Author: Chauni
Email: asukalangley2nd@yahoo.com
RP
session:
Kazu, TMW
Notes: This was written in response to a fic Sha is currently writing,
leading this to take place after hers. I’m taking a bit of literary license; I
figure that Kazu could tap into the well of Azrael’s power if he was pushed
hard enough (and this is a big push).
~Moby
Lies. Lies. Filthy damning lies, because this
couldn’t be real, not real, never real. Grem wouldn’t leave him, abandon,
desert him. He couldn’t, because he loved him, cared for him, swore to
him. Gremory… Gremory wouldn’t hurt him like this, wouldn’t destroy him, his
dreams, his very fucking existence like this!
“We’re very sorry, Mr. Takeuchi,” one of the nurses said, dull, routine, words spoken a hundred times before with a different name attached. White noise. Cruel reality. But a reality that didn’t exist, couldn’t exist, because there was nothing without Gremory. Nothing.
Void. Oblivion. Death.
Death. Sweet beautiful Death.
Black-haired, steel-eyed Death.
Beeping became erratic and flat
eyes found the heart monitor. Oh. So that was the sound he heard, that
underlying bass that drowned out his own nothingness of thoughts. Somewhere,
something was half-conscious, but it spread lukewarm pain through his head.
He didn’t like it. It spoke to him, a vaguely
familiar voice that spoke of rational solutions, of logical reasoning. But
there was no logical in a word that would take Gremory away from him.
His throat. Why did his throat hurt? Oh, the tube
they had removed, to help him breathe, to keep him living, dead cells
recreating, for what? A chance at this?
And he was screaming. When did that start? Didn’t
matter. The nurses looked scared, but he couldn’t fathom why. He glanced at his
hand, to the IV dripping onto his bed from the red-rusted needle-tip.
Feet clad in cheap fleece socks found the floor as
he swung out of bed, wave of nausea washing over him. He almost vomited, could
taste the burning bile crawling up his throat, but he swallowed it back down.
The nurses were crying out, calling for an army of white coats it seemed, and
he felt their hands on him, calming him, soothing, failing.
Dead eyes glanced up, and he raised one hand,
molasses in the air. He swept it across his body, such an action to be followed
by the trill shrieks of both nurses. Blue scrubs blossomed with crimson,
unfurling petals against blue sky, and he stepped past them as he dropped to
their knees, grasping the sudden wounds at their chests.
The hallways were filled with people, buzzing little
bees in their nests as they traveled in and out of rooms. Everything was white,
or shades of white, false lies of white, of purity, of Heaven. But Heaven
wasn’t really Heaven was it? It was Hell, Hell with some boxes, cruel boxes.
Boxes that had held his Gremory.
A phone. A phone. He needed one, so he could call
Kyosuke, tell him what happened, explain. He should know, had a right to know,
to understand that this wasn’t because of him.
People were yelling, and he looked up at him,
dragging weary eyes towards the sound of their voices. The half-asleep voice
was screaming, telling him not to do this, to abuse the power, to harm
innocents in such a manner, but it was all white noise, another cursed reality
that never really mattered.
One hand swept in front of his delicate body, hands
that had caressed blessed flesh now whispering of powers that should have
stayed dormant. Blood from those closeby filled the cracks of floor tile,
creeks running through ceramic cream dams. White walls were filled with trauma
room screams on an ICU ward.
Kazu walked through, unconcerned, disinterested.
Against one wall perched a phone, burdened with the weight of a million buttons.
It took seven attempts before he could dial outside of the hospital, and three
before he was able to get the correct number. Four rings. Eight brief
successions. Soft voice, tired, filtering along wires and microphones,
mechanics.
“Hello?”
Had he still be screaming? His throat still hurt.
“Kyosuke?”
“…Kazu?” Concern slid through, tangible, edible. Why
was it there? Did he sound that bad? “Are you…’kay?”
“Grem’s dead.” And it sounded so easy, so
lighthearted, so unbelievable, so…not real.
“…fuck. Where are y--”
“Watch the news tonight.”
“What?”
“I have to go. He’s calling.”
“Kazu, Kazu!”
“I love you, Kyosuke. I’ve always loved you.”
“Kazu, stop it! Tell me where the fuck you ar--”
“Goodbye, Kyosuke, Nathanael.”
