Fiction: Rusty Gears

Inspired by a possible upcoming plot in [i]Dearly Departed[/i] featuring two of my characters (the older brother lives, the younger sister dies) and Amurita's character Adalia. Itami and Kay are mine, the nameless reaper is Adalia and belongs to Amurita.

Short. Oneshot.

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Have you ever witnessed the exact moment when someone's heart breaks? There's this look of pure helplessness in their eyes, and all purpose for leaving has visibly been ripped away from them. When they move, even when doing something they've been known to love, there's something wrong about how they do it. Like a gear that's sticking, or a tooth from the steel comb of a music box that's bent and won't make the right sound in the melody when struck by the pins.

Something just clicks over and over again, the smoothness of a fully functioning person gone until either someone saves them or they finally lay down and die.

When Kay died, Itami's gears rusted, the clicking loud and echoing. Even those who'd never seen him before that day could tell that the man in front of them was broken and without a reason to live. And yet for some reason, he refused to die. He struggled to survive by any means he had to. He hid her body away, unable to pay for a casket or a funeral, and he couldn't stand the thought of her being creamated, believing that if she was there'd be no chance that she could be reborn in the future.

He buried her belongings and abandoned the pathetic apartment they'd lived in for a decade, taking to the streets. After several days of stumbling around, he finally took on his wolf form, living as a stray dog in the city's alley ways.

And all the while, the reaper who took his sister's soul saw him break. Watched him revert to the primative instincts of a wolf. And she tried to communicate to him, but he was just beyond her reach...