GB fic & domesticity
Jan. 23rd, 2004 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xparrotThings you don't realize you need in an apartment, until you have an apartment and you need them: a plunger. Which explains why at 9 PM on a freezing Friday night, I'm at Target, purchasing said necessity. And a sponge mop, because they were on sale. Unfortunately this means I no longer have an excuse not to clean my kitchen floor. But at least my toilet flushes!
Will be putting this chapter up on ff.net shortly, but I'm lazy, so it just goes here tonight.
Ow. I'm feeling guilty about this. Hurt/comfort is all well and good, but... I do love you, Gin-chan...really...
Darkness Visible
Chapter 5
There isn't enough power. Ginji takes a deep breath and sends another surge into the grate, the tiny bit that he can spare, a spark no greater than a battery, but it only circles back to him, a brown taste on his tongue. No source to draw on, the generator out of reach until the monster throws the switch, and then the power comes, too much, too swiftly. He tried before to hold onto the electricity, draw the current into himself, but each time it flicked off the moment he recovered himself enough to try, a split second before he could gather it.
The monster knows him, too well. The monster knows his strength; this room is a cage, concrete reinforced with steel, grounded against a thunderbolt, and he can hardly make a spark by now. The light bulb above shattered with a previous attempt, the last real effort he managed, and he has no strength left to make light. The pitch black abates only for the brief instances when the monster opens the door. It doesn't matter anyway; there's little to see. The bars of the grate are each the width of two of his fingers, framed in concrete; the metal door is thick enough not to echo when he pounds his fists against it. Nothing to hear but his own breathing and a hum of machinery, vibrating faintly through the walls.
The monster knows his limits as well. He's had one meal, a bowl of rice shoved through the door, shifting the broken glass from the bulb. He ate it with his hands. It wasn't enough; his body needs other energies besides pure current to recharge.
There's water, at least, a spigot in the corner. Ginji crawls to it now, feels for the plastic handle and twists it until he hears the trickle into the drain below. He puts his hands under the cold water, lets it fill his cupped fingers and brings some to his mouth before splashing it on his face.
His stomach is aching, but it might be better empty. It had been hard to keep even the rice down, when the pain had started before.
Unconsciously Ginji touches his chest, presses his hand to his torso, smooth skin under the damp t-shirt. He had run the shirt under the spigot until his fingers cramped with the cold and he hadn't been able to smell the blood anymore, but he had only been able to wring out so much water, and in the darkness the cotton is slow to dry. At least it's not too chilly here; the air wafting down from the ceiling vent is warm. Maybe he should have kept the shirt off until it dried, but he doesn't want to face the monster bare.
He's not really sure why it matters, when Ban-chan isn't even embarrassed to take a bath in the park fountain. But when the monster is here Ginji could feel his gaze on him, even in the dark, those eyes that aren't human, burning against his skin, studying him with that pleased smile in the slit of light through the door. The monster crouched to run his hand down Ginji's arm, wiping away the drying blood to see the whole flesh beneath.
He didn't see what the monster did to cause those wounds, didn't see the slashes, just felt the pain as they opened, agonizing fire down his arms, across his chest. The monster wasn't there; he was inflicting those tortures on his own body, in some other place, with knife or sword or axe, but Ginji took each one as his own as they occurred.
There is a point when screams become meaningless. He thought he might die, might bleed to death on the cold cement, and was horrified by that brief instant when he thought he wanted it, though he had been hurt worse before, and felt more pain, and this small cell was still not Mugenjou. He hated himself, at that moment, that worthless weak thing sprawled on the floor in darkness, and wrapped his bleeding arms around his chest, trying to staunch the hot flow pulsing from him.
He didn't know when it ended, when those unseen, distant blades stopped cutting. Agony was at last displaced by the sudden pulse in the metal grate under him, burning away the pain in brilliance. The electric fire closed his wounds, cauterizing as it knit him whole again, flesh and spirit together. The respite was overwhelming, as much as the hurt had been, so much that he had to fight just to stay conscious. Like standing under a fountain, a man dying of thirst suddenly drowning, trying to swallow and choking instead.
He was only half-aware when the power cut off, when the door opened and the monster entered, those vicious eyes burning through him while the strangely gentle hands turned him over, impersonally examining him, to apparent satisfaction. The monster said nothing, however, no further gloating, no reasons given. Ginji forced open his eyes in time to see the door close over the light again, and the footsteps pounded like drum beats through the floor as the monster walked away.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, Ban said once. But it must be hours later and he's still shaking like a feverish child. If he were Ban-chan he could smash aside that steel door, rip it from its hinges, but he's not strong enough, even if he's not dead.
If he were strong enough, he could spit in the monster's face, when the door opens again; he could fight his way free, though the blows he landed would bruise his own body. But even with his back to the wall, it's hard to stand; he pushes himself to his feet only to slide down again, his legs folding under him. In the blackness he can't tell if he's dizzy, or just too exhausted to move.
He wants to call for Ban-chan, doesn't dare. If Ban comes too soon he might get caught again, and Ginji has nothing left to stop the monster. It could never have been Ban in this room. Ban-chan is so much stronger, but the power that heals Ginji would hurt anyone else, or worse.
