phantomrose96:
modmad:
sandflakedraws:
//scrapped scene i still wanted to get out of my system
(Context of these all)
Teruki Hanazawa had waited on a frost-fringed bench for over
an hour. He’d called Reigen at six, right as the sun started to dip and dye the
sky red, because he’d picked up on the aura of a revenant circling the
fountain. Reigen had sounded groggy on the phone, but he had said he was
coming.
That was an hour ago. It was seven now, and the sun was only
a faint burgundy stain on the edge of the horizon, a weak warmth against the
frost setting in. Teru stood, running his hands along the backs of his legs
which had shot numb with the cold, and fought down the shiver that racked his
body. The revenant was still twirled around the fountain statue, but Teru was
not allowed to exorcise it, not without Reigen present. Teru wasn’t allowed to
use his powers at all without Reigen’s supervision; that had been their agreement—or
perhaps, his punishment.
“Do you think it’ll go anywhere?” Teru glanced over his
shoulder, to the blue tinted spirit wrapping and unwrapping his tail from the
bench’s armrest. The spirit shook his head. His aura was bright in the
darkness, a sort of invisible brightness that could be sensed, not seen. He cast
no light.
“Is it possible Reigen fell asleep?” Teru asked.
The spirit shrugged, and the scrunch around his eyes seemed
to hint at a smile, though the spirit had no mouth. He could not speak, only
gesture, and nod, and answer with pulses of his aura. It was a shame—there were
so many things Teru would ask the boy if he could answer.
“He has a tendency to fall asleep at his desk,” Teru said,
filling in for both sides of the conversation. He grabbed his bag, hitched it
over his shoulder, and exhaled deeply. “We should go find him.”
The spirit nodded.
(Or maybe it was
better this way—Teru was terrified of the answers he might receive, knowing
more about this boy’s life that he..
That he…
That he….)
…
The Spirits and Such Office was locked when Teru arrived. He
used his own key to get in, and found the office space dark and deathly cold.
It meant Reigen hadn’t been in today. The heat would be lingering otherwise—the
temperate chill of an office slowly exhaling the heat that had been churned
through it during the day. Iciness meant no one had been inside today.
Mo—the spirit on Teru’s shoulder motioned for Teru’s
attention. He pointed to the window, a specific direction down the eastern
sidewalk. He jabbed a few times, for emphasis.
“Do you know where Reigen lives?” Teru asked.
The spirit nodded.
It was a fifteen minute walk passed in silence. The spirit
had to be quiet. Teru made the choice to. He watched the last of the sun bleed
away, and he ignored the sting of dark cold winds biting through the fabric of
his uniform. He used to tweak the air temperature around him, a simple source
or sink of his psychic energy was enough to augment the temperature. But Teru
was not allowed to use his powers, so he did nothing but endure it, shiver by
shiver.
The spirit stopped, gesturing to the building two ahead of
them. It was an apartment building stacked high beside identical neighbors, its
suites labeled 200-300. M—the spirit stopped gesturing, and with his right
index finger he traced the number 262 through
the air.
Teru tried the front door of the building. It was locked.
“I don’t have a key.”
The spirit swooped lower, pointing to the keypad bolted on
the right side of the door. With the same unreal finger, he hit the keys 5 2 6 9 6. Then he repeated the pattern,
and nothing happened of course, because his fingers could not touch the keys. They
could not touch anything. Teru stepped in; the spirit stepped aside; Teru
pressed out the sequence 5 2 6 9 6, and
the front door clicked.
His footsteps echoed in the stairwell, walls paved in
concrete, and painted over a dark mahogany. The steps were coated in a ridged
plastic matting for traction. It smelled damp, musty, only a few degrees warmer
than the outside, and dark. Each landing gave way to a hall of doors, red rug
running the length of the hall. Teru hugged the right wall, and followed the
stairs still spiraling up at each landing. Floor 3, floor 4, floor 5… Reigen’s
should be ne—
Teru jolted at the visceral feeling of a hand gripping his
back. Little finger nails dug into his skin, bunched the fabric in a panicked
vice. The contact sent a cascade of shivers down Teru’s spine—contact with
spirits always did.
