Fic: A True Elsewhere
Title: A True Elsewhere
Characters/Pairing: Touya/Yukito, Seishirou/Subaru, Kurogane/Fai, Sakura/Syaoran, Fuuma/Kamui, others mentioned/implied
Rating: T
Author’s Notes/Warnings: My round six dimension_shopentry for
von_questenberg.
Set after the series end, as we all hold out for happiness for the characters. Title taken from the song from CLOVER, which is also used as a basis for Oruha’s song in the Clover bar in the country of Oto. Warnings for spoilers for the some of the most current chapters, and cruelty to frogs.
***
I want happiness
I seek happiness
Happy just to be
With you
Happy just to see
You smile
So take me to
A true Elsewhere
Please, take me
To happiness
I want happiness
I seek happiness
To cause your happiness
To be your happiness
So take me to
A true Elsewhere
Please take me
To happiness
- CLOVER
It was quite obvious the day Sakura received her first kiss. She sped out of the palace of Clow as she usually did one morning, cloak haphazardly flung over her shoulders and a basket on her arm, and she meandered home with the evening, the setting sun catching the dreamy expression in her eyes and making the auburn of her hair glow, bedecked as it was with a crown of white flowers. (The cloak and basket were nowhere to be seen.)
Her faraway disposition remained with her as she practically floated through the palace’s front doors, some of the guards smiling knowingly when they saw her expression and opening the way for the girl caught up in love. She walked right into a just-as-absent-minded Yukito bustling past, and the pile of scrolls the High Priest had been carrying went everywhere.
“Yukito-san!” The shock of the collision startled Sakura out of her daydreams, the crown of flowers on her head slipping to the side and causing the girl to raise one hand to steady it as she immediately crouched down on the floor, trying to gather up the fallen documents with her remaining hand and still keep the crown in place at the same time. “I’m so sorry! I wasn’t looking where I was going and -” she shot to her feet again, trying to deposit the scrolls she’d picked up back in her bemused companion’s arms, but they only unravelled a little more, seals coming off and paper hitting the floor, making an even bigger mess than before. “I’m so sorry!” She bowed her head earnestly, apologising, and the flowers she was wearing promptly fell off and went to join the scrolls on the ground.
“Sakura-hime, it’s alright.” Yukito dropped the few rolls of paper he’d managed to retain or recover tidily, letting them roll as they would as he bent down on his haunches to smile up at the despairing teenager before him. “We can tidy it up together, can’t we? And there’s no harm done.”
“Right,” Sakura nodded determinedly, crouching down again and helping Yukito to gather up on the runaway scrolls, rolling them back up tightly and binding them with ribbons that had come loose.
The sunset spilled in through the palace windows as they worked, sand and dust hanging in a golden haze in the air, a shimmering sheen over everything it touched. Sakura and Yukito were gilded in the glow, the white of their clothes almost sacrosanct in the dim quiet of the hall, the girl - almost a woman - and man working harmoniously, diligently, light touching the edge of framed glasses, the tips of moisture still clinging to the inside of white petals.
“Did Syaoran-kun make this?” Sakura’s flowers were the last thing to be lifted from the floor, Yukito holding the delicate circlet like it was crafted of precious glass and stones - to Sakura, it was probably worth more than all the jewels in the world.
The princess nodded, blushing slightly, and Yukito smiled again, gentle, understanding, setting the crown amongst the girl’s red-touched tresses. The air in the hall lent the act almost the solemnity of a coronation, the virgin princess with her lover’s gift.
“It suits you,” Yukito could do nothing but offer his blessing to the couple had been through so much, his dreams touched for years with the images of Sakura and her precious person, woven together endlessly to uphold all the worlds. Some things were just meant to be.
Sakura blushed a little darker, smiling her brilliant thanks and rushing off into the gathering night. The white of the flowers in her hair was the last thing to be swallowed from sight, vanishing with the effervescent glow the princess emitted, tangible happiness and love.
“I’m going to kill the brat.”
“To-ya,” Yukito didn’t even need to turn to know the king was at his back, the High Priest’s tone playfully chiding as he clutched at his scrolls, “you can’t do that. Sakura-chan would be upset.”
Touya continued to grumble, moving forwards and into sight, his gaze still lost after where his sister had gone to. “She’d get over it.”
“To-ya,” Yukito repeated, smiling fondly as the other man looked his way, the king dark-haired and dark-eyed as the night sweeping in after the sun’s last rays slid over the distant horizon, closer than the stars slowly coming out over the desert.
His Majesty complained. “He’s deflowering my sister, inch by inch.” Whilst covering Sakura in flowers. And blushing all the while. Syaoran could no more ravage someone than Yukito could suddenly go on a murderous rampage because someone stole one of his desserts. It simply wouldn’t happen - ever.
“To-ya,” Yukito said again, putting down his scrolls on a nearby table and moving towards his companion, wrapping his arms loosely around the other’s neck and leaning in. He rested his head at the crook of Touya’s neck, breathing in the desert air that seemed to hang around the man, the scent of his freshly-washed hair. He usually took a bath after sword practice - clearly, the king had been busy that afternoon. Yukito breathed and Touya stilled, drawing from the calm the High Priest carried with him always, the flat edge to His Majesty’s sharpened blade-edge. They stayed for a few moments like that, a distant bird crying faintly as it went to its rest for the night. Yukito’s words, when he spoke again, were murmured against warm skin, barely heard over the steady beat along the line of Touya’s throat. “He is her most special person.”
Touya grumbled again, a token protest without real meaning, winding one arm around his lover’s waist and letting his other hand trail to silvery-hair, fingers shifting through the familiar strands slowly, thoughtfully, another precious facet to the other part of himself. “…I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.” Some things were meant to be, and the brat would continue to annoy him. (Touya strongly denied/ignored the fact anyone Sakura would’ve liked in that way would’ve annoyed him - that was irrelevant. Sakura liked the brat; the brat was the problem here.)
“No,” Yukito assured him, still smiling as he leaned up to leave a soft kiss on the king’s cheek, his own eyes slightly teasing. “There is absolutely no accounting for taste with most special people.”
Touya blinked at him, once, dark lashes on his cheeks, and then he smirked, drawing his lover closer still. “That’s something to be thankful for then.”
***
Water had such a peculiar sound to it, a thousand plips of droplets hitting unseen pools, the bubbling of a brook somewhere in damp undergrowth. The breeze through the branches, trees whispering secrets to one another, the rich green forest after a recent rainfall.
Subaru’s cloak was damp as he knelt in the thick grass at the edge of a crumbling bank, feeling wet dirt beneath his spread fingers, his clothes wet through to the skin, fine, dark hair sticking to his pale face. The brook before him only gave him a distorted reflection, a white smudge on the surface broken up by pebbles under the water, the brightness of green eyes framed by the trees’ canopy overhead.
The vampire dipped his hand into the water, the cold still a mild surprise to his already chilled skin. This was not water that would pull him into endless dreaming; the brook clean of the warm power that had called to him so long ago, in that country where acid rained from the sky and burned all it touched. He would not sleep here, in this forest; Kamui would be vexed and no doubt worried, when he returned from his wanderings, if he were to find his brother dreaming amongst the bracken, thin form swallowed up by the thick mud and stubborn life in the forest undergrowth.
The sky between the branches far above was grey, still promising more rain, and Subaru sent out a private hope that his twin had sought-out shelter of some kind from the weather, a mental well-wishing that trailed out across that new world they’d come to, dipping beyond the trees and into the wider lands to reach Kamui, a vague presence always at the edge of the younger vampire’s thoughts. Always connected, always aware, Subaru’s lashes dark against his white skin as he closed his eyes, seeking out his twin.