Ban-chan will come when he's ready, when he knows how to defeat the monster. Ban-chan doesn't lose a fight, but he's a genius of battle, smart enough to know when he must retreat and when he can attack. But Ban-chan will always come. Ginji only has to wait.
It's really not that hard. The monster won't let him die, and he's been hurt worse before. He's fine.
But when he feels the wounding begin again, a line of fire across his chest, he has to bite his tongue to keep from crying out. He wonders how long it will last this time. He wonders if the monster will think to feed him afterwards, to replace the life dripping down his stomach. And would that be breakfast, or dinner? He wonders if the sun has risen yet, or if it's already setting.
He only has to wait.
Another stripe crosses him, tracing from shoulder to belly, parting flesh. Damp warmth starts seeping into his t-shirt, and even with his jaw clamped shut, he feels wetness on his cheeks, more than blood.
Ban-chan, he whispers, before he can help it. He wonders if this is his skin at all. This weak body doesn't feel like his own, even if the pain is his. Shouldn't he be stronger by now? He only has to wait, and even that's so hard.
By the time the first brand burns his arm, he's already forgotten not to scream. By the fifth he's forgotten how to count them at all. Ban-chan, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm not strong enough...
***
Ban-chan.
It's dark, until he opens his eyes. Ban lifts his head from the support of his hand, his cheek reddened where it was pressed into his palm. The words on the paper under his elbow slide back into focus, violet-tinged from the lenses of his glasses, though after so many years he doesn't notice that shading anymore. A quick glance at the clock on the wall ascertains that he didn't lose more than a minute or two.
He thought he heard his name, but when he listens there's only the whir of the air conditioning, the clock's steady ticking, and the pervasive, almost inaudible hum of the florescent lights. He slams his hand down on the table to hear the thump of the impact, the rattle of the metal frame. One pen rolls off the notebook and clatters on the floor, and then everything's quiet again, so that the rasp of his clothes is loud when he leans down to pick it up.
He thought he heard his name, but there's not even the ghost of a whisper.
He's used to knowing, without a doubt, where Ginji is, what his partner is up to. Ginji is so easy to predict, so open, forever acting without forethought or hesitation. If Ginji isn't where he should be, then Ban can figure out where he's gotten to, pursue his partner from A to B to C to X--because Ginji doesn't take things linearly, but Ban knows that about him, too. Even Ginji's hopeless sense of direction has a certain pattern to it.
It wasn't always like this, not when they first became retrievers. But that was when he was Midou Ban and his associate was Amano Ginji. They are the GetBackers now, and Ban accepts that Ginji can see places in him that even Ban himself can't make out, because it's a fair price for knowing his partner well enough to be able to follow him anywhere.
The S in GetBackers means we're not alone.
He doesn't know where the demon might have taken Ginji. Still in this world--Crawd confirmed what Ban assumed, that the monster isn't strong enough to draw a living being into its own realm. And Ginji is still alive. He knows that much, at least, even if there's only silence now.
He isn't calling for Ban, he won't cry Ban's name, but Ban can still feel Ginji, like a spider feels vibrations in the spokes of its web, the faintest tremor that has no words, just pain and pain and pain.
His eyes are open, falling from the stark, gray geometry of Crawd's files to the pages in front of him, but though he can see the letters clearly, they are nothing but abstract circles and lines. He blinks, and there is meaning again, as if the Roman alphabet had momentarily fallen out of his head and then back in. But by the time he finishes the page--Italian isn't one of his strengths--the clock has ticked an hour by, and he can't account for half those minutes.
He doesn't bother looking up when the door opens, tracks Crawd's entrance by the slow progression of his steps, the limping drag of his soles on the tile. The old man stops beside his chair. "Midou-kun."
"Yeah?" It better not be another offer for breakfast. Or supper. Or whatever the hell meal it should be now. He doesn't have time for that crap.
"I have located further documentation of like encounters."
"Ah." Ban does look up now, as the wrinkled hands set a flat box on the table. "Good. ...Thank you. Sorry for the trouble."
"This is all that I have here," Crawd tells him. "I have requested more from colleagues, but I think that there being much of significant use to you has a small likelihood."
"Yeah, well, I'll make do." Ban hunches back over the table, waits for the gnome to leave so he can concentrate again, but there's no footsteps. When he raises his head, the hazel eyes wavering behind the thick lenses are aimed at him.
"I am not sure even what I have brought here will be of further help," Crawd says, deliberate and careful as ever, picking his way through the minefield of this foreign tongue. "These circumstances are not usual."
"The hell they're not," Ban growls. It's not like meeting a demon is an everyday event. Even for them.
Crawd slowly shakes his head. "Even given the unusualness of demons. I do not understand entirely this situation. Why it wants your friend."
"He's a monster. If you'd seen him--it's a monster."
"That is not doubted. But a monster with reason, and therefore purpose. Intent. There are some demons that will take a human for torture, only because they find pleasure in fear, gain sustenance from pain. But the demon as you have identified it, it is not one of those. And to lay that trap--its want for your friend is very great. I wonder why."
"I don't care why it wants him." Whatever twisted reason the monster might have doesn't figure in. He's getting Ginji back before it can matter. Wherever the hell the demon is now. Wherever Ginji is.
