Specters of Time
Summary: She is ten and already knows how it feels like to have one's heart ripped to pieces. OneShot- Shuna, Souichi. Three times.
Warning: -
Set: Story-unrelated
Disclaimer: Standards apply.
Shuna, 10 years
She is only ten and already she knows how it feels like to have one's heart ripped into tiny little pieces. It starts like this:
"Shuna, let's go to the park!"
Reina insists on wanting to play in the park when they have a perfectly huge garden. There seems to be a certain appeal in the presence of other children that draws her in while Shuna would prefer the solitude and silence of her family's compounds, for several reasons: for one, she does not feel like a child. There is a woman inside her that knows far more than she does, and her heart and soul and experience tell Shuna that getting close to people only hurts. But the same woman inside her also loves the world, its animals and people. So Shuna wants to protect herself – herself, Aglaia and Reina, and her parents, too – and Aglaia wants to see the world she lives in now. Furthermore: Aglaia wants to be part of the world she lives in while Shuna is not so sure she can. She is only ten, after all. The memories make her cry, at night in her bed. She is alone. Reina and Mom and Dad cannot understand, do not understand, and Aglaia's presence is warm and reassuring but so terribly, terribly lonely. There are people she sees in her memory she never saw before, people who talk to her like grown-ups talk to each other. There are places she remembers she's never been to, or else her parents would know, wouldn't they? And a language she remembers although nobody taught her. And there are faces of people she wants to see but knows they are dead.
Aglaia is frozen.
Shuna is, too.
But then again, Reina is there, and when Shuna is afraid and scared she looks at her beautiful, little sister – if only she would remember! – and she feels a bit better, and Aglaia does, too. So when Reina begs for them to go outside and play, she relents, and Aglaia's mind is warm and reassuring in the back of her head and heart.
"Shuna, look!"
Reina laughs and smiles and her black hair trails behind her in beautiful ribbons. Aglaia thinks she never saw Tina as happy as then. Shuna wonders what Reina found, this time.
"It's a ball, isn't it?"
A baseball ball, worn and dirty from repeated use, and the leather is still warm as she touches it. Reina is already on the move again.
"It belongs to someone, doesn't it, Shuna? I wonder if they are still here somewhere?"
And off she goes, straight through the bushes, and disappears from Shuna's sight laughing. To Reina, life is a game. Aglaia knows it is more than that, Shuna does not know better. But she worries for her little sister.
"Reina, where did you go?"
It begins here: in a park at the riverside, ten years, nineteen hundred. The boy is older than her, he looks lean and tall even kneeling over Reina, and Aglaia – for the first time in her life – stops dead while Shuna runs.
"Reina, what hap-"
He looks younger than she remembers him, his dark hair shorter but equally unruly. A sweat shirt and a baseball cap and gloves – and still, as every time, she notices his eyes first. Dark, darker, black. Delos had a way of looking at her that made her heart stop and it has not changed.
"Aglaia."
Her name – Aglaia's name, Shuna's name – on his lips lets Aglaia freeze while Shuna wraps Reina into a protective embrace. Delos' eyes widen a fraction more.
"Don't come any closer," she tells him.
"Is that…" he hesitates. "She's not Serena, is she?"
"True, she's not Serena," – and Aglaia is silent, so silent, inside her – "But she still is my precious little sister."
"I see." Delos stands and he seems even taller. Something inside Shuna twists violently. She is not sure whether it is pain or something entirely else. "You remember, don't you?"
Aglaia still is unbearably quiet. "Yes," Shuna says, and everything starts from there.