In his mind, he left the forest. Moved beyond it, above it, around it, colour a blur as he shifted to feeling Kamui’s steps, black boots on worn pavement slick from the rain. Kamui had reached a town, the purpose of his wanderings, having sought out civilisation, people, blood. He had not eaten for a while, blazing gold glowing from beneath his slitted eyes as the hunger took him. Kamui needed food before they could move on; the next world might be uninhabited.
Subaru had opted to stay behind as his brother sought-out his next meal, having eaten sooner than his twin, his hunger dormant, asleep. He liked the forest, anyway - the honesty, the simplicity of it still dripping with water, tiny creatures hiding under the wet leaves, nestled in old barks, eyes peeping and bright and unseen from countless hidey-holes. Nature could not lie the way mortality could - a tree showed its age by the rings in its trunk; for centuries Subaru had looked endlessly seventeen.
There was a sound then, a whisper at the edge of his senses, soft as a sigh, wind through the branches. Something that could’ve easily been passed off as a noise of the forest, but Subaru’s eyes glowed gold once, aware, and he tilted his head behind him, hearing the heartbeat with his every sense, a steady, familiar beat in his mind.
Black eyes, black hair, black smile, black heart, obvious and painful in the forest of green and wet. The water of the world had such a peculiar sound to it, a thousand plips of droplets hitting unseen pools, the steady drip of red blood in memory, given out of necessity and in trade, but still with that undercurrent of shaking love -
Subaru stood, graceful and silent, and his cloak fell around him in smooth lines. He looked at the one who had come to find him, perfectly calm. “Seishirou-san.”
“Subaru-kun.” The hunter smiled at him, a tilt of the head, and took a step forwards out of the shadow of a tree. “I’ve been looking for you for such a long time.”
***
Sometimes, Tomoyo felt as though she had received too many blessings for too little a price. Surely the happiness she had should cost more, doubt creeping in, but then she quashed it, pulling her thoughts up by the rein and directing them back the way they should be directed. What would come would come - hitsuzen, as they said, the inevitable. If life demanded a price she would pay it; if not, the price already paid was adequate enough and she should not question it.
Long fingers pulled lightly on the end of the plait they had been braiding into dark hair, pulling Tomoyo from her thoughts with a kind smile, Kendappa-ou brushing an errant curl from her sister’s cheek, sitting beside her. Peace between them in a quiet time hard-won, the squabbling courtiers put aside with guards outside and Souma watchful in the corner, safe and secluded and peaceful as the evening breeze blew through the open door to the garden, the wind-chimes sounding softly.
“It will be good,” the empress told her sister, “to rest tonight. It has been a long day.”
Tomoyo could only nod. Summer had come to Nihon, hot and blazing, irritability soaring around Shirasagi as tempers, shorter than usual, frayed drastically, and sharp words were exchanged, steel meeting steel in the training-yard, the courtyards, as warriors grew tired of the bickering and took to fights to settle disputes, or as their captains forced them into exercises to exhaust them into a sort of wary truce. (Kurogane, Tomoyo had heard, had recently taken to making anyone he caught fighting in what he deemed ‘an unproductive manner’ run twenty laps around the quite-sizeable palace. (Needless to say, the amount of fighting in Shirasagi had dropped significantly by the time the second day of the edict’s enforcement rolled around.))
“I will wait a while,” the princess-miko eventually told Kendappa, feeling the breeze touch the back of her now much more-exposed neck, free from the waterfall of hair that usually covered it, “before going to my chambers. It is such a pleasant evening - I believe I shall take a walk through the gardens.”
“I will accompany you, hime.” Souma moved silently to the younger woman’s side, a testament to her training, but Tomoyo only patted her on the arm, shaking her head with a sweet smile.
“There will be no need, Souma. Please escort my onee-sama to her rooms instead.”
Souma looked doubtful; Kendappa only withdrew her fan from her obi, flipping it open and hiding her slight smile behind its wafting movement. “Hime, you will require an escort yourself…”
“Oh, I shall have an escort.” The princess’ laugh did nothing to alleviate Souma’s worry - it only doubled it, the ninja perplexed and casting a side-glance at the empress. “He should be here now.” On cue, there was a cursory rap on the door, a tan hand abruptly pushing the barrier open and coming inside without waiting for a reply from the occupants.
Souma looked at the newcomer, and then she looked at Tomoyo. “Hime…”
The princess ignored her, rising to her feet in a rustle of expensive robes, her dark plait hanging down her back and swinging with her movement. Her steps were light as she dashed to the entrant’s side, laying a delicate hand on one of the man’s arms and feeling cool metal under her touch. “Kurogane will accompany me.” She beamed up at bemused red eyes.
Kurogane looked back down at her, and (wisely) didn’t trust her smile.
***
The day after Sakura had come home radiating love so tellingly Syaoran came to the palace and made a formal appointment to see the king - which Sakura was expressly forbidden to attend. The princess fumed about it for a few moments in the hallway when her friend and crush arrived, blaming her brother and insisting Touya just wanted to keep Syaoran away from her - and then Syaoran told her, blushing hotly, that it had been him who had arranged the private appointment. Sakura herself had quietened then and blushed a little, the two young people standing together a little awkwardly, a little unsurely. Romance was a whole new world in and of itself, and Syaoran’s blurted comment about how pretty the princess’ hair looked braided up with some of the flowers he’d threaded into a crown for her the other day only made the colour in both of their cheeks darken. Memories were recent for both of them, both experienced and seen, and the ghosts of pleasant smiles lingered in their minds - Fai teasing them about their obvious affection for each other (that they’d somehow both missed), Mokona singing silly songs about love-love, Kurogane flapping his hand and walking away to courteously leave them to it.
“Sakura…” Syaoran reached out a hand to touch the princess’ hair, bowing his head before her as she blushed again, reaching up to lay her palm over his own -
“His Majesty will see you now.” An attendant came to call Syaoran away - Touya had horrible (and probably very deliberate) timing.
So Sakura waited and fiddled nervously with her hair (that Syaoran had touched), the brunet himself gone to speak to her brother. He was gone a long time but she waited, and when he came back she flung his arms around his neck - and then back-stepped, both of them bright red and painfully aware of each other’s proximity with newfound knowledge in mind. Together, they stuttered on.
In the audience chamber behind them, Touya was in mental turmoil. He could’ve seen Syaoran in much more personal quarters, but having a pretty good idea what the brunet had wanted to see him for - the kid’s honour was stupidly predictable - he’d deliberately held the conversation from the much grander location of his throne, letting the brat squirm his plea out. Anything worth winning was hard-won, and Sakura was the most precious thing to far too many in Clow. If the brat wanted a formal betrothal to the princess of the kingdom he was asking it from the king, not the big brother of his childhood friend.
Touya…couldn’t help but always feel there was some immense cosmic loop he’d been left out of. He always missed out on the bigger picture somehow, Sakura a few steps beyond the places he could go, but he was slowly coming to accept that, coming to realise that, at least from behind, he could always make sure to cover his baby sister’s back, learning to trust that the brat - Syaoran - would be there to defend her front, beside her, before her, forever and always, wherever, whatever, however life in all its convoluted forms came. Sakura would never be alone. Syaoran would never let Sakura be alone.
Li Syaoran had proven himself countless times over and remained humble throughout - there was no-one in all of Clow more suited to be a prince than him, to win Sakura’s hand (though it would take a few years, many, many drinks, the cover of darkness, utter privacy and Syaoran himself being somewhat inebriated (and waving a ladle) for Touya to ever hurriedly admit that, blurting it out the night before the fated wedding ceremony and then denying such a thing had ever taken place; the kid was obviously out of his mind. Syaoran, nervous and anticipatory and looking forward to a life with his new wife, treasured the acceptance for the rest of his life - even if His Majesty still insisted on calling him ‘brat’).
