Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Lies, Crimes, and Punishments ❯ Snow Like Wishes, Wishes Like Snow ( Chapter 7 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

At first he was truly clueless. The second time it seeped through those smooth, plump lips he had deciphered its meaning. Those EYES!
"What if it was I who killed Hiromiya." No... Oh, God, no.
"No!" He stood up rapidly, nearly tripping over his coat, the dim light not deep enough to mask any of the intensity in Ken's eyes.
If he would've thought about it, he would've felt awkward, aroused penis plainly apparent through his clothing as he stood there.
No time for that.
"Ken?" The younger man stopped his insane mantra, simply, stoically, staring into Koushiro. "Oh God..." He was going to explode. He was going to scream in rage and rend his few furnishings to pieces or cry in embarrassing fits of frustration, fear and - yes, again - rage.
So he fled instead.

The other priests didn't know what to say when Izzy broke through the doors at St. Barnard's, snow clinging to his feet and legs and seeping into his formerly dry shoes.
He was out of breath, panting; he was red in the face. ...At least he couldn't speak. It kept his mind from trying to think about what TO say. What WOULD he say?
To the rectory he again fled.

Achikawa came into their room later on, when all was quiet once again, when he knew Izzy would be alone and more open to answering their many questions. A knock, more out of politeness than necessity, and the strawberry blonde stuck his head around the door.
"Father Izumi?" Oh, he wanted to cry. Not him, not him!
"Yes?"
"Can we talk?" Fuck no!
"Sure." He moved to sit up on the small, stiff bed. Despite himself, he smoothed the bedclothes next to him, bidding the other priest sit down. Those same, intense, earnest grey eyes from before locked on him as he sat close - not too close - but close.
Why was life so confusing?
"What about?" He heard Achikawa sigh.
"You know. Before." He broke the gaze, being timid on purpose, coy on accident. "Are you okay?"
Izzy wanted so badly to tell him to go to a certain place and do a certain thing, but instead it was his turn to sigh.
"I don't know. I came across an awful shock today, but I don't even know if it's true. I-" His voice began to build, cracking off as he realized it was showing the beginnings of panic.
"What? What happened?" Izzy half-flinched as the grey eyes watched, his hand resting on the other's shoulder.
Too much contact. Why? Why contact?
He shrugged the hand off when just a shiver didn't send him away.
"Nothing. ...Nothing I can talk about openly. I- I just don't know what's going on." He gripped the sides of his hair in his hands, "Goddammit, I wish I did!"
Achikawa visibly started at that word, that blasphemy, and Izzy ducked his head further. Oh fuck, he wasn't helping his case...
"Please tell me what's going on, Izzy. Please tell me: I can help."
He shook his head furiously, "No, no you can't. I've just got to work through this; either the pain of telling everyone or the pain of keeping it to myself." The guilt of keeping it.

Or was it even true?

"Iz-"
"No! No, I can't!" Achikawa gave him his best incredulous look. "Okay, maybe I won't, but either way, I'm not going to." Exhaustion passed through the grey eyes. He closed them and sighed, placing one warm, unblemished hand on top of Izzy's.
He gasped silently, but didn't recoil, letting it sit there, letting it pretend to comfort.
"I understand, Koushiro. I won't make you do something you don't want to." He opened his lids, the weight of his thoughts bleeding out. It made Izzy gasp, audibly. He was more confused than ever.
"I don't want to tell you, and I don't want to continue talking to you." He tried to stare back, but his gaze paled against the other's, tainted with untold thoughts.
Achikawa nodded his head - hearing his words and understanding them, but not acting. Maybe he didn't care.
"I'll be here if you decide to." The sentence was whispered out, barely floating on the air. He raised his hand from Koushiro's, letting it dance briefly across the skin of his cheek.
He didn't cringe.
He let it hang there.
With a grace only ghosts possess, the blonde drifted out of the room. He was gone and Izzy's face burned where he touched it. His mind burned. What worried him more? Ken: the cause of his bad day, the uncertainties and lies? Achikawa: calling him Koushiro, touching his cheek? Or himself: traveling back to that place inside, simply sitting there while the other priest did what he liked? How far would he have let him go? It was himself, again: going back to Ken, convincing himself their relationship was right when it was so, so wrong.

