Not Warm Enough (Yue/Clow)

[storypaint]

Comm: 30_angsts
Words: 552
Fandom: Cardcaptor Sakura
Title: Not Warm Enough
Author: rhap_chan
Theme(s): 2. For when you die I'll be there for you
Pairing/Characters: Yue/Clow Reed
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Cardcaptor Sakura belongs to CLAMP.
Summary: Yue sits on the roof and thinks about Clow. He wanted to die today. All fanfiction archived here is a derivative of canon material that is not my property. I do not profit from these writings. The opinions and actions expressed in these stories are not necessarily the views and beliefs of the original author or me.

Excerpt: I wanted to shrug off his stupid sympathy and the coat, but it smelled like Clow (before he got sick).

"It's getting pretty cold out here," Cerberus said. He had one of Clow's coats clutched gently in his teeth and he threw it over my shoulders. I wanted to shrug off his stupid sympathy and the coat, but it smelled like Clow (before he got sick). I knew there was candy and the remnants of a spell in the left pocket. He never cleaned his coats out; he left it for me to do, since I loved to handle his things, to touch him by proxy.

He was not an affectionate man; touch made him awkward. I had the impression that his parents had been unreachable figures in his life, stressed between two cultures, and so he didn't know how to give the affection he himself craved.

"He's asking for you," Cerberus said quietly, sitting down beside me. The wind blew through his fur and I wondered if he was cold. It was getting dark and the wind up here had nothing to block its flow. I liked to sit up on the roof anyway; it was the one place where Clow had trouble reaching in the house.

I tried to reach out to him all the time, but when I tired of that, I came up here and was fiercely alone.

"So is this the end, then?" I said, trying to keep my voice flat. From the way Cerberus ducked his head I was sure he had misinterpreted my coldness. I cared too much, not too little. I cared too much, but Clow wasn't good with emotion, and so neither was I.

"It isn't the end until he wills it to be," Cerberus said gently. "He wants to talk to us both. He says you haven't been to his bedside in days."

"His bedside? Tcch," I said dismissively, knotting my hands in the fabric of his coat. "What is the point of this, Cerberus? He is choosing to die, you know. Why bother with all of these theatrics?"

I didn't look at him, because I couldn't hide the panic in my eyes, but he understood.

"Clow is a unique man," Cerberus said, shrugging a leonine shoulder. "The context of this is of his choice, but the timing comes from greater forces than him. You can't change fate, you know."

"He has played with fate before," I said. Cerberus head-butted me in a brotherly way.

"Come on," he said, getting up and shaking to send a shiver down his fur. After a moment, I rose as well and folded Clow's coat carefully before I leapt off the roof and alighted gently by the door. Cerberus went in first, trying to be brave, judging by his walk, and after a moment I followed, clutching Clow's coat in my arms.

I went knowing that he had been hanging on until he found the opportunity to speak his last words to me. I went coldly, with my chin high, to hear words that I could not listen to, because my brain couldn't process in my grief. And I held his hand and Cerberus rested his head on Clow's chest as his breathing slowed and my beloved creator shut his eyes for the last time.

It had been terrible, but more terrible still it had been to find that all of these memories were a lie.