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He stands, in the beauty of the dusk, like the condemned up athwart on a crucifix. The light of the room is dim, almost blue, which makes it hard to catch fine details in the backscattering echo of the old mirror. The glass is of dust and smudges, and so one must peer slightly to see properly their reflection through the cracks. Servant, who does not care all too much for his appearance, does not work more than he believes wholly necessary.
His fingers trace his clavicle, so light it is only soft pads touching bone through the thin layer of stretched skin. Strands of overgrowth reach down to tickle at his collarbones as branches of snow there upon pale earth. He takes his hand—his, choicely, and not the other—to gather it up from his neck. There is irritation there, a red ring of flame and fire, a circle of hell (as rimmed as his undereyes, bruises of blue and black and purple; a byproduct, of course, of his own self-inflicted exhaustion). He lifts the tresses up to the crown of his head, watching the way the knobs turn under the flesh as he moved. For one moment he tightens his grip, considering the way his scalp and the skin of his face pulls back, the way the pain pierces the nerves. And then he lets go again, and it all falls once more to frame his waning face.
He tilts his head, turns it, watches the way the eyes in the mirror follow still with every movement. They trace down his figure, down the skin, down every line and rib and scar. They linger for a moment on the foreign body attached at the wrist, and then they come away from that too.
Behind him, there is muffled movement. Servant looks past his narrow shoulder through the mirror, and there sees the dark figure of Kamukura approaching. A calloused hand comes to the ridge of his jutting spine, running over every bump methodically. Servant feels the ink tips of Kamukura's hair grazing his skin more than his own overgrowth. There they stand in the image, the reflector, and he studies them. What are they, he wonders? The black and the white. The angel and the devil. Lucifer and Icarus. The wastrel and the orphic domine. He studies them, in the shadow and the dim, every curvature, bone, and bend, and the voice says:
"Cease this."
One corner of Servant's mouth upturns just marginally. Even so, he answers in a voice faint, "I'm sorry."
Perhaps he is sorry for a great many things. For being so ugly, so worthless, so pathetic, so needy. He thinks that, most of all, he is sorry for loving him. For intruding here, forcing his way into the wee foibles of Kamukura's otherwise imperfectionless heart and soul, and making him keep him there. He shivers slightly, as though wracked with auges, and the calloused palms of Kamukura's hands come upon the cold skin of Servant's shoulders, and he shudders again.
Kamukura says, "Come," and then he turns Servant by his shoulders and leads him toward the bed. He takes the forgotten sweater from off of the mattress and then, as though a child dressing up a doll, pulls it over the head of the other and threads his arms through the sleeves. When the fabric passes from his eyes and Servant can see once more, he smiles almost coquettishly, and Kamukura purses his lips in return. Privately, Servant enjoys when Kamukura takes care of him in these little ways, though he feels a niggling sort of guilt for it at the same time. It should not be this way, that Kamukura is the one having to treat him as though he is glass. Having to keep after him, to keep him dressed and washed and fed and watered like some kind of house plant, because Servant cannot will himself away from his own self-loathing long enough to be able to do it on his own. It is trite. It is pathetic. Servant wants to curl up and die somewhere like an abused, othered dog.
Kamukura, of course, would never allow such a thing. He jerks his chin forward, and Servant obliges, scooting back further onto the mattress and turning until the small of his back rests against the limp pillow. Kamukura walked along the edge of the bed, coming around after a second on the other side, and then taking perch next to him. He leans, and then lies, and pulls Servant gently by his arm until he is lying there with him. His ruby eyes are two wide beams in the dark, casting a beautiful light as they look up toward Servant that torpefy his feeble body where he lingers.
I love you, Servant wants to say, and it is an onerous thing to hold it back. I love you I love you I love you.
He's too scared. He is so scared. Kamukura likely knows already, anyway; to tell him would just be a nuisance of a thing. If Kamukura ever tired of him, ever grew bored enough to leave him, Servant does not know what he would do. It would be a despair unlike any other, he thinks, one perfectly befitting. But the idea that he could ever feel a hope great enough afterward to make up for it is something he cannot fathom. Would it be worth it? Would it? Not possibly, not ever.
Kamukura brings the old blanket up to cover them both, and Servant, wrought with a sudden chill, leans in to tuck himself into the other. His temple goes to rest upon the sculpted shoulder, and he feels then nimble arms curl around him as some shield. Servant shudders again, and his exhale is a soughing thing, like he is holding back some sort of scream or sob. Kamukura says nothing of it. He just holds him, and that's enough. That's all Servant could ever want, to be held like this forever. To stay here in the ebony, tucked and soft and safe. His luck cannot take this from him. He will not survive it.
He thinks about how it would feel to have those encircling arms crush him to death. Coiling and tightening slowly as a snake around its impossibly helpless prey. Each of his frail bones cracking and crushing under the pressure, stabbing him over and over and over again as he is gradually and steadily compressed. His lungs popping and deflating, leaving him at a perpetual loss for air—though, sometimes, just being around Kamukura already made him feel like that anyway.
I need you, his mind tells the air, I love you.
Servant says nothing either. He stays tucked where he is, feeling the heat of his companion's body as it rests flush against him. He feels the swath of inky hair as a shroud around him like the black wings of a fallen angel. He feels the eyes, the eyes, drinking in every detail of him from their place up above. He feels the love (do you think you understand what it means to be loved?) as it chokes him. It is saccharine. It is sickening. He is so, so sickening. He does not deserve this, this beauty, this godlike being before him. So visceral is the feeling, and Servant wants to die.
Kamukura holds him tighter, and Servant really, truly hates himself.