Catch-22, chapter 10

Catch-22

In this chapter we’re steering quite rapidly into a much darker direction again. Our yaoi fangirl is totally showing… Also, considering how we end here, I feel I should probably assure you that this is not the last chapter! We’ve still got quite a long way to go, so I hope you’ll continue the ride with us through next week and beyond!

Chinese for this chapter:

Nai nai = grandmother

Ye ye = grandfather

Ch. 10. Our Promise, Such as it Was

Somehow, slow and steadily in a barely perceptible blur, time passed them by. Cross had never mentioned exactly how long he was planning on keeping Komui to himself; as the days passed into weeks, then months, and at last years, the ache of want for Linali and Reever and Komui’s home at Headquarters never faded. But one can only endure the same constant pain for so long; after a while, out of necessity, Komui began to shutter his precious memories away, save for those rare occasions — a tear shed on Linali’s birthday; a kiss blown to Reever on a rainy evening.

Cross had claimed that he would let go someday, but Komui saw no end in sight.

His hair had grown long; even pulled back in a ponytail, the night-black locks now reached straight to his buttocks. Cross would hear no talk at all of letting Komui cut it again — his bangs he trimmed surrepititiously when he could, but they were certainly longer and messier than they once had been, and he found himself constantly tucking them behind his ears, though it generally proved a futile effort. His body hadn’t seen a shred of Western clothing since they’d come to China, either, and though he missed it a little, mostly he had fallen back into the habit of dressing for Cross’s eyes and no other purpose without really even thinking about it.

It had been a little over three years, now, since the day and the night they had shared together in that little seaport town, after he’d been nearly killed; Komui still remembered it vividly. Remembered Cross holding him gently, whispering sweet words in his ear that had claimed to be lies, but held the ring of truth…

He didn’t know any more whether they had been or not; but he thought of that day often. Curled tight around the memory, and treasured it. Went back to it when Cross was cruel; when he caught Komui in his web of words and made him weep with confusion and feeling and the painful, awful truth; when he switched the sting of pain for the caress of pleasure until Komui didn’t know which way was up anymore; when he demanded absolute, complete obedience, no matter how humiliating. Komui didn’t know why, but remembering made him hate the other man a little less.

Not that he was always sure that was a good thing.

He had become Cross’s creature again, he knew somewhere in the back of his mind, though he rarely reflected on such things these days. Thinking about himself… the past, the future, the home he’d left behind, where they might go from here… Everywhere he might have turned offered nothing but pain; and after a while, it was simply too much to bear. Komui thought mostly in the present. What to do on a given day. What to wear. How to spite Cross. How to please Cross. How to avoid his punishment.

Some days he wandered through the back streets of the little Chinese towns they traveled through, and let himself think of everything, absolutely everything, and perhaps cried a little. But they were rare.

It was an uneventful, unmemorable day that the end came upon them. Even Cross did not see it coming, as the news of it came to him without warning during one of his routine outings alone.

“You’re sure?” he murmured with a little sigh, intently studying a small bruise on the skin of the apple he had just bought for a snack.

“Lord Tyki was furious,” the converted Akuma across from him answered, looking distinctly nervous at the memory. “She killed Eshi, you know. He was one of Lord Tyki’s favorites. Lord Tyki would ask him to paint for him somet–”

“That’s enough,” Cross dismissed. He dropped his apple with something like disgust and turned away from the Akuma, tucking his hands into the pockets of his Exorcist coat. “You’re dismissed.”

“I’ll… I’ll be going then, Master Cross,” the Akuma responded a little quietly, sounding almost stung. “It’s been an honor serving you.”

“I’ll see you off,” Cross sighed after what seemed like a long pause, half turning to aim Judgement at the Akuma’s chest. What could he say? The Akuma had once been a pretty girl, and Cross had a soft spot for the souls of pretty girls.

Once she was gone, Cross pressed his back against the wall of they alley and sank down, tilting his head up toward the sky.

“Well played,” he laughed softly to no one in particular, finding his cigarettes because he badly wanted a smoke just then. Clear his head.

Linali was in intensive care after single-handedly battling and defeating a level three Akuma. She had pushed her Innocence far past its breaking point in the process, had sustained massive internal injuries. Both of her legs had multiple compacted fractures and her Innocence was completely unresponsive. When Cross’s Akuma left the scene, she was being rushed to a local hospital for immediate surgery. Cross would have to call Timcampy later to find out if she’d survived the night. Very little of all that information mattered to Cross at all besides. It only meant one thing of any value to him.

It meant this was it. This was the end of this mission for Komui, this was where they parted ways. This was the expiration date. And, as Cross had promised to Komui that one night they had spent entwined in each other’s arms pretending to be anyone but themselves, he would let Komui go. Unconditionally, forever.

Cross shivered a little as he lit his first cigarette, pretended it was the wind rather than the thought. The thought of the nights to come, the nights he would spend without Komui but with any number of beautiful, breathtaking women. Perhaps more than one at once, perhaps as many as a bed could hold. And the knowledge that there was not a thing any of them or all of them at once could offer him that he would truly desire.

They didn’t have to go back right away. In fact, it was best if he did not tell Komui this news at all. What good would the knowledge do him? They were in China, weeks of travel away from the Order. Linali was probably being treated by Order physicians by now. Whether she lived or died, what use was telling Komui? No, Cross would keep the information to himself, keep Komui’s attention here and now, on him. He was going to make the most of the time they had left. And because he knew Komui always wanted, needed him back the moment he was gone, because this time he was never coming back, he would try a different sort of experiment. A different approach to his perfect piece of art.

Eshi had actually told him once, that sometimes he would burn his most inspired paintings. The ones he saw his very soul reflected in, he would burn them and watch them burn because nothing hurt more than destroying something you labored over to make perfect. Nothing hurt more, and there was no release quite like it. Cross had given him a skeptical look then, but… now it made sense, almost. He would spend these next few days taking Komui apart again, stripping away all the love and the need and the want to see what Komui looked like when taken down to only hate. If he could look into Komui’s soft, dark eyes and see nothing but hate glittering brightly back… he could walk away. The chains would be broken. They would both be free, Komui to soar and Cross to fall.

