http://clampfix.fanworks.net/x-fix/blessings.txt </head><body><pre>Disclaimer: The Dragons are the property of CLAMP. Category: S/K angsty WAFF or Waffy Angst Summary: Subaru comes back after being gone for a month Many thanks to Shizuka for the wonderful beta reading ^_^ For Alison Koh - - - - - - Blessings (1/1) By Lika "Subaru?" He turned around and saw Kamui standing at the other side of the room at the doorway. The boy looked both overjoyed to see him and hesitant at the same time. Subaru smiled. "So you got my message." "Yes," said the boy shyly. "I got the email in the morning." In the morning. Subaru sent the email shortly after breakfast. The boy must have been guarding the mailbox, the email, and the phone like a hawk for the last month. He felt a twinge of guilt at this knowledge. "I'm sorry I didn't send you word sooner." The boy shook his head and his body gave signs of wanting to walk towards the onmyouji. "Come on," Subaru said gently, moving over so the boy could sit comfortably beside him. Comfortably in terms of space though. Once Kamui dropped to his bottom next to Subaru, they both grew a little tense. Still, it was going better than what Kamui had thought it would be when he saw the email that evening. It was a simple two liner: "Kamui, come to Tokyo Tower, 5:30 to the observation desk. Don't tell anyone else. Subaru." When he had seen the message, he felt that strange combination of elation and suspicion. A number of possible scenarios ran through his head after he turned off the computer, most of them unpleasant, the worst one being him going up to the Tower and seeing no one there. But Subaru was there, not with Fuuma or any other of the other Dragons of Earth, and he didn't seem cold and distant like the last time Kamui saw him. Of course he only spoke two lines, so Kamui decided not to count his chickens before they hatched. He started to speak hesitantly, but Subaru opened his mouth to make an utterance at the same time. "Sorry!" "Excuse me!" They both looked at each other and blushed. Kamui finally got a good look at Subaru then. His one good eye still held a touch of melancholy, but there was a clearness in it he had never seen before. The unseeing eye beside it didn't look as menacing as Kamui thought it would. The light gleamed off it, but it looked almost friendly to Kamui. Maybe because Subaru was smiling at him, and Subaru smiling was such a rare and beautiful thing. "You go first," Subaru said. Kamui flushed. "I was just going to break the ice with a question. I forgot it though." "Strange," mused Subaru thoughtfully. "I was going to do the same. I'm afraid I forgot mine too." Kamui chuckled, although in the back of his mind, he was frightened. It was going well, and he knew from experience that when things went well, they were likely to blow up in your face. He lowered his eyes for a moment and then looked at Subaru again. "I've missed you a lot." The expression on Subaru's face softened. "I've missed you too." "Really?" A part of him couldn't believe it. A large part of him. The one that thought, well, then, why didn't you ever contact me? Leave a message with your grandmother letting me know how you were? A simple line saying, "I'm fine" would be more than enough. Subaru sensed his doubt and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said. "You must have gone through hell this past month because of me." Kamui nodded his head before the other side of him, the one he wanted to take over, to come out and say it was all right, could wake up from its place in the back of his mind. Feeling bad for the look of guilt that crossed Subaru's face, Kamui quickly added, "But there's nothing wrong with you leaving. It's your life and you have a right to do whatever you want with it. It's just- " he surprised himself by saying the last two words. Apparently, he had more anger stored in him that he had thought. "I wished you wrote once telling me you were alive. You didn't have to tell me where you were. I just wanted to know that you were all right." Subaru took his hand off Kamui's shoulder and sighed. "I'm sorry," he said, though not meaning it, like he did when he talked about hurting Kamui. He still felt justified in what he did. "It was selfish of me not to do so, but I couldn't see past myself for the first few days." "I understand," said Kamui sincerely, feeling guilty for rebuking him earlier. After all, Subaru lost the man he loved. Really, it was selfish of him to act this way towards Subaru. He chastised himself and then asked, "Where did you go?" Subaru looked out the window, staring at landscape beyond them without seeing it. "Ueno Park," he answered. Kamui looked up swiftly. "You were right here the whole time?" A hint of a grim smile tugged at Subaru's mouth. "I was in a maboroshi." "But, the Sakurazukamori--!" Kamui nearly jumped to his feet. "He's dead, isn't he?" The moment he said that he wanted to hit himself. What a completely insensitive thing to say to someone who just lost a loved one! But Subaru wasn't offended or upset by it at all. Actually, he was rather surprised that Kamui would feel that bad about bringing up Seishirou's death. After all, Kamui had lost people he loved himself. But then again, people deal with their grief differently. "Yeah. He's dead," Subaru said, but with a reassuring kindness directed to Kamui. "It was my maboroshi I was staying in. I didn't realise how much time passed until I came out of it." Kamui's eyes widened. "Your maboroshi?" So he did put the pieces together. Subaru closed his eyes. "Yes. It seems I'm the next Sakurazukamori." It was more than just the floor that was ripped from beneath Kamui. The whole tower seemed to have been rudely torn off him and he was falling down all one thousands feet to the hard pavement below. He gasped and somehow, only God knows