thoughts of a dry brain in a wet season - dn angel fic

Thank you to everyone who wished me happy birthday yesterday, including my lovely friends who bought me two cakes today (look, I AM trying to diet, people). Presumably I'm loved! My ego is happy.

Exhausted am I. And this fic is - done, sort of, but it needs...work, yes. Please comment?

Some things: this is a post-vol 8 fic (slight spoiler warning) written in total ignorance of what happens in vol. 9, so please hold the non-canon twitching; this was also written after a two-year hiatus from the DN fandom and was more a character exercise than actual fic per se. n_n; I welcome (need) crits, but hold the vitriol if you would.

Between
----------
a dn angel fanfiction

The sky in the afternoon was overcast, studded with charcoal clouds.

Hiwatari Satoshi unwrapped his sandwich with measured deliberation and bit off its top right corner. A school day, and it was lunchtime: he was, as he did most of the time, eating alone, propped against the front wall of the small structure that housed the staircase up to the school rooftop.

He methodically applied himself to chewing the sandwich corner, not really tasting it. On his tongue it was cool and dry; the wholemeal bread crumbled in his mouth; the lettuce bit he had chewed off crunched softly between his teeth. It was - there, and he ate, his eyes on the stretch of grey cement flooring before him. Chew, swallow, pick up the juice box and sip. Repeat. He'd found that turning this into a conscious routine made trying not to think easier.

Inside him it was silent, but you did not trust the silence of a sleeping serpent.

Chew, swallow. Pick up the juice box, and

through the open door of the roof structure he suddenly heard them: the dim echoes of footsteps, floating up the long stairway.

Satoshi put down his drink. His hand might have trembled, ever so slightly. The footsteps grew louder, but they remained light, cautious treads even on the rickety metal steps; it was obvious that their owner was accustomed to moving quietly.

A thief in the night. He half-turned to face the door, a frisson of mingled expectation and fear shivering through him. And yes, it was -

"...Hiwatari-kun."

- Niwa stood in the doorway, blinking in the light. In his hand was a wrapped bentou; his face wore an expression that was an uncertain blend of hesitance and determination.

The other one inside Satoshi remained quiescent. Satoshi still gave serious thought to the timely act of a brisk departure, in the interest of ensuring it stayed that way. Uncannily enough it seemed as if Niwa had anticipated this; before Satoshi could blink he had closed the remaining distance between them and was seating himself next to Satoshi, his bentou making a decisively muffled thump on the cement paving.

Satoshi exhaled, slowly, and looked at Niwa, who returned his scrutiny with that maddeningly open gaze. Niwa knew no other way to look at you; the occasions when Dark had possessed his body did not count. Always he looked straight at you, his thoughts in his eyes, not knowing any other way to communicate. Satoshi saw his message now: I wanted to find you. Against his will it sparked a small jolt of pleasure through him, that Niwa had initiated this; that he'd come to where Satoshi was, to be

(alone, with someone who could kill him.)

Something hard and cold constricted Satoshi's guts. He half-rose, not sure whether that last fragment of thought had been Krad's or his, and not inclined to place importance on the desire for a distinction. This was idiotic - he was - he was being appallingly selfish, he couldn't risk being alone with Niwa like this. He wouldn't. He lurched to his feet, focusing his eyes on the open door.

The hand on his arm was shockingly warm and it stopped him, as effectively as a red light did traffic.

"Please," Niwa said softly, his gaze intent. "Hiwatari-kun. I - we...I just want to talk."

(his eyes were warm, like deep clear wells of honey, and they waited for you to fall.)

Satoshi tried to respond appropriately and failed; the words of dissent fell apart on his tongue, snuffed out in the tense silence that followed. It was hopeless, trying to stay away. Niwa; *this* was Niwa, and Hikari would be thwarted one way or another. He knew, and the quiet strength in Niwa's fingers, still locked around his arm, confirmed that knowledge.

He pushed up his glasses and said, in a voice that was very nearly steady, "Let go."

"S-sorry!"

Niwa let go, his face faintly tinged with red. Satoshi sat down heavily, pulled by the insistent weight of Niwa's gaze, and for a few moments had to shut his eyes in order to control the wave of near-panic that was starting to rise.

"What is it?" he finally asked, in the most neutral tone he could manage.

Niwa coughed. "I - I know." He fidgeted, and added, "Um, how you helped me get out of the picture. I..."

"Dark told you," Satoshi replied, and was promptly irritated at himself for stating the obvious.

The red head bobbed in assent. "I...thank you."

Don't *do* this, he mentally appealed. It doesn't help, Niwa, you're doing none of us any favours. Satoshi looked away, feeling slightly hopeless.

Niwa continued to fidget. At last he ventured, timidly, "Hiwatari-kun?"

"What?"

"Did he -" A pause. Niwa nervously tapped his fingers together. "- does Krad...hurt you?"

Niwa's presence had been bad enough; this soft question slammed into his guts like a particularly well-placed punch. He angled his head and stared, but still Niwa returned his gaze easily enough, his eyes filled with an innocent concern that grated on his already raw nerves.