It seemed a fitting end for them.

Cross finished his cigarette and climbed to his feet, making a mental inventory of all he had to accomplish before he went back to find Komui. The calls he had to make. How he would have to find a flying Akuma to convert to take them back to England in a timely fashion. And a camera. He would want a camera before he returned.

The sun was setting by the time he walked back into their hotel room. He had only one thing to say to Komui, and he forced it out the way someone would throw himself off a cliff.

‘Throwing it into the fire’s the hardest part. Once it starts burning, though, there’s nothing to do but watch. And by then, because there’s nothing you can do but watch, the flames begin to look beautiful.‘

“Strip.”

He locked the door behind him.

Komui looked up at him from where he’d been sitting near the window, expression confused for just a moment, and then simply rose. Arguing was unwise when faced with a command delivered like that.

“…you were gone a while,” he tried quietly in a matter-of-fact tone, pulling off his shirt after he’d set his glasses down on the side table.

“I had business,” Cross answered shortly. The way he half tore off his jacket and threw it in the general direction of a wall spoke volumes about his mood. His gun holster followed shortly. He lifted his eyes to what Komui was doing then and shook his head, moving up to catch Komui’s wrist tightly.

“No. Put your glasses back on, Little Bird.”

Komui glanced up at him again and then, very carefully, lowered his gaze.

“All right,” he murmured, reaching back for them with his free hand. Usually Cross wanted them off, said he didn’t look as pretty wearing them. Komui wondered what he was supposed to be looking at tonight; but glancing up again a little apprehensively at Cross’s expression, decided it would probably be better not to ask.

“Good boy,” Cross whispered, petting the side of Komui’s face with the back of his hand. “Finish undressing and come to the bathroom with me.” Tonight, he was going to show Komui himself, show him every little weakness and all of his helplessness and uselessness and all those things Komui found ugly in himself. After all, it would be easier for Komui to hate Cross once he realized that everything he hated in himself was Cross’s doing. Cross wanted to give Komui one good, hard look at the worthless creature he had become, how the once-scientist was now simply the General’s little puppet, no good to anyone. Not even to Cross.

The soft caress sent a little shiver down Komui’s spine, and he wasn’t sure whether it was the good kind or not. He stepped out of his pants and his underwear and tossed those into the chair next to his shirt; he hesitated for a moment after that before reaching up to undo the hair tie at the nape of his neck, letting the wispy black mess fall down loose over his shoulders.

Nude and barefoot, a tiny knot of tension riding in his stomach, he departed with Cross into the bathroom.

Once there, Cross pushed him up against the wall opposite the bathroom mirror, pinning Komui’s wrists together above his head. He dragged the nails of his other hand down Komui’s side, then briefly paused to admire the red welts they left in their wake.

“A thought occurred to me today, Little Bird,” Cross mused as he brushed his fingers over the fresh welts, glancing up at Komui’s face as he spoke. For the first time in a long while, he was filled with the overwhelming desire to see tears there, to see Komui’s eyes red and his expression stricken and– Cross drew in his breath in a low hiss and sighed it longingly back out.

“Why don’t you… take a look at yourself in the mirror, Little Bird,” he continued, pausing now and again to kiss Komui’s jaw, trace the curve of Komui’s throat with his tongue. “Perfect, aren’t you? So well kept. Your skin is radiant, flawless. Your hair is soft and vibrant, healthy and smooth. You eat well, sleep well, dress well. I wondered… how your friends might be doing back home. What Chief Supervisor Reever would think if he saw you now. Would he see what I see? Something perfect, something beautiful?” A cruel little laugh left Cross’s lips at that and he dug his fingers into Komui’s back as he roughly pulled the former scientist closer.

“Or, I wonder, would he simply see what everyone else sees because they’re too simple to appreciate what I’ve made you into. You’re not fit to be a scientist anymore, Little Bird. You couldn’t take those long hours, can’t hold a calculation in your head because the most difficult things you think about these days are what to wear for me, what to buy for dinner, how wide to spread your legs. I wonder how he would look at you if he saw you now.”

Komui narrowed his eyes up at the other man, ignoring everything else for the moment — the tingle of his skin against Cross’s, the sting of the scratches on his side — to focus on the sheer insult. He didn’t know what game this was that Cross was playing tonight, but it was a stupid one. “I hardly had a choice but to let you change me,” he murmured, coolly, “but don’t think for a second you’ve taken anything away. I could walk right back into my job tomorrow and still be perfectly capable of everything.”

He did his best to ignore the way the little knot in his stomach tightened at the mention of Reever. Of home.

“And what could you do to begin with?” Cross sneered. “You should just keep to what you’re good at. Picking out clothes, looking pretty, seducing powerful men for what you need. Everywhere you are, Komui–” Cross paused a moment to bring his hand to Komui’s jaw, gripping his face tightly enough to bruise.

“Everywhere you are is thanks to me. I gave you your position as Supervisor. I took it away. In your thirty-some years of life you have accomplished nothing of value except that you managed to make yourself worth having to me. Unless you want to count what you’ve undone. Then we could at least say that you managed to ruin everything that was salvageable about Reever’s life. That is what you’re best at, isn’t it? Making yourself everything a man wants and exactly what he can’t have.”

“And whose fault is it that I’m not with him?” Komui snapped immediately. It was a little difficult to speak with Cross holding his jaw so tightly; the lower half of his face ached already. He paused, swallowing, the tension spreading from his stomach out into his limbs and across his body. His wrists were starting to hurt.

