That Type of Man

Author: Nataku
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance. One-shot. Angst.
Status: Complete.
Pairing: Akabane x Ginji.
Summary: Ginji reflects on Akabane.

It was love at first sight--if you called love getting stabbed with scalpels and nearly getting slaughtered by a deranged psychopathic murderer lusting for your blood yadda yadda yadda…

I don’t know, but somehow it didn’t seem to fit the criteria. I always thought that love required roses and Valentines and chocolates, maybe even dinner with a few sweet words, but apparently it wasn’t. It came in the form of a pair of toxic purple eyes and a smile that made my skin crawl just by looking at it.

Really, it was more of an “It was a dark and stormy night” type situation than a “Once upon and time and they lived happily ever after”, if you know what I mean. It really didn’t seem like the type of relationship that I’ve always read about, but more like a stalker. Maybe he was just that type of man, I don’t know. Perhaps it was more one sided, to be honest. He looked at me as if he wanted to swallow me alive and I could barely stay in the same room as the man without wanting to claw my way out to some type of safety. It wasn’t love to me, but in the most twisted sense of the word it was to him.

I never knew if it was convenience or whatnot, but he was an oddly unromantic man. He gave a fruit basket when I was hospitalized, but he never found a need for roses and chocolates--but instead showed his affection with a touch to the shoulder, a brushing of white gloves over skin before walking past, as if it were of very little concern to him. His sweet voice and smile were the same for everyone it seemed, yet the occasional flash of his eyes or quirk of his lips were all that it took to convey his emotions at times.

He lusted greatly, blood thrilling him and driving him near insane with pleasure. He killed with abandon, wanton and passionate and perhaps beneath that cold murder that was Dr. Jackal; he was a passionate man.

His love was like that, you know, like his blood lust.

It was violent and unpredictable, sometimes hardly there and at others so thick I could feel it like a tangible presence. It choked and suffocated like some great serpent winding tightly around me coils upon coils…yet sometimes it was the delicate flick of a kitten’s paw. I couldn’t predict him, and that scared me.

He was an odd man, but I’m sure everyone knew that. From his broad rimmed hat to his lanky build and choice of profession, he was odd. There was a sense of near incompleteness in him at times and a look in those eyes that were like a whirlpool, dragging in everything around it to somehow form a whole picture. Again it was his own version of love, I guess. This strange need he placed on someone that was hot and cold at the same time. Sometimes he watched me, never taking his eyes off even while I slept (I could feel him) and other times he was distant and had nothing more than a polite smile and a tip of his hat.

Maybe he tried, maybe he didn’t; but all in all it was strange--I never could quite return the affection. I was always scared of him, terrified to the depths of my soul of the man that lurked behind that smile. His scars and tattoos were shrouded in enigma--he never once told me how he got them. All I knew was that they were there and that was that.

At times I feared being too close to him, afraid of the scalpels that I always felt would come ripping out of his flesh and impale me despite his purring reassurance that they wouldn’t--unless he wanted them to. There was the catch. He could tell me he loved me in that voice of his that made me never believe a word that came out of his mouth, yet he would never say anything that was important. He never once gave me a promise.

Not once.

But I suppose that’s just he way he was, the man he is.

He had for me a smile and the raging seas of his passion, yet no promises. It was just not meant to be in my eyes. He scared me too much and I never felt a warm comfort around him that I felt I should have--though I might just have been too idealistic about the entire concept of love.

It confused me, perhaps it confused him as well, but like always, when he felt something he went ahead with it regardless of consequences. He would betray me as easily as he would help me and stab me one moment in the heat of battle while kissing me in the next in the heat of passion. It was a roller coaster relationship that just wasn’t one that I could live with.

I never invited him, ever. He came of his own will. It was his touch that started everything, his curving confidant smile that scared me as always and his eyes that threatened to suck me in.

He never could take no for an answer.

