Hyacinth
A Microfic by Sarehptar
Theme Song: Amsterdam (Coldplay)
Warnings: Subtle(?) Shounen-ai
My star is fading.
He breathes as he lies beside me in the dark, a jarring, uneven sound. He defies expectations unconscious, but to tell him so would only elicit a smile. He delights in being as incomprehensible, as incorrigible as possible.
He breathes again, no rhyme or rhythm to it. Sometimes his exhalations come in ragged gasps—like he is having a nightmare, except that I know he is not. He is not that weak; he pretends to be. Sometimes his inhaling is soft as a sigh, slow—as if his chest , rising and falling barely enough to count, feels all the weight of his sins.
In this thick darkness that seems to linger on both of our pale hands like oil or blood, he could be anyone. He could be any boy, tucked neat beneath his blankets. He could be any noble's son, any beggar's beloved child. His scarred headband is gone; our black-scarlet cloaks perch like ravens on the backs of broken chairs somewhere across the room. If strangers were watching him now, they could see him as just another man.
I can not.
His golden hair spills freely across his pillow and mine, in reach of fingers that refuse to cross the distance. That those delicate strands play so perfectly into my space is no accident. Deidara does not make mistakes around me. This spun-gold spiderweb on the white cotton of my sheets is a form of invitation. I leave it unanswered.
He is my partner, but the word doesn't mean anything to me anymore. Deidara cannot be to me just one word. He is the person I hate most: a fool, a weakling, a glass sculpture with a thousand cracks. He is undeserving, unpleasant, and beautiful—aesthetically so; it does not take an artist to value his eyes, the way his eyelashes follow almond rims without flaw, the way his irises are ringed in navy. It does not take a love of detail to admire the unmarred skin, the clean and singular threads of flaxen hair. If Deidara were a puppet, I would treasure him.
He breathes again.
The night is moonless; stars and the sourceless glow that keeps the air as gray as steel poorly light the windows. It is enough that I can watch dust dance to fall on him, spiraling like smoke away from his half-open mouth as he gasps. I count each of his breaths, in and out. I am counting down.
The dust settles undisturbed on his cheeks, on the tiny hairs along his jaw that are too blond to be seen. Like a flighty bird, he has always danced around me, desperate for an approval I would never give. I can see it in his eagerness, in his violence, in his words. At first I thought it was weak necessity, thought he could not stand without some words of praise—but Deidara is not that type of human being. He does not need my respect, he does not need our arguments, our partnership, or the lie of humility he adds to my name. He doesn't give a damn what I think, pretend as he might. Chasing my approval… it's a game to him, gives him a reason to do what he would do without a reason, to continue to be Sei, the nameless flame of destruction. It gives him a reason, false reason, to smile when he wakes beside me.
I cannot stop counting his breaths now that I have started—in the poignant darkness, my silent ministrations seem to be the only thing keeping him alive. To stop now would be to�pretend his breath away, to still his form forever, like the hundreds of others I have stilled.
Ninety-nine… Ninety-eight…
The blanket he has tangled himself in is thick wool, too hot for this tepid night. He does not seem to mind. The air is mausoleum-thick, leeching from the cracked white-wash walls a scent of disinterest and lead. A clock ticks somewhere, but it cannot hope to keep time with me.
Eighty-seven… Eighty-six…
It is the silence that I love, this punctured, broken sound that is as familiar to me as the light of the moon, as the rust-brown water stain on the ceiling above my head. I do not sleep. But I lie wordlessly beside him because he must—he is a living human being. He sleeps, and he breathes a heavy sigh.
Seventy-five… Seventy-four…
There are other things about him that only I can see, that I see while he sleeps, trusting me to guard without ever asking. I can see his veins, running though his wrists, unforgivably thin wrists. I can see his fingers splayed like shuriken across the mattress. His nails—rebelliously unpainted—are white above the quick as he digs his hands furiously into the sheets.
