fic: what remains (Rin/Archer, NC-17)
Title: What Remains
Author: sinemoras09
Characters: Rin/Shirou/Archer
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 4815
Summary: Love is an anchor. Rin/Shirou/Archer. Post UBW.
---
1.
"I killed fifty men today."
Rin looks up. He's standing in front of an open window, his body a dark silhouette against the moonlight. He looks and sounds like the Archer from her past: white hair and tan skin, but the difference is in his eyes.
"That many, huh?" Rin says, and Shirou's mouth twists. It is the strangest thing, Rin thinks, seeing Shirou's expressions on Archer's face. Even now, years after he's become a guardian, she still isn't used to it.
There is a thing Shirou likes when he is stressed: Rin discovered it when they were still students in London. They were studying for exams and Shirou was hunched over a desk, boring holes into a text book. Absently, Rin let her nails lightly scratch over the skin of his nape, leaning over him and alternating between soft touches of her fingertips and lightly scratching at the pale hairs of his scalp. She really wasn't thinking about anything at the time, just that stupid Shirou's hair was turning white and didn't she tell him not to use his projection magic so much, and it was only after a few moments of her worrying over his scalp that she noticed Shirou's shoulders had relaxed, and he was closing his eyes.
She touches him that way now, lightly scratching the back of his head, then rubbing the nape of his neck with the pads of her fingers. It works faster than any mage's spell, and she smiles a little as Shirou relaxes against her, leaning against her arm.
But it is only a moment's reprieve: dust swirls around where Shirou is standing, and Rin knows the world is summoning him again. Her grip around him tightens.
And then he vanishes, summoned to help mankind elsewhere. Rin rubs her arms, frowning at the open window.
*****
2.
"Nuclear Reactor to Detonate, in T-minus five minutes...
"Shirou, open the door!" Alarms are blaring and the reactor is about to melt. Rin bangs on the metal door, outside. "Shirou! Do you hear me?"
"It doesn't matter what becomes of me." She can hear Shirou talking to the World, can feel the surge of mana swirling around him. "As long as nobody else will cry..."
"Shirou, stop it!" Rin bangs on the door. "Shirou, don't--"
But it's too late. There's a flash of light and a surge of mana, and everything is suddenly over.
*****
"You idiot!" Rin says, a few hours later. "Don't you realize what you've done?"
They're sitting in the control room, Shirou sitting at the table while Rin paces around the room, agitated.
"Don't you know how it'll be, all alone with just a bunch of swords around you? Don't you know how much you'll suffer?" Tears prick her eyes, which she swipes back, angrily. "You're going to be all alone! Don't you even care?"
He stands. Quietly he stands behind Rin and wraps his arms around her waist, pressing his chin into her shoulder.
"Why are you hugging me?" Rin says. She tries to push him away but he just hugs her tighter. "Stupid Shirou! Don't you know I'm mad?"
"You know, you make me really happy," Shirou says.
"What?"
"You care about me," he says. She feels him smiling against her hair. "I think, if I can remember this...I think I'll be okay."
Rin rolls her eyes and huffs at him, angrily.
"You're too stupid to live, Emiya Shirou," Rin tells him, flatly.
"And I'm even stupider to keep following you."
*****
They travel along the ruins of the last war, Rin grunting and hefting a pack of dry rations and water, thinking to herself only an idiot would willingly travel through here. Crumbling fortresses and dusty courtyards, the ruins of ancient cities seem to cave in the middle, unable to support its own weight. Just a few short days ago, armies had come upon the region and laid waste to the shanty towns populating the riverbank. Another city, another conflict. Another reason for stupid Shirou to fight.
"You're too hot," Rin says. They're sleeping under a tent in the middle of a desert, and despite the heat Shirou keeps curling his body around hers. Normally she likes cuddling, but Shirou's skin is sticky and his breath on the back of her neck is irritatingly hot. "Shirou, move over a little. I can't sleep like this."
"Sorry," Shirou says. He scoots a few dutiful inches away from her, only to roll back and drape his arm around her waist.
"Ugh, Shirou--"
"Sorry, it's a habit."
"Just...try not to breathe on my neck, it's really uncomfortable."
His appearance changes. They're small things at first, how his hair slowly turns white and the lean comma of his body seems to lengthen and fill in, until one day he pulls off his shirt and Rin notices for the first time the muscled line of Shirou's shoulders, her magic crest stretching under the taut weight of his bicep.
She sucks on an ice cube, impressed. Shirou glances back at her, puzzled.
"What is it?" Shirou says.
"Nothing," Rin says, and she grins at him. "I was just enjoying the view."
"View?" Shirou says. He glances behind him. "Tohsaka. There's nothing but cockroaches and oil stains, here."
Rin smirks, then slowly sucks on her ice cube. She wraps her lips around it suggestively, grinning and licking the edge.
"Boy, you must really be hot," Shirou says. He moves to sit next to her, toweling off his hair. "You're enjoying that ice cube way too much."
"You really are an idiot, aren't you?" Rin says.
"Huh?"
She turns and lightly cups the cleft of his ass. Shirou jumps up, wide-eyed.
"Tohsaka!"
"What?" Rin says. "It's not like we haven't done this before."
*****
The armies move toward the east, and at nighttime a patrol sends out a flare.
It doesn't hit anything. There is a hiss, then an explosion, a shock of white light that sprays upward, dusting the dark silhouette of the city with a silver light. Rin watches as Shirou raises a rifle and holds it out toward a drifting shadow.
It is not the enemy. Rin watches as Shirou lowers his rifle and looks out at the throng of little children clamoring on the riverbank. Shirtless and laughing, they jump into the black waters of the river, heedless of the fighting and the conflict going on around them.
"You were supposed to kill them," the general tells him, and Rin watches as Shirou's hands clench into tight fists. "Why didn't you?"
"They were children," Shirou says.
The general backhands him across the face.
Rin startles. Shirou staggers, reaching an unsteady hand to the cut on his lip.
