Sorcerer Hunters Fan Fiction ❯ Equilibrium ~The Balance of Right and Wrong~ ❯ Chapter 1

~Equilibrium~

-The Balance of Right and Wrong-

What is right and wrong, anyway?

Right is... things that feel right... things that are right... there's no almighty judge of what is right and wrong. There can't be, there could never be. Too many conflicts on what that'd be, anyway. What is perfectly alright for one person might be the most terrible crime to another. Circumstance and opportunity is where right and wrong resides... I suppose.

Wrong might be more general. Many things that are wrong are widely accepted to be wrong; war, plague, famine, poverty, death, disease... no-one's really going to stand up and say 'Hey! Disease! I like that! I wish there was more of it around!'... but those are general. There are always particulars. Things that are wrong could be right when happening to other people. A disease outbreak hits you and your family, you whine and moan and cry and mourn as it hits in and gets worse... but if it's your mortal enemies, then, in a kind of sick sense, perhaps that's cause for celebration.

But wouldn't that be wrong too? Wishing such thoughts on someone else, another human being?

Right and wrong are complicated, but also so simple.

Right is what feels right to you; it can't be argued with, it can't be stopped. If something feels so good and so right, then the feeling is such that no-one really wants to take a step back, 'This is so good, but I wish I didn't feel like this, I can't feel like this, it's wrong to feel this good'... people do it, people feel they have to do it, but people don't want to do it. Not really. It usually leads to miserable feelings, anyway.

Something that feels wrong, people'd probably want to change. You break a leg, you wish it was fixed again. You move the furniture around in your room, but it feels wrong, so you change it to something that feels right. Generally.

So on the whole, humanity is really... on the cause of searching for the things that feel right... right? The things that don't feel wrong.

Feel...

Feel.

There are some things that are supposed to feel so obviously wrong. And it's once you've become immersed within them, only when you reach that point, you wonder if all those people who said it was wrong, were wrong, because to you, it feels right... and should it?

That's where worry sets in.

But you can't really argue. Because it's what feels right, and the only reason you want to change, or think of wanting to change, is because of outside opinion that tells you what to think, they're telling you what's right, what's wrong, the nameless faces and nameless opinions that make up accepted public thought.

You are not the public, though. When you're feeling it, it's you against the world, but it's still what you feel, and you're helpless to what you feel; you can't feel anything else, you won't feel anything else, you couldn't feel anything else...

... you don't want to feel anything else.

Things such as this are a paradox. On one hand, it's wrong. Everybody says it's wrong, your mind rings with the constant chatter of thoughts of the past, throwaway comments, usual conversation, odd mixed up sentences of the past, just telling you that it's wrong, it doesn't matter in what context, it's just wrong, nothing but wrong.

On the other... it feels so, so right.

Even if only to the person feeling it.

It can't be wrong.

It isn't wrong.

It can't be!!

It is...

It isn't...

It is...

... isn't it?

Questioning what's right and wrong makes some of the most mundane things seem strange. What is right and what is wrong... the things that are right, the things that are wrong... who decided that, anyway? Who decided that the day is for activity and the night is for sleeping? Who decided that 'cat' is feline and 'dog' is canine? What if 'cat' was 'dog' and 'dog' was 'cat'? Or tortoise?

Words express so much and so little at the same time. We couldn't point at that tree and say it's a green tree with flat leaves and little red fruits without words, but at the same time, can it express the true majesty of the tree? It's a... wondrous, vibrant verdant tree, darkest greens, deep greens, light greens, beautiful greens, the leaves seeming to reach out, offset by the dark spots of sharp red... but still... they're just words. Words conjure a picture in the mind, but they cannot be that picture. Words are what the eye sees and what the ears hear, but they cannot be what is seen... what is heard...

You are what I see, what I hear. Marron. Brother.

I look at you, and I see everything that is wrong in this world.

I look at you, and I see everything that is right in this world.

Wrong is... what is forbidden. What is forbidden, what is closed away, what is dark, what is secret, what is evil.

Wrong is the irreplaceable look on your face when you see me and smile... wrong is the touch of your hand, the feel of your lips, the brush of your skin... it's wrong... supposedly...

Wrong is when you're naked on my bed, entwined with me, gasping and panting my name to a point of madness.

Wrong is 'I love you', said to a brother by a brother, but not meant as a brother should mean it.

Wrong is... seeing, feeling and hearing those things... and feeling that they're wrong.

