My first WHR fic, hope you like ^_^ 'tis just a slightly angsty, very sappily romantic Amon X Robin one-shot. R&R S'il vous plait! (by the way, I'm sorry if I got the definition of 'tunnel vision' a little off, but I twist things to suit my own purposes XD)
Disclaimer: I do not own Witch Hunter Robin, Robin, Amon, The factory, or the Tokyo sewers. DON'T SUE ME!!
Robin ran ahead of him, the strings in her hair whipping behind her. Amon rushed behind her, every once in a while throwing half-aimed shots from his handgun at their pursuers. He sped up, closing the gap between him and Robin, darting glances over his shoulder, alert for the scuffle of shoes that bounded and rebounded, echoing off the curved walls of the sewer tunnel. The scuffle fell behind, shrinking into a whisper, and soon the only sound echoing and flying about them was the quick pattern of their footfalls.
"Can we… stop yet…Amon?" Robin gasped without turning around.
"Not yet," he answered shortly, hardly having to raise his deep voice above his usual flat tone, as it surrounded their ears in the confines of their path.
They ran on, for ten minutes perhaps, and Robin's breath didn't leave her so much as it was torn from her throat, creating intermittent white clouds that blew back into her face and over her shoulder.
"Amon…" The word was tense and weary, almost pleading the man to slow their escape.
A few seconds passed, pounding a numbing pressure deeper into her brain with every exhalation.
Amon glanced behind him and tuned out the sounds of their feet and their breath and their haste that threatened to overwhelm them both. Their pursuers were gone. "All right," he puffed, and began to shorten the length of his strides.
Robin stumbled and collapsed, scraping and rolling across the dirty floor. Amon skidded to a stop and danced around her form, almost catching a boot in her rumpled coat. He nearly tripped over his own feet and came into crashing contact with the metal guardrail that separated their narrow walkway from the sour stream of garbage and refuse that slithered by, ignoring the gasping humans at its side.
Amon wiped his face of the saliva that had burst from his mouth as the guardrail had tried to cut him in half. He turned back to Robin.
Robin sat, back to the damp wall and head tilted skyward, fighting for the bittersweet air that almost made her sick to her stomach. Her throat felt icy and dry, her body exhausted and her mind clouded. Her emerald eyes were closed to the green-yellow tinged world under the Tokyo streets. Her head spun as she came back to awareness, and her rasping breaths slowed. The ache in her legs felt more urgent and painful now that she was no longer struggling for oxygen. Her eyelids lifted just enough to vaguely see the world around her. Her gaze swung to where Amon was, leaning on the rail and staring at her. She opened her eyes a little more, trying to focus on his pale face, curtained by his long black hair.
His disembodied voice floated to her from several different directions.
"You're getting worse."
Robin's eyebrows twitched, and her mouth opened for a response.
"Did you consciously burn those men?"
She lowered her eyebrows a little more. Of course I did. They had a gun to your head, if you remember. She let her eyes wander away from him.
She studied the dirt on the rail in front of her, the growing silence discomforting her, like a painful itch that became worse the longer it stayed. She closed her eyes and stood, her legs shooting fire up her spine. Her eyes remained closed, and her head tilted downward, as if she was studying the ground. The back of her coat tickled the wall behind her.
Forceful, pounding footfalls traveled from where Amon was to where she stood.
THUMP! Her eyes flew open, shocked like the rest of her body by the loud sound of flesh and bone hitting cement on either side of her head. Her quivering eyes were quickly captured by Amon's deadly, intense stare. His brown eyes bored holes into her forehead, and her temples began to throb.
She stood shivering, waiting for the loud barrage of words that would undoubtedly issue forth from her superior's lips. Her resolve melted under his inescapable glare, and she slid one inch down the wall.
"You know exactly what you are, don't you?" His gravely calm but disturbingly heavy murmur rolled down her spine like darkened death. His words weighed upon her heart like a brick made of marble. Her eyes escaped his grasping stare and slid down past his black-clothed arm that cut her off from the living world.
Warmth and wetness covered her mouth, stopping her breath. Her eyes widened and snapped back to Amon, whose face was now only inches from her own. Her heart pounded painfully in her chest, and the warmth spread down her throat and ran like feather-soft waves down to her fingertips. The center of her brain began to numb, pulling her eyelids down like a soft curtain. A wave of dizziness broke over her. Her legs wobbled, and she willed them not to give. It began as a twinge in the back of her neck, and soon spread like electricity through her veins, and her hands began to tremble. Her ears rang fiercely, or was it the rapid pulsation of her heart? She had long ago lost the ability to think, and her eyes finally closed. Her body began to cry out for the lack of oxygen, and the alarm bells fell like whispers on her foggy mind.
Then the pressure lifted and air surged into her lungs, nearly exhausting her heart. Left behind was a tingle in her lips that spread across her flushed cheeks and into her scalp. Her lashes separated, and her half-lidded eyes sought the fuzzy image of Amon. She blinked, trying to wash away the numbness. Her lids lifted more, and she caught sight of Amon's face, uncharacteristically flushed and eyes clouded, as hers must be. Their breath came out in short, sighing puffs that took misty form and blew into each other's face. The clouds dispersed and her vision cleared. As her mind began to pick itself up again, confusion and surprise and a thousand other emotions flooded in.
Amon's head was sunk into his shoulders and he vaguely tried to rein his slightly gasping breaths. His mind began to turn on again, like fluorescent lights, one after the other, after a power outage. Feelings of unreality picked at his thoughts. Did I really just do that? He tensed the muscles in his arms that were still extended, palms planted in the wall inches from Robin's strange handlebar hairstyle in an effort to stop their shaking. He glanced at Robin's wide emerald eyes; he worried that he had just made a terrible mistake.
Robin closed her mouth and swallowed, and her gaze fell like a drifting leaf. She contemplated Amon's shoes and tried to sort out all the questions whirling in her mind.
Amon looked away, embarrassed and slightly ashamed. "Robin…" he mumbled, trying to decide on the words he would use in his apology.
She lifted her head, and the tears in her eyes sent shards of ice through his heart. With a choked utterance of his name, she threw herself into him. His palms left their cement berth as he was flung backwards by the force of her body crashing into his. He stumbled backwards, the guardrail planting itself painfully into his lower back.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, embarrassed.
He responded by letting his arms encircle her back and resting his chin lightly on the top of her head, his normally stoic demeanor dissolved for the moment.
Robin melted into his embrace, her mind marveled at the fact that Amon really was human, even if he tried to convince everyone else otherwise. She smiled into his shirt.
They stood comfortably, leaning against the guardrail, for the moment oblivious to the faint echo of running feet behind them in the tunnel. Amon's chin lifted from Robin's hair, and he turned his head toward the sound. Robin twisted herself in his arms, and peered over them to where Amon was looking.
"The factory," he said lowly.
"Again?" she whined.
He looked down at her upturned face. "Ready?"
Her features took on a mischievous quality, and she nodded.
They separated smoothly and Robin began to run, Amon at her heels. She glanced over her shoulder and reached out a hand behind her. He took it with a rare mischievous half-grin that mirrored her own.
Just before she turned her attention back to the path ahead of her, she experienced a bit of tunnel vision. All she could see was Amon.