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Even with Rin's flames, it was hard to see on the unexpected battlefield. They were still miles from their intended location—a practical study retreat gone terribly wrong. The snow storm had been unexpected, but it had still taken them too long to recognize that it was a demon—and once they had realized that it was supernatural in origin, it had still taken too long to figure out that the snow was the demon itself—or demons, aggregated drifts and clumps of snow acting cooperatively, until it felt like the whole forest, muffled and near-silent, was their enemy. And potentially it was. They'd exorcized half a dozen individual demons, but they seemed to be acting together; they seemed to be learning.
The eerie glow of Rin's flames reflected off the flakes, until everything around him was dazzling white-blue, light bouncing off crystals in the air and on the ground and coating the trees; he was panting and wild-eyed, naked sword in hand but he couldn't find a target.
And he'd lost them. Straining, he listened—yelling had been useless. His flames weren't melting the snow, even though the tree bark beneath and behind him had split and blistered under the heat. He still felt warm, in his school jacket—he didn't really get cold anymore, he thought, he'd been trying not to think about it and it looked weird to walk around without a jacket in the winter—but he also thought that the temperature around him had been dropping steadily.
His back was prickling: the uncomfortable awareness that he was surrounded and alone, and more important, under that, the screaming fear of not knowing where his brother was, the other students—his brother, who saved him, but who sometimes needed saving.
His ears pricked up at a distant, faint sound—
“Damn!” he cursed, losing it, jumping wildly away from the tree, crashing towards the ground before he caught himself—claw-tip last-minute, his body suited for this and it was, it was a tool—it was—something he could use, something he could be comfortable with because it kept him from the ground, alive with snow, snow moving like hungry rivers, the forest flooded.
And his ears, demon-sharp—he thought, he guessed this was what a demon heard—had caught a noise so he pursued it, breath ragged and his movement slowed by necessary slashes at waves of snow, the power he had growing familiar to him but Shura's sheer skill still beyond him, trying to keep to the trees.
When he realized it was Shiemi calling his name, Shiemi and Yukio, Yukio's voice cutting in intermittently with the command and force that meant he was desperate, Rin's speed doubled.
He slowed before dropping down next to them in a crouch—the ground oddly bare where they were standing, the six of them, Yukio's gun still in his hands but lowered—he was a demon, after all. Satan-blue. His brother—Yukio—had thought that Rin would attack him. Not that he thought that he could surprise his brother, startle him into shooting him—not while he was a beacon. Yukio could only shoot him on purpose like this. But he didn't want to surprise them.
Shiemi turned to look at him as he landed, then turned again to shield her eyes against the glare of his light, so much stronger than the weak moonlight filtering in—somehow—from overhead.
Looking up, it was cloudless above them. Wincing, Rin went to sheathe his sword.
“There's a temple,” Yukio was saying, steely and professional, eyes scanning the trees, looking away from him. “We're going to wait overnight and—”
“Fuck!” Rin said, eyes going wide and horrified, patting himself down again—flames swirling where his fingers interrupted them—flames that hadn't disappeared because his sword's sheath was gone. Not the sword, but the sheath.
“—Rin, you incompetent...!”
“Fuck,” he whispered again, everyone staring at him in disbelief—Shiemi an exception, her eyes downcast and arms wrapped tightly around herself and she'd gone shivering and pale, and Konekomaru was no better, and—
“My sheath,” Rin said, shaky, his sword held limp, down-pointed, but still wreathed in flames—like his head, his horns, the lashing tip of his tail and abruptly—realizing—he wrapped it tightly around his leg, out of the way. He couldn't—
“You need to be more careful,” Yukio said, tight and controlled and not looking at him. “Rin, you're going to—”
“Fuck you, too!” Rin snapped, flaring brighter for a second and—he took a step back, feeling sick. “I know where you are now, you're—safe, I'll go get—”
“No,” Suguro said suddenly, arms crossed and brows furrowed. “Rin, you can't just do everything on your own, you selfish bastard! Satan's powers or not, you can't just go back out there, I've never even heard of a demon like this. We'll go.”
“Speak for yourself!” Izumo snapped, voice high and tight with fear. “I'm not going to risk my life, Bon—”
“You'll freeze to death,” Yukio said immediately, talking like sensei, not like their friend—ordering. It was a declaration. “Rin's the only one not facing immediate hypothermia.” His own shoulders had a fine, slight tremor visible, his gun shaking slightly, even his lips gone pale with cold.
