Mirror Twin
Title: Mirror Twin
Description: Minako comes to terms with the shadows of the past.
A/N: Day 3 of Advent Drabblender 2011.
Warning: Dark material ahead. I don’t know where all the angst is coming from, but I’m sorry…
Prompt: Last Christmas (song)
She’s not sure she can do this.
Everyone thinks she should give it more time, and they don’t even know the full extent of it. It was deeper than infatuation and more dangerous than obsession. Secret meetings, time stolen and selfishly hoarded from the scraps left over from school and family and senshi business. The mortal fear during each battle, when she thought at any second that he would perish at her friends’ hands or they at his. She had never been one to pull her punches, but she learned how to fool everyone into thinking she aimed to kill. Sometimes, after a miss that was much too close for comfort, her friends would tell her they thought it should have gotten him for sure and definitely would the next time. She was lucky the splattered youma gore provided an excuse for her vomiting.
He had been as bad as a drug, and sometimes she thought he was worse. There was no way to get more of him, no patch or twelve step program to wean herself off him.
When her princess’s attack tore through him, she thought she felt her own heart being ripped apart. The others thought her tears were of relief, and some of them were, but she hated herself for it.
When Mamoru brings his guard around, happily explaining that these generals can’t have been their old nemeses since they’ve been trapped in the Golden Crystal since the fall of the Silver Millennium, she can’t breathe. It’s not because she has to be the one in charge, but because she can feel herself spiraling out of control again.
They look the same, but they act completely different. She wonders what it says about her, that she loves them both - at least as much as she allows herself to. It can’t be looks alone because whenever they make love, she keeps her eyes closed. When she can’t see him, everything’s fine; she can remember who he is and not think of the other one.
Everyone thinks she should give it more time, but she’s afraid to give it too much time. There’s a strange sense of urgency, as if the window of opportunity might be closing, and she’s going to slip her fingers beneath the sash even if it means they might get crushed.
One day, he trails his fingers over her skin, inspecting her in his careful, serious way. Usually he knows better than to ask about her scars, but she’s been so quiet lately that he is searching for things to say.
“How did you get this?”
She turns away, touching the pad of her thumb to the roughness and yanking it away again, as if it burned still.
The sadness in his soft, deep breaths makes her look over her shoulder. “It was a sort of fencing match. Our blades were crossed but he was stronger, of course, and when mine slid away, his…came down. I was lucky it didn’t do more damage.”
She looks down at the scar broodingly, looking into the past again. She has never been sure if he held back the way she had.
He strokes her hair, even more tentatively than her moodiness calls for, and a sudden suspicion strikes her. She sits up so suddenly that he freezes, even though his face is carefully blank.
“I’m sorry-”
“No,” she breathes, her eyes focused on the hand that drops to the sheets. It is his right hand, his nondominant hand. “Don’t be.”
“You’re left-handed,” she says, and he cannot read her tone.
“Yes…” It was something he thought she had always known.
The opponent who had given her that scar had been right-handed. And in those rare times he had smiled his crooked smile, one corner of his mouth had curved up ever so slightly more than the other, and it had been the wrong one.
She laughs, and her laugh is a little hysterical, but it is also brighter than the white, white snow falling outside the window. The color is nearly as blinding as her tears, but she doesn’t want to close her eyes again.
Description: Minako comes to terms with the shadows of the past.
A/N: Day 3 of Advent Drabblender 2011.
Warning: Dark material ahead. I don’t know where all the angst is coming from, but I’m sorry…
Prompt: Last Christmas (song)
She’s not sure she can do this.
Everyone thinks she should give it more time, and they don’t even know the full extent of it. It was deeper than infatuation and more dangerous than obsession. Secret meetings, time stolen and selfishly hoarded from the scraps left over from school and family and senshi business. The mortal fear during each battle, when she thought at any second that he would perish at her friends’ hands or they at his. She had never been one to pull her punches, but she learned how to fool everyone into thinking she aimed to kill. Sometimes, after a miss that was much too close for comfort, her friends would tell her they thought it should have gotten him for sure and definitely would the next time. She was lucky the splattered youma gore provided an excuse for her vomiting.
He had been as bad as a drug, and sometimes she thought he was worse. There was no way to get more of him, no patch or twelve step program to wean herself off him.
When her princess’s attack tore through him, she thought she felt her own heart being ripped apart. The others thought her tears were of relief, and some of them were, but she hated herself for it.
When Mamoru brings his guard around, happily explaining that these generals can’t have been their old nemeses since they’ve been trapped in the Golden Crystal since the fall of the Silver Millennium, she can’t breathe. It’s not because she has to be the one in charge, but because she can feel herself spiraling out of control again.
They look the same, but they act completely different. She wonders what it says about her, that she loves them both - at least as much as she allows herself to. It can’t be looks alone because whenever they make love, she keeps her eyes closed. When she can’t see him, everything’s fine; she can remember who he is and not think of the other one.
Everyone thinks she should give it more time, but she’s afraid to give it too much time. There’s a strange sense of urgency, as if the window of opportunity might be closing, and she’s going to slip her fingers beneath the sash even if it means they might get crushed.
One day, he trails his fingers over her skin, inspecting her in his careful, serious way. Usually he knows better than to ask about her scars, but she’s been so quiet lately that he is searching for things to say.
“How did you get this?”
She turns away, touching the pad of her thumb to the roughness and yanking it away again, as if it burned still.
The sadness in his soft, deep breaths makes her look over her shoulder. “It was a sort of fencing match. Our blades were crossed but he was stronger, of course, and when mine slid away, his…came down. I was lucky it didn’t do more damage.”
She looks down at the scar broodingly, looking into the past again. She has never been sure if he held back the way she had.
He strokes her hair, even more tentatively than her moodiness calls for, and a sudden suspicion strikes her. She sits up so suddenly that he freezes, even though his face is carefully blank.
“I’m sorry-”
“No,” she breathes, her eyes focused on the hand that drops to the sheets. It is his right hand, his nondominant hand. “Don’t be.”
“You’re left-handed,” she says, and he cannot read her tone.
“Yes…” It was something he thought she had always known.
The opponent who had given her that scar had been right-handed. And in those rare times he had smiled his crooked smile, one corner of his mouth had curved up ever so slightly more than the other, and it had been the wrong one.
She laughs, and her laugh is a little hysterical, but it is also brighter than the white, white snow falling outside the window. The color is nearly as blinding as her tears, but she doesn’t want to close her eyes again.