31-Mar-2002
Pet Shop of Horrors: Devotion
by bonnejeanne
Title: Devotion
Author: bonnejeanne (bonnejeanne@yahoo.com)
Category: yaoi, AU
Category: AU
Rating: G
Spoilers: Series
WARNINGS: AU, Sofu D POV. Liberties taken.
Disclaimer: Pet Shop of Horrors characters and universe are the property of the copyright owners. Our stuff is ours. No money being made here.
As with all our fics, while our goal is to stay as in character as possible, any discrepancies are our mistakes.
Feedback: Any and all comments welcome, be they short or long.
Hi hi! I was pondering a few things, such as the mystery of Sofu D and his alternate identity as Q-chan. I think this comes of reading a lot of Shanghai Mysteria all at once. *grin*
This takes place before the beginning of PSH. I have loosely tied it to Blood by referring ambiguously to certain events in D's past referred to in that fic.
I'm pretty sure my voice for Sofu D is all wrong, but the story wanted to be told nevertheless.
Dedication: to Val, whose devotion to PSH is worthy of legend. ^__~
Devotion
I sat at my ease on the brocade upholstered chaise, tea untouched and cooling at my elbow. On the small lacquered table next to the tea service, his letter lay open where I'd put it down an hour ago. Glancing at it I could admire the elegant beauty of the hand, each character perfect, each brush stroke exquisite, as it should be. Each one was a gift I had given him with my own hands, guiding his small ones, which were small no more. But even in the perfection of the calligraphy, I could read more than the words written there. In the white spaces between the forms, I could read his thoughts as if they had saturated the thin vellum. The adventure gone awry. The disappointment, the brief terror, the hurt... I told myself it was a good thing that had happened, though if the man had stood before me I'd have burned him to the ground with the force of my gaze. It was a good thing because he should learn caution. Caution and detachment to partner the distant compassion for humankind I had fostered in him. Some lessons cannot be taught, they must be learned. So it was a good thing.
So why did I feel as if I had failed to protect him?
Qin watched me quietly from his chair, getting up once to test the temperature of the pot, silently replacing it with something hot and fresh. He left the room for a while, taking up the duties of caring for the ones who needed attention at this time of the day, freeing me to sit in my private contemplation. He wanted to ask questions, not for the sake of answers but because chattering was a comfort to him, which he wanted to offer to me, though he knew we were so different in that. And it was the knowing that held him quiet. The care that moved him to take up my tasks.
Returning to the room, he watched from the doorway, his dark, liquid eyes missing nothing, even though there would have been nothing to see. Nothing for any observer except for Qin. How long had we been together? I knew to the day, but it was just as easy to forget, just as easy to accept the comfort that he had always been with me. He'd seen me lift the child with my hands, watched me raise him, helped, in fact, from a slight, self-imposed distance. I never had to ask why that distance had been imposed. He did not want to take the chance of taking my attention away from the child.
So it is likely that he saw what no other would have seen as he watched me with those bright, dark eyes. And I did not need to look up to see his thin, lanky form, his head bowed slightly, the spiky wheat-colored hair much softer than it looked. I moved my arm from where it rested across my lap, and that was all. He understood.
Changing form, he chose to come through the air, settling his smaller, softer body into the now available place. Reaching up, I ran my fingers through his thick fur, scratching between his ears. I was answered with a soothing purr. It eased me, as it was meant to.
"My grandson is coming," I said, breaking the silence of all day. "He has decided to end this period of roaming. He says he is tired but I know it is something else."
He made a little sound, choosing deliberately to give it no meaning, since I would have understood it no matter what form he took.
"If I am here when he comes, he will grow stagnant," I said aloud. "He does not need to fall backwards. If I am not here..."
The silence fell again. I stroked his fur, as my thoughts moved through the cycle they had been repeating all day. If I did as my judgment told me I must, and left the care of the shop to him, it would be the right choice. He could not go back to being a child. But the risk... I remembered stepping back once before, looking away. And living with the result in the form of a broken child. Or had it happened because I did not step away soon enough? The return of these questions wearied me beyond description.
I took my unrest out into the moonlight to walk through the garden. Qin on my shoulder, nuzzling my neck from time to time, offering the silent simple comfort of a creature who was so much more, as they all were.
Under the moonlight we stopped together. He left my shoulder and appeared in his other form, looking up at me as he sensed my thought.
"You will stay, when I go," I said, finding an easement in the solution, though it carried its own price of bereavement.
He bowed his head and then looked up again, dark liquid eyes meeting mine with kindness and truth. "You must stay," he said softly. "I don't have the power to do what you can do. You must stay." Before I could voice my negation, he fluttered up, changing back, and placed a paw against my lips.
/He will not know,/ he answered before I spoke. /Close by, you will be. He need not know./
I turned away and left the garden. It was cruel of me. My anger was the one thing that could hurt him. I thought he would come after me in a while.
He took care of the others. He took care of me. But he did not rescind.
One day I sat down at my writing desk and took up my brush and ink. I wrote a short letter to my grand child.
When I was done, Qin was waiting. His face bore an expression, a smile of such beauty... he might have been briefly granted the grace of my kind, were it possible. Coming close, he wrapped his arms around me. I held him and we stayed that way for a long time.
I watched him through those moments, sealing his image in that form into my mind. It would stay there forever. At last he changed himself and climbed into my lap, and I petted him into a haze of bliss.
In a little while, he looked up at me, eyes gleaming with an emotion too pure for a human to ever feel. Laying back against my knees, he smiled and offered me his life.
When my grandchild arrived, he found the letter I left. I made sure he did by drawing his attention. Patiently I perched on the table until he had read it through.
"So you are going to stay with me, Q-chan?" he said, extending a hand. His voice had a kindly tone, his special gift that small but significant extra bit of compassion added to the affinity of our kind for the sons and daughters of the earth. He seemed to have some memories of my Qin from the days of his childhood. Not so many that he would ever realize what we had done.
Drawing from my Qin as he lived inside me, I flew to my grandson's shoulder and licked his cheek. He laughed and scratched between my ears. It felt incredibly nice. I could never have known how nice without the sacrifice of my beloved, my pet. He would be within me always, for the gift once given could not be given back. But neither of us would be alone again.
Humans can not truly understand devotion.
~owari~