Beautiful Disaster
By Danyu

Her face was pale as death…

The bruises under her eyes were so dark, complimenting to the shadows in her eyes, growing deeper and deeper with each day…

She was so thin…so breakable…almost skeletal…

How could I have been so blind…?

How could I have been so selfish…?

How could I have been so damned complacent…?

Why didn't I see?

…How could I have been so blind…?

xxx

"We have a happy home, don't we, Isuzu-chan?"

The sound of laughter, the warmth of a loving home…

Her mother's bright smile, her reassuring words…

Her father's strong hands, the doll he brought home just for her…

"Mother, and Father, they both love Isuzu-chan…"

Lies…all lies…twisted, silky lies…falling from lips smooth as silk and sharp as knives…hurting, biting lies…

"Are Mama and Papa always having fun? Aren't they ever sad?"

Innocent words…simple words…powerful words…the strength of words she would have given anything to take back…

Everything changed…

The play was over…their masks of perfect serenity fell away…their masquerade was over, the actors took their final bows, and her hell on earth began…

Bad girl…nasty girl…always causing trouble…always getting Mama and Papa mad…please don't mean mad…I'm sorry…I'm sorry…I'm sorry…

Don't leave me alone…please don't leave me…come back…I'm sorry…I'm sorry…I'm sorry…I'm sorry…

Haru…

Haru…cute Haru…soft white hair…big gray eyes…friend…playing together…jump rope…hide and go seek…sweetly smiling Haru…innocent Haru…

Loving Haru…soothing away the pain…chasing away the loneliness…kind Haru…her Haru…

"I'm scared, Haru…I'm scared. Don't go away…don't leave me. Stay with me, Haru."

Haru always stayed.

xxx

Sitting in the hospital corridor, oblivious to the low drone of conversation coming from the nurse's desk nearby, to the uncomfortable chill of the hallway, the strange glances he continued to receive from passersby. Indulging only in his own fears and impatience, watching with wary expectation as his Shihan walked into Rin's room, pausing first to reassuringly pat his hair.

The low murmur of Shihan's soft, soothing tenor, and then the sound of Rin's fearful, uncomprehending voice, gradually picking up in volume as her hysteria mounted. Her screams of fear and confusion would forever echo in his mind. Her mother's appearance in the doorway, every hateful word escaping her hitting that poor, vulnerable slip of a girl like a physical blow.

Rage…hot, smoldering rage…stifling anger burning him from the inside out in its intensity, poisonous in his veins like venom as the Black overtook him, overwhelming him in the tempest of dark emotion. The Black empowered him, strengthened him, and still rendered him a hurting and scared young boy who could do nothing more than scream his frustration at the retreating back of the woman choosing to abandon this girl.

"Haru…Haru, thank you…"

Her quiet words of gratitude, her tears and his own, and how little he could do for her would always imprint into his memory.

xxx

Haru was her salvation, and her downfall.

Darkness…so much darkness…spiraling downward into the darkness, the depression, smothering her with the dark, the pain, the isolation of loneliness, of guilt and anger, of shame and doubt, spiraling downward uncontrollably.

A rap at her window, the welcome appearance of a beloved face…Haru…a paltry offer to go for a walk, but to her, that single invitation had been the light to smother her darkness, an extended hand of friendship to pull her out of her slow self-destruction to face the world and all it had to hold, all the while being able to cling close to the strength and reassurance that was Haru.

He attracted her, from the very start as the person he was, a gentle, caring soul who wanted to understand her and take care of her, someone who freely offered to be the support she needed. He gave her friendship and companionship when she needed it the most, he gave her purpose and reassurance where no other made the same difference, he saw her where no other was capable of breaking through her carefully constructed defenses.

He gave her hope, he gave her strength, and it was inevitable she fell in love. And later, as she watched him grow and change in the beginnings of manhood, that attraction grew physical.

Watching him grow, watching as the endearingly boyish qualities faded and merged with a mature, masculine beauty, as his body grew taller, as the definitions of his physique grew sleek and muscled, and she found herself wondering and wanting for things she had never given thought to before.

Bemusement always followed the wondering of what it would be like to touch him in more than just a casual fashion, how all that smooth skin would feel, if his hair would be as soft as it seemed if she tangled her fingers through it.

Confusion followed those nights she awoke in a cold sweat, her body throbbing with an ache, a longing, she could not place.

Shame followed those times she caught herself staring, admiring the muscles and broad shoulders developed by years of martial arts training.

He attracted her, and she hated herself for it.

xxx

He wanted her.

