[ three minutes later, he's coasting down darkened streets, headlights on high and a window rolled down while he tries his damnedest not to retch over everything in the immediate vicinity.
[it's funny, how quiet a suburb is compared to a city; if he'd taken to the streets back there, he would have already made quite the stir]
[but there's no one, just a boy with rage in all his limbs, blood in his head, and a heart compacted; my fucking loss is not for you to fucking laugh at for anyone to fucking laugh at]
[when the headlights catch him, light him up like a ghost going to any other plane, he doesn't notice]
[ at the least, at the very least, sakamoto isn't shinsengumi; he knows how to hit the brakes, and most importantly, when.
the car's barely slammed into park, right there in the middle of the road, before he's stumbling out, slamming the door loud in his haste. this would be a grand time for words of wisdom, for pleas and pleading and warnings against foolishness, but since when did anything ever go so smoothly?
arm braced against the car side, sakamoto hunches over like a man mortally wounded and is very thoroughly, messily, loudly sick on the pavement.
[and he watches this pathetic display as if through a long, long lens; before the retching even stops, he's already roughly snapping, drawing closer]
I told ya ta fuck off!
[too much action (frankly, too many fluids) collide, first the vomit on his unlaced sneakers as he steps in, then the blood on Sakamoto's face as he swings a wild punch (a body is a body; hounds gotta eat)]
[ there's a fist in his personal space, knuckles meeting the flesh of his cheek and despite the fresh flare of pain and the snap of his head jerking to the side, sakamoto can only be thankful that it isn't his nose again.
he stumbles back a shaky step, kept up only by the hand still braced against the car door.
his glasses hit the pavement with a saddening littke crack.
his nose is still choosing to bleed, for all that. ]
Hhffu-- Badou!
[ a statement, a plea, a warning, a shout through the fog. ]
[it's not the familiar voice that calls him to attention, but that sudden flash of colour in the gloom; blue eyes, ones that Sakamoto always covers up, so he can fucking lie to everyone he meets]
[what a stupid kid he is, what a stupid goddamn kid, for believing him, for believing the it's okay's and the I'll be here's after the other man fucking told him to his face he was a liar, and wore the fucking things throughout each reassurance]
[the merchant gets more space, but Badou gets more furious; he can't think, he just wants to hurt the world that won't stop hurting him -- a lurch closer, and he grabs for the man's collar, to hold him still, to pin him and show him what happens when you fucking lie]
[ two choices, sakamoto thinks, knows. he has two choices in the end, grey areas be damned, and less than a second to make a decision.
he hates the battlefield's snap decisions, the weight behind each choice, but he makes his all the same.
so instead of lashing out, instead of putting a boy half his age on the ground, instead of catching at skinny limbs and breaking his grip like so much brittle glass
sakamoto drops to a knee, and he lets it happen. ]
Badou!
[ said again, and this time the plea is audible, the warning muted like curtains drawn across a lit window. are you there? can you hear me? i'm here. ]
[it's hardly an exorcism if it's just you in there; the boy hears his name, knows his name, but pushes after the older man just the same, frenzied at first; slamming shoulders against the side of the car, raking nails down space-paled skin, ramming a knee into a throat, fists smashed over a head and ribs littered with angry hits]
[but he slows when there's no blows back, when the world, for once, turns its fucking cheek -- when it's only fucking him that's doing the hurting, all action instead of reaction]
[Badou breathes hard through his mouth, panting like a stupid fucking dog. two bloody hands hit the pavement, knuckles cracking on the asphalt like billiard balls against a corner pocket]
[ the boy is no warrior, no street fighter, no killer with hits designed to hurt or kill or leave wounds untreatable on the inside. there's no finesse to his strikes, and maybe that's what saves him from more damage, from worse.
but it still has him leaning hard against a car tire, and even that doesn't last long when he eventually, inevitably slides to the asphalt in a shuddering heap. his mind tells him no permanent damage, no broken bones, but his breath still rattles and rasps in his throat, he can still see stars and flashes of too-bright pain behind his eyes.
it hurts, and he can hardly breath right for the blood, yet he hasn't raised a hand in offense, defense, or plea.
[it comes out unbidden, uncalled for, putrid slime from the bottom of a bog]
[he doesn't look to see the damage on Sakamoto; he doesn't wipe damp shards of hair from his face; the rest is unsaid, but it stutters across his mind like bugs into a zapper]
[I'm sick, I'm drowning, and he knows it, and -- he thinks it's funny.]
