there between one love and another?
People rejected them. People cursed them.
"It isn't natural. God will punish you."
Hiroto tried to smile. They kept to themselves in the mountains.
And nature accepted them, painted Tora's garden green while the town shriveled at their feet.
"They say we're cursed here. The granite bedrock in the sky, God's scourge on the city."
Cursed, cursed, cursed.
His breakfast sat untouched as Tora tidied up, but finally it was taken away.
He felt old. They felt old. He knew how deep it cut, to see and feel what his body had become. But they really didn't care, not anymore. Now it was just routine ins and outs, passing ups and downs. Sometimes Hiroto looked in the mirror and didn't see purple lips and sunken eyes. Sometimes Tora looked and Hiroto's skin gleamed honey life in the setting sun.
"I'm tired... Tora, I need..." It was barely a breath but Tora was already at his side, pulling, lifting, then placing him on linen sheets. White. Tora liked white. Somehow Hiroto looked more alive surrounded in pure white. He parted the curtains to let in more of the midday sun and checked to see the other was asleep before he left, once again propping the door wide.
Biting peeling lips, Hiroto's eye slid open as soon as receding footsteps ended. He pulled himself up against the carved headboard and watched the light play amongst shadowy leaves and spiny branches. In the glass of a dresser opposite the bed's end, Hiroto watched himself lean to the left and pull out a packet of Tora's smokes, matches and an ashtray. They were dusty and hadn't been touched in years.
He lit one, smiling wryly at the familiar curdle and knowingly acrid bite. He wouldn't smoke it. Instead he set it down in the ashtray on his lap, smelling rather than tasting.
Fingers curled in his hair, grasping, tugging, searing kisses that burned his belly and drifted lower.
Hiroto's hands slid to undo the buttons of his nightshirt, skeletal fingers on jutting ribs and a sharp collar bone.
Tick. Thump. Thump. Tick.
For the last time he pulled open the door to his heart, watched his life flash black and white through glassy eyes as cool air brushed his warm insides. Wooden clogs and metal levers clicked and whirred inside him, hummed a sampled heartbeat, clung to a stolen soul. Rusted, molding, broken strings, mildew and decay that Tora couldn't fix, couldn't keep clean and healthy and working.
"Too close, it's not right."
"He's sick."
"It's unnatural I tell you, unnatural."
"He only has a month left."
"Not right."
"Make preparations."
"Ungodly."
This was unreal.
They were unreal.
He wasn't real.
"Hiroto..."
Tora stood at the doorway, tobacco filling his nostrils.
He didn't say anything, simply walked in, pulled back the covers, and for the first time in a long time, got in.
"They say we're cursed here. The granite bedrock in the sky, God's scourge on the city."
"They say it's unnatural, we're unnatural. That we shouldn't be together."
"They say I'm a demon. Dead walking. Bad luck for the city."
Hiroto's hands wavered above the sheets, pulling out a match and striking up fire.
Tora said nothing, simply taking the box of matches and lighting his own.
"We don't care anymore."
He said it to no one in particular, eyes trained on the rigid mountaintops. But there was only ever Tora to hear.
"We don't care."
This time Hiroto turned and they locked eyes, eyes that glittered a new light, some sort of acceptance, forgiveness, repentance for all the things that had gone wrong.
They smiled their first real smiles in a while.
Then Hiroto dropped his flaming match, dropped it straight into the aching hole sunk deep in his chest, straight into the corroding metals and rotting wood.
Tora lit the entire box of matches, dropped each stick one by one onto the wooden slats surrounding their bed; lit the crisscrossing infrastructures and white, white sheets.
"We don't care," he whispered, curved lips brushing a heated ear, hands tugging Hiroto closer.
"I'm sorry."
Slow. Sensual burn. An eternity on end.
From the first and last house built and balanced on the mountainside they watched their own room morph and revert like mocking clockwork, simmering to ashes that would soon ferment the ground and feed the soil. From parched ditch to a working well, their tears slipped past parted lips and brought on new life.
"We're not cursed," Tora snorted. "We're a miracle."
A/N:
I'm slightly ashamed of this, but I do adore that song :D
I probably should have given this more time, but I wanted to post before things got busy XD
Comments? I hope it isn't too vague for you to understand.
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