Ashes and Bonfires part 2/2

[crowseye]

Title: Ashes and Bonfires

Pairing: Raito/Mikami

Warning: Explicit slash

Wordcount: 8219

Disclaimer: Death Note belongs to its respective owners; for the translation of Matsuo Bashō’s frog haiku I use Donald Keene’s version.

Summary: A story about new beginnings and old hurts. Why would God need a plan B? Raito/Mikami slash. AU.



At some point, when the amount of needed work dwindled down and left them with more free time on their hands, they both found an employment outside of the house.

Yagami, or Raito, as Teru was starting to think of him now, had found himself an unlikely job at the local elementary school - teaching English to children. Perhaps it was not so unlikely after all; the position was at least in some way superior, one where some miniscule amount of power was involved. The way he gained the favor of these children so completely that wherever he went, they followed him around the village like puppies, made Teru think of the Pied Piper who once led all the town-children away, with rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, and sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls; well, not so much for the flaxen curls, here, but their eyes definitely were sparkling and if Raito led them to the edge of the cliff and said "jump," they might do just that. Would he?

He was no longer sure, he thought as he bit down on the dark bread with cheese and onion, sitting on a stomp in a little clearing, with his chainsaw, helmet and safety glasses lying nearby. He did follow him here, and obeyed his every word - even if it meant becoming a logger. Surprisingly, Teru's new occupation satisfied him, as did the unexpected acceptance he found among the villagers. Brother, they would call him, just like that man the other day, although he didn't even know his name. They didn't call Raito anything.

Marian, his felling partner, had already finished his lunch and was now basking in the sun while taking slow, savoring drags on his cigarette, a content expression plastered on his tanned face.

Most of the morning they worked far from the others, as required by safety, but now the rest of the logging crew was catching up with them, coming to this clearing in groups of two or three, because this by far the best lunch spot in the area. Teru, too, finished his bread and neatly brushed the crumbs away from his working trousers, moving a little sideways so he could catch the sunrays. Enjoying the warmth, he closed his eyes and listened to the sounds around, which had become his habit. All the chainsaws and car engines have quieted down; he could now clearly hear the birds, the gentle breeze in the treetops, twigs crunching under the heavily-clad feet of the coming men. And of course, the men's booming voices. He had never considered the Japanese exactly quiet, but in comparison to the people here he thought them very subdued. These men were loud, rowdy. They laughed in one moment, shouted and fought in another, only to go back to laughing in the next. And they seemed to never tire of talking.

He tried to decipher the conversation of the group of men who sat down on the grass close to his stomp. There were words he knew - forest, woman, white and dance, but try as he might, he couldn't put it together in any meaningful way.

"Oi!" Marian shouted all of the sudden, "are yah listenin', broda?" he asked in his heavily accented English, looking at Teru with his charcoal eyes. Teru nodded. Marian showed him the glitter of his two golden teeth in his smile and said: "Yah wanna kno' 'bout yesinas? I tell yah. Thay're da beutifulest creatures, fo' sure. Whyte in da face with eyes like youn' deer. Hayre soft as deer fur, movin' as graycefully as wildcat. Thay dress all in whyte when thay go to this clearin' at nite t'do thair dances in da moonlite, dances like yah never seen, and thay ask yah t'dance with 'em and yah dance, 'cause there's no sayin' no t 'em. An' then yah dance an' dance an' dance, all nite lon', till da morn'n come an' yah drop t'da ground, cold as stone."

All the other loggers stopped what they were doing to look at the two of them. Teru nodded in thanks, feeling a smile creeping upon his face.

"Yah don't believe me, do yah, broda," Marian frowned in response. "Dat's fine with me. But be careful an' don't dance."

After finishing his daily share of work in the woods, Teru returned to their cellar, ate some of Mrs. Styrin's bean soup and then assumed his favorite place on the mattress he dragged under the street window, taking with him the worn-out textbook he sometimes borrowed from Raito without him knowing. It was a beginner's language textbook written in English; he skipped the introduction and skimmed through the first few lessons, containing mostly greetings and family and house vocabulary. He found that he already knew most of it, from the overheard conversations of the other loggers and villagers, but it was interesting to match what he knew from listening to written words.

I have two children, a daughter and a son. My daughter is still a student, but my son works already. He is an office worker-

Suddenly, his concentration was interrupted by the familiar cool voice:

"Why are you learning this when you never plan on using it?"

Teru looked up from the book, taking in the sight of Raito dressed in his usual checkered vest and pleated pants (he took great care to iron these himself), the rather formal attire he chose to wear to school, with a half-amused, half-irritated smirk on his face. He must have looked startled, because Raito continued:

"Don't give me that look. You thought I wouldn't notice that you just don't speak? That I'm so absorbed in myself that I wouldn't care?"