“I– could have gotten there without you,” he insisted, scowling with some difficulty. That hurt too. “I have my mind at least… Without people like me to do the research and the experimenting we wouldn’t even know how to repair Innocence properly. It would’ve taken much longer but I–” He squirmed a little in Cross’s grip, uncomfortably. “I could’ve gone to the East Asia branch, started from the bottom… They would’ve taken me…”

“Who are we kidding, Komui?” Cross laughed with a shake of his head. He released Komui and took a step back, folding his arms across his chest. “When you were Supervisor, you squandered everyone’s time and resources. The only reason you were never removed from your post was because the Head Generals were terrified of what I might do or not do if they removed someone I specifically appointed. The man you replaced would have turned in his grave if he saw the mess you made. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps if your team was not always cleaning up your messes and chasing you down for paperwork, they might actually invent something of use now and then? You might have gotten as far as a general researcher in the East Asia branch, but they would have never gone through the trouble of having you sent all the way to England to help file papers.” At this, Cross smiled coldly and reached out to touch Komui’s cheek.

“All you have is your pretty face, Komui. It’s all you’ve ever had.”

Komui stumbled a little as he was released and ended up slumped back against the wall, pulling himself back up to his full height on knees that, for some reason, didn’t quite want to work.

It had never in the slightest occurred to him that Cross might have arrived to take him away three years back because he found Komui incompetent.

Though it had, in fact, occurred to him occasionally that perhaps he ought to have taken the job more seriously. But he’d always thought that as long as they came through when it counted, he and his people deserved a break once in a while…

You made this boy a promise to let him die with his brother and you broke it. You know you fucked it this time, don’t you, Supervisor?

…even if he did… maybe… make mistakes. Occasionally.

Ge ge, please try to keep your robots a little smaller! I don’t think HQ could survive another Komurin!

Maybe a little more than occasionally.

“…but I helped while I was there,” he said quietly, looking pale, a little stricken as he stared Cross in the face. “Innocence repair techniques… the communication systems on the Golems… I– of course the idea came from Timcampy, but, not everybody can be a brilliant sorcerer like you and make their own…”

He swallowed again. “…It wasn’t like I was just sitting around the whole time.”

“You say that as though you turned in your homework late or left your project for the science fair until the last minute,” Cross scoffed with another disappointed shake of his head. “You’re not a child anymore, Little Bird. You’re thirty-two. You held a key position in the Science Department. There is a war going on. When you make mistakes, no one slaps you on the wrist. You don’t get marked down. When you slack off, no one scolds you or grounds you. There’s no time to. When you slip up, people below you die. But that doesn’t matter to you, does it? As long as you’re with your sister.”

“You’re right, I’m not a child.”

Komui’s expression had tightened into a slightly shaky glare. “You really think I didn’t know all that? You really think Linali is my only reason?”

He shook his head. “I lived there for–” He stopped for a second in his surprise, took a deep breath. He’d said… he’d said ‘lived.’ Past tense. “For nine years. You know I didn’t care about the Order’s work when I first came to you and I don’t deny it. I just wanted to get to her. But I — I care about what happens to them, I do — all of them– How could I not?” he demanded incredulously. “Nine years living with them and working with them and watching them go off to fight… You can’t really think I take my people’s lives so lightly? I–”

He paused to breathe again, looking profoundly uncomfortable.

“Of course I’ve made mistakes, I’m just human, but I… it’s not like I’ve been trying to get people killed. I know I can’t do that much,” he added, voice a quieting a little as his eyes drifted downward, “but I swear… what was in my power… I…. …..everything…”

“It sounds almost as though you are trying to convince me that all the breaks you took, all the times you made a hobby out of skirting your duties… that all of it was justified? Don’t make me laugh, Little Bird. The sight of you is ridiculous enough as it is. You should be on your knees, begging forgiveness from all those you sent to their deaths and then walked off to enjoy coffee with your sister before their ashes even cooled.” Cross pause to take another step back, gesturing to the floor. “In fact, that’s exactly what you should be doing right now. Go on, Komui. Tell Daniel you’re sorry he bled to death all alone, miles away from the only person in the world who cared if he lived or died. Tell everyone in the infirmary you’re sorry for the shit day they had when they had to stitch Nathan’s arms back together, because unlike your sister he knew well enough to go from wrist to elbow.” He paused to take a handful of Komui’s hair and roughly jerk him forward.

“Didn’t know about that, did you? It’s been three years, perhaps you just forgot?” he hissed into Komui’s ear. “It looks like I keep better tabs than you. Maybe this all happened while you were napping.”

Komui was staring at him now, eyes wide, gone paler than before. He was trembling just a little.

“The infirmary reports… They don’t go through me unless somebody dies…” he mumbled, expression turning inward as his gaze slipped slowly down. He barely seemed to notice the pain in his head, the way Cross had him hung by his hair.

Grip still tight, Cross cast him violently to the floor. Komui sucked in a gasp as he slammed down on his shoulder against the hard tiles, curling in on himself a little.

“Just admit it. To yourself. To me. To everyone. I want you to admit that you’re useless to them and only good for what I keep you for. And then I want you to crawl over there and bend over the sink so you can do what little you are good for, and I want you to keep your eyes on the mirror so that you can see yourself, what you’ve become. What you’ve been reduced to. What you always have been. Then you should ask yourself if this is the kind of man who should ever be Supervisor of the entire Black Order.”

Komui pushed himself up onto his hands and stared at the floor for a long moment, breathing hard, the falls of dark hair completely obscuring his face.

“…I’m not useless,” he muttered at the floor, voice shaking a little, sounding not precisely sure of it himself. When he looked up at Cross, however, his eyes were hard.

“And I may be your– Your whore–” His voice broke a little on the words, but his gaze remained fixed on Cross’s face with as much strength as he could muster.

“But that’s your failing, not mine.”

Cross’s breath stopped at Komui’s words.