"We pay you good money, so do your job!" the general says.
That night, he sits crouched by the light of a filthy window. Dirty streaks of moonlight filters through the glass, and Rin sees how the shadows seem to fall over Shirou's eyes. She doesn't say anything, just stands beside him and leans his seated figure against her chest.
"Ne, Tohsaka?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you," Shirou says. His eyes slide upwards, meeting hers.
"It makes things easier, having you here."
*****
In the end, Rin is the only one who doesn't betray him.
"Shirou!"
Gems fly. Explosions of smoke and chaos, people rushing in all directions. Rin explodes past all of them, but it's too late.
His body drops like a sack of concrete. Rin watches, stomach sick and horrified, as his neck snaps with the force of his weight with the drop.
Already, the crowd has scattered, and Rin runs to the gallows and cuts down his body. The noose is tight, and it takes all her effort before she is able to slide two fingers between the noose and his neck. His face is purple and swollen and ligature marks make deep groves into the skin of his throat.
For all her gems and all her mana, nothing can bring him back. Slowly, she lowers his head back onto her lap, dully stroking the sides of his face, when she sees a small chain dangling from his left pocket; it's her old amulet. Silently Rin slips it into her coat pocket, covering its bright red stone and sparkling chain, before reaching out to cover his hand.
His skin is still warm. It's only then that she starts to cry.
*****
It takes a whole month for the preparations, but Rin knows she is ready. Quietly, she sets the amulet down at the center of the summoning circle, which glows dimly with ambient light. Even now, she can still feel their connection through her magic crest, and even though he exists elsewhere, she knows she can still reach him.
Outside, the mouth of the sky opens in a downpour. Drops of precipitation sizzle through the humid air, and the only light in the room comes from the throbbing street and the city beyond it.
It's raining when Shirou appears in front of her, his body a dark shape against the grayscale of the room. Lightning strikes, and for a flickering moment, the shape of his body is backlit with white light, before everything recedes back into darkness. She takes a breath, then steps forward.
"Welcome back," Rin says.
Shirou smiles.
****
3.
He appears in front of her at random: always brief, and always after something really terrible has happened. Sometimes he won't say anything, just sits next to her and leans his head against her shoulder. Some nights, he only appears for a few moments before he's summoned again.
It is their new normal. On the one hand, it is as if their relationship hasn't changed - Rin has moved back to London and Shirou ostensibly has moved back with her, although he vanishes for days at a time, only to come back to her room, tired and haggard, collapsing into her bed. She wonders sometimes if this was what Archer had meant when he told her to give him a shoulder to lean on.
"I killed a child today," Shirou says, his way of greeting her in the bedroom. Rin frowns at him a little, then shifts, pulling back the covers and letting him climb into the bed. The bed creaks a little with his weight and she feels him sigh against her neck. He tucks his face into the crook of her shoulder, the line of his body curled against hers like an arabesque. Quietly Rin runs her fingers through his scalp and rubs soothing circles against the back of his neck, waiting for him to speak. "His mother was sobbing," Shirou says. She feels him hug her tighter. "I had to cull her too."
"Well obviously there was a reason," Rin says. "The world's not gonna make you kill some innocent kid. He was probably going to turn out evil or something. Like a dictator or a murderer or--"
"--or a scientist who discovered something he shouldn't have."
"Or that," Rin says. Shirou sighs, miserably. She frowns at him and pets his hair.
Across the room, the clock ticks. She is half expecting Shirou to vanish again - his comings and goings are without any discernible pattern, the world could summon him at any moment - but tonight there doesn't seem to be any other dangers to be averted. The clock ticks and she can feel Shirou relaxing against her, his breathing growing slow and deep. She feels him about to drift off to sleep when she nudges him, gently.
"Ne, Shirou?"
"Hm?"
"Can guardians have sex?"
Rin watches with smug satisfaction as all the blood rushes up to Shirou's face and then somewhere decidedly more south, and Rin decides that yes, Shirou has definitely hottied up and it's practically a crime that she shouldn't get to tap that, especially since she's been playing Mother Theresa to his nightly angst for nearly a month. (She told herself it was out of respect for him - Shirou was obviously still adjusting to his role as a guardian, he had been hung by the neck and killed - he needed time to recuperate, Rin thought. He was lucky she didn't try to jump him that first night.)
"Are you sure?" Shirou says. His voice is low. "Rin?"
The way he says her name reminds her of Archer, but Rin pushes it out of her mind.
"If I'm going to listen to you complain every night, I might as well get something out of it too."
*****
The first time they had sex, Shirou was still human.
"Ow, ow, ow, OW!" Rin smacked Shirou on the chest and Shirou fumbled with his penis, pathetically. "Stupid Shirou! Why can't you get it in?"
"I don't want to hurt you," Shirou said. "And your mana keeps flaring and it's making me nervous!"
"It shouldn't be this hard!" Rin wailed, and Shirou's erection wilted pathetically. "Shirou!"
Now, years after the fact, Shirou slides up inside her with one smooth stroke, and Rin grins a little at the feel of him. She's missed this. And evidently Shirou has missed this too, because as soon as he's inside, he starts thrusting into her with a punishing rhythm, driving into her hard enough to rock the whole bed.
"Shirou?" Rin laughs at him, gasping. "Unh. Geez! It hasn't been that long!"
"Too long," he says. He wraps his arms around her. "A millenia."
"Wait--what?" Rin cranes her neck to look up at him. "Shirou, it's only been a month."
And Shirou looks at her. And for a moment it's like she's looking at Archer, and Rin freezes underneath him.
"You...you are Shirou, right?" Rin says.
"Of course I am," Archer says. Rin blinks.
"Because you sound a lot like Archer!"
The man inside of her looks confused.
"I'm not sleeping with Archer, right?" Rin says. "Right?"
Her legs are still hooked around his shoulders. He's still hard inside of her.
"I..." He hesitates. "I'm not sure who I am," he says.
