'These Simple Breaths' - [Aoi/Uruha] 3/3
Aug. 12th, 2010 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
colberryTitle: These Simple Breaths [because I'm drowning in your lungs]
Chapter: 3/3
Description: This gold is fading. Three moments that meant everything when nothing went right.
Notes: It's over and I feel really good about it. Haha, I feel so accomplished that I finished something longer than a oneshot! I hope you all enjoy the final part.
Previous Chapters: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 2.5 ]
These floorboards are cracking. Knotholes are breaking off and spreading, swallowing Kouyou's toes when he finds himself pacing back and forth -- it's been two weeks.
A lovely anesthesia has settled in his bones. It lets him pretend he's warm despite the reality of his translucent skin and jutting ribs. His thumb has traced over the lip of the vodka bottle more than once, but he finds that the small comfort in sliding his skin across something tangible and here is all he needs.
He lets his knees give out.
He kisses the sawdust lips beneath his feet and waits for the numbness to return.
Because his heart is waking up again.
&
He hears silence when he should hear music.
Kouyou licks his chapped lips, the dry flesh crackling as he plucks random strings of his guitar. The blisters upon his fingertips pulse, but his knees are becoming weak and his ambition is just too bright to stop now --
-- if he stops now, he'll remember, and if he remembers --
He doesn't hear the door open. Kouyou keeps his head down, watches his limp hair tangle with his eyelashes. He watches himself drown in this blond darkness. Maybe he'll just rest here, forget his phone is cold and his answering machine is empty, and left himself drift with his fingers buried in these strings.
"Uruha?"
It's not his name. The precious kanji is meaningless to his history. Uruha is a complicated beauty. Kouyou is a simple wreck. But slender fingers that are dappled by their own copper-string-scars cover his shaking digits, still attempting to form twisted melodies and shrieking riffs that could maybe hide his own screams in those late nights of what the fuck are we doing here --
And suddenly Yuu is in front of him. So roughly thrown back into his world -- a reckless comet knocking into his orbit. But this isn't space -- yet Kouyou thinks that his lungs may burst from lack of oxygen, thinks his galaxy might be imploding, all the same.
The elder is kneeling on the floor, taking back his hands from their grasp upon him (like he couldn't wait any longer, magnetic spitfire drawing him close). Kouyou's long bangs flutter to the side and his eyes instinctually find Yuu's. Ebony to sepia.
He sees purple smudges underneath the dark-haired man's sockets. He sees pallid skin. He sees regret.
We're too late.
"Kouyou." The name feels hesitant and bitter in the air, like Yuu isn't sure whether or not he's still allowed to call him that. It scares the younger man when he doesn't know either.
The night sky drifting in from his window casts shadows upon Yuu's face, endlessly shifting as the rhythm guitarist parts his lips in the futile attempt to mend.
And Kouyou is still. His heart may have combusted already -- he doesn't have anything left; not for this beautiful, grotesque creature that is gazing unto him with midnight eyes. The blond's hands tremble, his guitar emitting warbled pants, and he forces himself to breathe out the words before Yuu climbs back into his ribcage and clutches the remains of his heart.
"You never called."
Yuu breathes in sharply as if the whimpered words were steel knives in his chest, biting the inside of his cheek to stave off a hoarse cry of self-loathing. But he leans in closer, not afraid if everything shatters and Kouyou runs away, leaves forever, tears his soul apart.
Because everything is already in pieces.
And when he leans in, Kouyou grits his teeth.
He doesn't smell like Yuu anymore -- sandalwood, vanilla and home -- he smells like Aoi, the deity that graces the stage and throws his head back as ecstasy nips at the hollow in his neck. Kouyou can feel it. The alcohol and cheap nights and black agony licking across the elder's skin. He can almost hear Yuu's wretched pleas for the stranger in the alley who he throws up against the brick wall to look at me, you have eyes just like his.
Kouyou covers his mouth with a shaking hand, shoulders stiffening as he shudders out a dry heave. It's dirty and wrong and fuck, he understands why even though he shouldn't, but it's all his fault anyway because he was the one who --
Yuu's hands immediately encircle him, a wet exhale escaping the elder's quivering lips. Feeble whispers touch his ear, "I broke us, I broke us", and Kouyou wants to answer him.
