Part 14- Twilight
[Version 1.2]

Behind St. Catherine's, well away from the prying eyes of the general 
populace, lay a stretch of land which was once one of the finest 
gardens in Valdemar. The last two priests in residence, Fathers Michael 
and Dominick, were both avid gardeners; their free time was often spent 
tending the various plants and trees they had installed on the 
property. There was even a small orchard of plum trees at the far edge 
of the grounds. 

It was there that Savil and Nagi had eventually retired to, having 
taken their lunch earlier in the ragged, boxwood maze which stood in 
the center of the old, overgrown garden. It was there that they had 
spent the better part of the afternoon since then, curled up on a 
blanket Nagi'd discovered at the bottom of the old trunk he had found 
in his closet while unpacking. Nagi had brought a likely looking book 
of poetry along, and was reading aloud from it in between bites of the 
few windfall plums they'd gathered--all the romantic sounding ones, 
especially. 

*"See the mountains kiss high Heaven 
And the waves clasp one another 
No sister-flower would be forgiven 
If it disdained its brother; 
And if the sunlight clasps the earth 
And the moonbeams kiss the sea: 
What is all this sweet work worth 
If thou kiss not me?" 



* Verse II of 'Love's Philosophy' by P. B. Shelley. Used without 
permission, and with apologies to Mr. Shelley.

***

Saffie twittered like a sparrow who has come across a bank of unguarded 
sunflowers, and since her lips were cinched with plum juice still, she 
sent Nagi a ribbon trail of what glad thoughts she had plucked from him 
and a twining ripple of her own laced with how lovely she thought it 
all to be.  He smiled at her, and she offered him another of the 
scarlet and indigo fruits that lay like a bundle of rough amethysts at 
once corner of their blanket.

"More of these, I suppose." She answered then, thought it was Percy 
asked the question of a lady who perhaps had been not much older than 
her when prompted for her her lips, but had lived long before, and so 
was older than all time Saffie remembered.  "But I think I will kiss 
you anyway, because the plums are delightful, but you are much better." 

She did so, about his cheek where a few threads of his hard had been 
dusted by the wind.  He saw her heart had quickened by the way the 
light more quickly danced then from the beads around his throat.  

::But I am almost wishing now, something close to what you have I know.  
I am thinking it might be lovely to be just a little bit psychometric, 
for I wonder who else has sat beneath this tree, who has eaten these 
plums, and just who this book belonged to before it was ours.::

::How they tasted, once upon a time.::

Saying so, she had another bite herself, and pulling her skirts along 
with her, did follow the shade as it grew longer, but away from her, 
and along Nagi's side.

***

/Perhaps they scaled that mossy brick wall, dazzled by the sunshine and 
the cool wind and the pounding of their hearts, and spread out blankets 
upon the ground to eat plums and admire one another./

"Just like us."

Nagi gave her a tender little smile as he flopped onto his back, the 
hand containing his half-eaten plum falling above his head.  Her skirts 
brushed his leg as she scooted closer to him, but Savil made no attempt 
to pull them away.  The book was splayed across his stomach, antiqued 
pages shuffling softly against the linen of his shirt with every breath 
he drew.

"I wonder if the priests ever came out here, to sit and admire their
handiwork."

/I wonder if they were in love./

He snickered a little at that, marveled silently over how odd it felt 
to do such a thing.  He glanced over at Savil, who was still nibbling 
at her plum, eyes bright with amusement.  Juice from the plum trickled 
over her pale, dainty hands at she ate.  He watched, as if entranced, 
as it flowed over her knuckles and dripped to the blanket.

And without another word, Nagi drew himself up on his knees again, and,
gingerly taking Savil by the wrist, bent to lap at the thin, sticky 
trails that covered the back of her hand.

***

Saffie held very still then, as if rather she had some curious creature 
wont to scurry away into other sunbeams curled up upon her fingers 
rather than the silky tongue of her Nagi. 

::I almost hope they weren't.  That way, we could say we are the first 
people to have ever lived here and been in love.::

::As darling as two smitten priests must have been.::

Her hand then uncurled in his grasp and fell just beyond the collar of 
his shirt as it rested on the back of his neck.  A tap there and he 
gave into her mildest of demands; fell leaning against her shoulder- 
all linen lighter than feathers and baby-smooth brown hair.

She smiled against him as her fingers began to wonder up and down his 
back, and the question of asking Miranda about all of two who had last 
lived there before them crossed her considerations.

Suddenly her vision filled not with the image of Nagi in her arms, or 
the book he had found as it lapped lazily this way and that breeze now 
that there was no one to hold it.  No, rather she saw two men there, in 
the garden as seen from the wrong angle, one young and wearing but a 
collar as a sign of his service, the other in full robes as if he had 
just come from a ceremony- darling and older.  The bells rang, there 
were owls all about despite that it was the middle of the day.  
Nonsense words of reprimand, little teases for the frivolity of the 
younger, who only laughed.  The elder snapped a golden lily from the 
shower of plum blossoms and worked it into his hair that seemed longer 
now already than the last time the vision lingered on it.  And it grew 
fairer and fairer, washed over with ruby and finally turned henna red.  
The robes were gone from his companion then, drawing back and closer 
around him, starting to look rather like a suit.  His hair went messy, 
there were sparkles of crows amid the gusts dewy morning light.

And then it was gone, but the presence in her mind remained.

::Yeah, I guess you are.::

Her eyes traced the grass where the path had been in the momentary 
image, rather where the remnants of the real one were all grown up with 
clover and pimpernel.  Schuldich stood there, silently smiling, though 
Jasper clanked and jingled at his side.  A thousand tiny charms of 
silver and crystal dangled from the owl's ankles now- so many, he could 
not possibly have taken flight.  A branch of alder hung in one of her 
brother's arms, a blue bag in the other.

"Schu-ba-..."

::Don't get up.  I'm just heading inside.  Hey, I wanted a peek!::

And he was gone as if he hadn't been there at all.

***

Nagi had stirred from her shoulder when he heard her call, blinking 
disdainfully down her same line of vision. But by the time he had 
looked up, Schuldich was gone and Savil, to his eyes, looked somewhat 
perplexed. He sent a silent summons her way, and only then did she 
notice him. 

/Is something.../ 

/Oh. Okay. I just wondered./ 

But she smiled at him, and her hands pressed on his back in invitation 
to rest against her once more. Nagi tucked his head within the hollow 
of her narrow little shoulder, wrapping his arms around her waist as he 
arched up to nuzzle her playfully under her ear. 

/Is that what you like? To be the first? To be the only? This is our 
wonderland and no one can spoil it?/ 

/I think that no matter who once lay upon this ground, arms entwined 
and hearts beating as one, it is ours now, and it will belong to us for 
as long as we wish to own it./ 

He shifted again to kiss her under the chin. 

/That might be for one day, or it might be for an eternity. Either 
way.../ 

Nagi cupped Savil's cheek, and moved forward to run the tip of his 
tongue along the slender strip of skin shining between the glittering 
rows of stones around her throat. 

/I won't ever forget this moment./

***

::I shan't either, and wouldn't even if I had it in my to forget.  But 
it all stays.::

And wordless it lingered, chancing deeper than the blue-green eyes that 
drizzled onto hers, seemed somehow disappointed. 

::Would you rather I could forget? Even if I promise you that some of 
those memories are kept better than the others and this will live among 
them?::

He sighed, and he kissed her with his whole mouth just about the chain 
that crossed her throat.  She giggled, and knew it tickled him.  
"You're the one making me all poetic now! That's backwards!"

But neither of them in any way offered complaint after that.  Rather, 
there was one wonder unexplained in a glance without either of their 
faces.

"It's nothing, don't worry about us."

::Not ever.::

Her legs then she uncurled from beneath her, stretching one out along 
each of Nagi's side so he was resting in her lap as well.  No more 
sighs, but she gathered him closer as if she had a stuffed bear in her 
arms that had come to life.  Rather than any boy of hers.  Or anyone 
else's.

***

But Nagi wasn't content to rest upon the comfortable couch which 
Savil's body made for him. His mind had been stirred, thoughts drifting 
to islands where he had once dared not venture. He wasn't so much a boy 
now, not at sixteen; not with the life he'd led since Crawford picked 
up from the orphanage. 

Not with all the things he'd done... 

The feel of the lithe little body so willingly pressed against his own 
quickened his heart, and all his former reserve melted away with the 
lingering touch of her lips upon his temple. Nagi loosened his hold on 
her just a bit, just enough for his hands to stroke the fine soft 
cotton of her dress. Skimming along her back. His lips found the curve 
of her jaw, and traced soft, warm little kisses along it and upwards 
until he found her budding mouth. There he stayed, kissing her and 
kissing her as if he hoped to drown her in them, still just as coaxing. 

He shifted a little in her embrace, moving just a touch onto his side, 
and slowly slid one hand upwards over her bodice until he felt the 
modest swell of one breast.

***

Saffie did not flush at all at that, but her eyes grew wide and 
glittery.  One finger strayed against her pinked lips and pressed 
against them.  She felt it took Nagi a moment to realize she was 
shushing herself, but only and instant to wonder why.  He nearly fled 
her, but she caught him by the wrist, and let herself giggle.  So 
bright and airy came the sound that it melted into the songs of the 
birds about them in the trees, and beside them where one had come to 
sit upon the a plum they had left while it nibbled upon the purple 
shell there.

"I'm ticklish," she confessed.  

Evidentially, the bird was rather taken aback by this and took off, 
leaving her to pout at its departure.  Her unhappiness lingered but a 
moment before she rocked forward and had one arm about her companion's 
shoulder which she held very tightly now.

"But I'm not going to flinch away like some people who are that way."

One kiss on the end of his nose.

"I like it."

One tendril of her thoughts against him, asking if he might raise his 
head to look upon her then, and hold quite still.  He didn't have to, 
but he listened.

And she began to coax his lips apart when next her mouth brushed his.

*** 

Savil's kisses made him ache inside and out, and the muted piping of 
his conscience was stilled for good then. Nagi leaned against her, arms 
around her to cradle her as he lowered her to the blanket. Kiss after 
kiss, because he couldn't get enough of her. 

/I want to touch you everywhere. Will you let me? I'll behave 
myself.../ 

A trickle of amused assent touched his mind. Nagi sighed as his lips 
met hers again, his fingers wriggling under her towards her dress' 
zipper. It came down bit by bit, the sleeves smoothed down her arms, 
bodice nudged aside to fall from her bosom to her hips, and Nagi 
carefully slid it down her legs, shook it out and spread it neatly on 
the blanket away from them. She wore another little slip of blue satin, 
one which cupped her girlish breasts and flowed loosely to her thighs 
like water. He could just see the faint outline of her panties through 
it; already he knew they would match it, edged in ruffled lace and 
hugging the tender mound of her sex. 

There was where he wanted to touch her the most. 

One trembling hand met one thigh, petting so gently as it worked its 
way up. The hem of the slip was pushed aside, fell over them to hide 
it. He felt the lace rind ringing her body where her hips ended and her 
legs began, and Nagi, moving to lay alongside her, wormed three fingers 
beneath the elastic barrier and stroked gently over her flesh until he 
encountered the delicate folds of her. 

Stroking her there so gently, Nagi bent to capture Savil's lips in 
another heady kiss.

***

Saffie's tiny moan was muffled by his lips and as much as she would 
have liked for all else of her breaths to have stayed tangled with his. 
He drew back hearing the small noise, and hovered just above her then, 
all want and soft flickers otherwise unsullied.

"Put your shields up." 

They rose in time with her own, the static between them blooming into a 
calm and colorless silence.  In another time, thinking to herself 
alone, she might have dreamed to find Savil tangled up with Nagi. Those 
reverie, all now fleeting, shattering, evaporating... fingertips of his 
skin much more than imagined recollection could ever make them, and at 
that moment as she lived it, Nagi's palms brushed so much hotter than 
kisses and plucking at the tender flesh beneath her belly.  It felt 
cold where he had traced her and came no longer for whole seconds.

And his hands were so soft.

No, she didn't mind this time, this world, this garden littered with 
plums.

"They don't mean to be here too."

She smirked.

"They can wish allll they want."

Her fingers closed about his nape, drawing his lips back to hers so she 
could whisper into them like a million other memories of lovers she had 
known, tried on the tread of her brother that ran around her otherwise, 
but all of her words faltered and sparkled into candy sound without 
sense but one... "...mine..."

Then there were but kisses, the wet taps of their mouths meeting.  And 
the rustle of her hips rubbing against whatever of him she could reach.

The slipping sound of the lace in his shirt as if came free between her 
fingers.

***

Meanwhile, Crawford had returned within minutes of his lover. But he 
had gone directly inside, and up the drafty, winding staircases to his 
octagonal room. On the edge of the bed he perched, wriggling his shoes 
off without untying them, socks following after. He left them where he 
dropped them, and then slipped off his summer weight jacket and draped 
it on the blanket, smoothing it out before he stood up. Crawford raked 
his hands through his hair, wincing a bit when his bruised muscles 
complained. 

/I know you're here./ 

His glasses and watch wound up by the jacket. He yawned as he walked to 
the bathroom, lazily tugging his shirt tail out of his waistband as he 
went. 

/I don't know why you are, though. I guess I never will./ 

The he undid the only button he'd fastened at his polo's neck, and drew 
the shirt over his head, cursing none-too-softly. It sailed from the 
bathroom and fell to the carpeted floor in a heap, and Crawford moved 
to the mirror to inspect the damage the ice cream hawking harridan had 
caused--which had been quite a bit, but none of it serious. Just angry 
bruises and narrow cuts. The one on his forehead was the worst of all. 

Still, Crawford was far from pleased. 

/Damn telekinetics./ He muttered something vile under his breath, and 
moved to the tub, flipping on the taps--favoring hot over cold. His 
trousers followed his shirt, and Crawford sank gratefully into the 
water. Cupped his hand under the faucet and splashed the water he'd 
caught on his face. 

/Why does it always have to be like this?/ 

/Why can't you be straightforward? Why do we have to dance around each 
other?/ 

/Why can't you believe that I.../ 

Crawford groped for a washcloth off the recessed shelves beside the 
tub, and pressed it against his aching eyes. 

/Oh, shit...You know, don't you? You've seen what I've seen./

***

Schuldich had been sitting by himself at the crest of the stairs that 
lead into one of the attics, or what he had taken at first for an 
attic, though there was nothing in it, just a few pillars minding the 
roof, and a few doors.  Crawford hadn't even seen his feet dangling 
down from the steps at the other end of the hall as he slipped into 
their bedroom.  He'd been waiting for him, thinking he had caught some 
flavor of him on the breeze.  And he had.  

Now Bradley was home and he was stuck at the end of the living quarters 
with a half-gone cigarette and his blue bag.  Nothing more.  Jasper 
with his gleaming chains he had left to acquaint himself with his ash 
branch, which was perched now by the little, open, windowed cubby 
Saffie had found before, and where his desk stood now.

Quite out of reach.

He replied in the end by silently crossing the hallway and then 
slamming the door of one of the other rooms as hard as he could.

/How's that for straightforward, Brad?/

He could still hear the water sloshing around him though, even though 
the floor lay between them now.  Schuldich stood now in yet another 
barren bedroom, or what had probably been a bedroom.  The walls and the 
floor were all very dark, shiny wood, though rent with age dents and 
scratches, while the rest of the church as he had seen it, at least 
where people had once abided... those rooms were painted.

And had been without cobwebs.

Brushing a few away, he turned to the two tiny windows- one could have 
mistaken them for pier-glass paintings if they had not offered two 
splotches of light.  Some antique bottles littered the floor in one 
corner as if they had fallen, though none were broken.

/I shoulda tried the next one over./

The door he tried to lock just the same and ended up hurling the key in 
among the bottles when it wouldn't work.  It chipped one.  He sank down 
between the traces of the two windows and dumped the contents of his 
shopping back down among them, content to have ghost touches rather 
than stuffy dust.

One sketchbook of extra-rough paper and a box of charcoal crayons.  

