Title: Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep
Characters: Shiranui Genma
Rating: M
Warnings: Expletives, a corpse, and a great deal of angst
Notes: The song is "Prelude 12/21" by AFI, and is actually the entire reason behind this fic. I heard it for the first time, Friday night, and it pretty much declared that I would be writing a songfic with it.
This is what I brought you, this you can keep.
This is what I brought, you may forget me.
I promise to depart just promise one thing.
Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep.
He was running himself to death, but he didn't really think anyone would notice. The village was busy, it was expected that he'd be pushing himself to protect them, but he wasn't, really. He was pushing just to push. He preferred the dangerous missions — ambushes and assassinations. He always hoped his targets would be good enough to kill him, and when they weren't, he was furious. Other ANBU had asked not to be teamed with him again, afraid that when he finally really lost his shit in the field, that the enemy wouldn't be the only target. He was willing to admit that they were probably right.
This is what I brought you, this you can keep.
This is what I brought, you may forget me.
I promised you my heart just promise to sing.
Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep.
He could remember Hayate's eyes as the kid lay dead in the hospital basement. No one had thought to close them, and he remembered looking into them as they began to cloud and seeing nothing but loss. The kid had died without fear. He could remember how Yuugao refused to see the body, insisting she'd see enough at the funeral. He'd contained his fury at that insult, but just barely. It wasn't about her; it was about Hayate. He'd knelt all night beside the table in the icy morgue, making his apologies and telling the stories of all the times they'd spent together — good and bad, memorable and mundane. He could remember that Hayate used to get on his case about leaving the toilet seat up, not that it mattered anymore. He wished he could have remembered it while the kid was still alive to appreciate it. He'd pressed his face into the foul-smelling wound to kiss the heart of the man he loved, but neither his kisses nor his tears were enough to raise the corpse that had been his beloved.
Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep.
When the mortuary assistants arrived in the morning, he'd made them wait while he closed Hayate's eyes one last time, and placed a kiss on each lid. He'd opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out, and he fled the room, hoping to get away from the eyes that followed his harried escape before he broke down.
This is what I thought, I thought you'd need me.
This is what I thought, so think me naive
I'd promised you a heart, you'd promise to keep.
Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep.
He spent some time in his bed, judging from the bloodstained sheets, but he didn't really remember much of that. He went to dinner with Raidou, but that really hadn't been important either. Neither was the breakfast that Kotetsu and Izumo had dragged him to the next morning. He'd thrown up everything from both meals, anyway. Hayate should still have been alive. It should have been Hayate crying over his grave, years from now, but the kid had gone out to do something heroic and failed horrifically. He refused to go to the funeral, because he was afraid that he would tear Yuugao to pieces and throw himself into the grave. Sure it would have been overly melodramatic, but he wasn't thinking clearly enough to notice that. He just stayed in bed for three whole days, hoping that if he woke up enough times, one of those times this would all turn out to have been a dream.
Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep.
He sat on the roof at night, most nights, and told stories to the moon. He always brought sake and two cups. Even if he wound up drinking the entire bottle himself, which was inevitable, there would be a cup for Hayate, just in case he came back.
Kiss my eyes and lay me to…sleep.
