Stories to Tell
By:
White Rain
Disclaimer: I do
not own X/1999.
Notes: It came
to me like this: You know what would be delightfully horrible?
Killing off the entire main cast of the X/1999 but Subaru and
Sorata and Arashi's baby, and make him raise her
Character/Pairings:
Subaru, OFC, references Seishirou/Subaru, Fuuma/Kamui, Sorata/Arashi
and some OFC - Subaru.
Summary: Subaru
rises Sorata and Arashi's child because there was no else. Her fate
was sealed then; and she embraces it.
-
Arashi wanted to call her Hiromi, she knew it would be a girl. She told Subaru this near the beginning of her pregnancy. Subaru knew she already had a name picked out, but it was unusual for her tell anyone.
That's why Subaru knew she knew that she wouldn't make it through the pregnancy, even though she would try.
-
Hiromi was the spitting image of her mother. Down to the same straight, dark hair and grey eyes. The only difference was that she wore her hair short, and the world didn't crush her, so her eyes held the same light Sorata's did. Subaru didn't think it was somehow related to Sorata, who thought that Arashi was the prettiest thing to walk the earth.
He knew it did.
-
Subaru knew that this arrangement was a bad idea. Hiromi deserved someone whole, or at least someone who knew how to live.
But he was also the only one alive who knew the whole story; being part of it. Being on both sides.
Arashi placed great importance in history; she knew that wisdom gained from the past was something one should be willing to pay a lot for.
Subaru was the worst choice to raise Hiromi, but he was also the only choice.
-
One night, when Hiromi was six she said, "Why don't you tell me a story about you?"
Every night, instead of reading a book to Hiromi, Subaru would tell her a story of one of the dragons, but his own, and Seishirou's. Of their place in in the apocalypse. What they gained and lost. It was the reason Hiromi had been put under his care.
"My," Subaru said carefully, "stories are just filled with mistakes."
Hiromi sat up, disturbing the blankets that Subaru had carefully tucked her under. "You always say we should learn from the mistakes of others."
"Mine have no lessons," Subaru said.
Hiromi examined that for several moments before saying, "Okay."
Subaru knew her well enough to know that this discussion wasn't over; had lived long enough to know it was never that easy for him.
-
"You know," Hiromi said, irritable, as she was doing her homework on the table while Subaru was cooking. "All my friends can tell stories about their parents."
Subaru froze.
"Even the ones without parents," her voice was growing lower and flatter, "who live with other members of their family. Or who's family is dead. Or who only live in an orphanage. They all can tell a story about the past of someone they love."
Someone who was so young, only ten, shouldn't be so insightful. She was Arashi's child though, and lived in a world where you couldn't be innocent long.
"They have no meaning," Subaru said. He didn't turn around.
"You tell me stories of everyone. I know more than any history book could tell me. I could write a book about Kamui and Fuuma's love story. But I don't know them, so it doesn't matter."
"Hiromi-chan," Subaru was never good at sounding warning.
"I don't want dinner."
She left the kitchen. Subaru wished he could go after her, but he had nothing to say or give her. And it was expected that she would at some point, anyway.
The subject was dropped for nearly six years.
-
"You're the Sakurazukamori," Hiromi said flatly before Subaru could say or do anything. She'd left to parts unknown a week ago without a word.
Subaru stopped in his tracks, he'd been about to walk over to her and touch her face to make sure she was real. He'd been afraid she was gone for good.
"Why haven't you trained me to be the next one?" Hiromi said.
"I'll be the last," Subaru said.
She looked hurt at this, but she quickly covered it up. She didn't even bother to apologize or even explain where she had been before walking storming down the hall into her room.
Subaru realized after she's slammed the door shut, that he should probably punish her.
-
For the next two weeks, Hiromi only spoke the bare minimum to him. She made no comments on the stories Subaru would tell at night. She didn't hug or kiss him.
Subaru hadn't realized that he'd miss it so much, the week she was gone, he was in a paralyzed state and it was all he could do to get himself to eat. And he only ate in hopes she would come back.
He wished he could hug her, but he knew that it wasn't his place.
-
On her sixteenth birthday, Hiromi said softly as Subaru was about to tell her another story. "Is it because you don't know how to? I read up on it, I know how you could transfer your powers to me." She gave him a hopeful look, her eyes the same as Sorata's every time he asked Arashi out on a date, "I teach you."
"Why would you want this fate?" Subaru asked softly. "You'll have to kill people; some innocent."
"I'll only miss you," Hiromi said, with such intensity and truth that Subaru flinched.
"You can't know that," Subaru said.
Hiromi nodded, "Yes I do. When I was gone, I killed an a toddler and an rapist." There was an odd smile on her face, "I could only think about how I can be as good as you."
"Hiromi-chan..." Subaru said and swallowed. He wanted a cigarette so badly, even though it would make this conversation hurt more; maybe because it would. But he never smoked around Hiromi and didn't want to start too.
Hiromi crawled in his lap, as she did when she was young and rested her head on his shoulder. "Better, but only because you're too kind." She nuzzled him as she continued, "You don't hold me, you don't tell me your stories when they're so important. I always wonder if you care about me, if I'm worth anything to you."
He'd hold her now if it wasn't too late.
"So if I kill you and become the next Sakurazukamori, I'll know you love me. That's all I want."
"I wanted Seishirou-san to kill me," Subaru said suddenly, as he stroked her hair.
Hiromi smiled and listened to Subaru's story. She knew this was Subaru 's way of agreeing to let her become the next Sakurazukamori. It was better than she thought, because she'd wanted to know about Subaru for as long as she could remember.
She listened carefully to every word he said, making to sure memorize every word that Subaru said as she inhaled his scent until Subaru grew silent.
Then she muttered words into his neck, a spell she'd been tracking for nearly a year, so that she could inherit his powers without taking away his eye.
Then she killed him with a knife she'd been hiding under her pillow since her fifteenth birthday, and allowed all his blood to soak into her clothes and skin.
And then kissed his lips, wondering if there was any better feeling than this, hoping that killing would capture this feeling, at least a little.
(It would, but it would also make her sob, because she Subaru was right about how much it hurt to kill, and she would take everything from Subaru, even his pain.)