madimpossibledreamer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
madimpossibledreamer) wrote2021-05-22 11:57 pm
madimpossibledreamer) wrote2021-05-22 11:57 pm
essence of unrequited love
this hit me as hard as it did xander because it kinda came out of nowhere
this is another fic in which everything is not capitalized for whatever reason. It just seemed to fit the aesthetic, I don't know. Most people tagged are only mentioned, but are important to the story, so.
Main Points:
Buffy/Yakuza AU, not a follow-up to anything
Chapter Summary: Xander has a painful revelation.
Word Count: 1873
Rating: Teen
Spoilers for Yakuza through 5, also set-post Buffy finale, so spoilers for that, too
Unrequited (or at least unrealized) Majima/Kiryu discussed
Warnings: PTSD, sexual harassment, mentioned torture
sometimes he wakes up in a sweat. memories of anagura, memories about the hole of a warehouse. sometimes they behave and stay separate, but most of the time, they don’t. angelus, the vicious, unchained vampire. shimano, the looming bogeyman of a tiger.
majima’s not always a help. sometimes, he’s just as much the cornered, beaten dog. it’s hard to tell whether he’s still possessed, or if it’s maybe the other way around. he might still be possessing majima, clinging to the last ghostly echoes, terrified of being alone. xander hasn’t bothered to ask, too afraid of the answer. some days, it seems like goro’s sleeping, barely there. even when he’s awake, his awareness of where he is and memories drift.
least ria-chan’s got it together, but how could she not, with such awesome girl friends? really, they’re both blessed on that front.
it’s during an early morning run that the realization that he—not just majima, xander too—is madly in love with a guy that, well, if he’s not fictional is in another universe out of reach slams into him like a sledgehammer. makoto, too, but that’s a dull ache. it’ll never not hurt, but he’s seen her happy, and it’s all he ever wanted for her. but kiryu-chan…no resolution there, he decides. that’s the difference, what makes one a gaping wound and the other a scar. all he’s—all majima’s ever wanted is for kiryu-chan to be happy, too. that big lug with his doe eyes and his belief in the world and his solid strength. he acts like just stubbornly ignoring that people can be selfish, even dicks, will spontaneously make them act like good people. and to majima’s surprise, it works. sometimes. more often than he would’ve thought, for sure, but it also results in kiryu-chan getting stabbed and shot and having his life taken from him over and over again, and sure, he takes it like a champ, but he deserves to live his life with haruka, free of any of the pain. which also meant living free of majima’s bullshit. all goro’s ever done is bring pain to the people he cares about—aside from makoto, which shows it’s the right approach, removing himself from the equation.
he’s damaged goods, broken, and kiryu’s gentle hands already have enough scars. but he can’t help himself. he’s already orbiting the giant. nothing to do but throw himself even further into the mad dog persona, push the dragon away. he flirts, and sometimes it makes kiryu blush madly, but he doesn’t take it seriously, which is good, because he’s noticed what kiryu hasn’t. that sometimes, kiryu-chan would flirt back. mostly with goromi (what the hell is it, sexism? conditioning? loneliness? or—nah, that soft marshmallow heart’s always looking for a cause, to see the best in people. why wouldn’t it be seeking love, too?) but not always. sometimes, it was goro on the other side, too.
and it’s ridiculous. clumsy, but not self-conscious, only because kiryu-chan doesn’t realize what’s going on himself. the second he did, he’d get all stammery and magnitudes more awkward. kiryu-chan wouldn’t judge, because he’s remarkably open-minded, but he very well might be surprised at himself, that this is a thing that he hasn’t known all these years about himself.
against his better judgment, majima’s been tempted. (he’s as surprised as anyone that he has one, honestly.) might’ve given in, if not for the reminder he’s a walking dead man. if he hadn’t been fascinated with zombies since before saejima went away, he would’ve said that’s where it all came from, a kinship with creatures that sure look alive but are really just waiting for someone to come put a bullet in their brain. lucky for all of them that kiryu-chan and haruka moved away, out of the reach of majima’s greedy, grasping hands. he’d die for him. he’s definitely lived for him.
so. that’s a lot. it takes a bit, him just sitting in the middle of the trail and openly weeping, to process it all. xander can relate, though. he hasn’t figured out what changed, not really, but he’s—no, wait, that’s it, isn’t it?
he’d almost forgotten, a half-formed dream, but angelus had described being with buffy in loving detail, carefully worded to cut deep. it’d made him sick, hearing about that. not that another guy had gotten there before him, and not even—
well, angel had cared. that’s probably what hurt her the most, the fact that he had been—xander can admit it now—a decent boyfriend. made the switch hurt so much more.
