With Your Arms Around Me: Pre-timeskip!Raki/Clare:
A/N: Okay, so . . . I'm well aware that I probably won't get much of a response to this. I mean, this is the Claymore archive and it's, like . . . dead. But I wrote this anyway, cuz I'm that much of a fan. So please, if you read this, review.
He wants to know why it's always like this, why whenever he shuts his eyes, there inside the darkness is a monster with his brother's face, only twisted and grotesque with a maw full of sharp, blood-stained teeth . . . why his mind always has to conjure up the memory of a red-smeared mouth full of the dripping, crimson snake of entrails from his uncle's abdomen, or the mangled bodies of his parents.
He wants to know why this has to keep him from sleeping, why it has to keep him churning restlessly on the forest floor, hot, but still cold, sweating, but still shivering.
He wants to sleep, see pleasant things when he falls into slumber, but the only things that appear in his imagination are yoma. Blood. Gore. Violence. He weeps through his closed eyes, curling into a miserable ball as horrible memories overtake him.
He's uncomfortable, he's exhausted, it's hard to breathe. His tongue is sticking to the roof of his mouth and perspiration slopes along his brow.
He can't stop quivering, can't stop wheezing and sniffling. He's sporting a sudden headache that throbs concurrently with the aching in his heart.
Alone. That's how he feels right about now. Alone, just like he has been ever since he found himself and his "brother" covered in blood and the corpses of his mother and father lying lifeless. Alone. His parents are dead. His brother is dead. His uncle is dead.
And the culprits . . . the culprits are— no, he doesn't want to visualize golden eyes with serpentine slits of pupils, does not want to imagine the toothy, feral smirk, or tough, contorted skin . . . .
He just wants to sleep.
Why is it so hard?
He's being haunted. Tormented because he's the only one of his family who hasn't died a terrible death in the hands of a yoma.
It's an absent thought of his, but it scares him nonetheless.
He inhales sharply as an icy tremor runs against his spine. It's cold. It's always cold when he's lying out on the dirt and straw of the woods, however it's especially chilly when the horrors of his past are on his mind.
The only heat to be felt is in his cheeks from his frustration and . . . and whatever it is that's beside him.
It's a consoling, familiar warmth that draws him in and causes him to unconsciously shift toward it.
He reaches blindly for it, wishing for it to comfort him, to heal him, to embrace him with its pleasant heat and ward away the evil that haunts his consciousness.
He wants it to protect him. He wants it to protect him, just has his mother used to protect him, and just as Clare is protecting him now because in his eyes, she is a force to be reckoned with. In his eyes, she is so, so strong, therefore perhaps . . . perhaps he won't ever have to witness a monster cut her down dead before his very eyes so that her death won't ever have to be yet another nightmare for him to endure.
Although . . . this belief still doesn't keep him from having those exact, unbearable dreams from time to time.
Because sometimes, he closes his eyes and she's headless, hemorrhaging from her stump of a neck. Sometimes, he closes his eyes and there's a yoma's arm through her middle, yanking out and eating her intestines, all the while she chokes on her own blood and the monster complains about how shitty they taste, but still doesn't let up on the tearing and chewing and ripping . . . .
He groans, his breath short and clipped, and rolls further into the warmth beside him. He needs it. He needs it, just like he needs to stop crying merely because he's got a miserable past . . . because he's useless to Clare, because he lives in a catastrophic world . . . .
"Yes . . . he's delicious. His guts were superb!"
His gasp is wedged in his throat as he squirms, drowning deeper, deeper, deeper into the heat that he's practically fused with by now until . . . until he finally opens his eyes, and notices that he's clinging to the front of Clare's skin tight outfit, that his face is all but molded into her breasts, and . . . and that he's gotten her all wet with his tears.
How . . . how did he not recognize that it's been Clare's warmth that he's been yearning for, Clare's warmth that he supposedly knows like the back of his hand?
He . . . he needs to move away. He shouldn't invade her personal space like this, but as soon as his limbs untangle from hers, he's naked. He's vulnerable . . . insecure. The warmth has left him. He's all alone. Panic rises to his throat. He wants to be near her. She . . . she makes him feel so protected. In her hold, he's in safe hands. She claims that she's cold, yet he's never experienced a warmth like hers before. It can't be substituted.
But he doesn't want to make her uncomfortable.
He worms away from her another few inches, his body shaking with fear and the chill of the sensation of desertion until something gently grabs him by the arm. When he glances up, he's staring into silver.
"It's alright," it's roughly the softness voice she's ever used with him as she pulls him in close, much to his relief, "if you want to stay near."
He's so near to her that it's hard to breathe, but he doesn't mind in the least because what he's breathing in is her. Her scent and . . . and maybe he's watched her from behind when she's bathed once or twice as she scrubs and scrubs and scrubs, tearing at her skin, but not once has he ever had the courage to admit it and tell her that despite what she thinks, she does not have to hurt herself because she does not reek of blood, or yoma, or even death.
"Because I know . . . just how you're feeling." Even though she isn't particularly caressing him (because he's the one doing all the hugging and she's just letting him for his own reassurance), it's one of the few times when her voice cracks and genuine emotion seeps through.
He knows that she's more human than she argues to be.
"C-Clare, i-it's f-fine if you don't w-want me to," he stammers, though it's garbled and muffled from his face being buried in her clothes. "I-I'm just being selfish and if you s—"
Her fingers run through his hair as she murmurs, "Go to sleep, Raki."
He can. Right now, with her arms around him, he really can, but . . . not unless she does too. Perhaps he's asking too much of her. He's okay when he's alongside her, so she doesn't have to watch over him tonight. If she's tired, she can sleep.
Bravely, he tilts his head back and kisses the underside of her chin. "You go to sleep too, okay, Clare?"
She doesn't resist and merely replies, "Whatever, Raki."
He doesn't mind her seemingly careless, reserved, aloof personality. All that runs through his usually disturbed mind now is how much he just loves, loves, loves her and how he will stay with her forever if he can, and how . . .
. . . he's going to get a good night's rest for the remainder of the night.
A/N: So yeah. Raki's so sentimental. But he always was totally like that. If you read, please review! I will bring Claymore fandom back to life!