They stung, oh, they were painful to Cross in ways the General couldn’t express. They halted his breath and made his chest tighten, made his pulse loud in his ears with… shame, really. They were nearly enough to bring Cross to his knees.

And yet.

Somehow, somehow… Cross found himself strangely proud. He hadn’t thought Komui had it in him to use that against him. It was beautiful to behold, as Eshi had promised him. Cross would have to find Theodore sometime to pass it on.

For once, Cross looked away first, turned his head so that all that was left for Komui to see was the masked half.

“Get some rest.” His voice was blank, carefully modulated and well-schooled the way he was unable to do with his expression. He knew that because he could still feel the burn of Komui’s words against his neck. “We leave early tomorrow.”

He took his time on the way back out, walked leisurely out of the bathroom, found his Exorcist coat, pulled it back on. He did all the buttons back up, found a cigarette, lit it. But when he left, when he finally walked out the hotel room door, it was in such a daze that he left his Innocence behind.

He wandered the dark streets alone.

In the hotel room, meanwhile, Komui did not make a move from where he was crouched on the bathroom floor until he heard the front door click open and shut. Then he uncurled from his place and, one hand on his throbbing shoulder, rose unsteadily to his feet. Cross’s onslaught had ended as suddenly as it had erupted; he felt a little dazed with the shock of it all, not to mention everything that had been said in the short span of the ordeal itself.

…He wasn’t incompetent. He knew that. He — he’d always been… useful to the Order… hadn’t he?

Had he really?

Three years ago, when they’d lost a hundred fifty comrades to Suman’s betrayal in the space of an eyeblink… if someone more responsible than Komui had been at the helm, would they have been able to prevent it? Did the Order… did they really need him at all? If Cross were to let him go right this instant, would they even take him back? Had everyone just given him up for dead and moved on by now?

Scientists weren’t like Exorcists, after all. They were replaceable.

He walked around the little room in a daze, naked, his shoulder and his side and his jaw throbbing with dull pain, hair tangling around his face as he went about collecting his scattered things and shoving them into their bags. Cross had said they were leaving early; for all Komui knew the man wouldn’t give him time to pack in the morning.

His clothing from earlier was forgotten on the chair, however, as he padded over to the bed to set his glasses on the side table and collapsed into it, feeling somehow very exhausted.

He curled up into a tight little ball under the covers as he lay there, and eventually fell asleep, alone in the bed with the light still burning.

- – -

Cross came back early the next morning, with the sun still cradled low in the horizon. He was quieter than usual, only coming in far enough to wake Komui and signal toward the door. He picked up Judgement on his way back out and left Komui to gather their things while he went to the desk to check out, waiting for the other to join him in the lobby.

When Komui arrived, Cross shoved a little package of moon cakes into his hands for breakfast. Or good luck. Or health. Or something. Cross didn’t pretend to understand strange Chinese holidays. It was Moon Festival day or something and they were selling these, so… Whatever. He was a foreigner. He didn’t have to know. Anyway, he started out the door.

Komui blinked down at the food in his hands with a surprised, curious expression, glancing up at Cross again after a moment as he followed the other man outside. Truth be told, all things considered he’d almost forgotten there was a holiday coming up — he spent the majority of his time either with Cross or sitting around by himself waiting for Cross, after all, and despite his faculty with the language, the Exorcist wasn’t exactly a fount of knowledge on Chinese culture; Komui himself, after living in the West for so long, had yet to quite get back into the groove of the calendar of his birthplace. Which was sad, really; he’d only been gone for nine years…

…the way Cross had handed them over had almost seemed something like an apology.

“…Thank you,” Komui allowed, quietly and neutrally, as he made to pop one of the cakes into his mouth. After the previous evening, he wasn’t sure he was ready to really talk to Cross again yet for a bit, if he could avoid it.

Which was just as well, really. Cross had tried speaking to the lady selling the moon cakes and for once had actually stumbled over his words. She’d called him ‘cute’ and given him an extra box of moon cakes for free, but even free snack goods weren’t worth the public humiliation of sounding like a stupid white man. Cross was obviously not himself yet and until he was a proper jerk again it was probably for the best that the two of them simply didn’t talk. Otherwise Cross might change his mind about letting Komui go.

It would all be easier once they were at their next destination anyway. Cross lit a cigarette to occupy his mouth and headed toward the little path leading into the mountains, toward the long-since abandoned village he had not visited since his first tour of China. It had been once destroyed by Akuma, rebuilt by the survivors, and then abandoned when those who remained discovered that living next to the place their brothers and sisters and wives and friends had turned to ash right before their eyes was harder than they could have imagined. It was where this all began, and it seemed fitting to Cross that it was there that everything should come to an end. Mildly, he wondered if Komui would realize what going back there truly meant.

Komui didn’t quite register where they were going until they passed the big ginkgo tree about three miles out of town.

His feet stopped without really thinking about it; he turned to stare up at the old tree almost contemplatively, bag hanging from his hands, Cross forgotten for the moment. It was a very special tree. They’d picnicked under it often when he was younger; sometimes — his hands clenched the bag’s handles a little harder, thinking of what was inside — sometimes this had also been their spot for moon-watching during the festival, before nai nai and ye ye had passed on. He thought he remembered even an infant Linali coming out here with them once, wrapped up in a blanket and staring at the odd-shaped leaves with wide, curious baby-eyes.

“Cross?” he murmured quietly, calmly, without turning around.

“Why are we here?”

Cross didn’t answer at first, stopping as well, remembering how much younger he had been then. Reckless, even. He still was to an extent, but back then he had regarded fighting Akuma like a game of cat-and-mouse and if a few miserable people who lived in a sorry spit of a village died, who would miss them? He sighed a long sigh and shook his head, continuing up the path to Komui’s childhood home.

“To spend the night.”

“…I’d really rather not.”