"Huh?"
"I know I am Emiya Shirou," Shirou-Archer says, and Rin frowns at him, even as she rocks her pelvis a little where they're joined. "My memories are a little jumbled. But it has been a long time."
"You just died a month ago," Rin says, and he starts to roll off of her, much to Rin's annoyance. "Wait a second! No one said you had to stop!"
His eyes widen a moment before a huge blush cracks across his face. The confusion is definitely vintage Shirou, which pleases her. Rin gives him a smug look and wraps her legs around his waist, pointedly.
"Just do that thing you were doing before. And don't say anything, it's distracting."
"...Okay."
He's definitely Shirou, Rin thinks, and she sighs a little as he slides back inside her.
*****
The world is merciful, and somehow Shirou keeps from vanishing for an entire night.
He's asleep with his face tucked against her shoulderblades, spooning her the way he always did. It feels nice. Idly she marvels a little at how her sweet Shirou is actually the same twisted jerk as Archer, and she smiles a little, happy in the knowledge that she is a sort of touchstone for him. All he needed was someone to lean on, she thinks, before mentally kicking herself for thinking something so incredibly sappy.
Rin looks out across the bedroom. Silently she wonders what it must be like for him, alone in the void at the end of the world, with nothing but that tortured mental landscape around him.
As if he could hear her thoughts, Shirou sighs and shifts in his sleep. He feels warm and good and Rin sinks back into him, pressing close and closing her eyes.
*****
The next night he comes to her, he has sex with her four times.
"Are you okay?" His voice is low and breathless. He's already pushed up into her without any resistance, slick as she was from their previous activities. Rin bites her lip to keep from laughing at him, but he mistakes the look for one of discomfort. He pushes up on his forearms, searching her face. "Rin?"
Rin giggles. "I just--" and she rocks her hips upward. "Shirou, we never did it this much when--"
When you were alive, she almost says, but she stops herself, Shirou's watching her with a concerned expression on his face and Rin doesn't want to remind him.
"We never did it this much before."
He frames her face with his hands, stroking her cheek with the pad of his thumb. "Is it too much?" he asks. Rin smirks at him.
"I'm fine," Rin says.
"I'd be happy just to hold you," Shirou tells her, and he has such a serious look that Rin can't help but laugh. "Why are you laughing?" he asks, and she can tell she's hurt his feelings. She reaches a hand upward to lightly stroke his face.
"You're really cute, Emiya Shirou," Rin says. "Has anybody ever told you that?"
"You have," Shirou tells her. "Lots of times, actually."
"Really?" Rin's grin falters a little as she feels him gently begin to move. "I thought I just called you an idiot most of the time."
"That too," Shirou says, and he's got a rhythm going now, one that's hitting Rin at just the right spot, making her quiver and strain her pelvis up toward his.
"It's just funny, because you never had that much of a libido," Rin says. He hits the right spot and Rin's mouth pops open. "Oh."
"I just missed you," Shirou tells her, and it's that naked honesty that hits her. She thinks of the loneliness of that landscape, and she wraps her arms around his back, holding him tighter.
"Rin?"
"Hmm?"
She's basking in the afterglow, breathless and boneless beside him. She turns to look at him, but he looks suddenly shy.
"Will you say my name again?" he asks.
"You mean, 'Emiya Shirou'?"
"Yes."
"Okay," Rin says. She traces a line down the side of his face. "Emiya Shirou."
He sighs and closes his eyes, as if she had spoken magic words or wove a magic talisman.
"No one has called me that in a very long time."
There is a wistfulness in his voice that makes her heart ache. Tears prick her eyes, and she hugs him tighter.
"I could call you 'moron' or 'stupid' too, you know," Rin tells him. He smiles.
She settles back against him, nestling into a comfortable spot between his chin and chest, and idly she lets her fingers trace lazy circles on his skin.
"Time flows differently for you, doesn't it?" Rin says. "To me, you just died a month ago. But how long has it been for you?"
"I don't think I could tell you," Shirou says. "Days or years, everything has lost all meaning to me.
I've seen countless universes," Shirou says. "I've killed the same men multiple times. The future and past might as well be the same," Shirou says.
Her magic crest is still in his bicep. It pulses with a soft blue light, her mana giving him shape and form, much like it did with Archer during the Holy Grail War.
"Do you remember me implanting this?" Rin says. Shirou nods. "What else do you remember?"
"I remember you summoning me and being very offended I was not Saber."
"Saber?" Rin stares at him. Archer nods, remembering.
"Yes, I remember that quite clearly," Archer says, and Rin feels herself growing more and more red. "You botched the summoning and you made me clean up your living room.
Why are you hiding?" Archer says, because now Rin has covered her face in her hands and pulled the sheet around her breasts. "You can't tell me you're embarrassed after everything we just did?"
"I didn't think I was sleeping with Archer!" Rin wails, and she smacks him with a pillow. Archer frowns at her.
"You do realize we are the same person, correct?"
"Stupid Shirou!" Rin flops over and pulls the sheet over her head. "Don't look at me! I'm so embarrassed! Stay over there! And put a shirt on, stupid Shirou! Dammit! Dammit!"
He smirks at her and she throws another pillow at his head.
The cognitive dissonance takes some getting used to.
*****
4.
She watches him in the shower. His neck is bent as he stands under the hot spray of the shower head, bending his head forward and letting the water run down the muscles of his back. His eyes are closed. Water runs down the length of his body as wet strands of white hair sticks to his skin.
She quickly turns and forces her eyes back at the mirror, concentrating on brushing her teeth and pretending she wasn't staring at him. There's the sound of the faucets turning. The water stops; she hears him step out of the shower.
"Enjoy the view?" Archer says. He wraps a towel around his waist and smirks at her, pointedly.
Rin sputters and chokes on her toothbrush.
*****
It is the strangest thing, Rin thinks. Watching Archer wear Shirou's old clothes.
