Disclaimer: Card Captor Sakura and its characters, property of CLAMP/Kodansha, is used without permission and not for profit.
Dedication: Merry Christmas, Meemee! (Also, sorry Meemee, to Circe and Sakura-san for their excellent beta-work.)
Notes: Takes place sometime after Eriol arrives in Tomoeda, but before his final battle with Sakura.
In Quiet Nights
And the day is important and demands of us
But the night is your and mine and now
- Halvtan Sivertsen
In the dimness of her room – it was never truly dark there, just pleasantly dim – he stood as still and silent as he could, watching her sleep. It was late; Ruby Moon and Spinel Sun had fallen asleep hours ago and he'd kept them that way as he'd left, unable to find peace in his own home. A nameless, shapeless apprehension swam in him, swamped him, drove him to her side looking for reassurance in her dreaming form.
"Hiiragizawa-kun?" Startled, the silence that had wrapped the room fled. Time, which had been standing rather negligently still, straightened up and began to take itself more seriously. Her voice was low and indistinct with sleep; she was, perhaps, not really awake. Eriol remained as he had been, a ghost among shadows.
"Hiiragizawa-kun, what's wrong?" She sat up, frowning a little bit, concern in her eyes and her face and her voice, concern for him. "What's the matter?"
He opened his mouth will you love me? but no words came, just a breath of air that was nearly a sound. He bit his lip in something like shame and lowered his eyes.
"Come, sit down," she encouraged, pushing her hair away from her face, tugging her blanket straight near her knees, making a small spot that invited him to do as she suggested. "Tell me what's wrong."
She wasn't worried about him being there, how he'd gotten there. She wasn't afraid of what it meant, or what he might have intended. She wasn't even curious. She cared only about what might have troubled him enough to bring him to her at that hour. She was such a trusting girl, such a good and trusting girl. How could he do this to her? Lie to her the way he did, day in and day out?
He sat because she asked and tried again to find words. When nothing came to him will you be my friend? even when you know me? he looked away, out into her room, his shoulders slumping slightly in weary self-defeat. Her hand on his arm brought his eyes back to her.
"You're very pale, Hiiragizawa-kun." Her fingers drifted to his face, shaped his cheek in gentle kindness. "You haven't been taking care of yourself very well, have you? Tell me about it. Is it really so bad?"
His lips quirked slightly please, I need you and his breath huffed lightly out, though whether he'd meant it to be a laugh or a sob he didn't know. Something coiled inside of him, twisting up on itself in distress, while something else went loose. Her hand slid from his face to rest on his wrist, her fingers curled warm around it.
Her eyes searched his in careful consideration. "Can you talk about it?"
Eriol's eyes dropped to her hand care for me, care about me in answer. He couldn't; he didn't want to have to see more than once her face when she knew of her betrayal at his hands, he wasn't strong enough for more than that. But lying was so hard on him sometimes. Slowly he shook his head.
She nodded, perhaps even understood. The hand not holding him reached out, fingers under his chin, turning him back to her. Her face was serene, her eyes oddly self-possessed and knowing. "Then I won't ask any more," she said simply.
His smile was shaky, though she probably couldn't see that in the half-light of her room. She probably couldn't see his gratitude, either, though it filled him. Gratitude that she was not prying, that she was not sending him away, that she was so accepting of him and his mood tonight.
Her hand slid from his jaw to his cheek, her other hand rising to mirror its new position. She held his face, making him feel warm and treasured, and leaned forward so that her forehead rested against his own. It surprised him because it was a very intimate gesture for her to make and because it was very unlike her to be so close with anyone, least of all a near stranger of a boy she'd found in her room in the small hours of the morning. He tried, as one hand slid to the nape of his neck and slowly stroked comfort into him, to speak.
"Shh, it's all right," she hushed him as he opened his mouth. He could sense the small smile she wore as she murmured her next words, "It's late, Hiiragizawa-kun, and I'm very tired. I don't have anything interesting to talk to you about or any funny stories to tell you. Rather than sit and stare at each other silently, I thought we might sit together so that we don't have to see or say anything at all." It made him smile to know that her 'it's all right' had meant the new gesture she was making towards him, and not his situation. He nodded, very faintly because he didn't want to disturb her, and let his eyes drift shut.
The silence wound back into the room, now that they were being still and quiet, and crept back into the shadowy corners and little nooks and crannies of the rumpled blanket between them. It settled deeply around them, lulled by their steady breathing. Perhaps it went to sleep, or perhaps it simply watched them with peaceful eyes. Time wandered away, and calm returned to Eriol's heart at last.
He wanted to ask who'd taught her this trick. He would have liked to know who, in her ever busy life, had shown her how to put the world back outside the door and just be for a small space of time. His hands stopped grasping each other so tightly and his breathing slowed, deepened. With a sigh love me he shifted away from her. Her hands dropped away from his head, slid down his arms and gripped his own as he stood.
"Feel better?" She asked, looking into his eyes for her answer.
"Thank you," he said softly.
She nodded, releasing him. "I'm happy I could help." She yawned and lay down again, pulling her blanket up to her chin as she watched him. "You're welcome to come over any time."
He smiled and raised one eyebrow. "At two in the morning?"
"Any day, any time of day. Even, though you're being remarkably flip about it now, at two in the morning. Your friends don't like to see you looking so upset, you know."
Eriol bowed in acknowledgement of her offer, but said nothing else about it. Instead, he leaned down and rested his fingers lightly against her forehead. She watched him without a trace of unease.
He murmured "Good night" as he unleashed his magic and walled away their time together from the rest of her mind. Her eyes closed. She would remember this night as she had all the others in which he came to her, as a night of uninterrupted sleep and happy dreams. He faded from the shadows of her room into those of his own. He would sleep tonight, too.