[#4] [xxxHOLiC] Ageless
52_flavours: 4. to cut a bouquet / of matter and antimatter roses
Title: Ageless
Series: xxxHOLiC
Theme no.: 4. to cut a bouquet / of matter and antimatter roses
Character(s)/Pairing: Clow Reed/Yuuko Ichihara
Rating: PG13 for suicide themes
Notes/Summary: The man offered Yuuko a trade-- his future (for he could never die) for hers. And Yuuko agreed.
Disclaimer: xxxHOLiC belongs to CLAMP.
"I want to die," the man said to Yuuko. He was young and Indian, with old eyes and an even older accent (not that Yuuko noticed, since he was speaking in his own language and the translation spell missed the odder nuances).
"I cannot sell you death," she said flatly. That was one of the big things in the world, the province of fate and hitsuzen and whatever gods could establish themselves. It was not Yuuko's. Life was messy and you could never quite make the exchange equal (and an unbalanced trade was dangerous).
"You have misunderstood," he said. His face was composed serenely, but his voice was quiet and desperate. "I cannot die. I want an exchange, Far East Witch. I am told that you are the only person living who can do it. They say in my country that you grant all wishes."
"People say many things that are not true," Yuuko said. She could smell opium on him, and any other person would have assumed that the opium was giving him delusions of grandeur, immortality, but she saw the way his aura moved, eternally into the past, eternally into the future, and the sight made her nauseous. He was telling the truth.
"I will exchange the length of all the lives I have yet to live, for the length of yours."
"An uneven exchange," she said, turning to find her pipe and putting her back to him. Her dress teased at the edge of propriety, as always, cut to show a dangerous amount of skin on her back. She hoped that would distract him so she could push her ego down and away.
Because the first thing she felt at his offer was jubilance. Her mind flitted to the image of a man with dark hair and smiling eyes, a man who had the ability to live forever. He certainly hadn't aged since she'd met him, when she was barely seventeen and just pushing past the darkness of her past into the cold, sharp future of selling wishes. And she'd only aged little by little, herself, but she could see a day come when he would watch her die.
Eternity was a long time to be alone, and he had grown cold in his agelessness (she awakened his old passions and warmth). She didn't want him to be cold again.
"It is an even exchange," the Indian man with the old eyes said. "I do not want to live, and you do not want to die."
He half-shut his eyes and waited meditatively for her answer. In response she took the same position he was sitting in, cross-ledged with arms half raised. She shut her eyes and tried to ignore his aura, tried to think clearly, tried to banish her thoughts of Clow and study this like a businesswoman.
"I'll do it," she said finally, reaching out and touching a finger to his tanned forehead. "Return in a week, and I will do it."
The man rose and left. She shut herself in the storeroom, fishing through old books and portents, cursing and praising Clow in turns. When the man returned, she had the words she needed, and she spoke the spell and mingled their blood and etched the runes.
When it was done he rose and shook her hand. Her grip was limp; the years that had worn on his form so lightly were heavy to her. It did not feel like an even exchange.
One year later, the Indian man died, and she wouldn't have known if his spirit hadn't visited her in a dream that began peacefully but ended in a nightmare.
Yuuko hadn't told Clow what she had done, and he was used to her habit of disappearing for days. She figured that he would realize it after a while, a few decades or so, when her half-lidded eyes held no more signs of age. But until then she wouldn't speak of it. She was still a little uncertain of what she'd done. She'd seen thousands of women over the years do stupid things for men (she was praying that she couldn't count herself in their ranks now, but she wasn't so sure).
Two more years passed and Yuuko lived on the Indian man's borrowed time. Three years after she made the deal, Clow told her he was going to die, and he did, and she was the one standing alone at his grave.
Six years after he died, she bought a gun, something newly come to the Japanese Islands, and she spun the chambers around listlessly and set the cold steel to her temple.
The sound of the last bullet leaving the chamber was the loudest. When the smoke cleared she shook her head, coughed, and said, "Hmm," in a clinical tone.
"So that's that."
Yuuko picked herself up from the floor and greeted her new customer, and if he noticed something ancient and cold in her eyes, he didn't mention it.