Marron is another human. Just another human, like the other five or six billion on this planet. But not... he is one, he is unique. Like me. Everyone is unique in their own way. But still essentially human. Some people might be seen as subhuman or just not human, but they still unquestionably are. Two legs, two arms, mostly hairless bodies, eyes, nose, mouth, shoulders, neck, chest, everything else. Human features. Human.

Somehow those generic human features seem so much more attractive when they happen to be Marron's generic human features. On the whole, humans have ten fingers, five on each hand. Not right or wrong, just fact. So... why is it that when, say, Chocolat brushes her fingers against my arm, it feels so different as to when Marron does the same?

I suppose it's because I don't feel for her, what I feel for Marron.

What do I feel, anyway? I feel many things. I feel happiness when I wake up and it's a sunny day, I feel tedium when Big Mama sends us on another mission, I feel helpless when the Sorcerer of the day has some kind of super-duper brand new magic no-one's ever seen before and we could never hope to beat, I feel victorious when we somehow manage to beat them anyway, I feel relaxed as we head home to rest for the night.

That's what I feel... but even 'feel' is many different things. There are the things I feel inside, my thoughts. There are the things I feel in my mind, my emotions. There are the things I feel with my hands, objects and materials... there are the things I feel with my body. Marron.

It's not just my body I feel him with. My thoughts are of him, emotions too... I certainly feel him with my hands, I feel him with my body... I feel him, and I feel him.

Conscious thought would tell me that it's so wrong.

I would tell conscious thought to shut the fuck up.

So, it's wrong. Two guys. Brothers. No clothes. Hot, sweaty, passionate, yes. It's wrong, apparently.

I suppose, again, it depends on the situation; circumstance and opportunity. It's wrong... it's wrong for them. However, they don't have Marron for their brother, so they can't feel exactly what I feel, my thoughts, my emotions, my physical feelings.

If the feelings I feel with him are the 'wrong' feelings, then I don't really care what the 'right' ones are, because they just couldn't be as intense. As intense, as strong, as... as right...

Right.

What would 'right' be, again?

'Right' would be for me to meet a nice girl, fall in love, settle down, raise a family. Something along those lines.

So, let's say... Tira. Me and Tira versus me and Marron. Tira would smile and say 'I love you', I'd smile and say it back. Right. Marron would say 'I love you', I'd smile and say it back. Wrong. Tira and I would swear to be the only people each other ever loved, loved with such passion. Right. Me and Marron doing the same thing... wrong. Me and Tira get married? Right. Me and Marron get married? No, that couldn't happen. Why? Because it's wrong. Because it's two men. Because they're brothers. Because it's wrong.

Tira and I shuddering in a passionate embrace is right. Marron and I shuddering in a passionate embrace is wrong. I don't understand that. It's not so different.

Not that I've BEEN in a passionate embrace with Tira, or anything.

But... at it's most basic level... we're all humans, right? A couple of differences, in that Tira has breasts, other things that belong exclusively to women, me and Marron don't have those things, replaced by different things that Tira doesn't have... but... asides from those, the generic human template is the same. The legs and arms and body stuff again.

Tira's a woman, she's got the natural engineering to have children someday, but I don't really want that, not really. Not now, anyway. I'm seventeen, I'd rather not think about that for a while, thankyouverymuch.

With Marron, that could never happen. Not that I'd want it to; one of the reasons why incest is taboo is because inbreeding causes weakness, right? The gene pool isn't being mixed, so immunity against disease is weakened, the inner genetics isn't given as much to work with, and so some strange things could result, but... I'm a guy, Marron's a guy, there's no danger of that.

You could say that, to a certain point, Tira and Chocolat are like my sisters. We were raised as part of the same family, and even if we aren't related by blood, the connection is still there; but yet, it doesn't matter to them, they love me, they expect me to eventually love back. The only difference between them and Marron, really, is the fact that Marron's related to me by blood, and Tira and Chocolat aren't.

Oh, and that Marron's a guy, of course.

Still, Gateau's a guy too, isn't he? He's a guy, Marron's a guy... Gateau flirts and hits on Marron like there's no tomorrow, it doesn't seem to matter to him that Marron's a guy. No, wait - not that it doesn't seem like it. There's no 'seem', there's just 'doesn't'. Marron's beautiful, so Gateau hits on him. Doesn't matter to him that Marron doesn't really respond back, or it doesn't seem to, anyway.

So... it seems like... it's okay for Gateau to hit on Marron, and there wouldn't be too much of a problem with them getting together, if they ever did. It's okay for the Misu sisters to love me, even though they're like sisters to me, because they're not my blood sisters, they're not related, it's okay.

