So We Keep Hanging On (X/1999, Kusanagi/Yuzuriha)
Title: So We Keep Hanging On
Author: reversedhymnal
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Uh, all standard CLAMP warnings apply? 8D;
Word count: 2,055
Summary: There are reasons why the world should not end.
A/N: X, Kusanagi/Yuzuriha: author's choice - light Also. They’re so cute, :<
It was the end of everything, or almost. They stood together with the world breaking around them, mouths jagged, faces pale beneath the red of blood. Kusanagi frowned, thinking that the sound of their reality being rent should be louder, echo the way his heart did as it shattered, vicious like weeping.
Very clearly, Yuzuriha said, “I can’t let you do this.”
Kusanagi looked into her young face, traced his eyesight along her clenched jaw, the sharp angle of her eyebrows, the shine in her dry eyes. He curled his fingers into fists, and his shoulders had never felt so heavy, and no matter how wide or strong they would never be enough for all the guilt he would carry.
“This is the last hope for our world,” he tried gently to tell her.
The gentleness was lost on her. Mercilessly, hand tight around the sword she kept pointed away from him, she said: “I think that Inuki was glad to know me, as glad as I was to know Inuki. And I think Inuki was glad to know you. He would be ashamed, that you would be willing to make a world where he could never have met us.”
Kusanagi winced, and if it was an easier time he would have rubbed the back of his neck, in search of something to say. Life was sacred, he knew, and the world cried out to him, and he cared for people, and life was hard. There was nothing to say, save this: “It’s my destiny. I’m sorry.”
She slapped him.
“If you have to apologize for it, then you’re doing something wrong!” Kusanagi worked his jaw; ruefully, he thought, How can that sting so badly in the midst of all my other wounds? He looked back down at Yuzuriha, and felt his heart tremble.
“I hope,” he said, “for a better future-“
“How can there be hope,” Yuzuriha’s voice was strained and hurting as she pressed her fingertips against Kusanagi’s blood soaked shirt. She swallowed, and Kusanagi leaned into her without meaning to; her eyes were still dry, and she whispered, fiercely, “when there is no humanity?”
The world was still beneath their feet. Kusanagi couldn’t hear what his heart was saying; it was beating too loudly, and it felt like something bright and startling was strangling it. He looked down at Yuzuriha, brought his hand up and swept his thumb along a grim cut across her cheek. He let out a long sigh; “If there are two destinies,” he murmured, “then there’s a choice.”
Yuzuriha said, “There is always a choice.”
“Always,” Kusanagi repeated. Then he smiled, and leaned down towards her, she who had cried so for her dog, who loved to go hiking and have picnics beneath the sun; who cared so much, almost enough for an entire world. “Maybe I’m just not ready,” he whispered against her lips, “to stop the sound of your bright laughter.”
But he did stop it, because once she started, he realized he couldn’t bear to not be kissing her.
*
Kusanagi’s apartment is not in one piece, but gas isn’t leaking, and it’s warmer than outside; rain had begun to fall, cold against jagged pavement and fractured glass; earth spilled out of dark holes like a wound that was bleeding, turning to mud, to mix with blood. Kusanagi looked at each of the broken bodies they came across with sad eyes; Yuzuriha wept silently, mouth a tender thing in her heart broken face.
Their fingers were laced, and they did not let go all that long walk through the carnage of what almost was.
“The television doesn’t work,” Yuzuriha said, voice thick, nose red. Kusanagi looked up from what he’d managed to scavenge out of his pantry and uncertainly working refrigerator; they needed to eat, even if it tasted like ash. The tiny spirit dog she’d created after Inuki’s death pressed against her ankles and yipped comfortingly at her.
“I’m not surprised,” he murmured. Brushed crumbs from his hands, and brought the platter over to the one coffee table that had managed to survive his power. “Here,” he said, “It’s the best I could do.”
Yuzuriha clicked off the blank television, and turned to him, smiling; Kusanagi thought she was beautiful, blood and tears having streaked down her face in trembling lines, cutting through the grime. Her eyes were bright, and liquid, her hands steady as she ran them through her short cropped hair. “It’ll be wonderful,” she assured him, coming to sit close next to him, curl up and share warmth. They took turns feeding Inuki scraps from their fingertips.
