Resonating Light Chapter 14
Okay, enough staring at David Usher's chest. I bring goodies. :D
I was gonna congratulate myself on getting this done "fast," and then I saw the date of the last chapter, and that was six months ago. Hey, at least I made it in under a year this time. Look, I'm gonna get this thing done even if my teeth start falling out first, and wow, have I really stuck with something long enough to see such a big number on it?
Oh yeah, and for those of you who started watching this LJ since the summer, I don't do fic filters. Just scroll past, yeah? This is a very old LJ. Some of my fandoms never die.
Title: Resonating Light
Chapter: 14
Series: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon
Rating: Currently PG-13 for some bad language and violence.
Summary: Pseudo-AU. At a decisive moment in battle, Kunzite chooses to take a very different path. Now he must do all that he can to save the person who he was born to protect.
Warnings: Future shounen ai warning. Do not read if you dislike homosexual pairings. Also, somewhat unedited. Beware.
The cold and darkness of Kunzite's dreams gave way to different kinds of cold and darkness. It was the numb ache that accompanied every breath, as though his chest was a deflated tire, too frozen to expand. It was pain that simmered and crackled at the center of his forehead, threatening to cleave his skull apart. It was moments of panic and confusion calmed by quieting hands, hands that left warmth and feeling blossoming on his skin wherever they touched. It was a voice that patiently explained to him why he was shaking so badly, why his head hurt, as soft fingers stroked the hair out of his face. It was the gentle urgings to drink something hot that his numbed tongue could not even catch the flavor of.
Something clicked slowly into place in his mind. There was no hot water or electricity in their building. There was running water and everything to brush their teeth, but...
"Where did you get that?" His voice sounded, and felt, like he was speaking through broken glass. He thought it might have been the first thing he'd said all night. Maybe. It didn't matter.
His prince's voice, by contrast, was like warm black cashmere at his side. "There's a vending machine just across the street."
"You left the barrier."
"Only for a moment." Mamoru pressed the cup to his lips again. His arm cradled Kunzite's head, displaying his casual strength beside his friend's weakness. This time Kunzite tasted just the barest hint of sweetness. Sugar? Wasn't there something in there about how you treated hypothermia?
And then Kunzite remembered that there was no barrier, that his barrier lay in tatters around him like broken cobwebs. Endymion was being kind to him. He was letting him pretend that he was still protecting his prince. It was the same way that you lied to terminally ill patients about whether they would make it to your next birthday. It was the same way that you lied to your grandmother about whether her cookies tasted burnt.
His last pride as a guardian also in tatters, Kunzite gave himself up to his prince's hands guiding him back onto the pillow. It didn't matter at all, did it? Beryl was gone. Endymion had banished her easily. Nothing could hurt him anymore.
He curled against Mamoru's side, his numb fingers seeking the flicker of warmth he held, and the healing relief from pain. As sleep began to overtake him again, he whispered, "You never needed me."
***
It occurred to Mamoru how maddening it must have been for Kunzite in those first few days after his rescue, when all he could do was wait. His guardian was, at the moment, nothing but a few wisps of white hair trailing from beneath a tremendous mound of bedding. Mamoru, panicked and resourceful, had moved the futon with all its blankets from the other room and packed his guardian into them like a frostbitten caterpillar. Even their capes had been repurposed for the task, and sat at the top of the heap, glinting silver on top of black.
Unlike Kunzite, he did not care to brood in the darkness, and so he lit candles, and he paced. He checked on Kunzite, and he paced. He gazed out the window, and he paced. When the adrenaline had died down, when Kunzite was well bandaged and warm and out of danger, when there were no more problems for his keen mind to puzzle through, all he had left to do was fidget and try not to think too hard on all the day's events.
He walked restlessly from the window to a randomly selected corner and back again. He cast his eyes on the sleeping form of Kunzite. Though he knew that his guardian would chastise him for it if he knew his thoughts, Mamoru could not help the ball of guilt that waxed in his chest. Were such feelings ridiculous? After all, he had fended off Beryl, hadn't he? His Shitennou made it clear that he was the only thing that could have protected Kunzite from her.
But when he turned the facts over in his head and laid them out to inspect them, they remained thus. That Kunzite had been attacked while he was in the other room, brooding over something so meaningless as a kiss. He had been so preoccupied by his own feelings that he almost failed to notice his guardian in danger across the hall.
Mamoru stole another glance at the guardian in question, as though he had not already memorized the contours of his sleeping form beneath the blankets. He had never imagined that he could use the word "fragile" to describe somebody so strong and so very powerful, somebody who made him feel safer than he could remember ever feeling in his life just by his presence. All this time, he had selfishly believed Kunzite when he told him that he, Mamoru, was the only reason that they were in hiding, that he was the only one who needed protecting. It had never occurred to him that his guardian needed his own guarding.