At this, Teru had to fight anger from showing on his face. Care?What an elusive, tricky, dangerous word. Do not use that word around me, he wanted to scream, you didn't care that you ruined my dream, used me, threw away my life because of your arrogance! All you cared about was saving your own pathetic life.

He didn't scream, of course. He didn't even open his mouth, as always.

Something passed Raito's face, disappointment, maybe. He must have expected Teru to take the bait and finally snap out of his self-induced silence. Because it was true; Teru refused to speak, had so for weeks. Months, even. He lost count.

Raito's expression went back to neutral.

"Do you know what Mrs. Styrin thinks of you?" he started, his tone light. "She told me that you remind her of her little granddaughter, who went to live with her parents to America when she was three, and for one whole year stopped speaking altogether. They were worried about her, understandably, but the doctor told them that it was just the shock, and she would start speaking again in her own time. And eventually she did, in perfect English."

"I'm a little bit old for that, don't you think?" Teru replied, and his irises dilated at the sound of his voice that leaked out on its own accord, without his will commanding it, without even much coaxing from the other man. His tone was plain, stripped of all the honorifics he had been using before. He spoke as though he was addressing an equal.

"I see that your vocal chords haven't suffered any permanent damage," Raito stated matter-of-factly, but with a hint of surprise as well.

"So it would seem," Teru acquiesced. "I simply chose not to speak."

"So I gathered," Raito nodded and moved forward, lowering himself on the other end of the mattress in one swift, elegant, almost feline motion, a movement someone still recuperating from six gunshot wounds had no right to perform. He propped himself up on elbow, so their eyes were almost level, close but not quite touching. "Why start now?"

Teru was at loss how to answer this question, however expected.

"I got bored with it," he said finally. It sounded stupid even to his own ears, but it was the truth. The time for silence had passed.

Another strange, implacable expression flickered across Raito's face. "You remind me of someone I…" he started, but his voice soon faded away. Teru's eyes wandered up through the window, to the street where dusk was beginning to settle, and then back to his companion. He, too, reminded him of someone, or rather something. Not so much of Kira and all that happened, not anymore. Now, he mostly reminded him of Japan, of his whole life there. He had always thought that he had managed to live without attachments to just about anything in his life, and that he was ready to replant himself anywhere, taking into account the universality of all things human. But that was an illusion, just like when Kamo no Chōmei thought he could leave the material world simply by separating himself in a mountain hut, but the material world, though taken to a smaller scale and manifesting itself in simpler forms, followed.

Truth was that he was very firmly rooted in the culture that raised him, from simple things like what was the best blend of coffee in the vending machine he passed on his way to the train station, to the most complex rituals of polite interactions with people with different social standings. He was a small, yet perfectly functional part in a well-oiled mechanism. An ant in an anthill, if you want to be rude. He had strayed far from his anthill; for all purposes he became a man without a country, an outcast in a strange land.

"Do you miss Japan?" he asked, and again by doing so surprised himself. It must have been the solitude. Raito, too, seemed mildly surprised.

"I miss some things, yes," he said after a moment of hesitation. "Like the sound of the railway crossing. I was hearing it quite often in my dreams, when we first came here, but now it's become a rare occurrence. And school bells, too….weird, huh? Miso soup and some other foods, that too. Heck, I'd gladly eat nattō if it was possible, and I used to hate it. My sister loved it and she was always making fun of me because of that." Raito's eyes acquired a faraway look.

He misses his sister, Teru realized. The one who loved him and he let her get abducted by Mello, his mind immediately supplied.

"And you? Aren't you missing our homeland's cuisine?" Raito asked with forced nonchalance.

"A little. But I'm not very mindful about what I eat. I don't even have a favorite food. But perhaps a little sushi or tempura would be a welcome change."

The conversation stayed on a topic of food for a little while and Teru noticed Raito relaxing again. It left him feeling relieved, although why was that he couldn't fathom. Why would he care about Raito's discomfort caused by the memories of his sister - whom he hurt himself? If Raito was experiencing sadness or guilt, it only served him right, Teru told himself, but it sounded hollow. Later that evening, when Raito took out his notebook to write, Teru noticed that the vague sadness crept back onto his features.

When Teru came home from the woods one evening at the end of June, he was greeted by an unexpected sight: their cellar was scattered with flowers of all kinds and colors, some taken from gardens, others obviously just picked along the road. Some of the flowers were stuck in vases, most just in bottles and glasses. He reached for a brown coca-cola bottle filled with daisies, and noticed a small card lying beneath it. The card was filled with uneven letters written with a green crayon, and it said: "To my favorite teacher! Love, Kata."