“You can't let your brother—let Rin go out alone!” Konekomaru gasped, turning to stare at Yukio, betrayed, and Rin opened his mouth, closed it, overwhelmed and—
The silence was heavy, every scrap of sound caught in the muffling blanket of snow, surrounding them on all sides of their little sanctuary. Rin's shoulders slumped, defeated.
“No point,” Rin said, voice tight—too tight. His eyes burned and prickled, but at least they were dry. He'd say it if his brother wouldn't. “If I don't have the sheathe—there's no point.” He licked dry lips, opened his mouth to speak again, scenting the air as he did because it was an instinct like this, this was what he was. Who he was: not at all human. He snapped his mouth shut again, tongue automatically going to touch the exaggerated point of his teeth. Fangs. “I'll find it!”
His bravado sounded thin and unconvincing even to his own ears. Ears that were pulled back tight in fear and shame and horror, like a dog—or like a demon. Not human. Rin didn't know what he'd do if one of them—attacked him. He knew—he was supposed to be killing things like himself. He was supposed to be...
An exorcist.
“No,” Shiemi said, horrified, and Rin hunched in a little closer on himself, then snapped out of it to square his shoulders. He didn't need to be ashamed of what he was. Because he was different—he wasn't Satan, he wasn't just any demon, he would use what he was as a weapon and he couldn't hide it, what he was.
Half the group flinched. Yukio's hand twitched towards his weapon, and Rin shivered; nothing to do with the cold.
Shimei was squeezing Izumo's hand so tightly it looked painful, fear stamped on her face, and that was enough to convince Rin to just go. It would be better than this, the bitter aluminum taste of fear flooding his mouth, his own terrible awareness of the flames he barely felt licking his skin, his naked sword—he couldn't even put it away, he was a threat, Yukio knew it. Yukio, who'd grown up with him, his brother, who was ready to kill him and thought that Rin would do the same to him.
“You won't find it in the snow,” Izumo said, voice shaking and imperial in equal measure. “It'll be covered by now. We—”
“Rin,” Shiemi said, pleading, eyes downcast. “Stay with us—we can, we can defeat the demon, and then find your sheathe.”
Rin's hands were clenched hard enough that his nails—not nails, claws—pierced his skin, deep enough to draw blood. His blood hissed against the frozen ground as it dripped, hot enough to melt a hole in the snow and ice.
He didn't look at Yukio. “I'll leave,” he repeated, before his brother had to say it. Before he had to hear his brother send him away. It wasn't like he had anything—like this. Anything. Fury was boiling in his blood, stronger and hotter than it ever was with his sword sheathed, when he was being suppressed, but he couldn't tell how much of it was. Other things.
Fear, grief, self-disgust.
“Don't be stupid, Rin,” Yukio snapped, his own voice shaking a little. --He wasn't any older than the rest of them. “Come on. We need to start a fire, find shelter—what food supplies do we have?”
As the group patted down pockets and bags, sticking in tight clusters as they headed towards the temple, Yukio reached out, like he was ready to clap Rin on the arm, hug him even. Because he'd been afraid. For Rin. But then he stopped cold, and Rin clenched his teeth so hard he knew Yukio could hear them grit. Yukio had been afraid for Rin—and now he had just a demon.
Yukio waited for Rin to start walking, and when Rin realized that, he went silently. He wanted to shout about it, scream, throw a few punches—his own brother, unwilling to have Rin at his back. But instead, trying desperately to be safe for his—friends, the remains of his family—he just walked, sword held loosely in his hand, point-down. His footprints were melted into the ground.
The temple was clearly abandoned, and clearly the reason for the bubble of calm: Yukio investigated swiftly. All Rin could see was an old wooden building, falling apart, just as frozen inside as out, a little more protected. He was too aware of his space, his skin, the looks directed his way, the way he was left out of the small murmurs of conversation, ignored. Again. Rin slipped in through the temple door, and circled wide, clinging close to the edges, settling in the back of the space—just a single large room, dark and full of the smell of ice and disuse.
No reason to make them feel penned in. He wouldn't get in between the rest of them and the door—even if he wanted to guard it. He wanted to keep them safe, and he was more pressing a concern than whatever else had trapped them.
