Duzzie
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title: The Art of Loss
summary: How to let the person you love most in the world die.
author's note: I'm pretty sure this went in a direction I was not expecting at all. I started it out thinking it would end...on a better note, I'm not even sure where this came from, actually. I love these characters, though I admit this might be stretching it a bit too far, but hey, this is fanfiction. I miss Lenalee.
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He rouses to the sound of the harsh rain battering against the window, despite being somewhat muted by the heavy curtains. He is dreaming of soft things, happy things, but watches as they fade away with his slow awakening. He knows the storm isn't the cause of his consciousness, so he carefully pulls back the covers of his bed and wills himself to awaken. He swipes away the remaining sleep from his eyes and kneads the cricks out of his neck, slowly. Slowly.
The room is cold and gloomy, made ever gloomier with the echoing sounds of thunder and illuminating flashes of lightning that escape from small slivers of uncovered window. Gloomy in its shadows and gloomy in its emptiness. The feel of the chilled wooden floor beneath his bare feet makes him long for a home that no longer exists and it isn't so much a sigh that escapes his mouth as it is a sound of resignation laced almost bitterly with regret. He heaves himself up to standing before he gives himself the chance to wallow further. Waking up is always the hardest.
He leaves his glasses on the table by his bed and doesn't bother to light a candle. He knows his way around the building so well that he doesn't need any light. He likes it better dark, anyway. No matter how he acts during the day, he is a gloomy person by nature, and the dark, he thinks fleetingly, suits him. There is no point in pretenses when there is no one who needs to be pretended at, he's learned.
He walks down the hallway, slowly—as if he has all the time in the world—until he reaches the end, which becomes a spacious, open room. He walks through the doorway and pauses to observe the expected company.
She is sitting on a couch, face turned towards the looming windows to watch the dancing lights. With every flash her face is briefly illuminated. It is cold, like his empty room, and hard, like the unfeeling floor beneath him. Somewhat sadly, he thinks he probably looks the same way. Like this, he lets his mind wander and is half startled when she speaks.
Half startled because he hadn't been paying attention to her and half startled because the gentle, familiar sound of her Chinese had, in-between the years, become unfamiliar. They only spoke their language to each other, and they were with each other less and less.
"I couldn't sleep," she said. It was obvious she couldn't sleep or she wouldn't have been in this room at two in the morning, so he knows she said it to get his attention. To let him know his presence hadn't gone on unaware. He smiles gently, even though she isn't looking and couldn't see it even if she was, and walks over to her. He sits down on the floor in front of her and looks out the window as well. She reaches out to weave her hand through his hair. The stench of her sadness permeates the air so thoroughly that he can feel it seeping into his skin. Again, again, again, he wants to cradle her in his arms and take her away from here. He wants to tell her that he's sorry and that it will be all right and that he wishes…he wishes…
"I dreamed of China. I dreamed we were happily eating zongzi and tong sui. I dreamed of carrying you on my shoulders and helping you with your characters. I dreamed that this world didn't exist," he said instead, and he knows she wants to cry because the hand that had been softly stroking his hair slowly stills and her voice quakes with suspended emotion.
"You always did have a sweet tooth, brother," she pauses and the silence between them isn't uncomfortable, but is filled with so many unspoken words and so many unspoken feelings and thoughts and memories that he's sure he could reach out and grab hold of them all. "I…have stopped dreaming of such things a long time ago." He laughs, not because it's funny, but because it was so terribly sad and so horribly heart breaking to hear her say such a thing. She knows he wants to cry, too.
They don't.
He rests his head against her knees as his quiet laughter dies down. She can feel his shoulders slightly bouncing as he does and she wonders how long it's been since she's heard his real laugh. She's not even sure if she knows what it really sounds like. The thought makes her sad and somewhat guilty. "I'm sorry, brother. I'm so sorry," she cries into him, bending over to hide her face on top of his head. She thinks about her world, which is slowly falling apart, and the dead eyes of people who were once pieces of her heart, and Allen, who is such a broken boy, and Kanda and Lavi and her brother, who has sacrificed everything for her, who will continue to sacrifice everything for her. She thinks about her brother, resting on her lap, she memorizes the way his hair feels against her damp eyes. He's so close that she can see him even through the dark, though erratically lit, room and she memorizes the angular curve of his chin and the fatigue in his eyes and the trembling of his hands.
She memorizes the quietly screaming voice in his heart, so pitifully hopeless and hopeful and she answers him in her own heart and she knows the moment he hears it because he smiles so sadly at her that it's almost not a smile at all. "I'm sorry too, Lenalee," he tells her with his hands as they brush away the tears that haven't fallen yet.
He stands up and pulls her along with him and holds her, though neither one of them is really sure who's holding whom, but they stand like that as the rain pelts the window and the sound of thunder fills the room. It almost sounds like the aching of their hearts.
Tomorrow will be a new day, though not necessarily a better one, and he knows in his heart that she won't be coming back home just as much as he knows Allen will win the fight, but he can't honestly care anymore. Tomorrow they will pretend that she will return to him after the end, that no matter what she will come back and he will say welcome back and she will smile a smile so happy that the sun's shine couldn't possible compare and he will open his arms to her and hold her, not sadly or regretfully or desperately, but slowly, as if he has all the time in the world.
He will pretend that he doesn't know in his heart, in his soul, that he will never see her again. That he will have to welcome back a lifeless body and watch the flames engulf the only important person he has left. The only important person he has ever had.
Tomorrow, they will pretend, but tonight, they will memorize each other. He will remember her silken hair and small frame and the feel of her damp eyes against his cheek. He will remember all of her smiles and all of her laughter and he will remember the sound of her gentle Chinese being whispered into his ears.
They stay in each other's arms until the skies clear and the moon falls and tomorrow comes. He rouses from her as the rays of the rising sun start to slowly light the room. She stays there as he leaves and he turns around one last time to see her. The roar of thunder is gone as is the cruel barrage of the rain against the window and instead of the harsh flashes of lightning, the soft rays of the sun illuminate her face. It is warm, and determined. He says to her, "When you get back, we will eat tong sui and zongzi." She smiles at him and they don't say goodbye, because they will see each other again.
He walks down the hallway until he reaches his room. Slowly, he turns the knob and enters the dark and empty room. Slowly, he gets into bed, pulls the covers up around him and falls asleep.
He dreams of soft things. Happy things.
They do not fade away.