Dreamless Love Story Chapter 1: Fireman, a tsubasa chronicle fanfic

Dreamless Love Story

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Chapter 1: Fireman

Dreamed I was a fireman - I just smoked and watched you burn
Dreamed I was an astronaut - I shot you down like a juggernaut
Dreamed we were still going out, had that one a few times now
Woke up to find we were not… It's good to be awake…

Jawbreaker

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Nothing. Is this really necessary?

Flames. Rising out of the flowing gasoline. He leans against the concrete divider, shattered glass crunching underneath his boots. Lights a cigarette, face lost amid the ghastly flickering shadow thrown by the flames. The inferno. By now it engulfs the vehicle, metal and glass blackening and melting before his stony gaze. Flames dance in the reflective fabric of his heavy flak jacket. The fireman.
He leans back for another ragged drag on his cigarette. Surveying the dark highway through a raging heat. Inside the car, her face glows ghostly pale. Flames, like dragons are curling and licking at the long, raven-dark tendrils of her hair. Inhaling hot, black tar - the fireman watches. Her screams are ringing out a deafening silence as she burns. Nothing but red, scarlet, red flickering...

Numbers. Red, flashing numbers, 3:47AM. Panting, he runs a hand through sweat-drenched black hair. It's cold. He is sitting bolt-upright on a hard tatami floor, alone. This small, cheap room is soaked with the blue neon glow of the street outside, casting a sordid wash over empty bottles and an unmade futon. Why? His head pounds, fighting a shiver through the cold sweat beading on his skin. Gone is the fire. Gone is the heat. Gone is the girl...

It has been three nights now since the last time he closed his swollen eyes, since the last time he let sleep overtake this powerful body. Then, the dream had been of an ocean. He had felt himself roaring like a tidal wave, furious and foam-crested, enormous. Crashing into her with the force of an inevitable fate, ravaging her coast, death and destruction in his wake. There had been no survivors. Why?

Before that, there was something about a vampire. He had been in her room, gazing down at that familiar, pale and fragile form with a strange and terrible thirst. But he wouldn't touch her... Why? And always, always her.

His breathing slower now, he clenches scarred fists in tired frustration. It doesn't make any sense. Always dreaming of this skinny girl, with her violet saucer-eyes and high-pitched squeak of a laugh. God damn that laugh. It wasn't as if he knew her well, even then... she was too young for him. Not cute at all, he grunts. And yet, his body absorbs every memory of her and transmutes her, revisits her, warps her until she inhabits the hot and angry blood in his veins, a haunting, nightmare child. His body stiffens. He has to move.

Hauling himself upright, he shakes his tired head as if to shake off these images. Ex-girlfriend bullshit. He grabs his jacket off the counter and throws on a pair of leather shoes, the door closing behind him with a sharp click.

Wake up. The night breeze cuts through his thin t-shirt, jacket unzipped. Smears and streaks of neon light gather behind his eyelids. Staggering down these creaking steps to a cold, bright and empty street. His stomach growls - that's right. Impulse, function, what makes us human. The suggestion of a smile begins to form on his thin lips, shoes firmly planted on concrete, carrying him around the corner and toward the garish glow of the 24-hour konbini at the end of the block. Shrink-wrapped, refrigerated bento lunches, row upon row - he can see them now in his mind's eye. Under the flickering, sickly glare of fluorecsent tube lighting, the furthest place from fires and oceans waits. The konbini never, ever sleeps. 7-11 has murdered sleep.

Hands in pockets, he hunches forward, marching faster toward a sleepless destiny...

"Hey!"

Three figures are leaning and leering up ahead. Baggy clothes, sprawling drunk over the sidewalk. He lowers his head and keeps walking.

"Hey, you!"

"Hey tough guy! Answer when someone's talking to you." These kids can't be more than 19 years old - their posturing is laughable. He grunts as he brushes through them. Onward to fluorescence.

"Tough guy, huh?" One of the kids clumsily reaches out to grab his jacketed shoulder. The tall man stops, abruptly.

"It's not 'tough guy'." Still staring at the pavement ahead of him, he growls softly. "It's Kurogane." His eyes flash as he thrusts away the hand, easily and forcefully. The boy staggers backwards into his friends.