“To-ya…” Yukito seemed attuned to his king and lover’s mental state, appearing from one of the room’s few doors and approaching the throne. “What is it?” Touya was clearly troubled.
His Majesty glanced up at him. “…The brat asked if I would please allow him to be formally betrothed to Sakura. He wants to marry her.”
Yukito smiled, expression warm. “Syaoran-kun is a good boy.”
“…Brat,” Touya corrected under his breath. “The brat. Who I just agreed to eventually allow to become my brother-in-law.” Ah - there was little wonder Touya’s brother complex was going into such an overdrive then.
Yukito sat down on the ground beside the throne, leaning his head against Touya’s knee, present, reassuring. The facts were simple. “They are a good couple. There is no-one for either of them in all the worlds except each other.”
Touya raised a hand to trail it through the silvery hair spread against his leg, fingers lightly pushing against the High Priest’s scalp, a strange sort of massage, almost. “…He’s going to be King eventually, you know. As Sakura’s husband.”
Yukito looked up at him, soft, a hybrid of happiness and hope in his eyes.
“I’ll abdicate when I think they’re old enough,” Touya decided aloud, holding the other’s gaze and conveying his meaning implicitly. “Sakura is a good heir - I’ve no need for any other, and absolutely no desire for another consort.” His fingers tightened imperceptibly in Yukito’s hair, a gesture that he refused to be parted. “You wouldn’t mind an old prince hanging about, would you, Yuki?”
Yukito took the other’s free hand, smiling and kissing it. When he withdrew it from his lips, their fingers were still intertwined. “Never, Your Majesty. Never.”
***
There was silence in the forest save for Nature’s natural noises, the wind, the brook, and then the crunch of twigs not entirely soaked through as Seishirou stepped forwards again with his slow, easy stride, damnable smile fixed in place.
One step, two -
Subaru narrowed his eyes, and put his claws to the line of the other’s throat. One quick slash and blood would decorate the undergrowth, although Kamui had once scowled and whispered that Seishirou would probably still be smiling even when rigor mortis set in.
Two sets of brothers, and there was no true love lost between any of them.
Seishirou reached up with a hand to touch the claws at his neck, seemingly fascinated by their sharpness. “Perhaps Kamui-kun is the more sensible one out of you two twins.” He shifted closer to the claws, letting them cut slightly into his throat, and Subaru’s vampire instincts kicked in, his pupils turning to slits as a bead of crimson rolled down the column of white under Seishirou’s chin. “He would’ve tried a lot more obviously to have had me dead by now.”
Subaru didn’t extend his claws further, but didn’t move, gold gaze steady as Seishirou took a step closer again, moving along the line of the vampire’s reach. “Kamui isn’t here right now.”
“If I know him at all, he’ll be here as soon as he can possibly be.” Seishirou stopped again, much closer than before. “One would almost think he didn’t trust me.”
Subaru didn’t dignify that with a response.
“You don’t trust me either.”
It was a point not worth arguing against.
“And yet,” Seishirou pressed, gently, gently, “you haven’t killed me yet.” Subaru doubted Seishirou would really let him even try.
Subaru pulled back his claws, forcing his eye to return from gold to its usual jade. “I try to impress it upon Kamui that you cannot question a corpse, Seishirou-san.” And he actually had many questions for Seishirou - namely, what exactly was it that the man had done with Subaru’s own blood? He couldn’t have drunk it, surely - Seishirou wasn’t a vampire. And yet, such a pull - “What is it that you did, Seishirou-san, to obtain my blood from Yuuko-san?”
Seishirou only smiled, and moved closer again, within touching distance, stretching out a hand and resting it upon one of the vampire’s shoulders. “Subaru-kun, you’re soaking wet. Did you stand outside in the rain?” He pushed aside the drenched fabric of the smaller male’s cloak, the black material slipping from Subaru’s shoulders and landing as a dark puddle on the forest floor, liquid cloth their ankles tangled in as Subaru took a step back against his companion’s advancement, feeling the bark’s curves leave patterns through the sodden cloth of his jacket and shirt, imprinting themselves upon his skin.
Seishirou’s fingers were warm on his shoulder, and Subaru suddenly dearly wished the rain hadn’t made his white shirt so transparent. He raised his chin, meeting a grey gaze head-on. “Why do you hunt me across the worlds?”
“Why is it, when you flee from me, that you always look back?” Those fingers slid higher, curling almost possessively around the curve of Subaru’s cheek. “Call it a mutual obsession, if you like.”
Subaru faltered a little at the admission, uncertain, a light dusting of colour touching his cheekbones. Seishirou - Subaru did not quite understand what it was Kamui saw when he looked upon the hunter, what exactly it was that had kindled such deep-seated distrust in the elder vampire. Something like jealousy flickered within Kamui, rage and protectiveness that flung him before Subaru again and again, pulling them both to another world before Seishirou got too close, too near.
Perhaps the most dangerous thing about Seishirou was the fact he was fascinating, and Subaru, quiet, curious, was easily fascinated.
“A mutual acquaintance of ours believes in something called hitsuzen.” Seishirou dipped his head closer to Subaru and the vampire let him, tilting his chin slightly so he could feel breath - hot breath, heat in the damp and the cold - on the skin just below his ear. “There is no coincidence in the world, only the inevitable.”
Yuuko. Subaru’s lips quirked to hear her philosophy, so far from that strange, frozen world the Dimension Witch lived in. “Everything is inevitable, Seishirou-san, but everything cannot all happen in one world.”
“The benefits of world-hopping.” Seishirou wasn’t to be dissuaded, seeing the flicker of amusement in the other’s expression, the understanding. He would chase Subaru to a world where what he wanted was possible, if this was not the place or time. The hunter withdrew a blade from one pocket and Subaru automatically put his guard back up, but Seishirou took pains to keep his actions slow, raising the knife to the vampire’s hair and cutting off a small lock of still-damp, black hair. He showed it to Subaru.
The other looked at it, then at him, wary. “…I shouldn’t let you have that.” The magic that could be done with a strand of hair -
“Say it was a lover’s token,” Seishirou waved off the statement, smiling once more in a way that made Subaru’s stomach sink slightly, “and let Kamui-kun scold me later.” He tucked the lock of hair away in one of his pockets.
Subaru touched his arm. “Seishirou-san…”
Green and grey met - the forest and the cloudy sky, still dripping with life and wet and -
Seishirou’s hand slipped back from Subaru’s cheek, long fingers scraping through the wet locks to find a grip, pulling in a gesture that would’ve bared Subaru’s throat had the white foam of the vampire’s cravat not been firmly fixed in place, making room for the warm lips that touched the skin there, Subaru colouring again but not struggling, waiting, as that mouth slid higher -
The forest was rich and good because things died to nourish the soil, moist and damp and drowning in mud and cold. Death waited expectantly at the end of all things, for all things, slick as rain-drenched skin, the dark of Seishirou’s hair, his eyes, his ever-smiling mouth telling silent, twisted lies as he kissed Subaru against the tree in the forest, hard and cold and shivering as the heavens opened once more, rain drizzling, then coming down in lashing, streaking lines.
Hunter and hunted were oblivious to it, ignorant of everything until one flash of a hand aiming for Seishirou’s head had the man instinctively ducking and yanking back, Subaru wide-eyed as a snarling Kamui pushed before his brother, separating Seishirou from the one Kamui would die to protect, fiery in a way this wet world wasn’t, angry and hot and positively lethal.
