GetBackers (Sakura/MakubeX)

[incandescens]

Title: and she closed herself up like a fan
Author/Artist: incandescens
Rating: R
Warnings: R
Word count: 425
Prompt: GetBackers, Sakura/MakubeX: Leaving marks - He feels real enough


MakubeX was painfully familiar with the concept that a theorem cannot be proven as true or false from inside the system that was used to create it. All the mathematics in the world could not prove him real or not; he needed outside intervention to do it, a force that would break the limits of his reality, or that he could break in turn.

"Does this hurt?" he asks, pressing a finger against the back of her hand, then taking it away and watching the diminishing bloom of whiteness on her skin.

"Of course not," she answers.

Every time that he felt the lines drawn between those who were real and those who were . . . perhaps not real, he knew which side of the lines he was on.

Not that he felt the need to blame, or hate, or be bitter about it. Such things were beneath him.

"I'm sorry," he says, touching the nail marks on her back. He didn't mean to leave them, he would never, never hurt her, but he hadn't known what he was doing at that moment. It had all been whiteness, the perfect blank chaos of a crashed computer terminal. "It doesn't . . . hurt?"

"Of course not," she answers.

He ate. He slept. He breathed. He bled. He considered the theory that the whole simulation had been created ten seconds ago, and that everything outside Mugenjou was just as unreal in everything inside Mugenjou, and that Sakura was as virtual as himself, and all their memories were false.

He crawled to her embrace and then slept with his head in her lap, while she watched his sleep and guarded him against the monsters that would come by night.

"I didn't mean to," he says, watching as she adjusts her shawl to cover the red marks on her neck and shoulder. "Sakura, really I didn't. I'm sorry. Please tell me it didn't hurt."

He's lying. He did mean to. If he can mark her, then he's as real as she is.

"Of course not," she answers.

"Sakura," he said, not looking at her, but conscious of her presence behind him, the glimmers of her reflection in the computer screens, "I trust you to tell me if anything's wrong. I have to be able to rely on you, Sakura. I've made mistakes before. But you're always there for me, Sakura. You won't let me harm the people here. You won't let me hurt anyone."

"Of course not," she answered, and hid herself away in folds of silk.

Comments

[veleda-k.livejournal.com]

I've been staring at the screen for quite some time, trying to think of words to describe what this makes me feel, and they're are simply not coming. But I can say that it was lovely, melancholy, and I liked it very much.

[incandescens]

Thank you very much!

[animadri.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous!

[incandescens]

Thank you!

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

Only two reviews so far and they have taken all the words I would have said.

Sadly beautifuly and melancholic!

[incandescens]

Thanks! :)

[giving-ground.livejournal.com]

Oh... goodness. That's beautiful and sad and... I'm afraid I'm still very bad at reviewing. *laughs* But I enjoyed it. A lot.

[incandescens]

Thank you! :)

[anenko.livejournal.com]

This was lovely, and heartbreaking. I loved your Sakura, too--she's so self-contained, but you can tell that there's something deep and powerful moving beneath her surface.

[incandescens]

Thank you very much indeed.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's excellent. Lovely and sad, but also somehow chilling. Sakura's such a complex and ambiguous character, her actions and attitudes so often overlooked in fandom because of her physical attributes, but I like how this both acknowledges her apparent meekness and soft appearance, while foregrounding her rather Machiavellian nature at the same time. There's a reason I think she and Makubex work as a pairing, and it's not just because they're pretty together.

[incandescens]

Thanks, and I agree. There's a lot of layers to Sakura.

[archangelbeth]

Layers and folds and weaving, warp and weft, over and under...

[incandescens]

Precisely.