They ate with the sound of rain falling on the roof, gazes sightless on all the potted plants that had fallen and spilled across the wooden floor of Kusanagi’s battered apartment. Kusanagi ate his sandwiches, and didn’t even taste them - a blessing, probably; he knew how foul bitter guilt tasted on the back of the tongue. What was he to do now? He wondered. It had always been, before, And then the world ended. Nothing else; close the story. What did he do, now that the end wasn’t really the end? It was so much more complicated, being alive, in the midst of the consequences. No being shipped away from the carnage; he had to see it through.
Yuzuriha said, her voice finally clear again, but low. “After we eat, we should get bandaged up. We don’t want any infections. And then we should get some bags together, and go out.” She twisted, placed her hand upon his arm, and raised her eyes up to his, earnest and young and beautiful. “There could be people hurt; we can help them.”
“All right,” Kusanagi agreed. “I have some things which should help, from serving in the Force. First aid kits, and some rations; I think I have a few flares… Some of these plants are good for healing; we can take them with us. I learned how to use them oversea. They’d be…happy to help.”
Kusanagi glanced down at Yuzuriha to see how she took that. She smiled so brightly, Kusunagi wondered how he’d never seen a future like this before.
*
Heading out didn’t happen quite as quickly as they’d anticipated. But then, they were human, and Kusanagi figured this is what he’d let the world be saved for: Yuzuriha’s skin creamy smooth over the white terrycloth of his towel, water sliding down her neck, pooling at her collarbones, the bathroom steaming and smelling like her. Kusanagi leaned against the door jamb, tried to remember how to breathe through the heat that expanded in his chest, his eyes following the curve of her legs.
“I hope you’re not too hurt,” he said with a warm laugh that made her blush. He was glad that she’d pushed and flailed until he surrendered and took a shower first. He wouldn’t have been able to wait long enough to clean off before he reached out, traced his finger tips over her shoulders so that his calluses caught and made her shiver. Inuki was nowhere to be found, and Kusanagi thought that he’d always known the inugami was smart.
“Of course I’m not,” she spluttered, smiling shyly at him. So young, Kusanagi thought, and then his hands slid down her wrists, and her hands turned up, so that he traced over her calluses there, over battle roughened skin, and they gripped his hands with a confidence born of inner as well as outward strength. Kusanagi smiled, awed; saw a quality as ancient as forever settled deep in her eyes.
“You’re so beautiful.” He leaned down, pressed a kiss to the side of her jaw. Her breath hitched. “I thought I knew what beauty was in this world, until I met you.” She trembled in his hands, and he trembled with her. Their lips met; it wasn’t enough.
His bed had broken, so he’d kicked down the frame while she was in the shower. The mattress would suit, and he’d made sure it was piled high with blankets and sheets they could take with them, or come back to and fall asleep under; pillows to rest weary heads, a safe haven to be still in.
His sheets were blue, pale against her vibrancy, her dark hair and honey eyes, slender athletic body. He followed her down, slid along her side, half over her and half cradling her against him. Her fingers wound up through his short hair, and she smiled, pressed a kiss to the corner of his eye. Her mouth traced along the hard line of his cheek bone, and her tongue slid out, tentatively bold, against the curve of his ear. He breathed out heavily, spread his hand flat and pressed it against the warmth of her hip.
The rain fell on the uneven roof, on the fragile panes of glass; fell onto a world that wasn’t over yet, on people broken and battered but still struggling on; fell down while Kusanagi gave in and Yuzuriha welcomed him. Kusanagi pressed careful fingers against her skin, slid through her crisp, neat curls into slick folds. Her breath caught, trembling, and her fingers clenched against his biceps so that Kusanagi knew he’d have bruises. He leaned down, pressed an almost chaste kiss to her collar bone, to the curve of her breast, the peak of her nipple.
That breath hissed out, and she threw her head back, dug her heels into the mattress and quivered in uncertainty as his thumb found her clit, his finger tips stroking her entrance, warm and wet. “May I?” he asked, wanting, but not pushing. She was young, but Kusanagi couldn’t see her as anything other than his equal, something to be cherished, and loved, a vivid strong woman, cute and beautiful and perfect.