Not again.
NOT again.

He was in a supermarket.
The cereal aisle.
Boxes of Coco-puffs stared out at him, begging him forward, inducing his mind to thoughts of evil deeds with the help of the cartoon vampire's eyes, plastered on each cardboard box. The tile was a shade closer to spoiled milk than to green, the lights above shining with the same hue. Everything was a sick colour that resided between hospital walls and cafeteria trays. The building didn't smell of food, as it should, but of some thick, heavy odor he couldn't place. It seemed to ooze out of his skin, filling the world.
Slightly acrid, slightly musty. Slightly wonderful.
"Izumi, boy. Come here." He spun at the voice, nothing but the boxes to confront. No British men in tweed jackets, pipe hanging from puffy lips, ash dribbling onto their expensive-seeming shoes.
The boxes... The boxes!
His eyes widened, each cartoon vampire animating inside the printing, eyes blinking, mouths curling in disturbing smiles and smirks. "I-zu-mi..." They called, they beckoned, they began to tear away from their paperboard homes.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" There was no doubt in his mind that they meant to harm him, they meant to do something that he didn't want to think about, much less to happen. So he bolted, legs straining to the end of the aisle.
The end of the aisle? There WAS no end to the rows and shelves of cereal, suddenly overflowing and spilling with demented vampires. Waves of boxes descended on him, rising around his body, making him panic like nothing before.
He screamed, a blind, end-of-life scream that curdled his own blood. There was no stop to them! No end! They were still coming in, piling higher, calling his name, punctuating it with that same strange three syllable British tone. A chorus of terror.
"GET OFF OF ME!" He shut his eyes to the chuckles, the calls, the fingers digging at his clothes. Behind his lids, above his own heavy pants and gasps, the voices condensed into one. No longer calling and laughing, but moaning and crying.
"Izumi... Oh God-"
He began to cry, tears spilling out into the harsh environment, out where the voice resided, out where he didn't want to go.
But he opened his eyes. Fool! He opened them!
"Oh... Oh, Izumi! ...Boy."
No.
Not out here.
Oh God... not here...
He was on his stomach, bare against stiff, short carpeting. That smell was here, thick as liquid, vile as blood.
A hand reached under him for his nipple, twisting it, making him whimper.
"Izumi... That's a good boy..." No... The tears came faster now, whimpering not from sensation but from the sheer shame of debasing himself. Having this body on top of him, pushing him into the floor, ripping its due from his soft insides.
He could feel himself reaching a wicked, unpleasant climax, abused penis harder than he had ever been. It was the thick, abrasive bristles of white chest hair scratching the delicate skin on his back. It was some masochistic part of his brain that wanted to see him miserable. It spilled from him, making him cry out, making him moan loud and breathless.
Oh, how he wanted to stuff it all back inside, swallow his voice. Kill it in his stomach.
...Especially his cry.
"Professor!"

Tears coursed down his face, dripping into his ears as he stared, wide-eyed, at the stuccoed ceiling. He remembered a familiar ceiling from somewhere. He remembered he was awake.
Most importantly, he remembered a time when he couldn't remember.
Couldn't remember that... When that...
He'd...
"Oh... God..." He quickly clamped a hand over his mouth, jerking his head to see if he'd woken the other priests.
Asleep in their beds. Thank you, Jesus.
His groin felt odd, but not wet. He said a silent thanks again before he became fully aware that he was hard instead.
This was the worst feeling in the world. Betrayed by his own body.
Those thoughts, those dreams, those... memories. How could they elicit THIS reaction?
How did they in real life?
Oh, the terrible memories.
He couldn't take them anymore.

