Sunflowers
By Nix Winter
Disclaimers: I don't own Gravitation, not counting my copy. It's released in the US in the manga form. Very cool stuff.
'My mind is like a house of cards today, with all the layers built up, lie and wish, fantasy and mask, one on top of another. I built this castle because I needed it. What right does he have to come into my life and take it away? With his smiles and his sparkling eyes, his emotion so vibrant that I'd be ashamed to write it into a story? What right has he to make me want to live again?'
Yuki held his cigarette to his lips, caressing the smooth white paper with soft lonely lips. This movement, like all real movement in Yuki's life, was so small, subtle. Anyone other than Shuichi would have missed it.
He didn't need his therapist to understand what kind of vines were taking root in his soul, sinking vagrant weed roots deep into him and lifting up huge sunflower hopes. The cigarette lay on his lips, the smoke meandering at the burning end, stagnating on his tongue. No one loved Uesugi Eiri. No one ever had. No one ever would. He wouldn't be a priest for his father, though Eiri secretly cared for that work. He wouldn't be Touma's bitch.
The last time this sunflower of hope had reared it's bright yellow happy thought head was when Eiri had loved the real Yuki. That had gotten him torn, got blood on his hands, broken something in him that left him trying to kill the roots of that sun flower and the soul that went with it for years.
And then there was Shuichi.
Shuichi was all sunflower, all hope, all emotion, all sexual and sensual and Yuki stabbed the ashtray with his cigarette. Stabbing, stabbing, stabbing, destroying, and it did nothing to stop the longing in his childish, foolish heart for this boy.
"What'cha thinking about Yuki," Shuichi asked, suddenly in the doorway to Yuki's office. "I was just thinking you haven't eaten in a little while, and I'd like to order pizza. I'll buy and I'll rub your back. And I, uh, I have a new video. I got it on disk!" Shuichi produced said disk, like a big round reflective disk, a technological sunflower.
"Go away," Yuki snarled, fingers humming over his keyboard, hating the sunflower of hope in his heart, that wished, no matter how it could never be true, that Shuichi could actually love him. "Idiot! Can't you see I'm working. Some of us have art to create and that takes time!"
The sunflower in Shuichi's eyes wavered, big raindrops gathering. "Come on, Yuki! Please? Then I'll sleep on the couch. I'll be good! I promise!"
Those words echoed the younger sunflower in Yuki, echoed so much the time when he was just Eiri, and it made echoes of dark rooms, rough hands, vulnerability, pain, screaming, begging, it echoed the dark poison that tired to strangle the roots of Yuki's sunflower. "Get out of my house, Idiot!"
This one would do it! Yuki could feel the break coming. Shuichi would leave this time. The roots would die and Yuki would be free. He wondered, suddenly, how free he'd be if Shuichi left him now. He had a bottle of wine. He had painkillers. He didn't have a gun, but he had knives. "Get the fuck out of my house, you worthless brat!"
"No." Shuichi said, perhaps a little more mature than he'd been when they'd first meet. He leaned in the doorway, the tears that had been threatening drying up. Arms across his chest, he moved the disk so it reflected light into Yuki's face. He'd seen Yuki's reaction to the disk, and he didn't understand it, but he knew it was affecting him. "You're an asshole and I love you anyway. Come watch this video with me."
"Why wouldn't you just go away, Shuichi?" Yuki asked, leaning back in his chair. "I'm dangerous."
"No, you're not, at least not anymore than loving someone makes someone dangerous. I love you, Leo," Shuichi said softly, rejecting the name Yuki, because he knew where it came from. In moments when he wanted to speak to the deeper, realer Eiri, and yet not to trespass into places uninvited, he called him Leo, for lion, because Yuki was like that, vicious and blond and feral sometimes.. "I love you."
How many times could Yuki hear that and it still sounded like a distant echo, still couldn't reach down into those strangling roots where hope refused to die? "Is it a good video?"
"Yeah," Shuichi said, smiling, knowing he'd own. "Me, dancing, singing, thinking about you, has to be good."
"Is it obscene?"
"Only when we redo it in the living room," Shuichi teased, holding out a hand.
Yuki rose from the chair, looked at the anger vented in his ashtray, looked to Shuichi's waiting hand. It was only a matter of time until the bridge broke and the roots of hope died finally, but tonight wasn't that time. He reached out to take Shuichi's hand, not summoning the energy to be Yuki Eiri the Seducer tonight. Instead, he let Shuichi draw him along, let Shuichi light the path. Maybe, he really did want the sunflower to win. "You're such an idiot!"
Shuichi's fingers tightened around his. There were no words, but just a smile, tender, tolerant.
Yuki broke. A quick jerk brought Shuichi into his arms, and he held him there, holding the warmth of Shuichi close to his heart, to the fragile roots in his soul. He couldn't say that he wanted him or that he loved him, couldn't say it out loud. So he held him, felt Shuichi's arms holding him back. "Don't leave me tonight, Shuichi, please."
"I wouldn't leave you ever," Shuichi promised. "Not ever."
