During book 14. You're smart, I'm sure you can figure out when. Of course there are spoilers. What good fanfic doesn't have spoilers? Now read.

~~~

Subaru woke up to white walls for the second day. He was grateful for the private room. Apparently the name Sumeragi had some power, even here at the hospital. He hurt everywhere and had trouble focusing on anything in the room. His depth perception was still off. Was this how Seishirou-san felt when he was half blinded?

The world was still blurry and pain filled, but the he was lucky to still be alive, or so the doctors had said. Pity that's not quite what I was hoping for. He sighed to himself and even that hurt. It wasn't until he heard the rustle of cloth to his right that he became aware that there was someone else there with him. He had to turn his head on the pillow to see, the right side was now blind. I'll have to remember that, now that it seems I will live.

It was Kamui sitting there, lightly dozing. Subaru made no move to wake him. The young man needed his sleep. Subaru was willing to surmise that he had stayed by his side this entire time. He remembered Kamui being here yesterday when he woke then; however, everything had been even fuzzier then. Why is he so willing to stay beside me? There is nothing in me to make him want to. I'm bitter and angry. I couldn't even make the one I loved see me as anything but an object. Even now I'm just his plaything. Something to toy with. I don't even deserve the mercy of a quick death. He turned his head away from the young man, almost a boy really, and stared at the ceiling.

It wasn't long before he heard Kamui stir and rustle in his seat. He turned his head to look at him. His left eye caught Kamui in its view just in time to see him rub those thin, fragile hands over his face and through his hair, making it tousle even more, if that was possible. He then stretched, his eyes squinched shut. Subaru couldn't stop the slight smile that spread across his face. Kamui could be so. . .cute. Innocent. Subaru remembered when he had been innocent. It had amused Seishirou-san so very much.

Kamui opened his eyes and smiled. "You're awake!"

"So it would seem." He tried to sit up some to talk to him in a manner other than nearly flat on his back. As he tried, however, an involuntary gasp of pain eeked past his lips.

Kamui leapt forward to push him back down. "Would you please be more careful?!" He was totally indignant.

"What do you mean?" But he was afraid he knew where this was all going.

Kamui wilted back into his seat. "I mean behaving with total disregard for yourself and trying to get yourself killed. Did you think you could fool me? Or the rest of us?"

Inside the Sumeragi quaked, and it took supreme effort for him to keep it from showing on the outside as well. "I don't want to discuss this."

"I don't care! We are going to talk about it anyway." Subaru turned his face away.

"Fine, look away. But I'm still going to talk and you have no choice but to listen." Subaru marveled at Kamui's stubbornness. The simple way that he could be so fragile one minute and the next so harsh and demanding.

"We all know what you are trying to do."

"And what is that?"

"Trying to get yourself killed." Kamui watched as Subaru seemed to melt into himself a little, almost acknowledging the words.

Kamui stood and came over to sit carefully on the bed, not wanting to hurt the older man. "Please." He reached out and carefully turned Subaru's face back to his. "Did you think we wouldn't notice? If you died it would hurt us all."

"Do you think living doesn't hurt me? My sister, my other half, dead and gone. The man I loved her killer."

"She wouldn't want you to do this."

"How do you know?" Subaru's voice was quiet, desolate.

Kamui looked down at his scarred hands. "I don't know, but I can guess, just like I can guess that Fuuma, the real Fuuma, wouldn't want me to give up." And again he was the fragile boy that had taken more abuse than any hundred people should.

Subaru closed his good eye, vacillating between the urge to roll over and die, or hug Kamui to him and apologize. He again looked at the young man. Kamui traced the line of the scar across his palm. "You saved my life, now let me save yours."

"How?"

"By giving you something to live for." Kamui flinched as Subaru gave a soft bitter laugh.

"And what would that be?"

"For us." Then much softer, "For me. Don't leave me alone like everyone else did."

Subaru couldn't help but look up at that. Right into Kamui's bright lavender eyes. He said the only think he could think of to say. "Why?"

"Because you understand me. I understand you. The others. . .they care, but. . .but it's not the same. Please?"

That puts a cramp in my plans. He reached up and put a hand to Kamui's cheek. Incredible, the way we all become so devoted to him. Just a little bit of a person, yet we would all die for him. He looked at the young man. And live for him.

Back to TB/X fics
Back Home