It was worse, that they'd all started to get more comfortable with Rin, knowing what he was. That they'd begun to relax, include him, like nothing had changed. And now when it was pushed into their face, just what kind of monster their classmate was, they couldn't—
He settled into the corner, slumping against the walls and pulling his legs up, wrapping his arms tightly around him, hiding his face. Still no tears—could he cry like this? Could demons cry—but he'd bitten his lip, sliced it open with razored teeth, and a few drops of blood dripped onto his pants. Part of him wished he was crying.
“Even the matches won't light,” Yukio said, grimly. “We won't be able to start a fire. Huddle close.”
Rin watched them pile up, uncomfortably aware of his own comfort—he couldn't feel the cold. He just had his school coat, his heavier jacket dropped in the fight—maybe by his sheathe—but not something he needed anyway. He didn't make any move to join them.
(He wanted an excuse—it was painful in his throat. He'd watched—he'd spent so long fighting and he'd been marked because of it, not physically, but his classmates had avoided him and he'd never had friends and everyone had always been at least a little afraid of him. With, it turned out, good reason. Now his brother saw him as a threat, too. Now his friends—
(That wasn't the point. He wanted an excuse. To curl up next to Yukio as closely as they had as kids, to get into a shoving elbow fight like Izumo and Bon and Shima were, to be a part of it. Of them. But he was flaring blue, giving an evil otherworldly shine to the dark temple, and he couldn't.)
It was easy to gaze at the dirt, exhaustion and the dull ache of strained muscles and bruises matched by the thick moldy taste of resignation in his mouth. His ears twitched when he caught the footsteps, headed towards him, but it took him a moment longer to register it, to look up in surprise.
He flinched back enough to smack his head into the wall when he looked up to catch Shiemi's gaze.
“Oh! Careful,” she said, reaching forward, and that made Rin push himself even further back, until she caught herself, dropping her hand, mortified. “I'm sorry,” she said.
“No,” he spat, harsh enough to make her pull back; he could have punched himself. “No, I—Shiemi, I'm dangerous.”
She brightened, making Rin pause in confusion. He looked over—Yukio watching them like a hawk, Izumo's sharp concern biting into him—and then back at her: not quite relaxed, but her shoulders loose, open.
“Rin—it's you, I know! You can't be dangerous.”
“I'm—”
“You're worried about us, right?"
Rin flinched again, bitter and ashamed. Yes, he was worried for them—worried for himself, stuck as a monster, but he wasn't going to freeze to death—selfish. Maybe he was a bigger danger to his classmates than the storm itself, made of demons, had been. He was afraid of burning Shiemi—of burning any of them—with unholy flames and a too-quick temper and not nearly enough humanity no matter how much he tried.
“It's my own fault for being so fucking stupid,” Rin said, voice harsh, too loud. “Just ask Yukio. It'd—” His voice closed off, too bitter, too angry, too afraid. “It'd be better if—”
Maybe he had been supposed to die. Maybe it would have been better-- maybe his father wouldn't have— and Yukio would still have him, then, and whatever Rin could do, he was just a destructive monster, constantly fucking up—
He closed his eyes and tried to settle his breath, tried to cling to whatever shreds of good temper he still had. Not much. Tried not to think about accidentally burning innocent Shiemi, too good for him, too good to him.
“You should—go stay warm,” Rin said.
“But—I'm worried if you're warm enough, Rin!” Shiemi said, and Rin bit down hard enough on his tongue that he tasted blood—but that was easier, with his shark-sharp devil's teeth, wasn't it?
“I'm fine,” Rin said, voice full of enough hurt that he knew it wasn't convincing at all. But maybe Shiemi would be willing to take the excuse—that's what it was, something to let her back off, get away.
“Rin?” She asked, voice a question, eyes hurt and unsure when Rin dragged his gaze up to meet hers—he had to look away again almost instantly.
“I can't get cold,” Rin said, harshly. It was a declaration, because he hadn't been sure, before—he'd been ignoring it, in the crisp winter weather, when it was something he could ignore—but now, he was watching Yukio over Shiemi's shoulder, trying to hide how badly he was shivering. (Maybe trying to hide it specifically from Rin, because Rin was a threat, and Yukio wouldn't be able to aim well, with his hands shaking. And Rin had a naked blade, and cursed flames, and was so obviously—what he was.) He could see Shiemi's fingers, almost blue, and the chilled paleness of her lips. Izumo wasn't even saying a word about clinging to her classmates, personal space erased. Rin just wasn't human enough to freeze. Maybe, if he had his sheathe, but probably not. “...You should go get warm.”