“Kamui-kun,” Seishirou closed his eyes and smiled, taking in the second vampire’s mud-slicked appearance, his tangible desire to rip the hunter limb from bloody limb, “how pleasant it is to see you again.”
Kamui snarled, and took a step forwards. “You -”
Subaru laid a hand on his twin’s shoulder, soft, and his irate sibling glanced back. “Please don’t.”
Kamui was torn. “…Fine.” He pulled back again, against Subaru, sweeping the abandoned cloak off of the ground and pushing it into his brother’s arms. Together, the magic circle of the Dimension Witch appeared beneath their feet, and together they vanished from that world.
“Well,” a new voice spoke from behind a nearby tree, a familiar form slipping around the trunk as Seishirou dusted himself down, “that certainly went well.” Fuuma waved to his elder brother, all smiles. “Long time no see, onii-san, although I do wish you hadn’t upset Kamui-kun so. We’d been getting along so well, and you just had to go and ruffle his feathers by molesting his baby brother in front of him.”
Seishirou largely ignored him. “Subaru-kun was feeling agreeable.”
“I noticed.” Fuuma’s tone was dry. He’d come to that world on yet another mission for Yuuko - some debts, apparently, could be demanded even beyond the grave. This world was a horribly soggy one - but it did have its perks. He reached a hand into one of his seemingly bottomless pockets, proudly withdrawing something damp and approximately the same shade as mud-covered algae. “Look - I found a frog.” Not every world had proper frogs.
Seishirou looked down at the creature in his brother’s hands, and then reached out to pluck it - it, as he didn’t care for its gender - from Fuuma’s grasp, the frog’s legs dangling and helpless in the face of impending doom. “How wonderful.” His voice was flat.
“Isn’t it?” Fuuma seemed quite taken with the creature - how easily he recovered from being abandoned by his precious Kamui.
Seishirou dropped the frog on the ground, and then very deliberately stepped on it. He was still smiling as it made a squelching crunch under his boot.
Fuuma didn’t bother to look down at the messy mud and grass at his brother’s feet, though he did give the frog’s passing existence a few seconds silence. “…A little frustrated today, are we?” A pity too - now he’d have to find a new pet.
***
Tomoyo went to her rest smiling, leaving Kurogane with a queer mixture of genuine warmth that his princess was happy and mild worry of what the girl was happy about - walking in the gardens surely couldn’t be all that delightful an experience?
It was a relief to be heading for his own rest that night, silently thankful (for once) that it wasn’t his turn to be on-duty after-dark. The day had been too long, too frustrating, tempers riled up in the heat, and the urge to just collapse on his futon was strong -
That was, of course, until he heard the humming. It came from the room to which Kurogane was heading and, at that hour, it meant it could only be coming from one person. (And if it were anyone else, they had three seconds to explain what the hell they were doing in his quarters before being sent permanently to the palace infirmary.) But it was so…
The sliding door was practically soundless as Kurogane pushed it open, unsurprised to see the matching door leading to the gardens on the wall opposite open as well, a familiar form enjoying the night breeze, even as he moved about the floor, delicate hands fiddling with his past-shoulder-length blond hair. Fai.
It was Fai that was humming, distracted but tuneful, the melody occasionally stopping for breathless curses about awkward hair adornments that - apparently - didn’t seem to work for him, the mage with the mismatched eyes seemingly too caught up in his task to realise the more magical side to his tune - Fai hadn’t whistled for a reason, back when they’d been travelling between worlds. Sound had been one more way for the lithe man to summon up his magic, a different way to tap into the raw power that lay inside pale skin, glowing under the surface.
His yukata - dove-grey and loose-belted - was patterned with images of white birds and glittering flowers, Fai’s humming drawing the threads forth from the fabric to take real form in the air, birds and flower blossoms about the room and about the mage, tweeting and scenting the room with flora. In the midst of it all Fai kept trying to pin his hair up into a loose bun with some decorative hair pins, but strands kept escaping him, recalcitrant that night, and the style failed to gain any sort of hold.
Kurogane crept up behind him in his distraction and removed the pins, letting the golden mass come tumbling down around Fai’s face, a hopeless shimmer of cornsilk that was all too easy to thread fingers through, tilting a familiar, pliant mouth up and slightly to the side for a kiss.
The birds cheeped Fai’s surprise as the hairpins hit the floor, but the blond himself only sounded a pleased murmur at the back of his throat when he saw who it was beside him, content to lean back against Kurogane’s chest and deepen the kiss.
“Since when,” the ninja asked when they finally pulled apart for air, lips still brushing his lover’s as he spoke, “did you hum?”
Fai smiled, eyes still half-lidded and low, lifting his arms a little to Kurogane could wrap his own limb around the mage’s waist more comfortably. “Since I decided to practice, Kuro-sama.”
“You called these things up on purpose?” Kurogane looked rather balefully at the birds around the room, at the mess of blossoms and feathers on the floor.
“I was working on my control, seeing how much I could do at once.” Fai raised a hand, drawing a short string of symbols into the air in his sinuous script, the birds and blossoms filling the room suddenly dropping to the ground, flowing along the floor to reach Fai, threading themselves back into his clothing. “Sound-based magic has advantages over writing out my spells, Kuro-chan - it saves time and leaves my hands free for other things.” He turned around in Kurogane’s hold, wrapping his arms around the ninja’s neck comfortably. The last bird fluttering around the room finished stitching itself back in place on the blond’s yukata. “All tidied up~!”
Kurogane raised his own metal hand and placed it low on the other’s stomach, eyeing the yukata’s decoration about there rather critically. “…The pattern’s changed.”
Fai’s breath hitched slightly, an involuntary reaction, but he tugged his smile on once more even as he playfully whined, wagging one long finger in front of his lover’s nose. “Kuro-myu, I was prac~tic~ing. Daddy shouldn’t always be so harsh on poor mommy; we can’t all be perfect at things first try.”
Kurogane only looked at him. (Fai dropped the finger.) “…That was your first try.”
“Well, actually it was my fifth,” Fai amended, “but the point still stands~!” Kurogane snorted, and Fai pouted ridiculously. “Kuro-chan is mean to mock me so.” He tilted his head with his words, quite forgetting his hair was loose (rotten, hairpin-thieving Kuro-pon), gold sliding immediately into his vision and tickling his nose. He wrinkled the feature at the sensation - another haircut was probably in order - but Kurogane lifted the lock that was troubling him from his face, holding it to his lips.
There was a slight pause.
Fai reached up to touch the ninja’s cheek. “…Kuro-sama?” Red eyes looked to him and the mage saw something in them, a smile blooming across his face even as that same echoing warmth curled inside. “Kuro-sama,” he wrapped his arms around his companion’s shoulders again, burying his face in the front of Kurogane’s chest. (Why, out of all Nihon men, had he had to have gone and fallen for the one who was ridiculously tall?)
“…Idiot,” was the only response his lover gave him, but his voice was low and lacking in harshness, the tone contradicting the insult so that it was Fai’s turn to snort, muffled laughter shaking his more slender body as Kurogane draped his own limbs about the mage. (It was more…comfortable that way.)
Fai looked up at him, and his smile - his real smile - was lovely, coloured by the mirth in his voice. “Only Kuro-pyuu can make an insult sound like an endearment.”
“Idiot,” Kurogane repeated, this time with just a tad more meaning behind it. Fai only laughed again, and put his head back down, hair still streaming in gold waves down his back.
They stayed like that for a little while, enjoying the hold, the night breeze, and then they went to bed.
I want happiness
I seek happiness
To cause your happiness
To be your happiness
So take me to
A true Elsewhere...
