ash

"Damn you, Gabriel."

Jun can hear Damien's voice behind the serrated whisper, angry and so gratingly painful that Jun cannot cry.

The man rises and takes a step towards Damien. "Damien. Sie sind hier." Jun doesn't know what the man is saying but it is too familiar, almost warm.

Jun doesn't need to see Damien's face to know that half-smile that Damien is wearing, bloodied and broken and unnervingly familiar. "I have your friend, the Transporter. Let him go."

It is then when Jun notices the unconscious figure slumped on the ground at Damien's feet.

"I know," the man says. "Ich handele nicht. Ich töte ihn."

That line Jun knows all too well. I won't trade, the man is saying. I'll kill him.

"What's going on?" he manages to croak.

Damien looks at him. "I'm sorry," he says.

The man laughs, ruefully. "You want to know what's going on? Your friend is a traitor. He sold us information about you. Arranged for the kidnappings. And now he doesn't want you dead."

Jun cannot force himself to register what the man has just said.

When Damien turns to face Jun and Jun sees the expression on his face Jun knows. "I didn't have a choice, Jun. I wanted… I wanted to get your wings back. And then I realized that Banquo… Banquo was going to kill you, Jun. I thought- I thought-"

"He has my wings, doesn't he?" The knowledge becoming a poisonous anger in Jun's mind, dark and burning.

"He wears your wings-" Damien begins.

"And you let him," Jun whispers with disgust in his voice that makes Damien cringe involuntarily.

"He wears them, but every flight's wings have a rhythm, and the rhythm of yours was wrong. It's yours. And that's why he wants to kill you-"

"You let him wear my wings."

"I didn't know he was wearing-"

"I bleeding hate you." There is venom in Jun's voice that Damien has never heard before.

"Damn you, Jun, I was trying to save your life," Damien says, brokenly. "My brother was going to kill you-"

"I don't need traitors to save my life."

The man- Gabriel- begins to laugh. "You see, Damien, he doesn't need your help. You thought you could get his wings back, didn't you? You wanted to save your friend's life, give him back his wings. Well, you would have, if I hadn't called Banquo in and told him-"

"What?" Damien's voice is full of disbelief. "You- you're so bleeding blinded by Merox's death that you've forgotten everything else. You let Banquo trick the Transporter, you let-"

"Ich wünsche ihn Tote, don't you see?" I want him dead, don't you see?

"DAMN YOU, GABRIEL!" Damien cries raggedly, flying at the man as he draws his dagger once again.

 

Julio can dimly hear the voices around him, muffled and each syllable throbbing angry pain against the inside of his head. He can feel the emptiness inside of himself, the aching pain and hatred of knowing that he has been used.

 

It is all a blur of frenzied scarlet and ash and blood, and Jun knows that Damien is crying as he tears at the man, and then there is someone else screaming and gasping and pleading ohpleasepleasepleasestop and Jun realises that he's hearing his own voice as somebody tries to strangle him. He can see those eyes, those haunted ocean-eyes that make Jun feel like he is drowning in dark waters, as the life dims out of his mind. And then Damien is upon them both like a rabid animal frothing at the mouth, hands that are no longer hands clawing at Jun's attacker. There is a sharp pain in Jun's shoulderblades as he sees Damien's bloodied dagger skittering across the floor, landing beside him, and as he takes hold of it and stabs repeatedly upwards he can feel them again.

For a fleeting moment they are beating in familiar rhythm, those ash wings that have grown out of Jun's back. He knows if he tries hard enough he can fly, but in a flash of blinding pain he can feel them crumbling again, scattering barely audible over the anguished sobs that are the sound of Damien crying.

 

Damien cannot hear anything but the sound of Jun's gasping, almost-soundless pleading filled with the desperation of a man who knows he is about to die but cannot believe it. And then with a cry he realises that Jun has stopped moving, and the other body underneath him has scattered into ash. Dimly he can hear Gabriel moaning Julio's name, but the loud, sweet, throbbing sound in his head is blocking out every other sound.

 

The darkness of the Hypogeum is laughing.

 

 

Gabbro doesn't know night from day; he cannot see through the tears that seem as red as blood. It is JulioJulioJulio in his mind like waves roaring in righteous anger and he wonders why Merox had to die, because if Merox hadn't died this would never have happened.

 

 

Later on Damien tries to place a rose on Jun's grave, but as he leaves the ash scatters across the rough cement.