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Well, it's 2:43am and here in Australia it's officially 07-07.
Therefore, I claim the rights to being the very first person to wish![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
crazylittleme a very happy and amazing and crazy and smutful birthday :D We love j00, Kelsey.
(You share a birthday with my dad, by the way.)
Can't make icons for presents, since your icons kick the ass of mine any day. Therefore, birthday fic:
Habits
Habits can be picked up from the strangest of places, and become part of one's routine before one is even aware of it, insinuating themselves into a lifestyle with ease.
Others have origins that are very clear, either imprinted deliberately onto one's normal cycle of events through repetition or the result of a single incident.
And some habits are a mixture of both, because to dwell too long on them in an attempt to pinpoint a beginning is to destroy their significance.
It's snowing outside, not the clean pretty snowfalls that I remember from my childhood. Gusts of wind and ice and violence, battering at the window and bringing shuddering blasts of dull noise to an otherwise peaceful house. My eyes drift half closed and the almost-defined specks of white become a storm of sakura.
But it takes very little to push my mind in that direction, these days, so I ignore it.
My hand drifts automatically to the table beside the bed. Habit. I pick up the half-empty packet of cigarettes and pull one out, not even looking at it. It feels like soft relief in my mouth, my nerves calming and breath evening out even before it is lit and the nicotine has a chance to act. Habit fulfilled does that to you, I guess. Break a routine and panic ensues - keep faithfully on track and there's a certain sense of satisfaction.
But the habit must be carried through completely, so I lift the lighter and flick it with practiced disregard for the blunt friction pain as the metal scrapes across my fingertips. Night vision dissolves momentarily in the flame, distorting my sense of distance and flickering bright uncertainty. Find the end of the cigarette, hold, flick off. Lighter goes back in my coat pocket, a reassuring metal lump to turn over in my fingers.
Only a tiny light now, a smouldering red tinge at the edge of my vision, standing out against the white of the sheets and my coat.
I close my eyes, lower my chin, take the first breath of bitter custom. Stay frozen for a second, blocking out even the roaring of the wind outside, pulling all my senses into the perpetuation of this single moment.
Lift my head and gaze out of the window again, with a slow exhalation that dances grey smoke in front of me.
That is how the habit goes.
But he's not part of this routine. I've ignored him up until this moment, standing cross-legged cross-armed in the doorway's shadow and watching me in silence, but the break from normality is beginning to jar.
"Couldn't you find somewhere else to be?" I ask through a wreath of smoke.
"Am I bothering you that much?" His voice is low. I don't think anyone else is awake.
"Yes." I take a drag and look away deliberately.
"You smoke because he does, don't you?" He doesn't move.
I pause and flick ash onto the sheets. "Why do you say that?"
"Grow up, Subaru," he says slightly bitterly. "I'm not blind."
Do you Wish to be, I almost say, but that is giving away far too much. This is dangerous. I can't be thinking things like that with him nearby, because he sees too deeply for such an innocent face. I wish he'd go away.
"The snow looks like sakura," I say suddenly, hoping to shock or disappoint or sadden him into leaving, into taking that tragic purple gaze somewhere else and stop it from intruding on my personal ritual.
He stands in silence for a little while, not really looking at me. He looks at the snow falling in untidy patterns outside, thin arms hugging himself unconsciously through the flimsy material of his shirt.
"Does it help at all," he says eventually, very quiet, "to know that I see it as feathers?" And he meets my gaze.
We share something in that instant, nothing intimate or warm or even remotely romantic. But it's an understanding, an acknowledgement, and perhaps a bit of redemption for two souls lost beyond recall.
After a moment he nods, untangles slender teenaged limbs from themselves and walks to sit next to me on the bed. He takes a cigarette from the packet with gentle, unpractised fingers, puts out his hand for the lighter. After a moment I drop it into his palm and after a couple of false starts the cigarette is lit. He knows better than to ask me to do it for him.
Head dips down, eyes close, single dull spark of ember bright againt the pale skin.