Characters/Pairing: Touya/Yukito, Seishirou/Subaru, Kurogane/Fai, Sakura/Syaoran, Fuuma/Kamui, others mentioned/implied
Rating: T
Author’s Notes/Warnings: My round six dimension_shopentry for
von_questenberg.
Set after the series end, as we all hold out for happiness for the characters. Title taken from the song from CLOVER, which is also used as a basis for Oruha’s song in the Clover bar in the country of Oto. Warnings for spoilers for the some of the most current chapters, and cruelty to frogs.
***
I want happiness
I seek happiness
Happy just to be
With you
Happy just to see
You smile
So take me to
A true Elsewhere
Please, take me
To happiness
I want happiness
I seek happiness
To cause your happiness
To be your happiness
So take me to
A true Elsewhere
Please take me
To happiness
- CLOVER
It was quite obvious the day Sakura received her first kiss. She sped out of the palace of Clow as she usually did one morning, cloak haphazardly flung over her shoulders and a basket on her arm, and she meandered home with the evening, the setting sun catching the dreamy expression in her eyes and making the auburn of her hair glow, bedecked as it was with a crown of white flowers. (The cloak and basket were nowhere to be seen.)
Her faraway disposition remained with her as she practically floated through the palace’s front doors, some of the guards smiling knowingly when they saw her expression and opening the way for the girl caught up in love. She walked right into a just-as-absent-minded Yukito bustling past, and the pile of scrolls the High Priest had been carrying went everywhere.
“Yukito-san!” The shock of the collision startled Sakura out of her daydreams, the crown of flowers on her head slipping to the side and causing the girl to raise one hand to steady it as she immediately crouched down on the floor, trying to gather up the fallen documents with her remaining hand and still keep the crown in place at the same time. “I’m so sorry! I wasn’t looking where I was going and -” she shot to her feet again, trying to deposit the scrolls she’d picked up back in her bemused companion’s arms, but they only unravelled a little more, seals coming off and paper hitting the floor, making an even bigger mess than before. “I’m so sorry!” She bowed her head earnestly, apologising, and the flowers she was wearing promptly fell off and went to join the scrolls on the ground.
“Sakura-hime, it’s alright.” Yukito dropped the few rolls of paper he’d managed to retain or recover tidily, letting them roll as they would as he bent down on his haunches to smile up at the despairing teenager before him. “We can tidy it up together, can’t we? And there’s no harm done.”
“Right,” Sakura nodded determinedly, crouching down again and helping Yukito to gather up on the runaway scrolls, rolling them back up tightly and binding them with ribbons that had come loose.
The sunset spilled in through the palace windows as they worked, sand and dust hanging in a golden haze in the air, a shimmering sheen over everything it touched. Sakura and Yukito were gilded in the glow, the white of their clothes almost sacrosanct in the dim quiet of the hall, the girl - almost a woman - and man working harmoniously, diligently, light touching the edge of framed glasses, the tips of moisture still clinging to the inside of white petals.
“Did Syaoran-kun make this?” Sakura’s flowers were the last thing to be lifted from the floor, Yukito holding the delicate circlet like it was crafted of precious glass and stones - to Sakura, it was probably worth more than all the jewels in the world.
The princess nodded, blushing slightly, and Yukito smiled again, gentle, understanding, setting the crown amongst the girl’s red-touched tresses. The air in the hall lent the act almost the solemnity of a coronation, the virgin princess with her lover’s gift.
“It suits you,” Yukito could do nothing but offer his blessing to the couple had been through so much, his dreams touched for years with the images of Sakura and her precious person, woven together endlessly to uphold all the worlds. Some things were just meant to be.
Sakura blushed a little darker, smiling her brilliant thanks and rushing off into the gathering night. The white of the flowers in her hair was the last thing to be swallowed from sight, vanishing with the effervescent glow the princess emitted, tangible happiness and love.
“I’m going to kill the brat.”
“To-ya,” Yukito didn’t even need to turn to know the king was at his back, the High Priest’s tone playfully chiding as he clutched at his scrolls, “you can’t do that. Sakura-chan would be upset.”
Touya continued to grumble, moving forwards and into sight, his gaze still lost after where his sister had gone to. “She’d get over it.”
“To-ya,” Yukito repeated, smiling fondly as the other man looked his way, the king dark-haired and dark-eyed as the night sweeping in after the sun’s last rays slid over the distant horizon, closer than the stars slowly coming out over the desert.
His Majesty complained. “He’s deflowering my sister, inch by inch.” Whilst covering Sakura in flowers. And blushing all the while. Syaoran could no more ravage someone than Yukito could suddenly go on a murderous rampage because someone stole one of his desserts. It simply wouldn’t happen - ever.
“To-ya,” Yukito said again, putting down his scrolls on a nearby table and moving towards his companion, wrapping his arms loosely around the other’s neck and leaning in. He rested his head at the crook of Touya’s neck, breathing in the desert air that seemed to hang around the man, the scent of his freshly-washed hair. He usually took a bath after sword practice - clearly, the king had been busy that afternoon. Yukito breathed and Touya stilled, drawing from the calm the High Priest carried with him always, the flat edge to His Majesty’s sharpened blade-edge. They stayed for a few moments like that, a distant bird crying faintly as it went to its rest for the night. Yukito’s words, when he spoke again, were murmured against warm skin, barely heard over the steady beat along the line of Touya’s throat. “He is her most special person.”
Touya grumbled again, a token protest without real meaning, winding one arm around his lover’s waist and letting his other hand trail to silvery-hair, fingers shifting through the familiar strands slowly, thoughtfully, another precious facet to the other part of himself. “…I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.” Some things were meant to be, and the brat would continue to annoy him. (Touya strongly denied/ignored the fact anyone Sakura would’ve liked in that way would’ve annoyed him - that was irrelevant. Sakura liked the brat; the brat was the problem here.)
“No,” Yukito assured him, still smiling as he leaned up to leave a soft kiss on the king’s cheek, his own eyes slightly teasing. “There is absolutely no accounting for taste with most special people.”
Touya blinked at him, once, dark lashes on his cheeks, and then he smirked, drawing his lover closer still. “That’s something to be thankful for then.”
***
Water had such a peculiar sound to it, a thousand plips of droplets hitting unseen pools, the bubbling of a brook somewhere in damp undergrowth. The breeze through the branches, trees whispering secrets to one another, the rich green forest after a recent rainfall.
Subaru’s cloak was damp as he knelt in the thick grass at the edge of a crumbling bank, feeling wet dirt beneath his spread fingers, his clothes wet through to the skin, fine, dark hair sticking to his pale face. The brook before him only gave him a distorted reflection, a white smudge on the surface broken up by pebbles under the water, the brightness of green eyes framed by the trees’ canopy overhead.
The vampire dipped his hand into the water, the cold still a mild surprise to his already chilled skin. This was not water that would pull him into endless dreaming; the brook clean of the warm power that had called to him so long ago, in that country where acid rained from the sky and burned all it touched. He would not sleep here, in this forest; Kamui would be vexed and no doubt worried, when he returned from his wanderings, if he were to find his brother dreaming amongst the bracken, thin form swallowed up by the thick mud and stubborn life in the forest undergrowth.
The sky between the branches far above was grey, still promising more rain, and Subaru sent out a private hope that his twin had sought-out shelter of some kind from the weather, a mental well-wishing that trailed out across that new world they’d come to, dipping beyond the trees and into the wider lands to reach Kamui, a vague presence always at the edge of the younger vampire’s thoughts. Always connected, always aware, Subaru’s lashes dark against his white skin as he closed his eyes, seeking out his twin.
