title: Apocalypse Now

pairing: RinShiemi

dedication: to Sara because she might actually be my soul mate. also, to running away for the week and failing communication skills six weeks into the course. I AM SO CLEVER IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY ANYMORE.

Apocalypse Now

"Shiemi?"

It is the sound of her name that calls her out of the dark, the soft cadences of Rin's voice wrapping around her and lifting her up. Her mouth is unbearably dry and her eyelids feel like they have been sewn shut. In the distance, she can hear the sounds of people screaming. Pounding footsteps echo past nearby and doors slam somewhere unseen.

"Is she going to be okay?" Rin asks and Shiemi becomes aware of a hand pressed against her palm, long fingers interlinked with her own. His skin feels warm and smooth, like the pages of a book that has been left in the sun too long.

"She hit her head pretty hard," Shura says somewhere close by. "You better stay with her til she wakes, kiddo. Stay outta trouble til I get this sorted-"

Even struggling into wakefulness, Shimei knows that the 'this' Shura is referring to is Yukio-chan. She can tell that Rin knows it too by the way his hand tightens around hers, tightening until his grip is almost painful.

"Screw you!"

"Shaddup," Shura snarls. "Just stay put, you brat. I got enough to worry 'bout without having to save your skin all the time."

A door slams and for a moment all she can hear is Rin's heavy breathing, the way it catches in his chest. She can smell blood and dust intermingling on the air.

"…Rin…"

Her voice cracks around his name, nothing more than a faint whisper forced out between her parched lips. Immediately, he is closer, all his attention on her. She can feel his gaze on her face and it is like standing in a bright spotlight, except not at all unpleasant. When Rin looks at her with such intensity in his eyes – eyes like blue bottleglass – she finds that she never wants him to stop.

"Shiemi!"

The muscles jump in his hand as he says her name - and suddenly the smell of him is all around her. Shiemi pries her eyelids apart and Rin's face is the first thing she sees, eyes alight and skin pale. He is kneeling above her on the cold, marble floor of the Japanese branch of the Vatican, one hand in hers and the other frozen in the act of brushing her hair away from her eyes. He looks gloriously, miraculously alive.

Her heart feels like it might burst inside her chest and paint the ancient walls all the colours of her insides. Rin makes her feel like her blood is singing in her veins without doing anything at all.

"Are you okay?" he demands, dark hair falling into his face as he looks down at her. "Shiemi, don't ever do that to me again!"

I should be the one saying that, she thinks, but all that comes out of her mouth is; "You scared me."

The light fades in his eyes for just a moment and it is like starlight dying. Why does he never understand just how much he means to her?

"I thought you were dead," she adds, feeling the tears begin to well in her eyes. "I thought they killed you, Rin."

An odd, curious expression comes into his eyes then – something tentative and almost afraid. It pulls at her heart strings until she thinks the organ will slip between the hollow space in her ribs to settle in the palms of his hands and stay there forever.

"What is it?" Shiemi asks in a whisper, gaze riveted on his pale face. He twists a strand of her hair between his long fingers, slowly.

"I could hear you," he says and the sound is almost wondering. "You were calling my name."

"I thought they killed you," she says again, a broken record, the words tumbling out of her mouth, rushed and unapologetic – laying herself bare, all fragile china bones and fluttering pulse under his hands.

Izumo-chan has called her a weed before and all Shiemi can think is that she doesn't mind, as long as Rin stays in her line of sight, a blue, burning sun casting light against the back of her eyelids.

Abruptly, Rin pulls back and she feels the edges of his fingertips catch at the stale air kissing her skin. His eyes lower to the ground, the blue smouldering like low burning flames.

And that is wrong. Rin was made to blaze.

"Maybe they should have."

The words are spoken very quietly, barely breathed into the air but Shiemi hears them and she is surprised at the way the nerves in her hands feel like they just got an electric shock. If she was anyone else, she thinks she might have slapped him.

But Shiemi is not a violent person, not a fighter – she is all soft, clean lines and golden sunshine of childhood. She is shy smiles and a tentative hand in the dark. And Rin might smile as brightly as the stars but she thinks that he is the same. For so long, they have both cast solitary shadows.

"No," Shiemi blurts, sitting up alarmingly quick. The world spins on tender hooks and her stomach churns, but she snatches Rin's resisting wrist and refuses to give it back until he look at her.

The silence settles on them like dust and when he finally does, eyes shifting slowly onto her face – dark, crackling blue between long, thick eyelashes- Shiemi swallows.

"No," she says again, firmer this time and very deliberate. She stares him down, tears beginning to well in her eyes. She can feel the pulse of blood in his wrist and fights the urge to trace the blue veins mapped below his pale skin. Vulnerable.

"Rin," she whispers, heart pounding, voice raw and afraid and Shiemi – Shiemi has always been so afraid. Flowers are crushed so easily.

"Don't ever leave me."


notes: braindead. halloween party killed my soul.