He suddenly found it hard to breathe in the cellar and hastily came out, into the garden. There he spotted Mrs. Styrin, hunching over a row of strawberry plants and picking the berries into a basket. He immediately rolled his sleeves up and approached to help her, but she stopped him:

"Everybody is at the bonfire. You go too."

He didn't argue with her; it was a beautiful June evening and besides, he had never seen a real bonfire. He walked slowly toward the meadow where it was held, breathing in the scent of the early summer. When he passed a small pond on the way, he suddenly remembered Matsuo Bashō's notoriously famous haiku that they learned in elementary school: The ancient pond/ A frog leaps in/ The sound of the water.It was strange; while he was in Japan, he never thought of it.

The jumping frog made a sound, but the briefness of the form, surrounded by emptiness on both sides suggested the long silence that preceded and followed, and the insignificance of the short action in comparison to the stillness of the old pond. No matter how many people we saved or killed, our actions will eventually be swallowed by silence, Teru thought as he ascended the gentle slope of the hill leading to the bonfire site.

He could already hear voices and a guitar melody; soon he was greeted by the sight of flames surrounded by people talking and singing, drinking and eating. A few youngsters were already dancing, although it was a little bit early for that. This event, as Teru learnt earlier, was traditionally held at the end of June to celebrate the beginning of the summer holidays; he wasn't surprised to find all the village children there, with Raito in their midst. Teru searched for Marian and other loggers, but didn't see anyone. They probably stayed behind in the pub. Meanwhile, Raito noticed his arrival and waved at him, inviting him to come closer. While approaching the other man with obvious reluctance, Teru ran his eyes over the pack of children. Seeing his hesitation, Raito told the children something that sent them scurrying away like a flock of mice. The Pied Piper played his magic flute, Teru thought as he sat down on a log-turned-bench next to Raito.

"What did you tell them?"

"I told them that I saw a firefly down the stream."

Teru's face must have showed some doubts, for Raito spoke in a tone that showed both amusement and exasperation:

"What did you think? That I was building a child army here?"

Teru didn't comment on this, intent on watching the flames dancing in front of them.

"Aren't we too far north for fireflies?" he asked a moment later.

Raito just smiled, with flickers of flames dancing in his eyes.

"Hey!" Marian's voice boomed somewhere behind his back. Before Teru had the chance to turn around, a heavy hand fell on his shoulder.

"I thought ya no commin'," the logger said and gave him a broad smile, letting his golden teeth glitter in the firelight. "'s good ya come. Here," Marian's brown, well-muscled hand slid into his pocket and took out a small round bottle with no label, full of clear liquid.

"Thanks, but you know I don't-" Teru started, but Marian just waved his hand with a slight frown.

"No drink w'n work 's good. No drink tonite, ya offend da bonfire. 's from my baba. Only da bestest apples, no rott'n shit lyke sum assholes put into theirs. Ya wudn't want to offend my baba, too, wud ya?"

Taken back by Marian's impassioned speech and feeling not only his stare, but also the eyes of other loggers, who found their way to the bonfire, Teru unscrewed the bottle and gave its content a tentative sip. It didn't make him cough, but his throat felt like it was on fire. Somewhere beyond the burning sensation there was a faint trace of flavor.

"Great apples," Teru said politely and Marian clapped his shoulder, once again showing his prided teeth.

"I told ya, friend!"

Suddenly, Teru felt the bottle moving in his hands. He looked down to see Raito's long fingers twisting it away and then bringing it to his lips. Teru watched as Raito took a long gulp and flashed Marian a radiant smile that did not reach his eyes.

"Lovely taste, very gentle. Tell your mother my compliments."

Watching Marian walk away, muttering something he couldn't understand but sounding like curse-words, Teru couldn't help but wonder at Raito's behavior. It seemed absurd, but the way he looked at Marian was almost… jealous. I am the only person he has left from his old life; he doesn't want me to be friendly with others, because he sees me as his possession. That's all there is to it.

Still, Teru felt a twinge of irrational joy, resembling that he felt when he painted the walls. Foolish, he reprimanded himself and took a drink from the bottle. The burning sensation was a welcome distraction. But the word possession was still ringing in his ears all the time he was drinking and trying to focus on the flames or the people who by now started to jump through them, and the burning somehow transferred to his abdomen.

Raito didn't try to start a conversation with him, but he could feel his gaze lingering on him, and he couldn't bear it. He abruptly rose from the log with an intention to go home, but just a few steps showed the true strength of Marian's gift. Overwhelmed by a bout of dizziness, Teru had to struggle to stay standing.