In his mind, he left the forest. Moved beyond it, above it, around it, colour a blur as he shifted to feeling Kamui’s steps, black boots on worn pavement slick from the rain. Kamui had reached a town, the purpose of his wanderings, having sought out civilisation, people, blood. He had not eaten for a while, blazing gold glowing from beneath his slitted eyes as the hunger took him. Kamui needed food before they could move on; the next world might be uninhabited.
Subaru had opted to stay behind as his brother sought-out his next meal, having eaten sooner than his twin, his hunger dormant, asleep. He liked the forest, anyway - the honesty, the simplicity of it still dripping with water, tiny creatures hiding under the wet leaves, nestled in old barks, eyes peeping and bright and unseen from countless hidey-holes. Nature could not lie the way mortality could - a tree showed its age by the rings in its trunk; for centuries Subaru had looked endlessly seventeen.
There was a sound then, a whisper at the edge of his senses, soft as a sigh, wind through the branches. Something that could’ve easily been passed off as a noise of the forest, but Subaru’s eyes glowed gold once, aware, and he tilted his head behind him, hearing the heartbeat with his every sense, a steady, familiar beat in his mind.
Black eyes, black hair, black smile, black heart, obvious and painful in the forest of green and wet. The water of the world had such a peculiar sound to it, a thousand plips of droplets hitting unseen pools, the steady drip of red blood in memory, given out of necessity and in trade, but still with that undercurrent of shaking love -
Subaru stood, graceful and silent, and his cloak fell around him in smooth lines. He looked at the one who had come to find him, perfectly calm. “Seishirou-san.”
“Subaru-kun.” The hunter smiled at him, a tilt of the head, and took a step forwards out of the shadow of a tree. “I’ve been looking for you for such a long time.”
***
Sometimes, Tomoyo felt as though she had received too many blessings for too little a price. Surely the happiness she had should cost more, doubt creeping in, but then she quashed it, pulling her thoughts up by the rein and directing them back the way they should be directed. What would come would come - hitsuzen, as they said, the inevitable. If life demanded a price she would pay it; if not, the price already paid was adequate enough and she should not question it.
Long fingers pulled lightly on the end of the plait they had been braiding into dark hair, pulling Tomoyo from her thoughts with a kind smile, Kendappa-ou brushing an errant curl from her sister’s cheek, sitting beside her. Peace between them in a quiet time hard-won, the squabbling courtiers put aside with guards outside and Souma watchful in the corner, safe and secluded and peaceful as the evening breeze blew through the open door to the garden, the wind-chimes sounding softly.
“It will be good,” the empress told her sister, “to rest tonight. It has been a long day.”
Tomoyo could only nod. Summer had come to Nihon, hot and blazing, irritability soaring around Shirasagi as tempers, shorter than usual, frayed drastically, and sharp words were exchanged, steel meeting steel in the training-yard, the courtyards, as warriors grew tired of the bickering and took to fights to settle disputes, or as their captains forced them into exercises to exhaust them into a sort of wary truce. (Kurogane, Tomoyo had heard, had recently taken to making anyone he caught fighting in what he deemed ‘an unproductive manner’ run twenty laps around the quite-sizeable palace. (Needless to say, the amount of fighting in Shirasagi had dropped significantly by the time the second day of the edict’s enforcement rolled around.))
“I will wait a while,” the princess-miko eventually told Kendappa, feeling the breeze touch the back of her now much more-exposed neck, free from the waterfall of hair that usually covered it, “before going to my chambers. It is such a pleasant evening - I believe I shall take a walk through the gardens.”
“I will accompany you, hime.” Souma moved silently to the younger woman’s side, a testament to her training, but Tomoyo only patted her on the arm, shaking her head with a sweet smile.
“There will be no need, Souma. Please escort my onee-sama to her rooms instead.”
Souma looked doubtful; Kendappa only withdrew her fan from her obi, flipping it open and hiding her slight smile behind its wafting movement. “Hime, you will require an escort yourself…”
“Oh, I shall have an escort.” The princess’ laugh did nothing to alleviate Souma’s worry - it only doubled it, the ninja perplexed and casting a side-glance at the empress. “He should be here now.” On cue, there was a cursory rap on the door, a tan hand abruptly pushing the barrier open and coming inside without waiting for a reply from the occupants.
Souma looked at the newcomer, and then she looked at Tomoyo. “Hime…”
The princess ignored her, rising to her feet in a rustle of expensive robes, her dark plait hanging down her back and swinging with her movement. Her steps were light as she dashed to the entrant’s side, laying a delicate hand on one of the man’s arms and feeling cool metal under her touch. “Kurogane will accompany me.” She beamed up at bemused red eyes.
Kurogane looked back down at her, and (wisely) didn’t trust her smile.
***
The day after Sakura had come home radiating love so tellingly Syaoran came to the palace and made a formal appointment to see the king - which Sakura was expressly forbidden to attend. The princess fumed about it for a few moments in the hallway when her friend and crush arrived, blaming her brother and insisting Touya just wanted to keep Syaoran away from her - and then Syaoran told her, blushing hotly, that it had been him who had arranged the private appointment. Sakura herself had quietened then and blushed a little, the two young people standing together a little awkwardly, a little unsurely. Romance was a whole new world in and of itself, and Syaoran’s blurted comment about how pretty the princess’ hair looked braided up with some of the flowers he’d threaded into a crown for her the other day only made the colour in both of their cheeks darken. Memories were recent for both of them, both experienced and seen, and the ghosts of pleasant smiles lingered in their minds - Fai teasing them about their obvious affection for each other (that they’d somehow both missed), Mokona singing silly songs about love-love, Kurogane flapping his hand and walking away to courteously leave them to it.
“Sakura…” Syaoran reached out a hand to touch the princess’ hair, bowing his head before her as she blushed again, reaching up to lay her palm over his own -
“His Majesty will see you now.” An attendant came to call Syaoran away - Touya had horrible (and probably very deliberate) timing.
So Sakura waited and fiddled nervously with her hair (that Syaoran had touched), the brunet himself gone to speak to her brother. He was gone a long time but she waited, and when he came back she flung his arms around his neck - and then back-stepped, both of them bright red and painfully aware of each other’s proximity with newfound knowledge in mind. Together, they stuttered on.
In the audience chamber behind them, Touya was in mental turmoil. He could’ve seen Syaoran in much more personal quarters, but having a pretty good idea what the brunet had wanted to see him for - the kid’s honour was stupidly predictable - he’d deliberately held the conversation from the much grander location of his throne, letting the brat squirm his plea out. Anything worth winning was hard-won, and Sakura was the most precious thing to far too many in Clow. If the brat wanted a formal betrothal to the princess of the kingdom he was asking it from the king, not the big brother of his childhood friend.
Touya…couldn’t help but always feel there was some immense cosmic loop he’d been left out of. He always missed out on the bigger picture somehow, Sakura a few steps beyond the places he could go, but he was slowly coming to accept that, coming to realise that, at least from behind, he could always make sure to cover his baby sister’s back, learning to trust that the brat - Syaoran - would be there to defend her front, beside her, before her, forever and always, wherever, whatever, however life in all its convoluted forms came. Sakura would never be alone. Syaoran would never let Sakura be alone.
Li Syaoran had proven himself countless times over and remained humble throughout - there was no-one in all of Clow more suited to be a prince than him, to win Sakura’s hand (though it would take a few years, many, many drinks, the cover of darkness, utter privacy and Syaoran himself being somewhat inebriated (and waving a ladle) for Touya to ever hurriedly admit that, blurting it out the night before the fated wedding ceremony and then denying such a thing had ever taken place; the kid was obviously out of his mind. Syaoran, nervous and anticipatory and looking forward to a life with his new wife, treasured the acceptance for the rest of his life - even if His Majesty still insisted on calling him ‘brat’).