He doesn't have time for this. "If this is all you've got--"
"Such a demon as this most often has a single goal." The wrinkled old bastard isn't paying any attention. "You must have realized this already, in your research."
"Yeah, yeah, possession."
"Not precisely." Crawd's dry rasp is suddenly sharp, the voice of a tutor chastising a lazy student--the same irritating tone Maria would take, on the occasions she decided to be his teacher. "To call such as this possession is to call a samurai's katana a kitchen knife. What the demon desires is a body, such that it may be wholly a real being in this world. Not merely to pull a puppet's strings, but to make human flesh its own."
"'Perfect physical manifestation in the mortal realm'," Ban quotes. "I got it already."
"Then you understand the peril here. A manifestation of a fiend this mighty has not been achieved in centuries on Earth. Were it to succeed--"
"It would be bad. I got that, too." He finds it hard to care. If the demon were fully physical, more than a spirit, completely embodied on the mortal plane, it could be killed. He doesn't want this monster fleeing back to whatever hell it came from, when this is over; he wants its blood on his hands, wants to know it is dead with no chance of return.
Besides, he's been taught some of this already, even if he's no occult expert. This kind of manifestation is complicated. "It'd take years anyway, even if the demon manages to get an appropriate host."
"And only if the host survives the rituals required," Crawd confirms. "But with powerful enough a host it may achieve its perfection much the faster."
It's not as if he hadn't thought of it before, but still he freezes. The silence is too loud; his voice is lost in it, barely makes it to his ears. "Ginji. You think that bastard demon wants Ginji for a host."
He has read a little about those rituals in these records, remembers a little more, from the moldering tomes in his grandmother's libraries, and the woodcuts in Maria's shop. Years, it can take, to shape a human body to contain a demon's power, to smash a human soul to powder so that vessel can be emptied.
He remembers the cult members, the hollowness in their faces. But it's only been a few days. And they were weak, already broken before the demon found them. Not his partner.
He can't imagine seeing such a yawning emptiness in those brown eyes, something even worse than Raitei's annihilating light. But it doesn't matter. He's going to find him long before that. And Ginji's strong.
"Ah, and this is what it is that I don't understand, Midou-kun." Crawd's unchanging calm burns. "That your friend is powerful, I realize. But you are as well, and it had you. It could not use you, however, for you would be inappropriate. I have seen enough of you, and spoken to Maria enough, to know. Your will is too strong, too contrary to the demon's. It would find no comfortable space in the crevices of your soul, however deep they go."
"Ginji gave himself to it." For me. Somewhere too far inside for him to feel it, Ban knows Ginji is hurting still, hears the cry he isn't making, like an internal wound--no blood visible though it's bleeding, no pain though it's killing. "He gave himself over, of his own free will."
"That would not be enough." Wrinkles fold around Crawd's dry lips as he frowns. "For many things, yes, for many terrible magics, but not for that. This is as fundamental a thing as the strength and weakness of his body. Not to be altered by simple choice. Midou-kun, he is your friend." He pronounces 'friend' with a momentary hesitation, as if unsure the word best suits. "You have known him for some time?"
"A couple years," Ban says. A lifetime, but he was only born two years ago, he and Ginji both, walking out of Mugenjou's womb as newborns, together.
"Is your friend, perhaps, evil?"
"What's that?"
"Think carefully, Midou-kun. Pass no judgment, for he is your friend, but consider it well. It may be a side of himself he does not show to you. But is there perhaps something in him that likes pain? That enjoys the witnessing of another's suffering, that revels in the power he has over those weaker? A selfishness, perhaps, not always conquered?"
Ban almost could laugh. A perfect description in negative. "That's not him. That's the exact opposite of what Ginji is."
Crawd still hesitates. "There are things I have heard. Rumors. Your friend, he is the thunder emperor. The tyrant of Under Shinjuku, the stories go..."
"Not anymore," Ban says, too brusquely. That isn't Ginji, no matter how difficult some find it to understand. "Raitei--Ginji's stronger than him. Raitei's not real. And anyway...Raitei..." He can see that figure in his mind's eye, the emperor's golden luminescence, and his eyes, that shining, abstract gaze which razed even as it passed over you. A sharp shake of his head cancels that vision. "Raitei isn't evil. He destroys, but it's like a storm, an earthquake--there's not enough there for cruelty or sadism." Raitei has no cracks, nothing the demon could exploit; Raitei has no soul to be corrupted. Break Raitei, and Ginji is inside. And Ginji's will is greater than any demon's.
"Then it makes no sense." Crawd shakes his bald head. "Without such a foothold, the demon could not infest itself in your friend. But I do not then understand its purpose, if you described this demon truly."
"I told you everything," Ban growls, "everything I can remember, exactly how I remember it--why would I lie?!" This time when his hand slams down, the table collapses under the blow, the folding supports giving way with the screech of abused metal. The box slides off the listing tabletop, scattering papers in its fall.
"Do not mistake me, Midou-kun," Crawd says, mildly, ignoring the yellowed pages fluttering down at his feet. "It is not lying that I am accusing or suspecting of you. But it is curious, that this demon would take such as your partner."
"When I find them, I'll ask it." Distantly he thinks he should apologize, but those papers were probably useless to him anyway, and something in him balks at begging forgiveness from this shriveled gnome.
