Friday

Disclaimers: Clover belongs to CLAMP.

Summary: A (the name, not the article) thinks about his brother.

Radishface

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[ 6:00 AM ]

I am watching you, he thought, as his eyes opened and he awoke to the sight of a white ceiling and metal railings.

Watching the way you watch people do the things that they do

He rose up from his bed and walked over to his window. It wasn't a window, really, but a hologram. He only wanted to see what the world outside looked like, even though he didn't care.

They thought he couldn't do it-- couldn't break past the electronic security measures the put around the Cage, couldn't reach out and extend his train of thought to the world beyond him. But he didn't meddle, he didn't interfere with the lives of others-- he promised himself, only to look, to see, never to touch.

And he watched his brother grow older, taller, stronger, and into somebody he didn't know anymore.

Those broad shoulders, the long legs, the cropped hair, and the eyes that spoke of wisdom and experience-- something he didn't know, would never know.

He had become something that A couldn't keep up with, no matter how hard he wanted to. And A desperately wanted to know what his brother was feeling, the only brother he had left, the only brother, connection he had, and even that was too far away to scale, now. He didn't understand the way he worked. Wasn't his brother just as confined, as caged, as trapped, as he was? And yet, why was he so happy?

It was because he had a companion, someone else who was a Clover, who could share things with him and understand him on a level that only A could match.

And it wasn't just that, either.

His monster of a brother couldn't sense it when he was tapping into his head. He didn't acknowledge the fact, he didn't know. Maybe it was because he was distracted by other things. Yes, A had to swim through murky, clear depths of waterfalls of thought and myriads of images before he could find what he was looking for, whatever it was.

Sometimes, he woke up at night with tears on his face, not knowing why, only knowing that he was dreaming again, cynical dreams, lonely ones, where he pretended he didn't care, but he did. And he wanted a warm body next to his, a hand to hold, or a sleeping face to look at, but there was none.

So instead, he extended his mind to look for that light in the emptiness, the summit in the valleys. He would be hurled through that void, a million faces blurred as he struggled not to look, not to touch. And he'd reach his destination, and be confronted with a melancholy, patient ache during the daytime as his brother waited, and at night, sometimes--

sometimes--

A squeezed his eyes shut. He would see things he didn't want to see, knew he shouldn't see. The two bodies were pressed together too close, too near each other, they touched, they grasped, they held, and within the confusing motion of the picture, his brother's eyes would be closed, a look of pain, happiness, etched across his features, and that Two-Leaf would be there with him, a fierce protectiveness, a longing wish, and

love

He opened his eyes, and an invisible tear slipped free.

The most frustrating thing about it was that the Two-Leaf was willing to let his brother go, the one thing he couldn't do, no matter how much he told himself it wasn't for his own happiness, it was for C's.

And then that Two-Leaf would appear in his head and contradict, in a casual voice,

His name is Ran.

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