Work Text:
Subaru feels like he's being tested.
He met the ghost of a dog, and already his heart was painfully beating, remembering Seishirou's habit of using animals to shield himself from the effects of his dark magic. The ghost, whining in distress, called to Subaru only, to no one else.
There are cherry blossoms flying in the wind. It's the season. It could be nothing.
It's hard to keep balance. Sometimes, relating everything to his broken heart is Subaru's only way to be able to feel something, to kindle enough compassion to keep himself going. And when the feeling seems overwhelming, it could be that the strings of his heart are easy to play with today. It could be just the wind.
Or it could be that Seishirou's presence is so obvious that it is a trap.
There was a trap that mattered, years ago, that cost him his innocence, his sister, and his happiness. Now Subaru can fall into any of Seishirou's traps, on his own accord. He has nothing left to lose.
At least he will see him again.
"Show me," he tells the dog.
Animals don't usually leave ghosts. They welcome death like a natural thing, even when it's painful and lonely. But this one is here. Already starting to vanish in a smoke that makes eyes water, but still here.
Animals don't usually want revenge either. Maybe this one still has hope. Maybe not. Animals, like humans, are capable of needing someone to understand.
Following this shadow of love, Subaru prepares himself. His magic hasn't been created to hurt anyone, not even ghosts; but he can still destroy unnatural summons. He armors himself with unborn shikigami – small, fast things that can hit once, fast, and take damage for him. He seals himself from the emotions of ghosts and spells, in a way he was taught long ago but disliked to do.
He wishes he was dead enough to cut his own emotions away. He has a duty of revenge. It's not what he dreams about.
The dog waits for him in front of a house that looks like a radiant family home, with flowers in a tiny garden, a child's toy forgotten.
The door is closed, but not locked. Subaru can feel the Sakurazukamori, hiding behind it. He can feel him in the painful throb in the stars that still mar his hands, and in the darkest color of shadows, and in the mad beating of his heart.
Seishirou is sitting at the table, in the center of the main room. His sunglasses are on the table, his white eye on display. The house isn't empty, Subaru can hear people talking, up the stairs. It seems so far away, and also dangerously close.
"I see you got my invitation," Seishirou says, offering Subaru an empty smile. "Sit down with me."
"I won't," Subaru answers. "What do you want from me?"
The idea that Seishirou wanted him here worries him, the way his heart reacts to this information worries him more. He has seen his work often, but he hasn't seen this face since his sister died, except in his many dreams and nightmares. Except every day when he daydreams about him.
"Maybe I just wanted to see you," Seishirou says pleasantly, like a joke. "Maybe I didn't want you to forget me."
I will never forget you, Subaru thinks, not as long as I live, and after my death I'll probably haunt you until you eat the shriveled hunk of my soul.
"So I thought you might want to see me work," Seishirou says. "You were not here for Hokuto's death, after all. I know they're poor replacements, you don't know them, but you take what you can get."
The ghost dog runs up the stairs, towards someone alive. His purpose is not revenge, only protection. Animals are better than humans can ever be.
"Why don't you just kill me?" Subaru asks. "Wasn't it your promise to yourself, if you won?"
"Oh, your sister didn't tell you? Better if you don't know, Subaru-kun."
"Maybe you can try."
Subaru reaches inside himself to find his new power, the one his grandmother told him about in hushed tones, the one that would allow him to save humanity if he wanted to, if he had a real devotion to the idea and not an abstract sense of duty.
But now it rises up, because he wants to throw himself between Seishirou and these people. Not for the right reasons, not because he wants to save some happy people who live here.
But because Seishirou threw himself between Subaru and a woman mad with grief, because Hokuto gave her life to free him from the shadow of the cherry tree, and because this dog ran to save this family. Because he can't bear the smoothness of his own skin that's not marred with scars or soiled with blood.
So he can do it. He wasn't sure. It has the shape of a star, and it means more than Subaru wants to see right now.
He tilts his head at Seishirou, defiant. You have to kill me, now.
Seishirou doesn't get up, but he looks at him with an amused fondness.
"You did good, Subaru-kun. You always plan the best for me, don't you?"
The first shikigami wave attacks, and Subaru deflects it. Every one of his defenses, when torn, becomes two, when reduced in scraps, becomes an unstoppable swarm of tiny, sharp feelings.
When they come close to Seishirou, though, they start to burn. Some of the fire briefly embraces him, crowns him in dark flames, before they all fall to ashes. Seishirou is standing now, getting closer, his long coat floating behind him, heavy and dark. Subaru looks at it so he does not have to look him in theeye.
Subaru's planning for another attack, power concentrating under his fingers.
Seishirou moves fast, and his hand closes around Subaru's throat. Subaru feels his singed shikigami fall; oh, how he burns! He jumps back, but Seishirou jumps after him, pushing him against the wall.
He has all this armor of magic. Maybe it wouldn't be enough, maybe he would lose. But he can't even unleash them to assault, entranced by Seishirou's skin against his. It has been years. His heart is beating wildly, his blood wants to get out, to adorn Seishirou's hands and face, to mix with Seishirou's blood. He hadn't planned this, hadn’t planned for any defense against himself. His disdain for any kind of hope, even the darkest one, is his downfall here.