angelus didn’t deserve the memory, and xander hadn’t wanted to remember. that wasn’t for him. too private, too personal. it’d probably been grooming, the sort that the vampire had used on drusilla, because turning him into a vampire, into a monster that didn’t care about consent, thrived on the pain of others, that had probably been a last stop, but buffy had interrupted the play before the last act. that at least wrings a smile out of him, however weak. she’d always been good at crashing a party.
but to get back on track, before majima, even, he’d been willing to bleed, to die, to live for her, never mind actually being with her. does that make xander and majima pathetic bastards both? maybe. he’s not qualified to judge. a question for the therapist, maybe, if he can form the words. he often can’t. beginnings are hard. once he gets going, that’s different, but beginnings are usually hard, only really working out when they were spontaneous. which is an interesting choice of words, but he’s not going there.
and then another revelation, softer but no less vicious, because angel’s sometimes like kiryu, soft and desperate to be liked. apparently, the vampire also hides a sneaky sense of humor, but xander’s desperately grateful for it, clutching at any straws that could help him here. angelus is definitely more like…hmm. spike might claim angelus is the planner type, like shimano the scheming tiger, lurking around every corner, but xander hadn’t seen that. sure, he’d been furious at the humiliation, but kiryu and sera had humiliated shimano, and that just made him all the more of a mastermind. angelus was just lashing out, with a few half-assed plans but more fury than calculation. nah, angelus is…nishikiyama, kiryu-chan’s kyoudai, when he’d thought he was controlling everything, one step ahead, had lost everything. equally vicious, equally responsible for hurting people he loves. determined to prove his superiority, the fact that he’s not a weakling, by burning everything to the ground. well, nishiki in all things except for the torture. he’d largely kept shimano’s touch for the torture. which is terrifying, because with a feeling this strong, he can’t disentangle himself from majima, but he also can’t have a crush on angel. he can’t. that’s a little too stockholm syndrome even for him.
as an equally terrible alternative, there’s oz. expressively silent, strong, with that same sense of humor. oz, though, will never forgive him for that heat-of-the-moment kiss (what, he’d—majima had kissed nishida once, under the same kinds of circumstances, they’d none of them handle europe, it hadn’t meant anything—except, yeah, okay, maybe it had meant something to willow and therein lay the problem and he can’t figure out if that makes him or her more of the ass in that one) and willow wouldn’t forgive him if he made a move.
majima whines about missing kiryu-chan, he’d fight him here and now, and it’s like this giles finds him, worried. giles doesn’t do worried much. well, nah, that’s a lie. he doesn’t like to show it. morale or something. it’s weird. surreal. having adult-shaped figures that worry about him. he doesn’t know the full story, but he’d worried about him, with the whole ‘dark slayer’ stuff, because xander had majima’s memories about unwanted sex by that point, known that was a thing, had words to describe such things. he hadn’t voiced any of them, but still, giles had noticed, which was weird, just like the worrying.
he’s shaking, he realizes as giles leads him, one hand on his shoulder. he’s also silent, which is never a sign of the good, but doesn’t quite realize how bad it is until giles starts making him hot cocoa. giles, he’s realized by observation, might not verbally or physically show his worry, but there’s a whole categorization of crises depending on what he ends up making as a drink for xander, slightly modified by what he makes for himself. there’s the kind of tea, how much sugar, and how carefully precise he is about it. hot cocoa, unless asked for, is like…code red. he snuggles into the warm blanket, takes a couple sips, and then the story jumbles out of him. or, well, something does. he repeats himself, probably, but not as much as usual when the ptsd hits him, which is an improvement. probably. he’s really not sure what he’s said, because it’s all a big mess and he’s not entirely certain all of it was even english (legit, he’s fairly sure some of that was japanese), but all giles does is sit and listen. and look the opposite of judgmental. whatever that is. compassionate, maybe? xander’s not used to that. neither is majima. that’s probably part of why he let kiryu get under his skin so much.
and then otoh-san opens his arms. they don’t hug, father and son, but today they do, as xander sobs his heartbreak into a button-up shirt, and giles is warm. he doesn’t have to say a word for xander or majima to find the comfort they needed. it feels like healing, maybe.
this is another fic in which everything is not capitalized for whatever reason. It just seemed to fit the aesthetic, I don't know. Most people tagged are only mentioned, but are important to the story, so.
Main Points:
Buffy/Yakuza AU, not a follow-up to anything
Chapter Summary: Xander has a painful revelation.
