A Card Captor Sakura Fanfiction
Part Four
All characters portrayed here are the property of CLAMP, Kodansha, a bunch of other Japanese media companies, and a certain Canadian dubbing company that will heretofore go unnamed. I don't claim to own these characters, but the situations I put them in belong to me. I would rather this wasn't posted anywhere without my permission, so email me with questions. Don't steal. I bite.
And they say that alcoholics are always alcoholics
Even when they're as dry as my lips for years
Even when they're stranded on a small desert island
With no place in 2,000 miles to buy beer
And I wonder
Is he different?
Is he different?
Has he changed? What he's about?...
Or is he just a liar with nothing to lie about?
[Daylight; Ten Months Ago]
The ride home is understandably awkward. Sakura sits in one corner of the back of my mother's limousine and I sit in the other. She is talking, chattering, and has been for the past hour. I'm beginning to wonder if she would quiet down if I bludgeoned the back of her head with the small, stone statue that she bought from the onsen's gift shop.
And it's a testament to my own unbalanced state that I would even consider such a thing.
So instead of resorting to violence, I just continue to stare out the window and completely ignore Sakura. It's very difficult, actually. Before there was a sort of continuous pull that she exerted on me, as though she had inadvertently snagged several fishing lines, complete with tiny barbed hooks, into various portions of my anatomy. It was painful when I thought about it, but mostly it was a familiar sort of drawing feeling that more a comfort than a nuisance.
But now . . .
I glance over at her; she's still recounting some of her brother's more moronic exploits from their youth, her face animate, eyes bright. And the usual pull is now tempered by a sharp and sudden pang of purely physical desire, made worse by my new preternatural awareness of the world around me. Now I can not only lose myself in the mere sight of the girl I love, but I can smell her, hear her heartbeat, feel the way her aura pulses brightly against my own subdued one.
And I'm forced to close my eyes to shut out the sensations that intrude without invitation, but it doesn't really help. My eyelids really don't help all that much when I'm still shaking with the aftereffects of whatever happened back in our room at the onsen.
Was this what Sakura's brother had to live with back before he gave his power to Yue?
Because from all the descriptions Sakura's been bombarding me with for the past day or so, it really sounds like my experiences most closely resemble Touya's old power. Or so Sakura says.
Not that she's exactly an expert, of course. She's tremendously powerful, but her power is unique and her experiences don't help me at all here. Even her observations of Syaoran's magic, though she doesn't mention them now, are of no use. So it looks as though I'll have to look up her brother once we get back to Tomoeda.
But good god, what am I going to tell him?
Oh, when I was having sex with your baby sister something really strange happened between orgasms . . .
Or maybe, Yes, Touya-san, the vacation at the onsen was nice but while I was taking advantage of your darling sister's grief, I realized that I was being distracted by a bunch of pretty, almost hallucinatory colors . . .
No, there really isn't any way I can tell Touya about what really happened up in the mountains. The best I can do is hope he has some sort of quick fix for my problem.
I glance back from my vacant contemplation of the rushing scenery to check on Sakura. She's still babbling about her brother, I think. It's hard to tell because she's beginning to run out of energy and even her momentum isn't enough to make her words terribly intelligible anymore.
". . . And I told him that I wasn't a damn monster!" she snaps vaguely in my direction.
Yes, she's most certainly still discussing Touya.
So I nod mechanically and allow her rambling to lull me into an uneasy, dreamless sleep.
Of course, I'm finding that the opportunity to chat up Sakura's brother is a little more elusive than I'd previously expected. Upon our arrival back home, Sakura promptly forgot about my little mystical experience and instead chose to concentrate on the embarrassment of having slept with her same-sex best friend.
I decided to give her some space, both for her awkwardness and for her grief, which was still a tangible shadow over her aura. It's easier to avoid her now that school's over, but it makes it very difficult to casually contact Touya. He and Yukito live in an apartment complex a few miles away from the Kinomoto home, but they still spend a goodly amount of time with Sakura and her father. I don't feel comfortable invading his apartment in search of him and I'm certainly not going to make Sakura uncomfortable by seeking him at the Kinomoto residence.
