Disclaimer: Look, kids, if I was a part of CLAMP I wouldn't be writing fan fiction.
Dedication: Always tsuin Circe. For patience, encouragement, and the free entertainment of being her beta reader.
Notes: I have no idea what's come over me. And now I have a confession that most authors would never make to their readers: I can't think of anything to end their relationship. Nothing. Zip. Not a clue. At best, I can tell you this: it wasn't a fight, over one thing or a lot of things, or niggling picky little sniping. It seems to me to more of a "this isn't working and I don't know how to make it right and neither do you, so let's just go with the intellectual, easy way of dealing with feelings" kind of things. Remember, they're very good friends in Midnight. It's something gentle. If anyone has any ideas, feel free to e-mail me. I won't rewrite this, but I'd like to know what you think.
The rating? It's more 'r' than 'R.' I think. I don't know…I'm bad at that kind of stuff.
Strange Gray Days
She thinks that breakfast has become an abnormally quiet affair. Spinel is reading the paper, but that's what he does every morning. He even reads the business section and tells Tomoyo how her mother's company is doing. The Daily Report, as they call it, consists of the word "fine." Nakuru, having been banned from any form of business ever again, has returned to school and is frantically trying to finish his homework. But he's so quiet about it these days. Eriol sits at the far side of the small table, concentrating hard on his orange juice. Soundlessly, Tomoyo focuses on her own plate. She doesn't know what to say. What did they talk about before all these silences?
"I…" she looks up again as he clears his throat softly and sips his juice. He doesn't quite meet her eyes. "I, uh, talked to Yamazaki-kun yesterday. He said his neighbor decided to leave school and move back to Kyoto. I thought I might talk to him about sub-leasing his place. I imagine it's a lot like Yamazaki-kun's, and it's close to Tokyo University…Nakuru?"
"I just…you reminded me…. University... I was going to see Kinomoto-sensei this morning. Before class. To ask about Egypt. Egyptian history. I have an exam soon…." Nakuru won't look up as he swiftly gathers his books and dumps them into his school backpack with no order or care. "I'll...we can look…. Later, okay, Eriol? When I come home, we can see Yamazaki-san and maybe Chiharu-chan will be over and we can look at the rest of townhouse. Okay? I have a bus…."
"Nakuru?" She slips out of her seat and into the kitchen. She can hear the moon guardian shift restlessly behind her. Nakuru hates talking about moving out; about what belongs to whom, and which bills are his, which are hers. Nakuru has never before had this kind of divisiveness in his life. He doesn't understand why things need to be this way. She knows he is desperate to get out of this new apartment and so she hurries.
"I saw these yesterday, on my way home from Mother's." Tomoyo holds out a small package, seashells made of striped milk and white chocolate. "I was going to give them to you last night, but you were out so late…."
Eriol watches Nakuru take the candy as though it was fragile, holding it reverently for a moment before carefully tucking it into his coat pocket, thanking Tomoyo in a soft voice that somehow seems so loud.
"I'll see you after Sociology, Nakuru? Spinel and I will pick you up." He offers. He knows Nakuru will find an excuse to avoid looking at the apartment if he doesn't do something. He understands that Nakuru wants to ask why, wants to tell him to work it out with her, wants to have a say in this matter, and by the same token is glad to not have to make a choice between him and Tomoyo. He understands that this is hard for Nakuru, but it's hard for all of them and Eriol doesn't want to make all these new choices alone. It will be Nakuru's life, too, after all.
He watches Nakuru nod and bow his way out of the apartment, assuring the world at large that he will be waiting on the front steps right after class, then looks to Spinel, still silent over the paper. Spinel blinks at him, then nods slightly. Of course he will come to look at this next place, as he has looked at all the others. There have been a lot of other places to see. Or maybe it just feels that way.
He turns to Tomoyo, uncertain of what he means to say, and finds that she has returned to the table with two more chocolates. Head bowed, it is she who will not meet his eyes as she slides a striped seahorse onto the saucer next to his teacup.
"I got some for everyone." She tells him in a near whisper. For a moment, he doesn't know her. This is not his Tomoyo. She has never used an excuse to give him chocolate. She has never been shy with him. For a moment, just a fleeting second, he is fiercely glad that this is not his Tomoyo sitting down across from him. It is not his Tomoyo he will be leaving. His soft "thank you" goes unanswered.
Spinel receives his with the radiant smile reserved for Tomoyo alone, and flies it to the room he shares with Nakuru, saying he will eat it later. The little nautilus is, as they have all been since the day Tomoyo first offered a happily rampant Spinel his own chocolates, sugar-free. It'd taken Eriol nearly a year to work out that simple truth. They'd both insisted that Tomoyo was using magic. He'd known that wasn't true, but he'd been at a loss to explain why Tomoyo's candies did not make his sun guardian go haywire.
He wonders, as he toys with his food, when breakfast got so awkward. He's not hungry but he's not leaving, either. Tomoyo, he notes, is merely pushing her eggs around. It seems sudden when she takes her plate to the sink. And Spinel's, as it looks as though he isn't coming back to the table. Eriol folds the paper neatly, wishing he knew what to do with himself.
