A/N: Written for the challenge at promptcentral on livejournal. These drabbles will be in chronological order, so despite being drabbles they read sort of like a regular chaptered fic would. What I like to call a drabble sequence.
Enjoy.
Mimicry
#001 – Comfort
Fuuma felt something change in the air that night.
Some moonlight forced its way through the thick blanket-curtains, the rest taking the easier route provided by the exposed portion of the window. It was enough to highlight the room: to frame the sill, the post, the IV, the chair and the closed door.
He had his back to the door, and yet he could still see the small sparkle of its handle. Somehow, it burned into his mind, and it was a difficult thing to keep his gaze from straying away from his sister's prone form.
He reached out for the skin of his sister's exposed cheeks, tinged red even now in a canvas of washed out bleach. The slight rubbery feel under recent soap grounded him a little, and his mouth twisted into an unintentional frown at the uncommon smell. Yet his mind drifted to the ominous handle behind him: the door that remained firmly shut and still…but something, some shadow, lurked behind it.
It was an irrational thought; he didn't have the power to see through solid wood, but even if he did he doubted it would yield the appearance of phantoms from nightmares. Not even his nightmares; it wasn't often he dreamed, and when he did it was of Kotori, or Kamui, or their mother's death –
But Kotori's demons, the things that terrified her so badly she would freeze and babble incoherently until she fell asleep again against his chest, soothed by the steady beating heart it encased. And Fuuma would lay awake wondering afterwards what monsters dared to cross the realm of sleep and assault her fragile mind…
And they had done it again, driving her into a state where she could barely recognise him. Him, her dear elder brother who had always held her close when she shook from her dreams.
He couldn't – ever – protect her from it. And now…he couldn't even hold her close enough to try.
His fist, clenched in his lap, shook. The sparkle of the handle still firmly imprinted in his mind seemed to shake as well: shuddering with anticipation, calling him away, calling him back…
Something was going to happen. He knew; it knew…that something would change when that door behind him opened. Something would end.
And all they could do was wait. Wait by the bedside of a girl assaulted by her demons and hope that the change coming would be all the better for her – because something in his heart was crying out already, saying it wasn't going to end well for him at all.