I do not own Tsubasa or "Nobody Drinks Alone" by Keith Urban.
Hey all, I'd make this a music video, but I have no clue how so…
I guess this might take place in Infinity some time.
X X X
The grimy streets of Infinity were paved with his suffering. Even in Fei-Wang Reed's clutches, watching the girl he loved fall in love with a man-made image of him, loving her enough that he hoped the image grew its own heart and loved her in return, seeing the image suffering for loving her with his borrowed heart… It all had torn his apart, but he didn't think anything could hurt him more than those things. Little did he know that love was a double-edged sword.
For not being the image, for not being him, Sakura hated him.
You brought that bottle home in a paper sack
So now, exhausted and bloody from the latest chess game, he dragged his beaten body into the apartment, took a cup from the spotless kitchen, and slumped down in one of the creaky kitchen chairs. Sighing with resignation, he produced the cold glass bottle from the cavity inside his shirt where he had been hiding it. For a moment, he stared at it on the cracked and stained table. Finally, with shaking hands, he picked it up.
The paper rustled almost accusingly as he slipped the bottle from it. The alcohol sloshed inside it as he screwed off the cap.
He had seen his image drink, had seen the blissful happiness that lasted for hours at night and the crippling pain of a hangover in the morning. He didn't care about the consequences of his actions right now. He just wanted to forget for a while, to feel nothing, especially not this pain.
Drew the blinds and locked the doors
In his dark depressing room, he shoved the bed against the door and pulled the greasy curtains closed over the big windows. He shut out the cameras, flipped on one dim electric lamp with the tattered shade, and slumped down on the bed. He listlessly dragged off his shoes and tossed them aside. Then, he unfastened the heavy buckles on his pants and let his jacket slide painfully from his battered shoulders.
In the dark pants and white bandages, he felt like a man trapped between two worlds. One part of him was black with agony, suffering, pain, blood, darkness… while the other was white with equal pain, salvation, love for the girl, trust, sincerity, hope…
And there's nothing but empty there inside that glass
His first taste of alcohol was sharp and bitter. For a moment, he coughed and sputtered, trying to figure out how people drank this stuff. Then, he felt the heat in his chest and the warmth dulled the edges of everything he was feeling like a soothing blanket. The pain in his back whispered away, the agony of breaks and cracks in his heart faded, the scent of blood vanished, the love for her felt perfect and beautiful.
So you pour a little more
Another glass pushed even the creaking of the bed and the smell of garbage from his senses. He felt dulled, trapped in a bubble where nothing could touch him. He was suddenly very aware of how quiet it was and the bliss of not hearing his own breath rattling in his chest further lulled him through his dreamlike haze.
And there's no one there to judge you
Fai was out with the Princess, shopping for clothes and food and bandages. Fai would pick up a fresh shirt for Syaoran's beaten frame and Sakura would think nothing of him. Kurogane was out looking for new weapons. He needed a replacement for the one he had been using and Fai's needed a new chain. Mokona was most likely hunkered inside the ninja's clothing as it had taken a certain displeasure to being around Sakura as much as it used to.
At least that's what you tell yourself, but…
He was alone in the apartment, just him and the bottle. He had another drink and then something strange started playing in his head, over and over, like a picture show.
Don't you know
Nobody drinks alone?
Wordlessly, he closed his eyes and lay on his side on the bed. A small pained whimper crawled from his mouth and he wrapped his long arms tightly around himself. He felt his wounds pulling, hurting, and his body dying with him still inside it.
Every demon, every ghost
He felt Fei-Wang's eyes on him, destroying his freedom, his life, rending his love for Sakura into pieces until it was some twisted blackened thing. And then there was Sakura with her depressed disappointed jade-green eyes on him. From your past
His parents sacrificing everything, their time with him, their lives, their own love, everything to put him with Sakura. There were the happy times he spent with her, his most precious memories, his comfort in the darkness.
And every memory you've held back
Every sacrifice he had made for the princess, for his love of her, for his desire to save her, for his guilt. His fingers tearing his own eye out to give to the image and Sakura's dispassionate eyes once she learned the truth and Fei-Wang using him like a pawn on a game board and how Sakura was using him like that now.
Follows you home
He looked up at his closed barricaded door.
Once the princess got home, it would be so easy for him to corner and demand that she see him for what he was. The image was a fraud, the fake, not him. He was the real Syaoran! He was the one that suffered both at her hands and for her. He had given up so much, lost so much, lived through so much agony.
He had done it all for her.
God, sometimes he really wanted to. He wanted to shake her, to hurt her, to make her see him.
He wanted her to lean into him, to touch him, to say his name, anything.
Whatever little scrap of affection she wished to give him, he would greedily take.
All he wanted was her.
Nobody drinks alone.
