Archive of Our Own ^beta

The blond boy in the red trunks is holding your head underwater

because he is trying to kill you,

and you deserve it, you do, and you know this,

and you are ready to die in this swimming pool

because you wanted to touch his hands and lips and this means

your life is over anyway.

-A Primer for the Small Weird Loves [1], Richard Siken

You were staring at him, that first time. You met him in the summer, under the unforgiving heat in broad daylight because you weren’t a shadow, not yet. He didn’t offer you his name, you didn’t give yours away without a price, it’s been established since that nothing between you two were free –not souls, not information. You knew nothing about him but you were a fast learner. He knew nothing about you but he was just as good investigator then. The next time you got paired together in a mission, he addressed you by your codename.

You were staring at him across the building. You’ve been killed so many times that sometimes you wondered if you ever lived at all. He told you, voice bored and low and static through your comm link –once upon a time, when there were nothing but missions and fake identities and bullets and cruel intentions –that one day you would die from something stupid like drowning or old age and you laughed at him thinking how unfortunate it was. And how untrue, you’ve always known how you’d die anyway.

You were staring at him from your table. He was laughing and smiling and talking and lying and lying and lying that it felt nothing but nostalgic. He didn’t talk to you, not anymore, not publicly and not privately, not even in the comfort of secrecy you offered to him. That’s alright, ghosts were meant to be ignored. You were still staring at him though.

You were staring at him through your rifle scope. He was walking away from something –or toward something, you could not tell –but he turned his head your way abruptly then carried on as if nothing had happened. You supposed it was true, the only truth that you knew. There was nothing between the two of you but abundance of lies even after you told him the truth and found out the truth about him.

You were staring at him and he was staring at you, his gun gleaming in the dark. It was cold but he was staring at you, finally. You were dead, but he was Bourbon and Zero and justice and whoever the fuck he wanted to be meant he could be anywhere else –but he was right here and he was staring at you.

I miss you, you didn’t say, because it was not a lie.

*

You were a child, a long time ago –looking up to your father, morning talks with your mother. You were gone, then you forgot, then you remembered. You hid then you killed then you lied lied lied your way through. Your life was violence and blood; you were red, after all. You didn’t miss having a root, you didn’t mind cutting your branches of family ties. You were learning not to be a person, it’s okay.

“What the fuck, Rye,” he spat out, his right hand pressing cloth on your wound. “What the fuck.”

You gritted your teeth and counted the stars inside your eyelids. You knew pain, you knew how to get over it.

“You could’ve died, you bastard,” he pressed harder until it was all colors in your vision, swimming within your consciousness.

“Shut up,” you said, because you were not a child but somehow deep you were not an adult enough to kill for people who erased your father’s existence. “Shut the fuck up, Bourbon.”

“No,” he countered. You were so near fainted it sounded like your mother’s tone. “You stupid shit, you shut up.”

You let him carry you to safety, not that it was any difference considering you jumped head first into the syndicate you hated.

The eleventh time you were on a mission together, he protected you then said nothing so you thanked him and did nothing until you were fed up with your own heart then you sought for him and found him bloodied so you helped him to clean up until the water turned scarlet.

I’m not a child, he’d said, his mouth turned downward in a pout. That was a first of his face, gone before you committed them to brain. I’ll pay for this next time, he negotiated before he let you stitch him up.

Then the next time he found you with a gun and a dead comrade so that was what you had in memory.

*

He was not kindness in a way that he was not ruthlessness either. Human being could only pay with the currency they’d been served, you knew that. At that time on the rooftop –Scotch was warm, still dead –for the first time you wondered if he was. Times after that were regrets, insurmountable hatred, betrayal after betrayal, and finally another death that didn’t fool him (of all people). He got under your skin so deep that you’d die if he were, so you clutched onto him, pulling him against you that one fight amongst lights and ferris wheel. Sometimes you dreamed and he was not in it and you looked for him until you were awake.