“Do you want to join us?” She asked, very carefully—reaching out again, but not nearly close enough to touch him. Rin closed his eyes, opened them but couldn't bring himself to look up.
“I'm a demon,” he said—growled—too harsh, hating himself. He tried not to punch his claws back into the half-healed wounds on his palm from the last time he'd made a fist, he didn't want to start bleeding again. It would scare Shiemi. More than he already was. She'd drawn back, so clearly upset. “You shouldn't worry about me.”
He wanted, so badly, to be curled up with his classmates. To be a part of it—to be included—to be as human as they were. As capable of goodness.
The most Rin had ever managed was less badness. People had called him demonspawn before—long before—he'd ever known.
Maybe even like that, he would have been able to be a cook—done something with his life that his father would have—not been proud of, that was Yukio, but wouldn't have been disappointed by. His dad would have been happy for him. With a job (until he lost it when he lost his temper) and something he could do to contribute. He'd loved cooking for his family—for his dad, for Yukio. For anyone, really, but them especially. He was happy for the times he still got to cook for Yukio.
(But the son of Satan couldn't be a chef.)
“But Rin—”
“I'm going to hurt you!” he yelled, flames flaring with his temper, finally at the flash point—ready to fight even though part of him was horrified, because this was Shiemi, who really didn't treat him like—she treated him like he was a person—
She jumped back and her ankle twisted underneath her, and Rin had just enough time to see her face—surprised, alarmed, afraid—as she went backwards.
“Shit!” Rin spat, already in motion, grabbing for her without even thinking, just enough foresight not to sink his claws into her arms, but not enough— “Fuck, fuck, no—”
He let her go—she dropped the rest of the short distance to the ground with a whimper, eyes squeezed tightly closed, and Rin backed up, horrified—unable to look at her, afraid of the burns he'd see. Unable to look away from Yukio, his gun aimed squarely at Rin's head.
“No—no, it was an accident, she—”
“Yukio!” —that was Shiemi's voice, and Rin shuddered, eyes slipping closed, hands loose and empty—oh, his sword must be on the floor. He couldn't watch his brother shoot him. (It was the right thing to do, wasn't it?) His brother—he hadn't been willing to kill his brother, but his brother had thought he was. Yukio was prepared to. To put him down like a rabid dog, something he'd loved that had been lost.
“Yukio, no!”
“Shiemi, get out of the way,” Yukio demanded, voice even.
“No—he didn't hurt me! It's not—I told you I touched his flames before, and it was warm! Rin's not—Rin wouldn't hurt us! Yukio—”
“Get out of the way,” Rin said, eyes widening—there was Shiemi, in front of him, arms flung out, as if to protect him—horns and flames and tail and ears and everything else, and she was willing to protect him. Even though his grand claim that he'd be good enough to make up for what he was—useful enough to justify his continued demon existence—had failed over and over.
“Rin, look,” Shiemi said, and she turned and held out—unburned arms, smooth even skin, shaking but not hurt except for a thin scratch that had to be from one of Rin's stray claws.
He collapsed to his knees, still staring, because his flames could burn the flesh of demons, and they'd—they should have left her burned down to the muscle, charred black and not bleeding only because of the cauterization.
Slowly, Yukio lowered his gun—holstered it. Rin bowed his head, let his hair fall in front of his face, wishing—uselessly, fucking useless—that he still had his sword's sheath.
“It's—warm,” Shiemi said, faith absolute. “I knew—Rin, you won't hurt us! You take care of us.”
She held out her hand to him again, delicate fingers with a gardener's callouses, and Rin stared at it, unable to move. Unable to move back when she reached forward anyway, and wrapped one arm around him, then the other, kneeling beside him.
“No,” Rin protested, weakly. Confused, aching. “Shiemi—”
“They're your flames,” she whispered into his ear, like that meant something. Of course—he was Satan's son, of course— Then, surer and louder, talking to everyone, she repeated herself. “They're Rin's flames, not Satan's flames—I know Rin wouldn't hurt us. It's just—warm.”
“Warm,” Yukio repeated, carefully. Then seemed to focus, suddenly a leader, their protector, again. “Shiemi—please step away.”
“Don't hurt him, Yukio,” Shiemi pleaded, and Rin swallowed bile.