--Once you wouldn't bow even to an emperor, and you were wrong then. It's amazing how much that internal voice sounds like the one he can't hear now, no matter how he tries. And it could be right, but he doesn't have time. But neither can he afford to alienate Crawd, not when he still might need the man's knowledge. "Sorry," he says, forcing politeness into his tone, and maybe Crawd's rheumy eyes won't see how thin that veneer is. "But if you don't know what's going on--it's more important to stop the demon now, and figure it out afterward."
"Perhaps," Crawd murmurs. "Though without understanding what it intends, it may be difficult to prevent those intentions."
He has to bite his tongue to keep from snapping back, and maybe that shouldn't have been so literal, but the taste of blood clears his head a little. He swallows that iron tang, says, "I know stopping the demon's important. But--"
"I understand." Crawd looks up at Ban, head inclined like a curious bird's. The old man hasn't moved, maybe to avoid treading on the fallen papers, and his voice is calm as ever, cracked and desiccated as a desert plain, though quieter now. "The demon is a grave peril, but you have decided already what is most important. Or perhaps not a decision you have made at all?"
"I'll do what I have to do," Ban says, but before he can turn aside Crawd takes his arm, gnarled talons around his forearm, a clasp dry and brittle as a sparrow's grip. He could shrug it off but he might hurt the old gnome, so he holds himself still.
"Midou-kun," and Ban wonders if the ancient man can feel the trembling of his muscles, the effort it's taking not to throw him off. There's no hesitation in his tone, though he knows Ban's power, better than most. "If this demon succeeds in grasping its desires, however it manages this, it will be a nightmare walking on this Earth such as not even your eye could conjure. You are her grandson, latest of the witch queen's line. There are responsibilities in your blood that you are not allowed to forget or forsake." The gnarled fingers tighten, digging into the flesh until it reddens. "I cannot and will not enforce; I only remind. For the sake of what is important to you."
"I know," Ban rasps, and Crawd lets go, an instant before it's too much for him to hold back.
A tooth-rattling buzz interrupts any answer the man might have made. Ban sifts through the fallen papers on the floor, finds his celphone and answers it.
"Midou?" Shido's voice is strained, muffled. Not suited to modern technology, that tribal bastard. He called once before, to confirm that the thread spool was holding on. He might have tried again, but Ban had the phone off for a while, not wanting the distraction.
"Yeah."
"Dammit, where are you, snake bastard? Have you found what you needed to find?"
He glances at Crawd, politely turned away to let him take the call. "Getting there."
"Good. Makubex may have found him."
"What?"
"Makubex thinks he's found Ginji--or a way to locate him, anyway."
"I got that, monkey trainer--how? Where?" You shouldn't shout in libraries, but Crawd says nothing, though the echoes off the flat white walls turn his questions to cacophony.
"Come to the Honky Tonk, we'll tell you here."
"There isn't time for goddamn games--"
"I'm not playing one," Shido growls, deadly serious for all his stubborn idiocy. "We don't have anything certain yet anyway. Makubex is hoping he will by tomorrow morning."
Ban glances at the clock, realizes it doesn't matter; he has no idea whether it's AM or PM. "What's he doing? Where--"
"We'll explain when you get here, Midou," Shido says.
Before he can hang up, Ban asks, "How's the thread spool?"
He might have imagined the change in Shido's tone. "He's doing all right--the doctors aren't as sure, but Juubei is."
"Like he wouldn't be. He's one of you VOLTS bastards, isn't he?"
"Midou..." It sounds like Shido will continue, but nothing more comes.
"He's still alive," Ban says, not knowing why he does, except that he has to hear it. The opposite of a wish, kept secret so it will come true. This is already truth. Even in silence. "He's alive."
"Get here, snake bastard," Shido tells him, and disconnects.
He pockets the phone, and looks over to find Crawd watching him again. The thick lenses distort too much for him to read those hazel eyes, but he can feel their focus, like an unreachable itch. "What? --Sir?"
"You are not quite as Maria said you were, Midou-kun."
There are too many things he's not. "Sorry."
"I did not mean it to require an apology."
"I'll be going tomorrow morning," Ban tells him. "I'm going to find him. Them. Until then..." He looks down at the pages strewn at his feet, tries to find the anger again, that last bastion of his pride. His voice is too thin and raw without it. "I need to know as much more as you can give me."
"Of course, Midou-kun," Crawd says, and slowly kneels to help him gather up the fallen papers.
Will be putting this chapter up on ff.net shortly, but I'm lazy, so it just goes here tonight.
Ow. I'm feeling guilty about this. Hurt/comfort is all well and good, but... I do love you, Gin-chan...really...
Darkness Visible
Chapter 5
There isn't enough power. Ginji takes a deep breath and sends another surge into the grate, the tiny bit that he can spare, a spark no greater than a battery, but it only circles back to him, a brown taste on his tongue. No source to draw on, the generator out of reach until the monster throws the switch, and then the power comes, too much, too swiftly. He tried before to hold onto the electricity, draw the current into himself, but each time it flicked off the moment he recovered himself enough to try, a split second before he could gather it.