“Godd--”
The headset met the cradle, lingering there as he
stared it. He had said it, had made it real with his words.
Grem was gone. Gremory had left him. Forever and
ever. And there was nothing he could do to bring him back. He was dead, dead
and decomposing and not real anymore, not again, not ever again. And he had
done it all by his own hand, his own shaking hand.
Kazu tipped back his head, scream echoing off the
walls as hot tears trickled down his face, searing lava. He hoped Grem could
see him from where ever he was now, could feel the anguish, the Hell he was
going through; he hoped he felt it, savored it, felt guilty over it, burned
from it.
“COME BACK, YOU BASTARD!” Supple flesh along
faded scars split, trailing blood as six jagged bones poked through, the ends
dripping tears of crimson. No knowledge of the shattered appendages crossed his
features; he was beyond the flesh. “You lied to me! You said you loved
me! But you left me! You promised me! PROMISED ME!”
People were flocked and crowded at the end of the
hallway, whispering over this strange figure with six shattered bones driving
forth from the smooth flesh of his tattooed back. Socked feet whirled, and his
eyes narrowed, nearly black under shadowing lashes. The first wave of people
were driven back, stumbling, wounds leaking scarlet waterfalls over eyes,
across legs, painting the walls with pain.
Kazu turned once more, stalking down the hall
towards the elevators, listening to the crowd behind him. People were
whispering, panicked, paranoid, and he simply laughed to himself. Weak Kazu.
Pacifist Kazu. Chickenshit. Coward. Cunt. And he had a dozen people scared
shitless, and another dozen left bleeding.
He pressed a button and watched the numbers descend.
Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Numbers stopped, metal doors swishing open in a rush.
Oh, look, honey, we’re in Hell!
Stepping inside, he pressed the button for the roof.
Doors slid shut, gears turning, and the little car was pulled towards
salvation. Thin arms peeking out of his pathetic hospital gown wrapped around
him, bitter tears trekking down his smooth face. He could feel the bruises
against his cheeks, dark violets opening beneath the moonlight. Reminders. More
pain Grem left him with. Just another set of scars.
“I…”
Manicured nails, still crusted with blood, clawed at
his arms, giving way to swollen flesh, then parting for fresh blood. Did anyone
think he could really go on now? Did anyone even give him a shot in hell? Even
if he decided to try, he would simply waste away, shrivel, blow away on dust.
There would be no sunrise without Gremory, no moonlight, nothing but an eternal
dusk that never faded, never passed.
“I hate…”
Azrael was a siren of caution in his head, and he
closed his eyes to it. What did he know? What the hell did he know!? He
hadn’t been abandoned. He hadn’t been destroyed. He didn’t know the
agony that he was going through now. How could he ever look at Kyosuke? Gabe?
How could he linger in the same room as Kem and Zad when he knew, knewknewknew,
he would never feel that sort of happiness again.
“I hate you, Grem!” Cruel words shattered,
cracking on his lips as he spat them. “I hate you! You only wanted to hurt me!
That was your plan all along! To decimate me! Your lies! Your promises! My
heart! All weapons, all out to destroy me!
“And you fucking succeeded!”
A fragile fist struck the car wall, shaking it
minutely. Pain lanced up his arm, but the sobs being wrenched from his
agonizing throat blocked out the shattered knuckles. His cheek, burdened with
obese tears, pressed against the slick metal, smearing the depression across
it.
“Why did you go? Why?”
He hated it, the way the world kept turning, the way
he knew someone out there was smiling. He hated the agony, the emptiness, this…
loss. He hated everything, everyone, every solution and the problem it
was birthed from. He simply hated.
A bashful chime signaled the roof, the doors sliding
noisily open a second later. Burning light filtered in, radiant, fire strewn
across the threshold and kissing his feet. Pulling himself together, he
stumbled out from elevator, socks shuffling against the smooth cement, warmed
by a beautiful sunset. The sky bled for him, for his loss, and he raised his
hand to his mouth to choke back the sobs.
The diamonds on his finger amid golden fiery light
was a fatal knife wound in his soul.
Lips parted, moist with strings of spit from the tears in his throat and
threading them together like bad stitch work. The ring. The physical embodiment
of a promise. The only evidence he had that Grem had truly ever loved him. The
only thing he had left.
