Author's note: Another Christmas-Carol fic! Another HeijiKazu fic! Yay! Boy, I hate that muse. You'll understand why. As usual, I'm not likely to own anything. Aah crap.
Theme #12: Staying behind
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I'll Be Home For Christmas
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I'll be there for Christmas
You can count on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree…
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Kazuha's slender arms, very white in the darkness of the bedroom, stretched lazily around Heiji's chest, as she mumbled something in mid-sleep and snuggled closer to him. Her breath fell softly on his lips, as featherlike as the soft touches of her fingers against his shoulder, he and half-opened his eyes to meet the sight of her sleeping, slightly pouting face – what was she dreaming of? She'd whispered his name under her breath, or something that sounded very much like it. With a smile, he brushed aside the dark locks tumbling on her forehead and murmured, "I–"
–but then he opened his eyes fully and he was alone again, all alone in his cold sheets. He flopped on his back, arms spread, and stared at the ceiling – it had been a mirage like always, and like always it had felt real, so real that for a short, wonderful moment he'd actually believed Kazuha was once again by his side.
Even now he could remember everything about her – the sparkling green of her eyes, the softness of her mouth, the smoothness of her skin. Night after night they would fall asleep with each other's slow breathing in their ear, keeping as close as they could, arms and legs still entangled together. Morning after morning they would wake up and get into a pillow fight, laughing irresistibly and ending up, breathless, in each other's arms.
Then, one night, he'd gone to sleep alone.
He flung the covers aside and stumbled out of bed; the sheets' cold embrace was more than he could bear with. He shuddered – the winter night was cold and he was shirtless. He could almost feel Kazuha's hands sliding up his torso and her lips in his neck, stirring up emotions inside him like no other girl ever could… he did not want any other girl.
A lonesome moonbeam was sailing through the window slashing the room in two with a milky ray of light. Beyond that were only shades of grey, extinguishing into darkness. It reminded him irresistibly of times when Kazuha had just fallen asleep and he was holding her against his shoulder, her breath tingling against his skin the only sound breaking the perfect stillness and silence of the bedroom.
He dashed into the living-room, but worse was to come from here. His mother had raided his flat two days before, insisting in his getting a fir tree and decorating the whole apartment – he'd been lucky enough to limit her Christmas spirit to the living-room so she'd only admitted herself satisfied when she'd trimmed every wall of it with ivy and holly. She'd left late that night and he'd been too weary to bring them down; on the morning it'd appeared pointless to unhook them.
He should have, though, he pondered mournfully, leaning against the doorframe and contemplating the colourless decorations adorning the walls, the furniture and more or less everything else. His last Christmases he'd spent them with Kazuha, and now these only reminded him of times when he had laughed, when he had much rather cry now. Little did his mother know her attempt to cheer him up had miserably failed…
"Heiji?" A laughing Kazuha came out of the kitchen and he instinctively reached out for her, but she was neither looking nor talking to him. She put the plate down on the table and walked straight past him, her eyes focused on something he could not see, and her voice faded in his back, and the darkness fell again.
He finally slumped into a chair, knees drawn up to his chest like a child. He felt empty, weak… vulnerable. It was ironical enough from the great Tantei of the West, toughened up by years of murder cases and having a prefect of police for a father. If Neechan and Kudo saw him in such a state, they would go wild; but he would never, ever let either Neechan or Kudo (no, definitely not Kudo) see him so.
The front door opened and closed, and Kazuha switched on the hall light, taking off her coat as she entered the living-room and talking cheerfully. "Evening, Heiji, sorry I'm late–" –but she was gone again, the moment she bent down to kiss his lips. It had happened so many times he wasn't even surprised; there was only a cold hand closing around his heart again. He was used by now to her existing, within this flat, only in the realms of his memories, and to her going and passing, and then leaving again.
People, even amongst his closest friends (not Neechan or Kudo, though, because they knew that pain as well as him) told him that he would forget in time, and offered him books titled as such as, Ten Ways To Survive A Separation, but Heiji had never so much as opened them. They lay flat on a shelf on the other side of the room, where he'd piled them up and covered with others, completely forgetting their presence.
He didn't agree with those titles, anyway. This matter wasn't about survival – you could always survive when you had the means. It was mechanical; eating and walking and sleeping and working. No, this wasn't survival, it was merely subsistence. Staying alive. That's all.
"Heiji?"
He looked up, once again lured, as he always was, by his own daydreaming.
"What are you doing in the dark?" But she was gone, and with her the lights she'd just switched on. Something wet rolled silently down his cheek then dropped into eternity. He murmured her name, and it ran smoothly in the air, soft as silk, before rippling away.
The Christmas decorations were greyish in the dark. They hung still, from the walls and ceiling, colourful and yet colourless, meaningful and yet meaningless, and he wanted to ripe them all down.
Logical reasoning stopped him in his impulse. His mother and father were to come and eat tomorrow morning, and in the evening Neechan and Kudo. Two happy couples. They tried to cheer him up, he knew, and he tried to feel, or act, so. At least not make them worry. They weren't always fooled though.
He was tied up. Tied up by his memories and his connections with people he loved, like a thousand and a thousand threads, dark red in the shade of the living-room, weaving their web around him, entangling him, relating him to everything around, keeping him from moving too much without breaking something – or someone.
The front door opened again, and Kazuha's fresh voice ran down the hall, "Heiji? Hello, it's me…"
But he couldn't know if this was absolutely real, or another one of his dreams.
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Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love-light gleams
I'll be home for Christmas…
… if only in my dreams.
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The Post-Christmas Depressive Muse of Doom has struck early this year. I really, really don't know why. This series was meant to work on happily ever afters! Gomen to those who awaited fluff! I'll give you some tomorrow, I promise. Till then, do be so kind to review… ?
