Deus Ex Machina - Chapter 21/?
Title: Deus Ex Machina - The Instruments of Fate
Chapter: 21/?
Pairings: Ohmiya, OhnoxOC, NinoxOC, AibaxOC + other background pairings
Rating: PG - 13, rating will go up
Disclaimer: I do not own Arashi
Beta: r_tenou
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty One - Bullet With Butterfly Wings
The world is a vampire, sent to drain
Secret destroyers, hold you up to the flames
And what do I get, for my pain?
Betrayed desires, and a piece of the game
Tell me I'm the only one
Jesus was the only son
Tell me I'm the chosen one
Someone will say what is lost can never be saved
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
And I still believe that I cannot be saved
Aubrey felt weightless. It was that surreal moment of vertigo before a fall, when gravity had yet to take effect and the body is freeform; simultaneously nowhere and everywhere. Every one of her companions had frozen as they were; Aiba and Sachi in pitiful tears, Jun protective and snarling, Sho in mid-action as though he were going to try and wrench his shoulder from the grasp of the man holding him, Ohno’s dark fathomless eyes fixed beyond her now, blind. It gave the illusion that time had stopped indefinitely. She kept waiting for the earth to pull her back and the impact to hit, for her own brain to process the words it had just heard, but she was flat out rejecting them, does not compute, along with everyone else.
All eyes were on Nino, even the faceless psychics, waiting. There was no way she could not look at him, the golden lights that flitted from the roving machine patterned over the dried blood and bruising of his slackened face like a kaleidoscope, the gore of his shoulder wound making him look even more pitiful; but it was in his eyes that true carnage was taking place. Aubrey could imagine the rolling waves of betrayal relentlessly crashing inside of him, greedy to climb over one another until he was flooded out completely. She’d never seen someone look so much like they were drowning.
It was torture for Aubrey to even look at him like that. Nino was easily angered, his ferocious temper set off by the smallest thing, and he was not shy about voicing his opinions at anytime, but when his small frame whooped in a breath - it was only to let out a silent sob. It wracked his chest, the sound of it robbed by the shrieking metal on metal. It wasn’t just the lack of screaming, anger, or the countless inventive obscenities he’d stored away for the perfect opportunity; it was that he was not reacting at all and that terrified Aubrey. She knew this horrible moment would pass one way or another if only Nino would do or say something, but the first sting of shock washed away from his expression and he seemed to collapse in on himself; devastated.
The violence came from an unexpected direction. Aubrey could feel it even before she’d managed to tear her eyes away from Nino’s face, the great drawing of power she’d felt in Tokyo Dome. It felt as if the floor had tipped on an axis as the atmosphere of the room began its slow motion shift in Ohno’s direction, his eyes two gaping black holes from which no light could escape.
To attack Johnny in his state wasn’t sane, but Ohno was beyond rationality now, beyond concern for anyone’s safety let alone his own. Though it felt like minutes, mere seconds were ticking by and Ohno had gone from wide-eyed shock, to grim worry, to black out rage in an instant, gathering the room’s energy to him like the sweeping arms of galaxies pulling in stars. Rocks began to levitate from the ground to rumble in a whole new nauseating rhythm than the steady grind of the machine. Aubrey felt her hair start to stand on end, her stomach pitch and roll with the movement of the earth beneath her feet. It was all happening too fast for her to react, yet Aubrey felt as if she were strapped into a seat and forced to watch a fifty car pile up be dragged out in slow agonizing detail.
Aubrey had to stop him, she could feel that resolve echo down the line as it began to dawn on her friends what was happening. Jun was the first to realize; it must be the ability of a source to feel the energy move about the room because Jun was off like a shot, throwing his entire body weight against his captor and knocking them both to the ground. It was hard to tell if Jun was trying to escape or protect the unsuspecting psychic because they lay unmoving, Jun pinning him, then laying himself flat on top with real fear in his eyes. Sho and Aiba simultaneously began to grapple with the men holding them, but they’d lost the element of surprise after Jun’s quick reaction and Sachi’s guard was yanking the trembling girl behind him in an attempt to shield her with his body. The only person not reacting was Nino, who was frozen in a permanent stasis. His hollow eyes were trained on the empty air in front of him and though blood from his wound had begun to trickle out to join the debris whipping about the room in loose ring he could not be roused.
Out of sheer desperation Aubrey managed to stumble two steps forward, towing the psychic locking her arms back with her but it was futile at best, for as soon as she started to move it was like a switch had been thrown and everything hurtled into forward motion. Before she could even breathe, those dark terrible eyes had flicked up to rest on Johnny and this time there was no slow down, no moment of zero gravity, and all the tension in the room ignited with a power that was so brilliantly blinding it momentarily whited out her vision completely. Aubrey felt a shockwave flatten her, swatting her down as if she were a fly and leaving her in a dazed and tangled heap. Her captor must have hit his head on the floor because he was out, and it was impossible to extract herself from his heavy limbs when surge after surge was bent on forcing her down again.
It was plain to see that Ohno was not in control. For all the force of his power, it wasn’t hitting anything accurately, rather it was flaring off him in great arcs. Aubrey wondered if it had been his intent to use his powers at all or if the current maelstrom was a result of an inevitable breakdown after years and years of torture, abuse, neglect and lies. Ohno had lunged across the short distance at Johnny the way she’d seen him launch himself at Aiba in the library, like a frenzied animal, only so much worse. This was not an Ohno who didn’t know what he was doing, this was an Ohno with vicious intent and a thirst for blood, and without rationality in place he just wanted to hurt Johnny the most immediate and primal way possible.
Even with Ohno perched on his chest like a tiger taking down it’s prey, even as Ohno wrapped those delicate artists hands around his neck, trying to both strangle and repeatedly bash his head against the ground, Johnny was laughing. It was truly sickening; blood poured from the older man’s nose, running into his open mouth as he both gasped for breath and gurgled out half choked peals of laughter. The sound of it rose above the chaos of the machine and the shouting and the psychic storm, only serving to send Ohno’s rage into overdrive.
“There you are,” Johnny gasped out with great glee, “There is my my son.” Ohno let out a wounded cry in response to the memories Johnny's words were rousing. They were broadcast loud and clear for everyone to witness in their heads, the horror that was Ohno's childhood spent in this hell. Aubrey was engulfed in his pain, the grief rolling out with every lash of energy and every memory surfacing, it was all she could do to keep trying to struggle to her hands and knees.
