http://clampfix.fanworks.net/ccs-fix/angels.txt </head><body><pre>...This /began/ as an innocent conversation over ICQ about the hour'fic challenge (I really love all the submissions, by the way. ^^x Keep them coming.) which I would join, if I had any ideas, and if I were at all good at writing under a time constraint. X.x Oh well. Five days to think. ^^;x Aine-chan suggested an Eriol/Nakuru 'fic. I went O.o;x *squick*, and things went on from there. ... ...No, it is /not/ an Eriol/Nakuru 'fic. ^^;x It may seem a little confusing, but I /hope/ it gets clearer as it goes on. It's set many, many many many years after CCS ends, and is in first person Nakuru POV. I think this is my first completed CCS 'fic. o.ox Well, unless you count 'Normality'. But it doesn't, not really. Warnings: Angst. Lots and lots of angst. With love to Aine for the title, because I was just going to call it the horribly generic 'Rain'. X.x ------------------ Angels in the Rain ------------------ It's raining. It's been raining for the past few days, non-stop, in a steady, blanketing downpour, that makes it seem as though nothing exists except for the steady beat, beat, beat of water against ground and muted electric glow of streetlights, fighting to make itself seen through the grey. Experts are baffled. They're wondering if it's some manner of local, yearly phenomena--I wish I could tell them that this won't happen again, at least, not for a very long time. After all, he was the last. I like the rain, usually. There's just something clean about it, cool and fresh and grassy, and I used to think that happiness was defined by pulling him and Suppi into a good storm and getting soaked while I try to toss my fellow guardian into a puddle. But I used to think that happiness was a lot of things, and most of them had involved him, and right now, the rain isn't anything but cold. I expect it matches my mood. And why not? This /is/ the world's way of crying, after all. Because when someone like him dies, even the world feels it. The rain plasters my hair to my face--I try to comb it out with my fingers, hit a tangle almost immediately, and give up. Behind me, I hear him teasing me about my hair not being in a ridiculous fashion for once, one of those hairdos that take boxes of pins and even more hairspray to keep in place, and I almost turn around, but I don't. Because it's not really him, and even if I turn he won't be there, just like it's been for the past few days. And that just makes it worse, somehow. I've been thinking. I think that one of the worst parts of having somebody you love die is, right after the moment where it strikes you that they're really, /really/ gone and you'll never see them or hear them laugh or say your name in that special way again, right after the moment where, for the first time in your life, you wish that he had taught you how to cry--one of the worst parts is having to talk about them in the past tense, whether to others or just in your head. You have to correct yourself, and that just brings the point home, further. He's dead. People close to me have died, before. But none of them I really /loved/, I don't think--I liked them, and I liked them a lot, but none of it could really come close to what I felt for him. No matter what else he had been, he had been my creator, master, guardian and guarded--love doesn't even begin to describe what we shared, me, him, and Suppi. It's the only word in this language that comes close, though, so I guess it'll have to do. We buried him in the garden because it was what he wanted, and even if he hadn't asked, we would have done it anyway. He loved the garden--he would spend hours here, whenever he had time, even though the cherry and peach trees made him sad sometimes, and even though he refused, point blank, to plant roses. He'd just sit against the wall and stare into space, and if I felt that he was getting too melancholy, I would drag him inside and tell him to bake me cookies. What else was a guardian to do? There isn't much written on his gravestone. Just his name, because nobody would believe us if we put the correct dates here, and we don't want to lie. There's a carved stone angel on top--it reminds me of Yue, and a little bit of me, and it's smiling. I wonder why. Its smile reminds me a little bit of him, too, gentle and patient, and if I look hard enough, a bit mischievous, even though it's only marble and hardly capable of bringing through the myriad feelings that his smile could. I lean forward and brush my fingers across its face. It's cool, slick with the water that's still coming down, heavy feathers unruffled by the wind, and suddenly it just seems like too much effort to keep standing, so I close my eyes and continue to lean against lifeless stone, trailing a hand down with me as I slide until I'm half-kneeling in the grass. The marble isn't as smooth as it had seemed, after all. It would probably be a bad idea to fall asleep right now, but I'm tired, in a way that has nothing to do with power or the lack of it. He had taken care of /that/. Not that I'd wanted him to. What's a guardian, after all, if she's got nobody left to guard? I'm not sure how long I sit there blankly, thinking of nothing in particular, but I realise after a while that I can't feel the sting of water anymore, even though the sound of rain hasn't stopped. I blink. The sky isn't any lighter--if anything, the world's more shadowy than it had been, then I look up, see cat-slitted violet eyes and half-spread white wings keeping the rain away, and everything's clear again. Hello, Yue. I don't smile, but then again, neither does he, as he offers me a hand up and I take it. Yue is awfully warm, in more ways than just one. He doesn't look it, with his hair and eyes and mannerisms, but it should be expected, because nobody who's ever loved as much as he