Niwa didn't know, of course, how could he? Niwa didn't *need* to know. But he'd been the one who asked, hadn't he? And a part of Satoshi, which had been smothered in silent resentment ever since the day Dark-as-Niwa had called what was inside of Satoshi a monster, finally found its voice.

"How different?" he asked, dangerously quiet. Niwa blinked.

"Hiwatari-kun?"

"You tell me, Niwa. The...creatures in both of us, how are they different?" The question left him with measured, crude slowness, like the freehand tearing of a paper sheet. He crushed the plastic wrap that had held his sandwiches and tossed it into the paper bag beside him. "Tell me."

Niwa was troubled by this; one hand went to the back of his head half-absently, as if making a physical attempt to sift an appropriate answer out of his mind. Satoshi made no attempt to avert his gaze. It was irresistibly pinned to the slight figure next to him, searching, trying to see the difference, the crucial difference that would perhaps make understanding Niwa a little easier.

(this much he knew: that it was not the same when one tried to look *through* something instead of *at* it.)

When Niwa spoke his voice carried a slight waver, but it grew stronger as he continued. "Dark would never hurt me deliberately," he asserted.

"You're very ready to vouch for him," Satoshi said, and the words were void of inflection.

"He wouldn't! What we have, we -"

"What you have. Isn't it being manipulated, isn't it having your body used for someone else's ends, Niwa?" Satoshi drew his hands into loosely clenched fists, a bitter thread of emotion weaving itself through his consciousness. "Isn't it?"

"No," Niwa murmured, shaking his head, "no, it's not..."

Hearing that upset him, despite the awareness of how absurd and pointless it was to feel so. What other reply had he expected Niwa to give, when the bond shared by him and his other self was so obvious? But it was the precise point of contention - that Niwa's situation was so painfully at odds with his own, that it made him see how things could have been different. Maybe. Somehow. Satoshi was leaning forward now, not even aware that he was doing so. Niwa's eyes were wide and alarmed; he focused on them, letting the words wrest themselves from him.

His hands reached out, grabbed fistfuls of the front of Niwa's shirt, pulling him closer. "But *why* is Dark with you, Niwa, have you ever really thought about it?" Still he was leaning forward, Niwa's face filling up his vision, pale and tense. "Tell me."

"I..." Niwa shut his eyes. A charged, sharp-edged pause ensued; a silence waiting for a blade to fall. But when Niwa spoke again there was a steady note of conviction that overrode the tremor in his voice.

"I - I can't say I know why - but I...we need each other."

It was a ludicrously simple answer, one to which Satoshi could find nothing to reply.

Mutual feeling was all it came down to, then; that was the whole point. Initial rejection counted for nothing if acceptance could be nurtured, if dependence was fostered. The insight was not so much an epiphany as it was a sickening, desperate burst of realisation. He dropped his gaze, but his hands retained their grip on Niwa's shirt, white-knuckled with the strain he was putting on them.

"Hiwatari-kun?" The question was almost a plea. "Hiwatari-kun, I..."

Niwa, he thought, painfully. Niwa, who understood so much and nothing at all, whose kindness became the more suffocating the closer he got -

(( He is close, but still you desire a greater closeness, do you not, Satoshi-sama? ))

His hands unclenched themselves slowly, numbly; with the same practised detachment he made himself stand up, collect his paper bag, and walk away. The small sound of protest that issued from Niwa's throat lengthened his stride, even as a disjointed wave of icy amusement engulfed the back of his consciousness.

----

:: You wouldn't have done him or yourself any favours by following. ::

The voice of his other half was unyieldingly emphatic, and Daisuke sighed, slumping against the wall.

:: I told you, :: Dark continued patiently, :: coming to look for him here wasn't exactly a bright idea. Unless you've turned suicidal without my knowing it. ::

/...Maybe./

:: Snap *out* of it, Dai-chan. Look - the creepy bastard's got *issues* and *you're* hardly the best candidate to help him deal with 'em. ::

"I wanted to try," Daisuke said aloud, his voice soft. "I...I want to know, Dark. Don't you?"

Dark was silent; Daisuke could almost see the frown that flitted over his face, and part of him wondered at it. He filed the question away for another day, sensing the subdued reluctance on his other half's part.

:: ...can't say I particularly need to. ::

Daisuke shook his head. /I probably shouldn't have expected him to answer me./

:: I don't think he could've, Dai-chan. ::

In the distance a low murmur of thunder sounded. Daisuke blinked, eyes falling on the untouched bentou beside him, and then he stood up.

/Dark?/

:: Yeah? ::

/Let's go back./

:: I'm with you. :: He could hear the gentleness in Dark's tone, and it helped, a little, to unravel the tight knot of regret in his chest.

It would have to do, for now. It would have to do.

= end =


Now. If you want *good* Sat/Dai fic you should head over to lazulisong's LJ, but this is my paltry offering in the hopes of getting her to write more anyway. ^^;

(and no one mention the TeniPuri bunny that squealed at me ten minutes ago. I give up.)