Komui kept looking around as they walked up the road, because, well, he couldn’t not look. It was all, by and large, just as he remembered it: not as he remembered it from childhood, but from the last time he had seen the place before walking out to find his way to Europe. Which was to say that, despite the intact sections of fence and the few buildings they passed as they drew closer to the town proper, it was nigh-on as quiet as the grave. After their parents had died — well, Komui had been just barely sixteen, and having been studying as a scholar was not trained in any particularly useful trade; they hadn’t exactly had the money to up and leave, and so for the year until Linali was taken away he’d looked after her by himself, living in a neighbor’s abandoned house that the fleeing family had been only too happy to lend them, doing odd jobs and trying to figure out how he was going to support his family from now on. Over the months, they’d watched neighbor after neighbor move away until the ghosts began to take over the town nearly entirely; eventually even the old apothecary who babysat Linali for him some days had given up and moved onto greener pastures, ones less tainted with painful memories.

Komui’s plans had been much the same; they’d just… gotten cut short a little.

Cross had no answer to Komui, because they both knew that if Cross wanted to stay the night here it was exactly what they would do. Instead, he continued to lead Komui toward his old home, stopping only once they were on its doorstep.

“This is it, isn’t it?” he asked, nudging the door open. He had never actually been inside before, though he had come as far as here searching for Linali. A part of him had always been… curious, but not enough to have visited here on his own.

“I was surprised when I came back here to find your sister,” he murmured, almost to himself as he stepped in and looked around. “It wasn’t nearly as damaged as I thought it would have been, considering it took me three days to finally kill that Akuma. It’s a good house.”

Komui stayed outside standing on the front steps for as long as he thought he could get away with. Then he took a very deep breath, and stepped over the threshold.

It was dusty and quiet inside. There was still faded, knocked-over furniture scattered here and there, some lying shattered into pieces, some intact; when they’d left he hadn’t really touched much of anything in the house, just grabbed those items they’d needed and gotten out. He wandered past the hearth; past their low table, cracked into two or three parts and dark with rot; detachedly, barely knowing what he was doing at all, he drifted over toward a large section of the wall painted in globs of mismatched plaster.

“Why in the world did they repair this…?” he mumbled to himself, reaching out a hand almost instinctively to feel at the edge. The wall, too, was covered in dust.

He wouldn’t really have minded if they’d left the gaping hole.

Cross observed him in silence for a little while, then wordlessly left for the bedrooms upstairs. It wouldn’t be hard to find Komui’s. Cross just didn’t want to be there right then, as much as he enjoyed observing the inner workings of Komui’s mind. As a deeply selfish man, Cross did not regret how Komui had come into his life because at this point it was fathomless to him what he would done with all that time over the past fifteen years without Komui as a constant for him. Work, possibly. The thought alone was worth a shudder. So he did not regret the events that had taken place, most of it directly due to Cross himself, but… still, he couldn’t help but wonder. What Komui’s life would have been like had Cross Marian never been part of it. Happy, probably. Dull. Happy and dull. Which wouldn’t have been a bad thing, really. For Komui, anyway.

With a soft sigh, Cross looked around the second floor until he found Komui’s old bedroom and sank down onto the bed, tired. He found his little box of free cakes and nibbled on one, then decided he liked it. It reminded him of chocolate, a little. Not the taste, just… the way it made him feel a little better. Chocolate, or wine, or cigarettes. One other thing made him feel better when he was this sort of tired.

As he popped the rest of the moon cake into his mouth, he hoped Komui would join him soon.

At some point as they’d wandered up the road into his home village, Komui had had the presence of mind to wonder just what Cross hoped to accomplish by bringing him to stay the night here; but by this time conscious thought had been subsumed nearly entirely into memory. He roamed the halls of the little house in silence, as comfortable in the place as though he were one of its ghosts. He hadn’t thought of the house in years, but now that he was here, everything seemed to return to him like second nature — there was where their mother had sat in the mornings nursing Linali; there was the tiny burn spot on the floor near the hearth where someone had dropped a coal; there was his favorite window for studying under…

Eventually he made it up the stairs, through the halls, into the bedrooms. The house was as sturdy as Cross had said; despite the odor of disuse and decay and the rats’ noses he saw poke once or twice out of the walls, it was all still standing, still… far too much as he remembered it.

At last he padded into his own room to close the dusty door behind him, leaning back against it a little, looking around at a familiar mess he hadn’t seen since he was sixteen. He’d left a few books in here, some of his early tinkering attempts at inventions; they sat around moldering atop the desk and in its chair, along with a few yellowed papers and scrolls scattered over the floor.

And his bed had Cross in it.

In the dimness of the room, Komui’s eyes were pure jet, no end to their depths as he slowly turned a half-lidded gaze toward the Exorcist. His arms snuck slowly around his waist, hugging himself a little.

“If you wanted to get back at me, it worked,” he murmured blankly.

“What now?” Cross asked, feigning innocence as he finished another moon cake. “We were passing through and I was curious to see where you grew up. That’s all.” He gave himself a moment to be glad then, that this was getting through to Komui as well. Because really, it would be best if Komui associated even the mere memory of General Cross Marian with nothing more than pain and hate and humiliation. That would hopefully encourage him not to think of Cross at all. Then maybe they could both move on from their decade-and-a-half-long mistake.

Komui just stared blankly at him for a few moments longer before moving from his spot, walking over slowly from the doorway to silently seat himself on the floor next to the bed. He pulled his legs in close as he leaned back against the bed’s side.

“…I wish Linali was here,” he mumbled, more than half to himself. “She was so young… she won’t remember it very well.”

“Bring her yourself sometime,” Cross shrugged. The words slipped out before he realized what he was saying and he stopped speaking to contemplatively munch on another moon cake. He wasn’t even hungry or anything, really. He just needed something to do with his mouth right then that didn’t involve words coming out of it. He was already talking to Komui as though both of them knew and accepted that Komui would be going home soon. It was true to a point, he supposed. He had already resigned himself to Komui’s leaving, already begun the process of letting him go. He just hadn’t realized how quickly he could adapt to the idea. It had been three years, after all, three years of having little but each other on top of the three years they’d had in the beginning. Six years alone with someone. That was… definitely something like commitment, wasn’t it? Not to mention the visits that had come in the middle, no matter how infrequent or far between.

