Promises to Keep, Chapter 4
"Don't cry over spilled ice cream"

(^^;; Sorry for the delay; real life kinda bit me in the tail last week, and after I recovered from the nervous breakdown I spent a sizable chunk of the weekend hauling boxes. Small ramble here: My friend moved to another city this weekend. He suggested everyone helping pack some clothes so we could sleep over before making the three and a half hour drive back to our hometown. The exact phrase being tossed around in our group was "We can sleep over and come back Sunday." I thought this meant "leave around 9 or 10 on Sunday and get back sometime shortly after lunch", not "leave around 6:30 p.m. and get back around 10:30 p.m." -- but on the bright side, I did get another chapter finished whilst waiting for everyone to decide it really was time to get back on the road...)

Yukito woke the next morning to the delicious smell of freshly cooking pancakes. He and Touya had spent an extraordinarily quiet night; Touya had been too embarrassed by the experience to go beyond an apologetic kiss, a cuddle, and a repeatedly mumbled resolution that there had to be a soundproof area somewhere in the house. It had been even quieter 'inside'; for the past several years Yue had left a quiet sort of light in the back of his mind, now that he no longer needed to conceal every part of his existence. Yue only hid himself so utterly and completely when he was upset; and Yukito had come to know Yue well enough to understand that the guardian was one of the most sensitive creatures ever to walk the earth. The admirable and frustrating part of it was that Yue had very high standards -- both for himself and for everyone else. He was almost too unremittingly levelhanded; it suited his nature as the Judge, and yet sometimes Yukito wished his other self could more easily smile and forgive people their frailties, including his own.

By the time he'd dressed and washed the sleep out of his eyes and padded downstairs, the pancakes were almost ready to be delivered. Touya reacted to the sound of footsteps on the stairs as though they were gunshots, hunching his shoulders and looking around sharply through sheer traumatized reflex; Yukito laughed at him and stole a strawberry from the dish, then licked his fingers.

"You don't need to fear being caught with pancakes nearly as much as being caught molesti-"

"I know, I know," Touya muttered. He slid another pancake onto the stack, then reached over and tapped a knuckle against Yukito's temple lightly. "Anything from your 'neighbor' in there?"

"No," Yukito admitted with a sigh, polishing his glasses rather pointlessly on the hem of his shirt. "Lights out, door locked, no trespassing."

"She's going to be traumatized with the thought that he's angry with her," Touya said with a groan. "Can you fake him enough to convince her he's just angry with himself and maybe me?"

Yukito blinked at Touya, and then put a hand over his mouth to muffle giggles. "You know I wouldn't last ten seconds!" He pulled his glasses down his nose and glowered over them mock-severely, doing an impression of Yue-as-stern-schoolmaster, and said in a wobbly attempt at a deeper voice, "Would you believe it if I tried this on you?"

"Not a chance in hell," Touya said, with half-lidded eyes.

"Besides, think of all the trauma I could inflict on his reputation if I could impersonate him!" Back to his own voice, Yukito admitted sheepishly, "I couldn't resist. I'd get him into all sorts of embarrassing situations just to watch him blush; you know I would. Let's go take Sakura-chan her pancakes before they get cold."

"Yep, that's you," Touya said. "Always thinking with your stomach."

With an entirely too sweet and innocent smile, Yukito replied, "Well, that's several inches higher than what you're always thinking with, so..."

Touya fought with himself and lost. He reached over for the can of whipped cream and started shaking it with a purposeful light in his eyes.

Yukito scooped up a plate full of pancakes and held it up as a shield from the whipped cream can, laughing.

The pancakes were quite liberally, and quite erratically, decorated with whipped cream by the time the two of them knocked on Sakura's door to make their penitence. So was Yukito's head and the collar of Touya's shirt, but they'd tried to clean up the evidence at least a little bit before presenting themselves. Then Sakura opened the door, and her eyes widened as she took in their state of mutual dishevelment.

"Whipped cream...?"

Touya felt his face burning, and Yukito gave an extremely sheepish little chuckle. "I think he was trying to give me bunny ears, except the whipped cream lacked a little something in the structural integrity department."

"Oh!" Sakura said, in a far too relieved voice. "Is that all? Oh, I see..."

Touya wished he could crawl into a hole somewhere; Yukito scratched behind an ear a little. "All the clothes stayed on this morning, honestly," he assured her. "Speaking of which, what are you doing up? We can't give you breakfast in bed if you're not in bed, can we?"

"...Right!" With a giggle, Sakura sat on the edge of her bed and lay down to wriggle under the covers again; then she looked at the soft blanket-covered hill made by the bulge of her middle and sighed. "This part isn't going to work too well, is it."

"Let me help you sit up," Yukito said, and then looked over at Touya with a sparkle of mischief in his eyes. "And he can kneel at your side and serve you with his fingers like a Roman empress' devoted servant! I can put a toga on him since he's so stubbornly refusing the fishnets, and you've got a convenient sheet right here--"

"No!" the siblings yelped in soprano-and-baritone unison.

"Ah, sibling love," Yukito said, grinning. "How admirable, two souls with their thoughts in such perfect harmony..."

One of Touya's eyebrows was twitching. "Damn, I knew I should've brought more whipped cream along."

"Of course you should have," Yukito replied, with enthusiasm. "Whipped cream makes everything better!"

Sakura turned bright pink and buried her face in her pillow, making strangled choking sounds; Touya very carefully set the plate of pancakes down before he smacked Yukito across the head.

"Thanks so much for reminding her of last night!"

"I suppose you're right," Yukito mused, with a finger to his lips. "I don't think whipped cream would do much for 'hot tea.' --But it does wonders for everything else! Particularly pancakes. And hot chocolate. Which you're going to make as soon as she gets done with the pancakes, in order to apologize for embarrassing her again..."

"Who was embarrassing her this time?!"

"Pancakes!" Sakura squeaked, still bright pink and clutching her pillow like a sanity preserver. "I'd like the pancakes while they're still warm and in one piece and nobody's dumped them on anybody's head, please...?"

Touya picked up the plate and held it out for her, still grumbling under his breath at his cheerfully unrepentant lover; Yukito was quite gently assiduous in helping Sakura sit up in bed, fluffing the pillow and settling it into the small of her back, then handing her the silverware.

She looked at him anxiously, with a little worry-wrinkle between her brows. "Aren't you having pancakes too?"

"Later," Yukito said.

"Gotta feed the monsters first, after all; they get dangerous when they're hungry," Touya muttered under his breath, with a quirk at the corner of his mouth which looked suspiciously as though it was struggling not to be a grin.

"Excuse me a moment, Sakura-chan," Yukito said, quite politely, and then turned around and smacked Touya across the head with a stuffed animal grabbed from Sakura's headboard. "You promised, you overgrown lout!"

"Ow! All right, all right, I surrender..."

And so Sakura ate her pancakes, and then insisted on coming downstairs and cooking more pancakes for them to eat as a thank-you. Under Yukito's watchful gaze, Touya didn't even tease her about her cooking, and even volunteered to wash the dishes.

Sitting on the couch with her feet propped up on the table, Sakura looked over at Yukito with the worry-wrinkle in her brows again. "Yukito-san... I... um... did I make Yue-san angry?"

Here it is, then. Yukito sighed a little, and smiled for her, and reached over to take her hand between his. "No, you didn't."

In a very tiny voice, she said, "But he's... he's all closed up inside somewhere, and... usually he only does that when he's angry or upset..."

"I know," Yukito said. "But I guarantee that he's not angry with you. He's just angry with himself."

Her eyes widened in immediate distress. "But then I did make him angry!"

"No, monster, he did that all by himself," Touya said from the kitchen.