[ he thinks, dimly, that he has a cracked rib, for all the stabbing little pains that accompany drawn breath, but it takes a backseat quick enough. priorities take helm, push all aside in a blind rush.
he reaches out a careful (shaking) hand, and brushes at bloody knuckles. ]
[a numb flinch, and that hand curls underneath Sakamoto's]
[stitches have busted open in his hand, and that arm will need seeing to, but he can't seem to make himself care; not about his wounds or Sakamoto's -- he still wants to punch and fight and bite, something that will kick back (someone that will writhe with the same fucked-up hate, and Worick's face smiles in his mind's eye)]
[it makes him feel afraid (he is always so fucking afraid, but this is something even worse, isn't it)]
[he says nothing (because for how long sounds too fucking honest, and if nothing else, he's learning his lessons about being honest with people, and where exactly it gets you)]
[ there's something there that makes his skin crawl, beneath the sting and the ache, like looking into dark corners for too long, like standing out in the rain an hour longer than was allowed. It's familiar, he thinks, in some muted and bloody-fresh way, like a melon (a skull) fresh broken, instead of one left to sit and rot and fester into something new and hideous and unrecognizable.
Urgency flares, and he puts aside creature comfort yet again. ]
Badou.
[ it's like a madman's dream, like if he says it enough, with enough hope, the brightly burning spark would rekindle, rise up, come back through the murk.
A little farfetched, but any hope was a good thing right now.
With a stifled groan, he pushes himself up, first onto a scuffed elbow, then to bruised knees. Time may not have healed all wounds but did, goddamn it, it did rob a man of a threshold once so hardy as to be noteworthy. Hurt hurt hurt it hurt and this wasn't even the worst of what could be but he grits his teeth, pushes himself up.
Gets a hand on Badou's shoulder and tries, tries, tries to look at him through everything. ]
[one might expect an averted gaze; guilt or shame, he's just a kid after all]
[but he's just a kid with a chip on his shoulder the size of a fucking canyon, and he has become the way he is from never, ever ever looking away (even when he should have, even when what he fucking saw plastered itself to the inside of his brain like rot and black ink)]
[that moss-green eye (too singular, maybe too familiar set in colour and gaze) stares back at him]
[no more shields, no more glasses -- his vocal chords have been plucked at with a hacksaw when he grits in response]
Don't ya fuckin' lie ta me again an' say it's gonna be okay. Don't you fuckin' dare say that shit t'me.
[ a thought comes to him in that moment, unbidden and unwelcome, and he hates himself a little for it. (Feels the disgust, too, that there's so little hate for even that, for the sheer objectivity of it all.)
Too late, he thinks, and considers it a blessing he hasn't flinched yet. ]
I never lied, not about that.
[ rasped, grated out, like he'd just spent the past hour shouting at the top of his lungs. ]
Do you want a promise? A deal? The Kaientai never goes back on its word.
[it's not untrue; he wants for fucking nothing, but he needs his brother, needs to find the only thing that ever calmed this down (because it's not... it's not new, it's just worse, it's getting so much fucking worse)]
[nothingness is yawning inside Badou, where he should feel joyloveannoyancedislikefreedomfeelings]
There's nothin' -- I can do, it's just, it's just...
[it's just all there is, without Dave (Worick had been told I lost my fucking brother; they both knew it really meant I lost my fucking world]
[ he doesn't know the details, doesn't think he'll every really know anything where Badou himself is concerned
But he knows what loss looks like
He knows what it feels like
And he knows he'll regret not trying for decades to come.
So, wordlessly, he drags himself closer, a madman kneeling by a rabid, wild dog. And like a madman, like the idiot they call him and know him by, he settles arms around the sharp angles of Badou's shouders
And he embraces him.
And he does the only thing he's ever truly excelled at:
[the dog fights, of course; he shudders and fights the touch, busted stitches clawing and shoving (feeling like a busted stitch himself, all unhealed and frayed at the seams)]
[when he gives in, lets Sakamoto hold him, it's not like it was at the shore's edge, when he'd been starved for hope and affection, where the cool breeze off the ocean and the man at his shoulders comforted him; here, in the dark and the blood, he just gives in, submits to greater strength like an animal, feeling hot and hurt inside like he'd swallowed burning lead]
[I fucked up he suddenly thinks blearily through the haze of it; he ain't gonna smile at me like he used to]
[ his grip is iron and unyielding, arms heavy and steady despite the occasional shudder, adrenaline or pain or emotion, even he can't tell. He could crush this boy like an egg, break him like so much tinder and twigs and all it would take is a little effort, a little intent.
