hermiones: (nanowrimo)
Cat ([personal profile] hermiones) wrote2007-11-20 02:11 pm
Entry tags:

In Every Life I've Lived: (5) A Thousand Dreams / Part Two.

Title: (5) A Thousand Dreams PART TWO
Fandom: JE
Pairing: Yamapi/Jin
Rating: R
Disclaimers: Well, this is it. Fuck, I can't even think of suitable things to say about this. I can't believe it's over. It's been the most fun I think I've ever had, writing. And I really, really hope you guys enjoy it. Thank you all so much for all the feedback you've given me. You've been amazing. Song lyrics at the start are from Cobra Starship's 'One Day, Robots Will Cry'.
Warnings: Scenes of angst, supernatural. Some disturbing content.

Part One.



Takauji dreams a thousand dreams, and none of them make sense. He flies through sleep, his hands outstretched, trying to catch the one that will make sense in words. Trying to find the one that will put an end to this, this madness, this century-old madness. In his thousand dreams, Yoshinobu cannot reach him, and he feels an iota of peace.


When he wakes, the colour is gone from him. His skin is white, his face is white, his eyes are white. He opens his eyes and Yamapi and Jin see it, they start. Yamapi contains himself, Jin does not. Jin backs away, unable to understand. He stays a little way off.

“Speak,” Yamapi says.

“You will not believe it-” Takauji begins.

“I will believe what you tell me,” Yamapi says. “I have worked alongside people with this gift. I believe in it.”

“Is your name Yamashita Tomohisa?”

“It is.”

“And his, Akanishi Jin?”

Yamapi turns to Jin. Jin is colourless, too, but he nods. He gets closer by the second, not wanting to miss out. He is deeply afraid, but his curiosity overwhelms him.

“Your names are written through the ages.”

“What do you mean?” Yamapi asks.

“You have lived before, and will again.”

“The ancient texts say that it happens,” Jin says, cautiously. “My father said it was because you died with regret. Wishing you'd lived a different life. Spirits return, incomplete, seeking to live the lives they didn't before.”

“I was taught not to believe in spirits,” Yamapi says. “How do you know that we have lived before?”

“I can see forwards and back,” Takauji says. “I can see your names throughout history.”

“Where do we begin, then?” Jin asks. “Are we spirits?”

“You are spirits,” Takauji says. “You lived three centuries ago, or so. That is when you begun. You will live again, for four more centuries. You will not be aware of it, except fleetingly. You will know things, you will see things, that make sense to your former selves, but not to you.”

“What...” Jin isn't sure he wants to ask. “What are our lives? What were our lives? What is to come?”

“You begun on the seas. That was your life. And then, you came to this. You lived in and out of life, fleetingly, before we came here. Here, you are stronger than you have been before. You will go on from here, if you do not succeed, and you will live again in four centuries time. You will work for Japan's Prime Minister. You will be pursued by a man named Ieyasu. You will witness a crime scene. You will live as men of the law, and you will bear judgement on that crime. You will entertain a nation with music. All of these lives, you will live.”

“If we do not succeed?” Yamapi asks. “Succeed at what?”

“Succeed at taking back the heart that was stolen from you.” Takauji says. “Ieyasu stole Jin's heart. When we lived at sea, the man called Ieyasu stole his heart.”

Jin fingers his chest. “I'm alive, aren't I?”

“You're a spirit. You became a spirit when he stole your heart. He is a spirit, too, but a stronger one – he has your heart. It makes him strong. It will allow him to live, and chase you through your lives. Unless you can take it back.”

“Ieyasu,” Yamapi says, slowly. “Ieyasu Tokugawa?”

“The man called Ieyasu has lived in all guises. He is currently Ieyasu Tokugawa. In his other lives, he is known as Ieyasu, too. But he is a pirate ghost. That is his true form. You were pirates, both of you, when he took the heart. You worked together on a ship. I worked alongside you, a navigator.”

“How do we know that this isn't a story, spun by Ieyasu himself?” Yamapi says. “You want to lead us to him, and by inciting us to kill him, your mission would be complete.”

“Because,” Takauji says. “To give you this information, I am giving my life. I feel it, now. This is peace. This is it. I worked alongside you, and I took back the weapon that was used to take Jin's heart. We left it by the door. By the entrance. I took it, and the man called Ieyasu, he pursued me for it. I loved somebody, then. And that man, he took the dagger from me, and he kept it. He kept it, for as long as I know, he kept it. Maybe he has lived again, too. I cannot see him. I cannot see him, at all.”

“You're too close,” Jin says, sitting on the ground. “You're too close to him to see him.”

