Utena, Revolutionary Girl Fan Fiction / Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Heart of Dust ❯ Living in a Box of Paints ( Chapter 15 )

Title: Heart of Dust

Chp. 15 Living in a Box of Paints

Rated: PG-13

**Silence by Delirium

***A Case of You by Joni Mitchell

Poetry is mine

I'm just borrowing the characters they aren't mine

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It felt very odd for Juri to be alone on a Saturday evening with nothing to do. She had a day off from work and she didn't have any classes till Monday. Cathy and Duo had gone off on some romantic adventure and didn't seem to have any plans of returning until the morning. Shiori was suspiciously missing in action and Dorothy claimed to have business to settle with an old friend. (While she had no conclusive evidence Juri was quite sure Shiori's absence and Dorothy's plans were connected. In fact she wanted to say that they were seeing each other, but to what capacity she did not want to know… She wanted them happy and unharmed and the idea of the two of them actually sleeping together conjured terrible images, all of which ended in someone being torn into a million unrecoverable pieces. She tried not to worry.) Even the cat, Kyou, was quietly absorbed in his own concerns (consisting of a piece of string and a bottle cap).

For someone who enjoyed solitude Juri suddenly found herself in great need to be near people. It was just too strange a coincidence that everything seemed to be settled and at rest. Especially after Fate had been decidedly kind to her in regards the "not a date" she had shared with Kanoe and Une. Exceedingly so after the long chat she had shared with the lady, now weeks past.

Speaking with Une it became more and more clear that the "not a date" had been Kanoe's message of decision for everyone. Juri wondered if Kanoe was disappointed that it should take so long for Une and herself to decipher the code. The evening had simply been staged to set Juri free and pull Une closer. It had been a difficult puzzle to solve but it eventually broke with something Une had mentioned about the first time she had ever met Kanoe, and the memory of something whispered, that Kanoe had never meant Juri to hear. The dragon would never settle but there was someone she seemed to love and could not let go of. But for the lady…the dragon would have haunted Juri forever.

Juri looked over at the clock and gave in to her want for company. She grabbed her jacket, her car keys and got into her car. She headed for a bar she had been to only once.

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**In this white wave

I am sinking

In this silence

In this white wave

In this silence I believe

I have seen you in this white wave you are silent

You are breathing in this white wave

I am free**

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The sound of a pencil rushing over the plain of a large pad of white paper filled the dark spaces of the room. Except for the odd occasion she always had trouble falling to sleep when someone was in bed with her. And it was not really sleep that her beautiful bedroom companion was enjoying; it was just a respite from the agony of lust, want, and destruction.

If she thought it possible to do so with out waking the young woman in her bed, Shiori would have turned on the small lamp that slumped on the nightstand. Instead she had to make do in the dark, pressing her petite index finger over the paper in her lap, smudging a line she had just drawn. Her violet eyes narrowed through the dark at what she had created. She was satisfied for the moment with what she had sketched, but she was sure under the light she'd hate it.

It seemed a pitiful thing that something once prescribed to her in adolescence, as therapy should become her profession. Not that anyone cared to notice, or even ask what it was she actually did for a living. She shrugged in guilt. No, Juri had asked. Juri had asked once in that smooth and caring tone what Shiori did, and when Shiori told her the fallen angel had kissed her and said so reassuringly, "I'll bet you're brilliant."

And that was when Shiori had decided she had to hurt Juri. For the young woman to say she was brilliant, to sound sincere and be truthful…trusting in that statement, without ever having seen the violet-eyed girl so much as doodle, was just too much to bear. It was too much like what Shiori wanted to believe was love and she just could not concede to having her true love be a woman. And especially, not a woman like Juri, who seemed so capable of doing anything she wanted, if she wanted.

There was a stirring from the bed, a lazy and pale figure sitting up and then embracing the bed sheets around a godly form. Shiori watched her, the goddess, the pale blonde with stormy eyes, who may or may not destroy her. She set her sketch aside and moved to greet the taller young woman.

Her head rested neatly at the crook of the blonde's neck, the room dark and distant, and she asked, because it seemed she should know, "What do you do for a living Dorothy?"

"I write." She let the sheets slide away so she could cup Shiori's head in both hands, looking into her almost murderous, perhaps voracious and asked, because it seemed appropriate, "And you?"

"I paint."

And then the conversation died as their game remembered itself; pulling the two women into a kiss and then further… into love making that was baleful.

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**Just before our love got lost you said

'I am as constant as the northern star'

I said 'Constantly in the darkness where's that at

If you want me I'll be in the bar'**

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Juri sat in the cabaret setting of the Kero Neko bar and sipped her dry martini. The piano player had just finished a set and a band was due to perform in an hour. She had chatted with the bartender some (Gascogne was pleased to see Juri again and calmly speechless when Juri not only remembered, but pronounced her name correctly.)