Lifts his head and a new habit is born in the gap between one thought and the next.
Therefore, I claim the rights to being the very first person to wish
crazylittleme a very happy and amazing and crazy and smutful birthday :D We love j00, Kelsey.(You share a birthday with my dad, by the way.)
Can't make icons for presents, since your icons kick the ass of mine any day. Therefore, birthday fic:
Habits
Habits can be picked up from the strangest of places, and become part of one's routine before one is even aware of it, insinuating themselves into a lifestyle with ease.
Others have origins that are very clear, either imprinted deliberately onto one's normal cycle of events through repetition or the result of a single incident.
And some habits are a mixture of both, because to dwell too long on them in an attempt to pinpoint a beginning is to destroy their significance.
It's snowing outside, not the clean pretty snowfalls that I remember from my childhood. Gusts of wind and ice and violence, battering at the window and bringing shuddering blasts of dull noise to an otherwise peaceful house. My eyes drift half closed and the almost-defined specks of white become a storm of sakura.
But it takes very little to push my mind in that direction, these days, so I ignore it.
My hand drifts automatically to the table beside the bed. Habit. I pick up the half-empty packet of cigarettes and pull one out, not even looking at it. It feels like soft relief in my mouth, my nerves calming and breath evening out even before it is lit and the nicotine has a chance to act. Habit fulfilled does that to you, I guess. Break a routine and panic ensues - keep faithfully on track and there's a certain sense of satisfaction.
But the habit must be carried through completely, so I lift the lighter and flick it with practiced disregard for the blunt friction pain as the metal scrapes across my fingertips. Night vision dissolves momentarily in the flame, distorting my sense of distance and flickering bright uncertainty. Find the end of the cigarette, hold, flick off. Lighter goes back in my coat pocket, a reassuring metal lump to turn over in my fingers.
Only a tiny light now, a smouldering red tinge at the edge of my vision, standing out against the white of the sheets and my coat.
I close my eyes, lower my chin, take the first breath of bitter custom. Stay frozen for a second, blocking out even the roaring of the wind outside, pulling all my senses into the perpetuation of this single moment.
Lift my head and gaze out of the window again, with a slow exhalation that dances grey smoke in front of me.
That is how the habit goes.
But he's not part of this routine. I've ignored him up until this moment, standing cross-legged cross-armed in the doorway's shadow and watching me in silence, but the break from normality is beginning to jar.
"Couldn't you find somewhere else to be?" I ask through a wreath of smoke.
"Am I bothering you that much?" His voice is low. I don't think anyone else is awake.
"Yes." I take a drag and look away deliberately.
"You smoke because he does, don't you?" He doesn't move.
I pause and flick ash onto the sheets. "Why do you say that?"
"Grow up, Subaru," he says slightly bitterly. "I'm not blind."
Do you Wish to be, I almost say, but that is giving away far too much. This is dangerous. I can't be thinking things like that with him nearby, because he sees too deeply for such an innocent face. I wish he'd go away.
"The snow looks like sakura," I say suddenly, hoping to shock or disappoint or sadden him into leaving, into taking that tragic purple gaze somewhere else and stop it from intruding on my personal ritual.
He stands in silence for a little while, not really looking at me. He looks at the snow falling in untidy patterns outside, thin arms hugging himself unconsciously through the flimsy material of his shirt.
"Does it help at all," he says eventually, very quiet, "to know that I see it as feathers?" And he meets my gaze.
We share something in that instant, nothing intimate or warm or even remotely romantic. But it's an understanding, an acknowledgement, and perhaps a bit of redemption for two souls lost beyond recall.
After a moment he nods, untangles slender teenaged limbs from themselves and walks to sit next to me on the bed. He takes a cigarette from the packet with gentle, unpractised fingers, puts out his hand for the lighter. After a moment I drop it into his palm and after a couple of false starts the cigarette is lit. He knows better than to ask me to do it for him.
Head dips down, eyes close, single dull spark of ember bright againt the pale skin.
Lifts his head and a new habit is born in the gap between one thought and the next.