“What… What?” Teru
asked, but then he felt it too. This small, budding spiritual energy. It was
heavily buffeted, as if smothered beneath three blankets, but it pulsed out all
the same. “Oh, I feel it too… Though it feels weak. Once we find Reigen, I’ll
be capable of exorcising it.”
M—The spirit’s grip tightened, yanking. His other hand,
small and wispy, pointed further up the stairs—or at the stairs, just around the bend. Teru kept moving, a budding question on his
lips over what could possibly be so distressing to a spirit who–
Then Teru understood.
It came into vision first as just a shape across the steps,
something lanky and wiry, and his brain refused to process it as a person at
first, not with how it contorted to the stairs. But then it was. Shoes, one
half slipped-off, bathed in a cut of light from the hall. Legs and a belt and a
torso, the edges of stairs digging into soft flesh, ridged at the stomach, and
below his ribcage, and beneath his collarbone. Arms flopped forward, head
limped against a single step, open phone splayed a few steps lower.
“Master Reigen!”
Teru dropped his bag, and he fell to his knees in front of
the man. His hands went out, and he hesitated. His breath hitched at the sight,
hands out and hovering over the body of someone slipped into unconsciousness.
Was he breathing? Was he breathing? Had Teru’s hands–?
“Mm?” Reigen cracked
one eye open, though he stared at nothing in particular.
“Reigen!” Teru’s hands unlocked, and he wrapped his right
one around Reigen’s wrist. (Just the wrist. Only the wrist. Lightly, so blood
could still–) Teru’s head twisted to the spirit hovering, twitching frantic,
over his shoulder. “Has this happened before? His skin’s flushed. Is he—does Master
Reigen get sick? Does he get drunk? Does he ever–?”
“Hmm? Oh, no ’m
fine. Jus’ on m’ way…. Terrible head cold. Lost…. Wow, stairs.” Reigen flopped his
free arm out. Teru grabbed it, pulling Reigen close and adjusting so that Teru
could support Reigen on his shoulders. Cautiously, Teru stood, and Reigen
barely followed. “Headrush… wow… ‘m fine. ‘m fi… Heh,
sorry to worry you… Mob.”
Teru’s grip slipped just a fraction, and Reigen’s cloudy
eyes went wide, and he turned to Teru with the expression of a wounded animal. “Oh,”
he whispered, just once, in almost-sober devastation. And his eyes focused now
on Teru. “Teru! Ah… stairs still, hmm, s-sorry. Sorry I was… f-forget I said.
Dizzy, still, just thought (wow I was on the stairs) just felt like… my mistake…
your hands, were the same size.”
Teru had stopped listening. His attention shifted to the
spirit no longer hovering at his shoulder. The spirit had drifted to the open
phone, its screen still bright, open to some chat log. Teru wouldn’t have paid
much mind if it weren’t for the way the spirit recoiled, pulled his translucent
hands to the place his mouth should be and pressed them there.
So Teru dragged Reigen closer to the phone. He could just
barely see. A single black word crested the top—Mob. And it was followed by a
stream of one-sided texts, unanswered, dated from today. Most of the words were
misspelled, sent by someone barely conscious. Something like On my way. Something like Wait for me. Something like I’m so so sorry.
Mo-…The spirit looked up, and his small eyes widened to
perfect blank circles, an expression Teru learned to read as shock. And he
pointed again, frantic once more, to the man slung on Teru’s shoulder.
“What…? What?” Teru
tried. He looked Reigen over again, then the spirit who could only point and
gesture. “What is–?”
Then Teru felt it—the faint spiritual presence, a buffered
and suffocated sensation, was leaking from Reigen. Teru’s breathing stopped,
his every nerve alight to the feeling. He’d felt that once before. The
sensation of a spirit leaking bit by bit from a person, in the ruins of the
Black Vinegar school, knives splayed by his feet, air leaking from the windpipe
beneath his fingers, and life leaking, life leaking…
“Reigen, Reigen listen to me. I need to call an ambulance for
you. You are very sick. I need to put you down—look, please work with me,
Master Reigen. I’ll need my hands to get my phone. Stay still, sit up, you’ll
be alright so long as I—I’ll call this time. I’ll call this time. There’s still
time.”
