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indent It had not been surprising for Ahren to find Laruku in the forest. They shared this land and thus were expected to run into each other from time to time. What was unique was the way they communicated. Once the initial issue was addressed (in this case, Rachias and her departure), they reverted to a combination of useless philosophy and silences. This was safe. As long as they didn’t bring up that one thing, that thing they had done, things would be all right. Repression, quiet and dark, that was how things had to go. Push it down, down, and further down still.
indent At some point they had returned to the shack that Ahren was planning to dismantle as soon as spring turned. For a while longer they remained there, talking of idle things while Ahren smoked and stared into the fire. Eventually, at some point Ahren did not recall, he drifted off into a light daze. From there, he was dragged down, down, and further down still into a place not unlike the unknown country.
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It was a gift in a way, the ability to deny so easily, but it always got harder. The thought came at the end of every minute, every second, every word, a repetitious wail that demanded his attention. It was like his mind fracturing again and again where half of him entertained some half-baked, deep conversation about things and concepts he would never remember tomorrow while the other half screamed out that they were all liars and cheats and that the pretending never lasted long enough, never lasted forever. It was a gift in a way, a curse in another. It was easy to be cursed.
He didn't know how Ahren fell asleep, but he remained wide awake with laughter in his head and desperate screaming in his stomach and chest. Red eyes watched the blonde's breathing and he felt like an intruder, someone who wasn't supposed to be there anymore. The pretense was gone; they were no longer talking, and so he didn't belong there anymore. And yet the hybrid lingered, unable to organize his thoughts and unable to look away. A statue, immobile, useless; maybe he would just leave when the other woke up again. However many hours that took.
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indent Things would have been much different if Ahren had half the talents he once had, but Ahren couldn’t see the line. He was staggering blindly through his own world, living in a glass box and flying with cardboard wings. One day it was all going to crash down, but until then, why not try to fly? Why not run as he had run from everything else in his life?
indent Even in his dreams he ran. Not tonight though. Tonight had been suddenly and viciously hijacked by the passenger that offered no name and never spoke to Ahren. He forced his way to the front without any sound. This would be another night in which Ahren woke remembering nothing. The demon (though he did not consider himself a demon; that was a label that the boy had given him) was leaning against the concrete wall. For all accounts, there were no signs to suggest this was not Ahren. Perhaps his eyes seemed a bit peculiar, or his face was darker. The only large difference was that he had reverted to a younger version of his host—one in ragged cargo-shorts with bandages on his arms and bangs dyed red.
indent The impostor (though again, he did not consider himself this) tilted his head, eyes cold and mocking in the moonlight. “You really need to know when to back off, buddy.” This was not the first time he had seen the scarred man.
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Laruku did fall asleep though. He must have, somewhere into the night, and quietly enough that he didn't realize it until he was there once again in someone else's dream. This had happened before, hadn't it? But if dreams were just dreams, then what did any of it matter, and if he could or couldn't remember later? It was funny though, that he should think these peculiar things familiar at all when he couldn't remember anything he did in the real world yesterday, or the day before, or even today? What had he done today before he and the other broken king had encountered each other again? He didn't know. He never did anymore.
The hybrid saw Ahren and heard him, but somehow it wasn't the same. And when he tried to speak his reply, his lips twisted into a grin instead, and then laughter. Oh. This had definitely happened before, now hadn't it? Oh, but weren't you the one who brought me here, baby? his voice said and his cheeks were starting to hurt from grinning so damn much. His body walked forward. This again, this again. A child trapped in the prison of his own mind, and perhaps someone else's. It was all too much. So he just let it happen.
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indent As if he had expected this all along, Ahren smiled. He lifted his hands, palms up to the light. In one, the “XII” scar shown like white paint. The other was bare. “I can’t bring you anywhere,” he offered cryptically, though said no more. Lowering his hands and shifting his feet, the demon kept smiling. “Though I can make sure you get the message this time.” With that, the ground under his feet began to crack open, snaking out towards the approaching hybrid. All around the shadows cast by the moonlight were twisting, forming dark shapes and whispering like some distant forest. This was his city. Here, he made the rules.
indent He didn’t even realize his eyes had begun to turn foggy, begun to fade over to a milky-white.
