And so I finally got around to writing and finishing a fic for CLAMP'S loveliest gay couple! I have never been able to write them in anything but loosely-collected vignettes or slice of life stories. Perhaps because they are just so sweet together...? Anyway, hope you enjoy (in spite of formatting issues, sorry!).
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The Middle Months
by Lanie Kay-Aleese
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In the summertime, as always, Yukito finds treasures in little things. At night, he falls asleep with a smile when he can hear the cicadas lulling him into rest and dreams. In mornings it is the smell of cooking things, the tune of the rice cooker when it has finished steaming the grains. During the middle of the day, it is the ice cream vendors ringing bells at the edge of parks, the untaped edges of advertisements for local matsuri flapping in the wind, shop keepers throwing water onto the pavement, children laughing and dodging between bicycles as they chase each other. He does not particularly enjoy the way that his clothes won't seem to dry because the air is too damp with its heat, nor the way his glasses fog up when he steps out from air conditioning into the humid morning, but even those actions remind him of little pleasures, because he inevitably thinks of Toya.
Toya loves to exercise the most during the summer. He says that in the middle of the year, the heat opens up all his senses; makes him feel clean as he runs, makes him feel light again. And his contentedness makes Yukito happy, too, at the beginning of the summer. But as June moves into July, his happiness takes on a desperate edges. And then, for reasons that he keeps close to his chest, he grows resentful.
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Toya doesn't catch on until the first day of August.
They are crashing yet another one of Syaoran and Sakura's dates, but neither of them feels particularly guilty for it. Toya because he thinks it his right as a brother, most likely; Yukito because if he cannot be on a real date himself, then it is his right to have some reward.
The sun is so full in the sky that they are stepping on their own shadows as they trail through the park with ice cream melting over their hands. Yukito watches Sakura and Syaoran, their loose hands brushing each other as they walk. He's almost unbearably glad when Toya suggests they take a rest on the park benches, where the canopy of trees covers them from the strongest rays of the sun. It is so hot that Yukito feels like he has been wading through water as much as walking. But Toya, in his tank top and long shorts, doesn't seem to mind.
"So," he asks agreeably as they sit down, "What's the deal?"
Yukito swallows down the second scoop of of his eight-flavor ice cream cone. "What deal is what?" he asks.
"Your moods. You've been sort of upset lately."
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and stares at Toya as if from behind a little wall (his glasses). He can feel the weight of them on his face; the rivulets of sweat coagulating around the nose pieces.
"I…" he starts, preparing to laugh it off, but Toya is looking at him too fervently. He is too warm.
"Why?" he asks. "Is it because of the change?"
Yukito glances at his hands, and then over at Sakura, but he doesn't know what to say.
Maybe the change over of power from Clow to Sakura to Toya is a part of it. Maybe the magic that keeps him sustained isn't the same as the old stuff; maybe it's causing him stress. But how would he know? No one tells him anything.
"Anyway," Toya says, and when Yukito checks, he's looking at Sakura now, too. "Tell me whenever you're ready."
That night before going to sleep, he sits beneath an open window and stares up at the moon. He says aloud, "If you're influencing me, then stop it. I don't want it."
He feels very stupid, but at least he has said it.
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There are two big things that bother him in the summer.
The first is the romance of it. Signs of summer love are everywhere he looks, even though Yukito doesn't know what has changed in the middle months to make them more romantic than any other time of year. Perhaps it's just the visibility that irks him. All the couples his age are out from school or at the very least free of responsibility, except for him and Toya (they're not really a couple), and deep down he thinks that it's not fair.
The second thing that bothers him is the way his body feels when he wakes up somewhere strange without warning. He regains consciousness the same way every time, too. His skin feels hot and sticky like he's been running - his heart is usually still thumping wildly as a rabbit's beneath his ribs. And those bones ache as if they have been stretched too far too fast. It sometimes feels as if they've changed shape inside of him; like they've been forced back into an uncomfortable mold.
In the winter, it hadn't been so bad, because at least then the air was colder. The shock and numbness in his brain, and the fear that something was wrong inside of him, was mimicked by the the chill of the air and the numbness in his limbs.
Tonight when he wakes up, his palms are slightly sweaty, and his hands are still sticky from the ice cream. Every sense is heightened. Summer makes him aware that he shares his body with another person.
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Toya never talks about what happened, but Yukito knows he thinks about it all the time. It's obvious when he stares into space, looking like he is trying to see without sight. When he is walking downstairs and misses a step because the lighting is too poor. But today Toya's question comes unexpectedly, and it would be a non sequitur except that Yukito understands Toya all too well.
Yukito is twisting the plastic ice dish in his hands, cracking the frozen top layer of ice apart so he can put the little blocks into their glasses of lemonade. Abruptly, Toya asks, "Do you talk to him often?"
Yukito answers firmly as he dumps his ice into a glass. "No. I don't like to think about him."
"He thinks about you a lot."
"How do you know that?" Yukito feigns a casual note to his voice, so Toya stares him down as he answers.
"Because we talked last night."
Yukito is unable to stop himself from catching his breath in his throat.
"Oh," he says. "I see."
He can't think of anything else to say.
As far as he can remember from the night before, he had gone to sleep alone, in his own bed, underneath a single layer of lightweight sheets. He had closed the curtains over his window to block out his view of the moon, even though it had meant blocking out the breeze and the sounds of the animals whose voices filled up the silence of both night and morning. Though perhaps it had not blocked out the voice of the alien being living inside of him.
"Yuki, you're upset again."
"Why would I be upset?" Yukito pivots on his foot, desperate to leave the room.
"It's not like that," Toya calls from behind him.
"You don't even know what I'm thinking!"
"Well, it's not like that."
