Work Text:
There is such a thing as city silence. That’s what Ban would call it.
The kind of noise level where it’s nowhere close to
actually
quiet, but you’ve just gotten so used to the sounds of life going on around you that you can pretend it is.
And, yes, maybe that’s not a concept you’d find in dictionaries or textbooks, but what did academic approval matter?
As sure as the brunet stood in the dead center of Shinjuku Central Park, Subaru 360 stationed illegally on one of the larger footpaths, he could prove his theory.
City silence was when he would sit at the bar of the Honky Tonk, glaring down at the plain white flip-phone he gripped tightly in his right hand, empty in all regards, hearing fading in and out to the sounds of Ginji pouting as Natsumi kicked his ass in a game of Shogi. Coffee makers beeped in the room just ahead of him, the dark liquid sloshing as it dripped into mugs that would only serve to deepen the boys’ debt.
City silence was the shuffling of papers and the bustling of cops on break down at the impound, pair of perpetually broke fools trying their best to bargain back their beloved car as best they could. Leather clicking against scuffed white tile that did nothing but radiate the annoyingly bright light of the sun back upwards into the air, pleas for forgiveness and threats of violence wafting off into oblivion along with it.
City silence was the sound of distant car horns and the gentle rush of the frigid night air through snow laden tree limbs, ones that caught most of the white flakes in its unforgiving grasp. Holding them hostage from their natural course downwards into the piles that packed the grass away below.
That last scene. Now that was pure, unadulterated city silence in a perfectly understandable example, one that Ban had the pleasure to experience almost every single night.
Not like it was totally his fault they were homeless, or anything.
Somewhere far behind the witch, a branch snaps, dropping its extra baggage to the floor as it goes.
Smoke drifts upwards from his lips and towards the car he leans against as a cold breeze blows in.
The brunet shifts his weight from his right foot to his left, crushing sleet underneath worn brown dress shoes, brain almost painfully aware of the way his beloved Ladybug’s metal flexes against his back, supporting his bony spine best it could whilst rocking slightly with the movement.
The motion comes to a rest as Ban stops moving and clicks his tongue against the inside of his teeth. Through the empty park, the sound feels like a gunshot, but somewhere in the logical recesses of his tired mind, he knows it wasn’t really that loud.
From his dying cigarette he takes a long, slow drag, barely tasting the bitter snap of nicotine as it slips through his mouth and taking the recess to quickly scold himself for so unnecessarily jostling the car. His forearms ache with frosty complaints, veins feeling as though they pumped ice back into his body rather than blood.
The last thing the witch wanted to do was wake his peacefully sleeping partner. Even if he did, he was sure that Ginji didn’t have the heart to hold it against the man for as long as he should.
If only the pair could get lucky.
Then they wouldn’t be forced to sleep in their car day in and day out.
But that’s just wishful thinking.
While the rest of the people who lived in the Shinjuku ward kept themselves locked up tight in their apartments, watching the snow fall barely outside of the windows that held them apart, those the city had forgotten were left to make the best of what they’d been given.
Not all were fortunate enough to have a traditional house to return too, especially in a town as cruel as this.
In a place where so many of its occupants were anything but normal.
That fact was represented flawlessly by Ban and Ginji themselves, right?
Stuck all by their lonesome as they did their best to make a living from the powers they’d been cursed with, only to return empty handed in spite of all their efforts.
Then again, wasn’t that also the reason that everyone was the same?
No matter how ordinary or supernatural one was, weren’t they all just trying to live in a world that couldn’t care less about you?
Life was nothing but a series of run-throughs and resets, working your ass off all day just so they could come home at night to do it all over again tomorrow.
In a way, the brunet hated it.
Hated the pointless rat race that others called an existence.
His partner, on the other hand, didn’t give a shit.
Right now, as Ban stood on one of his many cigarette breaks, the lightning-wielder lay asleep in the passenger seat. His body was curled up tightly around his polyester jacket, hugging it in his arms as though it was a plush toy, eyes closed gently over cheeks flushed a deep shade of pink by the nipping of stagnant, frozen air around him.
For only a moment, as the brunet threw his gaze over his shoulder and into their make-shift shelter, he could feel his chest stutter to a halt in its position, heart aching with the thought of taking its place by the man’s side.
Slowly running his hand through the blond’s hair as he slept, watching Ginji squirm like a dog being pampered.
Though, as quickly as the idea comes, Ban shakes it out of his head in defiance, directing his now glaring expression back out to the park in front of him, before blowing out another cloud of smoke that drifted up into the darkened night sky above him.
Against his umber shaded hair, little flakes of snow catch like fish to a net, his deep blue eyes locking themselves onto a tree branch hovering in the distance.
It’s going to give out any moment now, he can tell, crack under the pressure of the heavy white weight it holds.
He exhales.
The notion of sleep wavering in the witch’s mind like a carrot on a stick, countered nearly immediately by another thought that just won’t go away.
Frigid air and the taste of tobacco fill the empty space of his lungs.
The limb creaks, sound splitting through the so-called silence of the night like an earthquake severs the earth, a stark contrast to the rumble of cars tearing across asphalt and the hum of fluorescent street lamps.
A few flakes drift gracefully to the ground, joining their companions after a long waited layover, accompanied by chunks of bark that fall in a more reckless fashion.