The monster knows him, too well. The monster knows his strength; this room is a cage, concrete reinforced with steel, grounded against a thunderbolt, and he can hardly make a spark by now. The light bulb above shattered with a previous attempt, the last real effort he managed, and he has no strength left to make light. The pitch black abates only for the brief instances when the monster opens the door. It doesn't matter anyway; there's little to see. The bars of the grate are each the width of two of his fingers, framed in concrete; the metal door is thick enough not to echo when he pounds his fists against it. Nothing to hear but his own breathing and a hum of machinery, vibrating faintly through the walls.
The monster knows his limits as well. He's had one meal, a bowl of rice shoved through the door, shifting the broken glass from the bulb. He ate it with his hands. It wasn't enough; his body needs other energies besides pure current to recharge.
There's water, at least, a spigot in the corner. Ginji crawls to it now, feels for the plastic handle and twists it until he hears the trickle into the drain below. He puts his hands under the cold water, lets it fill his cupped fingers and brings some to his mouth before splashing it on his face.
His stomach is aching, but it might be better empty. It had been hard to keep even the rice down, when the pain had started before.
Unconsciously Ginji touches his chest, presses his hand to his torso, smooth skin under the damp t-shirt. He had run the shirt under the spigot until his fingers cramped with the cold and he hadn't been able to smell the blood anymore, but he had only been able to wring out so much water, and in the darkness the cotton is slow to dry. At least it's not too chilly here; the air wafting down from the ceiling vent is warm. Maybe he should have kept the shirt off until it dried, but he doesn't want to face the monster bare.
He's not really sure why it matters, when Ban-chan isn't even embarrassed to take a bath in the park fountain. But when the monster is here Ginji could feel his gaze on him, even in the dark, those eyes that aren't human, burning against his skin, studying him with that pleased smile in the slit of light through the door. The monster crouched to run his hand down Ginji's arm, wiping away the drying blood to see the whole flesh beneath.
He didn't see what the monster did to cause those wounds, didn't see the slashes, just felt the pain as they opened, agonizing fire down his arms, across his chest. The monster wasn't there; he was inflicting those tortures on his own body, in some other place, with knife or sword or axe, but Ginji took each one as his own as they occurred.
There is a point when screams become meaningless. He thought he might die, might bleed to death on the cold cement, and was horrified by that brief instant when he thought he wanted it, though he had been hurt worse before, and felt more pain, and this small cell was still not Mugenjou. He hated himself, at that moment, that worthless weak thing sprawled on the floor in darkness, and wrapped his bleeding arms around his chest, trying to staunch the hot flow pulsing from him.
He didn't know when it ended, when those unseen, distant blades stopped cutting. Agony was at last displaced by the sudden pulse in the metal grate under him, burning away the pain in brilliance. The electric fire closed his wounds, cauterizing as it knit him whole again, flesh and spirit together. The respite was overwhelming, as much as the hurt had been, so much that he had to fight just to stay conscious. Like standing under a fountain, a man dying of thirst suddenly drowning, trying to swallow and choking instead.
He was only half-aware when the power cut off, when the door opened and the monster entered, those vicious eyes burning through him while the strangely gentle hands turned him over, impersonally examining him, to apparent satisfaction. The monster said nothing, however, no further gloating, no reasons given. Ginji forced open his eyes in time to see the door close over the light again, and the footsteps pounded like drum beats through the floor as the monster walked away.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, Ban said once. But it must be hours later and he's still shaking like a feverish child. If he were Ban-chan he could smash aside that steel door, rip it from its hinges, but he's not strong enough, even if he's not dead.
If he were strong enough, he could spit in the monster's face, when the door opens again; he could fight his way free, though the blows he landed would bruise his own body. But even with his back to the wall, it's hard to stand; he pushes himself to his feet only to slide down again, his legs folding under him. In the blackness he can't tell if he's dizzy, or just too exhausted to move.
He wants to call for Ban-chan, doesn't dare. If Ban comes too soon he might get caught again, and Ginji has nothing left to stop the monster. It could never have been Ban in this room. Ban-chan is so much stronger, but the power that heals Ginji would hurt anyone else, or worse.
Ban-chan will come when he's ready, when he knows how to defeat the monster. Ban-chan doesn't lose a fight, but he's a genius of battle, smart enough to know when he must retreat and when he can attack. But Ban-chan will always come. Ginji only has to wait.
It's really not that hard. The monster won't let him die, and he's been hurt worse before. He's fine.
But when he feels the wounding begin again, a line of fire across his chest, he has to bite his tongue to keep from crying out. He wonders how long it will last this time. He wonders if the monster will think to feed him afterwards, to replace the life dripping down his stomach. And would that be breakfast, or dinner? He wonders if the sun has risen yet, or if it's already setting.
He only has to wait.
Another stripe crosses him, tracing from shoulder to belly, parting flesh. Damp warmth starts seeping into his t-shirt, and even with his jaw clamped shut, he feels wetness on his cheeks, more than blood.
Ban-chan, he whispers, before he can help it. He wonders if this is his skin at all. This weak body doesn't feel like his own, even if the pain is his. Shouldn't he be stronger by now? He only has to wait, and even that's so hard.
By the time the first brand burns his arm, he's already forgotten not to scream. By the fifth he's forgotten how to count them at all. Ban-chan, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm not strong enough...
***
Ban-chan.
It's dark, until he opens his eyes. Ban lifts his head from the support of his hand, his cheek reddened where it was pressed into his palm. The words on the paper under his elbow slide back into focus, violet-tinged from the lenses of his glasses, though after so many years he doesn't notice that shading anymore. A quick glance at the clock on the wall ascertains that he didn't lose more than a minute or two.
He thought he heard his name, but when he listens there's only the whir of the air conditioning, the clock's steady ticking, and the pervasive, almost inaudible hum of the florescent lights. He slams his hand down on the table to hear the thump of the impact, the rattle of the metal frame. One pen rolls off the notebook and clatters on the floor, and then everything's quiet again, so that the rasp of his clothes is loud when he leans down to pick it up.
He thought he heard his name, but there's not even the ghost of a whisper.
He's used to knowing, without a doubt, where Ginji is, what his partner is up to. Ginji is so easy to predict, so open, forever acting without forethought or hesitation. If Ginji isn't where he should be, then Ban can figure out where he's gotten to, pursue his partner from A to B to C to X--because Ginji doesn't take things linearly, but Ban knows that about him, too. Even Ginji's hopeless sense of direction has a certain pattern to it.
It wasn't always like this, not when they first became retrievers. But that was when he was Midou Ban and his associate was Amano Ginji. They are the GetBackers now, and Ban accepts that Ginji can see places in him that even Ban himself can't make out, because it's a fair price for knowing his partner well enough to be able to follow him anywhere.
The S in GetBackers means we're not alone.
He doesn't know where the demon might have taken Ginji. Still in this world--Crawd confirmed what Ban assumed, that the monster isn't strong enough to draw a living being into its own realm. And Ginji is still alive. He knows that much, at least, even if there's only silence now.
He isn't calling for Ban, he won't cry Ban's name, but Ban can still feel Ginji, like a spider feels vibrations in the spokes of its web, the faintest tremor that has no words, just pain and pain and pain.
His eyes are open, falling from the stark, gray geometry of Crawd's files to the pages in front of him, but though he can see the letters clearly, they are nothing but abstract circles and lines. He blinks, and there is meaning again, as if the Roman alphabet had momentarily fallen out of his head and then back in. But by the time he finishes the page--Italian isn't one of his strengths--the clock has ticked an hour by, and he can't account for half those minutes.
He doesn't bother looking up when the door opens, tracks Crawd's entrance by the slow progression of his steps, the limping drag of his soles on the tile. The old man stops beside his chair. "Midou-kun."
"Yeah?" It better not be another offer for breakfast. Or supper. Or whatever the hell meal it should be now. He doesn't have time for that crap.
"I have located further documentation of like encounters."
"Ah." Ban does look up now, as the wrinkled hands set a flat box on the table. "Good. ...Thank you. Sorry for the trouble."
"This is all that I have here," Crawd tells him. "I have requested more from colleagues, but I think that there being much of significant use to you has a small likelihood."
"Yeah, well, I'll make do." Ban hunches back over the table, waits for the gnome to leave so he can concentrate again, but there's no footsteps. When he raises his head, the hazel eyes wavering behind the thick lenses are aimed at him.
"I am not sure even what I have brought here will be of further help," Crawd says, deliberate and careful as ever, picking his way through the minefield of this foreign tongue. "These circumstances are not usual."
"The hell they're not," Ban growls. It's not like meeting a demon is an everyday event. Even for them.
Crawd slowly shakes his head. "Even given the unusualness of demons. I do not understand entirely this situation. Why it wants your friend."
"He's a monster. If you'd seen him--it's a monster."
"That is not doubted. But a monster with reason, and therefore purpose. Intent. There are some demons that will take a human for torture, only because they find pleasure in fear, gain sustenance from pain. But the demon as you have identified it, it is not one of those. And to lay that trap--its want for your friend is very great. I wonder why."
"I don't care why it wants him." Whatever twisted reason the monster might have doesn't figure in. He's getting Ginji back before it can matter. Wherever the hell the demon is now. Wherever Ginji is.
He doesn't have time for this. "If this is all you've got--"
"Such a demon as this most often has a single goal." The wrinkled old bastard isn't paying any attention. "You must have realized this already, in your research."
"Yeah, yeah, possession."
"Not precisely." Crawd's dry rasp is suddenly sharp, the voice of a tutor chastising a lazy student--the same irritating tone Maria would take, on the occasions she decided to be his teacher. "To call such as this possession is to call a samurai's katana a kitchen knife. What the demon desires is a body, such that it may be wholly a real being in this world. Not merely to pull a puppet's strings, but to make human flesh its own."
"'Perfect physical manifestation in the mortal realm'," Ban quotes. "I got it already."
"Then you understand the peril here. A manifestation of a fiend this mighty has not been achieved in centuries on Earth. Were it to succeed--"
"It would be bad. I got that, too." He finds it hard to care. If the demon were fully physical, more than a spirit, completely embodied on the mortal plane, it could be killed. He doesn't want this monster fleeing back to whatever hell it came from, when this is over; he wants its blood on his hands, wants to know it is dead with no chance of return.
Besides, he's been taught some of this already, even if he's no occult expert. This kind of manifestation is complicated. "It'd take years anyway, even if the demon manages to get an appropriate host."
"And only if the host survives the rituals required," Crawd confirms. "But with powerful enough a host it may achieve its perfection much the faster."
It's not as if he hadn't thought of it before, but still he freezes. The silence is too loud; his voice is lost in it, barely makes it to his ears. "Ginji. You think that bastard demon wants Ginji for a host."
He has read a little about those rituals in these records, remembers a little more, from the moldering tomes in his grandmother's libraries, and the woodcuts in Maria's shop. Years, it can take, to shape a human body to contain a demon's power, to smash a human soul to powder so that vessel can be emptied.
He remembers the cult members, the hollowness in their faces. But it's only been a few days. And they were weak, already broken before the demon found them. Not his partner.
He can't imagine seeing such a yawning emptiness in those brown eyes, something even worse than Raitei's annihilating light. But it doesn't matter. He's going to find him long before that. And Ginji's strong.
"Ah, and this is what it is that I don't understand, Midou-kun." Crawd's unchanging calm burns. "That your friend is powerful, I realize. But you are as well, and it had you. It could not use you, however, for you would be inappropriate. I have seen enough of you, and spoken to Maria enough, to know. Your will is too strong, too contrary to the demon's. It would find no comfortable space in the crevices of your soul, however deep they go."
"Ginji gave himself to it." For me. Somewhere too far inside for him to feel it, Ban knows Ginji is hurting still, hears the cry he isn't making, like an internal wound--no blood visible though it's bleeding, no pain though it's killing. "He gave himself over, of his own free will."
"That would not be enough." Wrinkles fold around Crawd's dry lips as he frowns. "For many things, yes, for many terrible magics, but not for that. This is as fundamental a thing as the strength and weakness of his body. Not to be altered by simple choice. Midou-kun, he is your friend." He pronounces 'friend' with a momentary hesitation, as if unsure the word best suits. "You have known him for some time?"
"A couple years," Ban says. A lifetime, but he was only born two years ago, he and Ginji both, walking out of Mugenjou's womb as newborns, together.
"Is your friend, perhaps, evil?"
"What's that?"
"Think carefully, Midou-kun. Pass no judgment, for he is your friend, but consider it well. It may be a side of himself he does not show to you. But is there perhaps something in him that likes pain? That enjoys the witnessing of another's suffering, that revels in the power he has over those weaker? A selfishness, perhaps, not always conquered?"
Ban almost could laugh. A perfect description in negative. "That's not him. That's the exact opposite of what Ginji is."
Crawd still hesitates. "There are things I have heard. Rumors. Your friend, he is the thunder emperor. The tyrant of Under Shinjuku, the stories go..."
"Not anymore," Ban says, too brusquely. That isn't Ginji, no matter how difficult some find it to understand. "Raitei--Ginji's stronger than him. Raitei's not real. And anyway...Raitei..." He can see that figure in his mind's eye, the emperor's golden luminescence, and his eyes, that shining, abstract gaze which razed even as it passed over you. A sharp shake of his head cancels that vision. "Raitei isn't evil. He destroys, but it's like a storm, an earthquake--there's not enough there for cruelty or sadism." Raitei has no cracks, nothing the demon could exploit; Raitei has no soul to be corrupted. Break Raitei, and Ginji is inside. And Ginji's will is greater than any demon's.
"Then it makes no sense." Crawd shakes his bald head. "Without such a foothold, the demon could not infest itself in your friend. But I do not then understand its purpose, if you described this demon truly."
"I told you everything," Ban growls, "everything I can remember, exactly how I remember it--why would I lie?!" This time when his hand slams down, the table collapses under the blow, the folding supports giving way with the screech of abused metal. The box slides off the listing tabletop, scattering papers in its fall.
"Do not mistake me, Midou-kun," Crawd says, mildly, ignoring the yellowed pages fluttering down at his feet. "It is not lying that I am accusing or suspecting of you. But it is curious, that this demon would take such as your partner."
"When I find them, I'll ask it." Distantly he thinks he should apologize, but those papers were probably useless to him anyway, and something in him balks at begging forgiveness from this shriveled gnome.
--Once you wouldn't bow even to an emperor, and you were wrong then. It's amazing how much that internal voice sounds like the one he can't hear now, no matter how he tries. And it could be right, but he doesn't have time. But neither can he afford to alienate Crawd, not when he still might need the man's knowledge. "Sorry," he says, forcing politeness into his tone, and maybe Crawd's rheumy eyes won't see how thin that veneer is. "But if you don't know what's going on--it's more important to stop the demon now, and figure it out afterward."
"Perhaps," Crawd murmurs. "Though without understanding what it intends, it may be difficult to prevent those intentions."
He has to bite his tongue to keep from snapping back, and maybe that shouldn't have been so literal, but the taste of blood clears his head a little. He swallows that iron tang, says, "I know stopping the demon's important. But--"
"I understand." Crawd looks up at Ban, head inclined like a curious bird's. The old man hasn't moved, maybe to avoid treading on the fallen papers, and his voice is calm as ever, cracked and desiccated as a desert plain, though quieter now. "The demon is a grave peril, but you have decided already what is most important. Or perhaps not a decision you have made at all?"
"I'll do what I have to do," Ban says, but before he can turn aside Crawd takes his arm, gnarled talons around his forearm, a clasp dry and brittle as a sparrow's grip. He could shrug it off but he might hurt the old gnome, so he holds himself still.
