A/N: Actually written on 2011/12/12, just cleaning out my WIP folder. I'm sure a zillion people beat me to this idea, but oh well.
HALF MOON
They stand on the cusp of autumn, surrounded by green leaves and biting wind and stars. The city curls at the feet of the mountain below them.
"I have something to show you," says Yukito. He looks nervous, which is strange. His perpetual serenity is a hallmark of his spirit. It's as if a bank of muddied clouds has swept across his soul.
Touya peers through it. "All right," he says, picking out landmarks through the cloud cover, searching for the heart of that familiar landscape.
Yukito tilts his head up. Cradled by the sharp September black, a half moon is shining gloriously overhead, so bright they can hardly pick out the grey scars and craters at all. Yukito spreads his arms before him, palms up to catch the light, and shuts his eyes. A name swirls out of his mouth like a spell, only two syllables but centuries long. The light lands in his arms and pools in the hollows of his skin.
When he opens his eyes again, they are mismatched. The right is still that endearingly ordinary shade of brown, but the left… a cold slit of a pupil stares out from its silver mirror, inhuman and cautious. His hair is lengthening, too, stretching down his shoulders in loose white waves.
Touya stares. "Yue," he says.
"Yes," says Yue, only it isn't, though it is. That is Yue's voice, but it is warmer than Yue's voice. It is Yukito's voice, but harsher than Yukito's voice. "No. We are the half moon."
Touya glances up, and understands. Yue is full, too bright to look at, at the far end of a long cycle. Yukito is new, powerless and brown and nearly invisible, but just as devoted to watching over their shared world. This being before him, half bright and half dark, is a fusion of both those souls into one messy but apparently functional whole.
"Why?" Touya asks, not only because he wants to know but also because he can't think of anything else to say.
The brown eye crinkles. "Because it wasn't fair," Yukito says. "You can't have a proper conversation between three people when only two can participate at a time. Also, honestly, just because we wanted to know if we could. It's difficult, and tiring, so we won't be able to keep it up for long, but at least we know it can be done."
The silver eye narrows. "And though I suspect he would have left this part out: this way, you can converse with me while he remains conscious, so that he is not left out. I am always awake and aware when he is, and he has never felt that it is fair that the reverse is not true."
"I see," says Touya.
"And," says Yukito, pushing Yue gently back again, his voice soft as a fallen leaf, "this way we can both touch… and both be touched."
"Ah," Touya says, and now he really understands. "So if I…."
The half moon stands still and breathes shallow as Touya reaches out to cradle its face with both hands, cool light rushing between his fingers and pooling under his palms. The mismatched eyes close halfway to stare at him through their thick lashes, waiting. He closes the distance.
Even with only the barest new growth of magic within him, he can feel the places where their souls are bleeding into each other, and can feel both of their consciousnesses looking at him, reaching out for him, not fighting for control but fighting to maintain the balance of it. On his left, Yukito, warm and quiet and deep like a dark forest pool. On the right, Yue, winter ice groaning on the black river surface, sharp and cold and beautiful.
Touya has room, has always had room for both.
He leans back against the railing and welcomes them in, letting their cool liminal fingers sweep across the nape of his neck and tangle themselves in his hair, drawing them upwards and downwards and backwards and in until they are coiled nearly inside him, cocooned in the expansive cloak of his soul.
If he is truthful with himself… he has wished for this, too. He can say things, this way, tell truths he has long wanted to tell but held back for fear of being unfair. If he tells this being that he loves them, for instance, they will understand that the words are intended and true for both halves, neither more than the other and neither less.
So, while he has the chance, he holds the half moon close against him and tells them things, all the things he can think of, until the real moon sinks under the horizon and the magic fails and it is only Yukito in his arms once again, with only the thinnest glow of Yue's soul glimmering far, far behind his eyes.
Next month, he resolves, they'll do this somewhere less public, where they will not have to fear the interference of outside eyes.
He still has some truths left to tell.
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