Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Guardian ❯ Want ( Chapter 12 )

Guardian, Chapter 12
Want

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Listen as the wind blows from across the great divide
voices trapped in yearning, memories trapped in time
the night is my companion, and solitude my guide
would I spend forever here and not be satisfied?

...and I would be the one
to hold you down
kiss you so hard
I'll take your breath away
and after, I'd wipe away the tears
just close your eyes dear...

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Despite Serra's embarrassed protests, I stayed by her side most of that night, ostensibly under the pretense of watching for symptoms of concussion and making sure that she didn't pass out again on the way to the bathroom. But the truth of it was, I was frightened. The image of her blood on the tile would not leave me, and I was relentlessly assailed by the knowledge of how much worse things could have been, had she fallen at a different angle, or hit something edged on the way down. Not my fault, I knew, but still I felt that I had nearly betrayed Jecht's trust in me and let her come to harm. For my own peace of mind, I wanted her where I could see her.

Unfortunately for her, she was plagued by nausea until the early hours, until finally there was nothing left to lose. She couldn't even keep water down, and I worried a bit about dehydration. But finally, just before dawn, she managed a few sips before falling into exhausted slumber, and I slumped back into the chair and allowed my eyes to close briefly in the hope that she'd finally be able to rest. The chair I sat in was not designed to encourage sleep, so I very much doubted that I'd be so lucky.

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Fighting my way slowly out of sleep, I pried open heavy eyelids reluctantly. I didn't much want to be awake, since that meant feeling horrible and likely throwing up again, but I couldn't sleep any longer for the unbearable dryness in my throat. Scrabbling clumsily for the glass on the nightstand, I managed to drink most of it without spilling, not caring if it came right back up again as long as the painful parched feeling went away. The morning was late; Tidus must have still been feeling under the weather himself if he hadn't yet disturbed us at this hour.

Rolling back over, I caught a quick glimpse of Auron before I drifted off again, and had to smile. He looked thoroughly uncomfortable in the chair he'd chosen to sleep in, feet propped up elegantly on the edge of the mattress, but he was out cold. Stubborn wasn't quite a strong enough word to describe him. I'd tried to tell him to go to bed, that I'd be all right, but he had staunchly refused. Truthfully, I didn't mind at all. The last time I could remember being this sick, Jecht had been away with the team. I don't think I'd felt so completely taken care of since I'd been ill as a child, with my mother bringing me the stereotypical weak tea and dry toast. It was nice for once to give up the role of adult, to let someone else worry about things. With Auron, I didn't have to worry about anything.

He stirred uneasily, features settling into a distraught frown. Apparently he still dreamed of haunts I had thought long gone. I can't explain the tenderness I felt toward him right then; the closest I can come is to say that he had done so much for me that I wished nothing would ever hurt him so again. Yawning, I felt unrelenting oblivion dragging me under like an ocean riptide sucking at my toes, but I reached out the one arm I had the strength left to move, and placed my hand on his. He quieted at the touch, fingers closing over mine, and I slept.

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Lying in bed, or propped up on the living room couch, I had more time than I would have liked to examine my heart and my motives. To ask myself the questions I might rather have avoided. After a lot of painful introspection, I began to realize that maybe my attraction to him was not so horrible as all that. Perhaps it had even been inevitable. Jecht wasn't coming back. I hadn't chosen to leave him, and his death had hurt me deeply. I knew that he would not have wanted me to spend the rest of my life alone; he would have wanted me to find happiness where I might. Auron's words rang true; Jecht had not wanted my life to end with his.

Choosing his best friend might have been a betrayal, I knew -- but at the same time, was it? If Jecht had been forced to see me with another man, would he not have chosen one he loved as well? I would never know, certainly...but regardless, what could I do? I could not change what I felt. Jecht had been the wind, an untamed zephyr blowing in and out of my life, sweeping me off of my feet and fanning desire into flame. Auron was the silent earth, steadying and strong, a solid presence whose support never waned. He was always there, though he made no demands on me, asked me for nothing. So different, yet I loved them both.

He skillfully walked the fine line between being attentive and cloying, as I recovered. He never coddled me, but just occasionally brought hot tea, or a book for me to read when I grew unbearably tired of staring at the walls. Once it had been a shockingly smutty romance, which I'd nearly chucked at his head in mock outrage.

By the time I felt well enough to pry myself off of the couch, I was thoroughly smitten. I was also both happy and dismayed, for I was no longer the innocent girl I had been the first time I fell in love. I knew how to read a man, to decipher the enigmatic glow that alights in his eye when he imagines you clad only in skin. Even if the tight set of his mouth betrays that he is doing his best not to.