How foolish had he been? It all fell into place now. Why Kunzite insisted that he was powerful enough to take on Beryl even while he hid him from conflict. The Kunzite of his memories was proud and formidable. He was never blood-thirsty or hasty to engage a fight, but he never balked at one either. The Kunzite that he had known would cringe at the thought of hiding like this.
But that is exactly what he did, because he knew that he had no way of fighting the Dark Kingdom. All this time, what the head Shitennou feared to be Endymion's greatest threat was himself. And so he did exactly what most injured his pride, and he hid them both.
And now he suffered, because Mamoru took it for granted that his guardian never needed help. Mamoru pushed his fingers through his hair, disgusted with himself and his complacency. He had lost sight of their dangerous situation.
His fingers traced the water damaged wall. Plaster flaked at his touch. Candle light flickered, casting strange shadows across the faded surface.
It could never happen again. He would make sure of it.
He laid his full hand on the wall, palm pressed to the cool eggshell texture of the old paint. His senses cast out along the wall from his fingertips, tracing the length of it, rounding the corners of the room. He let his psychometric perception translate what he felt into his vision, and instantly the bleak white room came alive with silver gossamer strands of what was left of Kunzite's barrier. They were like spider webs, carefully woven nets made out of the finest strands of shimmering silk. Mamoru remembered the stars he had seen in Kunzite's aura, and he smiled then.
Although much of the barrier was now little more than threads loosely bound together, a few pieces were intact enough for him to study their pattern. Pressing his cheek to the wall, he watched the tiny fibers near his face drift in the air. He thought of how wise his guardian was, that he had followed the outer walls of the rooms, treating the frame of the building as a lattice for his barrier. He considered the intricate knots, the artistic pattern of the silver threads, and wondered whether Kunzite was not hiding a creative side of himself.
Experimentally, he sent a small pulse of energy at the nearest shred of strands. It fluttered delicately as the energy passed, but otherwise did not respond. He tried touching it, but it repelled his advance, as it was made to do. How could he connect with it?
His hand still on the wall, he traced the lines down across the floor. Kunzite had only had this one floor shielded, it seemed.
Again he studied the pattern, treating it as a puzzle to be solved. If only he could see the logic behind it, it would be made clear to him. Was it the perspective that made some strands on the floor appear thicker? Mamoru picked out those thicker ones, highlighting them in his mind. And was it just him, or were they all pointing in the same direction? Or rather, fanning out from the same source?
Mamoru removed his hand from the wall, the curtains of silver vanishing as he did so. He crossed the room and knelt down beside Kunzite. When he peeled the blankets back, they revealed the ashen face of his comrade, lost in the deep sleep that Mamoru had eased him into. White bandages covered white hair, wrapped gently around his head. Mamoru was not sure whether the hard pink stone was still visible through the broken skin of his forehead, but he preferred to keep it covered, all the same.
From beneath the layers of bedding, he fished out Kunzite's hand, taking it in both his own. Again he summoned his psychometry. Immediately the silver webs were visible to him again. From down on the floor, they seemed to frost the room, like snowflakes suspended from the ceiling. From a closer perspective, he could see that he was right about the thicker strands across the floor. He also saw now that they were indeed fanning out from a single source.
Kunzite's hand, held between his, shone silver with the strings that wound around his wrist and his fingers. Like a living creature, it fed off of him, drinking in the energy that it needed to live. It must have been able to sustain itself for the brief periods when he left the building, only to feed all the more hungrily when he returned.
The Prince of the Earth could not help his smirk of triumph, shaking his head at his sleeping guardian. "You bastard, you hid this from me too, didn't you? We're going to have a very long talk when you wake up."
Mamoru closed his eyes, no longer needing his sight to understand what he was working with. In his mind, he saw a single thread wrapped around Kunzite's index finger. He caught it, followed the length of it up into the network of hundreds of others like it. And then he knew what it was. At the smallest scale possible, the threads were the same as the network of golden streams beneath the Earth's surface. He knew this pattern. Even if he did not recognize the look of it, he knew the feel of it implicitly. He urged the threads to move, as the streams did. Obediently, they followed his gentle directing. He followed their graceful length, offering his own energy where Kunzite once offered his.
By his hand, they began to weave back together. Where there were not enough silver threads, thin golden vines grew in their place, barbed by sharp thorns that hitched into the twisted knots, making the web ever stronger.
Soon there were no tatters dangling from the ceiling. Only a net pulled taut, glistening with silver and gold, the occasional thorn catching the light like a jewel.