A huff, short and snappy.
One breath in.
And a coughing fit retches up from his lungs, violently wracking his entire body.
The second it starts, Ban can feel his knees buckle ever so slightly underneath his weight, frame doubling over on itself as it throws itself forward, raking his throat with uncontrollable hacks and chokes. Fresh scratches only serve to soak up cigarette smoke, burning his lungs in a way the brunet could only faintly remember happening back when he’d first picked up the habit.
Against his back he no longer feels the support of his Ladybug, and from his lips he can feel his cancer stick rip away with his right hand.
Darkness surrounds him for just a moment as he fumbles a few steps farther across the snow laden sidewalk, steps crunching faint underfoot till he drops to his hands and knees in the sea of white.
Left wrist meets his lips as his body continues to retch, both colder than the landscape around him, and soon enough he manages to calm the irritation in his chest.
So much for being quiet.
Tightly shut eyes ease open, strained by the stark pale pallet he now straddles, breath catching up in his heaving chest.
All he can manage is to stare down at his fallen, crumpled cigarette with pity and annoyance as it bore a hole into the snow it sat on with a soft sizzle.
A shaky breath, hand dropping from his mouth, now pulled back into a deep thin line, Ban pushes himself upwards to a position where he sits on his knees. As he stretches, each one of his vertebrae pops, eerily clear in the air of the wee hours of the night.
Well, shit.
There went his night plans, only half finished, now lying in a soggy patch of white. All because he’d managed to inhale wrong.
What was he saying about luck again?
The witch manages to, surprisingly, suppress a long exasperated grumble by simply gritting his teeth and squeezing his gaze shut, body starting to whine about his all too traditional way of situating, when he remembers the tree he was so focused on.
His eyes open.
Something red stairs the bottom of his vision, where his left wrist hovers in midair.
Something that he cannot get his attention to turn from.
It’s blood.
Bright, wet, bubbly blood that rolls over the tight freezing pale skin of his hand and down his arm like droplets of rain, before finding its way onto the snow below, dripping softly in a dodgy pattern around his lost cigarette. It’s warm, warmer than anything else he’d felt that night, save for the fire in his cancer stick, in a sickly sort of way, and the signature tang of copper only very barely tinges the air.
Ban’s expression doesn’t change a bit.
All he does is grimace, flick his hand, watching as a shower of crimson stains even more of the white piles around him, and heft himself to his feet, licking away any of the remaining red that so stubbornly refused to vacate his skin as though he was a dog.
What did it matter, anyways?
This was his punishment, the witch had decided long ago when he’d first had this symptom.
One that he was awarded with for just being him.
Smoking was bad for you, and yet, he couldn’t help himself.
A vice that would eventually bring him to his knees,
That’s what he’d been told, at least.
But, it was a bridge he could work with when he got there, not in the upset headspace he currently found himself wading through.
No, for now, he was going to lay down in the driver's seat of his Subaru 360, roll over to watch his partner for a moment more, then close his eyes and drift off to sleep.
Tomorrow, they’d wake up like nothing had ever happened.
Ginji would complain that he was hungry, and Ban would remind the blond that they had no money.
They’d go over to the Honky Tonky, loitering at the counter while Master childed them for not picking up a real job before they ended up starving.
Natsumi would look at them with so much pity in her big, black eyes, that the GetBackers would consider it, for a single, fleeting second, before fighting back.
Hevn would bring them a request far too dangerous for their liking.
And they would take it.
Because that was life.
And, hey, it had to end eventually, right?
So why not Ban be the first to go.
“Ah, Ban-chan..?”
Ginji’s voice scales over the side of the car he crouches behind, brown puppy dog stare fixated on something in the snow.
The witch raises his head, letting his scalp rest on the cool metal roof of his Ladybug as his own gaze drifts lazily to his friend. His biceps lean heavily against its frame, and his small glasses drop to the bridge between his eyebrows from where they sit tightly on his nose.
“Hmm, what is it?”
“There’s something over here.”
The blond’s tone is always one of gentle care, though now he seems more concerned than usual, posture hunched in such deep examination, Ban starts to feel the embers of interest caress the recesses of his mind.
“It’s dark.”
Touge rolls over his lips, fingers rapping against the driver’s side window, memory firing up events from the night before.
Ban doesn’t make a move.
“I’m sure it’s nothing, man. Come on, let’s go see Paul.”
Ginji doesn’t respond, and though the brunet can’t see it, he’s got his eyes zeroed in on a single thing that’s different from the stain in the snow.
It’s a crumpled cigarette.
Cars barely wheel forwards in the distance, loud honks echoing from crowded skyscrapers of glass as the few birds that remain in the park sing their faint song. People have started to arrive at the park, milling about with hushed conversations or excited childish shrieks as they rush through the snow.
There’s a rather large branch that needs the city’s attention lying on the ground some twenty feet away.
“Oi.” Ban’s lips stretch into a grimace, cancer stick smoldering between his index and middle fingers.”Ginji.”
A breath.
“Okay!”
The lighting-wielder pops his head up and around, casting a wide smile over his shoulder as he moves to stand up, blond hair ruffling in the morning breeze.
His attitude is infectious, as much as the brunet would like to deny it.
And for Ginji himself, he decides that he’ll bring up the topic some other time.
Life wouldn’t end over a little bit of blood, right?