Fic: Love on a Holy Night
Title: Love on a Holy Night
Fandom: Noir
Summary: yuri_challenge prompt: Mireille Bouquet/Yuumura Kirika: "I don't ever want to be alone / With all my darkest dreaming / Hold me close / The sky is breaking." Set post-series.
Word count: 1,001
Love on a Holy Night
‘I need to go for a walk,’ Mireille said.
‘Ah,’ Kirika said.
‘I’ll be back later.’
‘Ah.’ A smile. Mireille went out into the New England night. Oh, hiding from the Soldats. Their lives the past year, likely their lives for the next year and a half or so until Breffort could assert a different type of control. But still. Springfield, Massachusetts on an October night. Could be far worse.
The autumn evening was cold but for once sunny. It was Hallowe’en and there were children out in the streets-not as festive as it may have been in a small town, but cheerful nonetheless. There were a lot of witches and ghosts and aliens. None of them looked like any human Mireille knew.
The only thing open was a convenience store. Its soft light and whispers of canned music called to her. She went inside and found what one would find in any convenience store in America: Food, mostly unhealthy but some rather good, packaged cheaply and arranged in rowed shelves; coolers for ice cream and bottled drinks; a stand with a little coffee-maker, pre-toasted bagels and warmed-up soft pretzels, mustard and catsup and napkins; a cashier with tobacco and alcohol that only she could reach for her customers; and a bathroom whose door read ‘Temporarily closed to the public’. The lighting was good even though it was fluorescent. Strange how that worked. The music was decent.
It was familiar, and Mireille realised why Americans loved these places so much: The canned familiarity, the tinny and highly questionable but well-intentioned sense of sameness and belonging, served as one of their minor bulwarks against the darkness that threatened to infest any vast, open, concrete-laden continent stewing in its loneliness. Asia had known the loneliness. They used a surfeit of emperors and a drive to marvels while conducting twisted love affairs with worlds outside. Africa had known the loneliness. It forgot now, having so many other things to think about. America’s loneliness was the kind where the convenience store could drown the sorrows; so that was something. But did it really work…?
Somebody came in for more Hallowe’en candy.
‘How are things, Fitz?’
‘Okay. You?’
‘Can’t complain. Surprised we’ve got the place open on Hallowe’en, though.’
‘No, that’s not that surprising. Seven-Eleven, you know.’
‘Yeah. Really I guess what I’m surprised about’s how empty the place is. You’d think there’d be kids in all over the place.’
‘They’re out in the streets,’ said Mireille, picking up and scrutinising a bowl of instant noodles, ‘being children.’ The guy Fitz nodded. ‘Hey,’ said Mireille, ‘can you help me with this?’
Fitz put on some reading glasses and sidled up to her. ‘With what?’ he asked.
It occurred to Mireille that this was a less-than-optimal use of her time. No matter-she had to. To run from…it,-Just being here-she had to be here in this American comfort, this American bulwark, the lights of the telegraph roads enlightening the wild darkness with their tinny civilisation-in-a-can. It was what was here. What she had to be doing right now. What Kirika, perhaps, should be out doing with her.
‘What is ‘glucono delta-lactone (acidulant)’ in this ingredients list?’ asked Mireille.
‘What am I,’ asked Fitz, ‘a dictionary?’
Mireille wanted, she thought, to be spending this time with Kirika-Kirika her love.
10 July 2000. I met her.
Kirika, who made the chrysanthemums bloom in my heart and told me that flowers don’t bloom in Hell. Kirika, who made me forget about my horrid deeds and decisions of the past in favour of a present love like no other.
‘I will not let our trials and tribulations become a vile political tool for the Soldats council, so far away. Their reactionary agitprop can’t get us. I won’t let it!’
Kirika, who protects my soul. Kirika, whose body I protect. Kirika of the black hands and the red eyes. She has helped to heal it all, so much. I truly feel thankful for all these things of the past two years. Truly, truly.
It impressed itself more and more and more in Mireille’s mind how very much she loved Yuumura Kirika. She was beautiful and weak (not with a gun; in a more real and human way), but in her weakness she was more resilient than Mireille in all the ways that mattered. Mireille knew that she could never be the sort of person that her Kirika was. She was simply constitutionally incapable of it. But oh how she wished. Kirika was possessed of a sort of purity that Mireille had only before seen in the maidens of pre-war women’s literature and girly television. Her Kirika did not exactly fit that archetype-she was a bit too darkened and stained with doubt, for one thing-but she put her mind at ease.
Mireille idealised and looked up to her in a way entirely different to and in many senses more significant than the way in which dear Kirika relied upon Mireille. Without Mireille, Kirika would probably spend most of her time eating gelato and drinking tea and wandering around Paris in a sort of shell-shock looking desperately for a charitable art studio to take her in. But without Kirika, Mireille would be adrift. She would bob in a sea neither as warm as the Tyrrhenian Sea of her own familiarity nor as vital as the Sea of Japan of her love’s.
It was…there was such a great importance in their love. There was a blackness, the blackness always there, but with Kirika-Kirika, perhaps-Kirika could-quick now, just now-
Kirika…
Mireille went back to their hotel with a bag of candy and opened the door and found Kirika sitting and thinking of how very thin the ghastly veil of the world could seem sometimes.
In the tongue that Kirika liked best, Mireille said ‘Tadaima’ and put a bag of caramel apples on the table. Kirika turned and smiled, and Mireille’s heart broke beautifully for the millionth time.