"I think it will be nice." Her voice is stronger, louder, as she crosses back to the table to finish her tea.
"What?" He's been thinking about chocolates so he's lost the thread of the conversation.
"Living above Yamazaki-san. I think it would be very nice if you talked his neighbor into signing his lease over to you. At least you won't fall for Yamazaki-san's stories about the ghosts of former students who failed coming back to haunt anyone who tries to study."
"No, I won't believe them. I'll just help him tell them. We can test them out on you and Chiharu-san when you come to visit." He nibbles at his seahorse, feeling strangely nervous about being alone with his lover. Former lover. They're just friends, now. They're trying to be friends. Their relationship is at an odd stage, considering that they still live together. They still share a room and a bed, but that's only so they won't disrupt Nakuru's life any more than they already have. They don't do anything but sleep in that bed. Well, sometimes, when they aren't fully awake, they forget themselves and things go farther than they should. Old habits are hard to break. He's never really meant to do more than sleep beside her. He's never meant to let himself get carried away.
"I don't think Chiharu-chan would like that very much. You're such a bad influence on him. Besides, he moved there so he could study, not lie."
"I'm a bad influence? He's the one who got me started with Calendar Watches and illegal chocolates, if you'll remember. It's all his fault I'm a liar."
"I do remember, but you'll probably have to remind Chiharu-chan of that the first time she comes over to see you."
"I'll see a lot more of her if I get the place, I guess. Nakuru will like that."
"Yes. And I won't even need directions on how to get there. That'll make it a lot easier to visit the three of you."
Her voice sounds strange, but she's drinking her tea when he glances over at her. But he knows her, knows something isn't right about the way she's talking. Too quickly, he thinks, she's talking to quickly. It's hard on all of us, he reminds himself. There are so many things that they just shouldn't talk about now. So he keeps looking at her until she puts her cup down. "Smile."
She looks up when he tells her that. Looks up at him and smiles and he can't stand it. Not like that, he wants to cry, not like that, because it's not a real smile. She wants it to be one, for him. But it's not and it's terrible to see on her, the sweet curve of lips that is her perfect smile, when there are tears on her eyelashes, wanting to fall, and she's so desperately sad that…that…
Tomoyo is surprised to feel his arms wrap around her, pulling her close, his hand stroking her hair and pressing her to his heart as he murmurs that he's sorry, he shouldn't have said that, he's sorry, don't cry, Tomoyo, please don't cry. He's holding her so close, so tight. She's upsetting him.
"I'm not." She tells him.
But she is and he can hear it and she knows it.
He pulls back when she says this, his hands coming up to cradle her face and wipe away her tears. She thinks he says something, or tries to say something, but then he's kissing her and she doesn't care.
She doesn't care because this kiss is warm and familiar and comforting, despite the sudden surging of her blood. They can't lie to each other like this; they've never been able to. He's trying to comfort her, ease the pain they're both feeling as what has been their world fractures and falls to pieces. He's trying to comfort her, she's trying to comfort him, and the chemistry between them inevitably ruins their intentions.
It would be so easy. To take what his lips offer, to accept the hand sliding to the back of her neck, squeezing lightly in a rhythm that relaxes and arouses her, the press of his body against hers. So easy to fall back into what they used to have, to take it for as long as it lasts. To believe, if only until their bodies cool, that they are okay. Therein lies the danger, though. Every time it ends, every time they have to break up all over again in their minds and hearts. She has to stop this. In the light of day, she has to stop this before they have to lose each other again.
She pulls back, intending to apologize for crying, or make light of his apology to her, or anything, but he puts a gentle finger to her lips. His voice is as soft as his eyes. And just as smoky.
"No words."
As she nods, as she reaches up to meet the next kiss, Tomoyo understands and is surprised. He has openly, if in their oblique fashion, referred to those late nights and early mornings when sense instinct held sway and they were lovers instead of friends. Sleepiness was their scapegoat, and the physical tug of old habit. The nights and mornings when she, and now she knows for certain, he, pushed aside nagging conscience and reason, and reached for the newly forbidden. The remnants of them, us, we. Plurality.
They have never spoken of it, not even as they settled back to sleep or into the routine of waking day. In fact, they no longer speak at all when they make love. Words make things real. Names make things real. So it is only the sounds of pleasure, the vocabulary of desire, in those illicit moments when the world is still dark. They will turn the day to night.
She lets him lead them out of the large main room and down the hall to their bedroom. Decision made, she starts pulling at the buttons between them, uncertain and uncaring if they are from his shirt or her stylish little dress. She wishes both items to Eriol's catholic Hell, and if they don't go she can always sew the buttons back on. If this is the path they are going to pursue, she wants to stop thinking. She needs to stop thinking.