how we humans do this, managed to make his mind think clearly. He tried to think up a relatively harmless question but couldn't think of any. So he went on with the most general one. "What does that mean?" Subaru's face grew grim. "I don't know," he replied helpfully. "I locked myself in my moboroshi for probably three weeks because I was scared of hurting people." Kamui knew, even though Subaru didn't say it, that he spent most of those three weeks mourning over Seishirou. He was suddenly feeling really bad for telling Subaru he was upset that he didn't let him know where he was. The guy had enough problems to worry about then a sixteen-year-old kid, even if the kid had spent the last month almost languishing over his absence. Sakurazukamori, now that was a real problem. Kamui asked the first question that came to his mind. "Did you hurt anyone?" Subaru shook his head and regarded the relief that was obviously flooding Kamui fondly. "No. The tree has some sort of hold on me, but I have yet to figure out what it is. I don't know how often it needs to be satisfied. It called me a couple days ago, which made me realised I had to do something about it, if I didn't want to hurt people." Two very different thoughts were racing in Kamui at that moment. First one was of surprised at how strong Subaru had become on his own. This was a very different Subaru from the one he last saw in the Inomoyama building a month ago. His will to fight and care about the people around him was a remarkable change from the vacant, mindless shell of before. Kamui kept his first thought to himself but was more vocal about the second one. "That bastard!" he snapped. Subaru stared at him. "It's hideous what he did to you!" There was no denying the pain and frustration in Kamui's eyes. He pulled his body together and sulked. "I know you loved him, but still, by making you the Sakurazukamori and making you kill people, when he must have known you wouldn't have wanted to do that… That's vicious and cowardly and horrible and low. So very low!" "Kamui," said Subaru softly. But Kamui was on a roll. "He just wanted you to die. He knew you couldn't live as a Sakurazukamori so the only way you could escape that was by killing yourself. Oh God! What a dirty trick for him to play! What a fucking dirty trick!" Subaru put both hands lightly on Kamui's shaking shoulders and told him quietly, "No, he didn't want me to die. It was the exact opposite actually." Shock was clearly the expression on Kamui's face. Subaru didn't raise his voice as he spoke. "Do you know what his last words were to me?" Kamui shook his head slowly. "I never loved you." I never loved you. Kamui didn't understand how that could possibly be life giving. He looked at Subaru, his face blank with confusion. "He loved me," Subaru explained gently. "I saw it in his eyes before he died. It was so different from the eyes I saw when he almost destroyed me in his maboroshi. I was worth something to him. "And so he wanted me to live." "But his last words-" Kamui was still confused. Subaru gave him his melancholy smile. "They were his blessing to me. It was his way of telling me not to follow him into death. No one else but him would have thought about putting it that way, but I knew what he meant. He wanted me to live." "But why?" Kamui was having a hard time accepting what he heard. Subaru tensed his brow thoughtfully. "I don't know for sure. I must have been the only person he ever loved. Maybe he wanted that love between us to live on. Or maybe he wanted to give me another chance at happiness because he knew it was impossible with him." Kamui couldn't say anything for a moment. He felt an overwhelming sense of relief and happiness for Subaru now that he had managed to find peace within himself, but at the same time, he felt cut off from him. Everything seemed strictly between Subaru and Seishirou and even though he knew it was selfish of him to think this way, he didn't see where his place was in Subaru's life anymore and it made him sad. Subaru shifted beside him and his face took on a thoughtful, faraway expression. "Did you know," he asked in a voice that was thoughtful as his expression, "that is the exact place where I stood with Seishirou ten years ago?" Kamui rebuked himself for the short spark of jealousy he felt. "No," he said, surprised. Subaru's voice sounded distant, obviously recounting an old memory. "We had just exorcised the soul of a girl who hated Tokyo here. It was right here where we did it. And then we sat together, until I fell asleep. He watched over me throughout the night." The spark of jealousy came again, but Kamui pushed it away. As much as it hurt him to hear this, he was grateful that Subaru was telling him an intimate part of his life he had never shared with him. "He watched over me throughout the year," Subaru continued. "There were a lot of cases that were… well, I guess the word `nasty' applies.They showed an ugly side of the city that no matter how often I saw it, it never failed to shock me. "And then suddenly, it failed to shock me altogether." There was a moment of silence as Kamui registered in the information. He understood that it must have been Seishirou's betrayal and the death of Subaru's sister that caused Subaru's coldness towards Tokyo. "Do you hate Tokyo?" Kamui asked. The question was innocent enough but Subaru flinched. He lowered his chin and stared out at the city. At 5:30 in the morning, Tokyo City looked like it was asleep. Even the early cars and pedestrians looked like they were sleepwalking. "It's strange," Subaru said. "When I was looking at the city before you came, it struck me that it has changed. I don't mean the Dragons and the Promised Day. But it's not the same Tokyo I saw it as. That Tokyo had nothing but betrayals and deception and heartbreak. But this one seems