By Nix Winter
Disclaimers: I don't own Gravitation, not counting my copy. It's released in the US in the manga form. Very cool stuff.
'My mind is like a house of cards today, with all the layers built up, lie and wish, fantasy and mask, one on top of another. I built this castle because I needed it. What right does he have to come into my life and take it away? With his smiles and his sparkling eyes, his emotion so vibrant that I'd be ashamed to write it into a story? What right has he to make me want to live again?'
Yuki held his cigarette to his lips, caressing the smooth white paper with soft lonely lips. This movement, like all real movement in Yuki's life, was so small, subtle. Anyone other than Shuichi would have missed it.
He didn't need his therapist to understand what kind of vines were taking root in his soul, sinking vagrant weed roots deep into him and lifting up huge sunflower hopes. The cigarette lay on his lips, the smoke meandering at the burning end, stagnating on his tongue. No one loved Uesugi Eiri. No one ever had. No one ever would. He wouldn't be a priest for his father, though Eiri secretly cared for that work. He wouldn't be Touma's bitch.
The last time this sunflower of hope had reared it's bright yellow happy thought head was when Eiri had loved the real Yuki. That had gotten him torn, got blood on his hands, broken something in him that left him trying to kill the roots of that sun flower and the soul that went with it for years.
And then there was Shuichi.
Shuichi was all sunflower, all hope, all emotion, all sexual and sensual and Yuki stabbed the ashtray with his cigarette. Stabbing, stabbing, stabbing, destroying, and it did nothing to stop the longing in his childish, foolish heart for this boy.
"What'cha thinking about Yuki," Shuichi asked, suddenly in the doorway to Yuki's office. "I was just thinking you haven't eaten in a little while, and I'd like to order pizza. I'll buy and I'll rub your back. And I, uh, I have a new video. I got it on disk!" Shuichi produced said disk, like a big round reflective disk, a technological sunflower.
"Go away," Yuki snarled, fingers humming over his keyboard, hating the sunflower of hope in his heart, that wished, no matter how it could never be true, that Shuichi could actually love him. "Idiot! Can't you see I'm working. Some of us have art to create and that takes time!"
The sunflower in Shuichi's eyes wavered, big raindrops gathering. "Come on, Yuki! Please? Then I'll sleep on the couch. I'll be good! I promise!"
Those words echoed the younger sunflower in Yuki, echoed so much the time when he was just Eiri, and it made echoes of dark rooms, rough hands, vulnerability, pain, screaming, begging, it echoed the dark poison that tired to strangle the roots of Yuki's sunflower. "Get out of my house, Idiot!"
This one would do it! Yuki could feel the break coming. Shuichi would leave this time. The roots would die and Yuki would be free. He wondered, suddenly, how free he'd be if Shuichi left him now. He had a bottle of wine. He had painkillers. He didn't have a gun, but he had knives. "Get the fuck out of my house, you worthless brat!"
"No." Shuichi said, perhaps a little more mature than he'd been when they'd first meet. He leaned in the doorway, the tears that had been threatening drying up. Arms across his chest, he moved the disk so it reflected light into Yuki's face. He'd seen Yuki's reaction to the disk, and he didn't understand it, but he knew it was affecting him. "You're an asshole and I love you anyway. Come watch this video with me."
"Why wouldn't you just go away, Shuichi?" Yuki asked, leaning back in his chair. "I'm dangerous."
"No, you're not, at least not anymore than loving someone makes someone dangerous. I love you, Leo," Shuichi said softly, rejecting the name Yuki, because he knew where it came from. In moments when he wanted to speak to the deeper, realer Eiri, and yet not to trespass into places uninvited, he called him Leo, for lion, because Yuki was like that, vicious and blond and feral sometimes.. "I love you."
How many times could Yuki hear that and it still sounded like a distant echo, still couldn't reach down into those strangling roots where hope refused to die? "Is it a good video?"
"Yeah," Shuichi said, smiling, knowing he'd own. "Me, dancing, singing, thinking about you, has to be good."
"Is it obscene?"
"Only when we redo it in the living room," Shuichi teased, holding out a hand.
Yuki rose from the chair, looked at the anger vented in his ashtray, looked to Shuichi's waiting hand. It was only a matter of time until the bridge broke and the roots of hope died finally, but tonight wasn't that time. He reached out to take Shuichi's hand, not summoning the energy to be Yuki Eiri the Seducer tonight. Instead, he let Shuichi draw him along, let Shuichi light the path. Maybe, he really did want the sunflower to win. "You're such an idiot!"
Shuichi's fingers tightened around his. There were no words, but just a smile, tender, tolerant.
Yuki broke. A quick jerk brought Shuichi into his arms, and he held him there, holding the warmth of Shuichi close to his heart, to the fragile roots in his soul. He couldn't say that he wanted him or that he loved him, couldn't say it out loud. So he held him, felt Shuichi's arms holding him back. "Don't leave me tonight, Shuichi, please."
"I wouldn't leave you ever," Shuichi promised. "Not ever."