“You should be proud,” Johnny continued, not even trying to resist as Ohno attempted to wring the life from him, “you are so much stronger than I could have ever hoped -”
“My entire existence is a lie!” It was horrifying to hear Ohno yelling, but worse was how naked his face had become, all the emotions playing there for everyone to see. His mask had finally cracked, and what lay underneath was so terribly tragic. “My parents, my sister! Who were those people? How could you take them from me when they were all I had! How?” The laughter just went on and on.
Chaos erupted when psychics began pouring from the stone staircase, not even bothering to maintain their anonymity with the usual masks and cloaks. Aubrey was shocked by how young they were, some no more than ten or eleven while others looked to be around Sho’s age. No matter what kind of fearsome powers they fostered inside, they still looked so vulnerable in their checked pajama pants and house slippers, rubbing sleep from their eyes after being roused by the commotion. Each one of them was armed with a metal rod the length of her forearm and though it looked innocuous on its own, the dangerous bolts of angry blue electricity generated around the ends did not.
The boys converged on Ohno, or tried to; it was not easy to reach him with all the energy whipping around, but the few that did put their weird futuristic cattle prods to use trying to taser loose his stranglehold without mercy. With every strike Aubrey could see Ohno’s body jump in contact with the current but he would not be pried off, hell-bent on crushing Johnny’s windpipe.
The sharp cries of pain they wrung from him had Aubrey on her feet and running before she even knew she was standing, but when a slender body collided with hers, she sagged back to the ground and stared in frenzied confusion at the back of a bloodstained, white T-shirt. Her brain couldn’t process anything; she could barely see and the wind was howling in jarring competition with the metallic grinding of the machine, but the person who knocked her to the ground in their urgency staggered on.
“Oh-chan!” Somehow the feeble voice could be heard, despairingly faint but persistently desperate, and the figure leapt on Ohno’s back and locked their arms around his neck in a chokehold with little regard for the danger the surrounding young psychics presented. “Oh-chan you have to stop! You have to stop!”
“I’ll kill him!”
“NO! Satoshi please!” There was no mistaking the love injected into that name, or the slouch of his back even as he strained to haul a thrashing Ohno backwards, or the proud set to his jaw and a glare like the glittering edge of a knife as he kicked back at anyone trying to get near enough to use their weapon on them. Nino had come back to life at last, and even if only to save his beloved Ohno, it was enough for Aubrey, who couldn’t bear to keep struggling to force her body into mobility.
Nino is okay. She was flooded with relief; even if it was only temporary, the fire had crackled back to life in those snapping golden eyes. If there was anyone he would always return for, it was Ohno.
Nino had managed to pry Ohno from Johnny’s body (amazingly the man was still in gleeful hysterics despite the whooping and coughing) but he was still shaking Ohno and demanding he stop. It took Aubrey a minute to understand that Nino hadn’t meant to save Johnny at all, but was trying to get Ohno to recall the storm he’d inadvertently unleashed before he killed them all.
It was futile at best; Ohno’s eyes were still gaping holes in his cherubic face, now marked with several rusty red burns from the cattle prods, and he kept trying to lunge for Nino’s throat, unaware of who the true enemy was anymore. He was snarling and shivering all over, ranging from fine tremors to near convulsions. Aubrey could recognize the energy starvation now as the hurricane of power whipping around the room began to wind down. He’d run himself dry and was starting to go into shock.
Aubrey looked frantically for MatsuJun, but there were people laying injured and broken everywhere, blood splattered over the stone, some writhing in agony while others still were unconscious or maybe even dead. She couldn’t tell which one could be Jun, panic squeezing at her heart that the next broken body she laid eyes on could belong to him. There was no time to find him, Nino was shouting her name at a near sob.
Not calling her, she realized a beat to late, warning her. She was slammed backwards, her head connecting with the hard ground with a crack, causing blood red stars to burst behind her eyelids. There was no preamble as Ohno darted for that cold place on her neck and Aubrey realized it was going to hurt like a bitch. She was panicking, she knew she was, but this Ohno terrified her; it was impossible to try and bring to mind a memory of his true gentle nature, or the heady moments or contentment she’d felt with him previously. His lips bruised their way onto her neck and Aubrey was burning, every nerve alight with wildfire as he tore her life energy from her. Her body contracted in an agonizing convulsion; her back arched from the ground, contorting desperately, trying to escape a pain that was alive inside her and she knew she was screaming, any advice Jun had given her about relaxing and giving and trusting long forgotten.
It felt like hours writhing there in his hold, but when her body started to return to her, the pain dulling to a sharp echo of its former glory, she realized that Ohno was holding her, his vast brown eyes swimming with horror, full lips trembling and his pale cheeks flushed and damp. Jun was on his knees on one side of them, shouting Ohno def in one ear while Nino had thrown himself down on the other, shaking all over, but not out of anger. He knew what he’d been doing when he let Ohno go and if it had saved him it was the right thing to do, even if Nino looked like the guilt might swallow him up.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” She didn’t know if Ohno meant for her to hear these thoughts; all evidence pointed to the contrary, the words seemed more like a mantra he was chanting over and over to himself as remorse rocked his small frame. Whoever that snarling beast was, it was an animal Johnny had engineered - a hateful, violent, needful thing and if Ohno let it, it could consume him, had consumed him in that moment of despair when he’d abandoned all hope.
She’d seen inside him twice: unintentionally while he’d been making love to her and again on the rooftop when he’d been breaking her heart. There was darkness there, shame, regret and longing, but more than those things there was kindness; there was unconditional love for those four boys who were brave enough to call him leader, there were the brilliant and bold strokes he painted with that coloured his world view into something strange and beautiful. She could see them now returning to his eyes, the mysteries of the universe, the secrets and the promises and she thought,There you are. By his shaky exhale she knew he had heard her.
“Excellent,” Johnny’s voice cracked across her mind like a slap and their group turned in unison to see that he was on his feet once more, dusting at the blood that had burst from his ruptured nose to stain the collar of his shirt. He was beside himself in exuberance, those cruel eyes shining like a crack addict as they locked onto Ohno hungrily.