The lid came off and was tossed to the side; beneath it lay a nursery 
of untouched silk-sheen twigs of black.  Some slightly darker, some 
bearing remarks they were somewhat harder than the last.  They even 
glinted as he drew his hand over them, trying to choose...

None seemed just right.  None, and they were so utterly pristine.  
Pristine enough to be imperfect, for he realized then he was entirely 
used to broken, battered pencils with ashen fingerprints around them.

So he put the lid back on and slammed them all against the floor a few 
times.  

Now he had nothing but slivers and dust and he was happy about that at 
least.

***

Ran had made his planned trip through MacGregor's once more, and had 
promptly returned to his hired carriage again bearing two sacks full 
of: two, thick cut, paper-wrapped steaks, four boxes of instant rice, a 
small bunch of radishes, some green onions, five instant ramen noodle 
cups (he was craving it), a box of instant banana pudding (again, he 
was craving it), a head of Romaine lettuce, a box of Epsom salts, a fat 
tomato, a sweet onion, and two peaches (tomorrow's lunch). Added to 
that was two bags of chocolate chips, an impromptu present from Claire 
as they parted ways. 

He had also bought one of the baby herb plants which stood outside--
lemon verbena, to be exact, which released a pleasant aroma when he 
rubbed one of the leaves between his fingers. Nestled within the leaves 
here and there, he had spotted flower buds, which was also a selling 
point for him. But Ran didn't take it home, however; he instead had it 
delivered to one Lord Vyx. No card. The clerk had assured him they knew 
exactly where to send it even though he didn't have the address, which 
didn't surprise him in the least. 

And now, he was back at the Villa. The receipt Claire had demanded he 
get was shoved down one back pocket as the coach rattled away down the 
cobblestoned road. Ran stood there for a moment, staring at the looming 
hulk of stone which made up his new dwelling place, and then he wearily 
trudged forth. 

Inside, a typical scene of Villa life greeted him: A few of the boys in 
the lobby were playing some sort of disorderly game that consisted of 
running around and shouting. They ran around the vast space twice before they 
took to the stairs and disappeared down the East hallway. Other of the 
Villa's remaining employees came and went from his line of view, going about 
their business or leisure as their needs warranted. 

And not a one of them paid any attention to Ran at all. It was, for 
him, a great relief. He only hoped that his luck would hold until he 
could get the groceries put away, and himself shuffled off to the bath 
and a hot, salt-laden tub. 

Of course, it wasn't to be, as he found when he approached the juncture 
between the South and West wings. He could hear their voices long 
before he even came upon the bend, and his heart sank a little. He 
didn't want a scene, didn't want to be questioned or fussed over, and 
he knew he might meet with all three. 

Ken gave his assent to some missed question, and Fiona whooped with 
delight. A dull thud was heard, and another, and Ran ventured see just 
what it was they were doing. Saw his chance to possibly give them the 
slip, as they all were more intent on Fiona's destruction of the long 
sealed doorway than they were anything else. 

Even a wounded, disgruntled redhead. 

So Ran took as deep a breath as his bruises would allow, and quietly 
crept along the wall, holding the bags up a little before him so as not 
to bump them against anything. If he could at least get past them 
before anyone noticed his presence, he figured he would be in the 
clear.

***

It was Ken's turn now to try and garner Yuriko's attention, for his 
companion had for the moment stopped her merry cries on seeing his 
servant continue with her destruction of the door, which lay in pieces 
about the floor for the most part.  A few fragments dangled on the 
hinges still, fibrous tangles of long-felled bark drifting this way and 
that with the final swoops.  The air smelled of broken furniture and 
mulch.  

"Oh Yu~ri~ko~," he began then, in a voice as airy and femmy as he could 
muster.

"EEK!" said she, spinning around suddenly in the wrong direction.

"Now where's YOUR mind gone all of a sudden?"

"Aw, nothing.  I just thought I saw somebody go past is all, realllllll 
slow too." This reply spoken as she pointed to the line of light that 
leaked down the shaft of the half-elevator while it waited on the lower 
level for them.  There was a lot of dust in its column now, but no more 
he had to notice, than when they had started.  The mess belonged only 
to their end of the sunken hall.  Fortunately, so he guessed.  

"Well, with all the noise were making down here, it just doesn't 
surprise me at ALL the ahh... former help would be sneaking around right 
now." Primera began, and having now edged as close to her own beloved as 
she dared for her intentions, slid one hand around her bottom now.

"I guess you're right," Ken said with a shrug.  "Not usedta that 
though..."

"How can you not be used to seeing people SKULKING?" 

"I... I don't know why I do a lot of things, Prim." Her hand came up and 
caught his, placing it against Yuriko's other cheek, which he had to 
admit, he had felt once before, but not with someone else's wrist 
crossed over it with little bits of modest lace.  

Fiona whirled around, gave them a glare with a smile just beneath it 
before whirling back to her work and taking the last of the bottom 
frame out with one swift kick, for it was already bruised beyond 
repair.  And then she stood, her arms crossed over her chest, her 
expression away from them.  But Ken knew, or thought he knew... that 
she was still wearing that distant smirk of release.

He had to wonder just what she was thinking about while she broke the 
door down, but then again, he never could have guessed that in the 
dusty blue of the hallway they had found, there was something small and 
blond, fluttering still as could be as her vision moved- always there 
but motionlessly gathered in the pale late afternoon light that weaved 
in through the drapes while they smoked with dust.  But then, what 
could he do if he knew it was Savil standing on the other side?

Fiona slung her sledge hammer over her shoulder and stepped into the 
plume of rubble she had made, towards the figment of her own well-
knowing imagination, which she regarded, leaning on one pearly wall of 
the alcove as if she meant to speak to her.  Even if no one was there.  
Her hands traced where her lips were in the air and she tried to make 
it look like a twitch of her fingers and nothing more, rubbing them on 
her jeans and then tearing the curtains back.  

"So, which one of these doors ya want me to start on next?"

Laughter then behind her once again, and a few distant slaps.  "I think 
that's enough for today."

"Yay! More for tomorrow then!"

But when she turned back to the ghost, she was already gone with no 
note she'd be back.

***

The tower was dark save for the ribbons of milky light which seeped 
onto the curving stairs from the staggered, long, arrow-thin slits that 
passed for windows above them. Ran left it that way, toeing off his 
shoes and tucking them in the corner so they wouldn't be readily seen. 
Fiona's curtains were tied back, but the door to her chambers was 
closed even though no one was home. Ran couldn't blame her for wanting 
to leave that barrier in place, whether she was home or away; he 
possessed that same unshakable need for privacy. 

He closed the door to the kitchen--which hadn't been shut, and he hoped 
no one would notice when they came in. The bags landed on the wooden, 
rectangular table that stood in the center of the room, and Ran began 
the process of unpacking his purchases and putting everything in their 
proper places. Found in the doing that the kitchen had all the 
necessary ingredients for chocolate chip cookies--did Ken even like 
them? 

He folded up the bags and crammed them in one of the drawers. Never 
knew when someone might need one. 

But then, instead of taking his box of epsom salts and heading off to 
the bath, Ran decided to linger there long enough to make himself a cup 
of tea; maybe it would ease his headache. The kettle was sitting out on 
the stove top, and he took it over to the sink to fill it; set it on 
the stove and turned on the eye. Then Ran got himself a cup and a bag 
from the sole box of Assam that he'd found, and brought them both over 
to the table, setting them down as he sat himself down on one of the 
two stools positioned beside it. 

With a faint groan of irritation, Ran folded his arms and lay his head 
down on them, wanting to rest a little while he waited for the water to 
boil.

***

"But I wanted to go exploring NOW!" Yuriko pouted.

"My, aren't we petulant!" Her lover sighed then, sweeping over herself 
though to one of the doors and trying the handle again.

"I knew it, they're LOCKED! Every single one."

Everyone here turned to Ken and regarded him with some miffed manner to 
their moves, for his nonchalant sigh had really, really ruined their 
fun.  Nothing more, but fun was always worth keeping.

"I thought you said you'd never been here?" Fiona muttered, unable to 
operate the catch on the window, for even that had some trick or some 
key to it.

"I WAS in the Villa though, just for a party, OK? And I got taken back 
to one of these rooms, and they were all locked, but he had a key so we 
got in the one..."

The longer of his two friend piped up again. "You mean to tell me 
you've been in the offices?"

"I think so.  It was the only place nobody was in 'round midnight. And 
NO we did not sneak back 'cause of you're thinking.  It's a long 
story."

Here, three "We've got time"s.

And one, "Maybe you should sneak back here with Ran then."

"Don't know about that."  He paused and gave a little whistle.  "Well, 
I gotta mountain of auctions to go check."

"You mean, 'we'!" Prim insisted with a stamp of her tiny foot.

"No, I've got a more important job for you all!"

All the girls here perked and leaned in very close, eyes shimmering 
with expectancy...

"You can try all of the keys in all of the doors here."

...which died a horrible, languishing death amid their sighs, except for 
Fiona's, which ran tearing down the hall with a leaking armload of keys 
falling behind her.  That made them all laugh yet again, and the chore 
became a quest, and the afternoon was never lost with any of them he 
had to say.

"Well, I didn't spend all day kneeling in frontta the laptop.  Maybe 
Ran'll be proud of me!"

Delighted by the prospect, he padded back to the tower, humming now, 
and meeting no one.  A few of the windows he passed he flung open, 
moved by his servants attempts to do so... it was such a cool day for 
summer, and he relished it where he could not bathe himself in snow for 
another handful of months, though the tickle grass around the lawn was 
hazy with the dry hulls of the infatescimal purple blooms such is wont 
to put out, and it was prettier than snow is sometimes.  Smelled alive 
and sunny.

"Not so bad, I guess."

Though he found the room where the computers were set up had grown 
dreadfully warm in his absence, though doubtless it had other days as 
well, and only his time in the basement had spoiled him.  He wiped his 
brow even though it wasn't sweaty and decided to go downstairs for a 
drink.  Besides, the heat made his bruise feel uncomfortable now his 
last few tabs of aspirin were wearing off- a little ice would help.

What he ended up finding instead was something that only made him even 
gladder for the cloudless afternoon, and the way it stole around all 
that chose to be about.  

"Okaeri, sweetheart," he giggled and stooped to slide his arms about 
his lover's waist for a quick squeeze.

***

A soft gasp escaped Ran's lips, and he sat upright, closing his 
watering eyes for a moment to blot out the sharp pain Ken's hug had 
caused him. But he didn't turn around, and he strove to keep his voice 
as level as possible when he did speak. 

"I didn't expect you to return so soon," he told him, hoping he'd think 
he'd just startled him. But Ken only snuggled up to him, drawing in for 
a peck. Ran shifted just enough so he missed his battered cheek 
entirely. He felt him tense up, but then, mercifully, the kettle 
whistled, and Ran pulled free from Ken's arms and slid off the stool, 
taking the cup with him. He drew a quiet, shuddering breath when he 
reached the stove. 

"What were you guys doing out there anyway?" he asked as he picked up 
the kettle from the eye and began to pour.

***

Ken could see himself in the window pane, and he looked there like a 
wind-up dancer, always stuck just so, pause in one sweeping motion that 
would never be a real embrace, just open arms.  Holding no one now, the 
pane between him and the garden made it all so obvious.

"A... Eto... we're just tearing down the door to the back hallway.  I 
didn't think it lead to the tower but... they were all curious, and it 
was faster than findin' the key."

No grumble of distaste for his hastiness, but still, it troubled him, 
that he could hear nothing but the tea steaming into Ran's cup.

"You sound kinda..." /Kinda like the old Aya I used to know./  It made 
him start to smile but he shook it off.  Nostalgia wasn't worth even 
this.  "...kinda hoarse.  Your throat feelin' okay? I..."

From his own unkempt sort of stand in the glass, his eyes wandered over 
to the image of his lover, and he had to focus his eyes a little off to 
see it, but his face seemed a little reddish as the wavering image it 
was upon the glass between them in the garden.

***

Ran removed the spoon from the cup in midstir, and watched the tea bag 
spin helplessly in the melting funnel it had left behind. 

"My throat's fine." 

He raised the cup for a cautious sip; winced a little with the rim of 
it touched the thin, stinging cut at one corner of his mouth. 

"That's not to say that everything else is." 

He pensively gazed down in the clear liquid for a second, then set the 
cup down and turned around to face Ken. Leaned against the nearby 
counter, one foot resting on the cabinet door, and added softly, "We 
need to talk. In private."

***

"I think we do..."  Nothing more, and it barely showed on his face, the 
crumbling of his guards, though he tensed for a moment and almost 
smacked himself over the temple, for it wasn't simply that his lover 
had come home so wounded.

But that fact hadn't bothered him in the first place: some part of 
him had stayed used to it.  And that didn't make him very glad any 
longer.

A few steps over until he was near enough to take the teacup and set it 
back on the counter for a moment.  The momentary grin upon himself 
still lingered, but his expression was otherwise quite grave, but in a 
tiny, soft way.  Sort of how he guessed it felt to get the little kiss 
he left on Ran's swollen cheek, just a tickle of his lips.

"Woul sure, I mean! If you feel okay and all.  You wanna go sit on the 
deck awhile? We decided to keep some chairs for it..."

***

Ran considered his suggestion for a moment, and then nodded, curving 
two fingers around the handle of his teacup.  "All right.  I guess a 
little fresh air wouldn't hurt me."  Nor would sitting down for a bit, 
he supposed.  

He topped off the cup with a splash more hot water, and then 
followed Ken up the echoing stairs to the balcony where they'd had 
their confrontation the night before.  Near the doors, in no real 
configuration, were scattered three chairs in the brightest shade of 
purple Ran had ever seen.

All he could think about when he sat down was how Lord Vyx would 
probably adore them.

He took a small sip of his tea, and then balanced the cup on one knee,
slumping a bit in his seat.  The sky was still quite blue for that 
hour, and the breezes carried the mingled scents of apples and mint.  
And with the sunlight slanting off him, Ken looked as if he had been 
dipped in gold dust. Ran almost didn't want to say a word--just sit 
there and bask in his company until it was time for dinner.  But he 
knew the shadows between them wouldn't lessen unless he did speak up.

So...

"Why...didn't you tell me you went to see Crawford yesterday 
afternoon?"

***

Ken had seated himself, by then himself, and then promptly carried out 
a debate with himself over whether or not she should cross his legs, 
one which ended with him slung sideways over his chair, hanging upside-
down towards Ran.

The sunlight made the red marks on his lover look a little less 
painful, even if he was certain otherwise they gave the other boy any 
such peace of mind.

"I didn't want to upset you before dinner.  I was gonna... well, I was 
thinking about telling you after but, after that then, I didn't want to 
interrupt anything you had the mind to ask *ME*.  It's still true I 
walked into the carriage door."

He glanced away here, out over the swaying pale green satin that was 
the borders of their grounds, dust of purple flowerlets aside.  "But 
that was after."

Turning back then, he tried to smile, and it came out more lopsided 
than usual because of the bruise, which he pointed to- "This was all he 
did to me."

***

Ran drew a deep hissing breath, eyes simmering with wrath. "I *knew* 
it!" he exclaimed, white-knuckling the cup he held atop his knee. "The 
damn bastard used you as a punching bag. He'd told me as much today. 
Told me..." he fell into silence then, only to be prodded out of it 
before he was damn good and ready to be by the touch of Ken's hand on 
his arm. 

"He showed up at Claire-san's to taunt me. I got angry and 
he...There was a fight." And he fervently hoped Crawford had been 
badly hurt by Claire's attack.  

"Just why did you go over there anyway, Ken?"

***

"Because I'm an idiot," he answered with a blithe and lazy sort of way 
to him.  And he shrugged, still keeping his fingers on his boyfriend.  
"He invited us over for cocktails and I... just..." sighing, he shook 
his head then in his creeping disbelief.  "Thought he had nerve and I 
oughtta go beat it outta him for your sake."

Which got him a look that made him want to turn away again, though he 
didn't this time.