“Yes.” Her teeth caught her bottom lip, eyes holding his; Kusanagi felt his face soften at the expression in them. “Yes, but-“
“No more,” he told her gently, kissing her forehead. His thumb circled, slowly, and her back arched, her mouth opening. He slid a finger inside of her, and she made a strangled noise; he was careful, so careful. She would not break; he knew that. He went gently, still.
He pressed his fingers into her body, thrust so that her hips rolled fluidly up off the bed against him, her skin gleaming with sweat and exertion, her face flushed, her neck working around hot noises and tiny gasps and sweet moans that shot straight through Kusanagi until he was hard and aching. He devoured her with kisses, laid her to waste with the rotation of his wrist, brought her over the edge with her name broken in his mouth.
“Kusanagi,” she cried as he pulled his slick fingers out; she breathed heavily, her fingers shook. She smiled at him quick and sweet and pressed a tender kiss to the jumping pulse in his neck. Her hands slid down his body, beneath the waist band of his briefs. Kusanagi hissed, stayed still and trembled while she adjusted her grip; it’d be easier with the clothing off, but he didn’t want to frighten her. Her eyes were already wide enough, mouth slack as she felt him.
Then his brave girl bit her lip, and gave him an impish look out of her honey eyes, and flicked her wrist as best she could.
“Oh-!”
Yuzuriha blinked. “Sticky,” she said, sounding muffled, face bright and red. Kusanagi groaned: for a brief instant it had been like the world ended in light, and it had been okay; and then Yuzuriha called him back, from the light, and he blinked down muzzily at her sweet face, with its angry cut upon her cleanly scrubbed cheek, and her short hair sticking to her forehead messily. All the light he could ever need was right there, and the world continued on, and humans breathed and loved and lived upon it.
“Come on,” Yuzuriha said softly. “I think the rain stopped.”
“No it didn’t,” Kusanagi smiled. He lay down on his side, pulled her close to him. “But we need another shower now, anyway.”
Yuzuriha started laughing, and Kusanagi closed his eyes. No, he thought. No, he’d never hear enough of this bright sound, like the sun on waves, light dancing through air; not for as long he lived.
Author: reversedhymnal
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Uh, all standard CLAMP warnings apply? 8D;
Word count: 2,055
Summary: There are reasons why the world should not end.
A/N: X, Kusanagi/Yuzuriha: author's choice - light Also. They’re so cute, :<
It was the end of everything, or almost. They stood together with the world breaking around them, mouths jagged, faces pale beneath the red of blood. Kusanagi frowned, thinking that the sound of their reality being rent should be louder, echo the way his heart did as it shattered, vicious like weeping.
Very clearly, Yuzuriha said, “I can’t let you do this.”
Kusanagi looked into her young face, traced his eyesight along her clenched jaw, the sharp angle of her eyebrows, the shine in her dry eyes. He curled his fingers into fists, and his shoulders had never felt so heavy, and no matter how wide or strong they would never be enough for all the guilt he would carry.
“This is the last hope for our world,” he tried gently to tell her.
The gentleness was lost on her. Mercilessly, hand tight around the sword she kept pointed away from him, she said: “I think that Inuki was glad to know me, as glad as I was to know Inuki. And I think Inuki was glad to know you. He would be ashamed, that you would be willing to make a world where he could never have met us.”
Kusanagi winced, and if it was an easier time he would have rubbed the back of his neck, in search of something to say. Life was sacred, he knew, and the world cried out to him, and he cared for people, and life was hard. There was nothing to say, save this: “It’s my destiny. I’m sorry.”
She slapped him.
“If you have to apologize for it, then you’re doing something wrong!” Kusanagi worked his jaw; ruefully, he thought, How can that sting so badly in the midst of all my other wounds? He looked back down at Yuzuriha, and felt his heart tremble.
“I hope,” he said, “for a better future-“
“How can there be hope,” Yuzuriha’s voice was strained and hurting as she pressed her fingertips against Kusanagi’s blood soaked shirt. She swallowed, and Kusanagi leaned into her without meaning to; her eyes were still dry, and she whispered, fiercely, “when there is no humanity?”