He wanted her on so many levels, physical and emotional, and on some accounts it did not surprise him. He had always been a tactile person, seeking physical contact and affection among the family circle he was naturally denied as a Jyuunishi, and then further by his parents' cool and indifferent distance. It was inevitable that the closer he and Rin became over the years, the more he would seek from her. And he did seek more, as he came to crave her presence and her touch, as his curiosity and want for affection changed with his growing of age.

He hungered for her with a voracious appetite that sometimes frightened him with its intensity. The need for her, the want for her, pulsed as strongly through him as the adrenaline of the Black, eating him up from the inside until it consumed him. This hunger, this longing, filled his every core of being, and he embraced the insatiable need with open arms. There was no use denying it, that much he knew, for the older he grew, the more he wanted.

Passing the lines that separated him as a child from being a man tore away the first veils of innocence thrown over his eyes, a naïve and strange lingering issue in the fact that from a young age, he knew so much of pain and suffering, but it was a different kind of heartache, a different kind of torment awakening inside of him with his coming of age, to which he had no ready defense as it raged through him.

And by wanting, by reaching out and taking what he wanted, he created both their Eden and their Hell.

That fateful afternoon, they had sat together casually on his bed, looking together through a book they both enjoyed, and she has been so close, so tantalizingly close that he felt the warmth radiating from her body, watched her chest rise and fall with each soft breath. His eyes were on her more than the book. And then he said those words, those words that brought up every tension and attraction between them they had always left unspoken.

"Rin…let's kiss."

"…Why…?"

"Because we love each other…"

He had been right, of that fact he was sure, that she felt that same powerful, soul-shaking love that moved him, tormented him from the inside out, tore him apart every time he saw her and then re-knit together with every casual touch, a hand on his shoulder, a brush of her fingers against his. She was afraid, she was so afraid, and he knew her fear- smelled it, tasted it, felt it- in her tears, in the wordless plea in her eyes; yet he overlooked it all for that one chance, the one single chance as he finally cupped her face in his hands and pulled her mouth to his.

That kiss, that kiss was earth-shattering, like being caught in the middle of a typhoon, the emotion raging through him, hot and nearly unbearable. A lightning strike in his awareness, lighting every part of him on fire, consumed by a flame that proved unquenchable.

And he felt her response, her surrender at first contact, and he knew she felt it too, that profound, shaking feeling that overwhelmed every sense and sharpened the hunger awakening inside.

He found he could not get enough, and always wanted more.

xxx

Sex, Rin decided, was most like a dance.

That was something beautiful about the whole culmination that she had never considered before Haru, something about the deeper meaning behind the act, the feeling that drove those involved that she had never felt before him. It had always been him.

It was not about the physical response, or seeing the naked body of her lover; it was all in his eyes, and in his touch. His eyes, soft and loving, wanting her, needing her, wanting to please her, wanting to touch her, wanting to love her, and his touch, gentle and delicate, tender yet wanting, his hands burning against her skin, enflaming a longing, a hunger for something she had never before experienced.

Their interactions, a strange seduction, a slow, sensual foreplay, every brush of hand, every smoldering glance, every exploration of mouth and stroke of tongue, every kiss and caress. And it felt good, it felt so good, and he made her body sing, awash with overbearing sensation. It was incredible, like nothing she could ever describe in words, in those moments when their fingers enlaced in grounding hold as he finally slipped inside her.

Their bodies moved together, with a rhythm, a grace, a joining that eluded them beyond the bedroom. Because in lovemaking, there was no whispered lies and false promises, no aching fear and half-formed truths.

There was only sensation and passion, and the feeling of him inside her, holding him close as they melded together, as the heat, the pleasure, became so unbearable she imagined they might melt together, become one in a way that they would never be separate again.

Suddenly she wanted more, ached for more that she could not understand, and the feeling of him inside her in slow, sensual motion, of his body resting in her arms, of his hands gently and languorously caressing, of his harsh, hot breath against her neck, suddenly it was not enough. She wanted to be even closer, closer until she no longer felt where she ended and he began, until they never had to separate again. She wondered if she could have been born in his heart, so she would always be with him, always able to feel his warmth and his love.

She wanted more than she had the right to.

The thought began to scare her.

xxx

There were times when he became afraid, of himself, of her, of the things she silently demanded of him, challenged in him, of the things he gave into to, of the ways he responded to her.

There was darkness inside them both, he knew, and the love, the desire, they felt had a way of stirring it, as their clandestine, fearful relationship strained on them both. In those times when the look in her eyes was darker, penetrating, and she shivered under his touch but demanded more, in those times when all the sexual encounters between them were not just lovemaking.