"I kinda feel like doing it again, not that it went well the first 
time.  Though... he didn't zactly hit me till I spit on 'im.  Not like 
all the shit that happened after was my fault or anything."

The momentary certain indignation of it passed from him and he leaned 
in very close to his lover's ear.  "You wanna hear?  I *KNOW* He didn't 
tell you the truth or nothin'."

***

Ran slanted him a sulky look out of the corner of his eye, but didn't 
pull away from Ken--not even when he felt a teasing nip at his earlobe. 

"He told me his version of events," Ran grumbled. "Not that I believe 
him...Why would I believe *him*?" 

Except he almost had.  Ken did like bastards, that much was true.  
Ran pushed that thought away almost as quickly as it had risen, 
scowling at the sun-washed vista stretched out below them. 

"...Yeah, Ken. I want to hear what happened next."

***

"Ok, well, he kinda had me in a lock so my arms were all tied up with 
his..." Ken began with none of the seriousness such recounting of 
fights are usually wont to bring about.  No, he sounded like he was 
telling rather the Terra equivalent of a fish story, and his eyes were 
shiny like broken glass on a street corner smashed while he spoke.  
"...That's why I spit on him."

"I'm sorry I missed it." their servant chuckled, traipsing out onto the 
deck as if she was as welcome there as in her own room.  Whether by 
Ran's will or else's, an otherwise healthy leaf lost its grip on the 
fig tree and blew smack into her face on the lightest of gusts.

Ken, who had been in the process of leaning over his lover's field of 
vision to try and make the whole incident come out as delightfully 
clandestine as he could, sat up abruptly, glancing around for other 
intruders.  "Umm, Fiona-chan! Please remember to knock when you come 
upstairs."

"On what? You left the door wide open!" Her hands flew to her hips, 
clasping one another behind her back so she might resist the urge to 
shake her finger at her employers.  "Doooooooon't worry.  I CLOSED it."

"Woul you shoulda tried... oh, yeah... ah... what did you want?" He 
concluded his mumbles by placing one of his hands behind his neck.

"I wanted to say thanks for lettin' me go out with Yuri tonight..."

From the other room, "That's not nice! Don't call me that."

A roll of her eyes and she went on, "That and we decided to raid the 
storage room of party decorations where we found these!"

Out of her pocket popped a pair of chubby, little sparkly blue plastic 
flasks- one of which had a star shaped stopper, the other a heart of 
transparent red.  The latter ended up in Ran's lap, but Ken reached for 
his before she had a chance to try and hand it to him.  

"Party bubbles! Yay!"

"Don't mention it.  Well, I'm off, and I don't remember how to say 'I'm 
off' in Japanese, so I'm just goin'.  Have a good time."

She winked naughtily, but little else was to be expected in the 
situation, so, just the same, they called their farewells along after 
their companions until their footsteps could not be heard along the 
spiral of the stairs.  He thought he caught them calling to one another 
while they dashed through the grass to where the carriages were kept- 
but that was far away on the other side of the Villa; probably nothing 
more but the air crossing the tiles of the roof.  "You said you wanted 
to make dinner, so I told her to out with them.  Prim's sister's going 
to, so it's not like she's spoiling a date."

The lid to his bottle of bubble soap flew off with a pop once he had 
unscrewed it, and the wand came out of the pink liquid within still 
wearing a little foam from all the jostling it had gotten on the way 
upstairs.  He gave the tittering film there the smallest of breaths, 
producing the smallest of bubbles which did a loop-de-loop before 
popping itself on one of Ran's stray hairs.

Ken giggled. 

***

But the sound of his lover's laughter only made Ran that much more 
upset. He didn't want to play, didn't want to be cheered up. Ran 
scowled, instinctively scrubbing at his soap splattered hair with 
the back of one hand. His bottle of bubbles wound up on the balcony's 
stone floor, and he stalked off the short distance between his 
chair and the ledge. The cup, after only a gulp of tea, was set 
aside on the rough, glittering shelf, and Ran leaned his weight upon 
his arms, cupping his elbows so tightly that soon his hands began to 
ache. 

But not before they had itched to curve themselves around a slender 
length of leather-wrapped wood. He wanted to kill Crawford. It 
infuriated him that he couldn't. He could mess with their lives 
anytime he wanted, however he wanted. Crawford was practically 
unstoppable, and the bastard knew it. Sometimes Ran just wanted to 
scream and scream. He managed to keep the urge at bay--just barely. 

"You didn't finish your story," he ground out. "What did he do to you, 
Ken? Did he try to..." Ran's voice dropped to a whisper. "...Fuck you?"

***

Ken sat stirring his soap around for a moment, the expression, has Ran 
chosen to take a peek at it, about that same as if a pin had found it's 
way into his chair and pricked.

His lover saw nothing of him but the cloud of bubbles that came 
drifting from his lips, picking up in the pauses between sentences 
spoken behind him.  

"Yeah, he did.  But that's the funny part! And be~esides.  He didn't! 
He really, really didn't."

Cupping his injured cheek in one hand, he leaned over onto one arm of 
his chair, trying to bite down his laughter again, though his words 
still rang with it.

"After I spit on 'im, he grabbed me and threw me on the couch, like he 
was used to it and all. So there I am, and he's sitting on me of course 
while I'm still all woozy from the punch an'... I think he needs to go 
on a diet! He's heavy.  Anyway, and couldn't get up, not matter what I 
did; was getting' kinda worried.  Especially after he started making 
comments on my ass and all..."

He sighed then, and stretched a little as he stood.

"But after awhile... he just stopped.  And he got reaaaaaaaaaaal still.  
So I turned around to look at him, and he didn't look like Crawford at 
all. It was like... for a split second he was scareda me! Or someone 
else.  I can't really say, it didn't last long enough.  But he went 
back to bein' Crawford then and he says, all dom like- 'Get up!'.  So I 
got, or was halfway up when he decided it would be fun to slap me again 
and put his hand around my throat.  Didn't really hear what he yelled 
at me that time, but his robe came open while he was holding me."

A giggly sniff here, as if he'd gotten to the punch line of a joke he 
couldn't quite tell without laughing.  "He wasn't getting off on it 
like most people who go around throwing people onto couches for fun and 
sayin' they're gonna put this here or that there.  'I wouldn't have you 
on a bet!' he says after he lets me go." His impression of the 
precognitive was twinged with a high-class lisp.  "'Now get out of my 
hotel room!' Which I did, after a few choice words of course."

***

Another spreading silence fell between them, one which didn't extend to 
the grounds. Birds of all makes began their evening tribute to the 
setting sun. Ran pressed his fingers to his eyes, rubbing around the 
edges to alleviate their burning. Wearily, he turned around to face him.  

"Don't rise to his challenges. Don't go near him again. 
Just...Don't. Ever."

***

Ken nodded and dipped his wand once more his newest bevy of bubbles 
caught hazy and free into the sky until they popped in their own 
suspended end leaving but traces of the scent their liquid had once 
born to go elsewhere on the wind.  Some of the little circlets of his 
breath came and wheeled around his lover, all leaving existence in 
uncertainty of whether or not he had taken any note of them.

"I'll do my best, Ran-ashke.  But I won't let anything of his in the 
house again, you can understand that maybe? Just a little? I won't go 
lookin' for 'im, even if I do wanna shove something sharp up *HIS* butt 
right about now."

Another little cloud there, and he rose and walked among them with no 
place he seemed to want to go save the arms of their many curved 
reflections of the deck.

"It's pretty stupid I guess, but I usedta wonder what it'd be like if I 
had someone with... you know, honor.  Something I could protect that was 
theirs and couldn't be touched.  It doesn't bother me, what happened to me.  
Maybe it's just 'cause of what I was, and you can be all disgusted if you want.  
But I let that part go.  It's what he does to you that gets me."

He sighed a little and leaned back, catching a single bubble on his 
lips.  It popped, and he tasted it with a bit of a frown before setting 
about scrubbing the traces of it away.  "But if it's easier for you if 
I cool it, I will."

Very close not, but still just out of reach, he breathed slowly into 
the wet, soapy loop and from it slid one glassy sphere that bobbed just 
across his lover's field of vision.

*** 

Ran rubbed the back of one hand across the tip of his nose, then folded 
his arms loosely over his chest. Bubbles sailed one after the other 
through the air from the end of Ken's wand, and he watched their 
progress pensively. 

"It would be easier," he said at last, murmuring. "I'd rather you 
didn't put yourself in any more situations where he could hurt you. 
It's what he wants. It's what they both want." 

He flipped his eartails behind his ears, then slumped the brunt of his 
weight back against the rail. "Because if you were hurt, 
then...I would be hurt too." 

He bowed his head again, studying his slippered feet for a moment, then 
lurched away from the wall, arms still folded. He swayed at bit where 
he stood, then wandered over to where Ken stood. Very gently, he sifted his 
fingers through Ken's bangs, pushing them back from the younger man's face. 

"It bothers *me*, Ken." 

***

Ken closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed up against the hand the 
brushed him, bumping Ran's palm against his lashes and the inside curve 
of his wrist to his cheek.  "I guess we're even then, huh?"

And then he shook his head, though ruffling the fingers in it as he did 
so rather than trying to convince them to leave him.  "Aw, I really DID 
want to ask you how your day went, just for once, 'cause we never got 
to do that before."

Once more stillness came to his lips, though he drew one step closer, 
drew the wand up to his lips as he did so and poked his breath into it.

"I'd like to give you a big hug right about now, but I guess that's out 
too, huh."

His sigh was not heard but a few bubbles were born in it and came 
tripping up around Ran.

"And here I was just talking about thrashing somebody.  Oh well."

And then he smirked and empties the loop of his wand so a flurry of 
tiny sparkles came up and wound all around Ran.  "I can still kiss you, 
neeee?"

Which he did, just lightly on the lips.

***

The latest cloud of soap film and air disintegrated in a kinked chain 
of silent explosions around them, but Ran took no notice. His lips 
tingled in the nicest of ways from the near negligible pressure Ken had 
applied to them. The boy himself didn't go very far when he did pull 
away--only a few inches. Just enough to be able to clearly see each 
other. Ran's fingers drifted across Ken's scalp to cup the back of his 
head, then neck, dipping his long fingers inside Ken's collar. 

Then he kissed him back, just as carefully, and took one of Ken's 
wrists in hand and guided its corresponding limb around his waist, 
clearing his bruised ribs.  

"How was your day, Ken?"

***

"Alright then, wonderful now," Ken sighed in glad satisfaction of the 
moment, breathing so deeply if only for a touch of his lover's scent, 
which he missed when it was not there to fill him- it sort of reminded 
him of bubble soap, but it wasn't so sticky and young, just enough to 
distract him so much he tried to put the cap back on his bottle one 
handed, and didn't do especially well.

"Started sending out a some of the furniture today, just the stuff 
people paid for online.  Still sellin' it off in the first place of 
course, but that went pretty well, at least until Yuriko came over."

Still here for a moment for he had come to ponder wiggling himself 
against the cheek that rested on him, but second thoughts supposed this 
would do more harm that good, so rather he drew curlicues on the other 
boy's back with his thumb.  "'cause she wanted in the locked door 
downstairs bad as Fiona did! So we tore that down after goin' through 
alllllllllll the keys in the house. The turns out we gotta do it again 
tomorrow since, well, all we found was more doors."

A little gasp them, for he had remembered suddenly.

"We got that little corner room I was savin' for you all cleared out 
then."

*** 

Ran slid back a little in surprise.  "You did?"

Ken nodded with a happy little smile, one which faltered a bit when 
Ran's expression didn't change; just remained kind of blank.  Before it 
could fade entirely though, Ran forced one corner of his mouth upwards 
and gave him a little nod of thanks before curling him back into his 
arms.

"Sounds like you had a productive day, Yuriko notwithstanding."  Ran 
settled his hands in his back pockets, eyes wandering to his lover and 
away.  "I wonder what you'll do with all those extra rooms.  No doubt 
you already have plans for them."

He noticed again the bottle of soap bubbles trapped in Ken's hand, and 
he idly reached out to unscrew the cap; held the wand up before his 
eyes.   A fragile, rainbow-glittering film winked back at him from the 
blue plastic ring, quivering in the faint breeze.

Ran inhaled, pursed his lips and blew as Ken had done, and a ribbon of
bubbles poured forth on his breath.  The redheaded boy quietly watched 
them float until they had all either popped or had been carried away on 
the playful breezes.  Then he replaced the wand in the bottle, screwing 
the cap back on tight.  His fingers lingered over the smooth, cool 
metal.

"I've never played with such a thing as this in my life."  Ran tapped 
the cap thoughtfully with one fingertip and then made for the still-
open French doors without a single backwards glance for his lover.

"Come on, Ken, and I'll start dinner."

***

Ken clapped, though with the bottle still clasped in his hands, it 
didn't make much sound at all save for a bit of a thump.  Either way, 
Ran had already left his sight by the time the charm of seeing his 
lover blow bubbles with him had worn away, and it took him a few more 
moments to get it into his head he was supposed to follow.

/Oh well, love is idiocy after all./

Chuckling, he stooped and picked up the flask his companion had kicked 
away before, thinking he might miss it later, if he wanted to play just 
so once again.  They went into his pockets for the time being.
Then to the kitchen where he found the other boy tying on one of the 
plain white aprons from the cupboard and pretending not to be keeping 
an eye on the doorway.

"You don't mind if I watch?"

He shook his head and so Ken flopped down in one of the stools and 
propped his cheeks against his palms, looking every bit the hungry 
child whose mother has come home a bit late to start dinner.

"OK! I'll just stay out of your way then." /I hope./ "If you're sure 
you don't just want me to fix something instead.  Like if you're still 
sore...? Not that I don't want you to make dinner or anything!" And 
then smacking his lips as he watched the packages come wafting out of 
Ran's bag.  His lips grew wet without his leave.  "Especially since it 
already looks GOOD."

***

The refrigerator door fell shut and the flimsy produce bags Ran had 
stashed the vegetables in plopped down on the wooden work table. The 
vegetables themselves wound up in the sink under an ice cold spray of 
water. 

"If you want to help me, you can make the salad. I'll cook the steaks." 
He paused in his scrubbing of the yellow bell pepper he'd bought, 
murmuring with a bit of a frown, "I hope salad is enough of an 
accompaniment." 

/Or that you even like what I make./ 

He caught himself staring at the onion he held, and with a shake of his 
head, lay it aside in a colander with all the dripping tomatoes, 
lettuce and peppers. Ran turned to Ken again, drying his hands on the 
end of his apron. "They're ready. Do what you like with them." 

Ran padded off to the refrigerator and removed the steaks, tearing off 
the overwrap and plopping them into the deep skillet leftover from that 
morning's meal.  The meat started to sizzle in the pan. Ran shifted his 
head in his hand, pressing his forehead against it in the hopes of 
finding some relief. In the doing, he noticed the bags of chocolate 
chips Claire had given him earlier lying on the counter beside the 
spice rack. 

"How do you feel about chocolate chip cookies for dessert?"

***

Ken looked up from his own little quest then with a huge grin on his 
face, and nothing whatsoever in his hands, especially not the cutting 
board he had been seeking.  "I feel like giving you a great, big, 
sloppy, gooey, icky kiss!"

To the credulous glance this replay got him, he only smiled but wider 
as he kicked open one more cupboard coming at last upon what he sought.  

"AFTER cookies of course."  Uttered with a trace of a sigh as if there 
was simply no way that those cookies could have come fast enough for 
him, no matter how diligently he took to slicing up the tomato.  As 
soon as he had finished, there was of course no lettuce to join it, and 
it seemed that the salad would look fairly silly if he put the tomato 
on the bottom.  Therein, it ended up in a soup dish for the time being, 
doused with a few pinches of salt and a splash of the rice vinegar he 
had come across while seeking the chopping block in the first place.

The knife landed on the counter suddenly though, and quite plainly 
unaware of the tomato juice the pin-pricked his shirt, Ken turned to 
Ran and remarked, "You know, I can't seemta think of a time before this 
we've been in the kitchen at the same time.  Least not that we were 
both cooking."