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The world was falling apart: the sky (what sky?) was dissolving the the earth was crumbling away at their feet. The apocalypse. But he had been through this so many times already, in his head, in someone else's head, and some twisted combination of that he would never understand -- it was all part of some cycle of life, love, misery, and death, and misery was always given the most power, the most emphasis. And so it phased him none if he had to tumble more through the darkness. He was the darkness, the hell, and everything. He was madness and chaos, a lack of control and too much of it. He didn't make sense, so why should it bother him when nothing else did?
Oh, yeah? he crooned sweetly, maintaining his crisp grin, What're you so afraid of, darlin'? You know nothin' matters in the end, so why so feisty? His feet were falling, but he walked still.
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indent Ryoujoku might have been the king in the dreamland of his host, but here, it was Ahren and the demon that were in control. There was nothing that the scarred hyena could manipulate, as he had done before. While Laruku’s mind was open, a shamble, a disgrace, Ahren’s had built steel traps and blackened doors around it. One door remained open for one specific reason. The red eyed man, whose bangs were in this world the same color, smiled thinly.
indent “You don’t get it,” the demon said. He moved, and each step caused another ripple, another crack. Around his hands, the bandages were coming undone, twisting like snakes coming alive. “Ever read Thoreau, Ryoujoku?” He knew the name because he had Ahren and Ahren saw the line. “I fear no danger,” he began, the shadows forming into devils, monsters, long forgotten beasts of lore. “I am invulnerable.” Somewhere nearby a church was burning, but the bells were ringing. They were ringing as if to raise heaven itself. “I see no foe.” His eyes had gone blind and milky-white, unseeing but all-seeing. On his chest, the symbol began to brighten, as if lit from behind. It gave off no light, but Ahren’s voice began to sound different, as if two people were speaking at once. “I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.” The ground was falling apart before him and all he did was smile. “Get out.”
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In his own way, Ryoujoku would always be invincible. He had no body and felt no pain; whether or not he could really die could be called into question as well. Whether or not he was real. The quotations spewed out by the creature before him did not impress or provoke. This was not his domain and this was not the mind he was used to tormenting, but he was at ease. The smile did not fade and he laughed. The ground kept crumbling though and he couldn't do much to fight against that; those were points of reality - even if it was a false reality - he could not shape and change, and so the hybrid fell into a white light, a screaming vortex, and a black hole.
Ahren? his voice sounded loud in the still winter air. It was dark. Spring refused to come, still. Laruku was awake again, only then aware that he had ever been asleep. He didn't remember the voices or the light or the quaking ground beneath his feet. He didn't know why he had called out the name of the man next to him. Red eyes stared, uncertain.
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indent One simple word. It was enough to change the world. The demon knew that as well as he knew that were he and the scarred man’s other were to engage they would battle fruitlessly until the end of time. He looked down, was dully aware of his own shadow (a dragon that was not truly a dragon) rising behind him. All too suddenly there was great cold and he blinked—the world had changed. Now the air was frost-bitten and someone was laying on him. Instantly, the demon/dragon (though he did not think of himself in either term, and though he did not look like either currently) reacted. His hand flew up and struck the scarred man hard across the face.
indent Nearly snarling, the blonde scrambled to his feet. A clump of his short hair fell into his face, but this detail was not noticed. The tattooed man remained still, eyes burning. This was a pathetic game and he would end it now. If he had to kill this man (whom the demon regarded as a boy) then he would. Possession ended one of two ways; when the kidnapper left its host body or when they both died. In the dim light cast from the full moon outside, Ahren’s too-long canines were gleaming as brightly as his ivory claws. Brighter still were his eyes, which offered no recognition and no sympathy.