Komui barely seemed to register Cross’s words in and of themselves, let alone noticing what they implied. He stared off toward the other side of his room with a bleak hopelessness weighing down his soft features, crossing his arms over his curled-up knees to lay his chin atop them. A single wisp of hair flicked around his face as he breathed, eyes half obscured by long, messy bangs.

For a while, Cross contented himself with watching Komui suffer because it was a pastime he never tired of. Watching Komui in general was good, actually, but his suffering was one of the highlights. He watched the little nuances of Komui’s expression, the soft, despaired sighs of air that were his breaths. Cross had always thought of Komui as one of those people. Someone who was radiant when happy, making those around him want to take him home and keep him happy and enjoy that beautiful smile of his forever. And, at the same time, was someone who was even more heart-stopping when sad, the kind of person who inspired others to take him home and break him down more and more so that he would never stop being exquisitely anguished. Nothing complimented Komui’s eyes more than tears, after all.

…but maybe that last part was unique to Cross.

Eventually, though, Cross grew bored and restless of simply watching Komui and finally slid off his Order coat to lay over the dusty bed, having very little desire to touch the aged sheets. Not his problem much, anyway. This was as far as he usually disrobed.

“Komui,” he called lightly, “come and sit here.” He gestured to his lap as he spoke.

Komui swallowed once, glanced up at him blankly for a moment; but even here, returned to his parents’ house, in the throes of the deepest hurt, his first instinct was to obey Cross. He rose a little jerkily after another second had passed, seating himself sideways in Cross’s lap, leaned forward just a little to stare down at his hands resting in his own. He didn’t lean against Cross’s chest as he often would have, still seeming very far away.

Cross said very little as his hands found the buttons at Komui’s collar and tugged them loose, perhaps murmuring Komui’s name to himself now and again, perhaps commenting that Komui’s skin was still as soft as it had been, back then. But for the most part, he said nothing at all as he slid Komui’s shirt free of his shoulders and leaned down to kiss his neck. It didn’t really matter to Cross that Komui was distant, that his attention wasn’t in the here and now. Cross could still take what he needed, and besides… Komui would have to be much further from him than that before they were through.

Komui shivered a little as Cross’s lips found his skin. Sucked in a breath, pulled his legs up the dusty bedsheets he’d left unmade the day his parents died; didn’t go as far as crawling off Cross’s lap perhaps, but turned his head away, one hand wringing the material of his pants.

“Please… not here,” he begged quietly. His voice shook only a little.

Cross’s only response to that was to press another kiss against Komui’s throat, sucking gently. He trailed kisses down to the thin line that was Komui’s collar bone, then back up again. He pulled away briefly, only to take Komui’s shirt by the hem and lift it over his head, discarding it thoughtlessly to the floor. Then he ran his hands along Komui’s exposed chest, finally sliding them around Komui’s waist before he lowered his reluctant partner onto his back against the Exorcist coat spread across the bed. He found one of Komui’s hands with his own and twined their fingers together, holding on tightly as he stole Komui’s breath away with a demanding, near bruising kiss. Then he pressed his face against Komui’s neck, even as his free hand traced down the side of the younger man’s hip, then his thigh.

“Go ahead then,” he hissed into Komui’s ear. “Stop me.”

Komui pulled his fingers out of Cross’s grasp with a jerk to the side, rolling away from Cross a little but not bothering to try for any further — there was no point, really. If he tried to get up, Cross would just push him down again. In the unlikely event he escaped, ran straight out the door and kept running — Maria would have him dragged back within ten minutes. A mere human — a weak, skinny, useless little piece of nothing like him — had no recourse against the likes of Cross Marian.

“You know I can’t do a damn thing,” he responded to the cruel taunt with voice trembling, eyes squeezed shut, breath suddenly coming ragged. “Please… Anywhere but…. I— I can’t–”

His eyes caught on a dusty, faded wall hanging, a pair of playing tigers; one that nai nai and ye ye had given him for his birthday as a child. The sentence ended in a little sob.

“Shall we try your parents’ room then?” Cross asked lightly, mocking almost. “Or your sister’s? Should we move to the yard? But I like it here, Little Bird. It reminds me of the first night you were with me. You…” He pulled Komui’s glasses away from him, set them on the bedside table. Then he brushed the back of his hand against Komui’s face.

“You’re over thirty now, Komui Li, but you still look so much the same as then.”

Komui stared up at him, yet-unshed tears turning his dark eyes into storm-rocked black pools, disheveled bangs fanned around his face. Stared up at Cross. Still… unfathomable, after all these years. Still beautiful. Still cruel. Still… more human than human, the man who’d taken Komui’s very self from him and bent it into his own image, fold by tiny fold until at last Komui had barely known the inside of his own head anymore.

Komui was afraid of this man, so very afraid. He despised this man, this autocrat who used him like a plaything and locked him back in the toybox when he was done, this man who had stolen him away from his home, kept him from everyone he –

He–

he—

every breath, every touch, every word, the snide ones and the soft ones; every embrace, every kiss, every caress of his hair, every night they curled up together, every glass of wine, every goddamn fucking order– he—-

Komui felt much the same as then, too. If perhaps a little more.

His parents had died, sixteen years ago, about five or six feet below where they were lying. His father had pushed Komui out of the way; Komui had landed on the floor with his ankle twisted under him. It had hurt. He had limped for a while.

His parents had looked so surprised when they turned around, and the stars began to pop out across their faces.

“Please– Cross–”

He whimpered and closed his eyes, loosing the goddamned tears to roll down into his bangs.

