Piano Girl ~ Fanfics ~ Get Backers ~ Sacred Simplicity

Sacred Simplicity (6/17/04)

This is shamelessly a songfic. I cried my way through most of writing this, so if it tends to drift more than my usual work, I ask forgiveness just this once. Lyrics are Vienna Teng, Eric's Song, which you can temporarily download here.

This one is for the one who knows.

Green grass grayed by evening shadows was thick and cool between Amano Ginji's toes as he let his sneakers and socks fall from his hands to rest in front of the 360. His gloves, which he almost never removed, followed, though hesitantly, just after his shoes, and he curled his long fingers into his bare palms for a brief moment. With a quick glance through the windshield, he walked swiftly over the grass and down the hill towards the lake in the center of the park.

The strange dichotomy of summer always left Ginji feeling a bit out of sorts – the longer days were enjoyable, as it often meant more time with his friends and less time for nightmares, but his natural inclination towards being an electrical heat source left him very uncomfortable most of the time. Tonight it seemed as if his dreams had conspired with the shorter nights to cram as much horrific drama into the small space of time as they could, and the sweat pooling in the small of Ginji's back was likely attributed to much more than just the oppressive humidity.

He'd always been the restless sort, even as a child, driven to walk and watch and pace in the middle of the night through the streets of Lower Town, as if by constantly keeping himself occupied, he could burn off some of the energy that he sometimes felt was in excess. And as much as Natsumi-chan teased him that it was the result of eating too much ice cream, he felt that it was more... Yes, it was just another of the minute things about himself and his powers that he'd learned to live with and never bothered trying to explain to anyone.

For all the friends he did have, he'd still spent years assuming no one would ever really want to know or understand him.

The earth moving under his feet and the stars moving over his head brought a sense of rhythm to the discord left by his dreams, and he exhaled, long and slow and serious, as his toes touched the water.

strange how you know inside me
I measure the time and I stand amazed
strange how I know inside you
my hand is outstretched toward the damp of the haze

He'd woken the second his partner stirred, of course, but that was nothing new. It had changed though, for once upon a time it had been the proximity of another being and years of paranoia that kept him on the edge of consciousness. Now, though he would never say so, it was more because he had attuned himself as a fine instrument to every nuance of that presence than because he didn't trust to occupy the same space together.

And so with half-lidded eyes behind violet lenses, Midou Ban watched his partner climb out of the car, deposit various articles of clothing with just the slightest shake to his hands, and disappear down the hill.

He sighed, momentarily debating on closing his eyes and trying to get back to sleep. Nothing would happen to Ginji – the kid was perfectly capable of taking care of himself in a public park, even if someone unsavory happened to come along. And yet, once he closed his eyes, he found that he could not erase the guilty sense that something was wrong, and with a mumbled grunt of frustration about his "mopey emotional insomniac" of a partner, he climbed out of the car as well, checking left and right for ay police cars before following the path Ginji had taken down the hill.

and of course I forgive
I've seen how you live
like a phoenix you rise from the ashes
you pick up the pieces
and the ghosts in the attic
they never quite leave
and of course I forgive
you've seen how I live
I've got darkness and fears to appease
my voices and analogies
ambitions like ribbons
worn bright on my sleeve
strange how we know each other

Stopping several feet away from the shore, he leaned against a tree and watched as Ginji peeled off his shirt, dropping it onto the sand and wading into the water. Even this far away, he could sense the restless agitation in his friend and he wondered if the past would ever cease to haunt his nights. He understood that frustration all too well, having his own dark past forever trying to thwart his ambitions... but where he was content to leave people and places behind, seeing them in what he believed to be their true light, Ginji wasn't the same.

Ginji would probably never be that way, for no matter the damage he took, he never stopped believing in the inherent goodness of everyone and everything. No matter how many times he'd been crushed and betrayed, he always found a way to pick up the pieces and keep smiling. Ban didn't really know how he could do that, how he could not be jaded and cynical and cold, how he could continually reach out and touch the softer sides of every person he met, even when they didn't want him to see it. It was one of the many reasons that people were drawn to Ginji, he supposed. Ginji chose to see them for their very best qualities, but at the same time, he never really let anyone close enough to know him on more than surface level.

Not the way Ban knew him.

And mostly he wondered how they had ever gotten to be the way they were together.

strange how I fit into you
there's a distance erased with the greatest of ease
strange how you fit into me
a gentle warmth filling the deepest of needs

He missed them.

Admitting it didn't necessarily mean that he was unhappy in the here and now, Ginji reasoned to himself as he pulled his sweaty shirt over his head and deposited it in the sand. Wading into the lake and feeling the water swirl around his legs was soothing, and after standing nearly hip-deep for a moment, he dove underneath.

and with each passing day
the stories we say
draw us tighter into our addiction
confirm our conviction
that some kind of miracle
passed on our heads
and how I am sure
like never before
of my reasons for defying reason
embracing the seasons
we dance through the colors
both followed and led
strange how we fit each other

It was Ban who had taught him to swim, not all that long ago, but he had taken to it as a fish long separated from his ocean, and now steady strokes beneath the cool and rippling glass carried him out to where the lake was deeper, midnight blue under the half moon sky, like the color of Ban's eyes when he was frustrated or moody.