Wrong, Aglaia thinks. Everything begins again from there on. It would be so easy if she could just hate him. But she is an old woman living in the mind of a ten years old girl. She lives a different life now, has different parents, a sister, she has a place and a home. Sometimes, when she lays in her bed small and alone, it is unbearable: the weight of her memories, the loneliness and loss. But on most days she is happy. Now Delos is there again, the one person she never trusted but whom she so desperately wanted to trust, the one person who viewed her not as the perfect Lady but as a woman in her own rights. True, Sirix and Loleus had seen her as she was, too, but they had been too close, had loved her too much. There is a difference in being seen and being seen, same as there is a difference in being known and being known, and for a woman who has fought her entire life to be accepted it is difficult not to deliberately make the difference. It is not that her best friends cannot see her dark sides but that they chose to ignore them. Delos does not ignore them. He accepts them, challenges her, questions her. His irony and sarcasm make her blood boil because he is the only one who dares to defy her. But then, he never belonged to her. Aglaia knew he was a descendant of the house of Britius, she knew, sooner or later, he would have to choose – she had just hoped it would have been her. And when he stood there, waiting, behind the back of cowardly Albanus Britius, she knew he had made up his mind. Perhaps her hopes, her foolish wishes, had led her astray – it did not matter because Delos caused Loleus' death and left, he did not even look back. Aglaia never knew what happened to him but that she finds him here, of all people, feels terribly wrong. Aglaia knows why she was reborn. Why should he be, too? Except perhaps that he is still mocking her, with his cool demeanor and his sarcastic ways, criticizing her every move, challenging her authority. Making fun of her ambitions, of the things that are her life: nobody can do it as well as he does and while other peoples' opinions do not matter much to her, his does. An insult issued by him hurts a thousand times worse than a careless word uttered by any stranger. He asks whether she remembers. Oh, Aglaia remembers so well she wants to scratch his face, tear at his hair and scream at him, remembers so well she regrets never having learned to hold a sword. She would challenge him, if she could, and curses the roles of society the two of them grew up with. Had she been Sirix she would have challenged him to a duel. Aglaia, though, can only watch.
And Shuna. Shuna is wary towards Mikage. He is too tall and too cocky and too familiar, his grin, his hands, even his eyes. She knows he's thinking when his brows furrow and that he is not happy when he grins like that. There is a secret language she never learned and yet understands like her own. Mikage's hands are warm on her shoulder when he draws her in, takes her to games of catch, introduces them to his friends. His smile is so rare she wants to freeze in awe when she sees it. And throughout everything there is a voice in the back of her head telling her to be aware, to keep her distance. Delos betrayed her once, why shouldn't Mikage betray her, too. Both Aglaia and Shuna argue that Mikage has no reason to hurt her, no way to, either, because he can only hurt her if she gives him leverage and she does not intend to do so. He still might hurt Reina, though, so she tags along and pretends she does not look at him. But he has enough on her as it is. Whatever she does, she cannot separate herself from him any longer, DelosSouichiMikage, he turns her upside down and leaves her, wishing, hoping, pleading. Hate him. Hate him, never forgive him, they have promised and they have every reason to. And all the while, Aglaia knows Delos is a traitor and Shuna knows Mikage is a player, and both still love him.
Shuna feels old, so old. She is ten. She should play outside and have fun and laugh and not wonder whether he looks at her or whether he ever will. Aglaia feels old, too, she is. And she wonders whether Delos is there in Mikage, the same way she is in Shuna, and if so, why? He did what he was supposed to do: he proved his loyalty towards the house of Britius. The man she knew, he knew no remorse. What happened? Why was he here? And why, why does her heart hurt like someone has torn it apart?
She remembers the gardens. The way Delos had looked at her, as if she was something he wanted to have but never could touch. It had hurt, then.
It still did.
Souichi, twenty-one
Pathetic, he thinks, pathetic pathetic, even more so than making a move on a ten-years-old. It has been years and Souichi still remembers. Well, Delos still remembers his life from 1900 years ago so he guesses the remembrance thing runs in the family. Shit as it is but nothing he can change. Fuck fate for his little memory problem. There are a dozen women he remembers he's had in a former life and a few he's had here, and still the only girl he sees is her.
Fuck.