has could be anything but warm. I wonder how he copes, but I don't ask him, because I've got more manners than that. It must be difficult, to have all the people you've ever loved die. It's difficult enough for me. We stand in silence for a while, because there isn't anything that we can say, really. He had wanted to be human, and he had wanted to do the things that humans did, and that included dying. So the last chapter of an era closes, and a new one starts, one that involves a beautiful eleven-year-old female child with emerald green eyes and strawberry-blonde hair hugging a much-loved teddy bear as she gazes soulfully out of a window and into the rain. And everything will be all right. But it isn't, not right now, not for me--I'm not sure if it'll ever be 'all right' for me, ever again, and surprisingly, it's Yue who speaks first. "It gets better, after a while." "Really?" "...No. "But it stops hurting so much." "Does it?" "...Not really." Yue's never been very good at the whole 'comforting' thing, probably because he's just too truthful, and I almost laugh, but I don't. I /do/ step closer to him, though, because I'm cold, and because /he's/ warm, he brings his arms up in a hesitant hug. He's never been very good at the whole 'physical contact' thing, either--I wonder if I'm the only person, apart from Clow and Touya and Sakura, that he's ever done this to. Knowing him, it's entirely possible. I wonder, absently, how Suppi is doing. We haven't seen much of each other this week, by unspoken agreement--/we/ aren't very good at that comforting thing, either, and I expect I won't see him until he's managed to deal with it in his own way. But that's okay. "So, how is she?" I ask--he knows who I'm asking about-- because I'm genuinely interested. I like her. She can never share what we all had shared, so long ago, but that's no fault of hers, and I like her. "Coping. She liked her 'jii-chan'. The weather's probably affecting her, too." "Can't blame her. Can't blame it, either." Pause. "And you?" He shrugs. "I was never that close to him." "You /were/. Back then." "That was a long time ago." "Time doesn't change that much." "It changes enough." And because he's right, I say nothing. Times change, time changes, and we change with it. Because that's part of what it means to be alive. I think this is the first time I've ever really spoken with Yue, at least, like this. There's never been much we could talk about- -after all, he had been created first, and I was designed to be his opposite. But the rain falls down, and I lean a bit closer, and maybe we're not all that different, after all. "And you know, I think it would have been better if I knew how to cry, but I don't. It's a human thing, and he never taught me." He doesn't say anything, but that's not because he's not listening. "It's funny, isn't it?" I ask, and I try to smile but I can't, because it isn't, not really. "If you've stayed with somebody for years and years and years, it stands to reason that you'd be able to do without them for a week, at least, but..." And he continues not to say anything but he's still holding me, and I continue speaking because Yue understands and because one part of me hopes it'll hurt less if I do. "I don't know what I'm going to do anymore, but there's /something/ he must want me to, because he doesn't want me to go--but it's all so meaningless when I wake up and he's not there, because he /was/ my meaning, whether or not he meant to be, it was just one of those inevitable things, and--" And I say the words that have been in the back of my mind for the past week, although they come out in less than a whisper. "I miss him." I miss him-- /"Hello. I'm Eriol. I expect you need a name--What do you think about 'Ruby Moon'?" A chuckle. "It's a bit pretentious, but I guess that can't be helped."/ His smile-- /"I may have created you with an impervious stomach, but if you keep eating raw cookie dough like that, I'm not going to guarantee how long -that'll- last."/ His laugh-- /"Nakuru, if you could fish Suppi out of the sugar canister? No, don't make that face at me--if you dumped him in there, you can get him out, yourself."/ His unending patience, his utter confidence that everything would turn out the way he wanted it to--a trait that occasionally made me want to hit him. His voice, his ever-polite speech, the way the sunlight fell off his hair, the way he'd just /pose/ sometimes, utterly unintentional, I'm sure--but then again, knowing him, it could just as likely be deliberate. I miss all that. A lot. It isn't really the time that matters. I've been separated from him for more than a week, before--what matters, really, is the thought that I'll /never see him again/, and I close my eyes and just cling to Yue, and the rain drips slowly down my face--odd, though, how hot it seems this time, even though the wind is still chilly and I'm shivering, and I thought Yue was keeping the weather away with his wings-- "Nakuru," Yue says, and I look up, surprised, because I've known him for more than a century and he's never called me by name before. "You're crying." I am? I say, or try to say, but the words catch in my throat and die, as I lift one hand and brush at the moisture on my face. Curious, I touch a finger to my tongue, and taste salt. So I /am/. How odd. Maybe there are some things that I don't need to learn from him, after all. Behind me, I hear his laughter, and this time, I do turn around. But, like I expected, nobody's there-- Just a sakura tree, and a carved stone angel in the rain. ------------------ ~Meia onedimensional: http://dreaming.critter.net/onedimensional/one.html</pre><p><a href="./">Back</a></p><p><a href=http://www.dreamhost.com/donate.cgi?id=216><img border=0 alt="Donate towards our web hosting bill!" src=https://secure.newdream.net/donate1.gif></a></p></body></html>