Word Count: 1873
Rating: Teen
Spoilers for Yakuza through 5, also set-post Buffy finale, so spoilers for that, too
Unrequited (or at least unrealized) Majima/Kiryu discussed
Warnings: PTSD, sexual harassment, mentioned torture
most of the time, xander feels in control, these days. on top of the world. he’s heard the rumors. slayer’s mad whelp, they call him, a dog on a chain, and it makes him grin, a grin that’s a razor’s edge. it could cut. he has a purpose, a reason to live. privately, he calls jesse kyoudai, because he’s as good as a sworn brother, wasn’t he. idly muses about the tattoo he’d have, if he had an irezumi just like xander. sure, he’d failed his kyoudai, and that’s a painful, bitter bit of repetition seen in the light of day, in the cold clarity of a man who sees too much with only one eye. but, if you think about it, he hadn’t, really, had he? they hadn’t known about the oogily boogilies in the dark, consciously anyway, but if they had—if they had, xander’s pretty sure they would’ve sworn an oath. ‘if either of us betrays our humanity, ‘tis death!’. something like that. he’s content to live for them both, looks forward to his little chats with jesse’s ghost or whatever-the-hell-ever, though it’d taken some time to come up with a replacement for the ol’ gravestone. decided on a sorta shrine, ‘cause if it’s good enough for another culture it’s good enough for him. not like he has any of jesse’s stuff, for the thing—it’s all lying in the bottom of the sinkhole, just like jesse’s body and gravestone—but he makes do with stuff his friend woulda liked.
sometimes he wakes up in a sweat. memories of anagura, memories about the hole of a warehouse. sometimes they behave and stay separate, but most of the time, they don’t. angelus, the vicious, unchained vampire. shimano, the looming bogeyman of a tiger.
majima’s not always a help. sometimes, he’s just as much the cornered, beaten dog. it’s hard to tell whether he’s still possessed, or if it’s maybe the other way around. he might still be possessing majima, clinging to the last ghostly echoes, terrified of being alone. xander hasn’t bothered to ask, too afraid of the answer. some days, it seems like goro’s sleeping, barely there. even when he’s awake, his awareness of where he is and memories drift.
least ria-chan’s got it together, but how could she not, with such awesome girl friends? really, they’re both blessed on that front.
it’s during an early morning run that the realization that he—not just majima, xander too—is madly in love with a guy that, well, if he’s not fictional is in another universe out of reach slams into him like a sledgehammer. makoto, too, but that’s a dull ache. it’ll never not hurt, but he’s seen her happy, and it’s all he ever wanted for her. but kiryu-chan…no resolution there, he decides. that’s the difference, what makes one a gaping wound and the other a scar. all he’s—all majima’s ever wanted is for kiryu-chan to be happy, too. that big lug with his doe eyes and his belief in the world and his solid strength. he acts like just stubbornly ignoring that people can be selfish, even dicks, will spontaneously make them act like good people. and to majima’s surprise, it works. sometimes. more often than he would’ve thought, for sure, but it also results in kiryu-chan getting stabbed and shot and having his life taken from him over and over again, and sure, he takes it like a champ, but he deserves to live his life with haruka, free of any of the pain. which also meant living free of majima’s bullshit. all goro’s ever done is bring pain to the people he cares about—aside from makoto, which shows it’s the right approach, removing himself from the equation.
he’s damaged goods, broken, and kiryu’s gentle hands already have enough scars. but he can’t help himself. he’s already orbiting the giant. nothing to do but throw himself even further into the mad dog persona, push the dragon away. he flirts, and sometimes it makes kiryu blush madly, but he doesn’t take it seriously, which is good, because he’s noticed what kiryu hasn’t. that sometimes, kiryu-chan would flirt back. mostly with goromi (what the hell is it, sexism? conditioning? loneliness? or—nah, that soft marshmallow heart’s always looking for a cause, to see the best in people. why wouldn’t it be seeking love, too?) but not always. sometimes, it was goro on the other side, too.
and it’s ridiculous. clumsy, but not self-conscious, only because kiryu-chan doesn’t realize what’s going on himself. the second he did, he’d get all stammery and magnitudes more awkward. kiryu-chan wouldn’t judge, because he’s remarkably open-minded, but he very well might be surprised at himself, that this is a thing that he hasn’t known all these years about himself.
against his better judgment, majima’s been tempted. (he’s as surprised as anyone that he has one, honestly.) might’ve given in, if not for the reminder he’s a walking dead man. if he hadn’t been fascinated with zombies since before saejima went away, he would’ve said that’s where it all came from, a kinship with creatures that sure look alive but are really just waiting for someone to come put a bullet in their brain. lucky for all of them that kiryu-chan and haruka moved away, out of the reach of majima’s greedy, grasping hands. he’d die for him. he’s definitely lived for him.