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As Yukito wakes up from a nightmare, there is nothing to comfort him but the bleating of a thousand sad cicadas. Toya is close by, his breath fanning out on a pillow on a bed that Yukito is not laying on. The two and a half feet between the sleeping bag on the floor and the top of Toya's mattress have never felt quite so far, but that is mostly just carryover from the dream, which had been less image than emotion, spinning in his heart like a record stuck on repeat: you're alone you're alone you're alone (forever).
He sits up and peels back the summer blanket, letting it drape across his knees. His shirt is clinging to him with sweat. He would take the garment off and just sleep half-nude except that Toya would inevitably see it as tacit approval for him to follow suit, and already Yukito cannot bear to see Toya laying as he is, with his shirt ridden up and the moonlight playing on his tanned midriff. Of course Toya is too beautiful to have had a place in his nightmares.
And that's what's stopping him.
The sense that his dream was more real than what is real in front of him. Or what is real inside of him. Yukito's breath catches inside of him, twisting at his heart like a dagger. He waits for it to uncatch, and the dagger to withdraw, but instead it twists. And his breath only emerges from his lungs in a ragged gasp when it does.
His body starts trembling, and he cannot make it stop. He clenches his eyes shut.
"Yuki?"
It is Toya's voice.
"I…" Yukito tries to speak but his body seems to be out of his control. This is much like it becomes in the split-second before a transformation, except none of his bone and sinew are stretching themselves to ascend to a higher plane, to befit another being. It feels more like he is disintegrating into his own hands, into the place where his fingernails tightly clench against his palms.
"What's happening?"
This time, Toya's question does not receive any answer at all. He cannot bear the effort for it.
When Toya's fingers wrap around his arm, however, he is so sensually aware that he flinches without meaning to. The pads of each finger are burning into him like flares from the sun. Another hand moves to his forehead, checking him for fever even as it imparts it, and though he can hear Toya's mouth forming questions, he can barely understand what he is being asked. It does not matter. Every horrible nightmare is cut off in a flash. In that moment, Toya's presence is the answer to every question the world has ever posed. He clings to him as he breaks apart and breaks apart and finally grows quiet.
The last of the anxiety drains off of him in the way water drops even after a shower has finished. It is still dripping away, but there is so little of it now that he knows it is siphoning off. He wishes he could take in a deep breath and just scoop out the last of the hurt somehow, but like so many things it is more than he can do. He is too exhausted.
"Why?" Toya asks him finally. He doesn't know, and shakes his head weakly in the warm, damp crook of Toya's arm and chest.
"Because of… because of him," he answers.
Toya stiffens, pulls back and stares at him with dark-eyed severity. It is clear that he has said the wrong thing.
"What?" he asks, his heart rate jumping in his chest like a rabbit.
"I told you, didn't I? That I didn't want you hiding from me anymore."
"I don't know what you're talking about." He feels a rush of desperation coming in from every side, and out from within. "Is this about him? Because I don't know what he did, but I-"
"Stop it. We both know that you can't blame him for anything. You don't share your body with him, you share it with yourself."
"But I-"
"You're lying. You were supposed to finish the change months ago when I gave you all of my magic! It's time to end this - stop holding back, Yue!"
"But I'm not Yue!"
Then he clamps his hand over his mouth.
He is horrified when he realizes that he is not sure who said it.
Silence sits down between them. In the heaviness, he feels every bit of life that the humid room has to offer, and is so immersed in the moment that when Toya leans over, he can hear it before he feels the touch of Toya's hand on his own. He is surprised to find that his hands aren't sticky from the heat, but from the water that he has been dropping from his eyes without realizing.
"It's going to be okay," Toya tells him, his voice softened. He has worked the anger out, and he looks out now toward the window, where a view of the sky shows that weepy clouds have shrouded the late August moon. "I already love you either way."
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In the beginning of autumn, every leaf that falls has a slightly yellowed color. Most of them are just starting to loosen up on the branches, still making the change from one season to the next. There hasn't been enough time for the leaves to have grown crunchy under his feet, but already the air has become crisper in Tomoeda, and he is certain that fall will be in full swing by the end of the month. A sense of serenity pervades his senses as he stands beneath the trees, watching the first of the leaves drift to his feet with a knowing smile.
"Yuki." Toya waves, and brings the bike to a stop right at his side. His knit scarf, he notices, is exactly the color of Yue's hair, but against his skin the grey thread looks almost vibrant. He loves this about Toya, how even the briefest of his smiles carry the warmth of his heart and reflect it off of himself. His magic may have been taken from him, but some trace of it still remains, because he is able to lure in something distant as the moon and make it seem intimate and loved.
"Good morning, Toya. Where is Miss- I mean, Sakura?" Toya takes his hand off of the shiny black bike and approaches him. He tries not to look nervous when Toya's hand comes out and pushes a lock of his bangs off of his face. He is arresting.
"T… Toya?"
"Hmm," he replies, hands moving to the glasses. He shivers as Toya traces his hands over the frames, his fingers glancing over the skin in a way that is both tender and distant. And then Toya takes the glasses off, and the blurring lines and shapes at the edges of his vision spread out like an obfuscating morning fog.
"I need to be able to see, you know." His voice has an edge of petulance, but also a hint of pleasure.
"You see just fine by yourself," Toya says. "Don't you, Yuki?"
He lets Toya slip the glasses into his pocket and feels his hand press them down into the hole as deep as it goes. He looks at Toya and smiles, even though now he cannot make out the shadow of his eyes from his eyelashes. The myopia proves that Toya isn't right about everything, he thinks, but he does come very close.
Only Toya calls him by his name, and although the difference between that and his nickname is little, Yuki treasures it.
With all of his heart.
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