Disclaimer: Love Mode belongs to Yuki Shimizu. This is just for fun and I gain no profit.
Author's Note: I made the deadline, yay, but, uh, it took me a while to find a title. Unsurprisingly, more Tien Li fic. ;)
Completed: 1 January 2008
Falling Snow
Winter used to mean huddling together under a threadbare blanket in a dank, tiny apartment, the side of his body pressed firmly against Tien Shue's. There, side by side, they would watch the snow fall; occasionally they'd whisper to each other, one starting a sentence while the other finished it, but mostly they were silent.
It used to mean sharing warmth when there were none, wrapping arms around each other when the shivering started and wouldn't stop, and the chatter of their teeth made it too difficult to smoke. It used to mean surviving the cold together, two halves of a whole; while one breathed in, the other out.
Winter was cruel and hard, but they had each other.
For a while, winter had meant pain and betrayal, Tien Li sitting under a threadbare blanket, making room for someone who would never come back, while his leg throbbed in counterpoint to the steady beat of his heart. The alcohol tasted bitter in his mouth, more bitter than the cigarettes he'd smoked earlier, but he'd needed the burn, the illusion of warmth.
Their apartment had become his apartment, and silence saturated the entire room, cold and cruel like the snow outside. Tien Li watched it snow until the warmth in his bones was leeched away and his teeth chattered; then, he wrapped the blanket tighter around himself, the empty space by his side disappearing as if it was never there in the first place.
Winter was hard, and Tien Li used the bitter heat of revenge to wash away the numbness.
Winter became quiet, calm in the way Tien Li had never been. His thirst for revenge was gone, the heat of his hate cooled, and in its place was regret. He was still alone, still cold, but it was somehow less painful than before; his leg still throbbed, but Tien Li could easily ignore it now. The ache had dulled with time.
He wondered how Tien Shue was doing, whether he ever remembered cold winters of their past; he wondered what Kiichi was doing—if he ever thought about Tien Li sometimes, like how Tien Li sometimes thought about him when it rained.
Surrounded by smoke, a cigarette dangling from his fingers, Tien Li watched the snow fall. This winter, Tien Li thought, isn't as cold.
Winter now meant beer and cigarettes, and Yi Shin complaining loudly about the cold. It meant hiding out in a small apartment, old and rusty, but warm. Comfortable. Tien Li could afford heating these days.
It meant listening to Yi Shin snore as Tien Li watched the snow fall, the rough texture of an old, threadbare blanket familiar against his skin and thoughts of previous winters heavy in his mind.