Strike that. They are Archer's old clothes, by definition, nevermind the fact that Shirou's clothes seem a bit too tight around the arms and shoulders.
"Can you at least comb your hair down?" Rin says. She's feeling peevish, crossing her arms and blushing, brightly.
"Why? I happen to like my hair this way," Archer says.
"You look too much like Archer and it's giving me a panic attack!" Rin says. Archer frowns at her.
"What are you saying? Of course I'm Archer. I can't help that I look this way."
"Ugh," Rin says, and she covers her face in her hands. "I just remember how much older you were than me and it's really really weird."
"You are a grown woman," Archer reminds her. "We are the same age."
"You're like, two hundred years-old. And eww, don't tell me you were thinking of me like that back then, because seriously, that's just really gross."
"And if I told you I did?"
Rin's head jerks up. "You didn't."
"Well. I'm not entirely sure if the memory was from my younger self or not," Archer taps the side of his head, for emphasis, before adding, "Although I am fairly certain you found me attractive back then, as well.
Do not deny it," Archer says. "You always did like to dress me up in overcoats and style my hair--"
"Shut up!" Rin says, and she pulls a couch cushion over her head. She's busy burning a hole into the couch to notice him sitting next to her. She feels him tap her gently on the shoulder.
Rin looks up, suspiciously. He smiles at her apologetically, then runs his hand messily through his hair.
"Better?" he says, and he looks more like Shirou again. Rin blushes and doesn't look at him, wrapping her arms around his waist.
"You're such a jerk, you know that?" Rin says.
"So I've been told," Archer says. She punches him on the side of his shoulder.
*****
"Ne, Archer?"
"Hmm?"
"Is it alright if I kiss you?"
"You don't have to ask."
"I know, but it feels weird not to."
His lips are soft. She feels her face flushing warmly, because she's kissing Archer and the thought of it makes her giddy. Their bodies touch. She feels him touch her cheek.
"Archer--"
"That's not my name."
"Shirou."
"Yes?"
"...Can I touch you?"
She feels him nod. Hesitantly, she brings her hands up and lays them flat against Archer's chest. She shouldn't feel so embarrassed - he and Shirou were the same person - but even so her cheeks are heated and she can bring herself to look at him.
"Knowing my luck, you'll be summoned soon," Rin says, and she concentrates on the buttons.
She doesn't remember Shirou being as well-muscled. She pulls off the shirt and takes a minute to gawk at Archer's bare chest. His skin is darker than she remembers, and the lines of his chest and abdomen are well-marked. Blushing, she closes her eyes and lightly rubs her mouth over his nipple; he exhales, softly. She feels even more aroused.
She undoes the top button of his pants. She moves deliberately, taking the time to unzip him and run her hand along his hardness. He's so hard the head of his erection is peeking out from his waistband, and Rin blushes, despite herself. It's not as if she hasn't seen this before! Except that it kind of is and even though she's slept with him countless times and actually just slept with him last night, she's never really slept with Archer, and the whole paradox of it starts to make her head spin.
Wow, Rin thinks. Even his penis is thicker than she remembers.
She moves upward to kiss him again. Her fingers dig into the hard muscle of his back as she kisses him open-mouthed, running her tongue along the muscled ridge of his neck and the deep triangle of his collarbone. Her hand slides down the waistband of his pants, the pad of her thumb swirling the tip of his erection. The skin is soft, velvety, almost, and when he groans a little Rin feels herself blushing furiously.
"Ne, Shirou?"
"Hm?"
"Did you know I used to fantasize about this? I mean, being with you the way you are now?"
"You mean as opposed to a snot-nosed brat who didn't know his ass from the back of his head? Yes, I can understand that."
"But you were sweet back then! I mean, in your own way..."
"Hmph. Well the sex is a lot better with me now, isn't it?"
"Shut up!" Rin says, and she hits him again. He grins at her and rolls her on her back, pushing up inside her.
*****
5.
Sometimes, Shirou disappears for weeks at a time.
Every time he comes back, he looks more worn down, more like Archer than the last. Innocents die. Sometimes the things he does are so bad he doesn't say anything, just steps into Rin's room and holds her, tight.
And then a few moments will pass, and the tension in Archer's body dissipates, until the man that is holding her is Shirou again.
The crest on his bicep pulses softly. Rin doesn't say anything, just covers its shape with the palm of her hand.
*****
"Ne, Shirou?"
"Hm?"
Rin shifts, leaning on his chest to look at him. His hair falls in messy white tangles across his forehead, and patches of skin show telltale signs of scars. "What's it like? Being a guardian, I mean. Are you still stuck in that landscape?"
"For the most part," Shirou says. Gently she frames his face in her hands, tracing a line down his cheek, absently. "Now I am lucky enough to have the benefit of your company."
"Are you happy?" Rin asks. Shirou looks up at her, quietly.
"Are you?" Shirou asks. Rin frowns at him.
"Of course I am! What kind of question is that?" Rin says, and Shirou sits up, turning to look at her.
"What I'm doing is selfish," Shirou says. He touches the crest on his bicep, quietly. "Before you could live your life. Find someone else. Have children. A family. But now..."
"Now I get to listen to an idiot whine all day, is that it?" Rin stretches and drapes her body across his. "Stupid Shirou. I'm not doing this because it's the right thing to do, I'm doing this because you make me happy. Not everyone has a stupid martyr complex," Rin says. She softens a little.
"Ne, Shirou? You can still be happy, right?"
She feels him nod and shift her closer, kissing the top of her brow.
*****
She watches him sleep. It's raining outside, and streaks of watery moonlight fall along down the line of his body. She thinks of Caster and Assassin and how that servant's soul was tethered there, and it occurs to her that it's no different for guardians.
Destroy the gate, set free the servant. Rin can't destroy the World, but she can definitely cause fractures in the ley lines keeping him there.
It will be her life's work to set him free. Rin knows this. She can do anything she wants when she puts her mind to it.