The world was still beneath their feet. Kusanagi couldn’t hear what his heart was saying; it was beating too loudly, and it felt like something bright and startling was strangling it. He looked down at Yuzuriha, brought his hand up and swept his thumb along a grim cut across her cheek. He let out a long sigh; “If there are two destinies,” he murmured, “then there’s a choice.”
Yuzuriha said, “There is always a choice.”
“Always,” Kusanagi repeated. Then he smiled, and leaned down towards her, she who had cried so for her dog, who loved to go hiking and have picnics beneath the sun; who cared so much, almost enough for an entire world. “Maybe I’m just not ready,” he whispered against her lips, “to stop the sound of your bright laughter.”
But he did stop it, because once she started, he realized he couldn’t bear to not be kissing her.
*
Kusanagi’s apartment is not in one piece, but gas isn’t leaking, and it’s warmer than outside; rain had begun to fall, cold against jagged pavement and fractured glass; earth spilled out of dark holes like a wound that was bleeding, turning to mud, to mix with blood. Kusanagi looked at each of the broken bodies they came across with sad eyes; Yuzuriha wept silently, mouth a tender thing in her heart broken face.
Their fingers were laced, and they did not let go all that long walk through the carnage of what almost was.
“The television doesn’t work,” Yuzuriha said, voice thick, nose red. Kusanagi looked up from what he’d managed to scavenge out of his pantry and uncertainly working refrigerator; they needed to eat, even if it tasted like ash. The tiny spirit dog she’d created after Inuki’s death pressed against her ankles and yipped comfortingly at her.
“I’m not surprised,” he murmured. Brushed crumbs from his hands, and brought the platter over to the one coffee table that had managed to survive his power. “Here,” he said, “It’s the best I could do.”
Yuzuriha clicked off the blank television, and turned to him, smiling; Kusanagi thought she was beautiful, blood and tears having streaked down her face in trembling lines, cutting through the grime. Her eyes were bright, and liquid, her hands steady as she ran them through her short cropped hair. “It’ll be wonderful,” she assured him, coming to sit close next to him, curl up and share warmth. They took turns feeding Inuki scraps from their fingertips.
They ate with the sound of rain falling on the roof, gazes sightless on all the potted plants that had fallen and spilled across the wooden floor of Kusanagi’s battered apartment. Kusanagi ate his sandwiches, and didn’t even taste them - a blessing, probably; he knew how foul bitter guilt tasted on the back of the tongue. What was he to do now? He wondered. It had always been, before, And then the world ended. Nothing else; close the story. What did he do, now that the end wasn’t really the end? It was so much more complicated, being alive, in the midst of the consequences. No being shipped away from the carnage; he had to see it through.
Yuzuriha said, her voice finally clear again, but low. “After we eat, we should get bandaged up. We don’t want any infections. And then we should get some bags together, and go out.” She twisted, placed her hand upon his arm, and raised her eyes up to his, earnest and young and beautiful. “There could be people hurt; we can help them.”
“All right,” Kusanagi agreed. “I have some things which should help, from serving in the Force. First aid kits, and some rations; I think I have a few flares… Some of these plants are good for healing; we can take them with us. I learned how to use them oversea. They’d be…happy to help.”
Kusanagi glanced down at Yuzuriha to see how she took that. She smiled so brightly, Kusunagi wondered how he’d never seen a future like this before.
*
Heading out didn’t happen quite as quickly as they’d anticipated. But then, they were human, and Kusanagi figured this is what he’d let the world be saved for: Yuzuriha’s skin creamy smooth over the white terrycloth of his towel, water sliding down her neck, pooling at her collarbones, the bathroom steaming and smelling like her. Kusanagi leaned against the door jamb, tried to remember how to breathe through the heat that expanded in his chest, his eyes following the curve of her legs.
“I hope you’re not too hurt,” he said with a warm laugh that made her blush. He was glad that she’d pushed and flailed until he surrendered and took a shower first. He wouldn’t have been able to wait long enough to clean off before he reached out, traced his finger tips over her shoulders so that his calluses caught and made her shiver. Inuki was nowhere to be found, and Kusanagi thought that he’d always known the inugami was smart.
