'Violet Pulse' - [Aoi/Uruha] 3/5

[colberry]

Title:  Violet Pulse
Chapter:  3/5
Description:  Eight-years-old, Yuu blushed -- an innocent red dusting his cheeks as he ducked his head away from Kouyou's sight.  He swallowed, his lungs stammering because he had these weird, wiggly things inside of him that made his stomach clench.  And made his heart beat fast.  And made Kouyou feel right.  Somehow.
Pairing:  Aoi/Uruha
Notes:  Five chapters.  Five ages.  How sometimes two people should be together despite everything.  First request-fic!  Please enjoy jokerock <3

In this chapter:  Nineteen-years-old, he tried to step away -- tried to catch his falling heart because for some inane reason, in this moment of dirty alleys and smearing kohl, he thought of Kouyou.

 

Age 19



"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Kouyou's head was on his stomach, counting Yuu's breaths as the sun winked at them through the clouds.  Yuu reached out and touched the black tresses that fanned out across his chest.

"Something unforgettable."

"Will you forget me?"

Yuu pulled his hand back, something in his chest starting to falter.  He didn't fail to notice how Kouyou knew it wouldn't always be like this -- so close to his ribs, cheek rubbing against his navel.  The world hurt.  And they would disappear.

He had the sudden urge to hold-on-tight because he couldn't promise Kouyou the world, the sky, his heart.  'Forever' was a lie that would burn his teeth.  He couldn't.

But he did.

"Never."

&&

Broken stars were in his mouth.  Something crisped and burnt, like charcoal licking his tongue.  Cinders from homeless cigarettes ground beneath his boots and Aoi tried not to imagine how he could start a fire right here – burn inside out and ravage and blaze.  It was three AM and despite wondrous air pollution, Tokyo wasn’t bright enough to cast light upon the shadows painted beneath his eyes. 

He hadn’t seen the sun in six years.

Aoi grasped the cigarette between his fingers tighter because it was okay. 

It was still okay even when his ribs started to poke through his skin.

When his calluses from disastrous riffs split open.

When he stood over the sink and watched the vermillion hair dye splatter across the porcelain like a homespun tragedy.  When he peered into the mirror and his hair was blood; dried and dead. 

Aoi had always loved red.

&&

“If you look closely,” Kouyou whispers next to him on the ferris wheel, shoulder bumping against his own, “You can see the whole world from here.”

Yuu doesn’t believe a word of it, but so help him he looks anyway.

But even as he’s looking out over the entire world, he finds himself being drawn back to the lithe frame by his side.  He watches Kouyou watch the world.

And he realizes, with his hand edging toward those pale fingers, that the other might just be his universe.

&&

He had left.  Starlit billboards at his back, nothing but his sleeping pills and guitar, he burst from the gates and ran, ran, until he could no longer picture his smile so achingly perfect.

Aoi never promised he would stay.

And suddenly he was incinerating his lungs with ashes, biting lips of prostitutes that would give him food if he gave them 80 yen.  Night seemed to be safe, a place he could hide his bruised eyes and thinning figure.  Where he could forget the sun and its warmth because his bones were too cold now to ever create heat. 

“What’s that on your lip?”

Aoi glanced briefly to his left, unconsciously roving his tongue over the metal adorning the aforementioned flesh.  Eyes flooded with ebony, he softly uttered, “Just another hole in me.”

The other young man raised an eyebrow before leaning against the amp the elder was working on, skeleton-fingers pale and shaking, “C’mon, what is it?  Something that everyone will worship you for?  What’ll get those sluts to suck your fucking huge co –”

“Shut the fuck up, Yune.”

Yune snapped his mouth shut, seeing that Aoi’s jaw was clenching, black irises blazing and lip curled.  Taking a cautious step away from the amp, the younger man rolled his eyes.  It was always like this.  Aoi had been sharp and angled ever since he met him, tongue forked and ready to bite, “You really need to control that temper, Aoi-kun.”

Aoi only snorted roughly, already turned away.  His shoulder blades were sharp points under his brown sweater, daggers that moved elegantly with each flick of his fingers against the tuner.  Yune wondered as he watched the wool fabric ride up his bandmate’s back, eyes roving over each knob of his spine:

“Do you ever eat?”