She has no doubt that she'll succeed.
Author: sinemoras09
Characters: Rin/Shirou/Archer
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 4815
Summary: Love is an anchor. Rin/Shirou/Archer. Post UBW.
---
1.
"I killed fifty men today."
Rin looks up. He's standing in front of an open window, his body a dark silhouette against the moonlight. He looks and sounds like the Archer from her past: white hair and tan skin, but the difference is in his eyes.
"That many, huh?" Rin says, and Shirou's mouth twists. It is the strangest thing, Rin thinks, seeing Shirou's expressions on Archer's face. Even now, years after he's become a guardian, she still isn't used to it.
There is a thing Shirou likes when he is stressed: Rin discovered it when they were still students in London. They were studying for exams and Shirou was hunched over a desk, boring holes into a text book. Absently, Rin let her nails lightly scratch over the skin of his nape, leaning over him and alternating between soft touches of her fingertips and lightly scratching at the pale hairs of his scalp. She really wasn't thinking about anything at the time, just that stupid Shirou's hair was turning white and didn't she tell him not to use his projection magic so much, and it was only after a few moments of her worrying over his scalp that she noticed Shirou's shoulders had relaxed, and he was closing his eyes.
She touches him that way now, lightly scratching the back of his head, then rubbing the nape of his neck with the pads of her fingers. It works faster than any mage's spell, and she smiles a little as Shirou relaxes against her, leaning against her arm.
But it is only a moment's reprieve: dust swirls around where Shirou is standing, and Rin knows the world is summoning him again. Her grip around him tightens.
And then he vanishes, summoned to help mankind elsewhere. Rin rubs her arms, frowning at the open window.
*****
2.
"Nuclear Reactor to Detonate, in T-minus five minutes...
"Shirou, open the door!" Alarms are blaring and the reactor is about to melt. Rin bangs on the metal door, outside. "Shirou! Do you hear me?"
"It doesn't matter what becomes of me." She can hear Shirou talking to the World, can feel the surge of mana swirling around him. "As long as nobody else will cry..."
"Shirou, stop it!" Rin bangs on the door. "Shirou, don't--"
But it's too late. There's a flash of light and a surge of mana, and everything is suddenly over.
*****
"You idiot!" Rin says, a few hours later. "Don't you realize what you've done?"
They're sitting in the control room, Shirou sitting at the table while Rin paces around the room, agitated.
"Don't you know how it'll be, all alone with just a bunch of swords around you? Don't you know how much you'll suffer?" Tears prick her eyes, which she swipes back, angrily. "You're going to be all alone! Don't you even care?"
He stands. Quietly he stands behind Rin and wraps his arms around her waist, pressing his chin into her shoulder.
"Why are you hugging me?" Rin says. She tries to push him away but he just hugs her tighter. "Stupid Shirou! Don't you know I'm mad?"
"You know, you make me really happy," Shirou says.
"What?"
"You care about me," he says. She feels him smiling against her hair. "I think, if I can remember this...I think I'll be okay."
Rin rolls her eyes and huffs at him, angrily.
"You're too stupid to live, Emiya Shirou," Rin tells him, flatly.
"And I'm even stupider to keep following you."
*****
They travel along the ruins of the last war, Rin grunting and hefting a pack of dry rations and water, thinking to herself only an idiot would willingly travel through here. Crumbling fortresses and dusty courtyards, the ruins of ancient cities seem to cave in the middle, unable to support its own weight. Just a few short days ago, armies had come upon the region and laid waste to the shanty towns populating the riverbank. Another city, another conflict. Another reason for stupid Shirou to fight.
"You're too hot," Rin says. They're sleeping under a tent in the middle of a desert, and despite the heat Shirou keeps curling his body around hers. Normally she likes cuddling, but Shirou's skin is sticky and his breath on the back of her neck is irritatingly hot. "Shirou, move over a little. I can't sleep like this."
"Sorry," Shirou says. He scoots a few dutiful inches away from her, only to roll back and drape his arm around her waist.
"Ugh, Shirou--"
"Sorry, it's a habit."
"Just...try not to breathe on my neck, it's really uncomfortable."
His appearance changes. They're small things at first, how his hair slowly turns white and the lean comma of his body seems to lengthen and fill in, until one day he pulls off his shirt and Rin notices for the first time the muscled line of Shirou's shoulders, her magic crest stretching under the taut weight of his bicep.
She sucks on an ice cube, impressed. Shirou glances back at her, puzzled.
"What is it?" Shirou says.
"Nothing," Rin says, and she grins at him. "I was just enjoying the view."
"View?" Shirou says. He glances behind him. "Tohsaka. There's nothing but cockroaches and oil stains, here."
Rin smirks, then slowly sucks on her ice cube. She wraps her lips around it suggestively, grinning and licking the edge.
"Boy, you must really be hot," Shirou says. He moves to sit next to her, toweling off his hair. "You're enjoying that ice cube way too much."
"You really are an idiot, aren't you?" Rin says.
"Huh?"
She turns and lightly cups the cleft of his ass. Shirou jumps up, wide-eyed.
"Tohsaka!"
"What?" Rin says. "It's not like we haven't done this before."
*****
The armies move toward the east, and at nighttime a patrol sends out a flare.
It doesn't hit anything. There is a hiss, then an explosion, a shock of white light that sprays upward, dusting the dark silhouette of the city with a silver light. Rin watches as Shirou raises a rifle and holds it out toward a drifting shadow.
It is not the enemy. Rin watches as Shirou lowers his rifle and looks out at the throng of little children clamoring on the riverbank. Shirtless and laughing, they jump into the black waters of the river, heedless of the fighting and the conflict going on around them.
"You were supposed to kill them," the general tells him, and Rin watches as Shirou's hands clench into tight fists. "Why didn't you?"
"They were children," Shirou says.
The general backhands him across the face.
Rin startles. Shirou staggers, reaching an unsteady hand to the cut on his lip.