“To-ya…” Yukito seemed attuned to his king and lover’s mental state, appearing from one of the room’s few doors and approaching the throne. “What is it?” Touya was clearly troubled.
His Majesty glanced up at him. “…The brat asked if I would please allow him to be formally betrothed to Sakura. He wants to marry her.”
Yukito smiled, expression warm. “Syaoran-kun is a good boy.”
“…Brat,” Touya corrected under his breath. “The brat. Who I just agreed to eventually allow to become my brother-in-law.” Ah - there was little wonder Touya’s brother complex was going into such an overdrive then.
Yukito sat down on the ground beside the throne, leaning his head against Touya’s knee, present, reassuring. The facts were simple. “They are a good couple. There is no-one for either of them in all the worlds except each other.”
Touya raised a hand to trail it through the silvery hair spread against his leg, fingers lightly pushing against the High Priest’s scalp, a strange sort of massage, almost. “…He’s going to be King eventually, you know. As Sakura’s husband.”
Yukito looked up at him, soft, a hybrid of happiness and hope in his eyes.
“I’ll abdicate when I think they’re old enough,” Touya decided aloud, holding the other’s gaze and conveying his meaning implicitly. “Sakura is a good heir - I’ve no need for any other, and absolutely no desire for another consort.” His fingers tightened imperceptibly in Yukito’s hair, a gesture that he refused to be parted. “You wouldn’t mind an old prince hanging about, would you, Yuki?”
Yukito took the other’s free hand, smiling and kissing it. When he withdrew it from his lips, their fingers were still intertwined. “Never, Your Majesty. Never.”
***
There was silence in the forest save for Nature’s natural noises, the wind, the brook, and then the crunch of twigs not entirely soaked through as Seishirou stepped forwards again with his slow, easy stride, damnable smile fixed in place.
One step, two -
Subaru narrowed his eyes, and put his claws to the line of the other’s throat. One quick slash and blood would decorate the undergrowth, although Kamui had once scowled and whispered that Seishirou would probably still be smiling even when rigor mortis set in.
Two sets of brothers, and there was no true love lost between any of them.
Seishirou reached up with a hand to touch the claws at his neck, seemingly fascinated by their sharpness. “Perhaps Kamui-kun is the more sensible one out of you two twins.” He shifted closer to the claws, letting them cut slightly into his throat, and Subaru’s vampire instincts kicked in, his pupils turning to slits as a bead of crimson rolled down the column of white under Seishirou’s chin. “He would’ve tried a lot more obviously to have had me dead by now.”
Subaru didn’t extend his claws further, but didn’t move, gold gaze steady as Seishirou took a step closer again, moving along the line of the vampire’s reach. “Kamui isn’t here right now.”
“If I know him at all, he’ll be here as soon as he can possibly be.” Seishirou stopped again, much closer than before. “One would almost think he didn’t trust me.”
Subaru didn’t dignify that with a response.
“You don’t trust me either.”
It was a point not worth arguing against.
“And yet,” Seishirou pressed, gently, gently, “you haven’t killed me yet.” Subaru doubted Seishirou would really let him even try.
Subaru pulled back his claws, forcing his eye to return from gold to its usual jade. “I try to impress it upon Kamui that you cannot question a corpse, Seishirou-san.” And he actually had many questions for Seishirou - namely, what exactly was it that the man had done with Subaru’s own blood? He couldn’t have drunk it, surely - Seishirou wasn’t a vampire. And yet, such a pull - “What is it that you did, Seishirou-san, to obtain my blood from Yuuko-san?”
Seishirou only smiled, and moved closer again, within touching distance, stretching out a hand and resting it upon one of the vampire’s shoulders. “Subaru-kun, you’re soaking wet. Did you stand outside in the rain?” He pushed aside the drenched fabric of the smaller male’s cloak, the black material slipping from Subaru’s shoulders and landing as a dark puddle on the forest floor, liquid cloth their ankles tangled in as Subaru took a step back against his companion’s advancement, feeling the bark’s curves leave patterns through the sodden cloth of his jacket and shirt, imprinting themselves upon his skin.
Seishirou’s fingers were warm on his shoulder, and Subaru suddenly dearly wished the rain hadn’t made his white shirt so transparent. He raised his chin, meeting a grey gaze head-on. “Why do you hunt me across the worlds?”
“Why is it, when you flee from me, that you always look back?” Those fingers slid higher, curling almost possessively around the curve of Subaru’s cheek. “Call it a mutual obsession, if you like.”
Subaru faltered a little at the admission, uncertain, a light dusting of colour touching his cheekbones. Seishirou - Subaru did not quite understand what it was Kamui saw when he looked upon the hunter, what exactly it was that had kindled such deep-seated distrust in the elder vampire. Something like jealousy flickered within Kamui, rage and protectiveness that flung him before Subaru again and again, pulling them both to another world before Seishirou got too close, too near.
Perhaps the most dangerous thing about Seishirou was the fact he was fascinating, and Subaru, quiet, curious, was easily fascinated.
“A mutual acquaintance of ours believes in something called hitsuzen.” Seishirou dipped his head closer to Subaru and the vampire let him, tilting his chin slightly so he could feel breath - hot breath, heat in the damp and the cold - on the skin just below his ear. “There is no coincidence in the world, only the inevitable.”
Yuuko. Subaru’s lips quirked to hear her philosophy, so far from that strange, frozen world the Dimension Witch lived in. “Everything is inevitable, Seishirou-san, but everything cannot all happen in one world.”
“The benefits of world-hopping.” Seishirou wasn’t to be dissuaded, seeing the flicker of amusement in the other’s expression, the understanding. He would chase Subaru to a world where what he wanted was possible, if this was not the place or time. The hunter withdrew a blade from one pocket and Subaru automatically put his guard back up, but Seishirou took pains to keep his actions slow, raising the knife to the vampire’s hair and cutting off a small lock of still-damp, black hair. He showed it to Subaru.
The other looked at it, then at him, wary. “…I shouldn’t let you have that.” The magic that could be done with a strand of hair -
“Say it was a lover’s token,” Seishirou waved off the statement, smiling once more in a way that made Subaru’s stomach sink slightly, “and let Kamui-kun scold me later.” He tucked the lock of hair away in one of his pockets.
Subaru touched his arm. “Seishirou-san…”
Green and grey met - the forest and the cloudy sky, still dripping with life and wet and -
Seishirou’s hand slipped back from Subaru’s cheek, long fingers scraping through the wet locks to find a grip, pulling in a gesture that would’ve bared Subaru’s throat had the white foam of the vampire’s cravat not been firmly fixed in place, making room for the warm lips that touched the skin there, Subaru colouring again but not struggling, waiting, as that mouth slid higher -
The forest was rich and good because things died to nourish the soil, moist and damp and drowning in mud and cold. Death waited expectantly at the end of all things, for all things, slick as rain-drenched skin, the dark of Seishirou’s hair, his eyes, his ever-smiling mouth telling silent, twisted lies as he kissed Subaru against the tree in the forest, hard and cold and shivering as the heavens opened once more, rain drizzling, then coming down in lashing, streaking lines.
Hunter and hunted were oblivious to it, ignorant of everything until one flash of a hand aiming for Seishirou’s head had the man instinctively ducking and yanking back, Subaru wide-eyed as a snarling Kamui pushed before his brother, separating Seishirou from the one Kamui would die to protect, fiery in a way this wet world wasn’t, angry and hot and positively lethal.