Ohno had turned to Nino in a silent exchange and Aubrey felt herself jostled into Jun’s lap, his arms clamping around her protectively. No, she wanted to call out to them again desperately. They couldn’t do this again; it had been idiotic the first time, it was suicide now with Johnny waiting for them to make some kind of move. “Really this is excellent.”
“Go to hell,” Nino muttered, clutching Ohno’s hand tightly in his stubby fingers, white knuckled and gaunt.
“Not today I am afraid,” Johnny replied. “It would seem you were a bit too energetic too soon. Would you like to go somewhere to cool down for a few minutes?” All the colour drained from Ohno’s face.
“No,” his tone was on the edge of coming unhinged again, and he was gripping Nino back with equal intensity. “No, Nino I - don’t let him take me there.” That ghost fear was back, reducing Ohno to a child again, and even as he tried to get a better grip on Nino the psychics were there trying to pry them apart. Nino was shouting, the voice he’d lost before flaring back to life as he struggled in their grasp. Johnny just shrugged and snapped his fingers, causing them both to blink out of existence and Aubrey was screaming again, lurching to sit up even as Jun tried to scoot them backwards and away from the spot that had formerly been occupied by his two best friends as if it would swallow them up too.
“You can both go,” Johnny said to the empty air.
* * * * *
For a moment Nino was worried he was dead. One minute he’d had about a dozen idiots on him, trying to drag him away from Ohno and now, now... Nino heaved in a whooping breath, suddenly desperate for it just to prove that he could still force air in and out of his lungs. He was unclear if his eyes were open or shut, but no matter how many times he blinked them the thick inky darkness surrounding him would not change. Am I dead? Am I really fucking dead? His mind was racing with about a dozen different scenarios: maybe his shoulder wound had finally bled out, or perhaps whatever power Johnny had used on them was just enough to finish him off; regardless, if he was dead then he was stuck in this strange sweaty, claustrophobic limbo forever; left to panic for eternity over things that he would never be able to change. Where was Ohno? Was Aubrey okay? Why hadn’t he let Ohno just kill Johnny and solve all their problems? Who was he now? Screw it, thinking wasn’t an option unless he wanted to throw himself headfirst willingly into hysteria.
He couldn’t see a damn thing, but his other senses were sharp; his shoulder still throbbed with waves of pain that threatened to bring him to near unconsciousness and in his ear he could practically hear the halting, stuttered gasps of a very frightened animal or possibly a person hyperventilating. He wondered if limbo contained packs of rabid panting dogs or if it was the sound of himself slowly working himself into a state that was reflecting back.
He tried to lift his limbs experimentally, which sent barbs of pain shooting through his body. Gritting his teeth, he found he could move his arms, wiggle his legs and turn his head from side to side; nothing was numb. When he tried to stand up, he smacked his head on a low ceiling and muttered every fuck word he knew - he could do nothing more than crouch or sit, one wall pressed solidly to his back and another immediately to his left. If he tried to fling his legs out before him, he could not extend them fully and had to settle for huddling with his knees tucked under his chin before his tailbone went numb from sitting crosslegged.
If not dead, then he was in a prison, a frighteningly small one from the oppressive feel of the walls breathing down his neck and the humid stickiness of the panicked air escaping his lungs. He kicked at the wall again out of frustration; they were extraordinarily solid and unforgiving.
“It’s not any use, Nino.” He startled again at that familiar voice, this time knocking his temple against the wall at his side, and tried to crush completely the myriad of conflicting emotions that threatened to run through him.
“Oh-chan.” It wasn’t a question. Nino would know that voice anywhere, in any state, even in another life - which, he realized, he may as well be in: everything he thought he knew about himself, though the list was small, turned out to be a complete fabrication. The relief that flooded him had a tranquilizing effect, leaving him in a state a lot like euphoria shot through with adrenaline. Nino felt a sweat-slicked palm grope his arm, before fumbling and finding his hand, squeezing his fingers in response. It was Ohno’s panicked breathing he was hearing, not his own, which was both comforting and agonizing. Now he knew he couldn’t be dead, because a world where Ohno was also dead was one he refused to acknowledge.
“Where are we?” But even as he voiced the question, Nino knew the answer. It was a room with no doors or windows, a room he had never been able to get into to save Ohno from as he was forced to listen to the older boy scream until he’d lost his voice completely. When they were children Nino had never seen the inside, but the haunted, vacant look Ohno would return with was enough to convince his young imagination that it was a room wrought with horrors.
Nino realized that he’d never been in true darkness before. Even at night there was always some sort of light, from the neon signs outside, the moon, even the gap under the door; light always found a way to slip and slide through the cracks. This was the first time he was completely devoid of any light source and he had to admit begrudgingly that it was scary. His mind wanted to invent all kinds of creative horrors that could be lurking in the space he couldn’t see just inches away from him. It was easy to see how someone could go crazy in here and he felt a fresh pang in his heart for Ohno, who’d spent days at a time locked in here, with not enough space to lay down and sleep, but not enough to stand up in either, feeling trapped and claustrophobic and terrified.
“You’ll get used to it,” Ohno muttered, picking up on his thoughts right away, “I did.”
It had become awkward between them. Though Ohno hadn’t let go of his hand, he’d scooted as far to the opposite wall as he could get, which wasn’t far at all considering that Nino could still feel the body heat radiating off him. He estimated there might be half a foot between their hips from the awkward angle his wrist was bent at, but it may as well have been the Grand Canyon. Nino wasn’t telepathic, but it had never taken much for him to read Ohno, even in his usual silences. Now he could read nothing in the atmosphere, as if the world stopped with him in this dark void and he was clutching a stranger’s hand.
“I’m so sorry,” he told that darkness in the barest of whispers. If he could have seen Ohno’s face, he would have never been able to get the words out; his voice died when he heard a sharp intake of breath and felt a tightened grip on his fingers. He was sorry for so many things that the words bottlenecked in his throat and refused to voice themselves, but Ohno could hear them.
He’d fallen right into Johnny’s trap, he’d acted like an idiot, he’d let jealousy consume him when we wasn’t even sure who he was jealous of. He’d hurt Ohno deeply and possibly fractured their relationship beyond repair and now he’d condemned him to this terrible truth, condemned him to being Johnny’s son, which divided them and blended them together simultaneously, until he wasn’t sure which parts of his memories were his and which were Ohno’s.