Although, truth be told, he knew Aya cooked, but he hadn't ever seen 
him do it.  Logic had demanded he keep out of the kitchen at such 
times, or out of the downstairs but... that seemed like ages ago, 
bedecked with the wrong manner of that sight entirely. 

"So... who taught you?" As if it was some terrific secret he wouldn't 
have dared ask of anyone else; as if they were a pair of acolytes in a 
distant temple asking about what earthly traces of saints were hidden 
in the basement.

*** 

Ran looked him over, one knuckle in mouth to soothe the sharp sting an 
unexpected splattering of popping grease had dealt him. 

"The chef at the restaurant where I waited tables," he murmured, 
pinching one of the steaks between the tongs and deftly flipping it 
over. "That is, he got me interested in it. All those exquisite 
dishes, the smell of the food, the spices he'd use. The way he would 
arrange things on the plates--edible works of art." Ran snorted softly at 
the memory, twirling the tongs with his free hand. "I was enthralled. I 
wanted to do such things--saw how practical it was to learn." 

He raised his head from his palm long enough to shift his position on 
the stool, facing Ken now. "So...I dipped into what little bit of cash I 
kept back for my self out of every paycheck and bought a cookbook at a 
secondhand book store. I started with the simpler recipes first, went 
from there. Aya was my guinea pig everytime." 

"But don't get me wrong. I am NOT an expert."  Ran grimly shook his 
head. He prodded the steaks again, then set the tongs aside atop the 
range. 

"What about you?" 

***

Ken held his wrist to his lips and then, quite unexpectedly, bounded 
out of the room with no explanation whatsoever as to where he was 
headed.  The door he closed behind himself, knowing well the eyes that 
followed him were deep and sullen.

Hoping they would not be for very long.  Sadness that was fleeting 
struck him better than a lingering wonder over what melancholy stood a 
the hushed overture to the symphony that was Ran as he appeared in the 
real world...

After all, when Ken came back in, he was wearing a pair of small, 
floppy ears on a headband and had a chocolate brown cotton tail stuck 
to the base of his back.

"I couldn't find any guinea pig ears," he said simple, taking his seat 
up again and resuming his chopping of the bell pepper.  "Sorry."

A little pout under smiling eyes and he replied at last to the silence 
that occupied the room.

"My Okasan taught me.  Well, she kinda did.  It wasn't like I got 
lessons or anythin', but I figured it out, and after awhile, she would 
ask me to help, or make dinner... I usedta do that a lot then when she 
worked kinda late."

The pepper, or what he had so far chopped, landed in the dish of salt 
and vinegar with the tomato, only to be swiftly scrutinized and with a 
faint grumble and relieved of a few stray seeds.    

"But I don't make a whole lotta stuff either.  Just what I remember.  
Probably 'cause she never made anything real complicated herself.  It 
was just the two of us, and the fact is, I got no taste for the *real* 
fancy things that look like you can't eat 'em."

***

"I guess I'm safe then," Ran murmured, glancing down at the two thick 
cuts of beef before him. "I had thought you wouldn't be game for all 
this." 

He gave the steaks another prodding and then turned the heat down a 
notch; burning them would do no good. Ran rose from the stool and 
opened the nearby refrigerator, wanting something, anything that he 
could cook up quick to go with it. He came up with, wonder of wonders, 
a bottle of barbecue sauce and a bag of frozen fries. This last Ran 
held in his hands as if he were weighing it, looking from it to the 
skillet and then back again. Then he tore open the bag and dug a few of 
the chunky strips out, dropping them in the hot skillet with the 
steaks. 

Gave Ken a casual shrug. "Since they were there..." 

The bottle was opened and a small dab of sauce carefully poured on 
each. Ran spread them around with his tongs. 

"You've never told me about your family before," he said, filching a 
bell pepper ring from the salad bowl to nibble upon. "What was your 
home life like...Ken-usagi?"

***

Ken, before he answered, plucked up a lettuce leaf and munched it with 
his nose wrinkled up and twitching, trying his best to live up to the 
nickname that had just alighted on him and his ears.  This though, did 
not last too long.  Something told him the returning touch of 
seriousness in his lover's eyes had nothing to do with their exchanged 
snacking...

"I don't know..." he finally blurted out, and then bit his lip because 
he knew it was one of his more ridiculous answers.  "I mean... no... well, 
it's a lot to try an' say."

A confession that came with a shrug as the rest of the pepper began to 
meet its end.  "I never really thought about it like that... to say it 
out loud."

He sighed, tried to make himself go on, but nothing he thought helped.  
Not when he did his best to rush past so many years, wondering how 
scent of the sauce was making his mouth water even more than the tang 
of the vinegar or the steam the steaks alone.

"It was... quiet.  Is that OK? I'm not tryin' to hide anything BAD or 
stuff like that.  It just seems like it was real long ago to me... 
But it was just me an' her.  I never knew my dad, and I never asked that 
much about him either, since she usedta tell me... just little stories.  
And that kept me happy."

The knife ended up laid aside for a moment and by sudden whim, Ken rose 
up on his toes and poked around in the cupboard above his head.  From 
behind the door he offered with a shrug.  "I always just figured I was 
a one night stand, the way she'd always talk."

He was all smiles when he reappeared, flicking one of his ears back 
into order with one hand, and holding a cruet of oil with the other.  

"She worked a lot, but she played with me when I was home- played 
pretend I mean -and watch the snow or the rain.  Usually rain.  It was 
easier for her make things up with me I always kinda thought, not that 
I ever got around to asking.  I'm not complaining..."  

A few drops of the oil and the dish of tomatoes and pepper sailed into 
the salad bowl, a few stray wet drops finding their way onto the 
counter.  Leaf by leaf, the lettuce followed and he watched it fall.

"You had a mom and a dad right? What's it like havin' a dad? I didn't 
usedta wonder, but I kinda do now.  You mind me asking?"

***

Ran didn't answer him right off, just sat and watched the lettuce 
flutter into the bowl atop its vine-ripened cousins. The click of the 
tiny clock above the range and the popping sizzle of the meat were the 
only sounds in the room, so when he did speak--even though he did so 
softly--it came out as jarring as a roar to his ears. 

"I guess I don't care if you ask me about him. I've asked you enough 
questions of late." 

"He...was a typical businessman; always worked late.  But he tried to 
make time for us every day, no matter how tired he was when he came home.  
He expected me to settle down and find a more stable, better paying job 
after Aya got into university.  He wanted me to get into the business 
world as he had done."  

He flipped the steaks and dabbed some sauce on their uncoated sides. 
"...Even though I didn't want that for myself." 

Ran stepped to the refrigerator again and brought out a bottle of red 
wine someone (Yuriko perhaps?) had stashed away some few hours ago 
judging by the chill sting it bore unto his palm. 

"I know he meant well.  I wasn't focused like Aya.  She knew what she
wanted when she was a child.  I didn't.  Not really.  I suppose they 
worried about me because of it."  

He set the bottle down on the table, and went to retrieve two glasses 
from the narrow corner cabinet, and the corkscrew he'd spotted lying 
amongst a wide assortment of spatulas in the drawer nearest the sink. 
He stabbed the screw into the cork, and twisted it out, and filled both 
glasses, and left them. 

"After your mother died--is that when you came here?"  

***

Ken shook his head so his ears bobbed about his temples.  "Nah, a long 
before that.  Every kid dreams about runnin' away sometimes.  Thing is, 
with me... I actually did.  I don't even really remember why anymore."

Ken paused, and sighed a little, whisking around behind his lover after 
a salad tongs which be used to go about fluffing what lettuce he had in 
his bowl in among the other vegetables, which he seemed to find far too 
many of, and so almost at once began to shred more.

"Well, Okay, I do.  But there are lotsa kids like that I guess who 
don't go wanderin' off."

Still smiling softly, he tapped Ran's shoulder so he might catch his 
gaze for what he said next.  "She wasn't the happiest person in the 
world about it.  Me likin' boys and all.  But she could have been a lot 
madder than she was.  Still... here I am, or here I was."

Another pause, and he started to feel they were drawing closer and 
closer together, all stillness aside.

"You wouldn'ta done that I guess? If you didn't wanna be one of those 
dashing corporate types."

***

"Wouldn't do what? Run away? Like boys?" A faint smile appeared and 
lingered. "No to the former and yes to the latter. I can't help what or 
who I am, no matter what my father wished for me. I suppose, though, I 
would have ended up marrying my secretary, and having a kid or two--
knowing I was living a lie all the while, all out of a sense 
of responsibility. At the time, I couldn't see going against his 
wishes; he was my father.  And I...miss him.  A lot."  

He started to fuss with the steaks again, even though they didn't 
really need it. But the tongs wound back up on the stove just as 
quickly as Ran had picked them up. There was a much softer something he 
found he wanted to hold, and it was chilled with cold water and slick 
with callouses in places; had often sported bandaids over injuries 
sustained during the course of the work day. Seeds clung to his 
fingertips, in the hollows between his digits, and his nails could use 
a trim, but Ran didn't let go. 

"...Kiss me?"

***

Ken glanced over to his captured hand with a sort of flimsy wonder 
settled on his face. The stretch of empty tile between them he cleared 
with a few little hops and a wiggle of his bottom so he looked every 
bit the friendly rabbit.  "Welllllllll... like this?"

Ran's knuckles he nibbled for a split second, keeping a hold of them 
even after he had finished.

"Or... this?"

His lashes brushed his temple then, and their shoulders touched, but 
nothing much more than that, for he had already fled and wondered quite 
aloud...

"How about... this though?"

Saying so, he slipped himself right up against his lover's thigh as it 
sat on the edge of his stool, and drew their tangled hands up between 
them now so he wouldn't accidentally find himself putting pressure on a 
bruise.  His lips crept against the battered cheek, and in three small 
skips came down to his little, pink mouth; captured it and with his own 
left just faintly parted in case Ran's tongue wished to caress him 
there.

***

Ran took full advantage of the opportunity presented to him in the 
manner of shy flickers of his tongue around the lush edges of Ken's 
mouth. He pulled away a little bit to lap at the curve of his lower 
lip, then surged forward for another deep kiss, pressing against the 
barrier their entwined hands made. His free one crept over his upper 
arm and fell against his side, where it clung to him. 

His heart was roaring in his ears, even as he released him, whispering 
his name. Their eyes locked, and Ran was on his feet, and had Ken in 
his arms, one hand cupping the back of his head. He said nothing for 
the brief moment he'd held him prisoner, but his eyes held a smile when 
he at last gazed upon him again. 

"Guess I better get the steaks before they burn." Ran let him go with a 
playful tug of his hair and turned to move the skillet of the eye. He 
shut off the stove, and took the pan in one hand and the bottle of 
sauce in the other. 

"How about we eat here in the kitchen, like we used to do?"

***

Ken, licking a little at the delightful smarting on his mouth, chose 
rather to answer by flopping down in one of the chairs at the table and 
nodding... at least until such time as he realized no one had set the 
table yet.  He ended up bounding out of his seat just as quickly as he 
had sat down in it and diving into the nearest drawer, hoping it would 
contain silverware of some sort... which, naturally, it didn't, so he 
took off for the next, and the one after that, finally coming up with 
some rather fancy flatware that didn't all quite match.  Well, it would 
have, but some of it was gold, and some silver.  He did his best to 
assort each of their places and to not rumple to two burgundy napkins 
too much.

But this done, he had opted to stay still for good this time.  He made 
a crescent of wet vegetables on his lover's plate, and then did so for 
himself, getting a few pepper bits on the table in the process.  These 
he swept onto the floor.

"I'll get them later," he promised and for his trouble shortly found a 
lovely steak had joined his salad with its own little halo of potato 
wedges.  It was very hard for him to wait until Ran sat down with him 
to eat.

"Itadakimasu!" they chorused and their glasses clinked and he sliced 
off a really huge bite of his steak all of which went into his mouth at 
once.  

"You know, I don't think you wasted that money on that cookbook all 
those years ago at all.  Not at all. MMMMMM!"

***

"I'm glad you think so. After all dining upon venison and pheasant, I 
thought mere steak would be boring, but..." 

Ran raised the glass for another sip, and wound up nearly draining it 
completely. Coughing a little into his hand, he set the glass down, 
and contemplated the bottle in the middle of the table. One more glass 
wouldn't hurt him. 

"Do you ever wish it could be this simple always? Do you...want to stay 
here, in this Villa, for the rest of your life?" Ran set the bottle 
down, glancing at him again. "I'm just curious."

***

Slurping on a leaf of his salad which had nearly escaped him, Ken 
pondered his lover's question for a moment, then swept the vinegar from 
his mouth with a quick sip of his own wine.  

His initial response though turned out to be: "Saa, I don't like 
pheasant or venison.  Have you ever tried them? They taste like moss. 
BLECH!"

Ran, quite caught off guard by this, regarded him suspiciously from 
over the rim of his fork.  Not to mention, found his unasked question 
thwarted with a nod.

"I really don't, honest Ran.  And you know why? 'cause they're the 
exact opposite a bein' simple, b'sides nasty.  Why should I be unhappy 
with what I get at the market when what I get at the market's fine?" A 
shrug her, and with a bit of lettuce dangling once more from his lips, 
he reached up to stroke the finals of his rabbit ears.  "Not to mention 
I can't imagine the other usagi being thrilled if I gobbled 'em all 
up."

His relatively innocent fries made no protest though as he slurped on 
the wedge of one more.  "Now? The rest of my life seems far away NOW.  
I can't really imagine getting' tired of bein' here, but y'know I 
probably will."

***

"If you do, then we'll sell the Villa and move to a cottage by the 
sea. Live a quiet life." Ran speared a wedge off Ken's plate, and 
nibbled it despite Ken's softly uttered protests. 

"Feels strange to even think about such a thing as a quiet life. 
Never mind the notion of the two of us as old men." He 
snickered. "We'll take up fishing and sand castle building. I'll 
write angsty poetry and you can...You can teach cooking classes."

***

"Yes, the 1,001 uses of sweet onion." Though even as he snickered 
that out, and helped himself to a thread of pepper from his lover's 
salad, he realized 2,002 was probably a better estimate. After 
all… "And only half of those bein' ridiculous.  All my students 
can come outside with me after class an' watch me bust my hip tryin’ 
to relive my youthful days playin' soccer with you. Then we'll all 
end up at the hospital together, and make funna the food."

Though Ran's expression gave every indication he was somewhat 
inclined to skip that part. There was something in that tiny scowl 
that sparked an answer in him to a question he had never quite 
remembered to ask. His lips wet with wine, he said. "Oh, so THAT'S 
what you were up so late writing back in Tokyo. And I made a bet 
with Youji it was smut too!"

***

"And I thought I was being discreet about my late night writing 
bouts," said Ran. "Or were you just spying on me?" 

With a challenging little smirk, Ken stole another sliver of pepper 
from Ran's plate, and pointedly began to munch upon it. 

"I see," said Ran, who eyed him over the rim of his 
wineglass. "Strange how you would think it was smut. I thought you 
were too pure and bashful to think that way--especially how you acted 
whenever you caught one of Youji's half-dressed women traipsing 
about. Never did I see anyone blush as much as you did." 

Grumbling, Ken went back to his own dinner. Ran smiled. 

"It's too bad Youji's not here, because you would have won. It was 
smut," Ran admitted. "I even based the uke upon you.

***

Ken, in the middle of flushing the vinegar from his lips with a 
bit of wine, blew bubbles in the garnet liquid with his chuckles.  
Coming up for air, he intoned quite mildly, "Haha! I always KNEW 
you were gonna get me onea these days but this is…"

And then he realized Ran wasn't smiling, not even in jest.  He 
was simply sitting there, the pale gleam bouncing from the 
window and the evening just outside throwing his features into 
an opalescent soft-focus.

"Umm…"

And the blush his lover had reminisced about? It came back 
then in two carnation red blossoms lighting on his cheeks.  

"Oh… wow.  I… don't know what to say.  I've never been an 
erotica character before, you gotta understand…!"