Seems the only difference between those and me and Marron is the fact that we're physically related. That seems to be the only thing that makes it so 'wrong'. I'm not Gateau, I'm not the one who didn't grow up with the rest of them, I'm not the flirty showoff who never misses a chance to flex his muscles. I'm not Tira or Chocolat, orphans raised by Mr Bastard himself, Sacher Torte... almost killed, then rescued by the Haz Knight Onion Glacé, taken into his family...

I'm just Carrot Glacé, a guy with an extraordinarily beautiful brother. Marron's beautiful, I love him. I love him as a brother, I love him as more than that. Even if I didn't love him like this then I'd love him like that. It doesn't matter how I love him, just that I love him, because that's the thing I could never stop doing.

Is that so wrong?

Now, if this was, say, Gateau and Eclair, maybe there'd be more of a cause to worry. This mainly stems from my imagination envisioning a scenario where they have a kid, and four hours out of the womb, the child's waving it's arms around screaming 'LOOK AT MEEE' in a newborn highpitched sort of way. Disturbing.

The Misu sisters love me, and could never stop loving me, I suppose, if their feelings are anything like mine. Wanting to be close to me forever, wanting to stay with me forever, wanting to be more than friends...

No, but that's what we have at the moment, isn't it? Our group is close, we're not suddenly going to split up... we're all more than friends, we've got the deepest kinds of friendships going on, but... somehow, that isn't enough. There's something else there that's wanted. And that is?

Sex.

Well, yeah.

The physical contact. The hugs, the kisses, the sweet displays of physical and mental closeness.

The darker side of it. Uncontrolled passion, uncontrolled feelings, uncontrolled cries, gasps, moans, screams... names cried at the height of passion, those heights reached, bodies wracked through incredible pressure to go just that bit further, no, hold back, no, go further, just a bit further, please, I can't take much more of this, please, niisan, take me, take me now, I want to scream your name, oh yes, oh god, NIISAN...

Or something.

Is it really so dark? Dark, forbidden, evil... or even if it was me and Tira... what is it about it that'd make it so special, anyway? All it really is is two people thrashing around on a bed (or wherever), and for those who run around screwing anything they get their hands on, then... mightn't it lose some of it's attraction? Of course, there's probably an attraction too in the lack of connection, perhaps even the lack of communication, just someone you don't know, just sex, just the motions without the emotion.

There's something scarily attractive about the connection too, though.

Marron's a guy, but I don't think of myself as gay, not really. It's not guys I like. It's just Marron. Would it be different if he wasn't my brother? I don't know. I like to think I'd love him just as much if he wasn't my brother, but... would I? I don't know.

That doesn't really matter, though. Thoughts of Marron not being my brother are pointless, because he is my brother, that's a hard fact, that can never be changed.

But is it the fact that he's my brother that makes it... more exciting?

I don't know.

Certainly, there's the emotions that first took root as brotherly emotion. Loving him. Wanting to protect him. Protecting him. Making sure he's okay. Everything. Marron.

The main thing, I suppose, is wanting to keep him close. Keep him safe. Keep him around. Keep him. Is it too selfish to want him all for my own, to not want anyone else's dirty handmarks all over his perfect clean body? We're keeping it in the family, that's what we're doing.

I want the best for him. I don't want to let go of him.

I want him.

I have him.

He's mine.

... Is he? Is he really... mine? My property, someone I own? I don't know if it's really possible to do that, not between him and me, anyway. I wouldn't want to 'own' him like an object. He's so much more than just an object, he's Marron, he's beautiful, he's everything, he's...

Well, he's still only human, as far as that goes. But he's a beautiful human.

Not just beautiful, but deep, sensitive, sensual, passionate... my brother...

When he lies on my bed, naked, staring at me with those 'take me' eyes and that amazingly calm half-glare, burning for me, but still calm... that's wrong, isn't it?

Never calm for long. Whether I ease myself into his body and take him slowly or whether I'm pressing him to the bed while he grabs at me for stability and sanity, it's the same outcome, to varying degrees of intensity.

An orgasm's an orgasm, whether it's triggered off by your own hand or by the touch of someone else, but how much sweeter must it be for him, for me to see him so taken like that? He becomes something so different with my touch.

Gateau'd kill to have that kind of effect on him, I'm sure.