“How do we succeed?” Yamapi says. “You cannot kill a ghost.”

“I don't know that,” Takauji says, his voice weakening. His hair is gone white, too. His fingernails, his clothes. “I do know that if you fail, in this moment, your lives will repeat themselves in different incantations until you do succeed, or until Jin dies. One of the two. You face two paths in this moment. One path will lead you to Ieyasu's destruction, and this will stop. You will become rooted in this life, and you will die in it. The other path will continue for centuries. You will live and meet in each, and confrontation with Ieyasu is inevitable. You will never remember it, and you will be doomed to repeat it. Until Jin dies.”

“What keeps us meeting one another? Why is Jin alive, still, if his heart is gone?”

“You meet each other because you were together when the heart was stolen. You worked together. And you loved him. You loved Jin. That's what kept Jin alive. You pierced his chest and the ghost took the heart, but you loved him enough to keep him with you. Through centuries, it seems. Without that love, he would have lost colour. As I am doing now.”

“I don't. I just, I don't-”

“You cannot believe,” Takauji says, his voice a whisper. “I understand that. I will-”


White light descends upon the three of them, a loud flash, a sudden jolt. And then, there is wood, a deck. Jin lies upon it, his chest heaving, his eyes leaking water. He is the definition of petrified. The ship, as it is a ship, is moving. Yamapi sits by his side, his hand in his hand, his other hand on Jin's chest.

“Stay with us,” he is saying, the voice wet, the tears hitting Jin's neck. “Stay with us, stay with us, stay with me. It'll be alright. It'll be okay. Just stay with me. Stay with me. Don't die, Jin. Don't go anywhere. I'm here. I'm here. Stay with me.”

Jin's eyes are focused on Yamapi, and though it takes all of his energy, he nods, he clenches Yamapi's hand, and the colour comes back into his cheeks.

“I love you,” he says.

“Stay with me,” Yamapi says. “If you go, I'll have to follow you. I don't want to do that. I'm not ready to give up, yet. Are you ready to give up yet?”

Jin isn't ready to give up yet. “Stay with me,” he says. “Stay with me.”


“You did stay with him, in the end,” Takauji says, only he's Shige, walking across the deck. He's full of colour, in the vision. Full of fear, the dagger in his hand. Koyama stands beside him, a hand on his shoulder. Only he isn't wearing armour, isn't samurai – he's just a man. Just a man, with a hand on Shige's shoulder.

“You stayed with him until you could avenge him,” Shige says. “He didn't go anywhere. You wouldn't let him. You said, 'stay with me', and so he did. You stayed together over centuries. And now, you face the chance to end this.”

“You have seen centuries,” Jin says, from the deck, his colour returning. “You have seen us years into the future?”

“Yes,” Shige says.

“What did we do? Which path did we take? Do you see us hundreds of years in the future because we failed, or because it was a possibility that we did? Are these visions real, or just...versions of a reality that could have occurred? I need to know whether we succeeded, or-”

“I don't know that,” Shige says. “But I know that you must stick together to succeed. You must believe. You must stay with him, and you with him. That's the only way. The only way.”

And Koyama squeezes his shoulder, as if in agreement.


When the light vanishes, the man called Takauji is dead. Yamapi cannot think straight. His mind is awash with images, with possibilities and things that feel like memories. His dreams. His dreams, that weren't dreams at all. Lake water, seawater, water, water, water.

Jin is crying, and that is water, too. And that, Yamapi realises, might be it.


“He is dead,” Yoshinobu says. “Takauji is dead. He told them the secrets you desired to know.”

Ieyasu's face is cold, white, thunderous. “You lie to me.”

“I do not,” Yoshinobu says. “I have seen it. He had the gift, and he wasted it. They know. They know who you are. Who you are not. They are prepared.”

“You must tell me, what you heard-”

“I sat at your table, in that cave, when you took that heart all for yourself. You were meant to share it with me. Do you remember? You were meant to share it. I got none of it. You greedily took it all for yourself. I have lived this long because you asked me to stay with you, but gave me no means but my own tenacity to do it. I have lived enough. I have seen enough. You are on your own. I wish you luck, but I cannot say more.”

Ieyasu's face breaks, like a crack of lightening, like something that isn't human. His body flinches, as if fighting a supernatural force, and he becomes smoke. He vanishes, and Yoshinobu closes his eyes. He is free. He is, at last, free.


“How are we going to. Do you believe-”

“I believe,” Yamapi says. He's not sure why he does, because he's not known Jin long, but there's something. The image felt like a piece of the puzzle. It felt like a piece of something he'd left behind, at some point.