“Kamui-kun,” Seishirou closed his eyes and smiled, taking in the second vampire’s mud-slicked appearance, his tangible desire to rip the hunter limb from bloody limb, “how pleasant it is to see you again.”
Kamui snarled, and took a step forwards. “You -”
Subaru laid a hand on his twin’s shoulder, soft, and his irate sibling glanced back. “Please don’t.”
Kamui was torn. “…Fine.” He pulled back again, against Subaru, sweeping the abandoned cloak off of the ground and pushing it into his brother’s arms. Together, the magic circle of the Dimension Witch appeared beneath their feet, and together they vanished from that world.
“Well,” a new voice spoke from behind a nearby tree, a familiar form slipping around the trunk as Seishirou dusted himself down, “that certainly went well.” Fuuma waved to his elder brother, all smiles. “Long time no see, onii-san, although I do wish you hadn’t upset Kamui-kun so. We’d been getting along so well, and you just had to go and ruffle his feathers by molesting his baby brother in front of him.”
Seishirou largely ignored him. “Subaru-kun was feeling agreeable.”
“I noticed.” Fuuma’s tone was dry. He’d come to that world on yet another mission for Yuuko - some debts, apparently, could be demanded even beyond the grave. This world was a horribly soggy one - but it did have its perks. He reached a hand into one of his seemingly bottomless pockets, proudly withdrawing something damp and approximately the same shade as mud-covered algae. “Look - I found a frog.” Not every world had proper frogs.
Seishirou looked down at the creature in his brother’s hands, and then reached out to pluck it - it, as he didn’t care for its gender - from Fuuma’s grasp, the frog’s legs dangling and helpless in the face of impending doom. “How wonderful.” His voice was flat.
“Isn’t it?” Fuuma seemed quite taken with the creature - how easily he recovered from being abandoned by his precious Kamui.
Seishirou dropped the frog on the ground, and then very deliberately stepped on it. He was still smiling as it made a squelching crunch under his boot.
Fuuma didn’t bother to look down at the messy mud and grass at his brother’s feet, though he did give the frog’s passing existence a few seconds silence. “…A little frustrated today, are we?” A pity too - now he’d have to find a new pet.
***
Tomoyo went to her rest smiling, leaving Kurogane with a queer mixture of genuine warmth that his princess was happy and mild worry of what the girl was happy about - walking in the gardens surely couldn’t be all that delightful an experience?
It was a relief to be heading for his own rest that night, silently thankful (for once) that it wasn’t his turn to be on-duty after-dark. The day had been too long, too frustrating, tempers riled up in the heat, and the urge to just collapse on his futon was strong -
That was, of course, until he heard the humming. It came from the room to which Kurogane was heading and, at that hour, it meant it could only be coming from one person. (And if it were anyone else, they had three seconds to explain what the hell they were doing in his quarters before being sent permanently to the palace infirmary.) But it was so…
The sliding door was practically soundless as Kurogane pushed it open, unsurprised to see the matching door leading to the gardens on the wall opposite open as well, a familiar form enjoying the night breeze, even as he moved about the floor, delicate hands fiddling with his past-shoulder-length blond hair. Fai.
It was Fai that was humming, distracted but tuneful, the melody occasionally stopping for breathless curses about awkward hair adornments that - apparently - didn’t seem to work for him, the mage with the mismatched eyes seemingly too caught up in his task to realise the more magical side to his tune - Fai hadn’t whistled for a reason, back when they’d been travelling between worlds. Sound had been one more way for the lithe man to summon up his magic, a different way to tap into the raw power that lay inside pale skin, glowing under the surface.
His yukata - dove-grey and loose-belted - was patterned with images of white birds and glittering flowers, Fai’s humming drawing the threads forth from the fabric to take real form in the air, birds and flower blossoms about the room and about the mage, tweeting and scenting the room with flora. In the midst of it all Fai kept trying to pin his hair up into a loose bun with some decorative hair pins, but strands kept escaping him, recalcitrant that night, and the style failed to gain any sort of hold.
Kurogane crept up behind him in his distraction and removed the pins, letting the golden mass come tumbling down around Fai’s face, a hopeless shimmer of cornsilk that was all too easy to thread fingers through, tilting a familiar, pliant mouth up and slightly to the side for a kiss.
The birds cheeped Fai’s surprise as the hairpins hit the floor, but the blond himself only sounded a pleased murmur at the back of his throat when he saw who it was beside him, content to lean back against Kurogane’s chest and deepen the kiss.
“Since when,” the ninja asked when they finally pulled apart for air, lips still brushing his lover’s as he spoke, “did you hum?”
Fai smiled, eyes still half-lidded and low, lifting his arms a little to Kurogane could wrap his own limb around the mage’s waist more comfortably. “Since I decided to practice, Kuro-sama.”
“You called these things up on purpose?” Kurogane looked rather balefully at the birds around the room, at the mess of blossoms and feathers on the floor.
“I was working on my control, seeing how much I could do at once.” Fai raised a hand, drawing a short string of symbols into the air in his sinuous script, the birds and blossoms filling the room suddenly dropping to the ground, flowing along the floor to reach Fai, threading themselves back into his clothing. “Sound-based magic has advantages over writing out my spells, Kuro-chan - it saves time and leaves my hands free for other things.” He turned around in Kurogane’s hold, wrapping his arms around the ninja’s neck comfortably. The last bird fluttering around the room finished stitching itself back in place on the blond’s yukata. “All tidied up~!”
Kurogane raised his own metal hand and placed it low on the other’s stomach, eyeing the yukata’s decoration about there rather critically. “…The pattern’s changed.”
Fai’s breath hitched slightly, an involuntary reaction, but he tugged his smile on once more even as he playfully whined, wagging one long finger in front of his lover’s nose. “Kuro-myu, I was prac~tic~ing. Daddy shouldn’t always be so harsh on poor mommy; we can’t all be perfect at things first try.”
Kurogane only looked at him. (Fai dropped the finger.) “…That was your first try.”
“Well, actually it was my fifth,” Fai amended, “but the point still stands~!” Kurogane snorted, and Fai pouted ridiculously. “Kuro-chan is mean to mock me so.” He tilted his head with his words, quite forgetting his hair was loose (rotten, hairpin-thieving Kuro-pon), gold sliding immediately into his vision and tickling his nose. He wrinkled the feature at the sensation - another haircut was probably in order - but Kurogane lifted the lock that was troubling him from his face, holding it to his lips.
There was a slight pause.
Fai reached up to touch the ninja’s cheek. “…Kuro-sama?” Red eyes looked to him and the mage saw something in them, a smile blooming across his face even as that same echoing warmth curled inside. “Kuro-sama,” he wrapped his arms around his companion’s shoulders again, burying his face in the front of Kurogane’s chest. (Why, out of all Nihon men, had he had to have gone and fallen for the one who was ridiculously tall?)
“…Idiot,” was the only response his lover gave him, but his voice was low and lacking in harshness, the tone contradicting the insult so that it was Fai’s turn to snort, muffled laughter shaking his more slender body as Kurogane draped his own limbs about the mage. (It was more…comfortable that way.)
Fai looked up at him, and his smile - his real smile - was lovely, coloured by the mirth in his voice. “Only Kuro-pyuu can make an insult sound like an endearment.”
“Idiot,” Kurogane repeated, this time with just a tad more meaning behind it. Fai only laughed again, and put his head back down, hair still streaming in gold waves down his back.
They stayed like that for a little while, enjoying the hold, the night breeze, and then they went to bed.
I want happiness
I seek happiness
To cause your happiness
To be your happiness
So take me to
A true Elsewhere...