Just her…
He just needed her to love him, maybe just a little…
X X X
Fai laid their purchases on the scarred kitchen table and looked around the apartment. There were noises coming from Syaoran's dark room and the door was shut like a fortress. Without a word, Sakura limped passed it without so much as a passing glance and slipped into her own dark room.
So much had gone wrong since Tokyo.
Everything had fallen apart.
Fai touched his tongue to his vampire fangs and his long slender fingers to his empty socket.
You remember whiskey on your daddy's breath
He thought of his home world, where King Ashura laid sleeping, hopefully dreaming good dreams. Chi was watching over him and the king was still asleep.
For now, the wizard had little to worry about.
Except maybe blood and Sakura and Syaoran.
Sighing, Fai unpacked the groceries. Bread, milk, eggs, cheese, bacon, steaks, vegetables, this country's apples. Then, he reached it. Guiltily, when his hand brushed the warm bottle, he stashed it away in a cupboard.
So you always stick to wine
Wine was like blood, life blood, a vampire's feast. Shuddering, he poured himself a glass almost to the top. The liquid swirled as dark as any poison, as any black blood, around the glass. He traced his finger around the rim of it, watching the wine tremble like a small cornered animal. For a moment, he thought there was a broken bit of beating heart in the depths of his glass.
And you scared your little brother half to death
Secretly, maybe Yui was the bottom of every bottle.
You just kept it all inside
Immediately, Fai stepped away from the glass and finished putting away the rest of the groceries. He didn't look at the bloody wine again.
You can hear your mama cryin'
Crying, crying, sobbing. Praying that one of her babies would die in the early hours of their birth so that she had not borne twins. God, had she prayed for one of their deaths. Take on, please. God, just take one. I don't care! Take them both! She must have hated them even in her womb, feeling the calamity growing inside of her.
Only now she cries for you, and…
Now, in heaven or hell, he was sure she despaired over not having the courage to kill him herself. Then, maybe everyone would still be alive.
Surely she would choose to murder Fai instead of Yui. After all, Fai was the one who condemned his twin to death at Fei-Wang's hand.
The long fall, so long… Don't you know
Nobody drinks alone?
Shaking his head at his own folly and weakness, Fai picked up the wine glass and took a long swallow. The burn of sharp fermented grapes on his tongue made his head spin and his mind dull. For once, he did not see the blood of his twin on his long white hands.
Every demon, every ghost
He was his own demon, tearing himself, his twin apart. Yui was just a shade, a ghost, of agony and anguish and anger and failure around his shoulders.
From your past
There was his praying, crying mother and his father stabbing himself through the face. The coppery hot fresh blood on Fai's lips.
And every memory you've held back
Fai's choice, his condemnation. Then, there were his happy loving memories of King Ashura and of the man turning into a monster and once again having the people he loved slaughtered. Fai was too weak to stop Ashura.
He had always been too weak.
Follows you home
Kurogane saw that in him and despised him for it. Fai had even been too weak to save his own life. Kurogane had done it for him, held him down while the vampire's venom seared through his entire body and his heart thundered in his ribcage.
Nobody drinks alone
Fai needed his strength. The strength of an unbroken heart, but it was grievously beyond his reach… as it had been since Yui's death.
He sat down at the table, put his face in his hands, and drank more bloody wine.
X X X
Kurogane returned to an empty apartment with the little creature Mokona curled up, asleep, inside his jacket. The magician was nowhere to be seen, the kid was shut up in his room, the princess was locked in hers.
Everyone was gone.
Who was he kidding?
They had all been gone since Tokyo. Though you're lonely
Kurogane was the only one who hadn't lost something. The magician had lost something somewhere in his past. The kid had lost the princess, the princess had lost the kid. Mokona lost the love the five travelers had shared through trial after trial.
The breaking point had come.
Everyone was broken, falling apart.
Hey don't you let that feelin' fool ya
There was half a bottle of wine on the kitchen table and a red-tinted glass. It had sweated a big white ring on the already scarred table top.
Don't you know
Nobody drinks alone?
Fishing Mokona from his pocket, Kurogane laid the little creature on the sofa and then picked up the bottle.
Every demon, every ghost
With no one there, he could drink directly from the bottle.
From your past
His mother, murdered by Fei-Wang. His father, murdered by Fei-Wang.
Kurogane would get his revenge and then he would go home to Japan, to Tomoyo.
And every memory you've held back
Only the thought of Tomoyo kept him sane anymore and he supposed there were some advantages to leaving your loved ones at home under the guard of Souma. He knew he would live and return to her and, he knew that with Souma watching over her, she would be fine as well.
Follows you home
Drinking from the bottle with Mokona in his lap, Kurogane was never as alone as the other three.
Nobody drinks alone Nobody drinks alone…
X X X
After this is a little insert of Sakura's point of view. Check it out please.
Questions, comments, concerns?