It is like she is trying to show him he has no place in her life anymore. Well, they've been friends, or sorta-friends, he guesses, because he's known her since she was ten and went to the park with Reina to play. He's seen her through Junior High and now into High School. Sometimes he suspects if it wasn't for Reina she would ignore him completely, it makes him angry and dizzy with expectation at the same time. Aglaia was like that, Delos remembers, she would ignore something if she really wanted it because then, nobody would expect it to be special until she had it. Shuna – he's not so sure. And anyway, they're the same, aren't they? In his mind the blonde woman in front of the almond trees has the same face the little sixteen-year old girl he sees every now and then has, sometimes he drives by just to check on her but he always brings an appropriate excuse. It's not like I care. It helps he has a part-time job with her father, helping in the garden and mowing the lawn for a few bucks. Shuna's mother likes him, she thinks him charming. Reina loves him, he's like the elder brother she never had, he supposes. She looks so much like Serena he can't help but be nice to her. And if Shuna was like any other girl perhaps she would have been jealous for the time he spent with Reina, or something like that, but with Shuna Souichi's never quite sure it is not the pure rage and disdain Aglaia feels for Delos that she still harbors towards him. She behaves as indifferently towards him as Aglaia behaved towards any member of the Britius family and for some reason it makes him angry.
"You sure you don't wanna come?" He asks her, already almost out of the door. It's a game: he provokes her until she snaps and she never does. If she did, he thinks, it would be easier but not half as exhilarating.
"No," Shuna replies coolly. "You guys have fun."
He's taking Reina out to animal game land, he gets free tickets for his part-time job. He did not ask Shuna because he loves watching her struggle: against his obvious tries to make her come, against her obvious struggles to make him think she does not care. It is the game they play since he can remember and it still makes him tingle all over.
"Shuna, please?" Reina blinks at her innocently. For a second, Souichi envies her. If he only could look at her as if he'd never known her before, as if the weight that still ties him to his memories never existed. Perhaps he would not be so bound to her then, perhaps then he would not look at her and want her so, so bad.
"I have work to do," Shuna tells them and turns her back on them and Souichi watches her retreat into her room.
"Souichi," Reina says and tugs at his sleeve, her eyes shining brightly, her sister already forgotten. "Let's go, let's go!" She's really sweet, just like Serena, even though Shuna keeps saying she wasn't her. He finds himself smiling at her even though he isn't sure how much it is due to her and how much due to his little intermezzo with Shuna.
"Let's go, squirt."
They spend the day in the amusement park and Reina almost falls asleep on the way back. He brings her home and lingers on the porch because he knows the next act as well as Shuna does.
"She's in love with you," Aglaia says as she steps outside, silent and graceful. Souichi's heart skips a beat because she opened the game with a remark that sounds anything but innocent and for a second he does not know how to react. She surprises him, again and again.
"She's only fourteen," he finally says, nonchalantly. Damn, he wants to fight Aglaia but Reina is not the right topic.
"If you hurt her," Aglaia threatens him with a voice as calm and cool as water, "I will make sure you regret it."
"I'm sure you will," he answers and snaps open his lighter because he knows she hates it when he smokes. Shuna is quiet, for a while. He enjoys the intensity that hangs in the air but it hurts, too. He just does not know how to change it. This is what they do, always did. Sometimes he wonders if it will ever change.
"When will you stop smoking?" She finally says and there they are again, familiar turf.
"Try to make me, Princess," he mocks her. She glowers. She is beautiful.
"Stop calling me that."
"Princess? Why?" He takes a deep breath. "It suits you."
"I dislike it." She says it without passion.
"You want me to call you Lady Aglaia?"
"Call me what you want, Delos Britius." Does she realize how much the use of his name – the memory of his betrayal – hurts him? Probably. Aglaia is sharp.
"So did you enjoy your day today?"
She folds her arms in front of her chest – she's turning into a woman, there is no way he can not notice it – and there they are again, thoughts he should not have, things he should not feel. He crushes the cigarette with more force than necessary. When he looks up again, her shoulders are shivering in the cold.
"I was perfectly fine, thank you."
He wonders if he imagines it: without you. "I did ask you."
"After you asked Reina and were ready to leave. And besides, I do not care: I don't like amusement parks anyway."
She's trying to sound like she indeed does not care. For a second he wonders whether he should have taken her – should just have asked her straight-out. Who knows, she could have said yes. But there is a line they do not cross. Take all that fucking tension out of their interaction and they could be counted as friends but with their baggage it is easier just to provoke her and watch her struggle than to deal with what his own heart tells him. It's easier that way, and safer, too.