"We pay you good money, so do your job!" the general says.
That night, he sits crouched by the light of a filthy window. Dirty streaks of moonlight filters through the glass, and Rin sees how the shadows seem to fall over Shirou's eyes. She doesn't say anything, just stands beside him and leans his seated figure against her chest.
"Ne, Tohsaka?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you," Shirou says. His eyes slide upwards, meeting hers.
"It makes things easier, having you here."
*****
In the end, Rin is the only one who doesn't betray him.
"Shirou!"
Gems fly. Explosions of smoke and chaos, people rushing in all directions. Rin explodes past all of them, but it's too late.
His body drops like a sack of concrete. Rin watches, stomach sick and horrified, as his neck snaps with the force of his weight with the drop.
Already, the crowd has scattered, and Rin runs to the gallows and cuts down his body. The noose is tight, and it takes all her effort before she is able to slide two fingers between the noose and his neck. His face is purple and swollen and ligature marks make deep groves into the skin of his throat.
For all her gems and all her mana, nothing can bring him back. Slowly, she lowers his head back onto her lap, dully stroking the sides of his face, when she sees a small chain dangling from his left pocket; it's her old amulet. Silently Rin slips it into her coat pocket, covering its bright red stone and sparkling chain, before reaching out to cover his hand.
His skin is still warm. It's only then that she starts to cry.
*****
It takes a whole month for the preparations, but Rin knows she is ready. Quietly, she sets the amulet down at the center of the summoning circle, which glows dimly with ambient light. Even now, she can still feel their connection through her magic crest, and even though he exists elsewhere, she knows she can still reach him.
Outside, the mouth of the sky opens in a downpour. Drops of precipitation sizzle through the humid air, and the only light in the room comes from the throbbing street and the city beyond it.
It's raining when Shirou appears in front of her, his body a dark shape against the grayscale of the room. Lightning strikes, and for a flickering moment, the shape of his body is backlit with white light, before everything recedes back into darkness. She takes a breath, then steps forward.
"Welcome back," Rin says.
Shirou smiles.
****
3.
He appears in front of her at random: always brief, and always after something really terrible has happened. Sometimes he won't say anything, just sits next to her and leans his head against her shoulder. Some nights, he only appears for a few moments before he's summoned again.
It is their new normal. On the one hand, it is as if their relationship hasn't changed - Rin has moved back to London and Shirou ostensibly has moved back with her, although he vanishes for days at a time, only to come back to her room, tired and haggard, collapsing into her bed. She wonders sometimes if this was what Archer had meant when he told her to give him a shoulder to lean on.
"I killed a child today," Shirou says, his way of greeting her in the bedroom. Rin frowns at him a little, then shifts, pulling back the covers and letting him climb into the bed. The bed creaks a little with his weight and she feels him sigh against her neck. He tucks his face into the crook of her shoulder, the line of his body curled against hers like an arabesque. Quietly Rin runs her fingers through his scalp and rubs soothing circles against the back of his neck, waiting for him to speak. "His mother was sobbing," Shirou says. She feels him hug her tighter. "I had to cull her too."
"Well obviously there was a reason," Rin says. "The world's not gonna make you kill some innocent kid. He was probably going to turn out evil or something. Like a dictator or a murderer or--"
"--or a scientist who discovered something he shouldn't have."
"Or that," Rin says. Shirou sighs, miserably. She frowns at him and pets his hair.
Across the room, the clock ticks. She is half expecting Shirou to vanish again - his comings and goings are without any discernible pattern, the world could summon him at any moment - but tonight there doesn't seem to be any other dangers to be averted. The clock ticks and she can feel Shirou relaxing against her, his breathing growing slow and deep. She feels him about to drift off to sleep when she nudges him, gently.
"Ne, Shirou?"
"Hm?"
"Can guardians have sex?"
Rin watches with smug satisfaction as all the blood rushes up to Shirou's face and then somewhere decidedly more south, and Rin decides that yes, Shirou has definitely hottied up and it's practically a crime that she shouldn't get to tap that, especially since she's been playing Mother Theresa to his nightly angst for nearly a month. (She told herself it was out of respect for him - Shirou was obviously still adjusting to his role as a guardian, he had been hung by the neck and killed - he needed time to recuperate, Rin thought. He was lucky she didn't try to jump him that first night.)
"Are you sure?" Shirou says. His voice is low. "Rin?"
The way he says her name reminds her of Archer, but Rin pushes it out of her mind.
"If I'm going to listen to you complain every night, I might as well get something out of it too."
*****
The first time they had sex, Shirou was still human.
"Ow, ow, ow, OW!" Rin smacked Shirou on the chest and Shirou fumbled with his penis, pathetically. "Stupid Shirou! Why can't you get it in?"
"I don't want to hurt you," Shirou said. "And your mana keeps flaring and it's making me nervous!"
"It shouldn't be this hard!" Rin wailed, and Shirou's erection wilted pathetically. "Shirou!"
Now, years after the fact, Shirou slides up inside her with one smooth stroke, and Rin grins a little at the feel of him. She's missed this. And evidently Shirou has missed this too, because as soon as he's inside, he starts thrusting into her with a punishing rhythm, driving into her hard enough to rock the whole bed.
"Shirou?" Rin laughs at him, gasping. "Unh. Geez! It hasn't been that long!"
"Too long," he says. He wraps his arms around her. "A millenia."
"Wait--what?" Rin cranes her neck to look up at him. "Shirou, it's only been a month."
And Shirou looks at her. And for a moment it's like she's looking at Archer, and Rin freezes underneath him.
"You...you are Shirou, right?" Rin says.
"Of course I am," Archer says. Rin blinks.
"Because you sound a lot like Archer!"
The man inside of her looks confused.
"I'm not sleeping with Archer, right?" Rin says. "Right?"
Her legs are still hooked around his shoulders. He's still hard inside of her.
"I..." He hesitates. "I'm not sure who I am," he says.