The cold wind bit at his skin, his chin the only bit exposed to the bitter northern Japanese winter. His security blanket - his long black pea coat trench - was wrapped tightly by his arms, clutching him together, lest he fall apart into piles of bones and bits of flesh.
He felt he would at any moment. But it wouldn't matter much more, anyway.
His tears had stopped coming blocks back, frozen to his eyelashes, useless sticky globs of crystal. But maybe he'd cry now as he turned a corner, the north bridge over the Tokoro River coming into view.
The one that carried out to sea.
The one that flowed while everything else froze.
The one that felt more sacred to him than a thousand rosaries, a million hosts.
Perhaps it was the Shinto blood that ran through him, that only a few years of pressed and crisp Western Orthodoxy couldn't mute. More likely it was the knowledge that this was his salvation, real and solid in front of him. Tangible.
Not some illogical resident kami or some imaginary guardian angel.
Not parents that never existed, not betrayal at the hands of his peers and mentors.
The thoughts came rushing in; the self-pity was back, no morals and hope for the future to hold it off. How the world was after him, and his frantic mind made a good argument, made it seem real.
He hitched up his coat and cassock, accidentally letting his pale legs brush against the frost-coated cement barrier. Fuck! He pulled away as quick as he could without losing his one-handed grip. In the growing part of his mind that was accustoming itself to the idea of death, he relished in the burning feeling. Relished in the fact that for the next few moments, he could still feel.
No matter.
All the pain would soon leave him; he thought for a space about Ken. Damn. He regretted that sorely. Not the pleasure, not the love they now shared, but the emptiness he'd place in his life. Izzy gritted his teeth - no! How dare he feel sorry for Ichijouji! He was a murderer and a liar! ...Granted, perhaps he was only joking about Hiromiya.
Alleged murderer, then.
Oh, Ken! A great heaving sigh flew through his chest, nearer to a sob than anything. His beautiful, twisted, love. The only one in the world who gave one-and-a-half shits about him.
No matter.
One hand held onto his coat, keeping it bunched though it was already closed, the other to the railing, now behind him. The water was a good distance down, and he briefly wondered how hard it would hurt went he hit. He slid his eyelids together and loosened his other hand, leaning forward for a brief somersault to the end of pain and fear.
The pipe was gone and he was falling, the wind starting through his hair.
"Koushiro!" His eyes opened, facing nothing but water and waves, a tight and warm something hanging on to his limp hand, the cold railing a mere memory. "What the hell are you doing?"
He turned his head in the epitome of apathy, staring at his saviour with heavy-lidded eyes.
"Detective?"

His voice sounded so tired, so hopeless. His greeting, as if he knew he'd be there, as if he really didn't care one way or the other. He was tempted to let go of the wrist he held in a bone-shattering grip. Let his body fall forward as it wanted to, down into the death slush. ...Koushiro...
Amante de moi. Sweet, slender Koushiro. Bending and swaying under the weight of his own thoughts.
Shinseki began to haul him in, fearful of his feet, still very much capable of slipping and carrying them both over. But Koushiro, oh, not Koushiro. Hand over hand, until he was close enough to wrap his arms around. Precious Koushiro, dead in his arms, eyes blinking but not seeing, not caring.
"Koushiro? Why?" He moved his head until the other would look at him, catching his limp gaze. Why? All he received in return was a silent shrug, a detached response.
Shinseki furrowed his brows, frustratedly lifting him over the railing, away from the livid river below, denied its ritual sacrifice. It was a shame they were so close in size, the job quickly becoming a chore, quickly becoming an awkward, near-insurmountable task. But the redhead was now clear of danger and now falling towards him instead. The civil servant put one foot behind him, sliding a bit in the snow to stabilize them. Falling together in the chill and powder was not the goal.
And now he was close to him, so close his heart skipped faster. In his arms. No bridge pipes to separate them at all. Shinseki held the auburn one tightly, not caring about the after effects, just living in the moment, living to watch the frosty breath leave his mouth and mingle in the air with his own.
"Koushiro. Look at me, please." His black, bottomless eyes came up again, grasping the verdant eyes with just a shade above despondent. "Why?" Still silent.
No answer. No change, perhaps slipping a bit further into hopelessness. How could he be any more hopeless? Abe's lower lip shook without his knowledge, threatening to take over his face, spill tears.
He mouthed the word, not trusting his voice. 'Why?' Koushiro's eyes closed, leaning forward into the detective's embrace.
What brought him here? What tore and bled his happiness out? Warm drops ran down his face, the raw emotion shaking his frame.
Izzy brought his eyes up, feeling the other man breakdown against his chest, feeling it deeply through his numb being.
Emotion? What the hell was that? What was anything anymore?
Detective Abe of the Kitami police department broke down at his love's utter lifelessness, and Koushiro broke with him.
His own emotions, his own depression, his, yes - but seeing the blonde cry so freely, so profusely...
They held on to each other, strangers still, and cried their eyes and souls out.
To the wind driven, new-falling snow.