Oh, but it wouldn't be so wrong for Gateau, would it? Because Gateau's not Marron's brother. So I thank holy deities with each day that I am his brother, because I don't know what kind of relationship we'd have if we weren't related.

I'm the niisan that he protects and loves so exclusively. I'm he who he loves more than anything else.

He's my little brother that I'd do anything for... I don't know how deep our feelings run when compared to each other, but... someone once said something like 'Just because someone doesn't love you as much as you love them, doesn't mean that they aren't loving you with everything that they have'... Marron's feelings seem so deep compared to mine, but my feelings are the deepest I can feel for him.

It works.

If we weren't brothers, if I was just another guy, and Marron was just someone I knew... well... Gateau's someone Marron knows, isn't he? And we know how Marron reacts to Gateau...

It's not Gateau's fault, though. I don't blame him for finding my sweet little brother attractive, besides, he's not to know that Marron's fucking his brother, is he?

Or his brother's fucking him.

Whatever we feel like.

Right and wrong don't only have consequences for now... consequences are consequences after all, and some of them are going to echo far into the future... nobody knows of our shared relationship, but... if they did, we'd probably be stoned down like blasphemous heretics, just for going with what we feel.

And that'd be by our friends.

Oh, they might understand with time, but I still think they'd be disgusted. They'd never see us in the same way ever again, and... I think something from our side would change too, just by knowing that they know.

Still, I'm not going to tell them anything, and Marron certainly isn't either. The only risk would be, say, being walked in on or something, but we're as careful as possible, locking doors and stealing moments together... it'd be nice to be able to do whatever we wanted whenever we wanted, but, despite my assurance on my feelings (and Marron on his), I'm not up and ready to fight the rest of the world.

It'd be discouraging, I think. Something I feel so strongly and so surely about, suddenly contradicted by the raging masses, going over the old ground again, 'It's wrong!'... 'That's what you keep saying!'... 'It's disgusting!'... 'Says you!!'... ad infinitum.

Sometimes, Marron's asleep in my arms, quiet, peaceful, and I'm just watching him. And I wonder... what will it be like when we're older? Sure, five, maybe ten years in the future, I can see our situation still being the same, still young enough to have fun, old enough to know better, young enough not to care.

No, but I mean... when we're older. Older older. Will we be sitting around on the porch in rocking-chairs, sneaking away from the Misu sisters and their abusive walking-sticks-and-stockings-whackings for long enough to share a forbidden kiss when they're not looking?

Older Marron. Marron with a beard? Strangely random mental image.

It's both hard and easy to imagine. I never want this situation to change... will it? What would happen to make it change?

That's what makes me feel uneasy.

Will we reach an age at one point when we realise that, perhaps, we're a bit too old for it all anymore? Will we reach an age where we say 'I don't think I can do this anymore' and decide that a wife and kids is the better way to go?

And why is that such normal convention anyway?

All I want is the best for my brother, but if he woke up one morning and decided he wanted a nice cosy nuclear family with the pretty wife in a cute apron and the energetic kids running around and falling over and eating earthworms and maybe an old fluffy dog that goes 'bowph' whenever strangers come near... what could I do? It'd break my heart, but if that was what he wanted, what he really wanted...

I want him to be happy, but I want him to be happy with me.

If I ever feel any kind of doubt whatsoever, all I have to do is look at his face, and my doubts disappear. They vanish without a trace. He's... he's everything... I never want to hurt him, I never want anything bad to happen to him, I never want him to leave.

Not that he would. He's too protective for that.

More like... I never want him to decide that... perhaps... this isn't enough. Will there come a day when he's no longer excited by my touch? When he craves the touch of another, when... I become only a brother to him?

Not a brother, lover, everything...

Just a brother.

Someone close. Someone related. Someone safe.

Someone you don't have sex with.

I worry, but... I see his face, his smile, I feel his touch, and it goes away. Like the opinion only being doubted when others offer their opinions, I only feel worry when I'm by myself. When I'm with him, there is no worry. Just me, just him.

Just the two of us, alone together...

We revel in each other's touch, we delight in the secrecy we hide in from the others, we smile contentedly at the jokes shared at the expense of the unknowing others. Maybe I worry sometimes, but it's never for long.

There are those feelings, the feelings of worry, they sometimes feel wrong. But it's just my own uncertainty, my own insecurity; nothing feels wrong with Marron, so... how can it be wrong? I still can't figure it out. I'm happy, he's happy, we're happy. It's not wrong to be happy, right?

And why is it that we use 'right?' as a question, and not 'wrong?'...

Can't figure that one out either.