***

"So you say," replied Ran. "But how would you know for sure? Can 
you read minds? Do you know for certain that Omi never daydreamed 
about you locking all the doors and ravaging him right there in the 
middle of the shop's floor? That Youji never fantasized about you 
coming to his door in the middle of the night, wanting comfort in his 
bed?" 

The blush which stained Ken's cheeks deepened dramatically, and 
spread in splotches down his throat, and Ken ducked his head a little 
to gaze shyly at him from beneath his messy dark bangs. Setting his 
chopsticks aside, Ran propped his chin on the heel of his hand, and 
leaned in a little towards him. 

"You have no idea just how sexy you are, do you?"

***

“Sexy?” Ken repeated the word as if he had never heard it before in 
his life and was trying desperately to learn how to use it.  “Well… 
actually I… didn’t have the faintest you thought that! I…”

The tender not-quite smile his lover wore began to falter somewhat, 
and it took a few creeping steps of his fingers over the other boy’s 
face before either of them reclaimed it.

“Sorry.  ‘s just seems strange to hear somebody call me that… and 
strange to thinka OMI of all people.  Wanting me to… you know.”

***

"Why not?" said Ran with a little shrug. "He's seventeen. He likes 
boys. Just because he found a worldly guy like Youji to be his perfect 
match doesn't mean he never found a wholesome looking guy like you 
attractive." 

He took another tiny sip of his wine, and then added, "Besides, he 
once confessed as much to me late one night in the kitchen over a 
plate of cold hamburgers and some cokes. Omi wanted you, Ken. 
Nearly as much as I did, though he didn't know how I felt."

***

“Oh geeze, now I’ll never be able to look at him again without doin’ 
THIS!” Ken wailed, pointing as he did to the crimson gathered at his 
throat.  “And thinkin’ of all those times… you know I… I just… touched 
him! What musta been goin’ through his mind.  It’s CRAZY now that I …”

But just as quickly as embarrassment had claimed him, it skidded away 
into a kind of peaceful self-consciousness, and the heat of his skin 
died down almost at once.

“Nah, that doesn’t matter.  Lotsa things matter, but not that.  I 
haffta say I kinda loved him too.  Not like that but.  Hey, he’s Omi.  
What’s not to love?”

***

"Funny," said Ran quietly. "That's how I feel, too. About him. 
About you." 

With a tender little half-smile, Ran dropped his hand to the table, 
and Ken promptly took it in his own. 

"Of course, now I'm tempted to start writing erotica all over again. 
Maybe I should. One starring you and Omi. What do you say to 
that?"

***

“I would say… do whatever makes you happy!” This spoken around a fresh 
mouthful of steak, for it had finally come to him he’d stopped eating, 
and with so much delicious food before him too! 

No, he didn’t mind.  After all, Aya made Omi being halfway infatuated 
with him sound as innocent and charming as a children’s book; something 
to be cherished and made simple; something even innocence could understand.

He also, nodding to Ken’s slight commands, nodded, and obeyed him just 
as well as he could.  The table squeaked under his faint weight as he 
leaned across it after his lover’s saucy lips; with his own he rubbed 
them, niggled the satiny flesh, and once hesitation had both of their 
candors, he opened him, and nursed on the pale points of his teeth 
still streaked with wine.

In parting for breath, Ken, his eyes closed, murmured only one word.

“…Kaze…”

***

Ran stopped short of dealing another gently exploring kiss to Ken's 
mouth, and abruptly pulled back to stare at him. Ken still sat with 
his eyes dreamily shut, mouth all soft with kisses, and glistening at 
the corners with traces of wine. It appeared that he was unaware of 
the slip he had made. 

When Ran did not return again to embrace him, Ken opened his eyes to 
puzzledly regard his lover. And as Ran watched, his own hurting fury 
simmering just below the surface of his outward calm, Ken's eyes 
widened with dismay. 

It was all that Ran had waited for. At once, he dropped his napkin 
onto the table, and rose from his stool. But he didn't leave, just 
stood there and unhappily stared down at Ken. 

"That's it. I'm tired of trying to compete with a ghost. You want 
him, you can have him. I'm going to my room." And Ran stalked away 
from the table for the kitchen door.

***

“Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan,” Ken fussed in answer to his lover’s so swift 
a change of mood (he sounded not only younger, but somehow far 
removed from the logic of his age).  “C’mon! It was an accident! 
Don’t be like that.”

Rather than snag his lover by the wrist, he quite swung his legs 
out from under the table and plopped them smack in the middle of 
the other boy’s path.  Ran didn’t manage to go tumbling over it, or 
really brush against the creases in his jeans at all; just stopped, 
and wheeled around, his eyes shining somewhat close to black in the 
dark light of his anger.

“I didn’t mean to.  You gotta understand it’s hard not to do 
stuff like that.  I’m sorry, OK?  Now sit back down!”

***

"I understand all right.  I understand that you aren't over Kaze--
EVEN NOW!" snarled Ran.  "You are still his.  Your heart is.  It's 
the same old thing, and I'm not going to listen to any more of your 
excuses.  Move your damn feet, and let me pass."  

***

“How about you cut me a little slack here!” Ken spluttered back.  
Briefly, he thought of draining him wine glass for the sake of 
nonchalance.  The only thing that flickered through his mind in the 
wake of that was the realization that he most certainly was NOT 
nonchalant, and wine would only worsen his state.

“Can’t expect me to be perfect every damn second.  I said I was 
sorry.  I know your pissed off always but what good’s stormin’ 
off gonna do you?  Sit!”

***

"You don't order me around!" Ran cried, rounding on Ken.  
"I'm not your damn lapdog.  I'm not your whore.  
And apparently..." He gave Ken a hard shove.  "Apparently, I'm 
not your lover of choice, either.  Because you want Kaze.  KAZE!!"  

Ran shoved him again, nearly upsetting his balance on the stool.  
"I'm not cutting you any damn slack.  You are going to have to make 
up your mind.  Do you want a real lover?  Or do you want to lose 
yourself in your damn memories.  DECIDE!"  

***

But Ken hadn’t heard that much from Ran.  

“Quit pushin’ me!” he yelped, half-anticipating a third little blow 
to his body.  It was not Ran’s weight that brushed his own though, 
but the other way around.  Ken swayed like a tippler as he got to 
his feet.  And he said nothing.  Just backhanded Ran across one of 
his bruised cheeks.  

***

The blow sent Ran reeling, and made his already swollen, injured 
cheek feel like fire had licked it.  He staggered a few steps to 
right himself, and then swung his fist into Ken's stomach.  And 
then he caught him by the shoulders, and viciously shoved him again.  

"I guess it was bound to come down to this, so come on, Ken," he 
taunted.  "Let's finish it."  

***

“You get the fuck OFF *ME*!” Ken sputtered.  His breath was dragging 
on his lips.  Even though Ran had left go of him already by then.  
They hung there for a handful of moments, panting and trying not to 
meet each other’s eyes.  When Ken lunged, it wasn’t for the other boy, 
but the table, and his glass.  He threw the last of his wine in his 
lover’s face, and with the stem still ringing on the counter where he 
had dropped it, took off up the stairs.

“And you listen to me next time I say to cut it out!”

***

Ran, once he had gotten over the shock of being hit full-faced with 
wine, fled after Ken--but only as far as the bottom of the stairs.  

"I won't listen to you!" he shouted over the echoing thump of Ken's 
footsteps.  "You don't tell me what to do!  NO ONE DOES!"  

Above him, the door slammed, and Ran stood there, glaring hatefully 
into the shadows gathered about the tower.  

"Never..." he said.  "Never again.  NEVER!  As far as I'm concerned, 
WE ARE THROUGH!"  

And with that, Ran whirled about, and flung open the tower's front door, 
and made his furious exit.  

*** 

Upstairs, Ken heaved a sigh and struck his forehead on the panels of 
his locked door.

*** 

Crawford, however, was in an even worse mood than he had been upon 
arriving. He had spent just enough time soaking to rid himself of 
whatever bits of dried blood that had crusted over on his few cuts, and 
was now clad in a decidedly unfashionably baggy olive green T-shirt and 
a pair of loose, lightweight black sweats; sneakers. Crawford wanted to 
do a session on the punching bag before dinner, maybe go for a run down 
the church lane. But first, it seemed he had a mess to clean up--if 
Schuldich would only let him. 

He knew right where to go to find him, even though he hadn't been there 
before. He found him still crouched on the floor between the windows, 
fingertips black with coal. His head was bent a little over the paper 
he was sketching on, and he didn't look up when Crawford thumped up the 
stairs and into the room. 

"What are you doing up here?" he asked, swatting away a fluttering bit 
of cobweb from his face. 

Silence. Crawford broke off his appraisal of the filthy space to watch 
him work instead. Then he crossed over to where the redhead sat, and, 
after a pause, said, "All right. Fuck the niceties, we'll just get down 
to it. What's wrong?"

***

The only sound that greeted his question was that of one of the bottles 
shifting with a loud clank.  It rolled for a moment, and then was 
silent itself, the only motion it continued to host that of the 
quivering leaves outside as they played ball with the bits of sky 
caught up in them.  

In the wake of that one clatter came some false sort of stillness to 
the air which bit by bit crept out of silence and into the skritch 
skritch skritch of the charcoal dancing over Schuldich's paper.  Quick, 
always, but sometimes staggered in its momentary flights, crashing like 
a grasshopper unused to its wings then dragging like the silence of 
like brush snagging in the wind.  He didn't stop though, didn't stagger 
true; just whirled and tripped and spun, and all without moving more 
than his finger tips. 

The remains of his cigarette has stopped smoking in their bed upon the 
plastic tray that lined his case of fragmented stalks.  Crawford 
scarcely noticed, to smitten was he waiting for some rest amid the 
rowdy skips.

His lover did pause.  It was long enough to turn over onto the next 
page.  A cloud of dust went up from the picture he had finished.  The 
next began to pour down over the bound paper in black wine plumes.

Brad got a quick image of having his own wrist snapped in two if he 
dared snatch away any of the little black chips his lover had so 
occupied himself with.

Schuldich gave an ironic little half grin.

***

Crawford threw his hands up in a burst of fury. "Son of a BITCH! I 
DESPISE these games of yours. All I want is a straight answer! Why the 
hell won't you give me one?" 

He waited, but Schuldich only gave a dark little chuckle and continued 
to draw. Crawford lunged forward then and grabbed not the broken bits 
of charcoal, but the paper his lover held on his lap. He snatched it 
away and then caught one of his wrists, grinning down at him in challenge. 

"You think you can take me, baby? Come on and try."

***

Schuldich offered his lover only one, faint tell-tale of his waking 
thoughts.  He stopped smiling and was very, very still then, his eyes 
settled on Bradley's.  Just the surface of them, nowhere deep within or 
far past.  Only slowly did he blink.  Said nothing.  Did not seem to 
notice when his lover's fingers when tighter about his wrist, which 
creaked.

Without words or reason though, his free hand darted over onto the tray 
of crayons, taking up a fresh pebble of it.

Which he began to sketch on Crawford's cheek with.

***

Crawford grabbed that wrist as well as he fell to his knees in front of 
him. His redhead's eyes were vacant, so empty, and it made him feel 
uncomfortable. Worried him. He couldn't even feel his presence skirting 
along his shields now. It made him want to grab his lover and shake 
him, court his hot temper. So he did, just a little bit, shouting, 

"TALK TO ME! WHAT IS WRONG?!"

***

The telepath balled his hands up into fists and made them shake within 
his lover's grasp, but nothing more save for a glare that swiftly came 
across his stolen sketchbook as it rested under Brad's arm.  No 
struggling from him and no answer.  To anything.

Though he did speak, after awhile, closing his dim eyes in the 
shameless way he would sometimes in disgust. 

"Put my book down before you bend it."

***

The atmosphere in the room was like the lull before a storm. It was 
such a calm reply to his fevered demands, and he knew all too well what 
that look meant. Crawford couldn't blame him. At that moment, he was 
rather disgusted with himself for losing his cool. 

But he couldn't help it. Schuldich got to him that much. 

"That's all you care about, hm? Your sketch book." Crawford began to 
nod slowly. "I always wondered what mattered the most to you. I never 
thought I would find out in this way." 

Gently, he lay Schuldich's hands back in his lover's lap, and then 
dropped the pad on top of them. Then he firmly planted his hands flat 
on the wall on either side of Schuldich's head and lunged forward to 
drop a hard, desperate kiss upon his closed mouth. 

Then Crawford withdrew altogether from the room without another word.

***

Aubrey Marlow wrapped his fingers around the rumpled corner of his 
sketchbook and held it there, wondering over wrinkling the pages any 
further, just because he could, because it would be ironic. And yet, 
even with the thumping of his lover's footsteps going down the attic 
stairs, it felt like he had nothing of his own pushed into his dusty 
hands.  He drew the back of his hand still clasping the charcoal 
fragment up and wiped the saliva from his lips with it as he got to his 
feet.  
 
His shoes stayed behind on the dappled floor. A spider got into them 
but decided not to spin a web inside before her fist minute there was 
up.  
 
This way, he made no sound. At least, not at first.  
 
"You want something of mine so bad? FINE! Take it! 'Cause I don't care! 
I just didn't want it messed up! BIG DEAL!"  
 
Saying so, he hurled the pages binding first at Bradley's head, adding 
under his breath, "Big, fucking deal." 

*** 
 
Crawford spun to catch it just a few seconds too late, and wound up 
with his glasses knocked askew and a red stripe down one cheekbone, 
just under his left eye. The sketchbook smacked brightly spine side 
down on the wooden floor, and promptly fell open, pages flipping from 
one side to the other in a lazy flicker. Its victim, however, ignored 
it for the time being, choosing instead to squint fiercely at his 
aggressor. 

"Fucking HELL! What is your PROBLEM?! WHY ARE YOU SO ANGRY?!" 

He lunged at once, both for the book and for Schuldich, snagging his 
lover by the wrist, managing to pull him close for only a moment before 
the redhead pushed him away. Still, though, he managed to keep his hold. 

"Fine," he ground out. "You want to keep some distance still, then we will." 

Sparing him a hateful glare, he peered down at the retrieved 
sketchbook. Schuldich's drawings had always managed to elude him 
before. After seeing the first one, Crawford realized he'd been granted 
a mixed blessing. 

On the page before him was a wet, naked, teenage boy huddled miserably 
in a doorway, nothing of his face shown but a pair of bleak eyes--the 
rest lay hidden behind his folded arms. The pages after it revealed yet 
more boys in states of near or complete undress and dampness, all posed 
in strange places, all grim of mood. 

"...Why are you drawing pictures like these?"

***

"Oh make up your mind!" Schuldich groaned, taking his captured fingers 
in one hand and pulling against them as if doing so would finally tug 
him free of his lover's grasp.  It didn't work, and so his presence 
came and skittered on the glassy ice dome that ran around Crawford's 
thoughts, making no more noise though than a lace wing gone up against 
the shoulder of a hill. 

There was only the sense he was trying... something.  That he was there.

And when Brad looked up at him again, having gotten no answer but the 
fluttering on his shields, he saw his cheeks were pale rose rather now, 
near the same shade the mornings after lusty nights sometimes found 
them.

Schuldich spun as if startled by his eyes, but pulled no longer on his 
clasped bones.  Just stood with his back to his lover, swinging the 
hand that kept him back and forth a little, and his thumb, some long 
moments later, brushing up against the palm that held him.

***

The way in which Crawford regarded Schuldich at that point was in the 
manner of one who had come upon something wondrous, and wanted to 
commit every single detail to memory.  He noted how his hair tumbled 
down his back, how it shifted when he breathed; how the muscles in his 
swinging arm twisted beneath his shirt:  All the little, seemingly 
insignificant things that people usually don't notice about their loved 
ones, but miss once that person is gone.

He loosely clasped Schuldich's wrist, but made no attempt to pull him 
into his arms; it was for him to decide if he wanted to get any closer.  
He did, however, hold the sketchbook out for him to take.

"The boys in these drawings--are they supposed to be you?"

