---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.
