Ban closed his eyes as he inhaled the poison. He couldn't remember clearly when he'd started smoking, but if felt like forever. Right at this moment, he felt as if mr. Nicotine had been his faithful lover all through his young life. Not that he felt particularly young. Up until a couple of years ago, his life had been long and slow and lonely. Him, Mido Ban, against the world. Oh, he had family. Had had family at least. Hell, he even had the inheritance to prove it: Jagan. The Evil Eye of the European witches. His grandmother had passed it on to him, and to this day he wasn't really feeling grateful.
It had changed him. When she gave him his inheritance, it had changed him on a fundamental level. The eye and the accursed serpent.
Ban kept his eyes closed and concentrated on the smoke. Some of the tenseness drained away, and his feverish mind calmed just a little. He was always on edge when Ginji wasn't around. Actually, he was on edge when Ginji was around too. It just got worse when he was lonely. Couldn't figure out why the hell that was, though. It wasn't as if Ban wasn't used to being alone. After his grandmother cursed him (and screw it, she did, the bitch!), he had been more alone than any human being should ever be. Okay, so she had shown him how to call on company, but the serpent wasn't much of a conversationalist. The blood thirst of that thing...
He could feel it even now, as a dull ache of arousal in the back of his throat.
Perhaps that was one of the reasons Shido kept getting on his nerves? Shido was a loner too, but he had those animals. All Ban had had, was a celestial spirit of an ever hateful snake. A ghost that lived with him and in him and wrapped him up in its hunger. Oh yes, Akabane had seen it. Felt it. Smelled it. The hunger was still there, even though Ban had tamed the serpent and took greater care when calling upon its presence. It would be so easy to lose himself in it again.
But he wouldn't. Couldn't. They had changed all of that. Himiko and Yamato, the first friends he ever had. Even if it only lasted for a few months, it had changed him. Touched him in a way no human being had ever touched him before. Yamato was the brother he'd never had. The wise, patient big brother who had kicked him into shape, and shared his darkest secret with him. Himiko, the little sister he'd never had. Feisty, proud, stubborn, explosive and vulnerable. He knew her dark secret too, even when she did not.
Yamato had confided in him, and made him promise to look after her.
Yamato had made him kill his first and best friend. With Himiko in the house.
And he couldn't bring himself to tell her, because that would hurt her even more than seeing her friend sitting by her brother's corpse, hands bloodied.
Ban inhaled deeply, as the familiar knot in his stomach manifested. Damn, where the hell was Ginji? The blond little dufus had better not be getting into trouble, or be fooling around on some useless errand spurred by a cute smile and long eyelashes. Heaven knew Ginji was a sucker for a pretty face, and softer than a plushie koala. Ruthlessly soft. Ban opened his eyes, and stared at nothing. His partner had that unique soft quality that nothing could break, and nothing could stop. It was as if he had decided that the world would be a bright and fluffy place, and he would make it so.
Ban needed Ginji. For all Ginji kept quoting Ban's little quip about the s in Getbackers, it was Ban who needed to hear it. It was Ban who needed to believe in it. It was Ban who needed someone outside himself to connect with. To trust. To love. To lean on. To walk with. To talk with. To fight with. To yell at. To laugh with. To keep him in check. To banish the serpent from his heart. To wash away the bloodtirst. To be the saviour and conscience. He needed Ginji's honest, guileless brown eyes to counter weigh his own intense, deep blue ones.
Sure, Ginji needed Ban too. To stop the rage from taking control. To keep Raitei in check. But Raitei was really just Ginji with teeth and claws. The goal of Raitei and the goal of Ginji was the same; to help and protect those who couldn't help and protect themselves.
The goal of the serpent was to kill and devour. He would never let it get the upper hand again. Ever. As long as he had a friend, someone who believed in him with the power of a thousand lightning storms, he would remain Ban, master of his powers, and not the powerslave he had been before he met his friends.
The goal of Ban was... Fuck. He still didn't know.
Ban flicked the stub of the cigarette away, and pushed his sunglasses back up from his nose tip, where they had slid down. He had sworn to use his powers for good. To help people, and to make a living from it together with Ginji. For now, it would just have to suffice.