"Go inside," he tells her and gets up from the cool stone steps of the front porch. "You'll catch a cold."
"I'm not freezing," she spits at him, a cat, blonde hair silvery in the light of the lamps inside, her eyes too dark to see. Delos grabs her arm.
"Let go!" Immediately, she tries to free herself but he holds her. Her skin is cold.
"Go inside," he commands her again. And lets go of her. As if she had sucked out his own warmth, he suddenly feels cold. Aglaia lifts her hand, touches her arm where he has gripped her, wraps both her arms around herself. Suddenly she looks frail, smaller than she actually is. This is Shuna. Or Aglaia?
"Don't treat me like a child."
And he bursts into laughter. "Lady," he says, wiping tears away from his left eye. "The day I met you, you weren't a child anymore. How could I treat you like one now?"
"You do," she glowers at him and he wants to grab her and kiss her, right there, he does not care who watches and who objects and what their history says or does not say. This has been coming since long. He always wanted her, always, Aglaia and Shuna, twenty-four and ten and now sixteen. He wants to…
"You always do."
If you only knew, he thinks. "Yeah, I do. Because, face it: you are a kid. Barely sixteen."
She turns and leaves without a further word, her head held high like the lady she is. Aglaia's figure retreats into the darkness of the big house and Shuna goes with her.
He lights the next cigarette and stares into the darkness before him.
Shuna, eighteen
Her friends in school tease her: find a boyfriend, Shuna. She's the only one of them who hasn't had one, yet, she does not care for boyfriends or relationships or sex, even.
Aglaia knows enough. Shuna never had the will to experiment, as her friends call it.
It does not make her blind towards that kind of things, though. She sees pretty well when someone is in love, and when a relationship has progressed to the next level, and when a break-up is inevitable. Sometimes she does not see it immediately but in the end it always is there, straight in her face, and sometimes one of her friends turns up pale and devastated and Shuna is allowed to pick up the pieces. You didn't match, really, it's not your fault, don't blame yourself. Two play the game. And because she loves her friends, she does not mind. But sometimes, she is sick of it. You should find a boyfriend, Shuna. If it was that easy, wouldn't there be no need for her to act as their advisor?
Besides, there are complications to every scenario and she finds the greatest one is Souichi.
"Time for bed, Reina!" Their mother calls, standing in the door to the living-room.
"What? Noooo! Not yet, please!"
Reina launches into her usual tirade which today is backed up by the fact that Souichi is there. Jeans, dark shirt and messy hair, he lounges on the couch like the King of the World. His smirk is replaced by the by fractions gentler face he shows when he is with Reina and yet Shuna knows the sneer isn't gone, just waiting to reappear within seconds. A part of her acknowledges the sense she seems to possess, the one that always knows what he is looking at and how. Another part of her dislikes it immensely.
"Reina, last call!"
Reina sits up, crosses her arms over her chest and pouts. Shuna feels a smile tug at her lips. "Come on, little sister. Tomorrow will be another day."
"Will you come over tomorrow, as well?" Reina demands and tugs at Souichi's arm. The guy smiles. Shuna knows that kind of smile is not reserved for her, never was. Delos could be gentle, could be calm, but not in her presence.
"I don't know," he answers and tousles her hair, a gesture that makes her glower with happiness. "I can try."
"Oh, please!"
"I will try, really," he repeated. "Now go, before your mother sends the army to get you."
With a hug for Shuna and a brilliant smile for both of them Reina departs, leaving them in a silence that always expands when they are in the same room. It never lasts, God forbid, even though sometimes she wishes it would. And because she hates the thought that she might actually enjoy his presence, she starts.
"I saw you after school today."
"So?" Delos leans back, his arms draped over the couch, his dark eyes watching her with that mixture of sarcasm and challenge she knows so well. "I often pass by your school."
"You didn't look like you were passing by."
"So?"
He looks like he's enjoying where they are going. She does, too, in a strange and twisted way – and at the same time she knows this will hurt, will sting like any intermezzo they share burns like acid on her skin. Shuna has been waiting the entire day to tell him this.
