Dance Macabre
A 'Weiss Kreuz' vignette
Sephy

He's not dead yet. Even Aya can see that. Staring down at Ken's sprawled form, a thin trickle of blood oozing from shoulder and leg wounds, Aya can still barely make out the slight rise and fall of his back, breathing in spite of everything and he feels a certain amount of admiration for Siberian's determination.

A soft grunt and split of air causes him to glance out of the corner of his eye, in time to see Yohji make a face, yanking a crossbow bolt out of his arm and throwing it aside in disgust. Aya doesn't have to look any further to know who fired it, but he turns anyway, his sword still resting against the point of Ken's back, torn between closing ranks on the traitor still standing or finishing this one off. Traitor. Yes, easier by far to think in those terms. Easier to put the flower shop and the remembrance of laughter and warm days aside. Easier to forget cream sheets and golden hair against them, fanning outward, made sun-dark with passion, a networking of tiny scars marring what might have once been perfect skin, the evidence of battles, some recent, some not so recent. Easier to forget how he burned, how they burned together, or how Omi was always there afterward, even when Aya had a tendency to leave, needing to walk, to think and wrestle with those shadows that had always dogged him. There was something reassuring and strangely painful about coming home those times, to find Omi sitting at the window, naked, starlight reflecting off his body and catching there as he turned, ancient eyes peering at him from out of the inky dark of his bedroom.

He seems so young now, alone and trying to be brave, more a boy at this moment than a young man, staring in horror and mounting betrayal as they draw closer, step by implacable step, the sight on Omi's crossbow trembling as it sought to cover them both. He had lost, all three knew it. He'd lost as soon as Ken hit the ground. Even if he managed to take down one of them, there would still be one left to face and Omi was already wounded, panting and perspiring with the exertion despite the snow, steam almost seeming to roil off of him.

Aya wants to glance at Yohji, to see if this is affecting his teammate as much as it him but keeps his eyes trained on the target. The target. Omi is the target. The realization hits and suddenly it's a lot colder than it was, his heart freezing in this chest, the blizzard surrounding them nothing in comparison. It's curious, this sense of numbness, his face fixed in an unforgiving glower, hoping that the charade pays off, that no one can tell that he's hurting, that there's a thin trill of pain singing through every bone in his body, hollowing him out, leaving nothing left but death. Death and impending loss and futility because that is what this is. There is nothing honorable in this, in taking down a comrade, no matter what the crime. Had circumstances been different, perhaps he might have been the one staring down at Omi and Ken.

Perhaps. There's a moment and everything seems to still -- the air, the storm, his breathing, crystallizing outward like solution in a vial. The moment waits, with all its possibility, threatening to break, the tension in him rising to an unbearable pitch that makes him want to cry out and --

Then Omi moves, but not quickly enough. He could never be quick enough.

A fine webbing of wire surrounds him, lethally delicate in appearance, spun without the younger assassin realizing it before it was far too late to do anything but hang there limply, struggling against his bonds, Yohji tightening his hold. The wire cuts deep and despite the layer of clothes and the storm raging around them, Aya is almost convinced he can hear skin shredding as a fine sheen of red breaks out on his skin, like sweat, staining his clothes. It drips down the garrote as Yohji again yanks it hard, Omi's back arching in surprise and pain, eyes of azure and midnight and every shade in between seeming to reflect back at him. They've always drawn him, those eyes, impossibly large and hiding more than they revealed. He thought once they were too kind, too open and warm to be the eyes of a murderer. He still thinks that only now... Now, they brim over, betrayed and tormented, silently flicking from one to the other imploringly.

It was Omi who had cried over and over, who had begged and fought against this end, raging with everything in his being to stop this senselessness. Omi who still hesitated long after Ken had accepted his fate and fought back, restrained fury and ruthlessness giving him an edge with his bugnuks that Aya had never seen in him before. He worried Aya, Ken did, disliking the edge of lust, almost joy he could sense creeping despite his anger and dismay at having to fight those he called friends. There was an instability there, long hidden, emerging tentatively, and he feared what it meant if left unchecked.