“I needed that new amp.”

Yune furrowed his brow, short mop swaying to the right as he tilted his head, “What does that have to do with anything?”

Aoi never looked up from his work, voice cold and back glaring, “Rent, food, new amp.  You can only pick two.” 

The moon outside the smudged window briefly caught the glint of his lip ring, almost swallowing him whole with light.  But Aoi was beautiful darkness, arctic heart tangled firmly in barbed wire because he couldn’t make things right, sorry mom and people had left him.  And he broke promises.

And Kouyou wasn’t here.

Aoi stuffed the cigarette in his mouth and bit down on it hard, tobacco becoming crushed and fire so close to his gums.  He dug his fingers into copper strings and let ashes soak his mouth.

&&

“You shouldn’t smoke.”

“You shouldn’t be so innocent.”

&&

Aoi let the instrument fall, watched how the fiberglass ripping apart seemed like glistening shards of suicide-stars. 

The imprint of the missed chord was still on his palm, the faulty wire that was tugged out of his guitar by the clumsy vocalist was grounded beneath his combat boots as he stalked off the stage.  He let his lungs die in that moment, savored the blood in his mouth as he bit his cheek clean-through from holding back a guttural scream.  His eyes screamed instead, noir abysses that refused to shut even in those nights of what if I had been safer, what if I was still Yuu?

The band sucked, the audience was nil and the live house was too dim and dark to see the frets right.  He ignored Yune’s frantic calls to get the fuck back here, what are you doing!?

Stopping; I don’t know, maybe being unforgettable –

But he didn’t turn around, didn’t assure the frazzled man with sweet-nothings.  He merely left, walked off as his guitar lay in pieces.

He didn’t feel the blood running down his hands until he stepped into the chilled air outside.  The slices on his knuckles were a memory of when the strings had snapped; glistening knives whipping against his skin.  He regarded the rivulets apathetically before wiping the sticky substance on the bottom of his jacket.  Breathing shakily and eyes still caked with heavy kohl, Aoi tried to extricate that morbid feeling of being raw.  Tried to stop feeling so damn useless and used. 

He wanted to reach deep down inside of himself and rip himself apart.

Lighting a cigarette, he stalked off into the nearest alleyway and allowed his thin body to lean against the olden brick.  The white stick was becoming stained with rust-colored blood, but Aoi, closing his eyes, couldn’t help but to think the grotesque feeling of his soul against his fingers was somehow beautiful.

&&

“Is it okay like this?”

Kouyou was gazing unto him like he was the one who would save them both.  Yuu couldn’t look him in the eye, couldn’t keep his knees from shaking when the taller teen touched the dip of his hipbone. 

“I’m going to break us, Kou.”

Kouyou blinked, eyelashes sweeping against his sockets for the briefest of seconds – something uncatchable, butterfly sighs and moonlit creeds.  His fingers kept caressing the elder’s flesh, slowly moving towards the concave shell of his heart.  “So it’s not okay?”

Yuu cocked his chin upwards from where he laid on his back, shoulder blades digging into willow tree roots.  Kouyou was slathered atop him, long legs intertwined with the hollows of his knees.  The tips of his black locks were tickling his neck, soft whispers for the fickle promise of ‘forever, now’. 

Yuu bit his lip, dark brown eyes lit with something akin to devastating foresight, “It won’t be okay.”

“Even if I’m careful?”

Kouyou’s hands were on his face, gentle fingertips now touching his cheekbones.  They cradled him as if he were precious.  It made Yuu’s stomach churn and ribs weep because he knew –

“It won’t be your fault.”

“It won’t be like that, Yuu.”

“Fuck, Kouyou.  Won’t you believe me for just one second?”

“I won’t believe you’ll hurt me.  You promised you’d take care of me and I know you’ll keep it because you’re something good, remember?”

Yuu let Kouyou trace his thumb along his jaw, let his lips whisper the words against his skin, “It’ll be okay.”

He couldn’t stop himself from murmuring back, “It won’t, it won’t, I’m going to tear us apart” – voice broken and a sob sinking its claws into his chest. 

But Kouyou merely smiled, wove his fingers into Yuu’s raven hair and pressed his nose into the side of his cheek.

