Once I again, I don't own these characters, I just like messing with them and one day I will give them back.
What Lies Behind the Mask
By Draegyn
He leaned against his closed door wearily and sighed. He was so tired and it was more than the weariness of his never-ending series of jobs. It was more than the drain from watching his ever active and never safe younger sister. It had every thing to do, and nothing at all, with his absent lover.
With another heartfelt sigh, he heaved himself away from the door and dragged himself over to the unmade bed. He spared no more than a second to regret not making it that morning and then he let himself fall. Outside the heavy drumming of rain was overwhelmed by a sudden, abrupt roar of thunder and he inhaled by reflex, causing the subtle, intoxicating scent of his lover lingering on his pillow to cast its spell over him once more. His exhaustion receded and he embraced the pillow that had, hours before, cushioned the grey-haired head of his love with a force that belied his earlier lack of energy.
He was loved, he knew that with utter certainty. The force of it sometimes shocked him. The passion in his partner belied that mild exterior that the rest of the world saw. It was a passion that lit him, consumed him and renewed him every moment he breathed. It did not matter if they were walking side by side, on their way to school in the morning. It did not matter if they were working, together or apart. It did not matter if they were separated by no more than the sweat on their heated bodies or by the whole of Tokyo. He loved and was loved in return.
And it did not matter that he was a human and one no longer with the claim to magic and his beloved was magic itself. None of that really mattered.
He rolled over with a sigh, the pillow still tightly held to his chest, and looked up at the ceiling. It did not matter and yet… he felt the distance between them. Those grey eyes, behind the slender lenses and under that frosty mop of hair, never turned to him with anything but the utmost tenderness and, yet, he could feel the wall between them. Something that he did not know, was not allowed to share, and it hurt. It hurt more than he could have dreamed possible.
He was loved, but grey would become silver, slate, ice and that magic that was hidden would burst into the open to reveal something… someone that was his lover… and yet was not. Someone he did not know and yet knew so well. It was the same someone who shared his bed and his life. Someone who saw the world in way that he could never have done, even before he sacrificed his magic.
It more than bruised his heart, vulnerable as it was to his lover and no other. It flayed it.
He had left this afternoon, when the storm had barely begun to loom, his lover had left. Left and half-formed hopes for the night had died. He had not been given a reason, no more than a few words. The other one, the unknown, unknowable one demanded it. And he could do no more than acquiesce.
His eyes were drawn, against their will, to the window and the storm swept sky. Somewhere out there, he danced in the sky. Somewhere, between the slender whips of sky-borne fire, a man of feathers and magic and pale moonlight let those walls that separated him from his other-self's lover drop.
With a sudden burst of passion he fell from the bed and wrenched the windows open. Frigid drops of rain plastered his dark hair to his tanned skin as the driving wind brought the storm to him but he did not flinch. He merely gazed up and away from his familiar bedroom, seeking something he would never find.
Somewhere out there Yue simply was and Touya was not there, was not allowed to be there, to witness that transformation.
It hurt.
He did not really know what drew him here at that particular moment on that particular night. For the first time in his memory since meeting her, the presence of his golden lover was not there to light up his bare home. Without her, life seemed harsher somehow and yet she was no more than a call away. Why then did he feel so bereft? As if he had been denied something? He could feel the tie that linked them thrum with power, both his and hers. Silver and gold danced along the bond, his power and hers mingling as he devoutly believed was fated. They were two but they were one. One heart and one mind.
So why was he alone on a night when he should have been reassuring her beloved form and sheltering her from the tempest that raged around him?
Even as he thought of it, the howling winds picked up force and tangled his already tousled hair such that it would take him hours to get even that short, ebon length unknotted again. Dark, dark blue eyes stared up at the roiling mass above him. The downpour had drenched him and only the furnace of his magic kept him from freezing, still he had not noticed.
She was not there with him and, although he stood sure and certain in the brilliance of her love, he felt… excluded. It was a strange emotion and not one he was accustomed to. Why should he? His lover denied him nothing, not her time, her thoughts or her heart. All were his for the asking, so why was there something inside of him screaming that he was being kept ignorant?
He scanned the turbulent skies, looking for something he could not define. Just as he could not define that intangible something that taunted him every time she was in his arms. Her scent, her warmth, everything that comprised her presence he had memorised long since and past and yet, there was something missing, something he did not know. Something she was keeping from him.
