A/N: Beth is on vacation, and I want her to come back to a few little interesting reads. Besides that, my hand is starting to finally get back into working order, meaning I need to do a few one shots to get back into the swing of using my fingers to actually type again…anyway, Beth, this is for you…whenever you end up seeing it…
Liquid Heat
There would never be a colder night on the face of the earth.
It was as steady a thought as any, lingering within the fog of her mind. Tricks could have been played on her, and willingly she would have accepted them as truth. It was something uncanny, and the emptiness wasn't easily avoided. In fact, she knew, without a doubt, the void would swallow her. It would have to, because there was no way she'd make it out of the hell she had been cast into.
Knowing this, realizing there was no turning back the hands of time, the only thing she could do was linger in the single wish.
One that she knew would never come true.
"You know what they say, don't you, Shizuru?" A quiet voice timidly spoke beside her, an offering of peace, where none would ever be afforded otherwise. "A love bird waits to die when it is left alone."
The night was dark, not even the moon's gaze could be seen through the black clouds. It was as if the sky itself wept, and Shizuru found herself unable to part herself from her unrelenting search of that headlight she so expected to find, winding its way up the long trail to their home. "Should I consider myself fortunate?"
"No, of course not." Mai murmured as she taped up the last of the boxes. "You're suffering, Natsuki's not."
"The dead don't suffer." Shizuru shot back, a cold ice in her words, seeping into her gut even as she said it.
"No, they don't." Mai sighed, wondering how long this would go on…how many days would pass by before those wounds finally healed? Mai couldn't begin to guess, but it had been long enough already. Life had to go on, and it needed to do so without Natsuki's shadow pulling down every bit of strength they had. The woman they knew wouldn't have wanted that…and would have despised the very notion of such weakness.
Natsuki would have spat on it and crunched it underfoot, like every other pretense to hide behind such fragile feelings.
Natsuki broke walls that way, tore barriers asunder without even thinking…unknowingly, leaving little traces upon the hearts of everyone she touched. Lingering there, as an icy memory, one so perfect, even in the horror of it all.
"It's been a year." Mai said with a forced breath. "In that time, I've watched one of the strongest, most beautiful women I know...I've watched her just fall apart. You're just like a love bird."
With a smirk, dark and quaking uneasily, a tiny laugh slipped from between her teeth. "You too…" Shizuru wondered if Mai even heard her as she turned her crimson gaze to that of the busty woman. "I'm not the only sordid creature in this room."
Mai licked her lips and found them unspeakably dry. She'd lost the ability to cry a long while back, and forgot what it was like to truly smile. Even more than that, she'd forgotten what the woman in front of her was capable of. Shizuru Fujino was many things, both in domestic life, and within her career. She had been a powerhouse among many facets of life, but her romantic life was the one she lived fiercely for.
Everything she did, she did for the ones she loved.
Mai knew that in many respect Natsuki had been the same way. Even the carrot-top herself, strove for that single happiness above all else. The three of them a dynamic, if not explosive trio of lovers. However, the day of Natsuki's death, was the day that love died too, along with all of the joy found within such a thing.
Quietly, Mai had watched for too long, and, she could wait no longer to be noticed once more.
"Natsuki…she used to hate being spontaneous." Mai said, swallowing hard. "She liked her routines, and planned…sometimes too much." It was so hard to say it, to bring to the surface those distant, yet fond memories. "But her routine was one of the things I counted on. Whenever I was unsure of her feelings, that routine made me sure again."
"What I wouldn't give to feel her fingers on my hips, and her lips on the nape of my neck." Shizuru's voice cracked, and she swallowed hard. "She was always a very shy person when it came to those things…but, you're right." Her eyes stung, but like so many times before, the tawny haired woman refused to let the tears spill from the depths she kept them in. "Natsuki's feelings were always very clear in those moments, just before, and just after."
"Yours were too." Mai said then, one step forward deserved another, and face to face there was no running away from the implication. "I used to think I understood everything that went on in your head…that you wanted me to know. Now, I'm not so sure."
"Well, how could you?" The hard truth was back again. Cold as ever. "I don't even know what I'm thinking anymore." The rift between them not so wide when she lifted a hand to Mai's cheek. Even so, it was foolish to think something that simple could bridge the yearlong gap. "More than anything, there is only one thing I think of. It's the same question, over, and over, and over again. I've already exhausted all possible outcomes, and yet, I still pose the question anyway."
"Why did it have to be Natsuki?" Mai spoke softly, it was the same thing she asked herself too. "Shizuru, there are no answers for that. There never will be." Even so, she leaned into that warm hand upon her cheek, praying that it would be enough.
"I'll still ask anyway." It was a sorry excuse to cling onto things that were no longer fundamental to daily living. Shizuru knew that, and yet, she refused to simply forget that such pains existed. "I'll ask myself that same question until the day I die. It's the only thing I can do, so, I will."
Mai didn't dare say another word to the aching woman in front of her, though her fingers did reach out to rest on Shizuru's blazer. The black fabric a sign of her status, even now, as it cocooned her like the powerful figure she demanded herself to be. The woman beneath the shell was far more fragile, likely, already broken beyond repair. Pressing her lips into a tight line, Mai wordlessly worked the first button through the hole, the request lingering between them as she moved down to the second, and then third button on the jacket.
"You're hesitating." Shizuru murmured from behind closed lids, her hands already balled into fits to keep herself as steady as possible.
"You're shaking." Mai returned with all of the gentleness she could muster. "You've never gotten uneasy about sex before."
"I've never had sex without Natsuki there with us before." Deciding to risk it, Shizuru opened her eyes. She felt the first tear fall, but she could do nothing to stop it. It landed on the floor mutely, followed by several more of its kind. "She was my passion, my solace. Everything I knew to be true were things she first instilled into me. Even choosing to share her with someone like you…even that...came before me as a choice I wanted to make because of her."
"Then why let me get this close to you now?" Mai asked, her breath traveling across Shizuru's tender skin as she kissed away the trail of tears.
"Because you loved Natsuki." Shizuru said as she shrugged off her jacket, and began to work at the buttons upon her shirt. "And, she loved you." Everything else didn't matter, it didn't need to. "More than that, I love you...and I've made you doubt me…but I'm not the same person I was."
Maybe it was true that Natsuki had brought them together, and, perhaps it was equally true that such emotions bound them together even more after her passing…but one thing that mindset would ever afford was to leave Natsuki's memory behind. If anything, that stagnant feeling was little more than a poison now. They both knew it, even as they cast their cloth aside, forgetting it in rumpled heaps upon the floor.
Fears unspoken clawed at both of them, even as their lips met in a fury that was less than gentle. Anger clouded them, and a year's worth of bitter memories spilled into their mouths, the taste of blood an unfamiliar one between the frenzied kiss. The hard floor pressed into Mai's back, and she welcomed the force of the wood as she melted into the woman above her.
There was nothing serene in the wild eyed gaze of crimson, nothing soothing about the way her hands crawled upon Mai's skin, nails biting marks along their path, leaving red scrapes in their wake. Every touch scorched, every sigh was laced in a hiss of pain. Every kiss bruised lips, and every moment that trickled on by, left a fleeting memory behind.
There would never be a colder night on the face of the earth, but their tears were warm, even as their sobs remained silent.