Snapshots of Denial

By spheeris1

Pairing: Yohji/Ran

Warnings/notes: See first part (and this is the last chapter for this…sorry it took so long)

[In Our Hands]

We've come to the end of it all now.

The floor is crashing in and the darkness of the night is ready to swallow us up. Jaws of evening-opening and chewing and eating.

Soon, the four of us will be a memory.

Soon, the four of us will shed one skin for another.

But listen to me, sounding so incredibly poetic about something so simple-about death.

Death is not a man in a black cloak.

No bony finger pointing, no hidden face, no scythe.

Death is just the opposite of life.

Nothing more, nothing less.

And it is happening…to me…finally…

I bet Ken is clawing his way back up through the ground. I bet Omi is still searching for the bodies below. I bet Aya…no…I don't know what Aya is doing…

For Aya is a girl who has finally awakened.

And Ran is not someone I really know.

I slept with 'Aya'. 'Aya' as a boy, not some sleeping child.

'Aya', as I know him, would be staring at the moon. Challenging it to lower, daring it to allow light into his dark fucking world…

And 'Aya' would walk away, blend in with the shadows and never return.

'Aya' would not look for me.

But I think Ran might. I think, now in my time of bleeding and choking and turning cold, that it was Ran I was fucking. It was Ran I was falling in love with. It was Ran who, when the clock was ticking during pre-dawn blue, held me close and warmed my skin and kissed my lips and told me that…told me that…

Ran held my heart in his hands.

'Aya' will throw it away.

[Sherlock Preferred Tea]

He drinks tea.

And not nice tea. No really sweet tea. Or with lemon.

Only two kinds rest in the tin can on the counter.

Green and Black Oolong.

Green for the morning, to clear the mind and center the body.

The Oolong at night…well, to do the same really.

Yohji doesn't get it.

It is all sort of aesthetic to him. The tea, the practicing, the zen shit…

Yohji developed his own sense of 'zen' over the years.

It usually involved some cheap whiskey or a nameless girl.

Or both.

Sometimes, neither-Yohji could reach some kind of numb nirvana with a pack of cigarettes and a cold breeze on his face.

Those things also cleared the mind and centered the body.

It released him from thoughts of the past. Or the present. Or both.

Ran did the katas and the tea. And he read books, all silent and motionless.

Yohji watched him sometimes. He would always start out the same: reading, sitting up normally…legs crossed at the ankle…then, slowly, Ran would start to curl up.

Pretty soon, the guy was tucked up in the chair and engrossed.

Yohji found that pretty calming, too.

Watching Ran read.

Hey, some people watch birds…or even total strangers…so Yohji sees nothing wrong with watching Ran as his long fingers turn pages.

Or the crease in the brow. Or the frowns, the almost imperceptible grins, the fine line of anger.

All from a book.

Then Ran puts it down, drinks the tea and goes up to bed.

Yohji doesn't join him right away.

He goes over and takes a deep breath of the mug.

And the remnants of tea look kind of like tobacco to Yohji.

[Low]

Yohji feels old now.

Like a soldier long after the war, all the stories he thinks of are so insanely dead now.

Sometimes, Yohji feels low.

Like the bottom of a hole. Dark and hidden and empty.

Or, worse yet, flat and dull.

All his good days have passed him by. All the years of youth and rowdiness are gone. All the times where blood or drink or sex had made Yohji's heart race-they are but a memory.

Then he snaps out of it.

Yohji remembers that, even though the world is different now, some things are the same.

Like Omi. All big and powerful now. But those eyes can still crumble and become overwhelmingly sad.

Like Ken. All calm and normal now. But he can still find the rage and still find the fire within his soul.

Like Ran. All at peace and all docile. But Yohji can feel the ice in him…in every touch, in every kiss, in every way possible.

Ran tells Yohji that he can love now.

'I love you.' Ran says, but Yohji never says it back.

He doesn't trust the words. They can be as hollow as they can be full.

They are like the hole Yohji has become.

END