---Intimations---

His hair is plastered to his forehead, wet bangs almost obscuring his eyes. Under the harsh glare of the streetlight, his skin is pale as a corpse. I stare down at him. My destiny. My death.

What do you want?

Don't you know?


How will this all end? I am not one for prophecy. The only sure answer is death, which comes for us all eventually.

The strongest snares are the ones we make ourselves, just as the best lies are the ones we tell ourselves.

He catches my arm, his fingers cold on my wrist, his grip strong.

Do you know what you are to me?

Do you?


His eyes glare at me, twin patches of spring sky framed between the limbs of the sakura tree. He smells of smoke, of buildings in flame and ghost cigarettes. Sin on the lips of an angel.

He opens his mouth—to breathe an apology? My name? It doesn't matter. I take the opportunity.

Tomorrow I may kill him. Tomorrow I may die. We are not those for whom forever is an option.

Life is never fair; love is seldom true, but death is often kind.

His lips taste like nectar, cool and wet on my tongue. His hands, trapped under my own, tremble in eagerness or in fear. His breath comes hot and quick against my cheek.

I hate you.

The rain muffles his departure, as he follows his shadow into the gloom.

I stand there, unmoved.

_______________________



Author's Notes: Warning: Spoilers for X ahead.

Okay, so I hate the idea of author's notes other than as acknowledgements. Because it seems to me that if you have to explain what you meant to people, then you're not writing it right. But Becca insisted, and since she's the one who beta'd this and cheered me on and told me that it didn't suck and otherwise earned vast amounts of praise (and really splendid stuff that I wish I had the money for), I've given in. This story may not make a lot of sense or read a little weird because I was going for the feeling of a poem told in prose here, if that makes any sense. Becca said it reminded her of a haiku. It reminds me of Eliot. Whichever one helps you to understand, go with it.

So, obviously, this is Seishirou POV, during a chance (or not-so-chance? It's hard to tell with those two) meeting with Subaru. During X/1999, but pre-Rainbow Bridge. The conversation (the bits in italics) can be read as either a dialogue between Subaru and Seishirou, or as a monologue by Subaru, to which Seishirou never responds. This, like several parts in here, is one of those "Is it a vase or two faces or both?" things going on here. Or at least, hopefully, trying to.  Like how at the end, Subaru follows his shadow off into the gloom. Here, I'm not just talking literally, but also about the fact that as the dark onmyouji, Seishirou is symbolized by the shadow. So Subaru is following Seishirou. Becca mentions that this can mean that Subaru is following his Seishirou, the Seishirou in his mind, and turning his back on the reality. And I add that it also foreshadows the events post-Rainbow Bridge, when Subaru accepts Seishirou's eye and becomes the next Sakurazukamori. But really-—for Subaru and Seishirou, love equals death. It has to. Happily ever after endings can never, in any version of the universe, work for them. They're fated to be a tragedy.