Come Closer
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"You make me sick."
He spared her a half-lidded glance. "Is that so?"
She steeled herself and bit out, "You're wasting your time." Look me in the eye, goddammit.
He rose from the stool across the debriefing room, studying the maroon carpet with his hands in his pockets. "And you aren't wasting your breath?"
Her irises were plated copper and gold—a piercing alloy. He noticed this as he met her gaze coolly, as if the gauze swathing his entire left arm and shoulder wasn't seeping red, as if everything was negligible in the worst possible way, barely stirring a ripple in the pond. As if he didn't notice her fist clench then fall limp, fingers twitching.
"Get yourself together," she hissed, mustering as much menace as possible for one who loathes and loves with equal intensity. "Whatever you're trying to pull, it's not working."
She took the night shift, and while securing the base perimeters she would discover each night, without fail, blood splotches and empty box weapons strewn about the private training arena. The storm guardian had demanded a space all to himself after losing one too many battles, a space free of "fucking distractions"—i.e. anything with a pulse.
He exhaled sharply, a scornful, cynical sound. "I thought you appreciated miserable people."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"You like fixing things, don't you? Makes you feel valuable."
She scrutinized him, taking in the austere planes of his face that curved only at the contours of his Italian cheekbones. Her line of sight flickered from his split lip to his bruised knuckles. "Are you intentionally masochistic or is that just a byproduct of not knowing how else to deal with yourself?"
He turns suddenly, fighting a cringe from the whiplash. "You don't know what you're talking about."
A lone lamp glows in the corner, casting their faces in shadow. There are no windows in the base.
"I don't. But you do."
There are no clocks in the rooms, either. Every command is delivered in "now", "tomorrow", "never", or "soon."
"What, am I your next big 'project' now?" he sneers, gut twisting. The muscles in his face are stiff from lack of use, and what he assumes to be a scowl turns out to be a flinch. "That's rich—being patronized by the feminist who rejects superiority complexes."
"I don't pity you," she says at last, and he finds himself on the receiving end of a nasty glare. "I couldn't." She glares like she's gutting a fish, carving its insides bare. All that's left is say it. Say it or be strangled by it. It's on the tip of her tongue, and she holds his gaze as a liquid tension mounts between them.
"Don't say it." His voice was coarse, somewhere in between a parched throat and sandpaper.
A moment passes. Three seconds. Four.
"I know—"
"Don't you fucking dare—"
"—what it is to never be enough."
And because Haru Miura knew where to draw the line, she left it at that.
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In his next battle, someone dies.
Brutally.
Gored, battered, hemorrhaged—
"You're slipping," the enemy grins, eyes crinkling at the corners as if the sight of an unstable soldier confers merriment. "What's gotten into you, right-hand man?"
And it all goes to hell from there.
Takeshi has to step in as things progress from ugly to worse when the storm guardian prepares to pound his opponent to dust.
His dead opponent.
"Enough." The rain guardian counters the blast and grits his teeth. "It's over, you bastard."
In response, the storm guardian throws up his bone loop shields and retreats into the formation. From his vantage point, he couldn't see his victory, guts and glory and all. He couldn't see the sky bleed into dusk, or hear the swordsman damning his monstrous knack for making a mess of things. For several weeks now he had forsworn the five-hundred and twelve feet journey to the laundry room and left his slacks stiff with dried blood. It disgusted him beyond measure, but then, few things didn't.
He sits there, unmoving, for a long, long time.
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His forehead is cool against hers, but his breaths are feverish as they ghost across the bridge of her nose. Sweat plasters his skin to hers.
Her hands are made of marble as they drift upwards, slowly, ponderously, until her palms brush the hollows of his cheeks.
His breaths hitch at the contact.
"Are you quite done?" she asks quietly, eyes closed. Knowing that, really, there is no "done," only "do" or "die."
Their world was not a reality to be weaned from in the comfort of deep sleep. Theirs was a swift, sharp world; a bucket of cold water to the face.
The water's at their knees now.
"I'm tired," he croaks, leaning heavily into her. He slumps against her shoulder, unconscious.
She thanks the questionable deities above that his quarters are nearby.
Entering with the lanky guardian in tow, she tucks him in with the hesitant touch of a child attempting to tie "bunny-eared" shoelaces for the first time.
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A/N: The title and summary references the song "All I See" by Lydia.