With a shaky breath, he lowers his head, pressing a bruised cheek against tangled matted hair.
I messed up he thinks, through the stacatto pulse beating loud in his ears. He won't trust in me like he used to. ]
[the hold is likely not meant to be a trap, but the effect is just the same; Badou breathes shallowly, waiting to be released back into the world (far from domesticated, far from placated, but gone still even so)]
[it's not a conscious thought, because his mind is a dull buzz of adrenaline pumping and dissipating into nowhereeverywhere, like sewage into a sea]
[ he stays for a second more, maybe two, before he lets go. Sways back onto his heels and then, slowly, miraculously, back to his feet. His body groans and grumbles and complains in protest; he tells it very firmly to suck it up and shove off. ]
Go back to the house.
[ he tries to soften it, but his throat makes the words catch, come out gravel and sandpaper. It makes him thankful for the night that hides the worst of the veritable deathmask that is his face. ]
[but his teeth snap on it, tear it apart before it can get out, that naked vulnerability too easily preyed on (besides, what difference does it make? you'll still be you when you get there)]
[Badou wipes an oozing arm on his shirt, picks a direction -- it isn't the way he came -- and starts to walk off]
[ he could go after badou, chase him, bodily haul him back to 1470 and toushirou and carol or he could take him back to heart-attack manor and pray the world didn't implode from the force of two different monsters in the same general space.
he could, and he doesn't. tired and weary and smarting every which way, he limps back to the car.
the first time in a decade he feels closest to defeat. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: a call
1470 is only a block away ]
Re: a call
[but there's no one, just a boy with rage in all his limbs, blood in his head, and a heart compacted; my fucking loss is not for you to fucking laugh at for anyone to fucking laugh at]
[when the headlights catch him, light him up like a ghost going to any other plane, he doesn't notice]
Re: a call
the car's barely slammed into park, right there in the middle of the road, before he's stumbling out, slamming the door loud in his haste. this would be a grand time for words of wisdom, for pleas and pleading and warnings against foolishness, but since when did anything ever go so smoothly?
arm braced against the car side, sakamoto hunches over like a man mortally wounded and is very thoroughly, messily, loudly sick on the pavement.
god damn ]
Re: a call
I told ya ta fuck off!
[too much action (frankly, too many fluids) collide, first the vomit on his unlaced sneakers as he steps in, then the blood on Sakamoto's face as he swings a wild punch (a body is a body; hounds gotta eat)]
Re: a call
he stumbles back a shaky step, kept up only by the hand still braced against the car door.
his glasses hit the pavement with a saddening littke crack.
his nose is still choosing to bleed, for all that. ]
Hhffu-- Badou!
[ a statement, a plea, a warning, a shout through the fog. ]
Re: a call
[what a stupid kid he is, what a stupid goddamn kid, for believing him, for believing the it's okay's and the I'll be here's after the other man fucking told him to his face he was a liar, and wore the fucking things throughout each reassurance]
[the merchant gets more space, but Badou gets more furious; he can't think, he just wants to hurt the world that won't stop hurting him -- a lurch closer, and he grabs for the man's collar, to hold him still, to pin him and show him what happens when you fucking lie]
Re: a call
he hates the battlefield's snap decisions, the weight behind each choice, but he makes his all the same.
so instead of lashing out, instead of putting a boy half his age on the ground, instead of catching at skinny limbs and breaking his grip like so much brittle glass
sakamoto drops to a knee, and he lets it happen. ]
Badou!
[ said again, and this time the plea is audible, the warning muted like curtains drawn across a lit window. are you there? can you hear me? i'm here. ]
Re: a call
[but he slows when there's no blows back, when the world, for once, turns its fucking cheek -- when it's only fucking him that's doing the hurting, all action instead of reaction]
[Badou breathes hard through his mouth, panting like a stupid fucking dog. two bloody hands hit the pavement, knuckles cracking on the asphalt like billiard balls against a corner pocket]
Re: a call
but it still has him leaning hard against a car tire, and even that doesn't last long when he eventually, inevitably slides to the asphalt in a shuddering heap. his mind tells him no permanent damage, no broken bones, but his breath still rattles and rasps in his throat, he can still see stars and flashes of too-bright pain behind his eyes.
it hurts, and he can hardly breath right for the blood, yet he hasn't raised a hand in offense, defense, or plea.
only the breathless and wavering- ]
Badou?
