Thoughtful, Thoughtless (Clow gen)

[storypaint]

Comm: 1fandom
Fandom: Cardcaptor Sakura/xxxHOLiC
Theme Set: 2
Rating: G
Author Notes: All pre-canon.
Disclaimer: Cardcaptor Sakura and xxxHOLiC belong to CLAMP.
Summary: The telling of Clow's life in anticipation of Sakura.

01. Heavy
Half English, half Chinese-- sometimes the weight of his ancestry pressed down on Clow so hard he thought he couldn't breathe.

02. Slip
It only took one slip of temper for them to exile him: he was simply too dangerous.

03. Uphold
Since neither of his families would let him uphold their traditions, he decided to make his own in a country both hated-- Japan.

04. Magic
Initially, magic was just a hobby.

05. Hurry
Three times he had to hurry out of town, failed magical experiments and angry townspeople behind him.

06. Hole
Finally he found the small hole-in-the-ground town of Tomoeda-- a few houses and a beautiful shrine: perfect.

07. Music
He was never any good at music, but he loved it; that prompted the first card, perhaps his favorite.

08. Inside
Most people with potential lock it away, but there was no way to lock the door on Clow.

09. Later
Even his guardians were vague about his character, later; he had been such a strange, unpredictable man.

10. One
He was lonely, and so he brought his companions to life-- a winged lion, a beautiful angel.

11. World
Kero, Yue, and the Clow Cards were his whole world.

12. Cheat
Yuuko would call it cheating, his manipulations of fate, but he called it necessary.

13. Pink
Kero poked fun at him for weeks because the staff was pink, but he just smiled and thought about the little girl whose costumes would match.

14. Love
Sometimes he was bothered by Yue's devotion, but he never said anything (it wasn't like he could make him go away, or that he wanted to).

15. Eat
The only person who could eat more in one sitting than Clow was Kero, and in the end he was always happy to concede to the guardian (though not as happy to have to restock the pantry).

16. Stone
One year his brother came looking for him, came right up to the door; Clow stood perfectly still and waited for him to leave, like the man could sense movement.

17. Boss
"Don't answer the door," he hissed through clenched teeth, and it was the first time Kero had looked at him and just obeyed.

18. Feather
Fuu Ran Reed wasn't surprised that Clow didn't answer, but he was surprised by the feather he found on the doorstep, much too long to belong to anything but the biggest bird in existence.

19. Here
Kero thought that Clow was never quite there, his eyes always on the future, and sometimes that made Kero feel lonely.

20. Now
It wasn't any fun to sneak up on Clow when he had seen now a week ago, but sometimes Clow pretended that he didn't know Kero was about to jump on him.

21. Parent
He never thought of himself as a parent until he left them, and it hurt so badly.

22. Free
Even death wasn't free, it was a sacrifice towards the future (this man had no idea how to live for the day).

23. Whimsy
Some of the cards were just his whimsies, and it wasn't like they would hurt anyone too badly-- they were fun.

24. Worry
He worried about Sakura, and so he made arrangements for the Moon Bell (after all, he knew how stubborn Yue could be).

25. Star
He picked out Sakura's star a hundred years before she was born, and when he worked late into the night, he always found it comforting.

26. Way
Yue wanted things done his way, and most of the time Clow conceded (since he knew Sakura would shake the stuffy guardian up a little).

27. Dish
Kero only did the dishes once; for some reason Clow hadn't foreseen the mess.

28. Pride
He was proud, so he wouldn't go back to the family who had tossed him out in the world, but he loved them, so he left arrangements for his things in his will, and a Chinese address.

29. Build
It wasn't hard to build their forms, but waking them into life took everything Clow had.

30. Expelled
He was expelled from a British school of magic in record time, but he never looked back.

31. Perfect
He made the arrangements for Sakura as pefectly as he could, hoping that hitsuzen would smooth down the edges.

32. Night
He gave Eriol a chant about darkness, and the robes his mother wanted him to wear as a child, and he prayed that the boy would spend more time in sunlight than he himself did.

33. Lost
He lost Yuuko when he told her he was going to die, just as he knew he would (it didn't make things any easier).

34. Time
He ignored time for several centuries, which of course came back to bite him on the butt.

35. Evil
He was never evil, but some days he considered it.

36. Today
When the visions were bad, sometimes Clow couldn't see today in-between tomorrow and yesterday.

37. Crack
One day he cracked, and Kero found him sobbing on the study floor, overwhelmed by the weight of his responsibilities, but Kero never told anyone.

38. Quit
Kero also convinced him it would be a bad idea to quit in the middle.

39. Play
He took Kero and Yue over to Yuuko's to play with the Mokonas so "Mommy and Daddy could have a talk."

40. Nut
She called him crazy, and slapped him, and when that didn't deter him, she cried.

41. Down
She was forever downing the "creep with the glasses," but Watanuki knew better.

42. Ready
When everything was ready, he took one last peaceful breath before he started the charms.

43. Slow
Reincarnation was a pretty slow way to get things done, he realized later.

44. Animal
He was glad that Sakura never thought of Kero as an animal, because he really was a little person in fur.

45. Teen
He'd been a teen once, and he knew she had to get the Cards all figured out before the hormones set in, or nothing would get done.

46. Burn
It burned Eriol to see how much Yue was still hurting (he had loved Clow too much, too much).

47. Tie
The only wedding he had ever wanted to attend was Sakura and Syaoran's; pity he was dead.

48. Blast
His last blast of glory was the most satisfying bit of magic he'd ever done; death was so satisfying.

49. They
Sure, they said a lot about him after he was gone, but what did they know?

50. Rot
This time, when he and Eriol died, he planned to rot-- much more restful.