stigma (stork/tit)

[veniyah.livejournal.com]

title - waking
author - veniyah (vollykins)
warnings - angst, (underage and not) sex implications, character death.
rating - T
prompt - restraining yourself - "dreams in which I'm dying"
notes - this was really difficult to write. :C

Beforehand he had known nothing but dreams. He'd had a life and a name and an owner, back then. He remembered things like they were rising out from a fog, in scattered bits and pieces--the weight of a gun in his hands, an empty cross on his chest and chapped lips pressing harshly against his own in a demanding gesture that could barely be called a kiss.

The day he'd came to and found himself reborn and drenched with blood in that junkyard--that'd been a wake-up call. It was literally like starting all over again, with a blank slate. Somehow he'd gotten himself back on his feet--that money-stuffed suitcase had helped, of course--and he drifted slowly into the role of wanderer, vagabond, a tramp who lurked in alleyways and bars simply because he had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go.

Somewhere along the way, he'd managed to convince himself that he really did want to find out what exactly happened in his past, despite those little fleeting wisps of memories that made his blood run cold.

The day he woke up was the day a little bird crashed headlong into his life. Quite literally. He wasn't sure if being jumped by hyperactive blond boys was a common occasion in this place--he'd only just arrived, after all--but he grabbed the kid's hand and ran awya with him without a second thought.

And then before he knew it he had a new name and a new purpose. I'll call you Stork, Tit had said. I'm looking for birds, Tit had said, and even though the sky was gray and the only hints of wings existed in that feather clutched in Tit's grasp, Stork followed him.

The day he learned loss occurred several months, maybe years later. A lot had happened since then. Tit easily assimilated into Stork's nomadic lifestyle, and the two fell into a peculiar sort of routine, spending just a few days or so in various hotels before moving on to the next city, perpetually on the lookout for birds and for Stork's forgotten history.

They didn't find the birds, but Stork's past returned in the form of a man with a swallowtail tattoo on his neck and a familiar gun clutched in nicotine-stained fingers. Stork remembered being starkly terrified of having Stalk find Tit, which was why he stole away that night and left the boy, alone.

In the aftermath, Stalk found Tit anyways, and took his vision as a last act of spite. It didn't matter that he died, Stork thought sometimes, bitterly. It didn't even matter that Tit kept insisting he was okay. In the aftermath, Stork found loss in Tit's eyes, phantom birds that Tit could no longer see, the growing rarity of Tit's smiles.

The day he rediscovered desire--on second thought, it hadn't been daytime at all. It'd been deep midnight, with a starless sky and winter's chill seeping through their thin blankets. Tit had been shuddering at his side, but not from cold.

They hadn't really found their sleeping arrangement awkward before. Every hotel nowadays never had the money to afford two mattresses for a room and when Stork had attempted to sprawl out on the floor instead he'd woken up the following morning to find Tit curled up right beside him.

Granted, that had been years ago. Tit was already a teenager now, a gangly seventeen-year-old with the same golden locks and purple eyes. But his hair was lank and unkempt and his violet gaze dulled. It wasn't only the blindness, Stork knew. As cliché as it was, there was a certain innocence that came with childhood and only deadened over time. Neither of them could avoid the corruption of time or age, and Tit was already a teenager now.

Having his first wet dream in bed.

Stork had closed his eyes, tried his best to ignore Tit's uneven breathing. But his body betrayed him, and against his will he could feel arousal coiling in the pit of his stomach. It'd been so long since he'd had sex. He couldn't remember even masturbating after Brandy's death. And it was so difficult to tune out the rustling of the sheets and, almost subconsciously, Stork found himself thinking. I only want him to be happy.

He didn't even notice his left hand slipping around the crook of Tit's neck.

He's already gone through so much.

Or craning down to press his nose into the warm spot behind Tit's ear.

He deserves to be happy.

Later he would wonder what had possessed him to even think about doing this, to Tit of all people. To the boy who had become his whole world and more throughout all of those years. But the question wouldn't occur to him until too late. Stork's other hand was just brushing Tit's shoulder when the teen tensed up and his eyes opened.

Tit disappeared the very next morning, the day Stork lost himself again. He remembered choking panic upon seeing the opposite side of the bed empty, and he'd stumbled out of the hotel room only to find nobody there, as if Tit was nothing more than one of those faded memories he'd tried so hard to repress.

He fought against sinking back into dreams of dying until he couldn't anymore.