"We can't let you walk alone in this state, can we?" a voice close to his ear sent shivers down his spine, and gentle but firm fingers took hold of his arm. Teru tried not to look at the other man and calm his suddenly ragged breathing, but deep down he knew it was useless, that Raito could read him like an open book. A mixture of fear, anticipation and arousal all added to the heady sensation caused by alcohol and he felt like he would burst if he didn't do something soon.

Warm June breeze brought a smell of water. The pond, Teru realized. Seized by a sudden impulse, he wrestled his way out from Raito's grip and headed for the water. He stumbled a little, but managed to reach the pond without falling. But before he could think of doing anything else, something hit him and caused him to lose his balance. He fell, only to find himself on top of Raito who was watching him with big brown eyes.

For a moment they were silent, listening to frogs and crickets. Then Teru breathed in the rich night air that smelled slightly of raspberries and leaned down for a kiss.

Raito accepted him readily and put his hands around the nape of Teru's neck, urging him to press closer. Teru complied and deepened the kiss, while his hands fumbled to unbutton Raito's pristine white shirt. Raito's torso was white, too; not luminously white like the shirt, but white in a dim, alluring way. Teru let his hands wander down the other's body, feeling the firm muscles and slightly protruding ribs. When his hand found its way down Raito's pants, he heard a silent gasp. While stroking the hard organ, he reveled in the sounds he was eliciting, in the thought that he was the one causing them. When his hand become wet and slick, he distantly thought that it should have felt dirtier than it did.

He shifted his weight and his own arousal become even more obvious. Raito pushed him away, only to shed the rest of his clothing. Teru swallowed. Raito rose slightly to kiss him on his lips.

"Do you want to…?"

Teru felt he was beginning to shake. God yes. God yes he wanted it, he wanted everything.

"I don't have anything for-" he started but couldn't finish his sentence, shocked how raspy his voice sounded.

"I don't mind. Let's do it all the way," Ratio replied with challenge clearly written in his eyes.

It was really tempting, but Teru remained undecided. It was going to be painful for the other man, he knew. But knowing that made his desire grow even stronger. Suddenly, Teru wanted to hurt Raito for what he had done, he truly did. But should he succumb to such low cravings?

Seeing his hesitation, Raito brought him closer for a kiss.

"Please, have me," he whispered.

Thatstrange, oddly sweet request had Teru completely undone. Please, have me… He couldn't fight it any longer. He lowered himself and started to enter the other man. The lack of lubrication made the entry slow and difficult, but after a few unsuccessful attempts that made Raito grit his tears in pain he was finally sheathed inside. And it was wonderful.

Teru wanted to go slow, but the overwhelming heat and tightness enveloping him and the realization of what exactly he was doing to whom made him use all his inhibitions. His thrusts grew faster and more forceful.

He tried to focus on Raito's face, to see if his eyebrows were still drawn together in pain, but he couldn't, his own pleasure was just too much. Then there was a little delightful moan that he knew wasn't his and it was enough to push him over the edge. He made no sound as he climaxed, but his whole body shuddered in the waves of the strongest orgasm he ever had.

Afterwards, they washed their bodies with water from the pond and lay back in the grass in silence side by side, with only their fingertips slightly touching. The sky wasn't clear tonight; instead the clouds hid most of the stars, except for one right above the middle of the pond.

Teru watched as it flickered and then disappeared behind a cloud, only to appear again… then it was gone… another flicker… he was slowly drifting to sleep, when suddenly he was roused by a tug at his hand.

"Let's go back, I want to show you something," he heard Raito say in a somewhat excited voice.

Teru rose and followed him without a thought. Watching the graceful figure of the man ahead of him, with the luminous white shirt clinging to his wet body, Teru was suddenly reminded of what Marian told him on the clearing the other day. White in the face, eyes like a doe. Hair soft as deer fur, moving as gracefully as a wildcat. Be careful and don't dance, or you'll drop down cold as stone.

Oh, but I did dance, and I dropped down cold as stone, Teru thought, his eyes never leaving the white figure in front of him. But then I stood up, and now I'm beginning to feel warm again.

When they reached the bonfire, it was almost deserted and the flames were burning low, with an occasional hint of blue. Raito came to the log where they were sitting and came back with a little satchel he used to bring to school with him. From the satchel he took out a familiar black notebook.

"So it begins again?" Teru asked, suddenly feeling very tired.

"Oh yes. But not in the way you think," Raito said and threw the Death Note into the fire. Before Teru could voice his shock, another notebook appeared in Raito's hands.

"I'm not taking the easy way out; I've written here everything that happened. So that we won't forget."

Teru didn't trust his voice, so he merely nodded. They watched as the pages curled and turned brown, and then eventually became ashes.

"What now?" Teru finally asked.

Raito turned to him and smiled, and for the first time Teru let himself not doubt the sincerity of his smile.

"Now, we live."

Fin