Gravitation Fan Fiction ❯ Langer Schlaf: The Long Sleep ❯ five ( Chapter 4 )

Langer Schlaf 5/?

By Nix Winter

Disclaimer… I don't own Gravitation.

Spoilers… um.. not really any so far.. though it is set after the series and OAV's… and who knows.. it might be AU to the manga.. cuz I didn't read those.

Notes: The direction I'd originally planned to go with this story.. doesn't work now.. so I'm going in another direction. I hope it works okay.

Warnings… there will be violence and probably a lemon. If you're reading this on a site that doesn't permit such things, the uncensored version can be found at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YukiandShuichi/

Eiri sat down on the pavement, watching the rescue workers continue. Grief aches like it's a scar on the world, a great raven torn through the soul giving the eyes acid to cry. Eiri knew that great words like… I can't live without him, or I'm going to die, that these were just words and they wouldn't mean anything. That there was no bargaining with heaven. He'd already tried that and Shuichi was what Heaven had given him. He'd been alone before, numb, living in his stories. He could do it again. Dead wasn't bad, after all. It wasn't like Shuichi was buried under all that debris waiting for Eiri to come save him. "I felt him in my dreams. I tell myself… he's dead. I can deal with this, but I can hear him, calling to me, Touma."

"It was an unusual love between you and he," Touma, who had squatted beside, nearly behind him, arms laying on his knees, fingers laced easily together. "I don't think Shindou is dead."

"Everyone who they've brought out in the last hour or so has been," Eiri reasoned, trying to get into that comfortable numb place. "The girl, with the pink wig, her throat was ripped out."

"Shindou did not get to where he was by being stupid, Eiri," Touma said. He wished he could send both of them back to the coast. He had a photo in his desk drawer, of them, both of them touched with sand and rain, clinging to each other and locked out of Eiri's apartment and showing up at Mika's and his instead. That had been right after Yuki had asked to be called Eiri again. Whatever they'd done at that little vacation house had healed them both. "I'll give you the vacation house for a month, when we all get back to Tokyo."

Eiri leaned, his head resting on Touma's shoulder. Just a small comforting movement, such a big thing for the Eiri that Touma had known before Shindou. "How could this have happened? What ripped out that girl's throat? Why couldn't Shindou just be some guy working in a cd shop and coming home at night?"

Touma's laughter was delicate, like his keyboarding, everything on key. "Because then he wouldn't have had the ego to put up with you. Do you want to go to the hospital with me, see Hiro and K?"

"No. I want to sit here." Eiri wrapped his arms around his knees. "Give me your hat though. My face is getting sunburned."

"There's my Eiri," Touma said, a guilty smile lifting his lips as he put a purple with a white feather band on Eiri's head. "You will call a cab when you're ready, or call me for any reason at all."

"I'm an arrogant prick. You know I will." Eiri pulled the hat forward to keep the California sun from roasting his nose. "Thank you, Touma."

"I'll be back."

"Don't. I'll come when I'm ready."

Eiri wasn't sure when Touma left, or where the tears came from. He was pretty sure that Shuichi wasn't really sitting there with him, cheek resting on his fingers. But he could feel soft hair, silky pink hair, as he combed his fingers over it. He felt the weight of Shuichi leaning against his knees, felt the movement of his chest as he breathed. He felt the smooth and unbroken skin of his throat. And they sat there, Eiri and a half solid Shuichi who would not turn to look at him. It was the other side of his throat that he didn't want seen. It was like the time he'd gotten a black eye and tried to hide it. Eiri was a great studier of Shindou Shuichi though, and knew every little subtle message his body sent. Even if he was dead.

They sat there that way, comforting each other without words, without actually being in the same place. The sun went down, slowly, clawing red across the horizon as if it were an angry Japanese sun not some hippy song California sun. The emergency workers left, took all the bodies with them. When they tried to get him to leave. He spoke Japanese at them. They got frustrated. He pulled out his cell phone, called his favorite coffee shop at home, and spoke in Japanese. The last two workers nodded, spoke English too loudly, too slowly and told him to go back to his hotel room, that there was nothing he could do.

He knew better.

Shuichi had gotten up and walked to the center of the parking lot. The slight breeze moved his hair, his shirt sleeves, just like if he were really standing there. When the last of the workers were gone, Uesugi Eiri followed a silent Shuichi down a broken elevator shaft into a dark pile of debris. It just wasn't natural or right that Shuichi should be silent.