Then I'll fix us, okay? I just need to find the pieces.
But the bile is still resting in his throat and the pathetic wetness in his eyes is staining Yuu's skeleton-fingers and he can't lie anymore.
They don't have enough pieces of themselves to fit back together.
His cheeks are cold with clear rivulets, and Kouyou can feel a helpless whine start to burn its way to his lips. But then those fingers are sifting through his damp tresses (newly bleached, newly ruined) like they know where they are on these rotten floorboards.
Like they're okay even though they're royally fucked and twisted and raw.
Kouyou looks up; the hand briefly slides to his forehead. Almost to his eyes as if to cover the mahogany irises and protect the young guitarist from this world where they must starve-for-glory, where he exists, where he has the scent of a stranger's kiss upon his maw.
"I didn't mean to."
The phone was in my hand.
He had eyes just like yours.
Aoi's -- Yuu's -- deft fingers return to their place in his burnt-blond hair. He can almost remember this feeling as he sits in Yuu's embrace.
I just missed you.
The old, brown scarf he bestowed to the older man last month scratches against his neck and he watches their shadows warp in the moonlight upon his floor. Kouyou can feel each inhale of Yuu's lungs.
And when Yuu cradles his head and pulls him to his chest, Kouyou can hear Yuu's heart.
&&&
A/N: This took a totally different direction than I planned. I thought I was going to write a really intense fight-scene with accusations and the revealing of what initially happened to have them "break up" in the first place...
But I saw the vagueness in all my other chapters, and I felt it would be fitting to end it just as vaguely. Plus, I think you guys can imagine for yourselves as to what transpired to break these two so thoroughly. I know how tired one is after fighting and hurting. So, I wanted them to feel that way -- a resigned rest and an uncertain path ahead of them. After all the prior angst, this could have never ended on a realistic happy note...
Anyway, thank you all so much to those who have reviewed/commented and followed this series since the beginning! It was definitely fun to write this despite its heavy tone. Look out for me in the future!
-- colberry <3
Chapter: 3/3
Description: This gold is fading. Three moments that meant everything when nothing went right.
Notes: It's over and I feel really good about it. Haha, I feel so accomplished that I finished something longer than a oneshot! I hope you all enjoy the final part.
Previous Chapters: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 2.5 ]
These floorboards are cracking. Knotholes are breaking off and spreading, swallowing Kouyou's toes when he finds himself pacing back and forth -- it's been two weeks.
A lovely anesthesia has settled in his bones. It lets him pretend he's warm despite the reality of his translucent skin and jutting ribs. His thumb has traced over the lip of the vodka bottle more than once, but he finds that the small comfort in sliding his skin across something tangible and here is all he needs.
He lets his knees give out.
He kisses the sawdust lips beneath his feet and waits for the numbness to return.
Because his heart is waking up again.
&
He hears silence when he should hear music.
Kouyou licks his chapped lips, the dry flesh crackling as he plucks random strings of his guitar. The blisters upon his fingertips pulse, but his knees are becoming weak and his ambition is just too bright to stop now --
-- if he stops now, he'll remember, and if he remembers --
He doesn't hear the door open. Kouyou keeps his head down, watches his limp hair tangle with his eyelashes. He watches himself drown in this blond darkness. Maybe he'll just rest here, forget his phone is cold and his answering machine is empty, and left himself drift with his fingers buried in these strings.
"Uruha?"
It's not his name. The precious kanji is meaningless to his history. Uruha is a complicated beauty. Kouyou is a simple wreck. But slender fingers that are dappled by their own copper-string-scars cover his shaking digits, still attempting to form twisted melodies and shrieking riffs that could maybe hide his own screams in those late nights of what the fuck are we doing here --
And suddenly Yuu is in front of him. So roughly thrown back into his world -- a reckless comet knocking into his orbit. But this isn't space -- yet Kouyou thinks that his lungs may burst from lack of oxygen, thinks his galaxy might be imploding, all the same.