He doesn't have nightmares.
Sixty-three… sixty-two…
I can almost see the blood beat through him, steady or unsteady as everything else. I can almost hear a monotone heart beat… No, it is the clock keeping that time which means nothing to me and the world to Deidara. Seconds, hours, years sit on his chest that rises and falls unsurely. On me there is no such hindrance, such danger. He breathes, a beautiful desperate sound, and I do not.
Fifty-one… Fifty…
It is not lightening; the morning as far off in this moment as the horizon, and the barren room seems as sterile as the tools I use to shear flesh from bone. A moth, brown-winged and unassuming, clings to wall above, at right-angles to the moonlight. Deidara moves to throw off his stifling blanket with a mewl he would never make on waking.
Forty-nine… forty-eight…
My count of his breathing rolls mercilessly down, and suddenly panic burns through what is left of me. I'm going to run out of numbers. He's going to run out of breath.
The mission seems distant now; that he failed again is as of much important to me as the moth, fluttering desperately and endlessly against the ceiling.
Thirty-eight… Thirty-seven…
Deidara is a fool, a genius, and a liability. He is a weakness, delicate as any damsel, unbreakable as any ninja. And at this moment, he is living—which means that he is dying.
Each uneven breath he takes is adding seconds to his age, minutes to his human body, to the body that is already beginning to rot around him. It pierces me with a chill, sharp and permanent, but my pale skin does not rise in goosebumps. He is dying. Like every other man, he will grow, he will age, he will fade.
Twenty-six… Twenty-five…
One day I will lie down to watch the moon through dusty windows, and I will not hear his breath. The sun will rise without his false, bright grin to mirror it. I will take another victim, make another puppet; I will argue to myself in silence about what art is, and what it is becoming… I will live forever.
Fourteen… Thirteen…
Thirteen breaths until zero. And I know he won't stop there but it seems so soon; the end of his achingly short life might as well be thirteen breaths from now.
It is too much to think, too much to fear. My face says nothing about the pounding of my heart. I will be alone again.
Of its own accord, my impossibly strong hand finds his fragile wrist. I could crush him with only the barest pressure—time does not even need that to wring the life from him.
Ten… Nine…
His breath evens quickly, and I know that he is awake. He does not move, does not question my hold. He does not shift even an inch when I rise to look into his sharp, open eyes. Patiently, he allows my examination as if he has always allowed it. He breathes—lives—quiet in the dark.
Eight… Seven…
Those cobalt irises ringed in navy are still as deep, still inconceivably alive and full of steel moon shine. His unhindered hair tangles in my fingers though I never meant to touch him.
Six… Five…
For a moment, single moment, I can understand him and all the evanescent allure of his art. He is beautiful and he is fleeting.
Four… Three…
He is the explosions that govern his heart; he is living in a warmth and glory I cannot understand, in the vacuum made by fire and clay and wind. He is fading to embers before my eyes and something about this is thrilling in a horrifying way because nothing about Deidara ever lasts. Deidara makes the eyeblink of mortality, of living and dying, an art form.
I would not make him a puppet even if it meant saving him from time.
Two…
I lean and catch his last breath on my lips without a word. His sigh runs free and warm inside me.
If only for this moment, let me pretend to be smoke and light.
If only for this moment, let me pretend he doesn't need this breath to be.
One.
Author's Note: Wow, it's been a long time. And I have to admit, I would not have updated this collection again if not for an ironic twist of fate that occured tonight. While I looking for the hand-written copy of a recent chapter for my Kingdom Hearts fanfiction, I stumbled across a much older notebook, where I found this complete one-shot. I couldn't believe it--I didn't even remember writing it. Apparently I just... forgot to post it? Anyway, here is it. I wrote it more than a year ago, so I can see a lot of problems with it... But better an old piece than no update at all, right? And this is the only thing I've written from Sasori's point of view, so I guess that's kind of interesting?
Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed!