gift fic-espo
Okay. So. I already apologized to Espo-po a zillion times, but here goes one more:
Ahhhh! I'm so sorry! [bowbowbow]
I started writing these before her birthday and December, so this is a couple months late. It's just been sitting there on my desktop looking pathetic, and I totally forgot to post it.
Title: Wishing
Fandom: Tsubasa
Character/Pairing: vague Subaru/Sakura (no, totally not kidding. Ask Espo about her shipping preferences XD), mentions of Seishirou.
Rating PG, for being depressing as hell.
A/N: Um...I'm sorry. Un-beta'd and generally sucky. I'm not used to writing this kind of thing. orz;
The thing about sleeping at that time was that it was hardly restful, and that the scariest thing about dreams was that they were anything but. They were the replies to questions she never asked, things she didn’t want to know and realities in their own sense, for the events that transpired in those dreams had never happened, but would. She could only watch, and there was no way to reach out and touch it until she woke. By then, it was nearly too late.
Dreamseeing, they had called it. Blindness would have been preferable.
Sakura had barely met the young man, nothing more than a few words exchanged through a hazy, half-consciousness. But when she had fallen, he’d reached out with both arms to catch her. The act was irreversible. It allowed her to see for him as well.
She walked along his path, slowly, because among other things it was longer than most roads and seemed to turn in circles more often than it went straight. It was dark, with uneven paving, things reaching out from the sides to tangle and trap and refuse to let her move forward. Even so, she reached the end of his future far more quickly that she expected, his last scenes playing out disjointedly like unedited film.
That man would smile, fondly, almost amorously threading long fingers through the boy’s raven hair. ‘He’s in love,’ she might have thought, if the beautiful boy in his arms wasn’t dying.
The boy would smile too, lips turning from pale to blue as his long life left him to make ruby puddles on the floor below. He would whisper, words not yet spoken and inaudible, but obviously the last secrets he had left to impart, and his sad green eyes would cloud with happiness. “Thank you. Thank you.” She didn’t hear the words, but she read his lips and couldn’t imagine that he could say anything else.
She did not know Sumeragi Subaru, but at that moment she wished more than anything else that his future would change.
---
She was unconscious, she assumed, or dead even, because she’d not woken up for what must have been days, but time in dreams was always warped beyond comprehension.
When she did wake up, her vision was blurred. She vaguely remembered that she’d injured her eye, her legs, probably everything else. It seemed like forever ago.
The figure leaned over her trying at the same time not to be imposing. She wished she could see him better. And he smiled, just slightly. “You’re awake. That’s good.”
“Who…?” Her voice sounded broken, like she’d been screaming. Sounds of glass clinking and rustling cloth burned in her ears, but stilled with his soft voice.
“Forgive me. My name is Subaru…your friends are having their wounds tended. They did not wish for you to be left alone.”
She felt a wet cloth dab her leg, gentle, yet firm enough to be purposeful. It came into her line of sight, distinctly red.
“Does the smell bother you?” she asked quietly.
The beautiful boy did not answer at first, his silence as careful as his fingers, as practiced. “No,” he replied, “It might have at one point, but not now.” He did not ask how she knew what he was. And she did not ask how he knew.
The pause between her next question was longer. “Do you still not like flowers?”
“Pardon?” The young man’s tone seemed confused at the would-be non sequitur. Kindly, she clarified.
“Sakura flowers.”
That question he seemed to have more trouble answering.
---
Sometimes he’d watch. It felt kind of like spying, but more so like peering into a mirror.
She is nearly omniscient now, he thought, she sees what is to come as soon as her eyes close. Yet this seemed to only present her with more questions, the ones, perhaps, that are harder to answer. Sometimes “why” doesn’t have an answer of just x and y, there are no roots, something just dangles precariously in existence because it is.
It was going to be a hard route for her.
“Sakura-san,” he interrupted softly, as though he’d only just come in.