“There, there,” Cross crooned cruelly, brushing the tear trails away with his thumb after a moment’s admiration, mostly to feel the warm dampness between his skin and Komui’s. “That’s a good boy. Let it all out, Little Bird.” Even as he spoke, he continued to trace his light touches across Komui’s body, brushing teasingly along all the places Cross knew Komui loved to be touched. He wanted Komui to feel everything. Cross wanted the other’s emotions to be raw and open and painful beyond words, wanted to give him all the pleasure and pain in the world. He wanted to give Komui everything, wanted to give him the tenderness only someone who loved him could give him and to show him the carelessness and brutality of someone who hated him. And perhaps once everything was his, once all of this belonged to Komui, perhaps then he could let go of the senseless world that was theirs alone. Cross could only hope, because even now as he kissed away Komui’s tears, he was tempted to hold on and never let go.

But he had promised, the day he had spent being anyone but himself. He had promised, and so these chains would have to go. He would have to tighten them and tighten them until they finally broke.

“You won’t fight this, Little Bird,” he continued softly. “It isn’t that you can’t. You’re mine. You don’t want to fight this. Because if you really, really, really,” Cross interrupted each repetition with a kiss to the side of Komui’s neck, “wanted to end this, I might be persuaded to let you.”

“I want to. I want to!” Komui protested, shaking badly, voice breaking into a hysterical half-shout for a second with his eyes squeezed shut. From his expression alone, he could have been in actual physical pain. “Please… We can’t… You…”

Tears were still streaming down his face as his eyes shot open again to stare up at the ceiling, breathing ragged and erratic, heartbeat racing; he just stared upward for a long moment with an unsteady gaze, mouth working vaguely as though he were trying to say something and couldn’t quite get the words out–

“You can’t have this place too.”

His voice broke around the words, coming out half whisper and half sob and nearly unintelligible.

Everything else is already yours but this– only this–

please——-

Cross was rather like a poison. Even he was coming to realize this now, upon hearing Komui’s words. A taint that had seeped into every aspect of Komui’s life. Cross bled into everything he touched and marked it as his own, and this decrepit building was, at least in Komui’s mind, the only thing in the world that was still clean. It… it seemed a little too unfair to leave Komui, in every sense of the word, with nowhere left to go away from Cross. Even Cross had places he could go when he wanted to be away from himself. He decided then that he could grant Komui this last wish.

But then again, he was already here. What harm could it be to stay just a little longer and enjoy the sound of Komui’s voice so choked with pain?

“What was that…?” he asked softly as though he hadn’t heard. “You have to speak up, Little Bird. I don’t think I heard you right.”

Komui stared up at him despairingly. Didn’t even know if it was worth trying anymore.

“Please– this is— this is— My home– my childhood–“

He sucked in little gasps of air, chest tight, throat tight, everything– he felt like he couldn’t breathe–

“All the good things— the really truly good things– my– My family and Linali and the cat and my stupid old inventions and the creaky stair and, and that ginkgo tree and– and– I– If I–” A long, gasping sob that he couldn’t quite suppress.

“If I think of here and I can’t remember them– if I think of, of home and– and all I can see is you and us and, you, fucking me and not, not home, all the things that– that— then— Then I—”

He couldn’t make the rest of the words come out, trailed off trying to speak and sobbing quietly as his wavering gaze focused erratically on Cross’s face.

The… the very idea of — of losing that, of losing Home, to anyone or anything, giving up the only… it… he…

It sent dark thoughts racing through his mind, dangerous ones, like he hadn’t had in years. Thoughts he’d never wanted to have again.

Much different thoughts were running through Cross’s mind. They were calm. Detached, almost. As though they were someone else’s thoughts and Cross was a mere amused spectator. It occurred to Cross somewhere between them that his entire problem with, well, everything, could be explained with the realization that he might actually just hate himself. But he loved himself, loved the way he looked and the way he smiled and the way he moved and the way people fell to his feet. He loved all the little mannerisms he had. He loved his taste for good wine and his addiction to beautiful things. He loved always getting what he wanted. But, if he was perfectly honest with himself, a man wasn’t really the sum of his parts, was he? If he found someone else as pretty and malleable and corruptible as Komui, someone who cried as prettily and loved as sweetly and had all the same quirks and habits and everything else, it still would never quite be the same, would it? So it was entirely possible that Cross, in fact, completely hated himself and simply didn’t realize it yet.

His thoughts were nothing short of evil, actually. That if this plan had come to him before the news of Linali’s injury, if he had done this with no intention of ever letting Komui go, he might have finally been able to completely break him. Take everything that Komui was and own it, own him the way the Earl owned the souls of Akuma. Bound and tormented and beautiful beyond expression. He wished that he had known, wished he had that sort of foresight. He would have so dearly liked to see that, to give Komui nothing left in the world but the man who owned him.

If only Linali had died.

It tempted him, tempted him so very badly. To turn Komui onto his stomach and take away all that was left of him. To cradle Komui close and listen to him cry himself to exhaustion and finally fall asleep with tear trails drying to his face. Cross wanted to have it so badly he could actually feel himself ache for it, feel his hands tremble as he fought the urge to take Komui’s wrists and pin him down until his pale skin bruised.

“Then what?” Cross pressed, existing at that moment in a place of sweet torment. He knew he needed to stop, knew he had to get off Komui now and walk away or drag him away somewhere else and push him against something and have him that one last time. He knew he had to stop before he was too tempted and gave in to the desire to break the promise he had made. But he didn’t want this to end yet, didn’t want to let Komui’s pain come to an end. It was so pure and there and just– Cross could almost taste it, could almost touch it, felt closer to Komui at that moment than he had ever felt before.

“I’ll die.”

The choked-out words were barely recognizable through Komui’s sobs. He stared past Cross’s face up toward the ceiling again, expression pained, afraid, weary. So weary, bone-deep exhausted. Resigned. Despairing.