"I don't care what you do in your free time, especially not what you do with women. But let me tell you this." She fixes her gaze on him and for once, he seems calm and expectant – and then she sees the sparkle in his eyes that tells her he is enjoying this. She desperately wishes she would not always, always remember the way his eyes shone when he tried to kiss her, way past in Pompeii, how he looked at her when he thought she was unaware. It burns like fire, the memory of his touch, and because he never looked at her again that way and because he betrayed her she feels like she is burnt out, like her heart is a charred, black piece of coal barely able to keep her alive nowadays.
"If you," she says and puts emphasis on every word, "try to make a move on one of my friends again, I will…"
"You will?" He interrupts her, the cocky grin she knows so well bright on his lips. "You've been threatening me for a long time, Aglaia. When will you finally go through with your threats? And how? What are you planning on doing to make me stop?"
Shuna clenches her fists as she glares at him. He is right – of course, what will she do? She thinks of how his hands ghosted through Satsuki-chan's hair, how he leaned down, how she blushed, and she wishes she could erase the memory from her head once and forever. He does nothing but hurt her and he does it intentionally. What is she expecting, anyway?
"Not my friends," she says through clenched teeth. "Whatever you want, but not them."
And she turns and leaves the living-room. This is where their pretense disappears, normally, where he continues on his way smirking and smoking and she leaves, and both eagerly await their next meeting. Only today, it is different. She gets as far as the corridor when he catches up to her, grabs her arm, spins her around.
"Aglaia," he says, still smirking but there is a dangerous edge to it. "Still as protective as ever, aren't you?"
"So what if I am?" She tries to free her hand but he is stronger than her. So she looks at her wrist pointedly but he does not let go of her. "Still as pushy as ever, Delos? Still trying to get under every skirt available. You haven't changed at all."
"I don't-" He starts but she does not let him finish.
"You're despicable. Do you not care whom it is you spend your nights with? I've seen some of them, I daresay I thought you had a better taste. But by all means, continue on, I don't really-"
There. He slams her into the wall, hard. With it, the line they usually stumble on goes up in flames and crumples to ashes.
"Shut up," he growls and Shuna feels a stab of triumph that she brought him that far, that she made him lose his countenance. She has won this round. But the anger still pulses through her red-hot, the image of him whispering something into Satsuki's ear and of her noiseless giggle, the way she blushed when he-
"Oh?" She laughs, pointed, mirthless. "You don't like the truth?"
"You have no idea of the truth," he spits at her, his eyes blazing. Shuna would have been afraid of him had he been any other man, but both she and Aglaia aren't afraid of Delos. He cannot hurt them more than he already has. "What would you know? You were born into a rich family, you grew up privileged and safe – did you ever cry from hunger in your entire life? Did you ever wonder who your parents were, and why they did not care for you and love you?"
"So it's about that?" She throws back. "Poor little Delos, born a bastard, used and abused and so terribly pitiful? Oath-breaker, traitor, did there ever come something good from you in your life?"
"And you?" He laughs, harshly, grabbing her fists and pulling them up over her head. "You're a pretender. You talk big and pretend to love everyone and everything but in reality you cannot love at all!"
"You!" She little bit more than shrieks, rage boiling over hot and acidic. "You bastard, stupid, stupid son of a-" She would hit him had he not held her wrists in such a strong grip. The next day they would be blue and bruised but right then she did not care at all, did not even feel the pain. "Loleus died because you were a coward, because you did not stand up to the man who did not even acknowledge you as his son! Two years and you return to him like he ever treated you with respect and love! Two years you pretended to be loyal, we all trusted you! You were one of us! I trusted you, goddamnit, I loved you!"
And then everything happens at once: Shuna feels her rage boil over, hot and bitter, she tries freeing her hands but he still holds her in an iron grip. The tears she has fought so hard not to cry spill over, run down her cheeks and she hates herself for her weakness, hates herself that he still can shake her up like that, even after two years in Pompeii and nineteen hundred years until now and after almost eight years of knowing him as Souichi. She hates herself for her admission, too, stupid and impulsive and now he has all the more reason to mock her. But Aglaia also hates to lose so she glares up at him, his face vanishing behind her own sheen of tears, and hisses at him. "And now let me go or I swear I will scream!" And Delos kisses her.