"Huh?"
"I know I am Emiya Shirou," Shirou-Archer says, and Rin frowns at him, even as she rocks her pelvis a little where they're joined. "My memories are a little jumbled. But it has been a long time."
"You just died a month ago," Rin says, and he starts to roll off of her, much to Rin's annoyance. "Wait a second! No one said you had to stop!"
His eyes widen a moment before a huge blush cracks across his face. The confusion is definitely vintage Shirou, which pleases her. Rin gives him a smug look and wraps her legs around his waist, pointedly.
"Just do that thing you were doing before. And don't say anything, it's distracting."
"...Okay."
He's definitely Shirou, Rin thinks, and she sighs a little as he slides back inside her.
*****
The world is merciful, and somehow Shirou keeps from vanishing for an entire night.
He's asleep with his face tucked against her shoulderblades, spooning her the way he always did. It feels nice. Idly she marvels a little at how her sweet Shirou is actually the same twisted jerk as Archer, and she smiles a little, happy in the knowledge that she is a sort of touchstone for him. All he needed was someone to lean on, she thinks, before mentally kicking herself for thinking something so incredibly sappy.
Rin looks out across the bedroom. Silently she wonders what it must be like for him, alone in the void at the end of the world, with nothing but that tortured mental landscape around him.
As if he could hear her thoughts, Shirou sighs and shifts in his sleep. He feels warm and good and Rin sinks back into him, pressing close and closing her eyes.
*****
The next night he comes to her, he has sex with her four times.
"Are you okay?" His voice is low and breathless. He's already pushed up into her without any resistance, slick as she was from their previous activities. Rin bites her lip to keep from laughing at him, but he mistakes the look for one of discomfort. He pushes up on his forearms, searching her face. "Rin?"
Rin giggles. "I just--" and she rocks her hips upward. "Shirou, we never did it this much when--"
When you were alive, she almost says, but she stops herself, Shirou's watching her with a concerned expression on his face and Rin doesn't want to remind him.
"We never did it this much before."
He frames her face with his hands, stroking her cheek with the pad of his thumb. "Is it too much?" he asks. Rin smirks at him.
"I'm fine," Rin says.
"I'd be happy just to hold you," Shirou tells her, and he has such a serious look that Rin can't help but laugh. "Why are you laughing?" he asks, and she can tell she's hurt his feelings. She reaches a hand upward to lightly stroke his face.
"You're really cute, Emiya Shirou," Rin says. "Has anybody ever told you that?"
"You have," Shirou tells her. "Lots of times, actually."
"Really?" Rin's grin falters a little as she feels him gently begin to move. "I thought I just called you an idiot most of the time."
"That too," Shirou says, and he's got a rhythm going now, one that's hitting Rin at just the right spot, making her quiver and strain her pelvis up toward his.
"It's just funny, because you never had that much of a libido," Rin says. He hits the right spot and Rin's mouth pops open. "Oh."
"I just missed you," Shirou tells her, and it's that naked honesty that hits her. She thinks of the loneliness of that landscape, and she wraps her arms around his back, holding him tighter.
"Rin?"
"Hmm?"
She's basking in the afterglow, breathless and boneless beside him. She turns to look at him, but he looks suddenly shy.
"Will you say my name again?" he asks.
"You mean, 'Emiya Shirou'?"
"Yes."
"Okay," Rin says. She traces a line down the side of his face. "Emiya Shirou."
He sighs and closes his eyes, as if she had spoken magic words or wove a magic talisman.
"No one has called me that in a very long time."
There is a wistfulness in his voice that makes her heart ache. Tears prick her eyes, and she hugs him tighter.
"I could call you 'moron' or 'stupid' too, you know," Rin tells him. He smiles.
She settles back against him, nestling into a comfortable spot between his chin and chest, and idly she lets her fingers trace lazy circles on his skin.
"Time flows differently for you, doesn't it?" Rin says. "To me, you just died a month ago. But how long has it been for you?"
"I don't think I could tell you," Shirou says. "Days or years, everything has lost all meaning to me.
I've seen countless universes," Shirou says. "I've killed the same men multiple times. The future and past might as well be the same," Shirou says.
Her magic crest is still in his bicep. It pulses with a soft blue light, her mana giving him shape and form, much like it did with Archer during the Holy Grail War.
"Do you remember me implanting this?" Rin says. Shirou nods. "What else do you remember?"
"I remember you summoning me and being very offended I was not Saber."
"Saber?" Rin stares at him. Archer nods, remembering.
"Yes, I remember that quite clearly," Archer says, and Rin feels herself growing more and more red. "You botched the summoning and you made me clean up your living room.
Why are you hiding?" Archer says, because now Rin has covered her face in her hands and pulled the sheet around her breasts. "You can't tell me you're embarrassed after everything we just did?"
"I didn't think I was sleeping with Archer!" Rin wails, and she smacks him with a pillow. Archer frowns at her.
"You do realize we are the same person, correct?"
"Stupid Shirou!" Rin flops over and pulls the sheet over her head. "Don't look at me! I'm so embarrassed! Stay over there! And put a shirt on, stupid Shirou! Dammit! Dammit!"
He smirks at her and she throws another pillow at his head.
The cognitive dissonance takes some getting used to.
*****
4.
She watches him in the shower. His neck is bent as he stands under the hot spray of the shower head, bending his head forward and letting the water run down the muscles of his back. His eyes are closed. Water runs down the length of his body as wet strands of white hair sticks to his skin.
She quickly turns and forces her eyes back at the mirror, concentrating on brushing her teeth and pretending she wasn't staring at him. There's the sound of the faucets turning. The water stops; she hears him step out of the shower.
"Enjoy the view?" Archer says. He wraps a towel around his waist and smirks at her, pointedly.
Rin sputters and chokes on her toothbrush.
*****
It is the strangest thing, Rin thinks. Watching Archer wear Shirou's old clothes.