He was of Terra's blood royale and had never been inflicted with such a heart-rending lack in all of his two lives. His magic roared with the power of the Earth and no place in light or shadowed was barred from his knowledge. Why then was he not only ignorant of her secret, but unsure she possessed one?
No.
He was sure.
He did not know what to do.
Why did it haunt him so? Why now? His magic quested along the bond between their hearts. As the heavens deluded his body, his mind was drenched in silver. It was a balm for him and yet… not.
He knew of the silver depths concealed within her. Did he not possess those of complementing gold? Had they not discovered those depths side by side?
Why was this silver that enwrapped him so foreign to him then?
Why, now, did that silver… burn him so?
It was too bright… too fierce… too alien.
Why?
It hurt.
Two hearts yearned for something they could not name.
Two minds fell short of something they could not know.
Two faces stared towards the battlefield of a sky and witnessed something they could not believe.
Two mortal souls, in love and loved, glimpsed something they could not understand.
Two angels danced.
An angel alighted on the wet roof tiles without a sound and peered into the darkened window. She slept, his little mistress, safely and happily. The watcher hidden in the shadows softened at this sign of concern, his posture relaxing minutely. It was not much but it was enough to betray his presence to the silver entity that looked in. Glacial eyes, strangely soft at this moment, hardened instantly. Ice met blue-grey and widened in, another, what might have been shock.
He stepped out of the shadows and soundlessly crossed the room. Not even the little beast that often masqueraded as a stuffed animal stirred at his passing and soon he stood on the hazardous roof, his sister's window gently closed behind him.
He looked at the one he had just joined; the endless lengths of silver damp and tangled by the past storm, white cloth plastered to the lean form and diamond drops of moisture on pristine feathers. Unreachable perfection, that was Yue.
The icy gaze lanced him but it was nothing to overwhelming sense of futility that he knew weighed his own. He was not the one who broke the silence.
"Why?"
It was all he could do not to bark a bitter laugh. Why? Why what? There were a hundred, a thousand whys, which did his lover's other-form might want the answer to?
Why had he waited? Why was he on the roof of his house in the dying remnants of the storm? Why did his emotions cut him so deeply that the bleeding could be seen in his gaze? Why now?
"Why not?" He did laugh then, that short unhappy sound that had threatened mere moments before escaped now as he echoed the other's question back at him. "Why?" This time there was no confusion. It was only one word but it was enough. His face, his eyes, the very magic that supported and sustained this impossible being screamed with it.
Two angels had danced. Two figures of silver and moonlight. Two forms held aloft by unrivalled wings. Two silhouettes of inhuman grace. Two.
For a moment Yue hesitated and then his answer came and with it a pain that the mortal who had watched and waited had not known possible. "She is my soul."
His mind reeled, as did his body. His bare feet lost traction and gravity grasped him in its unrelenting grasp only to surrender him to the hold of another far, far more undeniable.
Those pale and slender arms held him tightly as if they feared he would escape them but at that moment he had no intention of fleeing. In that moment he savoured the undimmed embrace and undiluted presence of his Yukito. For this was his Yuki, changed and unmasked, but Yuki nonetheless. And it was an embrace that he had not known in the past and might never know again, not if he truly loved him. And he did, deeply, madly, passionately, he loved this being of magic. Even now that his dreams of having his Yuki to himself with no walls of magic or secrets between them were shattering but at that moment he did have that. Yue-Yukito, Yukito-Yue, finally they were one and the same, holding him, perhaps even, in a small way, loving him, but the moment was not to last. He knew that and so he was the one to end it.
There were so many things to say, that needed to be said between them. He looked up and caught the other's gaze.
"She is beautiful."
"Yes, in a way that will never be equalled."
"You love her."
"Without her I would have nothing, be nothing. I would exist in emptiness… a shell and nothing more."
"Then go to her."
"I have been with her. Now it is time to return here."
"You don't need to hide it anymore. You don't have to pretend. I don't know why you did but I saw the way you were with her… you were free and I will not deny you that."
"You could not."
"Then go."
The mask finally dropped and the truth of what lay beneath was entrusted to him. There were so many things that needed to be said between them. Things that, in all truth, should have been aired long before the two had become lovers.
"You love her." The silence that had loomed was broken by three simple words.
Only one answered. "Yes."
He nodded. His eyes had not lied to him and he mourned the loss of his heart. He stepped back, breaking the hold of the other. His hazy blue eyes dropped and looked aside. "Then go," he whispered. A cool, slender and yet immeasurably powerful hand coerced his face back up and he was forced to once more confront the treasure he must free.