***

Schuldich glanced over his shoulder then, did turn then after his 
drawings, rather abruptly as if hoping to catch Bradley off guard, 
though he obviously knew he could not.  He took his them back in one 
jostling snatch, waiting then again before he did another thing, in the 
sort of way a tiny beast may glance about before making off with a 
flower bud they mean to nibble, though rather he whirled around again 
for an instant and clouted his lover over the head with the spine of 
his book.

"No..." He began in a hazy sort of voice that meant plainly to carry 
itself on, even where he fell silent for a bit, and Brad thought he 
heard him swallow somewhat deeply.

"I can draw myself better than that."  A contemptuous little sniff 
then, and not for whatever else there was in the world to be sketched.  
"It's just wet things are hard.  Only a few people do it real well."

The book fell open with it's back balanced in his palm, and he peered 
down into the pages a moment before clapping it shut with s snicker.

"I'm not one of them."

***

Crawford gave him a baleful look, vigorously rubbing at the smarting 
point of impact with the heel of his hand until the creeping tingle 
faded, wondering if he should chance Schuldich's temper and make a 
grab for the book again. 

"Oh, I don't know. They looked well-rendered to me," he said quietly, 
offering his genuinely truthful opinion of his lover's work. "I just 
never knew you drew such pictures in your books. I suppose I was a bit 
curious." 

A little pause. "I do wish, sometime, you'd let me see one of your 
self-portraits. But no pressure."

***

"I know," Schuldich answered, squeezing Bradley's hand back as he gave 
it a pull.  A few staggering steps behind him, but he felt no weight on 
his shoulders as he was used to when he made himself seem unaware of 
anything that Crawford was, just sometimes, when he turned his back.  
When they played.  He held his fingers out; uncurled them so he could 
see in among the whirls of his fingerprints as the charcoal had brought 
them out.

"I got you all dusty."

He blew on his skin then, as if it would do any good to chase the grey 
silt from him.

"You know, I..."

It had started out all curt and merry, but ceased as suddenly as it had 
begun, as if someone had broken his tongue, for Schuldich never cut 
himself off, and therefore did it sloppily when he tried.

"Thanks."

***

Crawford raised his hand from his side to stroke the thick fall of russet 
drifting down his lover's back. Coiled one long lock around his 
finger, thumbing it contemplatively for a moment before he swept the 
mass to one side, baring the side of his neck. Crawford brushed a kiss 
there, followed by a whispered, "You're welcome." 

And that was all he was going to say about that. Whatever his lover had 
been about to say...was his business. Crawford didn't intend to pry any 
further. 

The hand Schuldich still held was squeezed again, and Crawford 
straightened up, only to drape his arm over the German's shoulder, and 
loosely clasp one of his wrists. 

"I was going to say that if you were afraid you'd end up like those 
boys--that is, homeless and penniless--you shouldn't worry, because you 
won't. But that was when I thought those boys represented you, so I 
guess it's just silly now."

***

"Nah," Schuldich tried to stifle a yawn and didn't do especially well 
with it.  "Still just afraid of getting old."

He threw Bradley an incredulous look, as if daring him to speak further 
on the matter of the ages of anything, in their house- be it the 
religion, or the windows; the dust or him.  

But he fluttered away then, leaving a faint kiss mark on one of the 
sooty hands that had held him.

The book spent a moment clasped between both of his hands and then he 
turned it towards himself, looking intently for something that didn't 
want to be seen at first.  He actually had to go back through what he 
flipped through the first time.

"Actually... I did one that kinda looks like you, if you really wanna 
see it."

Before he got an answer, he had turned the book around and held it just 
under his eye so he was peering over the top of it.

The child in question, a boy scarcely of twelve years, was seated on a 
swing.  He wore nothing but a white shirt, or rather half of one where 
pieces of it still clung to him.  He had one hand wrapped about the 
chain, the other held a tiny apple which had been got up as if to look 
like a living thing- it had a feather stuck in it for a tail and two 
pearl buttons jabbed into it for eyes.  Behind it and it's evidentially 
drowsing master was a chain link fence flanked by billows of droplets 
that had been frightened up from the wet street.  

"But that doesn't mean anything either."

***

Crawford studied the charcoal sketch as if he were looking upon the 
first work of art he'd ever seen in the first museum he'd ever been in. 
He reached a hand out towards the page, fingertips coasting through the 
air just millimeters above the fragile lines and curves. 

"I like it. You got the tattered shirt down perfectly, though...as for 
the rest, I can't honestly say. I don't remember what I looked like as 
a child." He canted a thoughtful look at it. "Perhaps I never really 
knew." 

Crawford's fingertips stilled above the child's face, and then his hand 
swung back to his side. He tore his eyes from the drawing and leveled 
them at Schuldich. 

"What does mean something to you? What does really matter?"

***

Schuldich held one of his shimmering fingers up.  It was plain what he 
meant- wait.  Just wait for now.

In the mean time, he reached up and rubbed at his lashes as if he was 
sleepy or had gotten one of them caught in his eyes.  He yawned again 
and came up blinking still.  Now he seemed but freshly awakened rather 
that wanting to be sent to bed.

Without his hands, once he tapped upon the snowy shell of his lover's 
mind, stood presence to presence with him with only a few breaths of 
cold air to keep them apart.

And then it was gone, leaving just him and his lover.  There in the 
hallway and the surfaces of each other's minds.

"The same thing that's always mattered.  That I have something to sip 
at.  Something exquisitely delicious.  Even if that's what you expect 
me to say, because of what I am besides pretty and vain.  You can try 
to figure it out..." 

One step closer then in the world where they were touched and could 
touch themselves.  He set the sketchbook aside as if it had never been 
a thing of his.

"...Me and my yummy thoughts."

He shrugged then, and cast away the space between them.  Very quickly, 
so it was but scarcely he had seemed to move.

But he had Brad in his embrace then- his palms coasting up and down his 
back as he held him and his head resting on his shoulder.  He was 
smiling, but only faintly.

***

He had expected it, but yet, Crawford had been a bit taken aback when 
he found himself suddenly wrapped in his lover's embrace. It always 
amazed him (in a quiet sort of way) when Schuldich tried the other, 
little used power which he possessed. 

"I think of you as being far more than merely pretty or vain." 

Crawford drew his arms around Schuldich, curling them around so his 
fingertips met the redhead's sides. And thus held, he gave him a brief, 
genuine hug.  

"You know," he continued in dreamily musing way, "if I somehow gained 
possession of Nagi's power at this moment, I would make us some drinks. 
Something sweet. Something with...honey." He smiled slightly at his own 
small joke. "I would have them come to the bedroom, and we would sit on 
the bed with the windows open to the sleepy afternoon air, and would 
watch the day die." 

Crawford turned his head and pressed his face to Schuldich's hair, 
murmuring, "I don't know why I'm attempting to be poetic all of a sudden."

***

"I don't feel like fighting about it.  It's not like I care," Schuldich 
remarked in a slow and rather removed voice, though he kept his 
presence certain otherwise by nuzzling his lover back so his henna 
locks went spilling all around his neck and down the front of his 
shirt.

Which he finally seemed to notice then, and so gathered a handful up it 
up so it pulled away from Bradley's back, though the fact he was really 
quite amused by it was evident in nothing else he did, and he stroked 
him still, sometimes against the fabric of it, and sometimes on his 
bare skin.

He rose from the little nest he had made on his lover's shoulder and 
gazed rather on his face (his own hair was now a terrible mess though, 
as if the breeze had plucked it this way and that- he made some move to 
fix it, but not much of one).  "I can live without that kinda drink.  
Bed sounds better, and no, I'm not planning to fall asleep on you right 
off."

Added then as he began to draw away, "Not that you'd let me."

So, with Crawford in one arm and his sketchbook in the other, he made 
his way into their chambers and closed the door behind him before 
flopping down on the covers, which someone or other had straightened in 
their absence.  Somehow, he didn't think it was Saffie...  

He got up almost at once though and threw the windows open.  The air 
sighed through them and the sound of the leaves swept in with it.  
Leaning through where the glass had been, he called, "Rapunzel, 
Rapunzel let down your hair." And laughed, since he was good at it.

***

Crawford sank onto the side of the bed, and tugged the laces of his 
sneakers loose, pulling off first one shoe and then the other. "You are 
ridiculous. I think you enjoy it." 

/That, and the way you're tempting me just now./ 

He heard a snort of amusement over the thump-thump of his sneakers 
hitting the floor. Crawford rose and turned to find his grinning lover 
now looking over his shoulder at him. The sylphs had kissed his cheeks 
pink, ruffled his hair. A few stray honeysuckle blooms clung to his 
long russet strands, deposited there by the breeze. He carried a 
strange, faraway look in his eyes. 

"I think I enjoy it, too." 

The dark-haired man sidled past the four-poster and crossed over to him 
on bare feet. Once there, he planted one hand on the sill past 
Schuldich's hip, the other on the frame opposite, and leaned down to 
give him a kiss behind the ear. 

"Will you come to bed? Or would you rather I had you in the window?"

***

"Window's good," Schuldich replied, batting his eyes closed for a few 
moments.

/Well, well.  He noticed.  And it's all he thinks about, but he doesn't 
ask anymore./

Another kiss befell him here, and his tipped his head so his hair would 
fall away from his neck, leaving it exposed for whatever little 
witcheries Bradley had planned for it.  

/Not for today./

/It's not so bad./

A sharp little nip upon one of his leftover bruises stirred him from 
his reveries, and he answered it with an incorporeal slap.

"Sure makes things interesting though." At which he turned again, and 
stood up somewhat more than he had before.  His hips still rested just 
barely against Brad's, and his back he held arched as he reached up, 
skimming his hand over his lover's for a moment, plucking the few 
blossoms that had fallen in his hair away.

::Geeze, all the vines around here are shedding like crazy! It's...::

He gave the honeysuckle petals a very curious look then, and brushed 
them with his thumb a moment, trying to uncurl what he had plainly 
squashed.  Before another moment had passed, he was halfway out the 
window once again, looking this way and that over the outside walls of 
the church.  Something thumped against them then, and there was a 
tumult of difficult rustles.  He felt hands about his waist as if 
Crawford was thinking he might fall, or as it turned out, pretending to 
think so just so he could hold him there.

Schuldich came back to him with a handful of vines he had torn away.  
"You've never had one.  They're pretty good.  Here, like this."

He reached into the greens then and pulled away one of the very 
youngest blooms, holding it up so they could both see the tiny drop of 
nectar gathered where it had once been pressed into the rest of the 
vine.  This he set to his lips and sucked before flicking the dry 
blossom out the window.

***

Crawford arched a brow in wry amusement as he sifted through the leaves 
for a likely looking blossom. Some had turned the color of butter, some 
browning around the edges, some the color of parchment. It was one of 
these last that he took in his curiosity, holding it up to the bright, 
vaporous glow of the pre-sunset beyond. A droplet of liquid still 
twinkled there, missed by the seeking bills of ravenous hummingbirds. 

He held the flower up to his lips, shooting a questioning sort of look 
at his lover. "Like this? Okay..." The bell-shaped bloom fell between 
his lips, and it precious bounty drank. Just the sprightliest trickle 
of dew met his tongue and melted. Crawford regarded the spent little 
cup as if he were trying to make up his mind about it. Over whether he 
liked it or not. Then he carelessly tossed it out the window. 

"So I got some honey to drink after all." Crawford gave Schuldich a 
grin. Another flower was pinched from the vine, but Crawford didn't 
drink from it as he had its fellow. Instead, he gingerly snapped the 
tiny green crown at the end of it and caught the drop of nectar with 
the tip of his index finger. Deftly balanced it there. 

"I never thought I'd find myself sucking the dew from flowers in a 
tower room. I must say I rather like the taste of them." 

/But you taste sweeter./ 

Slowly he drew his finger to his mouth, making as if he would lap it 
clean, but just a breath away from doing so he paused. Caught his 
lover's eye. 

Then he held his finger out towards Schuldich's lips and glossed their 
curves.

***

Schuldich, rather than remaining still, let his tongue trickle out 
after the nectar strung across his mouth, following just behind the 
warmth of his lover's touch and drawing the lines of his lips up into a 
impish smirk with it.

::But it's *GOOD*, hmm? It makes you happy even if you didn't see it.  
Because you didn't maybe? Ah, I thought so.::

The caress paused then and he caught it with the tips of his teeth, 
holding it close as he breathed and drank rather the salt form his 
lover's skin.

::Just like how you used to see me.  You were doing that thing, weren't 
you?::

An echo of visions dredged up between them and floated for a moment 
like a ripple of leaves drawn of from the bottom of a lake to its 
surface, shuddering with unnatural movement of thoughts before fading 
away, back to the breast of the still water and still present.

::See, I do look!::

He slipped closer by only a handful of centimeters- just enough to 
pierce himself with that finger, take it's touch inside and wrap it up 
with his own wet flesh.

Schuldich closed his eyes and purred like he did when kissed otherwise.

***

A little vibrato on his tip--it was so like elsewhere, but sweeter. Hot 
and wet and so firm in the right places. Crawford twisted and curved 
his finger upwards to skim the roof of Schuldich's mouth, rubbing the 
cleft down its center. 

"I believe mouths are one of the most overlooked erogenous zones. I'm 
serious," he murmured, slipping his finger down now to pet Schuldich's 
tongue. "Think of all the things one can do with one's mouth." 

Crawford drew his finger back a little until only the tip hung between 
Schuldich's lips. Rubbed his baby finger along the curve of his own 
lower lip when the redhead began to suckle at the digit. 

/I always want you. I always want to have sex. Maybe you've noticed 
that?/ A wry little smirk. /Do you blame me?/ 

/You fascinate me./ 

/I want to get inside you, like you can me--only I have to resort to 
the physical, denied the mental./ 

/I'm not really happy unless I can do that, one way.../ 

Crawford drew his finger out of Schuldich's mouth and slipped it into 
his own, tasting of him now. 

/...Or the other./

***

Schuldich simply grinned and caught of Bradley's hand in his own, 
turning it over and over a moment.  He seemed to be searching for 
something on it- some mark, some trace, some familiar place to set his 
lips too, though in fact he was rubbing the shiny cool of his ring over 
his lover' skin before clasping it to his neck.

He swallowed against his palm then, like sometimes he did  after having 
drunk up his cum.

::I could still taste you.:: He offered with a shrug before pushing the 
his fingers away rather than take any of them up again with his lips.  

::And I'm guessing, that as good as the other way is, you want the 
first, right?:: This asked with a series of brief flashes, bits he had 
caught of their trysts, flashed first on mirrors, and then into his 
memories, where it seemed to be the clearest of his own considerations.

The tangle of honeysuckle landed on the bed with a rustle and a few 
shed leaves.  As for his sleeveless dress shirt, that he treated with 
less delicacy.  He stroked himself through it for a moment, pinching 
his nipples until they perked beneath the fabric.

Then he ripped it off, sending the only two of the buttons he'd kept 
done somewhere into the crevices of their bedroom.  The wounded garment 
slumped to the ground and lay there, thumped by his cufflinks when they 
fell atop it, followed shortly by his cuffs.  Only the collar of his 
invisible trench remained, and he stood there for a moment, bare above 
his waist.

The honeysuckle came back into his hands then and he began to toy with 
a pocket of livelier blooms.

::It's not like you're the only one here who thinks that way.::

::About the sex I mean.::

A few blossoms he plucked and drank from them one by one, letting them 
drift down among his discarded clothing then.

::'Cause just because I can get in you with my head doesn't mean I 
can't have it both ways, and go by way of your skin too.::

"'Ah, power struggles!' As you are so fond of thinking."

The last flower he took in, all the way into his mouth.  And swallowed 
that as well.  

"Maybe... there's something... hmm... interesting we can do about that? 
Would you like me to tell you a story? It's BAWDY..."

::And I mean just tell you, none of this sort of thing.::

***

Crawford tore his eyes away from Schuldich's bobbing throat to his 
piercing green eyes. Thumb grazing his adam's apple over and over. 
"That's new. I don't think you've ever told me a story before, bawdy or 
otherwise." 

