So this'll be a collection of Clow x Yuuko stories. I will probably post more of them on my livejournal, because LJ gives me better feedback. Standard disclaimers apply, I don't own Cardcaptor Sakura or xxxHolic, anything that doesn't look like mine probably isn't.
in vino vitam. In wine, (there is) life. I'm fairly sure I declined that right. I'm not actually sure why 'in vino veritas' is in the plural, unless we're under the supposition that you only really get chatty when there are several of you getting plastered. I was going to do 'in vino amorem' but that just looked funny.
A Wish is Just a Dream You Can't Sell
It's an unwritten rule in powerful magic. You don't use your gift for yourself. You know the price and the value and sometimes the self-awareness of choosing this fate is enough to drive you mad. You think that the price you pay is cheap in comparison, and what you gain is easy enough to control. Sooner or later you can't continue on your own strength, and you are forced to eat small children and find catty devotees with no fashion sense. Or, if you are related to the previous example, you unmake yourself and hope it won't be as troublesome as the life you just ended.
So.
So when she had to, she read his palm, because he couldn't do it himself, and she saw the lines that weren't there tangle in his future, saw the heart line continue over the edge of his palm, even as the line of life petered away. Even so, she pinched the flesh below his ring finger, the Mount of Sun, and said all she ever saw on his hand was sex and sake.
So.
She had no means of granting her own wishes other than hard work, and her wish was never worth the effort. And then he was gone, and all the hard work in the world wouldn't bring him back, but maybe enough alcohol would let her have him for a little while.
Ichihara Yuuko had only ever had one wish in her life, open-ended and vague, and she saved even thinking about it for special occasions and sometimes Mondays. She told him once, what her wish would be, if she ever had to have it granted. He'd looked at her, eyes bright and attentive despite the sips he'd stolen from her cup. She'd managed to convey somehow, through her clumsy tongue and loose hold on vocabulary, that if the situation arose where she had to make a wish, she'd wish that the present situation didn't suck so much. He'd laughed at that, and told her gently, that wasn't really a wish and that she was only human after all. She'd kicked him off the chaise half dressed with a Mokona super-suctioned to either elbow. Only human my foot, she'd snarled. It's a very nice foot, he reasoned and topped off her drink even though he couldn't bend his arm.
So.
So here she is, watching the sky above her, a little girl and a flying pincushion. In one hand is the model of the Clow Staff she helped design, in the other a bottle of aged red wine. She had known, when she told him all little girls like pink, four-eyes, so stop trying to be PC. He'd said it would be for his daughter so it had to be perfect, and she found herself with an almost-wish. Which she then stamped ruthlessly down, because she'd make an awful mother, and gods above, below and beyond, Clow would be an absolutely wretched father, and no child should have to suffer through that. Besides, she was an alcoholic, and a magician and so no spawning for her. But the thought was worth the few tears she paid.
So.
So she knows everything is paid in full, no more, no less. You pay for the good with the bad, you pay for your happiness with hard work and misery. You pay for his presence with his absence. You pay for the memories with the heartache. And you keep moving forward, because Clow Reed was a gigantic pain the ass, and the world is still cleaning up after him.