"It's strange," she murmured one night, as she lay nearly completely half-clothed over him, her long, ebony hair draped behind her like a bride's veil.

"What is?" he found himself replying back, distracted by the sudden sensation of her breasts against his chest, her hair brushing against his cheek as she leaned down, nipping at his throat. He shuddered at the contact, hissing in a sharp intake of breath as she ran her tongue over the abused flesh.

Haru had trouble keeping his concentration, for she continued to take her explorations lower, making her way down his jaw and neck, teasingly alternating between laps of love bites and feathering kisses as she trailed down his chest. She talked as she went. "It's strange," she continued, "How I feel when I'm with you."

She stopped her ministrations, leaning her head against his abdomen as she gazed up at him, and he tenderly smoothed his fingers through her hair. "Sometimes…sometimes it scares me, the things I want. Like I want to feel you all over, and never have to let you go again. Sometimes…sometimes it makes me ill to think like that, to think that I want you to be mine and no one else's, that I want to be yours and no one else's."

"I know how you're feeling," he said softly, skimming his hand downward to lightly caress her arm, "Sometimes, I just get this feeling inside, like I need to hold you here with me, make it so you never leave me. The thought is always echoing through my head, mine, mine, mine."

She stared up at him for a long moment, her black eyes so dark, unreadable as the night surrounding them, and she made some sort of odd sound, a bitter, humorless chortle. "Gods, we are so fucked up," she whispered, watching him nod reluctantly with agreement, unable to find the gentle words he needed to soothe and reassure.

But those words were not what she wanted, not gentle touches or soft reassurances, that much he knew as she lowered her head once more, tracing her tongue along his pectorals, her nails scratching at his sides, not enough to draw blood, but enough to leave marks in the morning.

It wasn't lovemaking; it was something more basic, rougher, more desperate. He felt that strange, yearning desperation as he fumblingly unclipped her bra, sliding off her skirt and panties to bare her naked to his searching eyes as he tangled his fingers through her hair, and pulled her mouth back to his. Teeth clashed before she opened to his bruising assault, his tongue delving greedily into her mouth, wanting to taste everything she offered and everything he so desperately needed.

He worked his way downward now in a path of hot, open-mouthed kisses, and finally he found that part of her that ached for him, and he teased her, tormented her, assaulted her senses with raw, burning pleasure, causing the ache to grow and grow until finally she was tugging impatiently at his belt, pushing at the waistband of his pants and boxers. Then she was straddling him, taking him inside her, and only oblivion awaited him from there.

He flipped her on her back, and he was mindless, hungry, wanting, lusting, moving inside her a fierceness he couldn't quite control, harder and harder, desperate to get closer, close as he could, closer still. He felt her nails gouging at his back, her voice pleading for the same thing. Harder, harder, deeper, closer, closer, just a little closer. To feel her, inside and out, in his heart, his mind, his body, to feel that unbearable heat wrap around him.

As climax came, it was harsh and mind-blowing, washing over them like the sudden shock of a cold spring rain. He shuddered and bellowed, his shout echoing against the walls as she screamed his name and followed him a moment later, shaking and clenching around him, her nails tearing into his back, her teeth biting into his shoulder in an attempt to smother her call. He emptied into her, and he felt suddenly numb as he spiraled down into hot-cold, hurting-blissful, dark-euphoric pleasure.

It wasn't always just lovemaking. Sometimes, sometimes, the things they felt began to scare him.

xxx

He could go through all the pain, all the guilt, all the blame, and try to understand it, but he knew his attempts were futile. She slipped between his fingers, descending into darkness so deep he could no longer find her.

She had always been beautiful, this lovely girl, and everything between them had always been ying and yang, heaven or hell. They loved each other, they hurt each other, again, and again, and again, and still they kept coming back for more. They were a train wreck together, tied down by the cage of the Sohma, but they were only half a soul when apart.

She had always been beautiful, this lovely girl, a beautiful disaster destined to take over his world and drown him along with it. All the love and hope and sacrifice between them, all the pain, and passion, and torment.

He sees her now, and she is so thin, so vulnerable, so weak, and his heart aches so profoundly. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, and there is nothing he can do to end the torment. He is destined for it.

For together, they have always been destined, fated to be just one big, beautiful, burning disaster.

He would not trade the world for the chaos that came with loving her.

Perhaps she had been right all along, and he really was just fucked up. Being Sohma did that to you, twisting and tormenting you until you became something you no longer recognized as yourself.

But in the end, he did love her, and he figured that no matter what happened, that was one feeling he needed to hold on to. It was the only thing he had left.

The only thing.

He wondered if she felt the same.