Re: a call
[it comes out unbidden, uncalled for, putrid slime from the bottom of a bog]
[he doesn't look to see the damage on Sakamoto; he doesn't wipe damp shards of hair from his face; the rest is unsaid, but it stutters across his mind like bugs into a zapper]
[I'm sick, I'm drowning, and he knows it, and -- he thinks it's funny.]
Re: a call
he reaches out a careful (shaking) hand, and brushes at bloody knuckles. ]
'M here.
action
[stitches have busted open in his hand, and that arm will need seeing to, but he can't seem to make himself care; not about his wounds or Sakamoto's -- he still wants to punch and fight and bite, something that will kick back (someone that will writhe with the same fucked-up hate, and Worick's face smiles in his mind's eye)]
[it makes him feel afraid (he is always so fucking afraid, but this is something even worse, isn't it)]
[he says nothing (because for how long sounds too fucking honest, and if nothing else, he's learning his lessons about being honest with people, and where exactly it gets you)]
Re: action
Urgency flares, and he puts aside creature comfort yet again. ]
Badou.
[ it's like a madman's dream, like if he says it enough, with enough hope, the brightly burning spark would rekindle, rise up, come back through the murk.
A little farfetched, but any hope was a good thing right now.
With a stifled groan, he pushes himself up, first onto a scuffed elbow, then to bruised knees. Time may not have healed all wounds but did, goddamn it, it did rob a man of a threshold once so hardy as to be noteworthy. Hurt hurt hurt it hurt and this wasn't even the worst of what could be but he grits his teeth, pushes himself up.
Gets a hand on Badou's shoulder and tries, tries, tries to look at him through everything. ]
Re: action
[but he's just a kid with a chip on his shoulder the size of a fucking canyon, and he has become the way he is from never, ever ever looking away (even when he should have, even when what he fucking saw plastered itself to the inside of his brain like rot and black ink)]
[that moss-green eye (too singular, maybe too familiar set in colour and gaze) stares back at him]
[no more shields, no more glasses -- his vocal chords have been plucked at with a hacksaw when he grits in response]
Don't ya fuckin' lie ta me again an' say it's gonna be okay. Don't you fuckin' dare say that shit t'me.
Re: action
Too late, he thinks, and considers it a blessing he hasn't flinched yet. ]
I never lied, not about that.
[ rasped, grated out, like he'd just spent the past hour shouting at the top of his lungs. ]
Do you want a promise? A deal? The Kaientai never goes back on its word.
Re: action
[it's not untrue; he wants for fucking nothing, but he needs his brother, needs to find the only thing that ever calmed this down (because it's not... it's not new, it's just worse, it's getting so much fucking worse)]
[nothingness is yawning inside Badou, where he should feel joyloveannoyancedislikefreedomfeelings]
There's nothin' -- I can do, it's just, it's just...
[it's just all there is, without Dave (Worick had been told I lost my fucking brother; they both knew it really meant I lost my fucking world]
Re: action
But he knows what loss looks like
He knows what it feels like
And he knows he'll regret not trying for decades to come.
So, wordlessly, he drags himself closer, a madman kneeling by a rabid, wild dog. And like a madman, like the idiot they call him and know him by, he settles arms around the sharp angles of Badou's shouders
And he embraces him.
And he does the only thing he's ever truly excelled at:
he hopes. ]
Re: action
[when he gives in, lets Sakamoto hold him, it's not like it was at the shore's edge, when he'd been starved for hope and affection, where the cool breeze off the ocean and the man at his shoulders comforted him; here, in the dark and the blood, he just gives in, submits to greater strength like an animal, feeling hot and hurt inside like he'd swallowed burning lead]
[I fucked up he suddenly thinks blearily through the haze of it; he ain't gonna smile at me like he used to]
[and anticipates the next bridge gone bonfire]
Re: action
With a shaky breath, he lowers his head, pressing a bruised cheek against tangled matted hair.
I messed up he thinks, through the stacatto pulse beating loud in his ears. He won't trust in me like he used to. ]
Re: action
[it's not a conscious thought, because his mind is a dull buzz of adrenaline pumping and dissipating into nowhereeverywhere, like sewage into a sea]
Re: action
Go back to the house.
[ he tries to soften it, but his throat makes the words catch, come out gravel and sandpaper. It makes him thankful for the night that hides the worst of the veritable deathmask that is his face. ]
Don't tell Carol.
Re: action
Re: action
[Badou wipes an oozing arm on his shirt, picks a direction -- it isn't the way he came -- and starts to walk off]
Re: action
he could, and he doesn't. tired and weary and smarting every which way, he limps back to the car.
the first time in a decade he feels closest to defeat. ]