There was fear, genuine, and at times he could be oddly compassionate. His touch was gentle in these moments, lips so soft and sweet it was like a new man. There were times when he lost the hat and his face was smiling in such a way that I could believe that there was a fine man beneath his glimmering scalpels and bloody red J’s. It was times like these that made me believe and kept me hanging on instead of breaking away--though it never was love. Hope for it perhaps, but not love.

I guess I could say I felt bad for him. In his own way, he really did genuinely love me. There was something in him that made his words true…it was like his love for blood. Not superficial, no, he had proven that when it was painfully obvious how easily he could find company, but it was a love that was real affection. At times it was more of an obsession than affection, but he had his own ways of showing that too.

There was nothing more unnerving that driving down the street, and looking over to suddenly see him watching me, his eyes open and taking in my every move like some hunting beast. If he caught my gaze, he’d smile and tip his hat, as if in a mockery of some fond greeting. It was elegant like everything he did, and carried a lethal grace that at times I could envy--but not always, no, definitely not even most of the time. If grace like that was bought with the price of blood in the vast quantities that he spilt, I could rather keep my clumsy offish like klutziness. At least I could make people laugh, even smile. He bathed in their blood and smiled to make up for the loss of those around him.

Maybe that’s what scared me more than the hunger--or just made me angry at him enough to NOT love him, his infinite ability to kill. He never remorse, he never shed a tear. No…he killed as if it were some past time that he enjoyed with all of his heart. He adored blood, loved the way it looked…smelled, hell, he loved the way it tasted. It twisted my stomach nauseatingly when he would lift one of those glimmering scalpels and run it over his tongue as lovingly as he would if he were kissing a lover. The taste was revolting.

That’s what he usually tasted like.

Not revolting, per say, but with the faint tinge of blood that was enough to make me feel a cold spike of terror driven through my spine.

Honestly it sickened me, how he would kill. My own hands were stained, but he plunged his deep into the bucket, then picked it up and poured it over his naked flesh. He had not a care in the world for what anyone ever thought.

There was chemistry there, it was undeniable. He was a handsome man and when in his more indulgent moods had hands that were so gentle it would melt one from the inside out. He was oddly capable of such tiny gestures of affection, a pet to the head or a kiss that didn’t taste of blood…but rather something sweet that I knew he ate if only to appease and taunt me.

He knew I loved candies and never did buy them for me.

Then again, he wasn’t that type of a man.

I never expected much from our relationship, I guess. It wasn’t as horrid as I was thinking, I suppose, but it was far from perfect.

I was terrified of him and he didn’t really treat me kindly. He was more of a man for little things now and then, but not romantic. He never spoiled sweetly as I had thought he would like those purring words, but in a strange way, what he did was enough. I knew he loved me as surely as I knew the sky was blue. I could tell that in his own way he was loving and affectionate.

But he was like his weapons of choice, beautiful and cold and sharp. Deadly.

His love was like that.

It was deadly.

I could return it no more than I could kill a child--one with big brown eyes and overalls that cried in the rain. It wasn’t a relationship that was healthy, not at all. He was good at what he did, but he was not the perfect man.

He was the perfect killer.

He was not the perfect lover.

He was the perfect distraction.

I could understand him no more than he let me, and he let me no more than I could figure out from the silent nights of staring into the heated poison of toxic purple eyes and tracing the green tattoo with fingers that were cut from his very blades. His scars, gently illuminated by moonlight, always stood out from his alabaster skin and he seemed so delicate and powerful at the same time.

At times I was thankful for small favors such as that. He wasn’t a cruel lover. He derived more pleasure from pleasure than he did from pain--pain he got everyday from his job.

Variety is the spice of life, I think he might of believed this. In his twisted obsession with me he had eclectic tastes. He never took me to dinner, no, but at times he would follow me in some dark alley and offer some small treat for my sampling, often things I’ve never seen or even heard of at times. I think he cooked, but I never got the chance to ask him properly. Most of the time we were in dark abandoned buildings or rusty rooftops (like I said, he was hardly a romantic man) and the times that I did go to his apartment he didn’t really give me a chance to admire anything more than his bedroom.