“I still came for you;” no matter what I’ll follow you anywhere. Nino wasn’t sure if he was meant to hear the tail end of that thought, but neither one of them exactly had their emotions in check. It was enough for Nino to be able to close the distance between them, to clamber into the older man’s lap and bury his face in the crux of his shoulder and break down.
“I did this to us, I damned us. I always thought that I was cursed, but now I don’t know if the burden has been lifted or it’s been doubled. I -” Ohno’s arms tightened around him and Nino stopped talking. He was projecting everything, the betrayal and the abandonment and the sick jealousy that at least Ohno had a father, the father that was his. Nino hated Johnny, hated him more than anything in this world, but without him he had nothing to define himself by. Ohno had Johnny and Ohno had Aubrey, but he couldn’t hate him; he could never.
“She loves you too, you know,”Ohno muttered, and Nino stiffened, feeling a jump in Ohno’s pulse at the mention of her.
“Dont -”
“She does, she just doesn’t know what it means yet,”
“Do you love me?” The question hung heavy in the air; there was no space between them to pull away, to hide, or for Nino to take it back and tucked under his chin, Nino could feel the strain in Ohno’s jaw as he hesitated.
“Not in the way you wanted me to.”
“Want,” Nino corrected automatically.
“No, wanted. You might be able to see the future Nino but I can feel the present. You are fighting for something that doesn’t even exist anymore,”
Frustrated beyond all belief, Nino fumbled in the dark, cupping those round cheeks in his hands and leaning up awkwardly to land a kiss on the corner of Ohno’s mouth. Correcting his path ruthlessly, he bruised his lips against the yielding ones beneath his, waiting for that surge of triumph and desire he knew would streak through him. He’d only been anticipating for this moment for ten years. He kissed Ohno with everything he had and felt nothing.
And Ohno let him, responding passively as Nino deepened the kiss, questing for something, anything that felt like the memory of the first time. Heaving a deep breath, Nino broke the kiss and rested his forehead against Ohno’s, letting them both catch their breath and tried not to feel the disappointment that was bubbling up inside him.
“How did you get so smart Jiichan?” He sighed, letting his lips brush Ohno’s again tentatively, just to test; it was like kissing his pillow.
“I’m not.” Ohno grinned, pecking Nino’s lips with a sense of finality as he wriggled under Nino’s straddling hips to get more comfortable. “It’s just that sometimes Nino is so stupid.” Nino tried to smile too but he felt like he was sinking. In one day everything that he’d ever known to be true had shattered just like that broken mirror of the future; maybe in Johnny’s sick way he was trying to show Nino his past.
“What do you see in her?” Nino asked at last, trying to keep the bitterness out of his tone and failing miserably. He couldn’t understand what it was about her that had woken Ohno up, brought him down to the plane of existence shared by the rest of the mortals; maybe if Nino could understand that, he would know why her presence disturbed him and nagged at his attention, why he wanted her so much.
Ohno didn’t respond in words; instead, an image blossomed behind Nino’s eyelids, if possible an even denser darkness took up his field of vision and he was settled with the weight of a younger Ohno’s deep despair and hopelessness. But he was waiting for something with every fibre of his being, and when it happened he knew he would have the strength to hold on until Johnny fetched him from this dark and cramped prison. He would wait if he had to wait forever.
“What was it?” Nino mouthed against Ohno’s lips afraid that making too much noise would startle it, like a frightened deer and it would bolt from him and he would never get to feel what it was that wound Ohno so tense with anticipation. But then something nagged at his consciousness, something that sparkled even if it was muffled by whatever psychic barrier was on this imprisoning box, a blazing meteor trail just beyond his reach. Younger Ohno had pressed himself against the pitted stone barrier, trying to will himself as close as possible to that spark of life, like someone lost in a desert throwing themselves at an oasis. Nino kept getting swallowed up by the memories Ohno was showing him, finding it difficult to separate the present from the past; but he was certain that blaze of life was a mind; sometimes it would come so close that Nino could almost hear it’s thoughts as if there were someone else pressed, as he was, on the just the other side of the stone wall that had become paper thin.
Aubrey. Nino knew it was her before he even had to ask, he recognized that presence and half of him was waiting with Ohno while the other half was transported back to the floor of his bedroom that first night he’d brought her home, feeling Aubrey’s mind ebb and flow through her dream patterns. She had always been there, just on the other side of Ohno’s cell, curious about him as he was about her, but how? Nino couldn’t understand until the first time light appeared. There was a door buried somewhere in this rock, and little by little, the more Aubrey came to linger on the other side, the more light filtered through around it’s edges until Nino could make out it’s shape, until he could see the impressions of his surroundings in the din.
“One day the door opened,” Ohno’s words prompted the door to do so in Nino’s mind, nearly blinding him as light spilled into his dark pit for the first moment in an immeasurable amount of time. He saw her then, so young and innocent, she looked like an angel framed in a holy glow, and though Nino wanted to scoff at the ridiculousness of it, her red hair looked like flame backlit by such a bright light and her wide eyes two deep, blue pools. She smiled at him and Nino knew with no trace of bitterness at all that she had been Ohno’s salvation. “After that day Johnny never put me in that room again. No matter what he did to me, I could stand it as long as I didn’t have to go back there. I could bear it all, until I hurt you.”
“Well it’s a good thing I don’t have to compete with that anymore,” Nino said shakily, returning back to the utter blackness of reality and the comfort of Ohno’s arms. He was relieved in a way, and in another fumbling through an completely new feeling of inadequacy. How the fuck was he supposed to even try to have any sort of feelings for Aubrey when it was abundantly clear that she and Ohno had some sort of star-crossed lovers bullshit happening? He remembered the feeling he’d gotten when he’d first brought Aubrey and Sachi back to the house, that feeling of two puzzle pieces locking into place as Aubrey looked at Ohno and he had gazed back. He remembered the future tripping over itself to write their story for him, to show him the end like a giant neon sign flashing Don’t even try!
“Too bad nothing has gone one bit the way it was written,” Ohno mumbled so quietly into his hair that Nino wasn’t even sure he’d heard him correctly.
