Fic : On Time
In times of angst, I bring fic because we are definately not getting enough angst as it is!
Title: On Time
Rating: PG-13? Soft R?
Characters/ Pairings: Kurogane/Fye, Tomoyo
Spoilers: General stuff, nothing too explicit.
Summary: Eventually, Fye reaches Japan.
Disclaimer: CLAMP tortures owns them.
Note: This is what happens when you listen to Hear You Me by Jimmy Eat World for way too long. And right when you get in the mood for angst!fic, Fall Out Boy jumps out at you.
The clash of metal still rings in his ears as he gets lost in the whirlwind of time, travelling from one place to the other, leaving behind a wreck of a building in his leave after the blade is pressed onto his hand. Get away, he’s still hearing, but he doesn’t want to. Move! He doesn’t want to, but eventually he does.
His shirt is stained, red clashing against the blue fabric of his cloth, but the blood is not his own, and that’s what he regrets the most. I can’t do this, he thinks, but his feet finally reach the ground, and he collapses onto it without meaning to as he gazes up at the night sky, waiting. The children eventually appear, sore and yet unharmed, desperate gazes in their eyes. Let’s go, the kid pleads, please, let’s go but he’s not listening.
He waits all night, cold steel pressed against his chest, but nobody else comes. That night, to him, seems eternal. He stops counting time altogether after that.
This world is nothing like his own. The colours of spring blend around him in a blur of light and movement, living on its own even though his eyes barely let him see it. His eyes are not focused, and he can barely make the outline of a building surrounded by the pink hue of cherry blossom trees. Once again, he feels alone.
She’s there, he knows it. The sword he’s holding seems to get heavier the closer to her he gets. He has no words. What could he ever tell her? He walks, still, and finally reaches the small, flat steps leading to her garden. She has heard him, of course, and is already waiting, curious eyes placed on the strange foreigner she’s never seen before, but yet she knows him. Her eyes search him out, and she seems so wise, so beautiful that he has to avert his eyes.
Her eyes find his hands and what’s in them, then, and her eyes widen just a bit as she takes that information in. He really, really wants to disappear. But she seems to recover fast enough, and in her face there’s still a mask of peace before she seems to understand it all. As she walks toward him he sinks to his knees and presses his forehead against the cool, sharp blade he holds onto as if it were the only thing that keeps him from shattering like glass. He speaks, but he doesn’t know what he’s saying, and it doesn’t matter because she can’t understand a word of the foreign gibberish.
Her hand is cool against the back of his neck as she mutters words - of comfort, he thinks- that he can’t comprehend. She could blame me, he thinks, and he almost wants her to. But his princess, so wise and beautiful, doesn’t.
‘You’re early’, she says, and smiles. But he doesn’t understand it.
‘Do you still want to return?’ He asks Kurogane when it’s dark and the day’s battle is over and the children are in their tents fast asleep and safe from harm. His fingers glide over his hand and the scar that crosses it, and Kurogane watches the soft movement of his fingers as if imagining their journey.
‘Of course’, he answers, closing his hand on Fye’s. ‘A promise made is a promise you keep.’ Fye understands, and after a while, thinking of leaving his side hurts a bit less. No, it doesn’t. But there is no use in worrying about the things you can do nothing about. He lays on his back on the ground and for a second pretends that if he closes his eyes he’ll fall asleep and his worries will slip out of his mind. The blanket feels threadbare underneath his back and he twitches uncomfortably as his shoulder brushes rough soil through the fabric.
Kurogane’s hand slips out of his as he rearranges them, trying to let Fye find himself a softer place. But the soil is dry and the blankets too thin, and in the end Fye is half-crawling onto him, but he’s happy with that. His hand rests on Fye’s spine, and every once in a while he lets it wander around under the shirt and onto the soft, bare skin of his back.
It’s these moments Fye knows he has to treasure, but he doesn’t find the courage to say it to Kurogane just yet, because he knows that he’ll say they won’t be over soon. He lets out a soft, sad laugh against Kurogane’s neck, and puts his hands around his neck when Kurogane raises his head to look at his face.
