thoughts of a dry brain in a wet season - Santa's Here! v. Tsubasa, S&S.

At least I amde this in time. *FLOMPS* Tsubasaness, for my beloved lazulisong-oneesama. How bloody long has it been since my last hetfic. x_x Excuse the crappiness, it's 2 am here and I'm falling onto the keyboatd.

Lyrics from Sheryl Crow's "Safe and Sound".


Gravity
--------

I.

He stands under an ashen sky, lashed by falling needles of rain, and does not see.

It is abnormally hard to breathe.

There is the awareness that he is soaked to the bone. That his skin is sore and still crusted with a faint layer of soot where it's been grazed. That the muscles in his limbs are like instrument strings wound perilously taut. He's cold, a small part of his brain notes. Cold and indescribably weary. But the sensations come to him as through a net of lead, blunted to insignificance; they are a discrete and unregistered externality.

Inside there is only the crushing grip of a void, and the same portion of his mind wonders, dully, that it is possible for nothing to hurt so much.

(nothing. there had been nothing in her eyes when she had opened them, blank screens of jade, and broken his heart with a single question -)

(broken into a thousand fragments like a thousand feathers from a pair of splintered wings.)

A flare, deep within his chest. A tingling in the air, and then he is surrounded by a shield of magical warmth, the muzzle of the flame-spirit stroking his arm in silent sympathy. He knows he should be grateful. Even at this time a part of him is fighting to live, ruthlessly pointing out practicalities and the need to walk on tomorrow, for her sake. But right now it does not matter. Despair is a knife's edge away, frighteningly seductive, and he walks the line in a clinging cloak of anguish.

(these are the only things: the spectre of a shared happiness, and the infinitely precious image of a golden smile, forced to be memory.)

He tells himself, his fists hard and nerveless blocks, that you should have known, the Dimension Sorceress *warned* you before you *chose*. But inside him rebellion flares: not like this, she didn't say it would be like this. That his world would shatter.

And then he realises, he *had* known.

He had only been afraid of the knowledge. Had desperately staved off the admission of an intimacy turning flayed and past.

Isn't it terribly, terribly funny, in a way, that she would not now understand the direct usage of her name. When it is now the only way he can think of her; not as 'princess', not in the third person. Just -

(...who are you?)

Sakura.

Sakura.

Sakura.

Slowly he becomes aware of hot trails of dampness, trickling through the thick bangs plastered to his face. They streak down his clenched jaw, absorbing the lingering coolness of half-dried rain, and run into the dusty water at his feet.

----

II.

He goes back into the Arisugawa house at last, suffused with numbness, and does not speak. Lets himself be guided to a steaming tub and big, fluffy towels. At least he can do this: hygiene is simple and mindless, and when he emerges he's able to offer a subdued apology that Sorata disregards in indignant concern. The hair's-breadth of his reason broadens, restoring a tenuous equilibrium that he wills to take hold.

(pace by pace, bit by bit; steady, steady. this is imperative.)

Fai bends down to look him in the eye, light voice weighted with gentleness as he tells him to rest. Kurogane stands in a corner, dark and brooding, and nods curtly.

"Come," is all Arashi says, and presses his hand when she takes it.

Syaoran stops as they walk past that door.

"I..."

"Would you not rather be in a different room tonight?" Arashi quietly asks.

He swallows with difficulty.

"She liked seeing me beside her when she woke up," he says hoarsely. Liked. "I...I want to -"

"Of course."

"Thank you," he manages, and accepts the kindness of her gaze.

Sakura is asleep on the futon when he goes in, soft brown hair tumbled on the white cotton of the pillowcase. A broad ray of moonlight falls on the side of the bed, rendering her cheek an almost-luminous white. He goes to her side and kneels, tenderly running his eyes over the details of her small face, so achingly familiar. Gropes within himself for something to hold on to.

Almost without thought his hand finds hers; almost immediately the dark curve of her lashes flutters. The sight of those eyes calls up a fresh spring of pain, but they hold a spark of dull curiosity as they light on him.

"Syaoran...kun?" Hesitantly. Perhaps his face was in shadow.

"I'm here," he says, very gently, moving into the light. "I'm here."

She blinks, and shifts her gaze to their hands in some confusion before looking up again.

"You...were the one...?"

He squeezes her fingers, slim and cool in his grasp. "Yes."

Sakura brings up her other hand, slowly and tentatively, and reaches out to him. He submits to her touch, letting his eyes fall shut, and her soft fingertips burn a trail of goosebumps over the skin of his face. As if she is studying it, building a tactile map of his features; the caress of her fingers is butterfly-light and seems equally friable.

He kneels beside her in the darkness, feeling her timid movements gain confidence in their exploration of his facial planes, and refuses to weep.

"Will you stay?" she whispers.

Her green eyes reflect the light of the moon, and the thought as it comes to him is laced with grief: she is so very vulnerable. So very frail, like flower petals broken off in a storm.

He takes a breath and tells her, simply: I will never leave.

She smiles, then, unexpected and bright, and the tightness in his chest relaxes slightly.

He can do this. He must do this. It will be easier to smile back in time.

For her, he thinks. For her, everything. Always.

/ could you not be sad
could you not break down
after all I won't let go
until you're safe and sound /


Jo-chan, Naoko, gomen ne, will be working on your giftfics ASAP. ^^;