Breaking the surface of the water with a gasp, he tipped himself until he was floating on his back, but still not too far from the shore. He doubted that anyone knew the shades of color in Ban's eyes the way he did, and he closed his own to picture them, and how the small variations in his expression betrayed when Ban was truly happy as opposed to simply amused.

When anyone asked for the story, Ginji always claimed it was nothing short of a miracle, the way Ban had appeared in Mugenjou and taken Ginji with him upon departure. He never shared with anyone what really happened that night – how the mutual conviction of escape had led them stumbling blindly towards one another, defying all rhyme and reason and leaving them with, what was in the beginning, the most awkward and unusual of partnerships.

Never before had the Raitei bowed to anyone, and yet he willingly followed another out the door of his own castle.

Many wondered how exactly how that had happened, but strange as it was, Ginji found it somehow fitting.

strange how certain the journey
time unfolds the petals for our eyes to see
strange how this journey's hurting
in ways we accept as part of fate's decree

When he could silence his heart for but a moment, a difficult task to be sure, he knew without a doubt that things were much better for the many, including himself and his partner, now that there was no longer a Raitei of Mugenjou.

And there wasn't much he missed about those days, except...

A splash of water interrupted his thoughts and he turned, lifted his head and glanced towards the shore, confused to find nothing there.

He was just about to return to his floating when something closed around his ankle, and with a yelp of surprise, he found himself dragged under.

so we just hold on fast
acknowledge the past
as lessons exquisitely crafted
painstakingly drafted
to carve us as instruments
that play the music of life
for we don't realize
our faith in the prize
unless it's been somehow elusive
how swiftly we choose it
the sacred simplicity
of you at my side

Under the water, even without air and sight, his hands quickly established the familiar form, and he laughed, choking on lake water even as he attempted to loosen a hold he could never break. Over and around they tumbled and struggled until they finally surfaced again, laughter ringing out through the stillness to bounce back at them as they treaded water, holding each other up.

"Scared the shit out of me, Ban-chan," Ginji finally choked out, still coughing and trying to breathe, and Ban laughed, finally letting go of him and backstroking away with a decidedly satisfied smirk painted across his face that said to Ginji plainly: Gotcha!

"Serves you right for leaving me behind, baka."

"I didn't want to wake you." Ginji shook his head furiously like a cat drowned in a rainstorm, his hair sticking out at all angles as he watched Ban circle him before returning to his side, smirk fading to small smile.

"You can't not wake me when you have one of those dreams." He was silent, letting that comment sink in for a moment, knowing how dense his partner could often be. "So... what gives?"

Ginji shrugged as best he could in the water and started to slowly paddle towards a place where he could stand again. "Nothing out of the ordinary," he finally answered once he had gotten his feet underneath him. "Hot and restless and dreaming of things I wish I wouldn't dream of..."

"They're just dreams, Ginji," Ban answered, having followed Ginji back towards the shore. He reached to push the wet hair out of his face and then let his hand fall softly to land on his partner's shoulder. "It's the past, and though it's sometimes full of painful lessons that built us into the people we are, they're just memories. They aren't the here and now – unless that's what you're unhappy with?"

"No!" Ginji replied in the same breath as Ban's question, his hand rising to curl around Ban's arm, wanting to reach out and cling, for there was nothing that soothed him better after bad dreams than to have Ban pull him close and make him remember so tangibly his faith in what they are.

Ban sighed, but the exasperation was quietly mocking at best, and his other arm looped around Ginji's waist, pulling him closer. Ginji relaxed against him, his head resting on Ban's shoulder and his hands splayed across Ban's back. "Ginji... have a little faith in us, okay? Or at least poke me and let me know you want to talk... I'm not psychic, hmm?"

Ginji drew away from him with a nod and then turned to wade back to shore, picking up his discarded clothing where it was laying next to Ban's neatly folded things. "I do have faith in us, Ban-chan..." he mumbled as they walked up the hill side by side. "I think it's that faith that makes it okay, even when I dream about how things in my life used to be. I might always dream about that stuff, it might always wake me up at night, but it doesn't make me less happy with the way things are now!"

Once inside the car, Ginji leaned against Ban, seeking out a familiar pose, and Ban tugged Ginji close to him, reaching one hand to turn Ginji's face up to his, their noses almost brushing. "Why don't you make me absolutely crazy?" he murmured thoughtfully, as if the answer could be found in sleepy pools of chocolate.

"Mmm, I dunno..." Ginji replied, snuggling a little closer. "I thought I kinda did, in the same way you make me crazy." He grinned a little, until Ban leaned and caught Ginji's bottom lip between his own two in a playful kiss.

"Guess it's just one of those things you can't explain," Ban whispered, pressing another kiss to Ginji's forehead as his head dropped against Ban's shoulder.

"You said that once before..." Ginji murmured, already starting to drift. "But I think... maybe it's something we just choose, for good and bad, and happy and sad, for all the faults and all the strengths...and...and... everything else."

"What do we choose?"

"Really and truly knowing each other... you by my side... and me by yours."