She needs to stop thinking about the new bed and how maybe they shouldn't have bought it, they should have had the old one, the one they'd had since the beginning of time, fixed. Tomoyo kisses him harder, shoving his shirt off his shoulders and cursing over the still buttoned cuffs. She leaves him to deal with that while she shrugs out of her dress. Skittering across her mind, the thought that the old bed should perhaps be in a house, like Eriol had first suggested they buy and she'd said no to. Desperate, she presses closer, lets him finish undressing her. He's so warm. The heat will burn her thoughts away. The slow, lapping kisses trailing down her body can chase her guilt away. She should have shown him, somehow, that she wanted to hold onto their past, build a future on it. Because it shouldn't be this easy. It should never have been this easy to let him go. She can't help but wonder if she had that old bed, the new house, would she still be fighting for him, for them? Wouldn't it be harder to walk away from what they were if they had something that permanent between them, connecting them? How could it be any harder than it already is? She needs to let go of those thoughts.
So she concentrates on him. On getting his trousers and boxers off, and working her way back up. She knows how to give – it is receiving that has ever been a problem for her. Giving focuses her mind completely on the person she gives to, and not herself. Concentrating on Eriol, she can lose her mind to his pleasure. It's immensely gratifying, in its own way. To know that this glide of tongue, this brush of fingers, will make him whimper. To hesitate here makes him writhe, to blow gently just there will make him reach for her. She knows him well, and he is still a mystery under her hands. She will forget the world outside and live in theirs again, for as long as she can.
Eriol is surprised with himself. What is he thinking, being with Tomoyo like this? Not that his body is objecting…it doesn't have to worry about the consequences of making love with the most beautiful woman on Earth. But Eriol does. So what is he doing lying under Tomoyo, almost helpless with ecstasy? More to the point, why is he letting this happen in broad daylight?
At least at night they can pretend that they aren't fully awake. They can pretend. It's an accident when Eriol's hand covers her breast in the middle of the night. Tomoyo's responses to his light, hopeful, testing touches are just blind instinct. They can pretend that they're okay, then. That it's possible to forget that they're breaking up, have broken up. He can pretend that the easiest, most natural thing in the world for him isn't happening at one of the worst times in his life.
But with the light streaming in the windows, he can see. Her body glows in the morning light, her dark hair shifting over them both in tickling swirls, the desire hot in her eyes. And the hopelessness, in the midst of pleasure, the knowledge of just how hopeless all of this is, that is mirrored in his own eyes. Despairing, he draws her up and into a kiss so that he won't be able to see those knowing eyes. He tastes both of them on her lips, the taste of his skin layered on top of the taste of her mouth. But it is her taste, only hers, that he wants.
And is it because those nights aren't enough anymore? His body is desperate for hers, it generally is if he wants to stop and think about it. But if the stolen, hidden moments aren't enough, what then? He can't have this, this daylight loving or the whispered words and breathless laughter he misses. He rolls them, pinning her beneath him, frantically striving to regain his control so he can think, memorize her. They can't have each other, not if they want to save what they can of the love they have. He'll take anything that will keep them in each other's lives, anything that won't end with them walking away with no love left for the other. He'll take what he can for as long as he can. He needs her, any way at all. His control is shot.
I should have married her, the agonizing thought skips across his mind as he slides deep inside her, I should have married her. It wouldn't be so easy to walk away. He'd have to stay and fight, even if it's just for a little longer while longer. His thoughts take on the rhythm of his body; it shouldn't be so easy, it shouldn't be this easy to leave. He hides his face next to hers, unwilling to let her see these things in his face as they try to deny the world. He won't let his feelings hurt her again. Because, his mind chants in time with his breathless gasps, this isn't easy. It's hard. It's painful. It isn't easy to leave her. But he has to. He has to leave her; has to leave because this is her bed, her apartment, her life.
She cries out his name. And he's lost, utterly lost. This is exactly what he doesn't want it to be. Her name tumbles from his lips, whispered into her ear as he loses everything in the world but her.
He loses her when she gently pushes him away from her. She sits up beside him and looks at him for a long, serious moment, and he knows she's going to speak to him. She's going to do the right thing and try again to end this twilight relationship they're in. He should want her to.
"I think," she says gently, "that it might be best if I went to my studio for a while." It's really a third bedroom, but it's got more light that this one. He likes it, likes watching her work, but he no longer goes in there. "You should probably shower. You'll have to leave to meet Nakuru soon." Tomoyo slips out of bed and pauses over her dress before going to the closet and finding her robe. "I'll sew those buttons back on a little later. Blue shirt or white?" She holds them out for him to choose. He despises being an adult.
"Blue, please." She smiles at him as she hangs it on the bedpost.
"I like this shirt on you." She gives him another thoughtful look, then does something he doesn't expect. She leans over the bed and kisses him. Just a tiny little thing, and it hurts just as much as it's supposed to. "I'm going to stay at Mother's tonight after dinner." She heads for the door without another word.
"I'm taking it." He looks over as she stops in the doorway. "The place above Yamazaki-kun. I'm going to take it if the guy is willing to sign the lease over."
She nods slightly without looking at him, and leaves him to shower, gather up Spinel and Nakuru, and look over their new place. He can't stay here much longer. He knows that this is the last time they'll make love, and he can't stand to sleep in this bed knowing that. He can't be near her. It's just too much to be close to her and not be with her. Maybe it'll be better once they're farther apart.