Chapter: 21/?
Pairings: Ohmiya, OhnoxOC, NinoxOC, AibaxOC + other background pairings
Rating: PG - 13, rating will go up
Disclaimer: I do not own Arashi
Beta: r_tenou
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty One - Bullet With Butterfly Wings
The world is a vampire, sent to drain
Secret destroyers, hold you up to the flames
And what do I get, for my pain?
Betrayed desires, and a piece of the game
Tell me I'm the only one
Jesus was the only son
Tell me I'm the chosen one
Someone will say what is lost can never be saved
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
And I still believe that I cannot be saved
Aubrey felt weightless. It was that surreal moment of vertigo before a fall, when gravity had yet to take effect and the body is freeform; simultaneously nowhere and everywhere. Every one of her companions had frozen as they were; Aiba and Sachi in pitiful tears, Jun protective and snarling, Sho in mid-action as though he were going to try and wrench his shoulder from the grasp of the man holding him, Ohno’s dark fathomless eyes fixed beyond her now, blind. It gave the illusion that time had stopped indefinitely. She kept waiting for the earth to pull her back and the impact to hit, for her own brain to process the words it had just heard, but she was flat out rejecting them, does not compute, along with everyone else.
All eyes were on Nino, even the faceless psychics, waiting. There was no way she could not look at him, the golden lights that flitted from the roving machine patterned over the dried blood and bruising of his slackened face like a kaleidoscope, the gore of his shoulder wound making him look even more pitiful; but it was in his eyes that true carnage was taking place. Aubrey could imagine the rolling waves of betrayal relentlessly crashing inside of him, greedy to climb over one another until he was flooded out completely. She’d never seen someone look so much like they were drowning.
It was torture for Aubrey to even look at him like that. Nino was easily angered, his ferocious temper set off by the smallest thing, and he was not shy about voicing his opinions at anytime, but when his small frame whooped in a breath - it was only to let out a silent sob. It wracked his chest, the sound of it robbed by the shrieking metal on metal. It wasn’t just the lack of screaming, anger, or the countless inventive obscenities he’d stored away for the perfect opportunity; it was that he was not reacting at all and that terrified Aubrey. She knew this horrible moment would pass one way or another if only Nino would do or say something, but the first sting of shock washed away from his expression and he seemed to collapse in on himself; devastated.
The violence came from an unexpected direction. Aubrey could feel it even before she’d managed to tear her eyes away from Nino’s face, the great drawing of power she’d felt in Tokyo Dome. It felt as if the floor had tipped on an axis as the atmosphere of the room began its slow motion shift in Ohno’s direction, his eyes two gaping black holes from which no light could escape.
To attack Johnny in his state wasn’t sane, but Ohno was beyond rationality now, beyond concern for anyone’s safety let alone his own. Though it felt like minutes, mere seconds were ticking by and Ohno had gone from wide-eyed shock, to grim worry, to black out rage in an instant, gathering the room’s energy to him like the sweeping arms of galaxies pulling in stars. Rocks began to levitate from the ground to rumble in a whole new nauseating rhythm than the steady grind of the machine. Aubrey felt her hair start to stand on end, her stomach pitch and roll with the movement of the earth beneath her feet. It was all happening too fast for her to react, yet Aubrey felt as if she were strapped into a seat and forced to watch a fifty car pile up be dragged out in slow agonizing detail.
Aubrey had to stop him, she could feel that resolve echo down the line as it began to dawn on her friends what was happening. Jun was the first to realize; it must be the ability of a source to feel the energy move about the room because Jun was off like a shot, throwing his entire body weight against his captor and knocking them both to the ground. It was hard to tell if Jun was trying to escape or protect the unsuspecting psychic because they lay unmoving, Jun pinning him, then laying himself flat on top with real fear in his eyes. Sho and Aiba simultaneously began to grapple with the men holding them, but they’d lost the element of surprise after Jun’s quick reaction and Sachi’s guard was yanking the trembling girl behind him in an attempt to shield her with his body. The only person not reacting was Nino, who was frozen in a permanent stasis. His hollow eyes were trained on the empty air in front of him and though blood from his wound had begun to trickle out to join the debris whipping about the room in loose ring he could not be roused.
Out of sheer desperation Aubrey managed to stumble two steps forward, towing the psychic locking her arms back with her but it was futile at best, for as soon as she started to move it was like a switch had been thrown and everything hurtled into forward motion. Before she could even breathe, those dark terrible eyes had flicked up to rest on Johnny and this time there was no slow down, no moment of zero gravity, and all the tension in the room ignited with a power that was so brilliantly blinding it momentarily whited out her vision completely. Aubrey felt a shockwave flatten her, swatting her down as if she were a fly and leaving her in a dazed and tangled heap. Her captor must have hit his head on the floor because he was out, and it was impossible to extract herself from his heavy limbs when surge after surge was bent on forcing her down again.
It was plain to see that Ohno was not in control. For all the force of his power, it wasn’t hitting anything accurately, rather it was flaring off him in great arcs. Aubrey wondered if it had been his intent to use his powers at all or if the current maelstrom was a result of an inevitable breakdown after years and years of torture, abuse, neglect and lies. Ohno had lunged across the short distance at Johnny the way she’d seen him launch himself at Aiba in the library, like a frenzied animal, only so much worse. This was not an Ohno who didn’t know what he was doing, this was an Ohno with vicious intent and a thirst for blood, and without rationality in place he just wanted to hurt Johnny the most immediate and primal way possible.
Even with Ohno perched on his chest like a tiger taking down it’s prey, even as Ohno wrapped those delicate artists hands around his neck, trying to both strangle and repeatedly bash his head against the ground, Johnny was laughing. It was truly sickening; blood poured from the older man’s nose, running into his open mouth as he both gasped for breath and gurgled out half choked peals of laughter. The sound of it rose above the chaos of the machine and the shouting and the psychic storm, only serving to send Ohno’s rage into overdrive.
“There you are,” Johnny gasped out with great glee, “There is my my son.” Ohno let out a wounded cry in response to the memories Johnny's words were rousing. They were broadcast loud and clear for everyone to witness in their heads, the horror that was Ohno's childhood spent in this hell. Aubrey was engulfed in his pain, the grief rolling out with every lash of energy and every memory surfacing, it was all she could do to keep trying to struggle to her hands and knees.