It is the last thing she expected.
Shuna feels his lips on hers – not gentle but hot and demanding and hard – and he's so close she can barely see his face. He is so close she can feel the heat emanating from his body, through his clothes and the air separating them. The kiss is nothing like her friends always told her a first kiss would be: sweet and soft, and awkward and gentle. Instead, Delos kisses her as if they had kissed many times before, as if he already knows her on a level too intimate to describe. Possessive, demanding and hard, her head slams against the wall hard and still he does not stop. His hands hold her wrists, up over her head, his fingers burning into her skin like hot iron. And Aglaia wants to push him away and scream at him to stop and hit him and she wants to close her eyes and kiss him and never stop, wants to feel his hands in her hair and on her arms and his body so, so close to hers, she wants it so bad she feels like screaming. And if there ever was any distinction between Aglaia and Shuna it is gone, vanished completely.
Delos releases her wrists.
She gasps for air when he breaks the kiss, her heart racing, her entire body on fire – and then he kisses her again, as hard as the first time, as possessive and as passionate. And Shuna feels the tears burn their way down her cheeks hotly as she closes her eyes and kisses him back.
When she thinks she will faint from the lack of oxygen he finally stops and takes a deep breath, his eyes still closed, and then he opens them and looks at her. Shuna feels the shiver run down her back as her entire body starts trembling: the look in his eyes is so full of longing and dread that her heart goes out to him. Had it not been his already it would have been right then she would have given it to him. Delos looks at her closely and notices her tears and with a gesture so tender her heart slams against her rib cage painfully he wipes them away with one hand.
"Aglaia…"
"I am sorry," she apologizes before she can check herself. "What I said – I did not mean it – Delos, I…"
"Shh." He covers her mouth with one hand carefully. It is so big she feels like she will disappear behind it entirely. "What I did was unforgivable. I wish…" He breaks off, his gaze heart-wrenchingly honest. "I know you cannot forgive me for what happened. It was my fault entirely. But I swear-"
"Shuna, dear?" They startle badly, Delos moving back, Shuna sliding sideways and away from the wall. The voice of her mother is loud and echoes through the hallway as if she stood right next to them.
"Yes, Mom?" Shuna calls back and hopes her voice does not tremble.
"Is Souichi still there?"
"Yes. I was just… We we're just…" She splutters. "I just showed him something, he'll leave in a minute!"
"I'll be gone immediately, Mrs. Sakakibara," Delos adds, sounding annoyingly calm. "Good Night, and thanks for the dinner!"
Shuna's mother appears at the end of the stairs and smiles down at him. "Good Night, Souichi! Her gaze wanders to her daughter and Shuna thanks every god she knows she is not wearing her glasses anymore. "It's late, Shuna, better get to bed quickly!"
"I will," she promises. "I'll just take Del- Souichi to the door."
With one last, short-sighted smile, Mrs. Sakakibara disappears up the stairs.
Delos lifts a hand as if to touch her face and lets it fall again. "Aglaia-"
"Wait." Shuna covers her face with her hands before he can repeat his earlier actions and takes a deep breath. She can still feel his lips on hers, the warmth of his touch, his body so close – she deliberately tries to push those thoughts away and fails spectacularly. "Why did you kiss me?"
"Didn't you say you loved me?"
"Delos. No games anymore, okay? Not tonight. Please."
Souichi regards his hands, then stuffs them into his pockets. Says nothing.
"We need to talk," Aglaia concludes and pushes herself away from the wall. "Come."
"But your mother said…"
She throws him one look. "Come."
Delos hesitates for another second, then his face stretches into a grin. He chuckles as he starts to follow her but his laughter holds no malice, no condescension.
"You never change, Aglaia."
If you ask Delos – or Souichi – he'd say the thing he loves most in her is the fact that she always meets him head-on: she never backs down. He can mock her and back her into a corner and she will still argue back with the very same intensity that exhilarates him, again and again. Her passion matches his.
That's why he loves her.
Of course, when asked, he'd never actually answer the question.