Title: Fairytale
Prompt: Leaving
Pairing: Zero x Yuuki, with hints of Kaname anguish, ha.
Rating: T
Once he thought that it would be beautiful to end his mourning—the slow, all-too delicate dance. Once he thought that it would be right—journey's end. That in her he would find redemption or perhaps that he already had and the aftermath would be beautiful. She laughed and he smiled and the night was red like blood; like murder. She called him her angel and he held her tight before she could finish speaking.
He thinks sometimes, that this is like murder, and the series of implications and complications don't scare him as much as they should.
A long time ago, a girl met a boy and they grew up fast. A long time ago, she thought that falling in love was forever and that surrendering would shatter. He listens when she tells him this and he says, without a single word spoken, that he understands. He doesn't tell her about the parts he leaves out. She nods, instead, and she listens to the rain and heartbeats. They resume their night calls; their guardian duties.
Her life is sepia and these moments are gold. But when her eyes are closed, she can't tell the difference.
Sometimes when she says his name, he forgets that she had another, that it was he who allowed her to lean and be protected by another, but only sometimes. There are times when she turns away-dares him to call her back. Dares him to try and knows that if he does, she will not come. It doesn't matter, because he doesn't try. As if he knows, as if he fears. A Kuran is fearful of nothing. Yuuki is his—her fate had been sealed the moment she was born, and he should know better than to doubt. There is hardly a reason why he should. But he sees her staring at him, caring for him, worrying about him, and his convictions crumble to the ground, like fallen snow.
The sky spreads like wings behind him. She was wrong, he thinks. He is not an angel.
When he patrols the grounds at night, when he moves in the darkness, he understands that he is alone. He slides through the shadows as though they are water, leaving no lines and no past. He is alone, without a life, without a family, without Ichiru, and without her he would not know what else he would do. He is alone and he realizes why he never needed to plan for an escape—to find the fastest way out. He glides among the shadows because he weaves them as if borne from their mists. He belongs in the darkness.
She doesn't believe him when he tells her, or maybe she never tries.
She would run, she thinks, if she had somewhere to go, or maybe she wouldn't. She watches him breathe, the rise and fall of his chest, and matches the rhythm with her own. When she feels her heart to slow, she uses a fingernail to write in the frost, watches as letters take shape.
Zero. Yuuki. Love.
She stares at the words, unfamiliar as runes, and strains to hear the echoes, ephemeral and vanishing as voices from a stream. She draws a heart around the three and stares at the graffiti, remembering fairytales and when the next day could just as easily have been forever, because all that mattered was his hand on hers and the silver lines of rain outside.
She presses her hand to the window and holds it there, pulls it away only when she knows her words will be gone. She stares ahead and it is Kaname-senpai she sees. In the dark, his eyes are the color of cold ashes. She nods and faces the door, taking one last glimpse at Zero's sleeping form, knowing it is time to leave. Someday, she thinks, this will be over. The flames have gone out, faded with age and with storm, but an ember burns, burns. When this is over, she thinks, as she joins his brother under the shadows of the trees, they will find each other, count stars in a brilliant dark sky and he will tell her what they used to mean, Cassiopeia and Orion and Pleiades.
When this is over, she thinks, she will love him again, or she will die trying. She knows that she will make it that long. She just wonders if he will, too.
Her eyes sweep the sprawling building that had been her home for the past eight eyes and sheds a tear. Too much had happened, too much has changed, and it is time to leave.
order of povs: zero, yuuki, kaname, zero, then back to yuuki. hope this piece made sense. :3