Jecht had been fiery and passionate, wearing every emotion plainly on his face, easy to read once first I learned how. Auron was more of a challenge, each expression veiled and muted, but in the end he was also only a man. He might skillfully keep the want from his face, but he could not hide the hitch in his breath when I came too near, nor did he know that his obvious effort to touch me as little as possible spoke loudly of how much he wanted to. His teasing demeanor never altered, but the incidental touching of knees or elbows as we sat together watching movies with Tidus, or the brushing of hands passing food across the table at dinner, all of it was absent. Indeed, he never sat next to me if he could help it.

I'm ashamed to admit that I teased him at first, touching him when he would not touch me: a light hand on his arm when we talked, or letting my hair brush his shoulder when I leaned close to him, as though I did not realize that it did so. Sometimes I would stretch just so, in his line of sight, a perfectly innocent arching of spine as I rubbed kinks out of my back after sitting in one position too long. I meant no cruelty -- I simply had to know. I had to know what he felt, if he wanted me as I wanted him, before I made a complete fool out of myself. Falling in love once doesn't make you immune to the fear of being hurt a second time.

Unfortunately, I found the answer that I wanted, but also an obstacle I knew not how to pass. He cared for me as much as I could have wished, but he loved also my husband, and that loyalty to him, the unspoken code between men, forbade us ever being more than we were now. So I said nothing.

I could have pressed him, I knew. I could have tempted him beyond what he could bear, come to him in the dark of night and offered what he would not have been able to refuse. But to break his honor would be to break him, and I loved him too well for that. So instead I lingered in happy misery, content in knowing that I was loved and no longer lonely, but still unfulfilled.

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It still amazed me, how quickly he had taught himself to read once I had shown him the rudiments and given him the dictionary. Computers still fazed him a bit, but he used them well enough. This night, Tidus long asleep, we both sat reading in the dimly lit room, the simulated fire glowing merrily on the fireplace holoscreen. He found no end of amusement from that -- 'How utterly useless!' he'd laughed. But the crackle of burning logs and the comforting glow of lambent flame were so cozy; was it my fault Zanarkand was so tropical that a real fireplace had been out of the question? It had been another one of Jecht's presents to his shamelessly spoiled wife in another lifetime. We had always had more money than sense, as famous as he was, being one of the highest-paid players in the league. Enough to sustain us even now for quite some time, if we were frugal. I hoped to sell some paintings eventually, for supplemental income. It was funny, how 'us' now automatically included Auron, in my mind.

I could not help glancing over my book at him yet again, at the way the light from the reading lamp poured over his shoulders in the darkness, gilding his perfect silhouette into lines of abstract gold and shadow. Even the motion of his hand lifting to move a bothersome lock of hair from his eyes was artful. I wanted to cast my reading aside and crawl across the room with the intention of distracting him most unchastely from his perusal of classic literature...

He looked up and caught my gaze unexpectedly, and whatever he saw there seemed to startle him. He recovered quickly as always, leaving me to wonder if my eyes only toyed with me in the dark. Had he guessed? I could not tell. He only stood and politely excused himself to retire to his room, pleading the late hour.

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She had been looking at me like a starving panther might have regarded a steak. Panic broke in me then; I had thought it bad enough to want her, knowing that my love would always be unrequited and impossible to acknowledge. I had never imagined how much worse things would be, should she one day grow more than merely fond of me. How could I have let this happen? How can I let her love me, when Jecht loses himself a little more each day to the consuming madness of Sin? How can I love her openly, when he suffers so? I can't -- but how also can I reject her? How can I bear to hurt her, when she has done only what I have told her she must: accepted his death and moved on with her life? I can't lie...there is no way that I can look in her eyes and tell her that I'm not in love with her. And I can't tell her about Jecht, I can't. It would crush the life out of her, this time for good.

I would never be able to pretend that I did not want her, if she asked. I had never wanted anything quite so desperately in my life, except when I fell to my knees on the cold jagged stone of this city's ruination and tearfully entreated the deaf ears of Yevon for another way, some other solution that didn't require the sacrifice of the lives of the two men I held dearest. They wanted to save the world...but they were my world.

And that brings to mind the quite unavoidable fact that I'm not really alive -- how can I let a living woman love me? She is so full of life and vitality, with so much promise ahead. I can offer only death and mourning; I can't hold on forever. Men look at her, I know. She would not be alone long, should I leave...but I can't, can I? Ah Jecht, why did you bind me here?

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End Chapter 12

Song by Sarah McLachlan. Chap 13 is done too, but it's a little shorter than I'd like...