like it has more." Kamui realised that it wasn't Tokyo that had changed, but Subaru's perception of it. He looked out at the city and felt himself a sense of love and peace come over him, despite the earthquakes and his destiny and what happened to his friends. /Why do you want to protect Tokyo? / /To protect Fuuma and Kotori. / Now he realised there was more to protect. "Much more," Kamui whispered. Subaru turned to smile at him. He threaded a finger though his hair, which made Kamui look at him. "You know," he said softly, "you're the first person I've talked to, really talked to, since Hokuto-chan died?" It was first time Kamui heard him say her name. It sounded beautiful coming from Subaru, so full of the memory of love. It was almost as if she was alive again. "It was the first time I allowed myself to think about her. Her death never left me; it was always at the back of my mind, but I couldn't bring myself to think about her. It hurt too much. But when I told you about how she died, it was as if a part of herself came back to me." He gazed fondly at Kamui whose heart was pounding wildly beneath his chest. Kamui swallowed, but not out of discomfort. "You still miss her, don't you?" he queried. Subaru closed his eyes and nodded his head. "Yeah, a lot," he replied, opening his eyes. "I miss her and Seishirou a lot. They were the happiest part of my life. But," he turned to the window again, "I have to let them go." Shock had been in the air since Kamui came to Tokyo Tower and it didn't seem over yet. Kamui put a hand on Subaru's and tightened it. "Are you sure?" he asked. Subaru sighed. "It's time," he said. "It's been time for a while really. I should do it now. It's what they wanted, Hokuto-chan and Seishirou-san." "Really?" Kamui asked. Subaru nodded his head. "Yes. They wanted me to live. So I'll live for both of them, but most importantly, I'll live for myself." Suddenly Kamui realised he was with Subaru during an extremely crucial milestone of his life. He immediately felt that he wasn't supposed to be here with him, that he was inteferring in what should be a private moment for the onmyouji alone. "Do you want me to go?" he asked, but he was already starting to get up. Subaru put a hand on his arm and kept him down. "No," he said quietly but firmly. And then he smiled at Kamui, the first real smile Kamui had ever seen on him; one with no hint of sadness. "I want the only other person I love and care for in the world to be with me." To say the warmth that swept over Kamui at that moment was overwhelming was an understatement. He felt love then, and love, no matter how many times you go through it, it never fails you knock you down and leave you feeling weak in every part of your body. It's simply one of the most wonderful thing anyone can encounter Kamui felt blessed. Shyly, but with a radiance that shone in his face, he put his hand in Subaru's and they closed their fingers around each other´s. They smiled at each other nervously and squeezed each other's hand. Then Subaru turned to the window and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes. Kamui didn't move. He watched over Subaru, as he knew Subaru wanted him to. His eyes must have been playing tricks on him because he thought he saw the thin transparent form of a young boy leave Subaru's body and walk off the observation desk, into the thin air outside where two other spirits were waiting for him, a man and young girl. He thought he heard the girl speak. /Subaru, what took you so long to get here?/ They were gone before he could be sure. Kamui stared at the place where he thought he saw them for a couple of seconds. He said a short prayer for them and then turned to Subaru. The onmyouji's eyes were still closed and his body was rigid, but it was trembling at the same time. It was shaking. "Subaru?" Kamui whispered in alarm. Subaru continued to shake and a single drop of tear fell from under one heavy lid. While he was concerned, Kamui wasn't surprised to see him cry. He knew how hard it must have been for Subaru, for anyone really, to leave his or her past behind and move on. Unconsciously, Subaru had been clinging to that one year -- that one perfect year of his life, which brought him the most joy -- for the last decade. However, to live in this world, he had to get out of that paradise. He had to leave it and move on. But it was still very painful for him. "Subaru?" Kamui said again. Subaru didn't seem to hear; it had been that hard for him to let go. And Kamui then knew why Subaru wanted him there. He moved closer to the onmyouji and put his arms around him. He heard Subaru gasp out a sob, and Kamui rubbed his back. "It's all right, Subaru," he said gently. "I'm here." Slowly, Subaru put his arms around Kamui´s back and then held him close, crying softly into his shoulder. Kamui hugged him back tightly with all his might until Subaru's sob quieted down. He stroked his hair and asked, "Are you all right?" Without looking at him, Subaru nodded his head. Kamui kissed his forehead tenderly. He started to let go when Subaru said, "Not yet." Kamui stopped and looked at him. "Hold me a little longer," Subaru said, his voice shaking and ragged, his head still bowed. Kamui nodded his head and tightened his embrace around him, vowing to do everything he could for him. He'll get the Dragons and the CLAMP detectives and even Lady Sumeragi to help him find a way to end the Sakurazukamori curse. He will take Subaru outside and show him the world beyond its deception and betrayals, and slowly restore his faith in humanity, the faith he lost when Seishirou shattered his innocence. He'll do his best to make life worth living again. Most importantly, he would hold him for as long as Subaru needed him to. - - - - - - - - End of Fic</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>