So I set about trying to enjoy what's left of my post-graduation vacation. I'm not scheduled to return to work at the bookstore for another four days and I find myself spending an inordinate amount of time in the park. Summer is well under way in Tomoeda now. All of the fruit trees have finished blooming, as have most of the annual spring bulbs. The grassy spaces are once more green and verdant and should remain so until the dry times of late summer arrive. Children on break from school seem to populate the park, though they are clever enough to leave the brooding, dark-haired girl alone in her nest of shadows beneath a large, vastly-spreading elm.
The elm and I have become close friends over the past few days. Her lacy bark always seems delicate against my back, layers occasionally sloughing off to reveal the olive and orange patches beneath. If my mother — or the maid — has wondered at the dark stains of bark-dust that appears on the back of my shirts and sweaters at the end of each day, they do not ask. More important than the beautiful bark is the way the tree feels to my newly-awakened senses. Trees aren't really green, I find. They're shades of yellow and vermillion and they pulse with slow, inexorable life. The elm is my favorite of the trees I've sampled in the park. When I sit beneath her leafy crown, back pressed firm against the latticework of her bark, it's as though I'm caught up in a great golden embrace, shot through with flame-colored glints. It's comfortable, since the aura of the tree tends to block out the darting confusion of the playing children that bombards me when I stray too far from the shelter of the trees.
In the shadow of my lace-barked elm, I've been thinking about my new-found awareness. The fear that I had originally felt that afternoon when Sakura so deliberately seduced me has worn down to a vaguely nagging worry. So far this mystical sense of mine hasn't caused me any trouble. It's often confusing and occasionally disturbing, but it isn't dangerous or terrifying. In fact, if my inborn empathic sense hadn't been sharp enough to begin with, my ability to sense the auras of people I encounter has given me a preternatural accuracy when predicting emotions.
Of course, with some people, the sensations are much more powerful. I've found that when dealing with people I already have some sort of attachment too, such as my mother, my empathic responses can be nearly overwhelming. I've excused myself from dinner early for the past two nights because my mother's aura grew too strong for me to deal with. When that happened, when my mother's self became so overpowering, it was as though a part of me was ready to reach out to her and join her to myself, just to keep the sense of separateness and loneliness at bay.
I've always known I was an introvert, a loner. I have never found someone to be my equal, to be my peer. And now, with this new sense of mine, I fear I'll never be able to even relate to anyone outside of myself. Even Sakura, the few times I've seen her since our return from the mountains, has seemed so desperately apart from myself.
It hurts sometimes.
So I hide in the park with the elm and try not to listen to the sounds of children playing.
____________________________
I finally find Touya on the afternoon of my last day off of work. Or rather, he shows up at the park in search of me.
I feel him before I see him. Even the dampening effect of the tree isn't enough to block him from me. Like his little sister, Touya has an aura that is so brilliant it's almost overpowering. I find I can't bear to look at him straight on. So I concentrate on not focusing on him; I simply watch him with earthly eyes as he strides across the slightly muddy soccer field, his eyes never still as he searches for something or someone among the shadows of the trees. It becomes obvious who he's looking for once he spots me, waves, then changes course to bear down on my patch of leafy shade.
"Daidouji," he says by way of introduction.
"You came looking for me?" I manage to get out through a clenched jaw. His presence is doing strange things to my mind. Now that he's here, the press of his aura is distracting beyond anything I've encountered so far.
"Yeah, Sakura mentioned something about . . ." He pauses to look at me again, his eyes sharp. His eyes seem a darker brown than I remember. After a moment of scrutiny, they suddenly widen, then relax. "She was right," he says, almost wonderingly.
I swallow and try to keep from reaching out with my mind to touch his. It's very, very difficult. Finally I need to close my eyes against the light. I need no distractions in this battle to keep from hurting Sakura's brother.
"Are you alright?" I dimly hear Touya ask.
I don't reply. I'm busy.
So of course I don't realize that he's kneeling down next to me, reaching out with his hands and the supernatural powers that he's been slowly regaining over the past four years. This knowledge comes to me in a sudden flash as my eyes crack open, meet his.