“Of course I’m not,” she spluttered, smiling shyly at him. So young, Kusanagi thought, and then his hands slid down her wrists, and her hands turned up, so that he traced over her calluses there, over battle roughened skin, and they gripped his hands with a confidence born of inner as well as outward strength. Kusanagi smiled, awed; saw a quality as ancient as forever settled deep in her eyes.
“You’re so beautiful.” He leaned down, pressed a kiss to the side of her jaw. Her breath hitched. “I thought I knew what beauty was in this world, until I met you.” She trembled in his hands, and he trembled with her. Their lips met; it wasn’t enough.
His bed had broken, so he’d kicked down the frame while she was in the shower. The mattress would suit, and he’d made sure it was piled high with blankets and sheets they could take with them, or come back to and fall asleep under; pillows to rest weary heads, a safe haven to be still in.
His sheets were blue, pale against her vibrancy, her dark hair and honey eyes, slender athletic body. He followed her down, slid along her side, half over her and half cradling her against him. Her fingers wound up through his short hair, and she smiled, pressed a kiss to the corner of his eye. Her mouth traced along the hard line of his cheek bone, and her tongue slid out, tentatively bold, against the curve of his ear. He breathed out heavily, spread his hand flat and pressed it against the warmth of her hip.
The rain fell on the uneven roof, on the fragile panes of glass; fell onto a world that wasn’t over yet, on people broken and battered but still struggling on; fell down while Kusanagi gave in and Yuzuriha welcomed him. Kusanagi pressed careful fingers against her skin, slid through her crisp, neat curls into slick folds. Her breath caught, trembling, and her fingers clenched against his biceps so that Kusanagi knew he’d have bruises. He leaned down, pressed an almost chaste kiss to her collar bone, to the curve of her breast, the peak of her nipple.
That breath hissed out, and she threw her head back, dug her heels into the mattress and quivered in uncertainty as his thumb found her clit, his finger tips stroking her entrance, warm and wet. “May I?” he asked, wanting, but not pushing. She was young, but Kusanagi couldn’t see her as anything other than his equal, something to be cherished, and loved, a vivid strong woman, cute and beautiful and perfect.
“Yes.” Her teeth caught her bottom lip, eyes holding his; Kusanagi felt his face soften at the expression in them. “Yes, but-“
“No more,” he told her gently, kissing her forehead. His thumb circled, slowly, and her back arched, her mouth opening. He slid a finger inside of her, and she made a strangled noise; he was careful, so careful. She would not break; he knew that. He went gently, still.
He pressed his fingers into her body, thrust so that her hips rolled fluidly up off the bed against him, her skin gleaming with sweat and exertion, her face flushed, her neck working around hot noises and tiny gasps and sweet moans that shot straight through Kusanagi until he was hard and aching. He devoured her with kisses, laid her to waste with the rotation of his wrist, brought her over the edge with her name broken in his mouth.
“Kusanagi,” she cried as he pulled his slick fingers out; she breathed heavily, her fingers shook. She smiled at him quick and sweet and pressed a tender kiss to the jumping pulse in his neck. Her hands slid down his body, beneath the waist band of his briefs. Kusanagi hissed, stayed still and trembled while she adjusted her grip; it’d be easier with the clothing off, but he didn’t want to frighten her. Her eyes were already wide enough, mouth slack as she felt him.
Then his brave girl bit her lip, and gave him an impish look out of her honey eyes, and flicked her wrist as best she could.
“Oh-!”
Yuzuriha blinked. “Sticky,” she said, sounding muffled, face bright and red. Kusanagi groaned: for a brief instant it had been like the world ended in light, and it had been okay; and then Yuzuriha called him back, from the light, and he blinked down muzzily at her sweet face, with its angry cut upon her cleanly scrubbed cheek, and her short hair sticking to her forehead messily. All the light he could ever need was right there, and the world continued on, and humans breathed and loved and lived upon it.
“Come on,” Yuzuriha said softly. “I think the rain stopped.”
“No it didn’t,” Kusanagi smiled. He lay down on his side, pulled her close to him. “But we need another shower now, anyway.”
Yuzuriha started laughing, and Kusanagi closed his eyes. No, he thought. No, he’d never hear enough of this bright sound, like the sun on waves, light dancing through air; not for as long he lived.