"Midou-kun," and Ban wonders if the ancient man can feel the trembling of his muscles, the effort it's taking not to throw him off. There's no hesitation in his tone, though he knows Ban's power, better than most. "If this demon succeeds in grasping its desires, however it manages this, it will be a nightmare walking on this Earth such as not even your eye could conjure. You are her grandson, latest of the witch queen's line. There are responsibilities in your blood that you are not allowed to forget or forsake." The gnarled fingers tighten, digging into the flesh until it reddens. "I cannot and will not enforce; I only remind. For the sake of what is important to you."
"I know," Ban rasps, and Crawd lets go, an instant before it's too much for him to hold back.
A tooth-rattling buzz interrupts any answer the man might have made. Ban sifts through the fallen papers on the floor, finds his celphone and answers it.
"Midou?" Shido's voice is strained, muffled. Not suited to modern technology, that tribal bastard. He called once before, to confirm that the thread spool was holding on. He might have tried again, but Ban had the phone off for a while, not wanting the distraction.
"Yeah."
"Dammit, where are you, snake bastard? Have you found what you needed to find?"
He glances at Crawd, politely turned away to let him take the call. "Getting there."
"Good. Makubex may have found him."
"What?"
"Makubex thinks he's found Ginji--or a way to locate him, anyway."
"I got that, monkey trainer--how? Where?" You shouldn't shout in libraries, but Crawd says nothing, though the echoes off the flat white walls turn his questions to cacophony.
"Come to the Honky Tonk, we'll tell you here."
"There isn't time for goddamn games--"
"I'm not playing one," Shido growls, deadly serious for all his stubborn idiocy. "We don't have anything certain yet anyway. Makubex is hoping he will by tomorrow morning."
Ban glances at the clock, realizes it doesn't matter; he has no idea whether it's AM or PM. "What's he doing? Where--"
"We'll explain when you get here, Midou," Shido says.
Before he can hang up, Ban asks, "How's the thread spool?"
He might have imagined the change in Shido's tone. "He's doing all right--the doctors aren't as sure, but Juubei is."
"Like he wouldn't be. He's one of you VOLTS bastards, isn't he?"
"Midou..." It sounds like Shido will continue, but nothing more comes.
"He's still alive," Ban says, not knowing why he does, except that he has to hear it. The opposite of a wish, kept secret so it will come true. This is already truth. Even in silence. "He's alive."
"Get here, snake bastard," Shido tells him, and disconnects.
He pockets the phone, and looks over to find Crawd watching him again. The thick lenses distort too much for him to read those hazel eyes, but he can feel their focus, like an unreachable itch. "What? --Sir?"
"You are not quite as Maria said you were, Midou-kun."
There are too many things he's not. "Sorry."
"I did not mean it to require an apology."
"I'll be going tomorrow morning," Ban tells him. "I'm going to find him. Them. Until then..." He looks down at the pages strewn at his feet, tries to find the anger again, that last bastion of his pride. His voice is too thin and raw without it. "I need to know as much more as you can give me."
"Of course, Midou-kun," Crawd says, and slowly kneels to help him gather up the fallen papers.
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Date: 2004-01-23 06:54 pm (UTC)Lovely stuff, though. I wait for the continuation.
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Date: 2004-01-24 07:38 pm (UTC)but it is fun...
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Date: 2004-01-23 07:07 pm (UTC)Lovely as always. And the cliffhanger wasn't as brutal, my thanks. ^_^;;
Question if you're bored: do you find it more difficult to write Shido knowing the most recent spoilers? Fictional character and all, but I'm still mad at him.
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Date: 2004-01-24 07:41 pm (UTC)As for being mad at Shido...actually, no. I'm of course sad, but...I find it hard to be angry at someone who, given the choice between sacrificing the woman he loves and betraying a friend, chooses his own death over either. All right, he could've found a better solution if he maybe shared the problem, but it's not like he was expecting Amon's sacrifice...and Shido being Shido, he probably honestly thought that his death wouldn't hurt anyone, not compared to Madoka or Ginji's possible fates... Really, he did exactly what I would have expected him to do, so I don't think it's going to affect my writing of him much...
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Date: 2004-01-23 07:46 pm (UTC)..../pot calling the kettle black
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Date: 2004-01-24 07:42 pm (UTC)*runs away from ban-chan very fast*
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Date: 2004-01-24 02:35 am (UTC)OH YEAH. it's coz X-parrot is AN EVIL EVIL child. and a damn good writer. with waaaaay too much imagination for our goods, but just enough for our bads.
now get ye back to fic'ing, wumman.
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Date: 2004-01-24 08:07 pm (UTC)I'll get to the writtin' if you do the same...
and why haven't you seen GB yet, girl?! if it's a matter of time, I can understand (I need about 6 more hours per day. at least.) but if you have download troubles or anything, give a holler - always happy to sl0re this onto others, and as a GB missionary of the Church of BanGin, I'm way beind my sis in winning converts...
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Date: 2008-06-15 05:19 pm (UTC)You are an incredible writer no matter what genre fanfic you are writing.
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Date: 2008-06-17 05:33 am (UTC)But thank you - I still have ambitions to write original stuff as well as fic; I hope you'll be interested when I do!