Shinseki woke the next morning into a dream. The same dream he'd had every day this week. Koushiro was in his bed, sheets rumpled. He touched his face, solidifying it, running his fingers through his short, severely mussed hair. If the wind hadn't done it last night, his fitful tossing and turning had.
Poor, sweet baby.
And he did something to Abe, turning him into this pathetic, girlish creature, fussing about, wondering and worrying over the smallest things. The sweet little things. Koushiro.
He whispered his name out loud, hoping he wouldn't wake him, hoping for one more moment of heaven. Screw the churches. This was his personal salvation.
After they'd stopped sobbing into each other's jackets, faces... skin... on the bridge last night, Shinseki helped him home, to the only place he could think to take him. Not a problem, he'd wanted to for some time.
...Holy man! Right! Not a desirable or obtainable object.
But priests weren't suicidal either, right?
So he'd drawn him a warm bath and made him tea and bathed him and laid him in bed. It was a strange, arousing mixture of raw, naked, excitement and depthless sorrow, and Shinseki curled up right next to the amaranthine beauty and fell asleep, fingers idly tracing his jawline. And now he was awake, all his nerves wide awake, and the body next to him was stirring ever so slightly, the rising sun pushing back dark dreams.
Koushiro's lined eyelids quaked open, the eyes behind them droopily searching his immediate surroundings. All Abe could do was smile and try not to, try to make it seem as if he wasn't.
"Good morning?" Koushiro reacted - thank Ameratsu - but barely. Confusion blurred his bloodshot orbs.
"And where AM I this morning?" The smile was wiped from Abe's face. His voice was still the tired, vague and irritated mess he didn't want to have to converse with - just cradle and comfort.
"You're at my apartment, Father." He swallowed a large, dry lump in his throat before adding, "I brought you here last night... I didn't know what else to do..."
Koushiro shook his head, closing his eyes, sighing.
"Alright. Fine. Thank you, Detective." Shinseki watched desperately as he licked his lips. "I need to get up and get back to St. Barnard's."
The younger man sat up, eyes and mind straining against the yellowed light of the risen sun.
Koushiro couldn't just GO.
No.
Not after... that...
"Koushiro - what's going on?"

Oh, he didn't want to go here, talk about this, that and the other thing, the other life, the whole horribleness that he thought he could kill off.
"Must we, Detective? I just want to get back to the church."
"How can you? Don't you remember last night at all?" He certainly didn't want to remember the look in Koushiro's eyes. Izzy scooted to the edge of the chocolate sheets, gathering the cotton terry robe around him.
Not his robe, he noted. Shinseki's.
"I do. That's the problem." He turned to the other man as Abe touched his hand. "I need to get back. Now."