"But... it's my fault; if I hadn't come down and interrupted you--" her face pinked noticeably, but she gulped hard and forged on. "If I hadn't interrupted your, er, private time, then you wouldn't have gotten startled and burned anyone with tea trying to hide what you were, um, doing, and then..."

Yukito made a small choking sound; Touya was suddenly very very busy with the dishes, and he said in a half strangled voice, "That's not exactly how it went... oh, never mind."

"Yukito-san? Is he very angry...?"

"It's not your fault, Sakura-chan," Yukito said.

After so many years of living around Yukito's gentleness, she knew how to hear through that; with a small sound of misery, she buried her face in both hands. "I'm so, so sorry...! I promise I'll knock -- er, um, the living room doesn't have a door, but... I can knock on the stairs or..."

"It's all right, Sakura-chan," Yukito said, and gave a stern internal call.

Yue, if you're listening at all, this would be a good time to have the decency to speak to her. Of course, if you're just wallowing in self-loathing all locked away in your own little homemade hell, you're probably too self-absorbed to notice that...

There was no reply; Yukito hadn't expected one, but he'd rather hoped there might have been. He suggested as gently as he could, "You could summon him. I don't mind."

I'd be relieved in fact. It's rather disconcerting to have someone sulking with a silence that echoes this loudly in the back of my head.

Sakura thought about it for a minute, then shook her head. "I don't want to force him," she said. "It's already my fault he's upset..."

Yukito glanced toward the kitchen and Touya, silently begging for help; Touya gave a small helpless shrug, and put down the dishes to walk over and scruffle Sakura's hair a little.

"Don't worry about it, monster," Touya mumbled. "We should've found a room somewhere. We just weren't thinking very clearly."

"But if I weren't here, you wouldn't have to wor-"

Touya cut that one off with a fierce hug. "Cut that out right now," he said. "We love you and we're glad to have you, got it? "

Sakura gave an enormous sigh and hugged her brother back, but didn't respond, and her pretty face was still creased with worry.

When Tomoyo arrived for their long-planned Christmas shopping spree, her first reaction to the sight of Sakura sitting on the sofa was a croon of absolute delight. Even as the door opened, she already had her camcorder at her shoulder, of course.

"Sakura-chan! Oh, look at you - you're getting so big! My sweet Sakura-chan, growing so radiant with your baby... see, I told you that you would be perfectly beautiful! Just look how you're blossoming now; it's enough to make an almost-aunt-to-be cry...!"

"You saw her last week," Touya said drily, arms crossed.

"And look how she's blossomed even since then!" Tomoyo replied, eternally delighted by everything to do with her cousin.

But Sakura was too distracted by her worries to blush and protest; instead, she said, "Tomoyo-chan, can I ask you something?"

"Anything," Tomoyo said immediately, hurrying over to sit at her side. "What's wrong...?"

"Yue-san is angry, and it's my fault, and I don't know what to do -- you always know what to say to people, Tomoyo-chan..."

Tomoyo blinked in puzzlement. "How could it possibly be your fault, Sakura-chan?"

Yukito bit his lip to keep from laughing. Tomoyo-chan has always had that one particular blind spot... although in this case she's right, but that's not going to help reassure Sakura-chan at the moment. Aloud, he managed, "It's not Sakura's fault; it's not really anyone's fault, just a matter of awkward timing."

"Tell me," Tomoyo said.

All three of them looked at each other, and started blushing and stammering and squirming; somehow they got approximately through the story, although with several different versions about the involvement of the hypothetical hot tea, and Tomoyo was blushing a little too by the end of it.

"So now Yue-san is too embarrassed to face Sakura-chan, and Sakura-chan is worried that he's angry with her?" Tomoyo asked.

Three heads nodded; Tomoyo considered for a moment, then reached over and took Yukito's hand and said, "Can we talk by ourselves for a moment, Tsukishiro-san?"