‘I’m fine.’ Fye lies. At this point it doesn’t matter, because Kurogane always knows, but this time he lets it pass. He kisses Fye as if he were going to break, holds him steady as his hands on his skin and his lips on his neck try to mend whatever part of him is torn.
By morning they are still awake, and Fye is tired and a bit sore from the rocky floor, but he doesn’t mind. They are late, of course, but neither of them cares.
Sometimes he feels like his name is nothing but an echo of those he left behind. He rarely ever hears it these days, at least free of ceremonious titles they address him with, and even then it doesn’t sound like his own. Tomoyo tries to talk to him, of course, and they manage to make the other understand important things through pictures or gestures. There are a few things that bring trouble, such as time, that he hasn’t quite gotten the hang of yet, but that he finds useless by now in any case. Fye finds he likes her company, but the world can’t go on just like this for him, as if nothing happened, in any case. Not after all.
He has tried to explain what happened, how Kurogane gave him the sword at the last moment because of the one demon he wasn’t sure he could deal with by himself. He remembers now still how, for everyone’s good, he chose to stay behind. He is pretty sure Tomoyo doesn’t understand everything, but she did get why he reached her world to return the sword. A promise made is a promise kept, in one way or another.
There are mornings lately, though, when Tomoyo seems to enjoy his conversation a bit too much, as if she understood a private joke that nobody else seems to understand. Fye asked her about it once, but when she tried to explain it to him he found himself thinking about his own happy times, and was unable to follow her.
His catches his breath as his clothes get soaked in the cold water, but the smile flutters inevitably to his lips, and Kurogane pretends he doesn’t see it because he knows he’ll feel safer that way. The water is still chilled on early morning, the sun not warm enough yet to take care of that, but the clear sky and the silent woods around them make up for it. It’s a quiet day, and Fye grows restless. He knows by now, he’s sure, that something is coming their way and it will storm on them before they know it.
He makes a complaint about being pulled into the cold water before Kurogane helps him with the soaked clothes glued to his skin and tosses them over his shoulder onto the grass. Fye is pretty sure a sock is gone with the current, but he is too busy to care. The flow of the water is smooth and clear, and Fye is almost ashamed of being able to see everything that goes on under the surface. Almost. His hands are clasped onto a smooth stone, way too slippery to be any good, but he forgets about it as Kurogane’s chest is pressed against his back.
When he finds release in Kurogane’s arms he wants the water to clear everything away. Everything.
‘You’re late.’ Tomoyo says, and this time she’s not smiling. It’s not that she’s not glad to see him, of course. He throws her a look. She deflects it, and this time there is a glint in her eye that’s sort of wicked. ‘And you look terrible.’ He has a really good answer for that. Sadly, it’s true. Finding your way back to the Witch’s shop is by itself hard enough. This time, however, his journey home was easily paid.
‘I don-’ He stops talking, and he’s sure he’s caught his breath the moment he sees the sword. It’s standing there, in her garden, for all to see but for no-one to take. It’s still bright and sharp and anything but lost. ‘What is that doing here?’ He doesn’t ask because he doesn’t know, but because he needs a confirmation. Tomoyo’s smile is everything he needs.
‘I did say you were late, Kurogane.’ He came here?, he wants to ask. A brief thought tells him that he might have left. Tomoyo’s eyes say otherwise. Turning his back on her - much to her amusement and Sohma’s dismay - he walks her never-ending gardens with light feet as if somehow a weight had been lifted off his heart.
The bright hue of cherry blossom trees seems to surround Fye’s blue and golden form in a fluttering cloud of pink. His back is turned on him, and he’s kneeling on the floor, but after a second Kurogane knows he has been heard. It takes Fye a moment to recognise the sure, solid footsteps on the ground. He turns around as if looking for a ghost - a definition, in fact, closer to the truth than Kurogane would like to think - and looks at him with confusion, incredulity and a slight edge of his own pain. But there is hope, relief and something else entirely that makes Kurogane’s chest clench and his knees give in beneath him to take Fye in his arms.
For a moment there is nothing but the fall of the cherry blossom, the soft fabric of Fye’s kimono on the ground and the feel of Kurogane’s form against his. Fye revels in his warmth and once again knows where he really is. There’s so much to explain, and so much left unsaid, but now they have the time.