He drew a breath, unneeded, but instinctual. “Sakura-san… you should remember that some things just…are. It is not your fault that he has no heart.”
She seemed to smile (it barely touched her eyes these days), not bitterly as he had many times, and placed a hand over his. It was not gloved, but she did not flinch away from his alien coldness.
“Subaru-san. I only request that you remember the same.”
---
“I’ve done something stupid…” she admitted, cheeks brightening.
He sat, a chair materializing where there hadn’t been one before. In this dim twilight of a world, Sakura seemed to glow like the subject of a romantic painting, white dress billowing over her skinny frame as though caught in a breeze from all directions. Technically speaking, this was impossible. But dreams did not need rationality to function, and these days it was only in dreams that they could speak.
And he listened. She told him of the future she’d seen and the exchange she’d made, and how it was a miracle that her plan had worked at all, as slim as the chance was, but the chance was all she had. Dying isn’t so bad, she’d explained slowly, but she’d hurt other people.
Subaru wouldn’t tell her that he wished she hadn’t. It was her Wish; no one could take that from her, tell her to dream otherwise, or fully understand it. That was a concept that he could respect, and chose to ask instead, “Do you still receive premonitions?”
Auburn hair shadowed her eyes when she nodded. “I don’t think we’ll meet again, Subaru-san.”
This was no guess. He couldn’t be disappointed that destiny would run its course. That nothing could be changed. But he was.
Soft pink petals spiraled in the dream space, sweeping gently; Subaru did not flinch away, no matter the sorrow attached. They seemed much more beautiful now. So beautiful he could cry.
“I…am so glad to have met you at all.”
---
She walked down his path one last time, knowing that the end of her own was drawing nearer by the hour. She walked the twists and turns, the brambles that caught, the trick trails she knew so well. Approaching the place she grew to fear, she’d hope to gain a glimpse of bottle-glass green one more time, even if someone else would be granting his Wish. But here she found no boy, nor a man, nothing but herself and a light dusting of pink cherry blossom petals over a new path that wound away into the horizon, beyond her line of sight.
Ahhhh! I'm so sorry! [bowbowbow]
I started writing these before her birthday and December, so this is a couple months late. It's just been sitting there on my desktop looking pathetic, and I totally forgot to post it.
Title: Wishing
Fandom: Tsubasa
Character/Pairing: vague Subaru/Sakura (no, totally not kidding. Ask Espo about her shipping preferences XD), mentions of Seishirou.
Rating PG, for being depressing as hell.
A/N: Um...I'm sorry. Un-beta'd and generally sucky. I'm not used to writing this kind of thing. orz;
The thing about sleeping at that time was that it was hardly restful, and that the scariest thing about dreams was that they were anything but. They were the replies to questions she never asked, things she didn’t want to know and realities in their own sense, for the events that transpired in those dreams had never happened, but would. She could only watch, and there was no way to reach out and touch it until she woke. By then, it was nearly too late.
Dreamseeing, they had called it. Blindness would have been preferable.
Sakura had barely met the young man, nothing more than a few words exchanged through a hazy, half-consciousness. But when she had fallen, he’d reached out with both arms to catch her. The act was irreversible. It allowed her to see for him as well.
She walked along his path, slowly, because among other things it was longer than most roads and seemed to turn in circles more often than it went straight. It was dark, with uneven paving, things reaching out from the sides to tangle and trap and refuse to let her move forward. Even so, she reached the end of his future far more quickly that she expected, his last scenes playing out disjointedly like unedited film.
That man would smile, fondly, almost amorously threading long fingers through the boy’s raven hair. ‘He’s in love,’ she might have thought, if the beautiful boy in his arms wasn’t dying.
The boy would smile too, lips turning from pale to blue as his long life left him to make ruby puddles on the floor below. He would whisper, words not yet spoken and inaudible, but obviously the last secrets he had left to impart, and his sad green eyes would cloud with happiness. “Thank you. Thank you.” She didn’t hear the words, but she read his lips and couldn’t imagine that he could say anything else.