Yohji nodded at him, the garrote tangled around wrist and fingers, Arachne's loom made fatal as Omi struggled, a fly caught in that proverbial web, the hand still holding the crossbow twitching, trying to bring it around. There's blood running down Balinese's face, blond hair mattered as blood cooled and hardened and he feels a stab of pride at that, because appearances aside, Omi is one of them, equal to, if not superior in some ways. The boy he had watched with disbelief and ill-concealed contempt when he'd first joined the Weiss had grown, lithe limbs and the smoothing out of rounded cheeks nowhere near as telling as the quiet determination that had replaced earlier doubt. Never doubt about what they did but rather in his abilities, in the contribution he could make. Omi had grown into himself, now moved as if he were no longer a coltish youth but a man, confident and comfortable with himself.

And now Aya was about to take that away from him.

Omi's eyes widened, despair taking the place of the wild hope that had fueled his earlier resistance as Aya steps forward, hand clenching around the hilt of his katana, hard enough to break, almost wishing it would so that he-- No, Omi deserves better than that. Better to die by his hand cleanly than to surrender him to the biting break of Yohji's garrote.

The katana lifts and try though he might, he can't stop himself from meeting Omi's eyes, resignation settling into anguished blues, his hair mattered with a thin layer of frost. His skin was already whitening from the cold, nose red around the tips and air puffing around his mouth as Omi attempted to breathe. It hurts and he feels himself surrounded by the cloak of a thousand sensations, memories pressing around the edges of his mind, seeking like invisible ghosts to stay his hand. /Omi smiling at him as he lifted a flower in greeting. Omi hunched over his schoolwork, chewing on the end of a pencil, looking far too young to be an assassin, to be his lover. Omi's face rent with ardor, his mouth silently forming Aya's name over and over again, the feel of limbs slick and gangly as they wrapped around him. The taste of blood in his mouth as they run together, himself trusting that crossbow now inching upward to protect him, to cover his back./ And always, always that face, in so many expressions, but finding its truth, old and young, in joyful pain and always watching him, careful of when to push and when to pull closer, awkward and endearing and Omi.

Omi...

There's surprisingly little force behind the thrust that follows, the blade seeking and finding home, sliding past layers of clothing and flesh, a spray of crimson erupting from his mouth, staining lips he had kissed so many times before, his body caught in an unnatural arc as his sword stays there, pinning the body almost blindly, with no will to slide free. But the momentum can't be denied and he rocks backward, the sword falling away and Omi falls, too, broken and bleeding and face now mercifully hidden by the downward tilt of his chin. There's no more struggle, no more pleading, just nothing but an empty cage, the snow stained crimson around him, the only thing keeping him upright is the support of the wire, of Yohji's strong grasp. When Balinese lets go, then it will all be over, even this illusion that there is still something left.

He wants to scream but can't. Fortunately, Ken does it for him.

***

Aya wakes.

His heart is racing, thumping madly, painful as he sits up, his back sticky and uncomfortably damp with sweat. His eyes seek the place beside him but there's nothing, only an imprint of where a body lay. It's too much, given the agonizing clarity of his memory, forever damning him for something that was staged, that didn't matter but did because he had done it. Because he had seen and because he knew now what it would be like to kill him.

It's not something he ever wants to do again.

He looks up and finds Omi staring back at him, sitting in the sill of the window, one leg on the floor and the other drawn up, his arm across it, a pose he picked up from watching Aya. But Aya never taught him to sit so gracefully lax or naked for that matter, his skin dappled silver and blue, a corona of night painted for him to see, eyes almost invisible but something wounded and thoughtful peered back at him. Careful. Measuring. Strange and unearthly, Omi seems more than he is, more than either the happy student-florist who runs the shop or the serious, dedicated killer-planner Aya knows him to be. This Omi is considering, contemplative, and inaccessible and somehow, somehow--

Far more dangerous.

Aya feels the weight of his scrutiny, almost unbearable and he drops his eyes for a moment, wondering that he would before lifting them again. Omi looks more like himself this time, a little tired, his face drawn as he unfurls himself, crossing the room and slipping into bed again, Aya leaning forward automatically, his head burrowing against Omi's neck. It's a weakness, a display he would never allow beyond the privacy of this room, of the two of them but he needs it now. He needs the reassurance that this is real and not the dream. That he hadn't killed his lover on the snowy grounds of that amusement park because he keeps seeing it in his mind, in his dreams, every night in the month that had passed between then and now.

Omi's hands are languid as they tangle in his hair, one reaching downward to knead the base of his neck and Aya releases a pained groan, feeling the pressure pop of joints relaxing and he lets go of the images, if not the general malaise of bad feeling they give to him.

"I dreamed --" And the words catch.

"I know," Omi replies, stroking his hair, his voice low with resignation. "I did, too."

***End

 

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