“I’ll… I’ll die.”

Because, well, he would. One way or another.

Cross could actually feel his resolve crumbling and in that moment he wanted to be weak more than he had ever before in his life. He was more himself than he had ever been, and he knew he should resist but after hearing those sweet, sweet words leave his most precious possession’s lips, he no longer had any will to continue to hold back. He wanted so deeply to have Komui, have all of him. Hold all of the broken fragments of Komui in cupped hands and clutch them to his chest. This was what he had been searching for his entire existence. This feeling, this… kind of closeness with someone. This intensity.

Komui, I’m sorry.

The apology was unspoken, but Cross held it in his eyes the moment the last of his self restraint left him. Then it was gone, and he smiled a slow, deliberate smile. He touched his fingertips to the side of Komui’s face and forced his gaze back.

“Do you really think that will save you, Little Bird?” he breathed out, lifting one of Komui’s hands to brush his lips along the back of it. Then the smile turned into a wide, sadistic sort of grin and he gripped Komui’s hip with one hand and placed the other flat against his abdomen, turning Komui to press him face-down against the mattress.

“Cross–”

Komui could barely speak, could hardly think straight; the room around him and Home and Childhood and the whole world, they flipped upside down all at once and all he could think was he didn’t understand; that he’d thought– He’d thought Cross—

somewhere

sometime

—-he could remember– he could think of– of– Being held. Soft words. A promise–

A rubber band bracelet hiding in his pack so it wouldn’t be broken.

Her face.

Home.

Home was— was—-

Cross’s hand twisted around a fistful of Komui’s hair and jerked his head back, jarring away all thoughts. He pulled Komui’s head back enough to touch his lips to the outer shell of Komui’s ear.

“I don’t want to hear you speak my name again except to scream it,” he growled, other hand hastily and carelessly dragging Komui’s pants from his hips. Cross stripped the other completely and let those clothes fall away as well.

Komui just tried to keep breathing.

Cross let go of his hair at last and he collapsed back onto his face against the bed, little dust clouds floating up from his ill-used sheets on either side of Cross’s spread-out jacket.

His sheets. His old, rotted, mouse-bitten sheets. On his bed. At home. In China. Where Cross was going to fuck him.

Tears soaked slowly into the collar of the Exorcist’s jacket; Komui just lay there, and breathed, and whimpered quietly.

He didn’t say Cross’s name again.

There was no mercy in Cross that night, no gentle touches or tender caresses. He almost seemed to purposefully hurt Komui as much as possible–it took as much to make the other give any sort of response. He was mindless of the bruises he left on Komui’s pale skin, ignored the long black hairs that came away with his hand. He didn’t want Komui’s mind to wander, didn’t want him to be able to pretend he was anywhere else, doing anything else, with anyone else. He whispered to Komui how good he felt, how perfect he was, reminded him who he belonged to, reminded him how much of a whore he really was, hissed his poison into Komui’s ear all night long.

The first few rays of sunlight into the Li family house found them still lying there, pressed close together, like lovers might have done. Komui’s eyes were still open. His body ached, bruised and clawed and abraded, but the feeling was dull, far away from him. He had exhausted all the tears in his body, lacked the energy even to shake any more, and so he simply laid there, pressed against Cross atop the dusty black jacket; listlessly staring in the direction of his moldering desk and its moldering books without any particular recognition in his blank gaze.

He wasn’t quite sure what home was anymore.

Sleep had not found Cross either. The General’s arms were loosely wrapped around Komui’s waist, his grip delicate. Komui’s mussed hair moved slightly with each of Cross’s slow breaths. What Cross was feeling right now was hard to precisely describe, but it was almost as though all of the life he lived before today had, for the moment, left him. There was a smile on his face, the kind of smile that was soft and content and free of all troubles. Because, in that single moment, he had everything. He had such exhilarating clarity. Such peace of mind. He had the entire world, the entire universe, he had all that existed and all that didn’t in his arms right then. Everything and anything and everything there was and wasn’t, right there in his arms, reflected in the fragments of what had once been a man named Komui Li.

The sun poured in through the window at just the right angle to fall upon Komui’s neck, and Cross brushed back the other’s dark hair so he could lean down and kissed the light away.

“Nmh…”

Komui gave a single quiet, reflexive little whimper. That felt… bad. Good. Badgood. He wasn’t really sure at the moment. The lips were soft, they tingled against his overstimulated skin, they…

Whose lips?

…Of course.

He shifted a little, just a little, where he was lying; turned the dark, blank, doll-like gaze on Cross’s face, and said nothing.

It was a sight that, had Cross not been laying in bed with him, truly would have brought the General down to his knees. With what emotion he could not say, only that it was gripping and overwhelming and made him feel the slightest bit dizzy. Slowly, he stroked the side of Komui’s face, slid the back of his hand along the other’s cheek, ran his thumb under the beautifully broken creature’s eyes as though brushing away invisible tears. He smiled down at Komui, and it was a smile of all the good feelings and all the bad feelings and all the so-good-they-were-bad feelings and all the so bad-they-were-good feelings. It was a smile of devotion hiding beneath ownership, of love tangled in hate, of happiness that could not discern itself from sorrow. And, when all was said and done, it was a smile that wasn’t really much of anything at all, because it meant nothing to Cross and Komui was no longer present enough to understand it.

“I love you,” he whispered softly into Komui’s ear without really thinking about the words at all.

Komui wasn’t there enough to really understand those words either; but Cross’s voice was quiet, soothing; his caress gentle; and…

…This was the man he belonged to, he recalled from somewhere, faintly.

He turned a little more until his body was facing Cross’s fully, and leaned his head wearily against the General’s chest.

Languidly, Cross shifted to accommodate him. The General wound his arms around Komui’s back and cradled his head close. He pressed a light kiss on the other’s forehead, paused a moment, then lowered his lips close to Komui’s ear again.

“I’ll never let you go.“