He dropped to his knees, scraping and bruising the
delicate flesh so close to his bones. Turning his head to the side, his mouth
dried completely before his stomach rejected what little nourishment it had
sustained and he vomited bile onto the blacktop. Blood was threaded through it,
bright like fireworks, but he didn’t care, didn’t care much about anything.
“I…I loved you…” he whispered, crawling towards the
ledge. The world was a mixed pallet of blurry reds and grays through the tears
locked in his eyes. “Where did you go? I loved you. I loved you, Gremory. We
were going to spend forever together. We… we were going to get married and…be
together and now you’re…
“…you’re g-gone…”
The half-vomit was still burning his mouth, even as
he peeked over the building edge. He wondered what it would be like, to fall,
to be suspended by gusts of wind before there was just nothing.
He wondered if Gremory thought about him as he was
dying.
He wondered if Gremory had been afraid, if Grem had
hated him, had whispered his name.
“…come back…Gremory, if you love me, c-come back.
You’re not really d-dead; you can’t be. It’s not time yet; it wasn’t long
enough. C-come back.
“I forgive you…
“P-please…”
Arms, thin and trickling rust-colored blood, folded
on the ledge as he stared at the sun. His chest was aching and painful as his
heart shattered over and over and over again with each breath. Tears burned
wind-blessed cheeks, but he wasn’t feeling them. All the nerves had shut down,
aside from the ones in his chest. It hadn’t hurt this badly when his mother had
left him, and that was a strange thought.
He waited in silence, other than his hitching,
five-year-old breath. He watched as the fanged skyscrapers devoured the sun,
turned the sky black with their time. He watched as artificial lights grew
around the city, popping up like nocturnal eyes. He watched as people traveled
to dates with people they loved.
But no one loved him, because he was still on the
rooftop alone.
“I don’t want this anymore. It hurts.”
“Yes, I have. I want to sleep. To cease. I…I want to
go where Grem is.”
“I was the worst thing that ever happened to Kyosuke
and we both know it,” mortal lips whispered. “Before you start up with some
inspiring speech about how I’m strong and I can get past this, just…stop. I
can’t.”
“I’m glad one of us does.” Frosted, dead eyes
closed, leaking tears once again. Well, and here he had thought that the well
had finally run dry. “So, I get through a day, maybe two. Eventually, I’ll go
home. To my bed. My empty, cold bed in my empty, cold apartment, in my empty,
cold life. Yes, that really sounds like something worth fighting for.”
Kazu, this isn’t something that can be reversed. Do you understand the weight of what you’re asking?
“Of course I do, otherwise I wouldn’t want it,” he
whispered. Blood was trickling down his knees; it tickled. “I’m… broken. And
the only person who could make my pieces fit…just…right… is…” He couldn’t bring
himself to speak it again; he had said it far too much as it was, and the
weight of the words had become a living, hateful thing on his tongue.
“My Grem didn’t come back.” The soft androgynous
voice cracked, shaking, then filling with the same water that invaded his eyes.
“I…I don’t really hate him, Azrael. I…I didn’t mean it. I didn’t want him to
hear it but I think he did and that’s…why he isn’t here with me. That’s why I’m
alone, b-because he…he thinks I hate him.”
Gremory cannot come back, Kazu. He can never come back. Gremory is dead, and you know this.
Kazu wailed into the pillow of his arms, soaking the
gray concrete with his grief. Grem wouldn’t come back. He knew this, knew this
because it was true, but Grem couldn’t be dead. Grem had lived three-thousand
years; how could he be dead now?! Why did he have to be dead now?! In this
lifetime! In this moment!
“Make him come back!” he shrieked. “Make
him come back to me!”
I cannot. You know this.
“Fuck you!” Small hands fisted themselves into
knotted black hair, yanking on it, threatening the roots. “Fuck you and your
God! I don’t care what you do, just make this go away!”
Black hair bounced as Kazu nodded slowly. The burden
of decision weighed down on his mind, caressing the dark matter. “P-please. I can’t…I can’t do this…not
without G-Gremory.”
Ethereal arms wrapped around his insides, an aura of
warmth filling his thoughts. It was slipping into a beckoning bath, lingering
beneath bubbles, beneath scented water, and finding solace in depths of
nothingness. No breath. No pain. No remembering. No whispers of a love that
would never come back. Here, he was alone, blessedly alone, where oblivion was
his to control, to manipulate.
