Tsubasa Prefic: The Dream Hunters

by Angel B. Maxwell/Eternal SailorM

---

"Kaoru?"

'Huh? Wha-?'

"Kaoru? Kaoru, can you hear me?"

'Who is Kaoru?'

"Aniki, you're starting to scare me."

'Aniki... K-Kao...'

"Kaori?" he forced through a set of rough, chapped lips that didn't want to obey his will. It was an equal, if not greater, effort to make his eyes open and adjust to the faint light of the room. "Are you all right?"

"I... I'm all right." His twin looked slightly to the side as he spoke, trying to hide the black eye and bruised cheek.

"Liar," he affectionately accused. He stretched his body slightly, wincing as aches and pangs made themselves known, and started to sit up.

"Don't!" He felt caught off guard by the alarm he heard in Kaori's voice, as well as the hand his younger brother held on the small of his back, keeping his stomach on the bed. "You... you got hurt really bad, Aniki."

Now that the words had been said, a brilliant pain shot down and across his back. He let his head flop back against the ratty pillow, biting his lip lightly. There was a long stretch before he could finally breathe enough to ask, "Kaasan?"

Kaori nodded slightly. "It looked really, really bad. There was a lot of blood. It... I... I thought she'd..."

He reached over to place a small hand on his brother's leg, fighting back the images that wanted to overwhelm him. "I'm sorry if I scared you, Kaori."

His twin's hand moved to cover his own. "I'm just glad you're okay now."

Kaoru smiled and gave Kaori's hand a light tug. "Come here." Movements cautious, he rolled onto his side and pulled at his brother again. "You look tired. Lay down."

"You're always taking care of me," Kaori commented, slowly moving from his chair to lie down next to him. The bed was small enough that their noses nearly touched as Kaori lifted a hand to brush sweat-dampened hair from his face. "Why?"

"Because I'm your big brother. That's what big brothers do." He wrapped an arm around Kaori's waist and snuggled closer to him, sleep or unconsciousness already pulling him down, but not enough that he missed Kaori carefully returning the possessive gesture and mumbling something that he couldn't quite catch. Then he fell into the lovely but unrealistic dream of a better life for the two of them.

---

First draft: 4 September 2002

Okay, as a point of clarification, this fic is set when the twins are about ten years old. This is the explanation for Kaoru's scar as he remembers it. The images that he was holding back was the actual event: their mother attacked them, and Kaoru protected Kaori, earning him a rather long vicious slice down his back from a broken sword.

Additional note: The title of the fic comes from a Sandman novel. If you're not familiar with them, they are a wonderful series of graphic novels by Neil Gaiman. They can be purchased at most bookstores or at . I mostly highly recommend the two Death books: Death: The High Cost of Living and Death: The Time of Your Life. If you hadn't realized, I tend to use Sandman titles for my RPG fics.