My mind shatters.
I am later told that the backlash nearly knocked Touya unconscious, but I was beyond noticing at the time. Instead of running, he struck out with his own mind, neatly contained mine behind time-worn mental walls, and then caught me as I toppled sideways toward the dusty, bark-strewn ground.
Whatever the chain of events that bring me here, I find myself waking up in Touya's bed, a huge, oak-posted monstrosity that even my mother would find a bit ostentatious. They must have had to dismantle the thing to get it through the doorway. Vague memories of Sakura, chattering about the great bargain on a kitschy bed her brother found at a second-hand furniture store, filter through my mind. It's sluggish, as though my mental processes are being forced to slog through a swampy mire. I push harder.
"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," Touya remarks from his seat by the window. Perhaps it's proof of my confusion that I don't notice him until he speaks. "You'll just give me a headache."
And I suddenly realize that for the first time in days I am able to look at a person straight on without having to keep my mind pushed back behind layers of pure will. It's all the more miraculous because it's Touya and his mind is still gyrating like a small, local pulsar, shining with unseen light, but I don't feel drawn to him, drawn to clasp his mind to mine and join his brightness to my shadows.
"What did you do to me?" I blurt out wildly, astonished beyond manners by this sudden, blessed distance between my mind and his.
"Yue helped," he notes as he rises and moves over to the bedside. "I'm afraid I was out of practice when it came to installing shields in someone other than myself." He lays a warm, dry hand against my forehead then flinches minutely back in response. Despite my newly dulled senses, the contact is accompanied by a jolt, like the arc of an electric spark.
It must be clear from my expression that I have no idea what's going on. I'm confused and frightened and neither emotion is something I'm comfortable with under any circumstances.
"Stay here, Daidouji," Touya says gently. "I'll go see what's taking Yuki so long in there. I told him to make tea and bring out the chocolate but I think I'm smelling mulled cider instead . . ." He unbends from his half-crouch at my side and moves quietly out of the room.
There are noises from the kitchen, which is several rooms removed from the bedroom. I hear the sound of hushed voices and the clatter of what's probably a kettle, or maybe a small saucepan. There is more quiet, unintelligible conversation and I get the impression that I really should be able to understand what their saying, but something — probably the same something that's dulling my senses — is slurring their words into a sort of soothing background noise. There's a kind of gentle presence to Touya and Yukito's apartment; I find that I feel more comfortable here swathed in a borrowed blanked, cocooned in an enormous old bed, than I've felt at home since my return from the onsen.
Yukito appears suddenly, startling me into a tiny, hoarse yelp. He is so silent I had no idea he was even nearby.
"I brought you a snack," he says by way of apology, looking a bit sheepish for having scared me, or maybe for stepping so lightly and quietly through the apartment. He is carrying an old-fashioned tray, the kind that is designed to be propped up in front of someone as they watch television or something like that. He lowers the little legs, props the tray up across my lap, and looks terribly pleased with himself.
"It turns out that the cinnamon and cloves I smelled were in the tea, not cider," Touya announces as he returns and settles once again near the window. Two of the panes are louvered open to allow the warm breeze to enter, carrying with it the scents of new-mown grass and oak pollen.
Yukito pulls up a chair and sits next to the bed, fussing with the tray. "I didn't put anything in the tea, but there's milk or cream or sugar if you want it."
"It advise against them," Touya breaks in with a warning. "They won't help."
"The tea's a special blend," Yukito continues, pouring me a cup. The smooth stream of richly amber-tinted tea passes through the strainer and then into a heavy ceramic tea cup, probably hand-made by someone. I can smell the tea enough to know that it's suited for neither cream nor sugar. It has a spicy scent somehow reminiscent of both apple pies and Shinto shrines. I sip experimentally, and am pleasantly surprised.
"Thank you," I murmur, hanging onto control through my manners. "It's very good."
"You don't have to flatter him," Touya says with a brief smile. "It's a concoction that Yuki and Yue came up with together to help treat psychic backlash."
For a moment, I'm charmed by the concept of the Tsukishiro boy and Sakura's moon-pale guardian somehow conversing and experimenting with herbs and teas. They still share the same body, so the process must have been an entertaining experiment in psychology.