And, as irrelevant as time may be, he starts counting it again.
Title: On Time
Rating: PG-13? Soft R?
Characters/ Pairings: Kurogane/Fye, Tomoyo
Spoilers: General stuff, nothing too explicit.
Summary: Eventually, Fye reaches Japan.
Disclaimer: CLAMP tortures owns them.
Note: This is what happens when you listen to Hear You Me by Jimmy Eat World for way too long. And right when you get in the mood for angst!fic, Fall Out Boy jumps out at you.
The clash of metal still rings in his ears as he gets lost in the whirlwind of time, travelling from one place to the other, leaving behind a wreck of a building in his leave after the blade is pressed onto his hand. Get away, he’s still hearing, but he doesn’t want to. Move! He doesn’t want to, but eventually he does.
His shirt is stained, red clashing against the blue fabric of his cloth, but the blood is not his own, and that’s what he regrets the most. I can’t do this, he thinks, but his feet finally reach the ground, and he collapses onto it without meaning to as he gazes up at the night sky, waiting. The children eventually appear, sore and yet unharmed, desperate gazes in their eyes. Let’s go, the kid pleads, please, let’s go but he’s not listening.
He waits all night, cold steel pressed against his chest, but nobody else comes. That night, to him, seems eternal. He stops counting time altogether after that.
This world is nothing like his own. The colours of spring blend around him in a blur of light and movement, living on its own even though his eyes barely let him see it. His eyes are not focused, and he can barely make the outline of a building surrounded by the pink hue of cherry blossom trees. Once again, he feels alone.
She’s there, he knows it. The sword he’s holding seems to get heavier the closer to her he gets. He has no words. What could he ever tell her? He walks, still, and finally reaches the small, flat steps leading to her garden. She has heard him, of course, and is already waiting, curious eyes placed on the strange foreigner she’s never seen before, but yet she knows him. Her eyes search him out, and she seems so wise, so beautiful that he has to avert his eyes.
Her eyes find his hands and what’s in them, then, and her eyes widen just a bit as she takes that information in. He really, really wants to disappear. But she seems to recover fast enough, and in her face there’s still a mask of peace before she seems to understand it all. As she walks toward him he sinks to his knees and presses his forehead against the cool, sharp blade he holds onto as if it were the only thing that keeps him from shattering like glass. He speaks, but he doesn’t know what he’s saying, and it doesn’t matter because she can’t understand a word of the foreign gibberish.
Her hand is cool against the back of his neck as she mutters words - of comfort, he thinks- that he can’t comprehend. She could blame me, he thinks, and he almost wants her to. But his princess, so wise and beautiful, doesn’t.
‘You’re early’, she says, and smiles. But he doesn’t understand it.
‘Do you still want to return?’ He asks Kurogane when it’s dark and the day’s battle is over and the children are in their tents fast asleep and safe from harm. His fingers glide over his hand and the scar that crosses it, and Kurogane watches the soft movement of his fingers as if imagining their journey.
‘Of course’, he answers, closing his hand on Fye’s. ‘A promise made is a promise you keep.’ Fye understands, and after a while, thinking of leaving his side hurts a bit less. No, it doesn’t. But there is no use in worrying about the things you can do nothing about. He lays on his back on the ground and for a second pretends that if he closes his eyes he’ll fall asleep and his worries will slip out of his mind. The blanket feels threadbare underneath his back and he twitches uncomfortably as his shoulder brushes rough soil through the fabric.
Kurogane’s hand slips out of his as he rearranges them, trying to let Fye find himself a softer place. But the soil is dry and the blankets too thin, and in the end Fye is half-crawling onto him, but he’s happy with that. His hand rests on Fye’s spine, and every once in a while he lets it wander around under the shirt and onto the soft, bare skin of his back.
It’s these moments Fye knows he has to treasure, but he doesn’t find the courage to say it to Kurogane just yet, because he knows that he’ll say they won’t be over soon. He lets out a soft, sad laugh against Kurogane’s neck, and puts his hands around his neck when Kurogane raises his head to look at his face.
‘I’m fine.’ Fye lies. At this point it doesn’t matter, because Kurogane always knows, but this time he lets it pass. He kisses Fye as if he were going to break, holds him steady as his hands on his skin and his lips on his neck try to mend whatever part of him is torn.