There was an air of distinction between her self and the regulars. Juri felt like a beggar who had been welcomed inside and invited to stay. Looking down the line of the bar she noticed another pilgrim and before she could decide is she wanted to speak to the woman, the blonde moved next to her.

"Waiting," the blonde asked.

"No. Just looking," Juri replied softly, "You?"

"I'm meeting someone."

"Ah."

"Can I buy you a drink?"

Juri raised an eyebrow.

The blonde smirked, "You look the type who never has drinks bought for them."

"Then why offer?"

"Because sometimes people who always do the buying need to be rewarded…besides that martini doesn't suit you."

Juri muffled her chuckle and could only smile when the blonde called Gascogne over and ordered a scotch, neat. Shortly thereafter a petite and very quiet girl entered the bar and wordlessly ushered the blonde to a table. Juri took a sip of the scotch and sighed.

"It seems Mirrielle recognizes something familiar in you."

Juri shook her head; "I can't imagine what."

"Maybe it's your voice," the bartender shrugged, "or maybe it's because until Kirika came along no one bought her drinks either."

"It's nice to get advice without being directly told."

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Color splashed on canvas

Without this form

It hardly seems right or real

Would you know me

If you saw me

Could your eyes see past the faded lines

The singed edges, the lost art

Oh there is red for lust

And orange for hope

Black for the magiks unspoken

From the etching on the wall

To my heart could you see

I am a creature of dust

Until you see fit to free me

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Duo was fidgeting with something in his pocket as he walked a step behind Cathy. So far they had dined at a great restaurant, and walked in and out of various art galleries chatting about nothing in particular. He had a plan, but he was constantly unsure if he could actually do it. It was getting late though and the gallery they were in would be closing shortly.

Cathy was looking at some jumbled piece of modern art and giggled, "It looks like something Kyou coughed up."

Duo laughed and then stretched. They entered another room of the gallery and suddenly he couldn't take it any longer. He wasn't used to being nervous; in fact he was beginning to question why he was having such a hard time with what he had to say. So he took in a deep breath and said, "Cathy will y-"

"Oh dear god," Cathy interrupted before he finish.

At first he thought she had anticipated what he was about to say, and then he noticed that Cathy's focus was elsewhere. He spun on his heels to see what Cathy was gawking at and tried to remain upright.

"Juri's gonna flip out," Cathy said trying to whisper.

Duo eyed the painting, and then the others in the room, "Yeah… Yeah I'm sure she will."

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***Oh I am a lonely painter

I live in a box of paints

I'm frightened by the devil

And I'm drawn to those who ain't afraid

I remember a time you told me

Love is touching souls

Surely you've touch mine***

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Their lips met and parted. A graceful hand pulling through brown hair, freeing it from the braid it had been trapped in. Drawing together again, to kiss and taste what had once been bitter and was now semi-sweet. One seemed unconsciously worried over losing the other, and the other was just grateful to be so near what she desired. It almost hurt when they touched, old wounds of the heart bleeding briefly, questing to be healed completely.

A few candles flickered from bookshelves, there was music but the exact tune was hard to place. It seemed they should be singing, or speaking the lines. A gasp escaped from a pair of lips, but there was no confession as to who offered it up.

And finally one spoke because she had to, could not go on a moment further without saying, "You're going to leave me again aren't you?" The silence was deafening. "Please don't make me ask you again, Kanoe."

"I…"

"What are you running from?"

"I'm not running."

"Protecting me from?"

They were still close together, the words, the conversation that was evolving unable to decide if it would break the mood. It could become a fight. It could just be a gust of wind pulling onto a rocky shore.

"An unavoidable battle," Kanoe whispered.

Hazelnut brown eyes shut.

"She knows..."

"Then you have an advantage." Her words did not plead, they did not beg, but they asked. Her words asked her lover to trust.

"But you…"

"Will not be swayed."

Their lips met and parted. Things were so easily decided in the haze of a candle lit room. Things appeared so simple under the promise that love could face anything. And Kanoe, the dragon lady, the woman of myth, who could see past any spell, was lost in the hope of her lady. Slowly they sank to the soft pull of the couch, the music played, flames flickered distantly, and there was no greater treasure within the holds of the elegant keep than what was there in her arms.

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Do you know I loved you

Before you even said it was so

I heard it your kiss

The way you would read my mind

And when you leave

I think to myself

There goes my life

You'll leave me

You'll part our ways

Because you fear a storm that you can not see

But I'm not so easily left

Not after so long without you near

I will be a rock

I will anchor myself to this shore

And when the storm is passed

You'll see I'm still lingering 'round your door

To be continued…