All silver and white, magic and moonlight. He wondered if even his sister knew the extent of the treasure in her reach. His eyes closed before a gaze of ice could, yet again, bespell him. "You should be with her then."
He felt rather than saw those pale lips curve with Yuki's smile. "I love her," the quiet voice repeated, "She is my soul."
His heart, already a broken thing, died only to have the embers of hope fanned by the touch of soft lips on his.
His eyes flew ope to find crystal blue orbs, full of ice no longer. For the first time, looking at his lover's true self, he could see everything. Everything.
And, as he was lost in the vastness of those eyes, Yue smiled once more, an angel's smile – a lover's smile. "I am Yue and, unlike her own lover, you know what it is, that I am the moon. I am Yue," he repeated, "But, because of her, I can be Yuki, your Yuki, too."
The moon, bright, full and whole, came out from behind a cloud and his doubt vanished. When the skies warred, he would free this silver being to dance with that other, knowing that he would always return to him. In the light of that silver orb, he smiled and welcomed the embrace of his heart.
As he savoured the heartbeat against his ear, he listened to the reassurance he no longer needed.
"Because of her, I can love you, my To-ya."
And it was no more than the truth.
She knew, he could see clearly, that something was changed from the moment she landed on the tree branch outside her bedroom window. She knew he was there, awaiting her return to her family's home. She knew that her dance had been seen. She knew that her mask was obsolete.
And so she did not don it again.
She stood there, straight and strong, on that tree branch as he detached from the shadows of the house. Her immense wings held proudly and her silver hair captured by the gentled breeze. And her silver gaze burned into him.
There was none of the tender humanity he was familiar with. None of the passion they shared nor the imperfections he treasured. All there was, was magic and silver and moonlight.
It was the gaze of an angel, an immortal being, with no place on Earth. Of a race that had died millennia before.
It was the gaze of her dancing partner as they had spun in the sky.
It was the gaze of Serenity unmasked.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded, wounded and yet wondering, for the secret that had been, until now, denied him, held such power. Her answer surprised him, but, knowing her, it should not have.
"Because you could not have done anything."
He ignored the hurt those unvarnished words caused and clung to his belief in her… in them. "And he can?"
"I thought I was alone," she replied, seemingly ignoring his question. "I had the senshi, my sisters and friends. I had you, my beloved, my heart… but I was still alone. The moon, my home… my soul was dead and barren. With every moment, every breath, that I lived and they did not, it became worse. I love you but…"
"You are Serenity," he finished. His heart ached but now it was not for his own hurts, but for hers, the ones he had been too blind to see.
"I am Serenity," she agreed and that heavy silver gaze looked up to where the moon hung, partially obscured by thinning clouds. "I am the moon and I am…"
"Magic." He had known this from the moment he had seen her free of mortal cages, dancing in the arms of another such as she. He had always known this.
"Yes."
They stood there, immobile, for an eternity, man and woman, human and angel, mortal and moon. There could be no more secrets between them. The awesome magnitude of what she truly was had been revealed and a lesser man would have turned from the blinding brightness of it.
He was not a lesser man.
His hand was outstretched, steady and sure, as silver eyes, misting with emotions, regarded him uncertainly.
"I love you," he assured her, "I will always love you, no matter what face you wear or what guise you don. Truth and illusion, both, for they are both you. All I ask is that you trust me."
Her dancing partner was not the shade he fought. Not that being of complimentary silver and white. No, the opponent he must defeat was her own fear.
So, in the end, it was simple. She was not, and would never be, a coward.
Somehow, without seeming to move, the space between them was bridged and first their hands touched and then their arms clasped each tightly to the other. The moon shone brightly, now fully freed from his cloak of clouds and its light lit them both, brighter and fuller than before.
The Earth is not nourished by the Moon. The silvery light does not give any strength to the children of the blue world but that does not mean they cannot perceive the beauty of it. These children will never know the glory that the kindred of the moon knew and shared. They are, after all, merely mortal, earthbound. They are creatures of clay and so cannot be expected to understand the needs of those beings of light and magic.
Yet, they can glimpse the edges of this wonder, if only distantly, and so they can share the half-sensed mystery. Thus, even a mortal, should he or she be of open mind and generous heart, can feed the magic that is the moon.
Always, the magic is greater when shared.