She did not know Sumeragi Subaru, but at that moment she wished more than anything else that his future would change.
---
She was unconscious, she assumed, or dead even, because she’d not woken up for what must have been days, but time in dreams was always warped beyond comprehension.
When she did wake up, her vision was blurred. She vaguely remembered that she’d injured her eye, her legs, probably everything else. It seemed like forever ago.
The figure leaned over her trying at the same time not to be imposing. She wished she could see him better. And he smiled, just slightly. “You’re awake. That’s good.”
“Who…?” Her voice sounded broken, like she’d been screaming. Sounds of glass clinking and rustling cloth burned in her ears, but stilled with his soft voice.
“Forgive me. My name is Subaru…your friends are having their wounds tended. They did not wish for you to be left alone.”
She felt a wet cloth dab her leg, gentle, yet firm enough to be purposeful. It came into her line of sight, distinctly red.
“Does the smell bother you?” she asked quietly.
The beautiful boy did not answer at first, his silence as careful as his fingers, as practiced. “No,” he replied, “It might have at one point, but not now.” He did not ask how she knew what he was. And she did not ask how he knew.
The pause between her next question was longer. “Do you still not like flowers?”
“Pardon?” The young man’s tone seemed confused at the would-be non sequitur. Kindly, she clarified.
“Sakura flowers.”
That question he seemed to have more trouble answering.
---
Sometimes he’d watch. It felt kind of like spying, but more so like peering into a mirror.
She is nearly omniscient now, he thought, she sees what is to come as soon as her eyes close. Yet this seemed to only present her with more questions, the ones, perhaps, that are harder to answer. Sometimes “why” doesn’t have an answer of just x and y, there are no roots, something just dangles precariously in existence because it is.
It was going to be a hard route for her.
“Sakura-san,” he interrupted softly, as though he’d only just come in.
He drew a breath, unneeded, but instinctual. “Sakura-san… you should remember that some things just…are. It is not your fault that he has no heart.”
She seemed to smile (it barely touched her eyes these days), not bitterly as he had many times, and placed a hand over his. It was not gloved, but she did not flinch away from his alien coldness.
“Subaru-san. I only request that you remember the same.”
---
“I’ve done something stupid…” she admitted, cheeks brightening.
He sat, a chair materializing where there hadn’t been one before. In this dim twilight of a world, Sakura seemed to glow like the subject of a romantic painting, white dress billowing over her skinny frame as though caught in a breeze from all directions. Technically speaking, this was impossible. But dreams did not need rationality to function, and these days it was only in dreams that they could speak.
And he listened. She told him of the future she’d seen and the exchange she’d made, and how it was a miracle that her plan had worked at all, as slim as the chance was, but the chance was all she had. Dying isn’t so bad, she’d explained slowly, but she’d hurt other people.
Subaru wouldn’t tell her that he wished she hadn’t. It was her Wish; no one could take that from her, tell her to dream otherwise, or fully understand it. That was a concept that he could respect, and chose to ask instead, “Do you still receive premonitions?”
Auburn hair shadowed her eyes when she nodded. “I don’t think we’ll meet again, Subaru-san.”
This was no guess. He couldn’t be disappointed that destiny would run its course. That nothing could be changed. But he was.
Soft pink petals spiraled in the dream space, sweeping gently; Subaru did not flinch away, no matter the sorrow attached. They seemed much more beautiful now. So beautiful he could cry.
“I…am so glad to have met you at all.”
---
She walked down his path one last time, knowing that the end of her own was drawing nearer by the hour. She walked the twists and turns, the brambles that caught, the trick trails she knew so well. Approaching the place she grew to fear, she’d hope to gain a glimpse of bottle-glass green one more time, even if someone else would be granting his Wish. But here she found no boy, nor a man, nothing but herself and a light dusting of pink cherry blossom petals over a new path that wound away into the horizon, beyond her line of sight.