/No, that time you read 'The Story of O' aloud to me while I was laid 
up with strep doesn't count./ 

A chuckle and Crawford moved forward, hand still resting lightly on 
Schuldich's throat, bodies so close they brushed together with every 
breath. He bent as if he would kiss him, but stared down into his eyes 
instead, pensive. 

And then he released him altogether. 

His T-shirt landed on the floor next to his lover's, and Crawford 
paused long enough to fish a pack and his lighter out of the night 
stand drawer before taking a seat on the end of the bed. He drew his 
long legs across the covers as he lit a cigarette, lounging against the 
footboard. He flipped his drooping bangs out of his bespectacled eyes 
and peered up at his lover through a clove-scented fog. 

"Okay, Aubrey. Talk dirty to me."

***

Schuldich let the vines he clasped droop in his arm for a moment, and 
he laughed yet again.  "Ok! But no 50's underwear this time."

::Although I do know right where it is, the blue set, remember? But 
this story has nothing whatsoever to do with that sorta thing, unlike O 
and her devotionals.::

His thoughts fell silent then, almost as quiet as he could have 
mustered with shields, only a thread of difference between where he was 
now and there.  He swept through the haze of Bradley's smoke and draped 
himself along the edge of the bed, facing his lover with the wreath of 
honeysuckle strewn over his lap and shaking when he plucked upon it.  
The shadows had grown long by then, and the sunlight turned the amber 
gold of pricey French perfume even as it kept on dimming, bit by gauzy 
bit.  

He leaned over, closer, bit by bit, and spoke but softly between 
grazing his lips with fresh petals.  As if it was a secret uttered by 
someone used to only their tongue.

"Well, didn't you ever wonder who did me the first time?"

No mental acknowledgement to the curiosity that rose under his words, 
but he smirked and nodded, self-satisfied in every way.  

"Not because you're jealous but... just because you can know? If I 
decide to tell you."

Though he already had.

"I was ten, and for a telepath that's more like... I dunno... twenty? Maybe 
twenty-five? Older than I looked.  And it was like... April of the year I 
wasted in fifth grade.  Real wet and warm, just the way I like it.  Oh, and 
you have to remember here, this is back when I was blond and had just started 
growing my hair out, so I just had this little ponytail."

The picture he watched coming into soft focus in his lover's thoughts, 
but reached not after it to fix what scant flaws he could find there 
between the sifting impressions of it there.  Although it almost made 
him chuckle that even in the fancy he was got up in his usual shirt and 
slacks.

"Well, mater and pater finally got it through their heads maybe I 
should be skipped ahead a few grades.  So, yet again I got dragged two 
hours outta town to be 'evaluated' by the crusty, old profs everyone 
seemed to think had some kinda business in looking after gifted 
children and savants.  Like gifted kids can't look after themselves, 
huh? Well, it was just a buncha routine tests, and they all knew me 
pretty well down there by then, so of COURSE they gave me to the new 
guy."

Another moment in stillness of his mouth where he kissed rather the 
smoke than another blossom.

"I figured it was worth putting up with 'em one more time if I could 
just screw middle school and get straight into ninth.  That's the only 
reason.  But... this new guy? Just married, only thirty, no kids and 
not out after anything that wasn't a good impression on his superiors.  
Got stuck with him in a blue room with one of those two way mirrors 
for all the little voyeurs.

"You can just get what he started thinking about halfway through the 
linguistic part of the exam." Schuldich closed his eyes and chuckled a 
little, looking like one who waits for a surprise, or recalls one well 
enough to fall back into the right actions for it.  "Usedta be by hobby 
before I ended up with you- picking up straight guys.  This was my 
first time for that too.  But I just played along with the nonsense for 
awhile longer, since, you know, it wasn't like I didn't end up knowing 
that sort of thing otherwise; about me, about somebody else's kid, 
somebody else's DOG.  And me, but this time... it finally hit my while 
I was defining vitrified: hey, I could have him if I wanted him, couldn't 
I? See if lust is any good when it's not drunk outta somebody else. 
Maybe it was just a passing thought in him, just a glance away, and 
maybe just thinking about trying anything like that made me blush and 
get giddy back then.  No, it wasn't like it felt like it'd be hard, but 
I hadn't ever done it before."

His hand came up and touched Brad just under the rims of his glasses.  
"I finally just said to myself, 'Hey, I screw up, I'll just fix it 
later.' But I couldn't just ask him, I mean, I could hear *those two* 
moaning all happily when I said something right.  But he brought me a 
glass of water after awhile and so while I was dredging myself up in 
his thoughts I just wrote on the table with the condensation I got off 
it.  Pretty sloppy, huh? When I coulda just made him decide to seduce 
me 'on his own'.  It was only 'cause I didn't want him thinking he was 
in charge after all.  Yeah, I was like that even then..."

***

The hand Crawford had been trailing up Schuldich's bare arm paused over 
the curve of his bicep, and he sketched out the shape of the all-seeing 
eye with one finger. "Just as incorrigible, just as hard to handle. Why 
am I not surprised?" 

He grinned at his lover, his hand skating up to cup his shoulder for a 
squeeze and then swooping down to curl into a loose fist over 
Schuldich's breast bone. Crawford spread his hand flat across his skin, 
stroking circles with his fingertips. 

/I should buy you a ruby choker. Rings for every finger./ 

/Hmmm...yeah.../ 

And so Crawford's mind wandered to images of Schuldich stretched out 
naked on the bed. Beringed fingers, gold bracelets around his ankles, 
hugging his upper arms. Cold gems glowing on his bare chest. And he... 

Received a sharp, mental admonishment. Crawford's eyes focused again 
onto his lover's bemused face. "Huh? Oh, yes, yes. My apologies."

***

"Geeze! I *am* getting to the good part!" Schuldich complained.  He 
sidled over a bit closer then, leaning into the palm that still rested 
on his chest.  "But that doesn't mean you have to keep your pants on."

His fingers and a single sprig of honeysuckle were too impatient to 
wait and found their way in down the edge of Crawford's trousers.  A 
few pricks of wetness came out on them when a pair of the flowers 
beneath broke open, but neither of them moved to suck them away or 
otherwise.

"So anyway, this guy, he's not too bad looking, at least not when he 
isn't gaping like some idiot.  Like he started too after my little 
invitation.  He hadn't had his hair cut in awhile, sloppy shaver and 
oh, one inexcusable flaw- brown eyes.  BIIIG brown doe eyes but 
still... he didn't do anything at first that anyone else woulda seen, 
he said yes in my head... but how to get me alone?"

He paused here and added in a hot whisper only after he had reached up 
over his lover's navel and wiggled his fingertips there.  "Not that I 
hadn't thought maybe I'd like it with everyone watching."

"But he was pretty good, what he came up with.  Went back allll of a 
sudden into the gallery to tell them he thought I knew I was being 
watched and I might do better if he saw me somewhere alone.  Highly 
unorthodox of course, but hey, he was young and brash and new and there 
I am... good at making people believe all that sorta stuff.  So they 
did, and he got the keys to one of the private waiting rooms.  Oh and 
to see me waiting for him just outside the door with my hand down my 
jeans and a big grin on my face, just like this."

Schuldich gave one then, letting the tip of his tongue peer out it 
faded rather quickly though into a faint scowl.  "I just realized I 
can't remember his name, and I never forget anything.  Mustn't have 
heard it... anyway, he took me real hard by the shoulders and GLARED at 
me.  'Do you know what you're asking, Aubrey Marlow? Do you even know 
what sex *IS*?' So I just laughed at him, asked where he'd been and if 
he'd mind just calling me Aubrey.  He didn't.  Not the whole time we 
were going at it, but he didn't stop thinking about me, like most 
married guys do.

"Well, we went back to the room he had the key for- real too cheery 
place with windows overlooking the back and real heavy walls so you 
couldn't hear the people crying in the next room, and there were almost 
always people crying in one of them for one reason or another.  I took 
off all my own clothes, wouldn't let him touch me until they were all 
on the floor and man, he jumped for me... with everything on but his damn 
lab coat! Promising me he'll go slow and all that shit.  He had his 
hands pretty much everywhere they could go in three minutes or so."

He shrugged then, batting his digits over his own face, petting himself 
in a living echo of the memory.

"I got to undress him after awhile though, so he finally up and asked 
if I'd ever done 'this' before, and I told him the truth while he 
played with me awhile.  'Oh, you know, Aubrey Marlow, I don't mind.  I 
don't feel bad if you don't.  You're just too old for your body, it's 
not YOUR fault.  This isn't BAD.'  Yeah, he really said that to me, a 
few times, and I didn't stop him either.  Just felt too nice when he 
started kissing his way up my cock... we both hit the floor awhile 
after that.  I tried putting his in my mouth but he was real fat and I 
actually busted my lip on him.  Him being all romantic and all, he 
stopped, kissed it all up.

"But it wasn't like all those shotacon mags otherwise.  I mean, we had 
a WHOLE waiting room to ourselves and the floor wasn't THAT hard.  We 
made out on it for the longest time and he held me all close with his 
hand in and outta my ass.  There were clothes everywhere.  I bit him a 
few times on the shoulder while we were rolling around and he tasted 
like aftershave everywhere I got my mouth."

With a wink then, "Nice aftershave."

"He wouldn't get me off though, not for the longest time, and he 
wouldn't put his fingers in far enough.  It was driving me fuckin' 
crazy even if I was having a good time otherwise; waiting for it to be 
the way it always tasted off other people.  So much for that.  I kicked 
him off me, got down on my hands and knees and held myself open.  He 
wouldn't do me though, I had to make him and I still only got what I 
wanted after he had to wait and stretch me for... just forever.  He did 
it with both thumbs too, you know, actually got me open and then wet me 
down with his tongue before he remembered he had a lubricated condom in 
his wallet.  I never did run into that wife of his, but I guess I was 
pretty glad she liked to jump him now and then when he came home.

"So it wasn't so bad even when he did get going.  Even if I did 
seriously think I was gonna scream the first few seconds."

With a little shrug, Schuldich glanced away for a moment, combing his 
hair from his eyes as he feasted on the nectar of a few more blossoms.

"He didn't rip me open or anything, I was just real worked up and you 
know how that feels when someone hits you just right when you're that 
way.  So it didn't last very long after that- five minutes tops.  I was 
jerking off under him and he couldn't have held out real long in 
anything tight as I was."

He finished the story off with all the cheeky faerie tale grace that 
could have been expected, "And that's how I started my membership in 
the pushy bottom society."

***

Crawford became aware then of the cigarette he'd left between his fore 
and middle fingers as said clove twig burned down to its very nub, 
singing his skin in the process. He dropped it to the blanket with a 
hissed curse, then began beating about the spread until he was sure it 
was extinguished. The half-an-inch long stub was retrieved and tossed 
away over his shoulder, and Crawford settled against the footboard as 
if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. 

And of course, it hadn't. Schuldich had, once more, managed to get him 
hard and aching in mere seconds. 

"So I have some bored, married straight to thank for setting you on 
your path? I never would have guessed..." 

/Sort of like the forbidden fruit principle, hm?/ 

Crawford took one of Schuldich's hands in his own, and lifted it palm 
up to his mouth. Kissed and licked the hollow of it. 

/No pun intended./ 

He leaned forward to press a kiss at the corner of Schuldich's mouth. 

/If you want me naked, you'll have to take care of it yourself./

***

Schuldich gave up clapping for the show Brad had just put on for him 
and lost his hands rather in his lover's hair, making sure to pull, but 
not too much.

/As if I feared frightening you away.  Yeah right.../

He did pull him away though, far enough to see him properly, and to 
share their grins.

"More or less.  Don't know what happened to the bastard though.  
Otherwise I'd tell you.  I bet it's a fascinating epilogue."

A rush of hissing leaves as they all tumbled to the floor, leaving his 
lips and the stiff spot in the front of his trousers plain for anyone's 
eyes.

"As for something I *DID* know a long time ago..." His lips flickered 
inward for a moment and came back glossy and just barely parted.  "I 
knew I was queer from when I was fuckin' four.  I mean... who wants a 
scummy cunt and whatever the hell's been there?"

To the question which followed along his fingers as he drew them over 
Bradley's cheek, he smiled and shook his head.  ::No, Saf's 
different...::

But no more of that, he gave some request for silence and he took 
Crawford rather by his elbows, coaxing him to lean back, then to be 
alone, without his touch, finally to draw his thighs apart which he 
did.  His sweats joined the flowers and the silk already strew around 
the floor.

Like so often they were in their house.

Schuldich slunk up though and, still wearing his shorts and socks and 
knee guards besides the collar, settled between Brad's legs and 
stretched out over his bare body.

***

/Oh, I see your plan. Drive me insane and then go in for the kill, hm?/ 
Crawford scrunched his fingers into Schuldich's hair and tugged sharply 
on the hanks he held, pulling him down for a kiss when he rose to lodge 
a verbal complaint. Held him fast, tongues skating over each other, 
slick and insistent, until Crawford was breathless. He broke away from 
him with a gasp, only to moan softly when he felt his lover's tongue 
move lightly over the rim of his ear. 

"Most epilogues are fascinating for one reason or another. His would 
have been so only because he had known you on the floor of a broom 
closet." 

/Do you think you ruined him for his wife? For women in general?/ 

Crawford's hands skimmed over Schuldich's back, tracing bone and the 
pull and slack of his muscles, all the way to his ass. 

/I could see it. If I had been in his shoes.../ 

/But then, I would have been a boy myself, and I was already gay./ 

/So...You would have ruined me for other men./ 

He coaxed him up onto his knees with none too subtle little shoves of 
his hands, impatient, and his fingers instantly went to the fastenings 
of Schuldich's shorts. He folded the fabric back from his groin, and 
caught his surging sex in both hands. Pumped him once, and then fell 
back on the sheets, lazily licking the fingers of one hand as if he 
savored the thin coat of pre-cum they had come away with. And he did. 

"Come on and fuck me, Aubrey."

***

Schuldich only paused a moment though, sweeping his hair back from his 
shoulders with an amused murmur in his throat which stilled in but a 
moment as he felt his lover's hands snatch at his cock once again.  "So 
you've got me all figured out, hmm? You know, I don't think I mind you 
being all pleased with yourself about that."

::At least...:: One tiny sway of his hips and his shorts slithered from 
him, down to the well of his knees where they lay like the film of a 
chrysalis.  His own fingers traced where they had once been.  ::...not 
for now.::

He slipped out of his last garment then and back against his lover, 
threading one of his legs between his so Crawford's stiffness rested 
against one of his thighs which he jerked, just a little to make him 
moan.  The sound he reveled in, rubbing his palms over himself now and 
leaning against them as if they were no longer his own, but those of 
someone else who wished to take him, or be taken.

"Neeeeeeeeee I thought your back was sore. Having me do you isn't gonna 
do wonders for that, now is it? And besides, didn't you just give a 
speech about why you like to fuck me?"

He twisted then with a catch of his breath as his digits stole 
against the juncture of his legs and his waist, but tore himself away 
in the end, and with that latched those fingers on Bradley's nipples.  
One he swept in circles and the other he simply pinched, changing his 
mind now and then.  For he was quiet for awhile, kneeling in the 
threads of the golden afternoon, one smoky topaz shadow oddly 
luminous but still.  And he watched the figure after him finding its 
breath a little sharply for sometime before he finally bent and kissed 
him, their arousals bumping as he did so.

::Hehe, it doesn't matter if I ruined that guy, now does it? No really! 
Think about it? Why would I care if I did that kinda thing to him when 
I already know I've spoiled YOU to no end?::

***

Crawford clung to him in desperation, his little moans muffled by the 
pressure of Schuldich's lips. He moaned again when the redhead released 
him in favor of pressing kisses on his cheeks, around his ear, those 
dexterous fingers still working his tender flesh. Crawford brushed the 
feather-soft strands of hair that covered his face, and held them 
clasped to the side of his lover's head. Nibbled at his earlobe, and 
arched a bit against his teasing hands, panting. 