The elder is kneeling on the floor, taking back his hands from their grasp upon him (like he couldn't wait any longer, magnetic spitfire drawing him close). Kouyou's long bangs flutter to the side and his eyes instinctually find Yuu's. Ebony to sepia.
He sees purple smudges underneath the dark-haired man's sockets. He sees pallid skin. He sees regret.
We're too late.
"Kouyou." The name feels hesitant and bitter in the air, like Yuu isn't sure whether or not he's still allowed to call him that. It scares the younger man when he doesn't know either.
The night sky drifting in from his window casts shadows upon Yuu's face, endlessly shifting as the rhythm guitarist parts his lips in the futile attempt to mend.
And Kouyou is still. His heart may have combusted already -- he doesn't have anything left; not for this beautiful, grotesque creature that is gazing unto him with midnight eyes. The blond's hands tremble, his guitar emitting warbled pants, and he forces himself to breathe out the words before Yuu climbs back into his ribcage and clutches the remains of his heart.
"You never called."
Yuu breathes in sharply as if the whimpered words were steel knives in his chest, biting the inside of his cheek to stave off a hoarse cry of self-loathing. But he leans in closer, not afraid if everything shatters and Kouyou runs away, leaves forever, tears his soul apart.
Because everything is already in pieces.
And when he leans in, Kouyou grits his teeth.
He doesn't smell like Yuu anymore -- sandalwood, vanilla and home -- he smells like Aoi, the deity that graces the stage and throws his head back as ecstasy nips at the hollow in his neck. Kouyou can feel it. The alcohol and cheap nights and black agony licking across the elder's skin. He can almost hear Yuu's wretched pleas for the stranger in the alley who he throws up against the brick wall to look at me, you have eyes just like his.
Kouyou covers his mouth with a shaking hand, shoulders stiffening as he shudders out a dry heave. It's dirty and wrong and fuck, he understands why even though he shouldn't, but it's all his fault anyway because he was the one who --
Yuu's hands immediately encircle him, a wet exhale escaping the elder's quivering lips. Feeble whispers touch his ear, "I broke us, I broke us", and Kouyou wants to answer him.
Then I'll fix us, okay? I just need to find the pieces.
But the bile is still resting in his throat and the pathetic wetness in his eyes is staining Yuu's skeleton-fingers and he can't lie anymore.
They don't have enough pieces of themselves to fit back together.
His cheeks are cold with clear rivulets, and Kouyou can feel a helpless whine start to burn its way to his lips. But then those fingers are sifting through his damp tresses (newly bleached, newly ruined) like they know where they are on these rotten floorboards.
Like they're okay even though they're royally fucked and twisted and raw.
Kouyou looks up; the hand briefly slides to his forehead. Almost to his eyes as if to cover the mahogany irises and protect the young guitarist from this world where they must starve-for-glory, where he exists, where he has the scent of a stranger's kiss upon his maw.
"I didn't mean to."
The phone was in my hand.
He had eyes just like yours.
Aoi's -- Yuu's -- deft fingers return to their place in his burnt-blond hair. He can almost remember this feeling as he sits in Yuu's embrace.
I just missed you.
The old, brown scarf he bestowed to the older man last month scratches against his neck and he watches their shadows warp in the moonlight upon his floor. Kouyou can feel each inhale of Yuu's lungs.
And when Yuu cradles his head and pulls him to his chest, Kouyou can hear Yuu's heart.
&&&
A/N: This took a totally different direction than I planned. I thought I was going to write a really intense fight-scene with accusations and the revealing of what initially happened to have them "break up" in the first place...
But I saw the vagueness in all my other chapters, and I felt it would be fitting to end it just as vaguely. Plus, I think you guys can imagine for yourselves as to what transpired to break these two so thoroughly. I know how tired one is after fighting and hurting. So, I wanted them to feel that way -- a resigned rest and an uncertain path ahead of them. After all the prior angst, this could have never ended on a realistic happy note...
Anyway, thank you all so much to those who have reviewed/commented and followed this series since the beginning! It was definitely fun to write this despite its heavy tone. Look out for me in the future!
-- colberry <3