You have been a gracious host, dearest Kazu.
In room 225, resident nurse Takayuki Aiko was busy perusing a chart and mulling over the date she
had for the evening with the orderly on the third floor. She had been planning
to wear a red dress, long and classy with enough of a bustline to make both men
and women take a second glance while still touting that fair share of class.
The patient she was going to run the normal procedure tests on was a five year
old girl who had fallen out of a tree and sustained both a concussion and a
fractured wrist. Ahh, to be young again.
Just as one small hand reached up to check the IV drip, a shock of
pure, nerve-blinding agony slid through her right leg, immediately driving her
to the ground. It was intense, enough to drive incoherent sounds from her
painted lips, acidic lightning bolts careening against her flesh. She was
crying, screaming, watching as blood pumped through her hands in beat with her
heart.
That’s the color of my dress, she thought as she tore a sheet off an empty bed nearby, pushing
it against the throbbing wound. Later, she would be forced to get thirty-seven
stitches and thirteen sessions of physical therapy, repairing the savagely torn
muscles and tendons.
Businessman and foreigner
Michael Tawas was currently undergoing an appendectomy in surgical room 12
after complaining of severe stomach pains. The doctors had congratulated him on
his timing; the infected organ had been hours away from rupturing and filling
his body with all the toxins a person could handle. After being calmed from his
reservations, he scribbled his John Hancock at the bottom of a release form and
they had pulled him under.
Routine work, the two doctor’s
and three nurses were chattering about the weather. Nothing too wonderful
really, just a nice spring day where one might be able to hear the birds
singing over the shuffle of a million droning people on their way to jobs they
hated. The sky had been blue, if you peek at it from beneath the concrete
skyscrapers. Nice.
Like a shockwave through the
room, chatter stopped to be replaced with the cruel assault of shrieks as new
blood ran down into the tiles. Hands, abdomens, arms, backs erupted in torn
flesh, ragged and cruel, merciless in attack. The patient on the table, left
alone and brought open with new marks along his thighs, slowly began to fall
into cardiac arrest while the caregivers were too damaged to do anything but
tend to themselves.
Takada Akito sat in a bed far
too large for his small seven-year-old frame, sheets like foamy whitecaps
threatening to swallow him. His phantom tonsils hurt, ached bad like he had
swallowed his Daddy’s razor blades. He wanted a glass of water, craved it, but
none of the nurses were around after some disturbance on another floor. He had
heard people upset, could feel their panic reverberating through the floor, and
it frightened him. Something Bad was happening, and whatever the Bad was, he
hoped it didn’t get to him, too.
Caramel fingers grabbed his
Gameboy off the table, the little pixels coming to life as he flipped the switch.
If he didn’t think about it, if he didn’t hear it, it wasn’t there, and the
world can be Happy again.
He didn’t realize anything had
happened, hadn’t even felt the fine split of his flesh against his forehead
just above his eyebrow line. He hadn’t thought anything of the itch of his
skin, of the sudden shiver running down his small little vertebrae until a
single drop of stark crimson covered the little figure on the view screen.
Brown eyes widened, surprised, and then they were overrun with a storm of
scarlet, loosed from the gash.
On the roof, hair pooled around
the ground where an angel sat with broken wings, staring at the moon, and
pleading for happiness for one lonely soul. Slipper-socks steadied beneath him
as he pulled himself up, wishing to find a set of clothing and the only person
in the city of Tokyo who might understand what just happened.
Takeuchi Kazu ceased to exist, finding solace in nothingness.
Now, Azrael, still wingless, would carry the burden of grief for the both of them. Elevator doors slid open, and he stepped inside silently, trying to wipe the crystals from his metal eyes. Dreading the road ahead, he pressed a random number, letting the door slide shut with a dispassionate rattle. How he was supposed explain it to Kyosuke, Nathanael, any of them? How was he supposed to hold them when they cried when all he felt like was crying himself?
The car shifted, dragging him down to the panic, the Hell, below. People were bleeding, sobbing, could feel them pulsing through the metal car, and as he leaned against the wall, he realized how cold he was.
And now Nathanael was the only heat left in this icicle world.
The End