Then I finish processing what Touya said.
"Psychic . . . backlash?"
Touya shrugs. "That's the best way to describe it. Now that my powers are back, I've been dealing with that sort of thing on a fairly regular basis. I can predict almost precisely the way you're feeling right now." He shares a quick, cryptic smile with Yukito. "First of all, your head hurts. The muscles in your face and neck ache with tension. You're having a hard time focusing your eyes and your other senses seem a bit dulled. And right about now you're realizing that the craving that's been waiting patiently for you to notice it is suddenly rearing its head and you desperately want that chocolate that Yuki's so kindly unwrapping for you."
And indeed, I've never seen chocolate that looks as good as the bar that Yukito's opening and breaking into bite-sized chunks. I've never been addicted to chocolate in the way that Sakura is. And Syaoran too, for that matter. But this . . . well, it's only cheap convenience store chocolate, but it's all I need. I immediately pop a piece into my mouth. Then a second one for the other cheek.
I give Touya a faintly disapproving look at having pinned me so neatly, but I continue to eat chocolate and sip the spicy tea.
"At least she's chewing it before swallowing, To-ya," Yukito notes generously. "I'm always afraid you're going to choke on a piece when you get like this."
"Oh, be quiet, Yuki," Touya murmurs, looking a little embarrassed.
I have so many questions, but it appears they'll have to wait until I've fed the starving beast inside of me. The chocolate seems to be filling an energy reserve I never knew I even had, never mind had suddenly emptied.
Once my sudden appetite begins to slow and I've begun to nibble — not gobble — the remaining chocolate, Yukito gives me a surprisingly shy smile. "I can help with the stiff neck, if you like," he suggests, making a strange little gesture with his hands that seems to mean he's either going to wring the neck of a chicken or give me a massage.
"He's really very good," Touya adds. "Those hands of his have gotten plenty of practice over the years."
"That would be very kind of you, Tsukishiro-san," I reply, before my brain really catches up with the suggestion. And for once, I'm glad I go with my instincts.
He rises from his chair and moves pillows so that he can sit behind me and work on my aching neck. Yukito is, indeed, very good with his hands. His long fingers are much stronger than they look, and despite how good the massage feels, I wince every once and a while. I believe I'll probably end up bruised, no matter how gentle he is.
"While Yuki's working on you, maybe we can work on figuring out what's going on with you," Touya says, drawing my attention back away from the warmth radiating through me, slowly outward from Yukito's hands. "I suppose the most important question is why you had a sudden flare up of dormant psychic powers."
"I'm not psychic," I say automatically. I've always been the mundane one, grateful to bask in Sakura's reflected glow.
"Actually, you are," Touya insists. "It runs in the family. Your mother even has a touch of the Sight, though it's been dormant since she was a little girl." He pauses and looks a little embarrassed. "Or at least, that's what Mother used to tell me. The Amamiyas always tended towards the otherworldly."
I'm still caught up in the concept that my mother, my very own, practical, business-minded, no-nonsense mother is psychic. It's almost laughable.
"And of course, I inherited my own brand of powers from Mother," he continues. "Sakura got a smidgen of the Sight, but not enough to be of much use. Instead she inherited the Clow."
"So that's why she's always been so terrified of ghosts," I murmur around the warm pleasure of Yukito's hands.
"Pardon?" I think I've lost Touya.
"Do you remember Yanagisawa Naoko? She was in our class?" Touya shrugs vaguely and I continue. "Well, when we were in elementary school, she had this strange obsession with ghost stories and eery tales. And whenever she told them, Sakura would always swear that the ghosts followed her for several days after she heard one of the stories. I used to laugh it off, but it makes sense now."
"You know, Daidouji?" Touya looks slightly amused. "I think you're probably right." He settles back in his chair with a thoughtful look on his face. "She has enough of the Sight to sense spirits, but not enough to see what they are. I imagine that's a bit unnerving."
"You're trying to avoid the subject, Daidouji-san," Yukito says suddenly, his hands stilling, then gently stroking my hair. He leans around to give me a shrewd look. "You need to understand what's happening to you."
