InsaneJournal

[fic]
Because I am incapable of having a ship for Zel and not ficcing it.

Marina setting, Zelgadis/Saber and Zelgadis/Raven... kinda. Warning for sads-ish things.


***

The third night after Raven lost her friend, there's a fireworks display at the beach. She goes, why not, at least it's not sitting alone while trying to ignore the constant self-reminders that none of the voices on her comm are the few-words greeting of a silken smooth voice that's at once so unfitting for a rock man and perfectly suited to Zel.

There'd been just as few words in his goodbye, he never actually spoke the word itself, just a soft kiss on her forehead and a slow heel-turn and the tail of his cape vanishing around a corner.

Raven winces as the light of another firework flares into a sparkling canopy, green this time, its twin echoing in the curved dome. A moment later the snap-crackle of detonation shudders over the onlookers. The youngest with their ohh-ahh's make her smile, and even the older inmates seem transfixed on the fake sky. As she should be; the show is above them and scanning the crowd a useless venture.

He hates crowds, after all.

But it's fine, she reminds herself, because their farewell was as mutual as one could be, as free of hard feelings as she'd ever heard of, so there's no real reason to need comfort. And if she did she has other friends here, and it's okay that they don't ever exactly understand her because she's used to that.

Red and gold, now. Blue. Rapid-fire bursts of color that too quickly fade into darkness.

Still, it's hard not to remember. To tick off the checkmarks that are so neat and clear, now. The night she first saw him without gloves (and later, other clothing) and noticed the intricate design on the back of his hand, his quick pull back when she tried to trace it with a fingertip.

"What's what, some kinda tattoo? It's pretty. What does it mean?"

"...Nothing."

The only time she dared to ask but just the first time she saw that look in his eyes. Funny, thinking back, that Zel only ever said it once directly in all their hours together, but every time he wore that look Raven could practically hear Saber's name hovering between them.

Raven didn't resent it. He said early on that there was someone he loved. She'd thought she could help, since didn't it almost vanish when he looked down at her during the slow parting of their kisses, just as some invisible, unheard signal inevitably sent their lips together again? When her fingertips would trace over and around the dark pebbles on his chest in one of the too-rare moments she could feel him truly relax?

He wanted to love her. She saw it behind the veiled shadow and in the soft smile he gave whenever she asked, or he thought she asked. And she'd smiled back because she wanted to love him, but what she wanted even more was a friend.

She's missed Charles for ten times ten thousand moments by now, but never so much as this one.

Beside Raven, a cute couple is settling down with a blanket and a pair of private smiles. She supposes it is all pretty romantic, the beach and the dark and the dazzling light show. Her thoughts, frivolous and petty, turn to one of them wandering off for hot cocoa and she taking their place, stealing a bit of warmth for herself.

She doesn't berate herself too hard. Envying and resenting happy, normal people has long been a temptation in her life.

Movement at the corner of her eye has her turning, spotting them at the refreshment table with a bird-of-prey accuracy even she can't believe, and for that she does berate herself. The distance and darkness do nothing to hide casual stances that never quite turn apart, the ease with which Saber hands over a coffee without inquiry for how he takes it. The easy curve of Zel's subdued smile in thanks, warmth that easily outshines its understatement.

He'd have told her the truth in the beginning, if she asked, that there had been nothing established between he and Saber, no cross-purpose to what he tried to do with Raven. Seeing the two now, though, anyone would be a fool to believe there was nothing.

Raven doesn't even care, not as she forces her gaze domeward, demands her grip on her shawl loosen as a shimmering glow streaks above. She won't begrudge someone she cares about the person he loves. But for herself, she wishes.

"Hey."

It could be anyone's greeting, but she knows it's not. No one who doesn't have constant thought for hiding themselves has that undertone of uncertainty and caution when they speak to someone. She never considered that Zel would have cause to use it on her again.

He's positioned such that she couldn't look him in the eye if she wanted to, and a grateful smile tugs at her lips. "Hey."

And then that stretch of wordless air, reminiscent of the halting pauses in those first post-kiss discussions. Trying to keep step with a dance partner whose count is a half-beat off from yours.

"It's nice." Zel reaches up and takes his hood down, his mask nowhere to be seen. "Even if I still think all these parties in a prison is crazy."

"It beats a chain gang." Her smile is as subtle and as warm as his had been, before. Even awkward partners find their rhythm, if only for a beat. "Although they could have made it a little warmer."

His arms are suddenly around her, his chest against her back, that smokey voice in her ear: "Better?"

She mistakes no meaning in the gesture, has no confusion about what they now are to each other. She outlasts a moment of knee-shaking vertigo and still he's holding her, and the tempo slows enough for her to keep up for a bar or two.

Another thunderclap reminds her to look up, at the golden burst shaped like a star, bright enough that she squints in reaction. Its outline dims to pinpricks of light, then foggy afterimages, until finally the only reminder it was there at all is the sting in her eyes, slowly ebbing.

***END***

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~



***

Their last kiss is not even hours old and yet, in truth, each kiss they shared until now bore a grey-toned tint. Hands forced by the chirp of a flying robot or the strangeness of the dome. All of them unspeakably precious yet laced with pain and doubt. Never theirs.

This kiss would be their first. His hand shakes as it lifts, pressure piled high. What he feels for her is too big to be contained in his entire being, how could one kiss possibly be sufficient?

The triple-knotted logic of it all makes his head spin. Cause and consequence, calculated risk.

It's her eyes that remind him. The light that always shines there, that glimpse of everything good he ever wanted to believe in. His fingers settle on her cheek and he can feel it, the warmth of her heart and spirit calming him, a fixed point as the world tilts around him. This is why he came home, even has a home, with all the ups and downs and imperfections that make it real. That let him err and be forgiven, trust in her when he's dangling by his fingernails. Consider not only what he stands to lose, but what he might gain.

So that's what the fairy tales leave out.

Mere inches between them, a buffer spanning months of vigilant, tiptoeing uncertainty. With no more effort than falling, he closes it and presses his mouth to hers. He's still stone and his lower lip misses the mark by a half-centimeter and he's a breath away from his lungs being uncomfortably overfull, but it's perfect and he can't even recall there being a time when this would scare him blind. She leans into him and he finally, finally lets himself think it:

I love you.