“You should be proud,” Johnny continued, not even trying to resist as Ohno attempted to wring the life from him, “you are so much stronger than I could have ever hoped -”
“My entire existence is a lie!” It was horrifying to hear Ohno yelling, but worse was how naked his face had become, all the emotions playing there for everyone to see. His mask had finally cracked, and what lay underneath was so terribly tragic. “My parents, my sister! Who were those people? How could you take them from me when they were all I had! How?” The laughter just went on and on.
Chaos erupted when psychics began pouring from the stone staircase, not even bothering to maintain their anonymity with the usual masks and cloaks. Aubrey was shocked by how young they were, some no more than ten or eleven while others looked to be around Sho’s age. No matter what kind of fearsome powers they fostered inside, they still looked so vulnerable in their checked pajama pants and house slippers, rubbing sleep from their eyes after being roused by the commotion. Each one of them was armed with a metal rod the length of her forearm and though it looked innocuous on its own, the dangerous bolts of angry blue electricity generated around the ends did not.
The boys converged on Ohno, or tried to; it was not easy to reach him with all the energy whipping around, but the few that did put their weird futuristic cattle prods to use trying to taser loose his stranglehold without mercy. With every strike Aubrey could see Ohno’s body jump in contact with the current but he would not be pried off, hell-bent on crushing Johnny’s windpipe.
The sharp cries of pain they wrung from him had Aubrey on her feet and running before she even knew she was standing, but when a slender body collided with hers, she sagged back to the ground and stared in frenzied confusion at the back of a bloodstained, white T-shirt. Her brain couldn’t process anything; she could barely see and the wind was howling in jarring competition with the metallic grinding of the machine, but the person who knocked her to the ground in their urgency staggered on.
“Oh-chan!” Somehow the feeble voice could be heard, despairingly faint but persistently desperate, and the figure leapt on Ohno’s back and locked their arms around his neck in a chokehold with little regard for the danger the surrounding young psychics presented. “Oh-chan you have to stop! You have to stop!”
“I’ll kill him!”
“NO! Satoshi please!” There was no mistaking the love injected into that name, or the slouch of his back even as he strained to haul a thrashing Ohno backwards, or the proud set to his jaw and a glare like the glittering edge of a knife as he kicked back at anyone trying to get near enough to use their weapon on them. Nino had come back to life at last, and even if only to save his beloved Ohno, it was enough for Aubrey, who couldn’t bear to keep struggling to force her body into mobility.
Nino is okay. She was flooded with relief; even if it was only temporary, the fire had crackled back to life in those snapping golden eyes. If there was anyone he would always return for, it was Ohno.
Nino had managed to pry Ohno from Johnny’s body (amazingly the man was still in gleeful hysterics despite the whooping and coughing) but he was still shaking Ohno and demanding he stop. It took Aubrey a minute to understand that Nino hadn’t meant to save Johnny at all, but was trying to get Ohno to recall the storm he’d inadvertently unleashed before he killed them all.
It was futile at best; Ohno’s eyes were still gaping holes in his cherubic face, now marked with several rusty red burns from the cattle prods, and he kept trying to lunge for Nino’s throat, unaware of who the true enemy was anymore. He was snarling and shivering all over, ranging from fine tremors to near convulsions. Aubrey could recognize the energy starvation now as the hurricane of power whipping around the room began to wind down. He’d run himself dry and was starting to go into shock.
Aubrey looked frantically for MatsuJun, but there were people laying injured and broken everywhere, blood splattered over the stone, some writhing in agony while others still were unconscious or maybe even dead. She couldn’t tell which one could be Jun, panic squeezing at her heart that the next broken body she laid eyes on could belong to him. There was no time to find him, Nino was shouting her name at a near sob.
Not calling her, she realized a beat to late, warning her. She was slammed backwards, her head connecting with the hard ground with a crack, causing blood red stars to burst behind her eyelids. There was no preamble as Ohno darted for that cold place on her neck and Aubrey realized it was going to hurt like a bitch. She was panicking, she knew she was, but this Ohno terrified her; it was impossible to try and bring to mind a memory of his true gentle nature, or the heady moments or contentment she’d felt with him previously. His lips bruised their way onto her neck and Aubrey was burning, every nerve alight with wildfire as he tore her life energy from her. Her body contracted in an agonizing convulsion; her back arched from the ground, contorting desperately, trying to escape a pain that was alive inside her and she knew she was screaming, any advice Jun had given her about relaxing and giving and trusting long forgotten.
It felt like hours writhing there in his hold, but when her body started to return to her, the pain dulling to a sharp echo of its former glory, she realized that Ohno was holding her, his vast brown eyes swimming with horror, full lips trembling and his pale cheeks flushed and damp. Jun was on his knees on one side of them, shouting Ohno def in one ear while Nino had thrown himself down on the other, shaking all over, but not out of anger. He knew what he’d been doing when he let Ohno go and if it had saved him it was the right thing to do, even if Nino looked like the guilt might swallow him up.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” She didn’t know if Ohno meant for her to hear these thoughts; all evidence pointed to the contrary, the words seemed more like a mantra he was chanting over and over to himself as remorse rocked his small frame. Whoever that snarling beast was, it was an animal Johnny had engineered - a hateful, violent, needful thing and if Ohno let it, it could consume him, had consumed him in that moment of despair when he’d abandoned all hope.
She’d seen inside him twice: unintentionally while he’d been making love to her and again on the rooftop when he’d been breaking her heart. There was darkness there, shame, regret and longing, but more than those things there was kindness; there was unconditional love for those four boys who were brave enough to call him leader, there were the brilliant and bold strokes he painted with that coloured his world view into something strange and beautiful. She could see them now returning to his eyes, the mysteries of the universe, the secrets and the promises and she thought,There you are. By his shaky exhale she knew he had heard her.
“Excellent,” Johnny’s voice cracked across her mind like a slap and their group turned in unison to see that he was on his feet once more, dusting at the blood that had burst from his ruptured nose to stain the collar of his shirt. He was beside himself in exuberance, those cruel eyes shining like a crack addict as they locked onto Ohno hungrily.