“How can you tear me apart when you’re what keeps me together?”

&&

“Well, that was a fucking spectacle.”

Aoi jerked his head up from gazing at the wet pavement, cigarette still clutched between his lips and scarlet hair sticking to the side of his face.  He could feel the kohl start to drip from his eyes, but the rhythm guitarist paid no heed – suddenly faced with the dilapidated figure a couple feet away.

The stranger smiled at him, amused and maybe a tad delirious as he stepped closer.  The shadows ebbed from his body, revealing the tall and malnourished form in all its glory.  Hair like spindles of gold, yet limp and forgotten, lapped at his jutting collarbone and Aoi found himself entranced with how it still caught even the faintest of light – shining. 

He was obviously a fellow player at the live house with the makeup that was streaking across his slightly feminine face.  That, Aoi absently surmised, or he was a prostitute.  The shorter man surveyed the tight tank top, leather skirt and high, checkered socks with a mild air of awed curiosity.  The stranger’s broad shoulders dispelled any illusion to his gender, but the way his pillow-lips pouted and his lithe fingers caressed a cigarette made Aoi believe – for just the slightest of seconds – that he was beautiful.

Watching how the taller man’s navy eye-shadow began to run, the powdered sparkle licking at his cheekbones, Aoi felt a smirk work at his stern mouth, “I’m the fucking spectacle, eh?”

The eccentric-dressing man smiled wider, a light flickering into his eyes and suddenly he seemed alive, “Given the way you made mince-meat out of your guitar and abandoned the sinking ship of crap on stage without a word, I’d say yes.”

When the man lifts his hand to take another lungful of nicotine, Aoi sees the track-marks criss-crossing along the inside of his arm.  The flesh was slathered in sickening shades of black and blue punctures, and Aoi felt the twinge of desire to connect them all (try and make sense as to why).  When the blonde shook his head, smile now bitter as he spotted Aoi’s staring, Aoi saw starlight in his hair despite the gauntness of his face.

Because the world has always been ‘starve-for-glory’.

He paused to breathe out a wisp of smoke before slurring, “I don’t think that’s really you up there, you know.”

He glanced at Aoi, honey irises warming, “But, you need some patience, sir.”

The casual words snapped Aoi out of his trance, ignited the flames that always lurked inside his being.  He clenched his hands at his sides as he narrowed his eyes.  It was irrational and foolhardy and proving the man’s point, but fuck, Aoi just wanted to feel something, anything.

The leather-skirted young man swiveled his eyes towards Aoi’s shaking fists before looking him straight into the abyss of his glare, “You don’t want to fight.”

The sound of the blonde’s back hitting the brick wall was beautiful and sick and wrong and right.  Aoi tightened his grip of the man’s collar, fingernails sinking into the pallid skin beneath.  He leaned in close, baring his teeth and wondering why this felt chaotic and perfect.

The fist nearest to the man’s heart buried into his shirt with white knuckles, “Nothing’s stopping me from putting this fist through your mouth.”

But rather than fear or shock or anger, the flaxen-haired man licked his lips, pouty and plush, “ ‘Rather it was your tongue instead.”

Aoi’s eyes widened from their narrowed glower, something tightening in his stomach, before ferocity made him lash out, slamming the willowy figure against the wall.  He could hear each bone rattle.  The stranger lifted a hand to grasp at Aoi’s wrist in a silent plea.  Splotched track-marks rubbed against him and Aoi took in the mussed hair, the battered gaze, the glossed lips and sneered.

“Except for the fact that you look like a fucking whore.”

And with a courage Aoi never knew existed, the man released his wrist to calmly twine a lock of Aoi’s rust-colored hair around his finger.  Regarding the shorter man intently, he then leaned in and practically purred against his jaw, “Then what’s stopping you from kissing me?”

Aoi jerked his head to the left, suddenly too close.  His hands were beginning to loosen and tremble.  But the man never moved away, rather, he tugged the lock of hair and grazed a knee against Aoi’s thigh, “What’s the matter?” 

His voice was deep, husky in a way that wasn’t like the prostitutes dancing beneath the lampposts – more like a promise, more like a lover.  Aoi tried to step away, tried to catch his falling heart because for some inane reason, in this moment of dirty alleys and smearing kohl, he thought of Kouyou.