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Holes in his memories, five feet deep and five feet wide; tunnels in his brain where monsters lived, spider-web designs and intricate criss-crossing. He hadn't realized that he had been lying so close to, on top of, the other until he was thrown off and away. And even then, his mind had a hard time grasping reality, if it was even that. How could he tell if a dream until he woke up again? Everything was always so real. His face stung and he stumbled back like a drunken soldier, trying to forget the war. Red staring at red. He knew they should have just stayed away from one another; a conversation was never just a conversation. Had the hybrid fallen asleep again while his body did things he didn't remember? And Ahren? Had his eyes always been so cold or was this something else wrong with him, them, and their wretched little world?
There were words in Laruku's throat: apologies, mostly, but he knew somehow that they would mean nothing here. I'm... leaving now, he warbled instead, the syllables still tumbling out haphazardly. Had he been drinking? The air was clean, but he felt like he had been. His eyes remained on the other and he backed away, half-hoping that nothing else would happen, and half-hoping that this was just another excuse to die quickly.
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indent The demon didn’t care for the separation of dreaming and reality, which was where he walked. In that chasm there was no room for fault or frailty. There was only action and reaction, a trigger and the heap that followed it. Each step pushed them closer to a pinnacle and one day it would be reached—one of them would have to die. He knew this in his blood because that was what Ahren believed in his deepest heart.
indent Not a single word escape Ahren’s mouth. He stared ahead, glowering, completely still. It seemed like this would have ended then and there if not for one mechanical motion. His hand rose and drew the knife on his hip. For all intent purposes, the light in his eyes meant one thing. He was going to kill him. He was going to cut that grinning monster out of Laruku piece by piece if he had to. The soul lived in the belly. Laruku didn’t know that—he had gone to the head. The illness wasn’t in his head, but his soul and his heart.
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It was a funny feeling, but not entirely foreign. Few things so painful were. He had been backing away, but stopped when the knife flashed in the moonlight, somehow catching the light even under all the fog. There was no message; there didn't need to be. There was just intention and acknowledgement. Laruku knew. Indeed, how could he not? Eyes and expressions told everything. And he had seen it before, that blank and empty determination to kill. The hybrid could have laughed; the scar across his throat was pulsing, or else there was a lump there. Perhaps both. Someone he knew, a friend, an enemy, he didn't know -- (A lover?) -- there to kill him once again. It was too easy.
Ahren... he mumbled again, hoping too much and knowing nothing at all. Whether Laruku suspected that the other was out of his mind and "possessed" was unknown. After all, what did he really know about the man's morals and rages? Was what had happened enough to kill for? Who knew? Maybe he'd done something else too. It was all possible and probable. A reason didn't matter. Ahren was trying to kill him. Are you going to run? Where to? Are you going to fight? Wouldn't it only happen again? Are you going to die? He wasn't that lucky.
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indent The recognition in his eyes was not for this scattered, self-destructive man. He saw an enemy and he saw something in his way. The last time this had occurred had been in Europe. No title registered for a town or a country, but that had been why the blonde had fled. His demon had seen righteous fire and seen the line because Ahren saw it, saw it but no longer knew what it was. He had cut down a man who had no reason to live—a destitute, a rapist, a worthless piece of flesh and blood. He had felt nothing, not even the savage righteous rage that Ahren reveled in. Guilt was for weaker people. Ahren had swallowed his guilt the moment he had started the fire.
indent Below his muzzle his lips pulled up, then his entire face cracked. Bared teeth, off-white and savage, a menacing and final warning. One foot moved, one free hand pushed a worthless collection of odds and ends from a shelf (he didn’t need this, he didn’t need anything, this had to be destroyed, everything had to burn) and he advanced. Initially his speed was slow, intent with one purpose. Deep in some blackened slumber, the other man stirred and spoke one word. “Run,” he said, though his voice was not his own and the dual tones of desperation and hatred were crawling up his throat.