Ohno had turned to Nino in a silent exchange and Aubrey felt herself jostled into Jun’s lap, his arms clamping around her protectively. No, she wanted to call out to them again desperately. They couldn’t do this again; it had been idiotic the first time, it was suicide now with Johnny waiting for them to make some kind of move. “Really this is excellent.”
“Go to hell,” Nino muttered, clutching Ohno’s hand tightly in his stubby fingers, white knuckled and gaunt.
“Not today I am afraid,” Johnny replied. “It would seem you were a bit too energetic too soon. Would you like to go somewhere to cool down for a few minutes?” All the colour drained from Ohno’s face.
“No,” his tone was on the edge of coming unhinged again, and he was gripping Nino back with equal intensity. “No, Nino I - don’t let him take me there.” That ghost fear was back, reducing Ohno to a child again, and even as he tried to get a better grip on Nino the psychics were there trying to pry them apart. Nino was shouting, the voice he’d lost before flaring back to life as he struggled in their grasp. Johnny just shrugged and snapped his fingers, causing them both to blink out of existence and Aubrey was screaming again, lurching to sit up even as Jun tried to scoot them backwards and away from the spot that had formerly been occupied by his two best friends as if it would swallow them up too.
“You can both go,” Johnny said to the empty air.
* * * * *
For a moment Nino was worried he was dead. One minute he’d had about a dozen idiots on him, trying to drag him away from Ohno and now, now... Nino heaved in a whooping breath, suddenly desperate for it just to prove that he could still force air in and out of his lungs. He was unclear if his eyes were open or shut, but no matter how many times he blinked them the thick inky darkness surrounding him would not change. Am I dead? Am I really fucking dead? His mind was racing with about a dozen different scenarios: maybe his shoulder wound had finally bled out, or perhaps whatever power Johnny had used on them was just enough to finish him off; regardless, if he was dead then he was stuck in this strange sweaty, claustrophobic limbo forever; left to panic for eternity over things that he would never be able to change. Where was Ohno? Was Aubrey okay? Why hadn’t he let Ohno just kill Johnny and solve all their problems? Who was he now? Screw it, thinking wasn’t an option unless he wanted to throw himself headfirst willingly into hysteria.
He couldn’t see a damn thing, but his other senses were sharp; his shoulder still throbbed with waves of pain that threatened to bring him to near unconsciousness and in his ear he could practically hear the halting, stuttered gasps of a very frightened animal or possibly a person hyperventilating. He wondered if limbo contained packs of rabid panting dogs or if it was the sound of himself slowly working himself into a state that was reflecting back.
He tried to lift his limbs experimentally, which sent barbs of pain shooting through his body. Gritting his teeth, he found he could move his arms, wiggle his legs and turn his head from side to side; nothing was numb. When he tried to stand up, he smacked his head on a low ceiling and muttered every fuck word he knew - he could do nothing more than crouch or sit, one wall pressed solidly to his back and another immediately to his left. If he tried to fling his legs out before him, he could not extend them fully and had to settle for huddling with his knees tucked under his chin before his tailbone went numb from sitting crosslegged.
If not dead, then he was in a prison, a frighteningly small one from the oppressive feel of the walls breathing down his neck and the humid stickiness of the panicked air escaping his lungs. He kicked at the wall again out of frustration; they were extraordinarily solid and unforgiving.
“It’s not any use, Nino.” He startled again at that familiar voice, this time knocking his temple against the wall at his side, and tried to crush completely the myriad of conflicting emotions that threatened to run through him.
“Oh-chan.” It wasn’t a question. Nino would know that voice anywhere, in any state, even in another life - which, he realized, he may as well be in: everything he thought he knew about himself, though the list was small, turned out to be a complete fabrication. The relief that flooded him had a tranquilizing effect, leaving him in a state a lot like euphoria shot through with adrenaline. Nino felt a sweat-slicked palm grope his arm, before fumbling and finding his hand, squeezing his fingers in response. It was Ohno’s panicked breathing he was hearing, not his own, which was both comforting and agonizing. Now he knew he couldn’t be dead, because a world where Ohno was also dead was one he refused to acknowledge.
“Where are we?” But even as he voiced the question, Nino knew the answer. It was a room with no doors or windows, a room he had never been able to get into to save Ohno from as he was forced to listen to the older boy scream until he’d lost his voice completely. When they were children Nino had never seen the inside, but the haunted, vacant look Ohno would return with was enough to convince his young imagination that it was a room wrought with horrors.
Nino realized that he’d never been in true darkness before. Even at night there was always some sort of light, from the neon signs outside, the moon, even the gap under the door; light always found a way to slip and slide through the cracks. This was the first time he was completely devoid of any light source and he had to admit begrudgingly that it was scary. His mind wanted to invent all kinds of creative horrors that could be lurking in the space he couldn’t see just inches away from him. It was easy to see how someone could go crazy in here and he felt a fresh pang in his heart for Ohno, who’d spent days at a time locked in here, with not enough space to lay down and sleep, but not enough to stand up in either, feeling trapped and claustrophobic and terrified.
“You’ll get used to it,” Ohno muttered, picking up on his thoughts right away, “I did.”
It had become awkward between them. Though Ohno hadn’t let go of his hand, he’d scooted as far to the opposite wall as he could get, which wasn’t far at all considering that Nino could still feel the body heat radiating off him. He estimated there might be half a foot between their hips from the awkward angle his wrist was bent at, but it may as well have been the Grand Canyon. Nino wasn’t telepathic, but it had never taken much for him to read Ohno, even in his usual silences. Now he could read nothing in the atmosphere, as if the world stopped with him in this dark void and he was clutching a stranger’s hand.
“I’m so sorry,” he told that darkness in the barest of whispers. If he could have seen Ohno’s face, he would have never been able to get the words out; his voice died when he heard a sharp intake of breath and felt a tightened grip on his fingers. He was sorry for so many things that the words bottlenecked in his throat and refused to voice themselves, but Ohno could hear them.
He’d fallen right into Johnny’s trap, he’d acted like an idiot, he’d let jealousy consume him when we wasn’t even sure who he was jealous of. He’d hurt Ohno deeply and possibly fractured their relationship beyond repair and now he’d condemned him to this terrible truth, condemned him to being Johnny’s son, which divided them and blended them together simultaneously, until he wasn’t sure which parts of his memories were his and which were Ohno’s.