“I believe, too,” Jin says. He's not sure why he does, because Yamapi is new to him, but there's something. He's searched his whole life for something. Perhaps, all along, it was just his heart.

“What are we going-”

“I don't know,” Yamapi says. “But you must trust me.”


The smoke unfurls between the hills. Yamapi and Jin stand, and their hands are joined. The smoke rises, into the shape of a person. And the pair of them close their eyes.


Have no care in what you take
Treasure will not a heart remake

A spirit's heart you seek to break
For this task, you seek that lake-

And once he's down, down on the ground
You must take care with what is found

Nothing will a heart rebuild
Except with words, a heart refilled.



The man called Ieyasu has eyes of fire.

“Give me the dagger,” he says. And Yamapi knows, knows the weight of the dagger in his hand. Understands the life on it, the heart on it, the great, great weight on it.

“He won't,” Jin says, the life running through Yamapi's hand and into his own. “I won't.”

“You must give me the dagger,” Ieyasu says. He cannot bind the two. He cannot control them, not together. It makes him panic. It can be seen in his eyes.

“We won't.”

“What will you do-”

They open their eyes, and that white hot image reaches across centuries. They are on a deck, and Jin is saying, 'stay with me', and Yamapi is agreeing, and the strength of it breaks years, travels across time, travels across space. The image curls into the brains of those who will live as them, as those who will live for centuries, planting seeds and memories and time and space, and love, most of all. And the image travels, to the lake, and Jin wading through it, trapped underneath the ice-

And the ice shatters, and it falls down around, and when Jin rises, he's holding the dagger. And Ieyasu knows, then. He knows that it's lost.

Yamapi's strength is what moves the image across time. Yamapi's strength and Jin's love, and their willingness to go the distance – and so the ice moves, the ice four hundred years away, the ice becomes water and it swallows the man called Ieyasu. It moves across the water and it swallows Ieyasu, and before he can struggle, before he can escape, it eats him up. The man grows cold, and vanishes within the water. The dagger grows cold. The earth grows cold.

And when the image comes to a stop, the two of them are alone. There is no smoke. There is no dagger. There is nothing but this, and them. Jin lies on the ground. He turns his head to the sky, and the sky is black. The stars have disappeared. His chest is heaving, full of fright.

He looks to Yamapi, and his eyes are wet.

“I can't get my heart back,” he says. “We went all the way to that cave, I lost my heart, and now it's gone, I can't get it back-”

And Yamapi turns to them. The ship moves beneath them, this is it, this is the life they've always lived. The life that slipped through the cracks and became other lives. All the regrets, the unspoken words, they became unspoken love affairs, lasting for centuries. But Yamapi only wants to live one life. He only wants one existence, one with Jin in it. He doesn't want to live for centuries. He doesn't want to always be wondering what's in the back of his mind.

“It doesn't matter,” he tells Jin. “You can have mine, instead.”


There are rumours, about the two pirates, about where they go from there. Some say that they gave up piracy, lived in the town, made a life for themselves. Others say that they continued, and went to Korea after all, and China, beyond-

Others say that they just continued to sail, looking for adventures, rebuilding Jin's heart.

What is known is that they lived, not for centuries, but for an acceptable amount of time. That Yamapi stayed with Jin, and Jin stayed with Yamapi, until it was time to say goodbye-

And there were no regrets. They lived the lives they wanted to live, together, and died without wanting more than they had done. Without wanting more than the path they chose.

The other path closed up, covered with vines. They weren't there to see it, Yamapi and Jin. Had they looked down it, they would have seen a thousand lives: gangsters, rockstars, and lawyers, to name a few. Those were lives they might have lived, had they failed. As it was, they succeeded, and lived the one life they were born to live.

[identity profile] swtjemz.livejournal.com 2007-11-20 04:00 pm (UTC)(link)
OH MY GOD. THIS IS BEAUTIFUL AND HEARTWRENCHING AND ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL. MY HEART WAS IN MY MOUTH AS I READ, BEATING AND WILLING JIN TO LIVE WITH YAMAPI AND HOPING, HOPING, HOPING THAT THEY WILL STAY TOGETHER ALWAYS.

I FELT SO WRUNG OUT READING THROUGH YOUR NANO FIC UNTIL THE ENDING WHERE ALL I FELT WAS HAPPINESS AND PEACE.

A;SKLJF;ASLKFJ. I LOVE PIN SO MUCH AND YOUR PIN IS SO GOOD THAT I JUST HAVE NO WORDS BUT FLAILING ARMS OF GLEE.

CONGRATULATIONS FOR FINISHING!