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No, he said, surprisingly firm. More words lay on the tip of his tongue and the more he stared at the other's concrete expression, the more he found himself lost in it. Was it so easy to be hypnotized by the face of a man about to kill him? Are you going to kill me, Tsunami? Except the grey wolf had closed his hands around his throat and clawed at his jugular. Ahren was poised to gut him and drag his intestines out to decorate the borders with. The hybrid took one step back but moved no further than that. He stood up straighter.
What, Ahren? What? Are you going to kill me, Tsunami?
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THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOVED
______THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOST
THE THINGS I'VE HELD SACRED
______________THAT I'VE DROPPED
_____ Ahren’s face remained broken, nothing more then a vicious mask that was not his own. The demon had no patience for a suicidal fool. He had no patience for those who stood in his way. A chunk of his hair tumbled into his face as he continued to close the distance between them. “The soul lives in the belly,” he said, as if this would answer the question. “Revelations, 12:10,” he continued, eyes wide and unseeing in the dark. He closed the distance between them and brought the knife up.
I won't lie no more you can bet
I don't want to learn what I'll need to forget
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It was reflexive, really. Some primal instinct that went deeper than his conscious; hell, it went deeper than even his subconscious desires to be killed (because he deserved it), especially by someone he considered a friend (a lover). The knife moved quickly and he reacted before his illogical logic could tell to stop. One arm was flung up to deflect the blonde's blade and the other reached forward to strike at his face, to push him back. And then he took another step back, dazed at his own actions and half-waiting for the next blow.
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THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOVED
______THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOST
THE THINGS I'VE HELD SACRED
______________THAT I'VE DROPPED
_____ His hand was struck, but it was the blow to the face that startled him. Ahren stumbled back and his arm flew down, driving the knife against his leg and leaving a skin-deep gash. That pain pulled him from the dark, silent place of his mind. His eyes changed, widened, and then he let out a startled yowl as he crashed into the side of the shed. Being poorly constructed and having dealt with a harsh winter, the wall could not handle this force—he flew backwards and landed hard on his back, letting out a curse in German.
I won't lie no more you can bet
I don't want to learn what I'll need to forget
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His first thought was to just leave. Just leave while the man's down because he's only going to come at you again. (So what? Don't you want another shot at dying?) Just leave while the invisible dust rose from the heap of the shack (he was glad once again that Rachias was gone); just leave because this would only happen again, even if they went back to their usual words. They didn't mean anything anymore. And his head hurt with the laughing ringing through it as well as the piercing gaze of his friend who was no longer standing. But he was a fool and as a fool, he walked forward again, slowly, cautiously. The hybrid stopped and reached an arm down even though his body tensed for another strike. Are you okay?
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THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOVED
______THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOST
THE THINGS I'VE HELD SACRED
______________THAT I'VE DROPPED
_____ Ahren swore, one hand rising to his head as his eyes remained tightly shut. It was not until Laruku approached that he opened one eye cautiously, since it felt like the world was spinning. It did, for a moment, but he used the hand to pull himself up. Once on his feet, he blinked several times like a man coming out of a dream. “What happened?” He didn’t remember anything. Not until he was flying backwards and taking a wall of the shack with him.
I won't lie no more you can bet
I don't want to learn what I'll need to forget
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Laruku stared. It was strange being on the other side of something he had struggled with for more than a year. Ahren had mentioned blackouts before (right? did he just make that up?), but they had been in the past tense and the hybrid did not imagine that the man still struggled with those issues (he always seemed to handle everything so damn well). So it was an incredible surprise to see him climb back up to his feet, not as the creature he had been a few moments prior, whoever that was. The hybrid stepped back again once Ahren was standing steady. I don't know, he answered truthfully. We both fell asleep. And then you were trying to kill me. Deja vu, except he hadn't been the one to return to his head this time.
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