He was a refined sense of music, really, though at times mixed in with the Pavarotti and Wagner were screaming vocals from hell, terrifying in a way that seemed so unlike him that it was eerie. He would always just smile at me when I looked at him in shock, and make sure to lock the doors so I couldn’t run like I so wanted.

I never could figure him out.

He never once called me and asked me out or took the time to bribe me with sweet flattering words. Whenever we met it was either if I lagged after a battle or if he caught me somehow--like a hunter snaring a rabbit in a trap. I think in a way that’s how he viewed our relationship, like a rabbit hunt. He would always find a way to make sure I couldn’t escape him and that there was no other choice for me than to do things his way. What else could I do but to follow him and try my hardest not to die, knowing full well his moods were as unpredictable as his actions and any wrong moves could result in me lying on the floor with the tenth letter of the alphabet carved at a large scale in my back.

That was another thing that scared me--sometimes he would be sweet. Sweet in a way that would make me blink and choke with emotion. His tender touches and gentle kisses with soft whispered words…it was as if he really was a man in love. Nothing more. Nothing less. He was a master of such illusions, honestly. At times I could never tell if he were true or not, so skillfully made was his mask. Sometimes he seemed to become someone else and reflect a facet of someone I held dear or repulsed me so much that it terrified me.

I could see Ban in those purple eyes now and then, the smile becoming a smirk and sleek black hair seeming to lighten. He could change himself in strange ways, his eyes like those of the witch child’s. And then he could assume the strength of Shido or the gentility of Kazuki--as if he were a mirror.

He was a whirlwind of confusion to me and I never could figure out anything about him except what I knew of him from the scalpels that ripped through my flesh more than once. He changed always, never letting me get used to him as if he delighted in the way he could confuse me in a wild game.

It threw me off guard, the times when he was kind to me…and he knew it. It entertained him and to him that was the essential soul of why he did what he did.

Was he cold?

Not really…no. I couldn’t say that all the time.

Sure he had his moments when he was distant and treated me no differently than he did anyone else--even moments when he blatantly brushed me off in favor of someone else, yet he still always managed to make sure that I knew I was singled out of the herd.

Again it was his eyes. Those eyes that I could never know whether to say were beautiful or hideous as from time to time they reflected inside of him. They never told me who he was, I don’t think even he knew the answer to that, but they hinted at what laid beneath the surface like some sleeping leviathan waiting to surge out…but for the hidden well of passion, he never did seem to get angry.

He wasn’t really the jealous type, I suppose, but rather seemed to relish the thought that he could scare me with just the right smile and tilt to his eyes. He didn’t mind Ban or Shido or Kasuki whom I was far closer with than him, but he was fiercely adamant about being the one to kill me.

He hungered for it, and I suppose it was part of his twisted love.

Maybe something happened in his life that made him forever connect love with death and blood--something to him permanent and inevitable to the point where he was eager to greet it head on day by day. Maybe something happened to him that messed with his view on people all together…or maybe he was just like that to begin with.

He was an odd man.

I suppose I could say that I was never comfortable with him and because of that could never find it in my heart to love him and return those strange affections.

He was not a perfect man.

Like any other living creature, he had his flaws. Flaws he didn’t see but twisted me inside with his sheer lack of reverence for life.

He was the perfect killer.

It was his first love in life, even before me…that taking of life. He reveled in the crimson of blood and bathed himself in it as much as possible. Because of that, it never would have really worked out…

…even though he did love me.

It was not the perfect love.

Though in a sense…I guess I could say that his love was true. He meant it when he looked into my eyes and smiled, speaking those soft words so tenderly.

But it was his way of loving…and that was just the type of man he was.