Strike that. They are Archer's old clothes, by definition, nevermind the fact that Shirou's clothes seem a bit too tight around the arms and shoulders.
"Can you at least comb your hair down?" Rin says. She's feeling peevish, crossing her arms and blushing, brightly.
"Why? I happen to like my hair this way," Archer says.
"You look too much like Archer and it's giving me a panic attack!" Rin says. Archer frowns at her.
"What are you saying? Of course I'm Archer. I can't help that I look this way."
"Ugh," Rin says, and she covers her face in her hands. "I just remember how much older you were than me and it's really really weird."
"You are a grown woman," Archer reminds her. "We are the same age."
"You're like, two hundred years-old. And eww, don't tell me you were thinking of me like that back then, because seriously, that's just really gross."
"And if I told you I did?"
Rin's head jerks up. "You didn't."
"Well. I'm not entirely sure if the memory was from my younger self or not," Archer taps the side of his head, for emphasis, before adding, "Although I am fairly certain you found me attractive back then, as well.
Do not deny it," Archer says. "You always did like to dress me up in overcoats and style my hair--"
"Shut up!" Rin says, and she pulls a couch cushion over her head. She's busy burning a hole into the couch to notice him sitting next to her. She feels him tap her gently on the shoulder.
Rin looks up, suspiciously. He smiles at her apologetically, then runs his hand messily through his hair.
"Better?" he says, and he looks more like Shirou again. Rin blushes and doesn't look at him, wrapping her arms around his waist.
"You're such a jerk, you know that?" Rin says.
"So I've been told," Archer says. She punches him on the side of his shoulder.
*****
"Ne, Archer?"
"Hmm?"
"Is it alright if I kiss you?"
"You don't have to ask."
"I know, but it feels weird not to."
His lips are soft. She feels her face flushing warmly, because she's kissing Archer and the thought of it makes her giddy. Their bodies touch. She feels him touch her cheek.
"Archer--"
"That's not my name."
"Shirou."
"Yes?"
"...Can I touch you?"
She feels him nod. Hesitantly, she brings her hands up and lays them flat against Archer's chest. She shouldn't feel so embarrassed - he and Shirou were the same person - but even so her cheeks are heated and she can bring herself to look at him.
"Knowing my luck, you'll be summoned soon," Rin says, and she concentrates on the buttons.
She doesn't remember Shirou being as well-muscled. She pulls off the shirt and takes a minute to gawk at Archer's bare chest. His skin is darker than she remembers, and the lines of his chest and abdomen are well-marked. Blushing, she closes her eyes and lightly rubs her mouth over his nipple; he exhales, softly. She feels even more aroused.
She undoes the top button of his pants. She moves deliberately, taking the time to unzip him and run her hand along his hardness. He's so hard the head of his erection is peeking out from his waistband, and Rin blushes, despite herself. It's not as if she hasn't seen this before! Except that it kind of is and even though she's slept with him countless times and actually just slept with him last night, she's never really slept with Archer, and the whole paradox of it starts to make her head spin.
Wow, Rin thinks. Even his penis is thicker than she remembers.
She moves upward to kiss him again. Her fingers dig into the hard muscle of his back as she kisses him open-mouthed, running her tongue along the muscled ridge of his neck and the deep triangle of his collarbone. Her hand slides down the waistband of his pants, the pad of her thumb swirling the tip of his erection. The skin is soft, velvety, almost, and when he groans a little Rin feels herself blushing furiously.
"Ne, Shirou?"
"Hm?"
"Did you know I used to fantasize about this? I mean, being with you the way you are now?"
"You mean as opposed to a snot-nosed brat who didn't know his ass from the back of his head? Yes, I can understand that."
"But you were sweet back then! I mean, in your own way..."
"Hmph. Well the sex is a lot better with me now, isn't it?"
"Shut up!" Rin says, and she hits him again. He grins at her and rolls her on her back, pushing up inside her.
*****
5.
Sometimes, Shirou disappears for weeks at a time.
Every time he comes back, he looks more worn down, more like Archer than the last. Innocents die. Sometimes the things he does are so bad he doesn't say anything, just steps into Rin's room and holds her, tight.
And then a few moments will pass, and the tension in Archer's body dissipates, until the man that is holding her is Shirou again.
The crest on his bicep pulses softly. Rin doesn't say anything, just covers its shape with the palm of her hand.
*****
"Ne, Shirou?"
"Hm?"
Rin shifts, leaning on his chest to look at him. His hair falls in messy white tangles across his forehead, and patches of skin show telltale signs of scars. "What's it like? Being a guardian, I mean. Are you still stuck in that landscape?"
"For the most part," Shirou says. Gently she frames his face in her hands, tracing a line down his cheek, absently. "Now I am lucky enough to have the benefit of your company."
"Are you happy?" Rin asks. Shirou looks up at her, quietly.
"Are you?" Shirou asks. Rin frowns at him.
"Of course I am! What kind of question is that?" Rin says, and Shirou sits up, turning to look at her.
"What I'm doing is selfish," Shirou says. He touches the crest on his bicep, quietly. "Before you could live your life. Find someone else. Have children. A family. But now..."
"Now I get to listen to an idiot whine all day, is that it?" Rin stretches and drapes her body across his. "Stupid Shirou. I'm not doing this because it's the right thing to do, I'm doing this because you make me happy. Not everyone has a stupid martyr complex," Rin says. She softens a little.
"Ne, Shirou? You can still be happy, right?"
She feels him nod and shift her closer, kissing the top of her brow.
*****
She watches him sleep. It's raining outside, and streaks of watery moonlight fall along down the line of his body. She thinks of Caster and Assassin and how that servant's soul was tethered there, and it occurs to her that it's no different for guardians.
Destroy the gate, set free the servant. Rin can't destroy the World, but she can definitely cause fractures in the ley lines keeping him there.
It will be her life's work to set him free. Rin knows this. She can do anything she wants when she puts her mind to it.
She has no doubt that she'll succeed.