Two factions moved as one into battle inside the policeman's head. Can't let him leave: must uncover what's wrong, must comfort and cleanse his troubled mind. And the Can't let him leave: must kiss those plump lips, touch that smooth body.
But the objective was the same.
"Koushiro, talk to me. I can only help. Please." He shoved the sheets to one side, crawling toward the other. "There's nothing you can tell me that would shock me. Nothing you could say that would make me stop-"
His eyes widened, his mouth sewn shut.
"Make you stop...?" Koushiro's inquiry - tired but curious enough to ask - held him there, his eyes flitting from side to side, searching for somewhere to land.
"Stop..." Should he? What would Jesus do, right? What would the devil do? What did he have to lose? At the very least, he wasn't getting out of his apartment without some kind of contact, reaction. His mind played fast forward and his cock, hidden, twitched.
Bastard.
His eyes shut and he cursed himself. "...Stop... loving you."

At least his striking green eyes weren't open to see the shock rip like fire across the other's face. At least Koushiro didn't pull away from his hand at that moment, tear his soft, quivering metaphorical stomach out.
"Oh." The shock quieted and Abe opened his eyes, testing the new waters. "I can't, Detective, in good faith return your..." he cleared his throat. "...affections. You know I can't. I've devoted my life to God and..."
As soon as he said it, he wanted to cram it back in his mouth. Lies. Priests didn't lie.
Or love.
Or wish for death.
Or give in to carnality.
Ken.

"I need to get back to St. Barnard's." He repeated it, as if it was a mantra, and saying it over and over would make it true. Tears welled up for the second time in less than a day inside the rim of the blonde's eyes. 'Losing it, Abe, you are LOSING it.'
"Just one kiss, please. I beg of you, Koushiro." He loved saying his name, felt as though he could live a thousand lifetimes and never get tired of it. His chest tightened with nervousness, desire.
"One kiss. I want to see what I'm missing." 'What YOU'RE missing', he wanted to say, wanted to scream. Wanted to rip his own robe off the priest. Wanted to make him cry and plead for release.

The one whose blush echoed his hair sighed, shoulders conceding. Should he show a struggle? Should he pretend he didn't want this? Didn't want to be wanted, to be kissed and needed?
Not Abe, not anyone. Dammit.
Damn his senseless senses. He could smell him in the cotton fabric, the signature smell of the blonde imprinting itself in his nostrils. His skin grew warm with the thought. His mind fought against him.
If you fuck Ken, why can't you kiss him?
Terribly sarcastic, terribly mean-spirited and degrading.
If you fucked HIM, if you still dream about it years later, how pure are you, really?

Oh, now that was off limits. Koushiro's lip quivered, giving in, letting the tidal waves of worthlessness crash over him.
One kiss.

Shinseki reached over to the object of his masturbatory obsessions. Reached over to his simple, immaculate face. Millimeters away, inhaling his breath, his scent, his own anticipation.
One kiss? Hands followed his lips, locking on to his red tresses, brushing lightly over his ears, down his pale throat. Izzy moaned into the detective's mouth, trying to stop himself, failing. Abe pushed the robe down over Koushiro's shoulders, fingertips dancing over his exposed skin. The devil was out.
The devil would've satiated his evil had the priest not inhaled shock, pulling himself back to the ground.
"No."
"No?"
"I-I, I can't do this."
"Koushiro, love," his hands wouldn't let go, they couldn't. They played over his chest, pleading wordlessly with a need too deep to properly communicate. "Don't stop this, amante. Don't stop me, please."
Fingers over his nipples, ice that burned.
The father jumped off the bed, nothing but the simple tie around his waist saving his grace.
No. He couldn't.
And he had to get out of there before...
Before...
It happened again.

For some reason, the ice still ran through his bones.

Notes: Yes, the Tokoro river is in Kitami, runs right through the city.
Inspiration came from the restaurant scene in C&P: "What if it was I who killed the old woman and Lisaveta?"