For a brief instant, Yukito sounds like Yue and I wonder suddenly how separate the two really are.
"Yuki's right, I think," Touya replies quietly. "What matters here is figuring out how to help you adjust, not the ghost stories that used to scare my sister."
"It's been getting worse every day, now," I say, knowing they will understand.
"When did you begin to see and feel strange things?" Touya asks. "Generally it takes a fairly important event to jumpstart powers as dormant and sealed as yours were."
"At the onsen," I say. "I guess it was about a week and a half ago."
The two men are quiet for a moment, waiting for me to elaborate on the circumstances, but I remain silent as well. Too polite to pry, and kept in the dark by Sakura's apparently terse explanation, Touya and Yukito seem content to leave me my privacy. With any luck at all, Touya won't ever find out about Sakura's seduction and won't condemn me to a life of intense glares and general pariah-status.
I'm grateful for small miracles, at least.
So I let them explain their world for me. It's a place I never thought seriously about. As the mundane one among my close friends, even my family it seems, I've never considered the problems involved with Power. But Touya and Yukito have lived like this their entire lives. It's comforting to have two grown men caring for me and explaining this strange world. And they're gentle with me, gentler than I could ever have expected. Touya's patient with his endless exposition and Yukito's neck massage has ceased in favor of softly smoothing down my long, rumpled hair. Their kindness hovers somewhere between welcome and stifling.
"I don't think I can do this," I finally say, head full of 'power signatures' and 'psychic shielding' and 'mystic resonance.' "It's too big. Too sudden."
Yukito is suddenly on his feet. And then he's not Yukito anymore.
"You can always permanently seal her power," Yue notes to Touya in that low, cool voice of his. He has forgone the wings in favor of keeping the furniture in order and not buffeted about. But he's still an impressive-looking creature, particularly since he's aglow with a sort of milky luminescence that was present even when he was in his false-form. "It worked on that little boy last year."
"I could try . . ." Touya muses, his face thoughtful, a frown creasing the space between his dark eyes. "Of course, it's probably riskier. That boy was very young, and not nearly as strong as Daidouji."
I'm following the conversation, but only barely. "You could . . . make the power go away again? I could be the way I was?" The brief thrill I had initially received from the realization of my new senses had quickly worn down to a sort of continuous, low-grade panic. Being special wasn't quite what I wanted. Not like this, at least.
The blinds rattle with a sudden increase in wind. They are ignored.
"In a way," Touya replies eventually, evasively.
"Could you try it?" I ask, suddenly eager to be rid of this gift.
"I suppose," he says.
"Are you sure you want to?" Yue asks, fixing me with his silvery gaze. "You wish to return to your mundane existence, as though nothing happened? You could have Power," he says, almost coaxingly. "You already have an instinctive grasp of how your gift works."
Looking back upon recent interactions with people, I know he's right. But I still want it gone.
I nod firmly. "Yes, I would rather be mundane and comfortable. I can barely hear myself think, these days. Particularly when I'm around people." I smile gingerly at Touya. "I'd like to try, at least."
Touya nods back, a look of sympathy and understanding on his face. "Alright," he tells me. He glances at Yue. "I don't suppose I could borrow some of your Power for this? I suspect she's strong enough to warrant it, so any walls I build will have to be that much thicker."
Yue's shrug is so slight it's almost undetectable. "If you think you need it," he replies.
Touya stands and comes over to the side of the bed. I automatically make room for him. "You're going to try to do it now?" I ask curiously.
Touya gives an vague sort of nod. "Might as well. You're here and awake, as is Yue."
Yue comes and settles on the bed as well. "And as this will likely take a while, it's best to start earlier in the day." He reaches out and lays a cool hand across my forehead and I feel a feathery touch against my mind, warmer than I'd expected. Less indifferent, more caring. I relax minutely.
"Close your eyes and try to relax your mind," Touya orders quietly. He take hold of my left hand, thumb pressed against the hollow of my palm. "You'll be able to feel what I'm doing, but don't struggle or try to help me. I'm having to build a wall between you and the powers and it'll feel very strange, I think." He nods to Yue and takes his hand as well. "Take her other hand, will you? It'll make it easier for me to draw from you."