"I have other ways to own you," Seishirou whispers.
Subaru's whole body is pressed against the wall, shame and desire intermingled flaring into his nerves. He can feel a shadow of cherry blossoms and blood in Seishirou's smell – was it always here?
"I know," he answers, closing his eyes. He wants the pain. He would welcome it, as a punishment, as a blessing.
"No, you don't."
Seshirou effortlessly twists Subaru around, making his face hit the wall. Here his defenses act again, the shikigami flying in Seishirou's face, to no effect, but Subaru wasn't hurt. His head is still spinning, as Seishirou grabs his crotch, opens his trousers...
"Please don't," Subaru says, because he feels like the dead won't forgive him if he lets Seishirou take him.
"Please don't," he says, because he fears that if Seishirou knows how much Subaru daydreamed about it, he will stop.
It was never like this, of course. He had longed for love. When he was a child, his cheeks and his belly burned thinking about a kiss. After Seishirou betrayed him, it became muddier, darker, not feeling like he was allowed to dream of anything else than murder, to remember even, but his dreams had been full of forbidden, hot touches and suffocating embraces.
Maybe once it happens he'll want it less. Maybe he'll hate it. Maybe it will, in a way, set him free.
Seishirou doesn't stop when Subaru unconvincingly pretends to fight him, and the shikigami don't wake up at his touch, harsh pressure that doesn't break the skin. He feels the cold of the air on his burning skin.
"Why are you doing this?" he asks. He realizes tears are running on his face, as one of them gets on his tongue, trying to change him into salt.
He shouldn’t ask, shouldn't hope for an answer, even a condescending one, a mocking one. He gets nothing.
Seishirou bites his neck, and Subaru imagines that it's a kiss; if anything, the pain makes it more real. He stopped believing in soft kisses when his sister died. Seishirou’s hands are moving on his body, still keeping him pinned, a harsh caress that makes his shiver as it stops on his loins.
He doesn't feel any pain, though, when something enters him - Seishirou's finger, he guesses, coated with something that feels like blood. It presses inside him, and it's too soft. Subaru wants to be hurt. He doesn't want this pretense that he can be seized and pierced and that it's alright. He doesn't want it to feel like solid lights stealing him from his pain.
"Subaru-kun, am I your first?" Seishirou asks. His voice is calm, cold, and Subaru can almost feel the vibration of a fake smile, like in their fake past.
"You are." Subaru can't lie to him, only wish his self-destructive streak would have allowed a no to be true. But of course, he never wanted anyone else. Right now, it's hard to remember he's meant to pretend to not want this too sweet invasion. Seishirou is impersonal but precise, pressing into his most sensitive places. Subaru can only wonder if he already did this.
"Good." Seishirou seems satisfied, and Subaru should be disgusted, but some bitter happiness sparkles in his heart, because Seishirou wanted to keep him for himself.
"Did you dream about this?"
"Certainly not like this," Subaru answers, because Seishirou can drag his body and soul in the mud, but if he wants his dreams too, he'll have to uncover them first.
Subaru almost wishes he did. That he knew everything, that he could mock him accurately, know all of his childhood dreams, when he was still soft and happy, and strike at the heart of the innocence Subaru no longer has.
"What would you have done at the time, if I had told you?" Subaru manages to ask, and just then Seishirou's fingers twist inside him, vicious and wonderful and still not enough.
Seishirou doesn't answer. Subaru realizes that of course, when Seishirou asks him anything, he could withdraw into silence too. He's just desperate for anything that's like a connection.
Even when every possible answer would hurt.
When Seishirou finally enters him, a moan escapes from Subaru’s throat, raw enough to pass for a complaint. From now he falls into a delight of lack of thought, lack of remorse, lack of self, as the pain and the pleasure of Seishirou piercing him, of his hands grabbing his body, of his breath against his neck.
He has to stop himself from confessing: I still love you.
He's crying when it ends, when Seishirou spills into him with a sigh that resonates in Subaru's blood. He feels naked again, without his coat of well-deserved pain and ecstatic fusion. He feels unworthy of anything again.
"I didn't think you could maintain your kekkai through this," Seishirou says, and the pleasantness of his tone hits in a way that's nothing pleasant. "Do you keep dreaming about protecting other people, even though I destroyed your life?"
Subaru wishes he did. He remembers being innocent. He remembers when love was not a curse and someone else's joy could touch his heart. He doesn't remember when Seishirou chose him among all to play with, but he knows he's just a shadow of his former self.
But still his kekkai holds, not because he's good enough to protect anyone, but because he doesn't believe he was hurt enough.
He turns back, looks at Seishirou’s dispassionate eye. This didn’t purify him from anything. He still wants Seishirou inside him, maybe more than before, and if the ghosts of Seishirou’s victims don’t spit at his face, it’s because they were consumed in a way nothing can fix.
Subaru wants his teeth and his tongue, he wants his hands and fingers, he wants to die for him and him only, while feeling his skin with the inside of his body. His soul has been consumed too, and he’s still here.
Seishirou doesn’t stay after his plans for murder are foiled. He turns his back, without any precaution. Probably because he knows Subaru is weak.
Probably because he knows that right now, the best way to hurt Subaru is to let him survive this, and walk, and work, and pretend that he can want something other than this.