He obediently followed the young woman across the room so that they could have a bit more privacy; even grown up, Tomoyo was delicate and graceful and still a bit shorter than Yukito's lanky height, and so he bent towards her slightly.

"I'm afraid I'm about to say some very harsh things, Tsukishiro-san," she murmured. "I hope you both may forgive me."

"I don't doubt that we will, since we most likely need to hear them," he replied, and closed his eyes to concentrate on listening as 'loudly' as he could.

Tomoyo leaned close to his ear and spoke with crisply precise diction. "Is this how Yue the Judge has always served his masters?" she asked. "By abandoning them precisely when his masters need him most? And over nothing but his own ridiculous pride, at that?"

Yukito's body went taut as a bowstring suddenly, and it wasn't from his own reaction; there was a wordless roil of outraged denial from that dark corner in his mind, but Yukito kept his eyes closed and his mind still, refusing to stop listening to Tomoyo's every word until Yue himself responded.

"Sakura-chan is not to use her powers unless it's critically necessary now," Tomoyo said. "Li-kun and Kero-chan are hundreds of miles away; in a magical emergency, they couldn't arrive quickly enough. Her father has just enough of Clow's power to see spirits, and even he isn't here. Her brother gave all his magic to you and begged you to keep her safe because he no longer could. But rather than stay and watch over her despite your embarrassment, you go and sulk in the corner of Yukito-san's mind and abandon her to anything that might sense her weakness and isolation now? Yukito-san is not her guardian; he feels the moon but he cannot fight with it. He is not the wielder of the power which swore itself to protect her in exchange for the strength to continue living. How petty, to abandon that sacred trust even for a moment, out of embarrassment and anger at what was your own failing to begin with -- what would Clow say to you if he knew of this...?"

From across the room, Sakura gasped when Yukito shuddered as though convulsing; he barely had time to cry out in pain before Yue tore his way free, staggered across the room, and collapsed at her feet in utter self-abasement. He knelt with his head bowed to the floor, his wings furled tight to his spine, trembling all over, unable even to speak.

Very nearly as upset as he was, Sakura slid awkwardly off the couch and gathered him close, whispering frantic and near incoherent reassurances into his hair. Yue never spoke aloud, but Sakura's words had the sound and rhythm of replies; Touya got up and walked over to stand by Tomoyo, so that he wouldn't accidentally overhear anything that might make it worse.

"What did you say to him?" Touya asked, warily impressed.

"Sakura-chan is too kind to call him against his will, or to point out certain painful truths," Tomoyo replied quite calmly. "I fear I am not as kind a person as Sakura-chan is."

Touya blinked. "Remind me never to tick you off, Tomoyo-chan."

Across the room, Sakura was holding Yue's face between her hands, gentle but fierce; she'd forgotten to speak aloud some time ago, despite her deep caution about trying to avoid using magic in front of her brother lest she remind him of what he'd lost.

Yue's face was still tortured, and streaked with silent tears; Sakura bent close enough to kiss the tears from his cheeks, gentle as a mother, and then drew him into her arms again, and rocked him back and forth, assuring him of her complete love and forgiveness.

After a moment, with unshed tears thick in her own voice, Sakura asked, "Oniichan? Please... help me tell him it's not his fault..."

Touya sighed deeply, and walked over and sat crosslegged on the floor beside them; he put one arm around each of them, and said in a husky undertone, "You're both way too sensitive, you know. One gets upset and that upsets the other one and that makes the first one more upset, and around it goes... it's okay, honestly. We got embarrassed. We're short one bowl of ice cream. That's all. It's okay, really, both of you..."

"...Don't say that!" Sakura said; Touya blinked in startlement, and then realized she'd been replying to Yue. "Of course I wanted to see you; I want to see you both! And I want you to have your own life aside from being my guardian. You love my big brother. Both of you do. Of course you want to be with him when you can. I understand that; I know what it's like to be in love. It's really, truly all right, Yue-san. I promise. I'll never, ever be angry because you love my brother. I'll always be happy for you both."

