Work Text:
White noise.
White noise – the noise of the rain on the roof of the soft-top, as you clutch the wheel until your knuckles turn white.
You’ve been driving for hours now, driving and crying, and you don’t find her, so you come out here, to the last place she’d go, to the first place she went, and you park the car in front of the academy and you wait. The walls are collapsed, your world’s collapsed, and tears and the rain bending light around you, leaving you lonely in a pocket of darkness.
“Try this, Sis! You’ll look great!”
You never wear makeup, but because she’d asked, she and only she asked, you’d agreed and she’d worked some strange magic. Outlined your eyes in black, teased out your lashes, and gently run a finger over your eyebrows: “Nothing there that needs doing”, said with a smile. With steady hand she’d worked, and with surprising skill, an attention to detail she never applied to herself. And each moment she seemed to get closer and closer, thigh pressed against yours, breasts to your shoulder as she worked, her breath on your neck as she exhaled.
“There.” she’d said, leaning back to appraise her creation. Satisfaction, a smile, and a quick kiss as payment, and you’d smiled back, and then…
The mascara is running, her hard work come to naught, leaving trails like shooting stars over your cheeks. Outside, the rain is relentless, the clouds dark swollen, your eyes swollen to match. Everything is grey now, grey out to the coastline of Tokyo bay, grey into a future spent alone. Your nose is streaming, you’re forced to snort in an unladylike way, and blow into the cloth you keep for clearing the car windows. You think of the horrified faces of your friends if they saw you, and for a moment you laugh, but the laugh just breaks into a wail and you ball your fists and beat them against the steering wheel, over and over, over and over.
You’d held her gaze for a moment longer than usual, and she’d opened her mouth slightly, like a sigh, and lent forward and kissed you again. And there’d been a moment of surprise, and momentary pleasure, and then you’d felt her tongue touch yours and everything had collapsed in confusion.
“Stop…”
You pushed her away. You pushed her away. You pushed her away.
You’d seen the confusion, the pain in her eyes; worse than the fury she’d once spent on you. She never runs from anything, but she’d run from you then, out through the hallway, the grounds, and the driveway. The roar of her bike, the sound of her absence, leaving you waiting, perfectly painted, perfectly broken.
There’s a shadow in the rain, but you don’t see it; you don’t see the worn leather jacket, the scuffed black jeans, the scuffed dark hair, the red flash of familiarity. It’s all just a blur: the rain is a blur, tears are a blur, the last twelve months are a blur, the last twelve years are a blur. You can’t separate one from another anymore, can’t separate yourself from her anymore, as she pulls open the door and slides across you. She’s soaking wet, jeans dripping, water pooling at your lap, you’re soaked though, a chill across your shoulders as she wraps an arm around you, and across your forehead as she presses her head to yours.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
The syllables are overlapping, you’re both talking at once, the words are colliding, just as you once collided. Red and blue, immiscible, now so tight bound together that the smallest piece of one would contain fragments of the other, a familiar fractal.
“I’m an idiot.”
She’s explaining, she’s trying to explain, she can’t get the words out, she’s as clumsy as usual, crashing over her feelings and yours. It’s the story of a lost and lonely girl, and the story of someone she found that had the missing piece, that had the missing half, the someone that filled in for so many that had left her or been taken from her. She’d twist steel between her fingers, but she can’t twist her feelings for you, cast into something more than affection long before you became sisters. She’s asking, and she never asks anything, never anything important at any rate, “Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.” Turn the clock back, forget what I did, just as we were, sufficiently sisterly. And it’s all just a lie because the rain won’t mask how hot she is as she pulls closer, your comet girl.
“I’m an idiot.”
You’re explaining, you’re trying to explain, you can’t get the words out, you’re taciturn as usual, resisting her feelings and yours. It’s the story of a lost and lonely girl, and the story of the empty bedroom across the corridor, and the someone that might fill it, the someone that could fill in for so many that had left you or betrayed you. You’d harden yourself into steel to avenge her, but you can’t harden your feelings, now that they’re something more than for rival, ally and sister. You’re confessing, and you never admit anything, never anything important anyway, “It’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK.” Turn the clock back, forget what I said, just as we could be, embracing tenderly. And it’s simply the truth because the rain won’t mask your tears as you pull her closer, your abandoned girl.
White noise – the noise of her breath by your ear, as you move your fingers up inside her shirt and across her breasts.
White noise.