Fandom: Noir
Summary: yuri_challenge prompt: Mireille Bouquet/Yuumura Kirika: "I don't ever want to be alone / With all my darkest dreaming / Hold me close / The sky is breaking." Set post-series.
Word count: 1,001
Love on a Holy Night
‘I need to go for a walk,’ Mireille said.
‘Ah,’ Kirika said.
‘I’ll be back later.’
‘Ah.’ A smile. Mireille went out into the New England night. Oh, hiding from the Soldats. Their lives the past year, likely their lives for the next year and a half or so until Breffort could assert a different type of control. But still. Springfield, Massachusetts on an October night. Could be far worse.
The autumn evening was cold but for once sunny. It was Hallowe’en and there were children out in the streets-not as festive as it may have been in a small town, but cheerful nonetheless. There were a lot of witches and ghosts and aliens. None of them looked like any human Mireille knew.
The only thing open was a convenience store. Its soft light and whispers of canned music called to her. She went inside and found what one would find in any convenience store in America: Food, mostly unhealthy but some rather good, packaged cheaply and arranged in rowed shelves; coolers for ice cream and bottled drinks; a stand with a little coffee-maker, pre-toasted bagels and warmed-up soft pretzels, mustard and catsup and napkins; a cashier with tobacco and alcohol that only she could reach for her customers; and a bathroom whose door read ‘Temporarily closed to the public’. The lighting was good even though it was fluorescent. Strange how that worked. The music was decent.
It was familiar, and Mireille realised why Americans loved these places so much: The canned familiarity, the tinny and highly questionable but well-intentioned sense of sameness and belonging, served as one of their minor bulwarks against the darkness that threatened to infest any vast, open, concrete-laden continent stewing in its loneliness. Asia had known the loneliness. They used a surfeit of emperors and a drive to marvels while conducting twisted love affairs with worlds outside. Africa had known the loneliness. It forgot now, having so many other things to think about. America’s loneliness was the kind where the convenience store could drown the sorrows; so that was something. But did it really work…?
Somebody came in for more Hallowe’en candy.
‘How are things, Fitz?’
‘Okay. You?’
‘Can’t complain. Surprised we’ve got the place open on Hallowe’en, though.’
‘No, that’s not that surprising. Seven-Eleven, you know.’
‘Yeah. Really I guess what I’m surprised about’s how empty the place is. You’d think there’d be kids in all over the place.’
‘They’re out in the streets,’ said Mireille, picking up and scrutinising a bowl of instant noodles, ‘being children.’ The guy Fitz nodded. ‘Hey,’ said Mireille, ‘can you help me with this?’
Fitz put on some reading glasses and sidled up to her. ‘With what?’ he asked.
It occurred to Mireille that this was a less-than-optimal use of her time. No matter-she had to. To run from…it,-Just being here-she had to be here in this American comfort, this American bulwark, the lights of the telegraph roads enlightening the wild darkness with their tinny civilisation-in-a-can. It was what was here. What she had to be doing right now. What Kirika, perhaps, should be out doing with her.
‘What is ‘glucono delta-lactone (acidulant)’ in this ingredients list?’ asked Mireille.
‘What am I,’ asked Fitz, ‘a dictionary?’
Mireille wanted, she thought, to be spending this time with Kirika-Kirika her love.
10 July 2000. I met her.
Kirika, who made the chrysanthemums bloom in my heart and told me that flowers don’t bloom in Hell. Kirika, who made me forget about my horrid deeds and decisions of the past in favour of a present love like no other.
‘I will not let our trials and tribulations become a vile political tool for the Soldats council, so far away. Their reactionary agitprop can’t get us. I won’t let it!’
Kirika, who protects my soul. Kirika, whose body I protect. Kirika of the black hands and the red eyes. She has helped to heal it all, so much. I truly feel thankful for all these things of the past two years. Truly, truly.
It impressed itself more and more and more in Mireille’s mind how very much she loved Yuumura Kirika. She was beautiful and weak (not with a gun; in a more real and human way), but in her weakness she was more resilient than Mireille in all the ways that mattered. Mireille knew that she could never be the sort of person that her Kirika was. She was simply constitutionally incapable of it. But oh how she wished. Kirika was possessed of a sort of purity that Mireille had only before seen in the maidens of pre-war women’s literature and girly television. Her Kirika did not exactly fit that archetype-she was a bit too darkened and stained with doubt, for one thing-but she put her mind at ease.
Mireille idealised and looked up to her in a way entirely different to and in many senses more significant than the way in which dear Kirika relied upon Mireille. Without Mireille, Kirika would probably spend most of her time eating gelato and drinking tea and wandering around Paris in a sort of shell-shock looking desperately for a charitable art studio to take her in. But without Kirika, Mireille would be adrift. She would bob in a sea neither as warm as the Tyrrhenian Sea of her own familiarity nor as vital as the Sea of Japan of her love’s.
It was…there was such a great importance in their love. There was a blackness, the blackness always there, but with Kirika-Kirika, perhaps-Kirika could-quick now, just now-
Kirika…
Mireille went back to their hotel with a bag of candy and opened the door and found Kirika sitting and thinking of how very thin the ghastly veil of the world could seem sometimes.
In the tongue that Kirika liked best, Mireille said ‘Tadaima’ and put a bag of caramel apples on the table. Kirika turned and smiled, and Mireille’s heart broke beautifully for the millionth time.