When he was finished weaving, Mamoru set to work unweaving. One by one, he unraveled each strand of silver from Kunzite's hand, until he held them all. Of their own accord, the threads coiled around his own wrist. He would be the one to feed them now. They pulsed happily against his skin, sensing their healthier host.
His work finished, he laid Kunzite's hand close to his body, hoping it would retain more warmth. He smoothed the covers over his guardian, settling down close to him as he slept.
Then, perhaps only because he knew his guardian could not see it, he laid himself against the blankets, his head settling where Kunzite's chest would be. He gazed down at the sleeping Shitennou. His mentor. His friend.
"You promised to protect me," he said softly. Outside, the night was still. The candles were burning low, some already extinguished.
"Now I promise what I should have already. I promise to protect you back."
****
The line about brushing teeth is for Charliechaplin2, who was concerned about whether or not the boys were keeping up on proper hygiene. Not to worry, dears, I like my boys dirty, but not that kind of dirty.
I've been waiting to get to this end of the Big Turning Point for a long time. I know you all hoped that there would be epic drama ahead, but it's nothing but the same stuff you've already read in reverse, LULZ. Then again, if you thought this would be an action-packed thriller, you'd have probably stopped reading due to immense disappointment a long time ago. No, I've been waiting for this from a character development perspective. I know that in a lot of Mamoru/Shitennou fic (and particularly my own writing) Mamoru runs the risk of turning into the Damsel in Distress in an effort to give the Shitennou more chances to do their thing. The Mamoru of this story is still a teenage kid who is new to this whole thing, so it's not unreasonable for him to passively accept all of Kunzite's teachings and protection, but the Mamoru we know and love is more than that. Other than the scene when Mamoru grants Kunzite forgiveness, there's been an obvious power imbalance that would have been a setup for one messed up relationship, and I've been waiting for a long time to even the score a bit. I've also seen it suggested that any Mamoru/Shitennou romance winds up with Mamoru too uke-ish, which makes me lol. Mamoru would make a terrible uke (except when possessed houseplants are involved, AMIRIGHT?).
Basically, this is a short chapter, but it made me feel happy and squishy inside to write it.
Random observation, but those who are keeping track may notice that this is the first time I've shown them using an actual light source (in a fic that is MADE of light/darkness symbolism). Basically because this is the first actual night scene we've had since Kunzite was brooding and emo in it, and one never lights candles when they want to be brooding and emo. It just surprised me to realize it, because I almost went and wrote this entire scene in the dark out of habit. Like, as though candles weren't even in the realm of possibility. It was a slight revelation that there could be candles. *shakes head*
Also, Elianthos caught me red-handed in the act of cheating on you all with other readers. That's right, this baby has started hitting Fanfiction.net. It's still way behind this one, and in the event that it catches up, new chapters will always continue to appear here first, just because I like the intimacy of LJ better (like getting to actually discuss stuff with readers instead of just reading a review and thinking "oh, well that's nice, I guess"). A few edits were made to the chapters that went up there, but nothing significant so far. But plz to be noticing the author's notes in the first chapter.
My plan worked, it seems, because it made me start coming back to writing this current chapter (which I had a really hard time starting, but when I got to it, took me all of two days, GO DIVINE INSPIRATION GO). What also helped was Elianthos reccing me a really awesome gem by the name of Absolution, which does fun things with Mamoru's role in the first season. What are you, Elianthos, the fairy godmother of fanfiction? The author also has some really interesting imagery when it comes to how Mamoru's powers look, and even though I'd already planned to describe the barrier as a big ripped up net (I didn't steal the thread stuff, I promise), it did make me really excited to describe this scene, which probably made it more pretty as a result.
Edit: Also (I'm never gonna shut up, am I?), looking back on the chapters I know somebody was wondering why Mamoru took so long to catch on to Kunzite's danger. The truth is that originally Chapter 12 included a scene about Mamoru being emotastic over his feelings about the kiss, but it turned so whiny that I couldn't stand to write it (and that was already the chapter from hell for me). This chapter was also originally going to feature him continuing his emo thoughts, but in the end it seemed better to just allude to them. Do you think it's enough?
Past chapters:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
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Everything about this, from the treatment of the characters to the imagery you used, is just so incredibly clever. And as you mention in the notes, so much of the imagery you do present seems so thoughtful and deliberate. I'm terribly in awe. The image of the barrier changing from the silver web to the golden vines was my favorite. Also, having read this chapter, I can't imagine it having been EPIC DRAMA instead - you flow through the reasoning of the characters so that this scene was unquestionably the next step for both them.
I'll give you better notes later on (just woke up), but I loved this <3