The taller man’s eyes softened, “Who do you want me to be tonight?”

Aoi shut his eyes tight, blocked out the starlight that was falling gently from this man and growled through gritted teeth, “I don’t want your name.”

He blindly reached out with his callused hand and roughly grabbed the man’s chin, fingertips bruising the jaw.  His maw was almost upon those pursed lips, he felt the leather fabric caressing the front of his frayed jeans and the moon was becoming shadowed by the clouds.

Before he had a chance to force their bodies together, drown himself and escape, the stranger spoke against his mouth, “Then call me Uruha.  I need to give you something to moan.”

He crashed their mouths together then, all biting and teeth and crimson.  It felt horrible, wonderful, and Aoi only wanted to sink in deeper.  He clawed at Uruha’s back, fingers finding each dip in his spine – he counted the vertebrae and sucked on that lip until the other pushed a leg between his own.

Get ready for this.

And now it was a zephyr of slammed wrists and bruised cheeks; Uruha clung to the wall with desperate hands.  The mumble of ‘hurry, hurry’ and the anxious tug of committing sins before the sun wakes overtook any rational sense.  The blonde shifted impatiently as a foreign weight pushed against his chest, he couldn’t breathe between the pants and hisses of ‘but just wait – ’

The dim light filtered in a plethora of devil-shadows, painting purple bruises under Aoi’s black eyes.  The pupils had stretched and the grip upon Uruha’s wrists was becoming too tight to bear without protest.  There was an impatient grunt as hips slammed together. 

Like they had no time. 

He touched his lips to each puncture-bruise on Uruha’s skin.

‘Forever’ wasn’t waiting.

&&

“Will I ever be like them, Yuu?”

Eleven-years-old, Yuu dabbed the new split lip with a soft cotton ball, watching Kouyou closely.

“Like who?”

Kouyou swallowed, honey irises flashing with doubt, “Like the people that beat me up, or the people that just watch.”

Yuu stops cleaning the corner of Kouyou’s mouth and presses a gentle hand to his cheek.  Kouyou edges closer to the touch, knowing that somehow this will change everything. 

Yuu’s eyes are hard and determined, voice unwavering as he promises, “No, you’ll always be good.”

&&

He doesn’t give Uruha his number, but he gives him his address.  It was an awkward statement, cumbersome and loose in his mouth as Uruha lapped the cream-lathered seed from his lips – sore and rouge.  But the taller man memorized it, repeated it, because he didn’t want to lose contact (any contact, flesh-on-flesh-and-maybe-heart-upon-heart). 

His knees are scraped from when he fell upon them, so eager to please and be accepted and maybe, just maybe lo—

He walked away shakily, and Aoi could see how his tall frame was broad, masculine despite the skirt and the lipstick.  Something Aoi wanted to fall into, lean against.    

Uruha disappeared, vanished from the entire world, for three days.

Aoi leaves the light on each and every night.  He wasn’t sure why.  Maybe something to do with how he could still detect the touch of the blonde’s mouth against his neck.  Or something about the way his eyes shined so damn bright.

Maybe.

And when Uruha did show up – in full color, reality slapped against his chest – Aoi almost wishes he hadn’t.

Because those track-marks were bleeding and fresh.  Eyes glazed and smile slurred, Uruha leant against his doorframe like a drunken feline, declawed and willing. 

“You’re one fucking hard guy to forget.”

“Sorry.”  Because he was.

Uruha snorted and slid his eyes to the floorboards beneath him.  Aoi noted the ripped jeans, the gossamer jacket and threadbare band shirt proclaiming ‘SEX PISTOLS’.  He had half a mind to ask where the checkered socks went.  Instead, he stepped aside and observed Uruha shakily bustle inside his apartment.  He moved with all the grace of a decadent comet – flickering, fading, barely there but then suddenly so vivid that it blinded the whole sky. 

Uruha flopped onto his futon, the decrepit thing sitting out-of-place in his living-dining-everything room.  The taller man lackadaisically tangled himself in the used sheets, face buried in his pillow and socked feet poking through the quilt. 

Arm thrown over his face, bleeding holes thrust in Aoi’s direction, Uruha sighed. 