Title: Ageless
Series: xxxHOLiC
Theme no.: 4. to cut a bouquet / of matter and antimatter roses
Character(s)/Pairing: Clow Reed/Yuuko Ichihara
Rating: PG13 for suicide themes
Notes/Summary: The man offered Yuuko a trade-- his future (for he could never die) for hers. And Yuuko agreed.
Disclaimer: xxxHOLiC belongs to CLAMP.
"I want to die," the man said to Yuuko. He was young and Indian, with old eyes and an even older accent (not that Yuuko noticed, since he was speaking in his own language and the translation spell missed the odder nuances).
"I cannot sell you death," she said flatly. That was one of the big things in the world, the province of fate and hitsuzen and whatever gods could establish themselves. It was not Yuuko's. Life was messy and you could never quite make the exchange equal (and an unbalanced trade was dangerous).
"You have misunderstood," he said. His face was composed serenely, but his voice was quiet and desperate. "I cannot die. I want an exchange, Far East Witch. I am told that you are the only person living who can do it. They say in my country that you grant all wishes."
"People say many things that are not true," Yuuko said. She could smell opium on him, and any other person would have assumed that the opium was giving him delusions of grandeur, immortality, but she saw the way his aura moved, eternally into the past, eternally into the future, and the sight made her nauseous. He was telling the truth.
"I will exchange the length of all the lives I have yet to live, for the length of yours."
"An uneven exchange," she said, turning to find her pipe and putting her back to him. Her dress teased at the edge of propriety, as always, cut to show a dangerous amount of skin on her back. She hoped that would distract him so she could push her ego down and away.
Because the first thing she felt at his offer was jubilance. Her mind flitted to the image of a man with dark hair and smiling eyes, a man who had the ability to live forever. He certainly hadn't aged since she'd met him, when she was barely seventeen and just pushing past the darkness of her past into the cold, sharp future of selling wishes. And she'd only aged little by little, herself, but she could see a day come when he would watch her die.
Eternity was a long time to be alone, and he had grown cold in his agelessness (she awakened his old passions and warmth). She didn't want him to be cold again.
"It is an even exchange," the Indian man with the old eyes said. "I do not want to live, and you do not want to die."
He half-shut his eyes and waited meditatively for her answer. In response she took the same position he was sitting in, cross-ledged with arms half raised. She shut her eyes and tried to ignore his aura, tried to think clearly, tried to banish her thoughts of Clow and study this like a businesswoman.
"I'll do it," she said finally, reaching out and touching a finger to his tanned forehead. "Return in a week, and I will do it."
The man rose and left. She shut herself in the storeroom, fishing through old books and portents, cursing and praising Clow in turns. When the man returned, she had the words she needed, and she spoke the spell and mingled their blood and etched the runes.
When it was done he rose and shook her hand. Her grip was limp; the years that had worn on his form so lightly were heavy to her. It did not feel like an even exchange.
One year later, the Indian man died, and she wouldn't have known if his spirit hadn't visited her in a dream that began peacefully but ended in a nightmare.
Yuuko hadn't told Clow what she had done, and he was used to her habit of disappearing for days. She figured that he would realize it after a while, a few decades or so, when her half-lidded eyes held no more signs of age. But until then she wouldn't speak of it. She was still a little uncertain of what she'd done. She'd seen thousands of women over the years do stupid things for men (she was praying that she couldn't count herself in their ranks now, but she wasn't so sure).
Two more years passed and Yuuko lived on the Indian man's borrowed time. Three years after she made the deal, Clow told her he was going to die, and he did, and she was the one standing alone at his grave.
Six years after he died, she bought a gun, something newly come to the Japanese Islands, and she spun the chambers around listlessly and set the cold steel to her temple.
The sound of the last bullet leaving the chamber was the loudest. When the smoke cleared she shook her head, coughed, and said, "Hmm," in a clinical tone.
"So that's that."
Yuuko picked herself up from the floor and greeted her new customer, and if he noticed something ancient and cold in her eyes, he didn't mention it.