Um….Disclaimer: not mine EXCEPT PLOT AND EVEN THEN THIS IS A RESPONSE TO BLUE WINGED ANGEL'S FIC, PLEASE READ THAT FIRST.
-smiles-
AND STILL YOU SMILED
It is dark out, and it is dark within. Here, in the shadows. The team is sleeping, tear tracks running down most of their faces. Outside, the wind is screaming, reminding us of mages that we'd rather forget. There will be no training tonight.
Rei's funeral was today.
Your funeral was today.
All the teams had gathered there, under the tree that you used to read under and watch us from. Max had openly started sobbing by the time of the prayers, and Mariah needed help to read out the speech that she'd prepared.
You'd have been proud, though. Everyone had come. Friends, teachers, enemies that you'd turned into friends. They were all there. All of them mourning for the loss of a precious being,
We never realized you had so many. Friends, I mean. People from countries all over the world that you'd helped. Rich men that we didn't know you had as contacts, beggars that you had helped in the streets. All of them came.
You were so soft, so tender with us all, treating us as fragile as the most delicate set of crystals. So tender, making us feel like we were wanted at last. You took care of us so much.
We forgot that you needed taking care of too.
And now, I'm lying in a bed without you. Even if we weren't lovers, the warmth of your presence would always soothe me to sleep like the crooning of a mother's lullaby.
It's so hard to believe
Your hair doesn't twist around the pillows anymore. Your breathing does not invade the silence. Your footsteps don't echo noiselessly across the hallways as you check in on the rest of the team.
Yes, I knew that too.
I don't have you right beside me.
Droplets fall across the window pane, echoing those distant pangs. Are you up there? Are you shedding these tears I see streak across this transparent glass?
Are you crying because of me?
And my heart doesn't feel.
I remember the blood, spreading on the floor. I wasn't there when you ached for me, ached for someone, somebody to help you. Did you cry for me? Did you cry for me?
Or did you know that I wasn't coming?
It's so very cold inside me.
Navy hair spreads across the pillows that raven strands once graced, and the delicate arches of your face are replaced by something much blunter, even though they too, are beautiful in another sense of the way.
Everything's empty, and there's nothing to hold. Your smile doesn't grace the air anymore, and I should be sad, but I am numb. And I wish you could hold me now…
I would give my all.
I was there, competing against someone you thought I loved, that I hold in my arms at this moment, that someone that I can hear breathing beside me.
That I thought I loved.
And you were there, crying for me, aching for a human touch. The crowds swarming around you like untouchable ghosts of time, forming a barrier between us.
To have you here.
Did you know I thought of you, when I lost? Did you know that I thought of you?
Or did you think our battle would be full of comfort and gentle laughs and gentle sighs, with loving glances between us? Challenges of future fights and congratulations afterwards?
You were so alone, watching and waiting for such a specter, the specter of Death. Lying on the streets, invincible to those who saw you through the eyes of a fan, invisible and not seen by those who say you for who you were. And I wished I was there, I wished I was there. Because I think you cried for me.
But, I wasn't there.
Just to hold you once again.
And still you smiledfor me.
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