[Fic] Differences in Between
Title: Differences in Between
Author: darkgloom
Character/Pairing: Tien Li/Kiichi/Haruomi-ish
Challenge: Alternate reality: Take a scene from canon and change it.
Disclaimer: Don't own Love Mode in any way or form.
Warning: Vague Volume 6 and 9 spoilers.
A/N: For the July challenge, where in Kiichi realises it was Tien Li.
Many thanks for shiko_sensei for beta-ing.
Differences in Between
His shoulder hurts and he's floating somewhere.
No, that's not true. He's only partially floating - someone has lifted him up from the hard, grating concrete he fell on. Someone familiar, someone he knows.
Haruomi.
He tries to speak, but no sound escapes from his lips. He mouths the word, but he feels breathless and sluggish and sleepy.†
Haruomi.
Movement. Warmth. He feels safe in the enclosure of Haruomi's arms and the gentle jostle as Haruomi lays him softly on the ground. It's less rough than what he had been lying on before, but it's cold and scratchy and is no match for the previous haven of warmth. He protests - not with words, because he still cannot speak - but with his face and body. A frown, a sluggish, reluctant wriggle, and he feels a hand brushing his forehead, soothing and calm.
He hears his name, but only just vaguely. The voice is the same, the timbre is the same, but there is something different - something familiar and not; something he has not heard in many years if he can only just remember, just grasp that fleeting memory -
Tien Li.
And the memory is suddenly freed, bright and bursting into his mind. Not Haruomi, not Haruomi. Tien Li.
He tries to speak again, and manages a whisper. "Tien Li."
He feels the shock of the body holding him, the sudden stillness, and then, the press of Tien Li's lips, a reminder, a memory of so, so long ago. Gentle. Warm. And he feels the shape of his own name against his lips, of cool rain and the feel of hot, fevered flesh, of an abandoned church from years and years past.
Tien Li.
The darkness, when it comes, is unwelcome.
Author: darkgloom
Character/Pairing: Tien Li/Kiichi/Haruomi-ish
Challenge: Alternate reality: Take a scene from canon and change it.
Disclaimer: Don't own Love Mode in any way or form.
Warning: Vague Volume 6 and 9 spoilers.
A/N: For the July challenge, where in Kiichi realises it was Tien Li.
Many thanks for shiko_sensei for beta-ing.
Differences in Between
His shoulder hurts and he's floating somewhere.
No, that's not true. He's only partially floating - someone has lifted him up from the hard, grating concrete he fell on. Someone familiar, someone he knows.
Haruomi.
He tries to speak, but no sound escapes from his lips. He mouths the word, but he feels breathless and sluggish and sleepy.†
Haruomi.
Movement. Warmth. He feels safe in the enclosure of Haruomi's arms and the gentle jostle as Haruomi lays him softly on the ground. It's less rough than what he had been lying on before, but it's cold and scratchy and is no match for the previous haven of warmth. He protests - not with words, because he still cannot speak - but with his face and body. A frown, a sluggish, reluctant wriggle, and he feels a hand brushing his forehead, soothing and calm.
He hears his name, but only just vaguely. The voice is the same, the timbre is the same, but there is something different - something familiar and not; something he has not heard in many years if he can only just remember, just grasp that fleeting memory -
Tien Li.
And the memory is suddenly freed, bright and bursting into his mind. Not Haruomi, not Haruomi. Tien Li.
He tries to speak again, and manages a whisper. "Tien Li."
He feels the shock of the body holding him, the sudden stillness, and then, the press of Tien Li's lips, a reminder, a memory of so, so long ago. Gentle. Warm. And he feels the shape of his own name against his lips, of cool rain and the feel of hot, fevered flesh, of an abandoned church from years and years past.
Tien Li.
The darkness, when it comes, is unwelcome.