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enchanterAnd If Only the Ghosts Let Go [May 17th, 2006]
PG // complete // Kio, Soubi // introspective/angst // 527 words
Notes: For Wicked-chan. It's nothing special, but your Kio stirs something in me, and this was inspired by your recent drabbles.
And If Only the Ghosts Let Go
by Rhea Logan
Kio knows Soubi is strong; except that strength is nothing but masks of intricate illusions, carefully - over time - layered into the safest patterns Soubi can afford.
Kio knows these illusions help him guard his secrets and, though he can't slip past the strands of barriers shielding Soubi's heart, he has seen the outlines, silhouettes of shadow slithering behind his clouded eyes. There are ghosts, caught in ceaseless haunting of Soubi's graceful steps – unrelenting, always somewhere there.
Some of them are nameless. Some have left their names, riddles locked between the scars – their unique signatures spread across his skin.
They taste bitter, sour, even as Kio tries to tell himself it's still the same skin, only thicker with old scar tissue and even older memories. But sometimes, he can't help thinking that Soubi is only missing the imprints of dates that would tell when each of these ghosts took away another piece of his heart.
He's like a living doll, Kio realizes one day - one that turns its strings to a master's command.
But not all of these marks fall into the same class. Some are taboo; crisscrossed patterns beaten onto Soubi's skin that seem almost methodical. Others, Soubi defends – he calls them 'bonds' and 'marks of ownership' and Kio shudders every time he hears him speak such things. These, too, stand for ugly truth dressed in pretty names, invented only for the sake of keeping the illusion Soubi lives intact.
They claw and tear and rip into them both, bearing different names - servitude for Soubi, for Kio... Who knows; he dislikes such labels, even when it dawns upon him that, of the two spinning the wild wheels of this 'friendship with benefits', Soubi is far from being the only masochist.
When all is said and done, one constant remains: it is loyalty. When they lack other words, strength or will to speak, it is the one word that unites them, divides them, binds them together and simply lets them be.
He would not give up those times when Soubi stuns him, infuriates him, makes him want to scream. Kio knows that if he had one chance to stand against his ghosts, he would defend Soubi's freedom, scar-riddled flesh and sanity that slips slowly away between the blurring lines.
This, he thinks, is love in disguise – hard to recognize under its deceitful masks. It's the wish to break through the lies, through the layers of silence; to tear apart the illusions, look and see and cry – for the very first and the very last time.
If the ghosts could hear him, Kio would not keep falling back on making idle threats at the roof above his head. Had they spared Soubi's heart of hearts, and damaged only flesh, maybe the scars wouldn't bleed and his eyes wouldn't blur with intangible pain. And on most nights, Kio chatters, wearing easy smiles but, deep down, his thoughts go back to every 'how' and 'why'.
He has no regrets but one: the ghosts should have left him something he could try to salvage from their greedy claws.
May 17th, 2006
PG // complete // Kio, Soubi // introspective/angst // 527 words
Notes: For Wicked-chan. It's nothing special, but your Kio stirs something in me, and this was inspired by your recent drabbles.
And If Only the Ghosts Let Go
by Rhea Logan
Kio knows Soubi is strong; except that strength is nothing but masks of intricate illusions, carefully - over time - layered into the safest patterns Soubi can afford.
Kio knows these illusions help him guard his secrets and, though he can't slip past the strands of barriers shielding Soubi's heart, he has seen the outlines, silhouettes of shadow slithering behind his clouded eyes. There are ghosts, caught in ceaseless haunting of Soubi's graceful steps – unrelenting, always somewhere there.
Some of them are nameless. Some have left their names, riddles locked between the scars – their unique signatures spread across his skin.
They taste bitter, sour, even as Kio tries to tell himself it's still the same skin, only thicker with old scar tissue and even older memories. But sometimes, he can't help thinking that Soubi is only missing the imprints of dates that would tell when each of these ghosts took away another piece of his heart.
He's like a living doll, Kio realizes one day - one that turns its strings to a master's command.
But not all of these marks fall into the same class. Some are taboo; crisscrossed patterns beaten onto Soubi's skin that seem almost methodical. Others, Soubi defends – he calls them 'bonds' and 'marks of ownership' and Kio shudders every time he hears him speak such things. These, too, stand for ugly truth dressed in pretty names, invented only for the sake of keeping the illusion Soubi lives intact.
They claw and tear and rip into them both, bearing different names - servitude for Soubi, for Kio... Who knows; he dislikes such labels, even when it dawns upon him that, of the two spinning the wild wheels of this 'friendship with benefits', Soubi is far from being the only masochist.
When all is said and done, one constant remains: it is loyalty. When they lack other words, strength or will to speak, it is the one word that unites them, divides them, binds them together and simply lets them be.
He would not give up those times when Soubi stuns him, infuriates him, makes him want to scream. Kio knows that if he had one chance to stand against his ghosts, he would defend Soubi's freedom, scar-riddled flesh and sanity that slips slowly away between the blurring lines.
This, he thinks, is love in disguise – hard to recognize under its deceitful masks. It's the wish to break through the lies, through the layers of silence; to tear apart the illusions, look and see and cry – for the very first and the very last time.
If the ghosts could hear him, Kio would not keep falling back on making idle threats at the roof above his head. Had they spared Soubi's heart of hearts, and damaged only flesh, maybe the scars wouldn't bleed and his eyes wouldn't blur with intangible pain. And on most nights, Kio chatters, wearing easy smiles but, deep down, his thoughts go back to every 'how' and 'why'.
He has no regrets but one: the ghosts should have left him something he could try to salvage from their greedy claws.
May 17th, 2006
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Date: 2006-05-24 07:25 pm (UTC)Thank you for reading, and for the comment. :D ::hugs::