“I still came for you;” no matter what I’ll follow you anywhere. Nino wasn’t sure if he was meant to hear the tail end of that thought, but neither one of them exactly had their emotions in check. It was enough for Nino to be able to close the distance between them, to clamber into the older man’s lap and bury his face in the crux of his shoulder and break down.
“I did this to us, I damned us. I always thought that I was cursed, but now I don’t know if the burden has been lifted or it’s been doubled. I -” Ohno’s arms tightened around him and Nino stopped talking. He was projecting everything, the betrayal and the abandonment and the sick jealousy that at least Ohno had a father, the father that was his. Nino hated Johnny, hated him more than anything in this world, but without him he had nothing to define himself by. Ohno had Johnny and Ohno had Aubrey, but he couldn’t hate him; he could never.
“She loves you too, you know,”Ohno muttered, and Nino stiffened, feeling a jump in Ohno’s pulse at the mention of her.
“Dont -”
“She does, she just doesn’t know what it means yet,”
“Do you love me?” The question hung heavy in the air; there was no space between them to pull away, to hide, or for Nino to take it back and tucked under his chin, Nino could feel the strain in Ohno’s jaw as he hesitated.
“Not in the way you wanted me to.”
“Want,” Nino corrected automatically.
“No, wanted. You might be able to see the future Nino but I can feel the present. You are fighting for something that doesn’t even exist anymore,”
Frustrated beyond all belief, Nino fumbled in the dark, cupping those round cheeks in his hands and leaning up awkwardly to land a kiss on the corner of Ohno’s mouth. Correcting his path ruthlessly, he bruised his lips against the yielding ones beneath his, waiting for that surge of triumph and desire he knew would streak through him. He’d only been anticipating for this moment for ten years. He kissed Ohno with everything he had and felt nothing.
And Ohno let him, responding passively as Nino deepened the kiss, questing for something, anything that felt like the memory of the first time. Heaving a deep breath, Nino broke the kiss and rested his forehead against Ohno’s, letting them both catch their breath and tried not to feel the disappointment that was bubbling up inside him.
“How did you get so smart Jiichan?” He sighed, letting his lips brush Ohno’s again tentatively, just to test; it was like kissing his pillow.
“I’m not.” Ohno grinned, pecking Nino’s lips with a sense of finality as he wriggled under Nino’s straddling hips to get more comfortable. “It’s just that sometimes Nino is so stupid.” Nino tried to smile too but he felt like he was sinking. In one day everything that he’d ever known to be true had shattered just like that broken mirror of the future; maybe in Johnny’s sick way he was trying to show Nino his past.
“What do you see in her?” Nino asked at last, trying to keep the bitterness out of his tone and failing miserably. He couldn’t understand what it was about her that had woken Ohno up, brought him down to the plane of existence shared by the rest of the mortals; maybe if Nino could understand that, he would know why her presence disturbed him and nagged at his attention, why he wanted her so much.
Ohno didn’t respond in words; instead, an image blossomed behind Nino’s eyelids, if possible an even denser darkness took up his field of vision and he was settled with the weight of a younger Ohno’s deep despair and hopelessness. But he was waiting for something with every fibre of his being, and when it happened he knew he would have the strength to hold on until Johnny fetched him from this dark and cramped prison. He would wait if he had to wait forever.
“What was it?” Nino mouthed against Ohno’s lips afraid that making too much noise would startle it, like a frightened deer and it would bolt from him and he would never get to feel what it was that wound Ohno so tense with anticipation. But then something nagged at his consciousness, something that sparkled even if it was muffled by whatever psychic barrier was on this imprisoning box, a blazing meteor trail just beyond his reach. Younger Ohno had pressed himself against the pitted stone barrier, trying to will himself as close as possible to that spark of life, like someone lost in a desert throwing themselves at an oasis. Nino kept getting swallowed up by the memories Ohno was showing him, finding it difficult to separate the present from the past; but he was certain that blaze of life was a mind; sometimes it would come so close that Nino could almost hear it’s thoughts as if there were someone else pressed, as he was, on the just the other side of the stone wall that had become paper thin.
Aubrey. Nino knew it was her before he even had to ask, he recognized that presence and half of him was waiting with Ohno while the other half was transported back to the floor of his bedroom that first night he’d brought her home, feeling Aubrey’s mind ebb and flow through her dream patterns. She had always been there, just on the other side of Ohno’s cell, curious about him as he was about her, but how? Nino couldn’t understand until the first time light appeared. There was a door buried somewhere in this rock, and little by little, the more Aubrey came to linger on the other side, the more light filtered through around it’s edges until Nino could make out it’s shape, until he could see the impressions of his surroundings in the din.
“One day the door opened,” Ohno’s words prompted the door to do so in Nino’s mind, nearly blinding him as light spilled into his dark pit for the first moment in an immeasurable amount of time. He saw her then, so young and innocent, she looked like an angel framed in a holy glow, and though Nino wanted to scoff at the ridiculousness of it, her red hair looked like flame backlit by such a bright light and her wide eyes two deep, blue pools. She smiled at him and Nino knew with no trace of bitterness at all that she had been Ohno’s salvation. “After that day Johnny never put me in that room again. No matter what he did to me, I could stand it as long as I didn’t have to go back there. I could bear it all, until I hurt you.”
“Well it’s a good thing I don’t have to compete with that anymore,” Nino said shakily, returning back to the utter blackness of reality and the comfort of Ohno’s arms. He was relieved in a way, and in another fumbling through an completely new feeling of inadequacy. How the fuck was he supposed to even try to have any sort of feelings for Aubrey when it was abundantly clear that she and Ohno had some sort of star-crossed lovers bullshit happening? He remembered the feeling he’d gotten when he’d first brought Aubrey and Sachi back to the house, that feeling of two puzzle pieces locking into place as Aubrey looked at Ohno and he had gazed back. He remembered the future tripping over itself to write their story for him, to show him the end like a giant neon sign flashing Don’t even try!
“Too bad nothing has gone one bit the way it was written,” Ohno mumbled so quietly into his hair that Nino wasn’t even sure he’d heard him correctly.