Carefully, his brother's hand landed on his shoulder, and Rin shuddered hard even though he'd heard the approach, his ears telling him so much more like this. His nose, even—he could smell Yukio, so close to his own smell but so very, very human. Part of Rin was still waiting for screams.
“You're our only chance,” Yukio said, very quietly, and Rin tried not to let the anger touch him, tried not let himself be swamped in furious grief.
“I can't start a fire,” Rin snapped, neck craned away from the gentle fingertips on his shoulder, blue flames dancing over skin, casting a strange, unhealthy shadow over it. “I'm a dissap—”
“No, stupid,” Yukio said—so almost like the brother he'd been once upon a time—and Rin made a hurt, wounded-animal sort of noise. “No, you're warm—”
Rin stared at him. But it was Shiemi who clarified, reaching down to tug him up with gentle hands, pulling him over to the others—until Rin stopped dead, suddenly frozen, not willing to throw himself at people who were afraid of him, people he might hurt—
“Come on,” Yukio said again, pushing him down, a firm hand on his neck that lingered. His sword was still on the other side of the room. Well. He couldn't bring a naked blade into the middle of his classmates—he'd hurt them.
He thought that he was the sort of weapon that couldn't be—
“You are warm,” Izumo muttered, apparently disgusted, but those were her slim hands on the back of his neck—not cold against his skin, since he couldn't—feel cold, anymore, but he could tell they were cooler. A shaved head prickled against his arm, and that was Suguro's arm around him—Yukio settling so he was leaning against his shoulder, not entangled like the rest of them—keeping his arms free to shoot, protecting all of them. And Shiemi settling in front of him, with a contented sigh, leaning into his arms.
His eyes were prickling again, and Rin bit his lip, squeezing his eyes shut—he couldn't move very much, too afraid of disturbing the tangle of people wrapped around him. The people trusting him—he could hear each individual heartbeat, hear the hush of breath moving in an out of lungs. Yukio hadn't curled up with him like this—too long.
“What's wrong?” Shiemi asked him, sleepily.
“I shouldn't—”
“Shhh,” she told him, very kindly, then blushing at herself. “I'm sorry, Rin! I mean—we know you. We trust you.”
“You shouldn't,” Rin said, certain of that. His throat contracted, almost cutting off his words. “I—”
“No,” Yukio said, suddenly. “We—I should have trusted you.”
“I'm covered in Satan's flames,” Rin hissed, angry—he didn't even know who at—but not willing to explode, he wouldn't, with Shiemi's breath damp against his shirt, the rise and fall of Bon's chest against his side. The smell of Yukio, familiar even though it was different and so much stronger when he was the demon he was inside—
“Rin's flames,” Shiemi corrected him, gentle but immovable. “To protect us.”
…He was a demon. It would have been better—safer—if he'd never been born. His father would still be alive. He'd thought he'd become an exorcist to make up for some of the evil he was. He hadn't thought...
He hadn't thought there'd ever be any good to him. He'd just hoped to make up for some of the evil.
The tears in his eyes finally started to spill, and Rin fastened his teeth (demon's teeth) in his lip to keep from making any noise, shifting until he could cover his eyes with the balls of his hands, pressing in so tight that rainbows burst across the darkness of his lids.
Izumo muttered something unpleasant, and wriggled even closer—slipping an arm around Shiemi, her head pressing into Rin's thigh as she slipped sideways. Shiemi's fingers squeezed comfortingly around his ankle. That was—Suguro, pushing a handkerchief at his face.
Yukio, wordlessly close to him. Rin could only hope—dream—that it lasted. But he wasn't going to hope for too much. (Demons were greedy.)
His flames were dancing over all of them, almost like foxfire but more menacing. Except that—
They were keeping his... friends safe. His classmates, his friends, his brother.
Rin tried to keep from crying, and failed, and let himself wrap an arm around Konekomaru and lean into Yukio—his hand was on Shiemi's shoulder, Shiemi who believed in him—and it was better than he'd ever imagined, little and left out—better than anything he ever could have hoped for. Even with his claws, and fangs, and the ghostlight letting them see in the unlit darkness.
He didn't feel hot anymore, the same way he never felt cold—he hadn't told Yukio when he'd realized that even normal flames wouldn't burn him, that touching scalding water or spitting oil didn't leave him red or blistered—but like this, like this he could feel warm.
-End-