Coughing and slurring his speech, one of the troublemakers starts to puff out his chest. "Well, well, look at this. He must think a helluva lot of hisself to talk like that to us." His eyes narrow. "All three of us."

"A guy like you all by himself on a night like this..." pipes in his friend.

"Nobody'll be climbing over themselves to help you out..." They are slowly moving closer, in a pack this time.

"Those shoes look expensive..."

Flick. The blade of a knife in the smaller kid's hand glints in the streetlight. "What else do you got on you?"

Kurogane grins.

The kid with the knife falters. "What's this asshole smiling about!" Regaining his confidence, he shakes with drunken rage - "Get him!"

Two of the boys lunge at once. Kurogane shoots out a long arm to grab the first by his neck, sidestepping a clumsy knife thrust and plunging his fist into the second kid's stomach. The boy doubles over and crumples to the concrete, while the other splutters for air with a massive hand gripping his throat. Kurogane squeezes. Fear stricken, the third kid turns to run, but the larger man is on him in a black-clad flash. Driving his huge knuckles into the boy's face, Kurogane savours the familiar sensation of teeth breaking, without emotion. Splinter.

Crack... and their groans and screams echo along the empty street, reminding him...

"Please, no..."

"Aarrrrrrrrnnng!"

"You… rrrg…"

"Please stop it!" The bell-toned voice of a girl-child rings in his ears. Through the haze of memory, a tall teenaged boy with sharp features and jet-black hair turns.

There, on the sunlit street, stands a tiny girl with long, dark locks falling around her face and tears shimmering in her eyes.

"What's the matter?" the older boy growls, stepping away from the moaning, skinny bodies on the sidewalk. "Weren't these jerks trying to take something of yours?"

Her lip trembles.

He stoops down to grab the girl's backpack from where it lies on the road. The two younger boys, bruised and bleeding, see their opportunity and start to sprint, awkwardly, limping and stumbling away down the hill. The little girl does not so much as glance after them - her intense, violet eyes are trained on the older boy, who is handing her the bag and wiping his sweaty forehead with the back of his arm.

"You hurt?" he speaks gruffly.

She shakes her head, and says timidly, "Tomoyo is fine."

"But..." there is a stubborn set to her small chin. "...Kurogane-senpai shouldn't do that."

Startled, the boy glares down at her. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Unflinching in the cold heat of his scarlet eyes, the little girl says delicately - "You shouldn't hurt people so much weaker than you."

Kurogane blinks, raising a hand to his cheek. A warm feeling is spreading outward from his cheekbone, around his eye and temple, as glass shatters onto the concrete. The wirey kid he holds at arm's length has swung and smashed a bottle against the side of his face. There are tears in his drunk eyes as he gasps and struggles weakly in Kurogane's neck hold. Annoyed, the larger man throws the boy to the ground, where he shudders and collapses into a heap.

The crumpled bodies heave and cough on the road as Kurogane stands away to the side. He rubs his cheek, and looks down at his scarred knuckles. You shouldn't hurt people so much weaker than you… His stomach growls.

Tucking fists into his deep jacket pockets, without so much as a glance at the bodies on the road behind him, the older man continues in a slow saunter down the block. Toward the still-glowing goal of the 24-hour konbini. The place where all dreams die, he thinks, a smile spreading unmistakeably across his hard face. Some beef rolls and onigiri would really hit the spot right about now.

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A/N: OK, this is a bit of a weird one for me! I'm usually about sticking as close to canon as possible in all of my petty and pathetic fantasies, and I was finding it a bit hard to envision this couple as anything other than feudal warrior/princess. Their canon relationship is just so touching and engaging (which is, I guess, the main reason I'm on the KuroTomo team, since I don't have a damn thing against yaoi - but these two just feel so RIGHT with their traditional Japanese vibe, ne!) Then, upon listening to an old Jawbreaker song called "Fireman" this modern scenario hit me (the dreams are actually pulled from imagery in this song, which I guess makes this a songfic - ha! - if a rather bloated one...). Well, it'll be fun to see how this plays out.

Get ready for a pretty dark, angst-ridden, multi-chap piece of KxT AU! (But no serious worries, you can always expect happy endings from me! ;p ) Hope you enjoy!