By morning they are still awake, and Fye is tired and a bit sore from the rocky floor, but he doesn’t mind. They are late, of course, but neither of them cares.
Sometimes he feels like his name is nothing but an echo of those he left behind. He rarely ever hears it these days, at least free of ceremonious titles they address him with, and even then it doesn’t sound like his own. Tomoyo tries to talk to him, of course, and they manage to make the other understand important things through pictures or gestures. There are a few things that bring trouble, such as time, that he hasn’t quite gotten the hang of yet, but that he finds useless by now in any case. Fye finds he likes her company, but the world can’t go on just like this for him, as if nothing happened, in any case. Not after all.
He has tried to explain what happened, how Kurogane gave him the sword at the last moment because of the one demon he wasn’t sure he could deal with by himself. He remembers now still how, for everyone’s good, he chose to stay behind. He is pretty sure Tomoyo doesn’t understand everything, but she did get why he reached her world to return the sword. A promise made is a promise kept, in one way or another.
There are mornings lately, though, when Tomoyo seems to enjoy his conversation a bit too much, as if she understood a private joke that nobody else seems to understand. Fye asked her about it once, but when she tried to explain it to him he found himself thinking about his own happy times, and was unable to follow her.
His catches his breath as his clothes get soaked in the cold water, but the smile flutters inevitably to his lips, and Kurogane pretends he doesn’t see it because he knows he’ll feel safer that way. The water is still chilled on early morning, the sun not warm enough yet to take care of that, but the clear sky and the silent woods around them make up for it. It’s a quiet day, and Fye grows restless. He knows by now, he’s sure, that something is coming their way and it will storm on them before they know it.
He makes a complaint about being pulled into the cold water before Kurogane helps him with the soaked clothes glued to his skin and tosses them over his shoulder onto the grass. Fye is pretty sure a sock is gone with the current, but he is too busy to care. The flow of the water is smooth and clear, and Fye is almost ashamed of being able to see everything that goes on under the surface. Almost. His hands are clasped onto a smooth stone, way too slippery to be any good, but he forgets about it as Kurogane’s chest is pressed against his back.
When he finds release in Kurogane’s arms he wants the water to clear everything away. Everything.
‘You’re late.’ Tomoyo says, and this time she’s not smiling. It’s not that she’s not glad to see him, of course. He throws her a look. She deflects it, and this time there is a glint in her eye that’s sort of wicked. ‘And you look terrible.’ He has a really good answer for that. Sadly, it’s true. Finding your way back to the Witch’s shop is by itself hard enough. This time, however, his journey home was easily paid.
‘I don-’ He stops talking, and he’s sure he’s caught his breath the moment he sees the sword. It’s standing there, in her garden, for all to see but for no-one to take. It’s still bright and sharp and anything but lost. ‘What is that doing here?’ He doesn’t ask because he doesn’t know, but because he needs a confirmation. Tomoyo’s smile is everything he needs.
‘I did say you were late, Kurogane.’ He came here?, he wants to ask. A brief thought tells him that he might have left. Tomoyo’s eyes say otherwise. Turning his back on her - much to her amusement and Sohma’s dismay - he walks her never-ending gardens with light feet as if somehow a weight had been lifted off his heart.
The bright hue of cherry blossom trees seems to surround Fye’s blue and golden form in a fluttering cloud of pink. His back is turned on him, and he’s kneeling on the floor, but after a second Kurogane knows he has been heard. It takes Fye a moment to recognise the sure, solid footsteps on the ground. He turns around as if looking for a ghost - a definition, in fact, closer to the truth than Kurogane would like to think - and looks at him with confusion, incredulity and a slight edge of his own pain. But there is hope, relief and something else entirely that makes Kurogane’s chest clench and his knees give in beneath him to take Fye in his arms.
For a moment there is nothing but the fall of the cherry blossom, the soft fabric of Fye’s kimono on the ground and the feel of Kurogane’s form against his. Fye revels in his warmth and once again knows where he really is. There’s so much to explain, and so much left unsaid, but now they have the time.
And, as irrelevant as time may be, he starts counting it again.