You were a revenge then you became a void but you were not an empty, not even quite. Maybe you were a soldier, maybe you were a nightmare, you could not see the shape of your legs or grasped with your hands. Everything was in a blur distance and you dreamed of him coming to you with a blade; a sword; a gun; a death sentence until your surrounding turned violet and then you were with a face you recognized in the mirror. He was not kindness, never was, but he was your salvation and absolution that something inside you broke into ugly pieces and uglier pieces and you didn’t care. There was something about being hunted, for years you’ve been nothing but a hunter, searching for your missing father –that comforting it almost felt like a home. There was something about being a prey that meant your very existence mattered to someone in a way they would be looking at you beyond all your rage and sorrow.

Were you tired of being dead, too? What was it like to be a you?

Now you were another fake identity, with somebody else’s name, using unfamiliar face, speaking in different voice; several different voices if you want. It’s alright, he was also still a lie, somehow, so it’s alright, you were not alone and wasn’t it pathetic to think that you were lonely as if you could afford being lonely when there were so many crimes, so many dead bodies in the sea between you and his truth.

Mind your fucking business, he’d said so many times. You didn’t say anything back.

He didn’t serve you coffee or tea or anything really, but you looked at him and he was there, still there, here, wherever you stood on earth with chances to kill you so it was fine. It was a life or something close at least so you laughed. The boy in glasses sitting across you asked what’s funny so you shrugged and said wasn’t it?

*

You found yourself outside his door, your car’s a wreck of a thing, your cigarettes crushed in your breast pocket like a joke. Your hair was matted with blood too dark, your legs limping all the way to his front door. He didn’t ask you what happened, you didn’t tell him what happened, there was how the thing always within you both. No trust, no truce, just an unspeakable bond of people hiding behind masks.

“Could’ve let you die on the street,” he shrugged.

“No, you won’t,” you breathed out. “You won’t.”

“I won’t,” he agreed quietly. “So don’t you dare.”

“Okay,” you said. “Okay.”

“I’d look for you.”

“You would,” you’d smile if you remembered how. “You’d hunt me down.”

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “I’d find you and kill you myself.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Don’t forget that,” he stood up and walked away. His hair was alight so you watched until he disappeared around the corner.

“I won’t,” you promised. “I won’t.”

(You’d spent your life looking for your father, looking after your siblings, your dead girlfriend’s sister; it was easy to remember the one person looking for you.)

You told your brother about this and he was torn between worried and amused.

“Huh,” he said when he finally said anything. “That was...something.”

“It was,” you nodded for the lack of words. “Something.”

“He didn’t kill you.”

“Not yet,” you blinked. “He would, though.”

“You sounded so sure about that.”

“I know,” you told him. “I know he would.”

“Hmm,” your brother smiled and it reminded you that you were always a brother. So you smiled at him too. “You don’t look too concerned about it.”

“I’m...not,” you admitted sheepishly. “He’s...not subtle.”

“Sure, sure. A skillful agent, infiltrating the Black Organization would come to kill you in the most unsubtle way possible.”

“...He would.”

“Of course.”

“He would,” you insisted and your made your brother laugh. You shrugged. “I just know.”

Your brother let it slide. “Alright.”

“Alright.”

“You like him.”

You were startled that you knocked your elbow against the table.

“Ouch,” your brother offered you a sympathy wince.

“What,” you said, deadpanned. “The hell.”

“You like him.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Nii-san,” your brother looked at you the way he did when you were little and playing games and he knew that you’d lose but you didn’t. “You do.”

“I’m watching him.”

“You were staring at him.”

“Exactly.”

“No,” your brother huffed then clicked his tongue. You swatted his hand away when it came to pat your shoulder. “You like him...in a way?”

“He’d promised to kill me, remember?”

“And he could.”

“And he could,” you made your point. “Right now, if he wants to.”

“So why are we here?” your brother hid his smile behind his teacup. “Why are we sitting here, in a cafe, where you got black coffee and have been staring at him for hours now?”

“...I don’t want to die?”

“Exactly.”

“You don’t understand.”

Your brother rolled his eyes. “You don’t.”

You were staring at him making stupid sandwiches, in apron and disguise. You didn’t like him, not exactly, not the first time, not after everything else, never never never. He was there, insulting your name, your bureau, your friends, your motives and you felt seen beyond your facades, that was that. Nothing else, nothing mattered, not then, not now, never never never. You did not tell him this, of course, you could not speak of nothing but lies with him, that’s how it always was with him.

But -

Look at me, your own thought was traitor. See me.