Notes: I think I'm getting a cold...

Pairings: Ran x Ken *giggles* My favorite

Warnings: AU, Ran POV

Disclaimer: Not mine. Why not? Too crazy. o.0

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Lightless Fire

Vision

Prologue

A beacon in the night, pushing back the oily darkness, cleansing my outstretched fingers as I desperately reached for that unattainable light. Might that I be able to bathe in the heat and light, I would be clean. I would be free of the taint upon my hands. I might be free of the curse upon my soul.

I could feel his fingers brush against me gently, like a wisp of air in the still night, searching. Searching for that pale reflection of its own flame. I could not supply the light, nor the heat to guide. I could not supply the love to hold. I could not supply what I knew he needed most.

Then he was gone. A dark void, darker than the night already pressing around my suffocating body filled in the place where his presence once resided. It was trying to take away the only light I had found. He had given me light. He had given me fire. He had given me love. But the light I found within him, was only within me. Hidden. A lightless fire deep within the recesses of my spirit.

~

I could feel a gentle brushing as I kicked towards the surface. It was too dark to see what had passed by me. So close. I broke into the air with a gasp, shaking my head to clear my eyes of water and hair. The ocean was restless around me. Churning and waving in the wind as a storm broiled on the horizon. I knew I should get to shore. But something was holding me here. An invisible bond, stronger than anything my gaze could fall upon.

Someone broke the surface of the watery void behind me. I turned around, treading water tirelessly. It was Ken. His hair slicked back on his wet face, his eyes shut tight as he shook his head. I grinned at his appearance, both comical and desirable. I hid my expression as he opened his eyes again, looking towards shore.

"What are you doing out here Ran?"

"Why do you care?" I had to yell for him to hear me. The wind was getting stronger and the water was beginning to slap at our faces.

"Well it's just a little stupid to be out here just for the waves." He was grinning now. That annoyed me. What business was it of his to question my actions?

"Get to shore Hidaka."

"But-"

"Now." I glared at him and waited until he sulkily caught the next wave with his body to surf the rough current to the beach. I watched him disappear beneath the white capped wave and looked once at the horizon before diving below the surface once again.

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