Teru set Reigen down, back propped to the wall, and he dug
into his pocket for his phone. Reigen wasn’t a ghost yet; he wasn’t dead yet;
Teru wouldn’t make the same mistake now. He’d call for help. No one else needed
to die.
“…Mob?” Reigen
whispered, quiet and awestruck.
Teru shook his head. “It’s Teru. I’m Teru. Just hang in
there. I’m calling—“
Teru stopped. He looked down at Reigen now, and found their
eyes did not meet. Reigen was not looking at him. Instead Reigen’s eyes focused
a few steps down, just above his phone, where the little blue spirit hovered.
“Mob, is that you…?”Reigen whispered, and his voice cracked.
The spirit covered the mouth he didn’t have, eyes creasing in pain. Reigen’s
head twitched to Teru now, cloudy eyes blazing into Teru. “Teru, is that Mob?!”
Teru swallowed. His phone shook in his hand, and he nodded. “…Yeah.
That’s Mob.”
Reigen leaned back, his breathing forcibly steady as he
stared at the spirit. He swallowed, huffed out a small noise, and cracked a
slight smile through the tears budding in his eyes. “It’s uh…probably not a
good thing that I can see you, huh, Mob…? I’m…I’m glad to see you, though. I’m
so…”
Then his head dropped, his hands rising to cover his entire
face as he hiccupped out sobs, curling in on his feverish self. The spirit shot
forward, hovering at first above Reigen, before wrapping his arms around Reigen’s
shoulders and squeezing, digging in, pulling Reigen into a hug the man could
feel, given the way he gasped at contact and shivered.
Reigen went stiff, eyes opening to find the little blue
spirit wrapped to his shoulders. Shaking, Reigen raised his own arms, and he
pressed them into the blue spirit’s back. “Cold… Gosh, you’re cold. Probably
not a good sign either…that I can touch you… huh…?” And he hugged tighter,
until his form broke down into heaving sobs. The spirit trembled too, rocking
with the motion.
Teru blinked. And blinked again. Tears warped his vision
over and over. His stomach twisted into knots, a deeper and harsher pain than
anything physical he’d felt, something that seemed to stop his breathing all
together.
Teru opened his mouth. “I’m sorr—“
“I’m sorry, Mob,” Reigen whispered into the crook of the
spirit’s arm. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I let– Do you… You don’t have to
but, do you forgive me? Can you…?”
The phone clicked to life in Teru’s shaking hands. “What’s your emergency?”
“We—my boss is sick.
Very sick. we need an ambulance. We need an ambulance sent to…”
Teru read out the address from memory, teary eyes still
locked on the spirit and Reigen. Reigen’s question seemed to hang, and the
spirit pulled back, took Reigen’s face in his hands, and he—the spirit—Mob—nodded.
A silent nod, because he could answer with nothing else.
Reigen smiled through a fresh onslaught of tears, his cheeks
flushed deeper, that spilling aura still leaking off him, bit by bit. “Ah, I’m
glad. I’m so glad. I’m so—“
He pulled Mob back into the hug, silent, strong. Mob
returned the hug, and they sat like that—Reigen feverish and propped to the
wall—sinking into each other’s comfort. Reigen chose to say nothing, since Mob
couldn’t, and smiled through the rocking motion of the hug they’d locked
themselves in.
Teru stepped back, stood with his back to the opposite wall,
and he forced himself to watch. He forced himself to come to terms with it. It
wasn’t his place to look away. He couldn’t. He needed to know. It was only
fair, to Reigen, to Mob. Not the spirit on his shoulder, but Mob.
The minutes slipped away. As Reigen’s strength returned in
pieces, and his trembling lessened, and the leaking energy from his body slowed
to a mere trickle, Mob began to slip through his fingers. His hold loosened
until he was grasping near nothingness, something just barely there in his arms
when the paramedics bounded up the six flights of stairs.