And Aoi couldn’t help but blurt, “You shouldn’t do that.”

Uruha peeked from under his arm with a wry grin, “I shouldn’t have done a lot of things.  But I like being broken apart.”

He rolled over, letting his hand fall to the cracked floorboards, and face tilted upwards like he could feel the sun from Aoi’s fluorescent light, “Ripped wide open.”

Aoi crossed his arms tight.  Uruha closed his eyes, staying perfectly still except for the slight twitch of his callused fingers.  The one-room apartment stopped breathing.  And for a split moment, they didn’t exist.

But then Uruha opened his eyes, caramel irises swiveling towards Aoi’s guarded expression, “Sometimes it hurts to feel whole.”

Aoi turned away, hugging himself tighter.  The crooked clock on his wall declared it was 2:47am.

He heard his voice softly utter, “Why did you come here?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Now the real reason.”

“Why do you think I’d lie?”

“Because I lie.”

Uruha sat up, off-balance and swaying.  His legs were still strangled by Aoi’s sheets.  Blue constrictors capturing and keeping him here, on this earth, for just a while more.  His eyes were hard suddenly, caramel frozen over as he stared into Aoi’s black orbs.

“I’m nineteen, a runaway, a guitar player, a user.  I left home after I lost everything.  I thought I might find something here, but all I’ve got so far is an addiction with self-destruction and I think I might like it.”

Uruha leaned in, hands now digging into the sheets pooled in his lap, “When you destroyed your guitar, I wanted to fuck you.  When you slammed me into the wall, I wanted to love you.”

The younger man closed his eyes again, tongue running over his lips as if parched before he breathed out, “That’s the truth.  Everything.”

Something was waiting inside Aoi’s heart as he found himself softly saying, “You said you lost everything.  Who was it?”

Not what because Aoi knew of the same agony that slipped into Uruha’s eyes as he spoke it. 

Uruha kept his eyes closed, lazily tracing the marks on the inside of his arm with a hand.  Gnarled fingertips, obvious years from ripping out chords, travelled up, up, down.  They mingled with each chaste kiss of death and Aoi began to think he wouldn’t answer.

He surprised him when he suddenly uttered, “Think of the universe.  The world.  Your world.  Your half.  Your heart.”

Uruha opened his eyes and Aoi was caught inside their torture –

“That’s who it was.”

Aoi was silent, his hand absently coming up to clutch at his quivering heart because something was rattling inside him.  He might be shattering, but this perfect mess atop his futon might be the one to tell him it’s okay, come fall apart with me.

“Uruha.”

The flaxen-haired man tilted his head, waiting.

Aoi swallowed, “My name.  I never told you -- ”

Uruha smiled, lips quirking to one side, “Don’t tell me.”

He couldn’t stop the knife of rejection from carving into him, “Why?”

Uruha was like black starlight, blocking out the moon and spread across his sheets, “Because you don’t know who you are yet.”

He then laid back down, splayed his arms across the mattress.  His eyes were still glazed, a drowning caramel, and his lips puckered, “So tell me who you are tonight.”

He felt compelled, pulled in, suffocated and absolutely perfect, “Aoi.”

&&&

A/N:  Inspiration struck at 2am yesterday and everything just spilt out of me.

And oh, dear.  I originally had a lovely scene o’ smut as well, but I’ll be saving that for later.  I was going to add on a bit more, but after writing the last scene it somehow felt.. complete in that moment.

There are little flashbacks in here that try and help to clear up the story of what happened.  Of course, nothing’s clearly stated (because what fun would that be?).  That’s one of the their purposes.  The other – well, I just love writing little Kouyou & Yuu. 

The beautiful songs I listened to while writing this were:  Wherever You Are – ONE OK ROCK, Nobody’s Home – ONE OK ROCK and Hide and Seek – Imogen Heap.  Seriously, go listen to them.  Amazing, amazing.

As I’ve stated before:  this is a fic requested by jokerock over at jrockyaoi with the prompts of “jealousy, childhood, romance, angst, happy ending”. 

Hope you all enjoyed this one!  (and for those who are wondering where is dear Akira, he’ll be showing up in the next chapter [with the rest of Gazette]!)

<3

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