"Thank you," Yue whispered, hoarsely, the first words he'd spoken since the night before.

Sakura shook her head a little, caught between laughing and crying. "Don't thank me; how could I not be happy when you're happy? You're my precious Yue-san, and I love oniichan even when he teases a lot too much, and you make each other whole. You need each other. I'm glad you have each other. And even if it's your job that you're my guardian, everyone has time off work! Evenings, weekends, vacation time -- honestly. Didn't Clow-san ever explain to you about the fair-labor laws?"

Touya choked, snorted, and burst out laughing.

"I'm serious!" Sakura protested. "Just because Yue-san and Kero-chan are magic doesn't mean they're not people too! ...will you stop laughing at me already?"

"I love you, brat," Touya said, still laughing. "We all love you. And that's just part of why."

"I still feel that I do not deserve your forgiveness," Yue whispered. "But I am grateful to have it, even unearned."

"Yue-san no baka," Sakura said, "you don't need my forgiveness for being in love with oniichan!"

"But we can both choose more discreet places to act on it," Touya said, grinning. "So everybody's okay again?"

Yue nodded faintly, and crumpled forward; Yukito landed on his hands and knees on the floor, gasping. Touya caught him before he could fall flat on his face.

"Did he hurt you with that?"

"A little," Yukito said, panting with the lingering  remnant of pain. "He's not... not usually so abrupt..."

Touya sighed, and kissed Yukito's forehead lightly. "How many hundreds of years old, but he still acts like a brat some days..."

"Wrong time of the month, I guess," Yukito said, with a grin that wobbled on the verge of manic.

Tomoyo and Sakura traded a Look, and both of them reached over to smack him on the head in unison.

"Isn't it true though?" Yukito asked wryly, both hands up to try to fend off the assault from the women in the room. "I like full moons better myself; I'm sure that's magnified for him. It's in the moon's nature to be... well, not mercurial, necessarily, but..."

"Bipolar?" Touya suggested far too blandly. "Or are you just saying you have PMS your entire life?"

Yukito stuck out his tongue at his lover. "Bipolar does suit it, though," he said. "Just on a more regular cycle."

Touya took a breath to make a comment, saw Sakura and Tomoyo ball up their fists in unison, and wisely thought the better of it, turning his attention to steadying Yukito more devotedly than was strictly necessary.

With Touya's support, Yukito sat up again, rather gingerly, fingertips against still-throbbing temples. "I've gotten used to it, because it's my nature to be the one who does get used to things," he said, still carefully catching his breath from the abrupt transformations. "I'm the bright side of his moon; in a way I can't help that, because I was made to be the shining and happy one... and yet all the same I wish he would let himself understand that he could learn the same sort of balance... if he wasn't so busy suffering through everything that happens." Then he glanced over with a glimmer of a mischievous grin tugging at his lips. "By the way, Tomoyo-chan -- thank you very much. I hadn't thought of trying that particular tactic to shake him out of it."

"Any time, Tsukishiro-san," Tomoyo said, quite demurely. "Are you feeling well enough to come Christmas shopping with us, or would you rather rest a bit?"

"I'm going where Sakura-chan goes," Yukito said, with a somewhat breathless chuckle. "I was listening to that speech too, you realize!"

Tomoyo put a hand over his gently, her eyes anxious. "I didn't mean it for you."

"I understand," Yukito said. "But truth is truth, after all."

"What speech?" Sakura asked, a bit puzzled. "Tomoyo-chan, what did you say to Yue-san?"

"I simply reminded him of a couple of promises he needed to keep," Tomoyo replied, and moved to set Sakura's hands on her shoulders and her own hands on what remained of Sakura's waist. "Come on, let's help you up, Sakura-chan; we've got a fair amount of ground to cover today!"

(Next time: less angst and more cute fuzzies during the shopping spree at the mall! I've got half of it written already, so I can promise that fairly safely... O-tanoshimi ni!)