Name: Smells like Christmas Spirit!
Author: Rain
Disclaimer: SK belongs to Takei, I own naught %)
Characters: Marco, Meene
Note: HAPPY CHRISTMAS LU-CHAN! I hope you have a great holiday ~
Marco is many things, but he is not gracious.
Oh, of course, he can try to be, and even feel he is. The dance lessons he took as a boy help; after playing cats, swans, and even a moonbeam, he should be Grace personified, right?
Well, he is not, he realizes one day. He's dancing with Meene at one of those stupid Pache parodies of balls, and the moment he makes her swirl he notices how clumsy, how gauche he is compared to her.
When the tournament is over, she confesses to him that it does not matter at all.
He always liked the scent of chlorine.
As an adult – if you agree to the fact that twenty-five years old Marco, Commander of the X-Laws, is an adult (Luchist doesn't) – he rationalizes it. Chlorine means cleanliness. It symbolizes purity, eradicates evil diseases.
As a thirty-three-years-old adult – and this time even Luchist would agree, perhaps – Marco knows why he likes it so much. He only has to watch as she rises from the pool like a river goddess, and comes to kiss him as the sharp scent swirls around them to know, after all.
He always liked the scent of chlorine.
Strange how five years might create so strong a barrier between them.
Of course, Meene knows perfectly that it's not the years that matter. Even so, she can't help but marvel at how five little years have shaped him into that beaten, proud shape of Commander.
Meene always hesitate. Is she supposed to admire his ice-cold bravery or to despair over his poor, kind soul?
After a cold day, when he came to fetch her from the training pool with hot chocolate, she decides that five years are nothing. Such a gap can be crossed.
If not, she'll die trying.
"You're becoming tipsy, Meene. You should go and take some rest."
He certainly knows how to handle his alcohol, she wants to accuse, but the words seem to get stuck somewhere between brain and jaw, and only a mumble reaches his ears.
"Alright, more than tipsy then," he smirks. Apparently, the whisky he took altered his old-timey sense of propriety, because he gallantly offers his arm to take her home.
The morning after, Meene can't help but blush like a schoolgirl, horrified by the thought of what she might or might not have admitted in the secret of the night.
That morning was weird. Happy chatter rang through the corridors, small colorful boxes were discreetly passing from one hand to another, green pine twigs hung from the ceiling lamps – an obvious domestic hazard waiting to happen – no sound came from the exercise grounds…
Marco was puzzled for a long time, though he still did what had been scheduled for a normal Monday.
It wasn't until the beginning of the afternoon that the blond-haired Commander realized no one had undergone usual training or done personal chores but he himself. The fury he entered then was majestically lethal, and it took a whole plate of Belgian chocolates to help him calm down; Meene and Jeanne were also forced to stay with him for the rest of the day, guarding both he and their comrades from his infamous Italian temper.
Marco might never admit it, but he kind of liked that Christmas anyway.