so. that’s a lot. it takes a bit, him just sitting in the middle of the trail and openly weeping, to process it all. xander can relate, though. he hasn’t figured out what changed, not really, but he’s—no, wait, that’s it, isn’t it?
he’d almost forgotten, a half-formed dream, but angelus had described being with buffy in loving detail, carefully worded to cut deep. it’d made him sick, hearing about that. not that another guy had gotten there before him, and not even—
well, angel had cared. that’s probably what hurt her the most, the fact that he had been—xander can admit it now—a decent boyfriend. made the switch hurt so much more.
angelus didn’t deserve the memory, and xander hadn’t wanted to remember. that wasn’t for him. too private, too personal. it’d probably been grooming, the sort that the vampire had used on drusilla, because turning him into a vampire, into a monster that didn’t care about consent, thrived on the pain of others, that had probably been a last stop, but buffy had interrupted the play before the last act. that at least wrings a smile out of him, however weak. she’d always been good at crashing a party.
but to get back on track, before majima, even, he’d been willing to bleed, to die, to live for her, never mind actually being with her. does that make xander and majima pathetic bastards both? maybe. he’s not qualified to judge. a question for the therapist, maybe, if he can form the words. he often can’t. beginnings are hard. once he gets going, that’s different, but beginnings are usually hard, only really working out when they were spontaneous. which is an interesting choice of words, but he’s not going there.
and then another revelation, softer but no less vicious, because angel’s sometimes like kiryu, soft and desperate to be liked. apparently, the vampire also hides a sneaky sense of humor, but xander’s desperately grateful for it, clutching at any straws that could help him here. angelus is definitely more like…hmm. spike might claim angelus is the planner type, like shimano the scheming tiger, lurking around every corner, but xander hadn’t seen that. sure, he’d been furious at the humiliation, but kiryu and sera had humiliated shimano, and that just made him all the more of a mastermind. angelus was just lashing out, with a few half-assed plans but more fury than calculation. nah, angelus is…nishikiyama, kiryu-chan’s kyoudai, when he’d thought he was controlling everything, one step ahead, had lost everything. equally vicious, equally responsible for hurting people he loves. determined to prove his superiority, the fact that he’s not a weakling, by burning everything to the ground. well, nishiki in all things except for the torture. he’d largely kept shimano’s touch for the torture. which is terrifying, because with a feeling this strong, he can’t disentangle himself from majima, but he also can’t have a crush on angel. he can’t. that’s a little too stockholm syndrome even for him.
as an equally terrible alternative, there’s oz. expressively silent, strong, with that same sense of humor. oz, though, will never forgive him for that heat-of-the-moment kiss (what, he’d—majima had kissed nishida once, under the same kinds of circumstances, they’d none of them handle europe, it hadn’t meant anything—except, yeah, okay, maybe it had meant something to willow and therein lay the problem and he can’t figure out if that makes him or her more of the ass in that one) and willow wouldn’t forgive him if he made a move.
majima whines about missing kiryu-chan, he’d fight him here and now, and it’s like this giles finds him, worried. giles doesn’t do worried much. well, nah, that’s a lie. he doesn’t like to show it. morale or something. it’s weird. surreal. having adult-shaped figures that worry about him. he doesn’t know the full story, but he’d worried about him, with the whole ‘dark slayer’ stuff, because xander had majima’s memories about unwanted sex by that point, known that was a thing, had words to describe such things. he hadn’t voiced any of them, but still, giles had noticed, which was weird, just like the worrying.
he’s shaking, he realizes as giles leads him, one hand on his shoulder. he’s also silent, which is never a sign of the good, but doesn’t quite realize how bad it is until giles starts making him hot cocoa. giles, he’s realized by observation, might not verbally or physically show his worry, but there’s a whole categorization of crises depending on what he ends up making as a drink for xander, slightly modified by what he makes for himself. there’s the kind of tea, how much sugar, and how carefully precise he is about it. hot cocoa, unless asked for, is like…code red. he snuggles into the warm blanket, takes a couple sips, and then the story jumbles out of him. or, well, something does. he repeats himself, probably, but not as much as usual when the ptsd hits him, which is an improvement. probably. he’s really not sure what he’s said, because it’s all a big mess and he’s not entirely certain all of it was even english (legit, he’s fairly sure some of that was japanese), but all giles does is sit and listen. and look the opposite of judgmental. whatever that is. compassionate, maybe? xander’s not used to that. neither is majima. that’s probably part of why he let kiryu get under his skin so much.
and then otoh-san opens his arms. they don’t hug, father and son, but today they do, as xander sobs his heartbreak into a button-up shirt, and giles is warm. he doesn’t have to say a word for xander or majima to find the comfort they needed. it feels like healing, maybe.