Yue's hands are cool and dry and slim; Touya's are much larger and very warm. As soon as the three of us are linked by clasped hands, I close my eyes and wait for Touya to do his work. The gentle probe of his mind soon creeps up against my own. I let him in. And Yue.
There's a click that seems as though it should be audible, a feeling of fitting together somehow. Then Yue and Touya are somehow drawn deeper into me. I can feel it happening, but I have no control over it. I dimly realize that this is what my traitorous mind has been trying to do to various loved ones for the past week or so.
But it doesn't matter. I can feel Touya's frantic struggles at being locked in with me. Yue's attempts are more calculated, but no less emphatic. I try relaxing, hoping this will allow them to pull away from me. I don't much like the way I'm beginning to sense not only their emotions, but their thoughts, jumbled and worried as they are.
I'm caught! I hear dimly. I'm not sure who says it.
How can she be this strong? She's so new to this all and the power's raw and I'm stuck and I'm not sure how to get out and wait something's happening . . .
The mental relaxation has some sort of effect.
Perhaps it's not what I was expecting. And it certainly surprises Touya and Yukito. Their startled reactions are like a beacon and I reach out, perhaps to help them pull back from the depths of my mind.
When contact is made, however, everything changes.
There isn't a flash of light. Or glittering showers of sparks. Only a sense of belonging, greater than anything I've ever felt in my life. It's a sort of intimacy that is completely unexpected, and all the sweeter for it. The union of minds is warmer than any sort of physical embrace, more sensual than even that brief afternoon with Sakura. It's a timeless moment, suspended together by the heat of our bodies and minds and somehow, somehow, I can feel Yukito and Touya's love and affection for each other and I'm included.
I'm nearly overwhelmed.
We're nearly overwhelmed.
Finally, Touya's voice seems to come from a long way away. "Tomoyo?" He also sounds very, very young.
"She's okay," Yue replies, his voice dusty, as though unused for many years. "A little shocky, perhaps."
"She's shocky?!" Touya's words tremble on the edge of hysteria.
"Hush," says Yue and I realize that his words are making my belly vibrate, as his face is pressed against my abdomen, mouth a very warm spot just above my navel.
Touya has somehow curled his body around mine from behind and has one hand entwined with Yue's and the other wrapped in a hank of my hair. I have no idea how we ended up in this position, but it's so comfortable, I'm disinclined to move.
I'm not sure I could move anyway. The warmth has led to a sort of languor and my muscles are refusing to respond. Even my thoughts wander.
"Can you move?" Yue asks. I'm not sure who he's speaking to at the moment.
Touya answers. "Nope." He doesn't sound particularly bothered by the fact, which relieves me. I have the feeling I should be disturbed by the fact that I'm curled up in bed with Touya and Yue in such an intimate fashion, but it seems natural. "You?" Touya asks in reply.
I feel Yue take another breath against my stomach. "Not really. Do you think Daidouji's okay?"
Touya's hand twitches gently in my hair. "She's awake too. I can feel her."
There's a pause, then I can feel Yue's head shift slightly against me. "Actually, so can I."
And I can feel their puzzlement, gentle and unconcerned, as inclusive as the mental embrace.
Touya sighs and his fingers brush through the dark length of my hair. "Any idea what the hell happened, Yue?"
"Not a clue, Touya." Yue's grip on Touya's hand tightens minutely and they both somehow tuck themselves closer to my body in an almost protective way. I fall asleep once more.
Am I headed for the same brick wall
Is there anything I can do about
Anything at all?
Except go back to that corner in Manhattan
And dig deeper, dig deeper this time
Down beneath the impossible pain of our history
Beneath unknown bones
Beneath the bedrock of the mystery
Beneath the sewage systems and the path train
Beneath the cobblestones and the water mains
Beneath the traffic of friendships and street deals
Beneath the screeching of kamikaze cab wheels
Beneath everything I can think of to think about
Beneath it all, beneath all get out
Beneath the good and the kind and the stupid and the cruel
There's a fire just waiting for fuel