Tonight
By Seishuku Skuld (skuldhotohori@yahoo.com)
Series: X
Pairing: implied Seishirou/Subaru
Warnings: shounen-ai themes
Special Blame/Thanks to: Ari, Cocoa, and Asphodel. This would never have happened if not for them.
Disclaimers: Seishirou and Subaru belong to CLAMP, but the plot bunnies are mine.
*~*~*~*~*~*
There's hardly a wind that blows through Tokyo tonight, as I make my way through its streets. The sea creeps upon the city, its waves already stealing upon the streets, submerging concrete and asphalt in the silence of the ocean. Those who have the inclination have already fled. As the night settles, the city is half-empty and I am one of the few left at this hour of the night.
I smile in the darkness, for the moon is hidden tonight behind heavy clouds of grey, and the normally capricious breeze stands still. They, like I, are waiting for the right time, for the right person.
He is waiting for me there; I can feel his presence in the back of my mind through the trace I carved into his tender flesh so many years ago. It draws me closer and this time I surrender to its call, following the threads that bind us together, as I have been wont to desire of late.
The still air chills the blood covering my fingers, changing its usual warmth into a cold, unpleasant dampness. A necessary unpleasantness, I think to myself, as I approach the Bridge.
No cars traverse the length of the bay tonight, and all I can hear besides the tapping of my shoe upon concrete is the gentle washing of the waves. I peer down the edge and into darkness. In this night I cannot see the water though I know it must be there, resting quietly until some great stone or gust of wind might disturb its fathomless depths. The plummet of a bride, I hope, as I imagine the cacophony that must erupt for something as my passing.
I have seen death many times in my lifetime, from the moment I was born the fresh blood of my father was painted across my hands to christen my birth, and so I have never been free from it. I know it well. I have seen what it can and cannot do, and those things it cannot are far and few between.
A death can be inconsequential as a star in the vast sky might extinguish and disappear, and among its many neighbors none will notice that it is gone, and nothing will be missing in the great cosmic account of things. A death can also be a great catastrophe and in a single spark of light, even the furthest of its friends may see it and marvel at its final moments as it draws its nearest companions into its destructive reach.
Tonight, I choose neither of these two paths. I do not simply fade away, but neither do I wish to astound all those around me the light of my passing. I have only one target, one things which I seek, for all else is irrelevant and inconsequential.
From the darkness I spot a little light not too far away from me, partially hidden by the hand of a shadowy figure. I close that distance in one step, my hand coming upon his as I envelop him in the only embrace I will ever truly give him. He stays perfectly still for a moment, the cigarette suspended in the air, its smoke undisturbed by any wind, just a thin trail of grey disappearing into the midnight sky.
"The ash," he says quietly, "is going to fall on your hand."
He still resists the fate that I am about to bestow upon him. Perhaps he wishes my intent away, or perhaps he holds the hope that this meeting will be like the others, and will end with my disappearance, so he can continue to trundle along whatever self-destructive path he has set himself upon.
I cannot allow that to continue. He is thin and ashen, his pallor has been even paler these few days, and that I know is in no small part caused by the loss of his right eye. He still bears the bandages wrapped about his head. I resist the urge the frown. They mar his beauty, those white strips of cloth, they hide what I want to see. I am curious, as I was when my own eye had been taken from me a decade ago. What I will see when the bandages fall and is there is nothing there but an empty sphere of whiteness? Will I be looking at myself? Or will I be looking at something even more beautiful? Will he embrace it as I have?
There is a light in his one eye as I lift the cigarette to my mouth and he whips around to face me…he knows that tonight, everything is different.
"I've changed you know," he says to me. "You changed me."
I smile gently, and with my blood soaked hand to him, I take a deep breath. Subaru smokes light cigarettes, I can tell from the taste of it as I inhale. Not as strong as I usually like it.
"You've killed someone here, haven't you?"
It is not a question, despite how he phrases it.
"Because I'm the Sakurazukamori," I reply. The cigarette falls from my lips and even before it has hit the ground, the fight begins.
So it starts like all of our encounters, he throws an attack at me, and I defend it flawlessly. This time he throws up a lovely kekkai, casting us both in its lurid, otherworldly light. The bridge becomes even more still than it was before. The air hangs heavy in this realm, as if it might smother me. But there is something to take my mind off such things. My prey is unpredictable at times, and that is well, because Subaru offers me good sport. It is the least we can do for each other before the dawn of morning's light.
He is more interesting now, more interesting than I had hoped he would be when I slew his sister ten years ago, and even now as the Bridge explodes and shrapnel flies through the air behind Subaru's screaming birds, I can hear her voice and feel the ghost of her hand touching my cheek.
The battle stills as Subaru stops for a breath, and his bandages fly loose from his head. I catch one in my hand as it strays from its master, and I close my eyes to smell its scent as I hold it close to my face. It smells like the staleness of the barrier in which we have been dueling, but it is also imbued with his own, unique and distinctive fragrance. I remember it well from the days when we were together, and in that aspect alone, he has not changed. I am not sure whether or not that is a pity, or whether I should be glad.
I drop the piece of cloth, and let it fall where it will. I know well it will find its end somewhere submerged in the waters not so far below where my feet stand.
"You're wrong," Subaru hisses, but I am no longer mindful of words or Wishes.
He ascends into the air with me, and as the air whistles past my ears, I draw him close and smile.
"Tonight," I whisper, though the sounds are lost in the rushing of my blood, the pounding of my art, and my desire to spill my blood across those pale, slender hands, "tonight, I will make you mine, forever."
*~the end~*