"Good sex is the best cure for an aching back, better than heating pads 
and aspirin and salt-laden baths. Didn't you know that?" 

/Yes, that cure still applies if good sex was the cause of the aching 
back in the first place./ 

"And what does you ravishing me have to do with me ravishing you?" 
he asked, sneaking a caress of his lover's ass.  "Don't you like to have 
me in your power? Don't you like to reduce me to a slavering, sexual wreck?" 

Schuldich rose up a little to gaze down at his lover, and Crawford gave 
him a grin. His caressing hand slipped lower down to cup the sensitive 
area between his ass and his cock, and there he gently fondled him. 

"Do you want me to beg, Aubrey?"

***

Schuldich clapped his hand over his lover's mouth for a moment and 
reveled in the feel of his fingers as they pressed into his skin.  The 
after touch of them made him pitch forward of his own accord, and they 
slid together again.  He felt hot breath of a stifled moan on his 
fingers and so pulled them away into the dark satin threads that were 
cast over their mattress.  So they were tangled that way, wrapped up in 
each other's hair.

And then he kissed him again, sucking hard on his bottom lip as he 
thrust against him.

::What do you think I like, hmm?::

Crawford's finger pulled over his rosebud then and breached him there 
for only a second.  It made him hiss, just a little, though he turned 
the sound into a pleasured little whimper of his own.

Before he got up and tumbled to the other corner of the bed entirely, 
where he knelt, looking every bit ready to pounce.

"I do, mon petit lapin.  I would like that very much."

His hands fastened about the slim, pale ankles that belong to Bradley 
and pulled.  The sheet came up after him and a few crushed blossoms, 
somehow stolen into the places beneath them, emerged in the folds the 
covers took.  He drew his lover's body over one of his bent thighs so 
only his shoulders and his head lay among the crumpled satin and buds 
now; one leg he wrapped around himself, and the other he lifted to his 
lips.

::Beg for me and touch yourself while you do it.::

***   

Schuldich's lips moved haphazardly down his calf, around his knee, and 
just brushed the center of his inner thigh. Crawford ached so just from 
that innocent little kiss. He wriggled a little on his perch, hoping to 
entice, but Schuldich didn't make a move to touch him. 

A sigh escaped his lips. ::Fine. Be that way:: 

"...Very well..." 

::You know I like it.:: 

Crawford placed his hands upon his spread thighs, and began to stroke 
the tender folds skin in small, upward sweeps of his fingertips, 
nudging his ass against Schuldich's thigh at the same time so that his 
sex would quiver in concert with his caresses. 

"...Aubrey. Please..." 

One hand slowly rose from his spread thigh and landed upon his dripping 
sex. The other dipped down to fondle the hidden sac which lay under it. 
He arched into his curving fingers, gasping as they skated down the 
underside to squeeze the base of his erection. 

"I want you." 

He drew his fingers up to the head, wriggling a bit under them. Pinched 
the blushing tip, gathering the moisture that had accumulated upon it. 
Crawford moaned softly, staring up at his lover with dreamy eyes. 

"Put your hands on me. Please." 

His other hand left off its exploration and moved to take its place on 
his cock. Crawford gripped himself tightly, coursing his hand hard and 
fast over his stiffness as he suckled his fingertips clean of his own 
juices. 

"Spread me," he panted, surging in time with his hand's rough petting. 
"Put yourself inside me, Aubrey. Bury yourself inside me..." 

Crawford tongued his finger and thumb, and tweaked one swollen nipple, 
rolling it back and forth between his digits. His eyes drifted shut. 

"Oh, please...Fuck me..."

***

Schuldich smacked his lips lightly like he did when finding his mind 
tingling with the unfamiliar, but not unwelcome, flavor of a 
particularly sweet little thought.  His palms ran up the his lover's 
sides with an indeterminate slowness, who whole body stealing over 
Brad's as he folded himself around him, his own aching sex slipping 
down into his cleft, his hair brushing up over his flushed nipples.  
One of his palms bet the one settled on Crawford's chest, squeezing it 
gently closed around the swollen bud.

"I wanted to taste you too..." the shield's about his mind began to 
fall, and so he shook his head, drawing a gasp with the flickering 
feathers of his hair.  "Not like that... not this time."

The fingers about his lover's cock came rather against his own belly, 
feeling for the elation of his nerves, finding their sense far from 
hidden.  Jerking his knee into the bruises on his back, he turned from 
him for just a moment, and reached into the nightstand.

"This is only because it'd take too long to suck out enough 
honeysuckles.  Sometime though..." the cork came out of the lube 
from the night before, the stuff that smelled so much like peppermint, 
and just barely burned with the barest tingle of it.  Not enough to harm, 
just to thrill the skin outside of simple contact.  One pale trickle of 
it fell between the vanishing point between their forms. "Alright, mon 
petit lapin.  I will fuck you all you want."    

A delirious and rapture-lost grin met him at that, and he countered 
with an arch smirk of his own, and a thin trickle of liquid that crept 
from the lip of the bottle down onto the tip of his cock.  As it 
slithered down him, he hissed softly.  He laid fingers in his lover's 
ass then, simply slipped his arms about his waist as he leaned between 
his legs, nuzzling at the sweat that stole over his thigh.  

"God, I love screwing you."

In merely a blink, he truly was, buried to the hilt in the waiting 
flesh he bore down on with a second thrust in one breath.

***

Crawford ceased stroking himself, and clutched at the blankets instead, 
stretching under the brunt of his lover's much wanted attentions. The 
lube burned him with its iciness, and he shivered from the thrill of 
it. The things his redhead came up with... 

"Flirting with me after the fact?" Crawford asked breathlessly. "How 
unusual." He gave a dry little chuckle and wriggled his ass around 
Schuldich's erection. A moan followed on the heels of another hard 
thrust. 

"You're sweet. So damn sweet. I want you...all night. Wear me out. Give 
me something to remember..."

***

Schuldich started to laugh, but the sound folded in on itself, rolling 
into the sparkling breaths left to him between the hiss of his own 
cries.  He tried, he tried as hard as he could to chuckle, but everyone 
that rippled on his lips turned to vapor and wetness alone.  His breath 
known anew, he made no move to stop.  Just took his lover by the hips 
and held him there, minding he kept his nails from his skin.  The 
surface of his palms swayed with the cadence of Crawford's movements, 
leaned into it, easing and heightening the motion into two smooth and 
meeting sweeps between them.

"That," he finally purred.  "Can be arranged."

Saying so, he bore down on his lover so hard that the satin beneath 
them let them slide, and short, he had to stoop and catch the back of 
his head, lest it go sliding from the mattress.

***

Half-naked, they two lay in a sleepy tangle of arms and legs, sated by 
means of fingers and lips only. Savil's scent clung to Nagi still, but 
he didn't mind it. He held her against him, cradling her head on his 
chest and petting the loose tumble of gold which he'd spread across his 
stomach. 

Through the arching, leafy boughs of the plum tree, the sky was burning 
sapphire, the sun well on its way to slumber. 

Nagi hugged her close, and kissed her, fearing the moment would end the 
second the twins made their appearance. Sensing, somehow, that it 
would. Nothing grand could last forever. 

"I..." he began, whispering, "I love you, Savil." 

***

Saffie scrunched her little self just a bit closer to the half-bare 
form of her companion.  His shirt had come off- she could see it 
hanging, a little wavering shadow in the dark ice fractals of the 
bushes.  If she had not been a telepath, she would have felt his worry, 
for his pulse in her ear picked up, and his fingers nearly bit her 
skin.  

She didn't mind though, not at that moment- just brushed her slip down 
over her panties... they had stayed on.  So her socks and one of her 
slippers.  The one without she wiggled under his legs as she sniffed 
about his neck, running her lips just below his ear.

::I'm not going anywhere, Nagi-chan.::

"Angel moy."

But the misty dusk settling about them faded then as she closed her 
eyes.  Her fingers began, slow with blindness, to wander up and down 
Nagi's side, and her mind crooned tiny, gleaming thoughts to him, like 
candy drops or puddles of dew careless stepped in.

Her cheek began to itch then, and before her eyes had even opened, she 
caught site if a firefly nestled there.

It had just awakened, and since sleep still troubled it, she managed to 
catch it between her thumb and forefinger.  The green bottle at the end 
of its body came off when her nails closed around her and the still 
glowing juices there ran down onto her skin.

She painted a heart on her lover's shoulder with them, and flicked the 
dark wings away towards the clouds.

***

It was 12:15 AM, and Ran was still awake and still dressed in the 
sweatpants and T-shirt he'd put on after coming home from his after 
school job. He was bone tired and felt somewhat hollow inside, but he 
had neither the desire to sleep nor the impulse to forage for food. At 
that moment, he didn't care if he ever slept or ate again. 

With nothing but one candle on his desk to see by in the gloomy 
stillness of his room, Ran knelt on the bare wooden floor and 
methodically began to gather the numerous strips of paper that lay 
scattered all over. Each piece wound up in a battered blue shoebox 
he'd dug out of the bowels of his closet. He would sort through them 
and tape them back into pages later...elsewhere. And then he'd hide 
them away altogether, and never, ever let anyone see them again. 

He'd just finished one patch of floor, and had scooted over to another, 
when he heard a faint scratching at the jamb outside. 

"Nii-chan?" 

He didn't answer, but Aya slid the screen back a little anyway, 
sending a faint swish of a breeze into the room.  

"You should be in bed," Ran said, not bothering to turn around to look 
at her. "It's past midnight and you have school in the morning." 

"So do you, Ran." 

"I'm older. I can stay up later if I want." 

"Nii-chan--" 

He shifted around and hissed at her in the near darkness, a scrap of 
paper clamped in one fist. "Go to bed, Aya!" 

Her eyes grew wide, but instead of shrinking away from her brother's 
rare show of temper, she stepped completely into the room and gently 
closed the screen behind her; gave him the most reproachful of looks. 
"Just because you're upset with Tou-san and Kaa-san for agreeing with 
Hayase-sensei doesn't mean you can take it out on me." 

Their gazes stayed locked for a second longer, and then Ran averted 
his, sitting very still with his hands resting on his thighs. Then he 
bowed his head with a deep sigh. 

"I'm...sorry." 

"Accepted." 

He could hear the slap of her bare feet on the floor, very 
quietly though she walked. Ran felt her come up behind him, and in his 
mind's eye, he could picture how she looked: hands behind her back, 
taking in the room. Soon she would begin to rock back and forth a 
little where she stood. Just as soon as he'd thought that, the 
floorboards began to creak like a seesaw under her slim weight, and 
despite the weight of his morose heart, a smile fluttered briefly 
at the corners of his lips. 

"This is a real mess, huh?" 

Ran sighed. "You could say that, yes." He resumed his gathering of the 
scraps. "I suppose you heard everything, then?" 

"It was hard not to hear." 

"Especially when you hold a glass to the wall, hm?" 

"If you hadn't gone off to sulk in here," protested Aya, "I wouldn't 
have had to listen at the wall."  

He finally looked around at her again, and she hitched both shoulders 
in a deep shrug. Ran shook his head at her. "Eavesdropping is a bad 
habit." 

"Soooo? I never said I was perfect." 

Ran rolled his eyes. "What are you doing in here anyway?" 

"I just wanted to come see you. You left so abruptly after dinner." 

Ran ceased working and sat back on his heels. "I didn't see any 
reason to stay."  

The floorboards stopped squeaking. He heard Aya move away from him, and 
then the bedsprings creaked, covers rustled. A glance over his shoulder 
showed her sitting cross-legged on the mattress with the blankets slung 
haphazardly over her lap. She shook her head again, and looked rather 
glumly down at her folded hands. 

"You upset 'Kaa-san by leaving like you did."  Aya gave him a little shove 
on the back with one foot. "Don't be mean to 'Kaa-san." 

"I'll do what I want," he grumbled.  "And stop kicking me."  

"Your teacher was wrong," she said, stretching out on his bed.  "You 
are a good writer." 

Ran paused, and smoothed the strip of paper he held across his palm. 
A smattering of inked words, partial and whole, mocked him from the 
jagged quarter. "Maybe." 

"They ARE."  

"...I don't know." Ran put the scrap away with the others. 

"You're gonna just give up?!" 

Another sigh, and he twisted around to face her. "What else can I do? 
He told me it was a waste of time, that no one ever made much of a 
living being a writer, and that I had more important things to do 
with my life than that. Maybe...maybe he's right. I'm the oldest son, 
the one to follow in Tou-san's footsteps. Maybe I should start being 
more practical." 

"...Nii-chan..." 

He shifted his eyes to the floor, and turned away from her altogether, 
and looked mournfully around at the shredded remnants of that which 
he'd loved so dear. 

"Forget it, Aya." 

There was a gravid pause, and then a thump, and Ran nearly went 
sprawling to the floor. Aya had dropped to her knees behind him, and 
was now hugging him from behind, her hands clutching at his sleeves, 
and her face pressed against his neck.  

"I thought they were lovely poems," she murmured.  "So did 'Kaa-san.  
I heard her say so."  

Hesitantly, Ran reached up to stroke her pillow-mussed hair. "You 
should go back to bed." 

"I will when you do." 

He let out a hoarse little chuckle at that, and the weight of her head 
left his shoulder. "I have to clean this up first." 

"Then I'll help you, and then you'll go bed?" She gave his arms a hard 
squeeze when he didn't answer straight off. "Nii-chan? Will you?" 

Ran smoothed out yet one more ripped fragment of his work, and placed 
it in the shoebox. "Yeah, Aya, I will. I promise." 


***


"Only in Valdemar do poetry readings go on til one AM.  Sheesh." Fiona 
groaned as she made her way back to her room.  From the front door, so 
it was no short walk.  Between that and the mess in front of the 
theater after the show, two in the morning had come and started to pass 
by the time she reached the tower.  Which only made it stranger to her 
sleepy eyes that the light still shone in the kitchen.  She heard no 
voices, felt no one near, yawned...

Of sleep and curiosity, curiosity won.  The door fell open with a tap, 
and so, as it turned out, did her face.

No one had done the dishes.  The was to be expected, after all, she 
happened to be the servant, dishes were her department. 

"Oh fer cryin' out loud..."

Just the same, she sighed, and gathered the plates into the sink after 
having tapped them into one of the waste baskets.  There was no way she 
would risk using the garbage disposal at this hour.  They could soak 
for awhile- she was in no mood to scrub them at the moment.  The lights 
were turned off and the windows closed.

Amid a swarm of errant fireflies and lime snow moonlight, Fiona mopped 
the kitchen free of pepper shards, humming to herself the angriest tune 
she knew.  It would have been an enchanted sort of moment in any other 
sort of faerie tale.  But what kind was hers to begin with if indeed 
she had one? No, it was far too late to worry about that, or shooing 
the lightning bugs outside again.  The could all rest there for the day 
and starve if they liked.

Her lack of sleep made her more obstinate than ever, and the aurora 
brought out the odd smears of finger prints that slicked the banister, 
the bits of sauce there dragged.  A wet towel later, and he chased them 
into oblivion  

The light in the bedroom was on too. And then she had fetched her 
mirror and had it.  The bit of glass stole beneath the door and tilted 
towards the bed.

Ken didn't notice it, despite being quite awake, and sitting in the 
middle of the sheets with his head between his knees and a book between 
his feet.

"Ninny..." Fiona mumbled to herself and stamped back down the steps, no 
longer caring if she made a racket or not.  To the corner room she 
stormed, born on her wrath and the scent of the open window.

There was Ran, curled up on the floor, fast asleep.  She toed off her 
shoes and nudged him in the back with her toes.  "OK, I give up.  Just 
what kind of kinky sex do you have with one of you upstairs and one of 
you down here?"

***

Ran had reluctantly cracked open his aching eyes upon feeling the nudge 
of Fiona's foot upon his back. Ah, everything at that point ached, and 
his mouth was a dry as sand, but he rolled over anyway to stare up at 
her. She was mostly a silhouette in the darkness, and he found himself 
wondering just what sort of expression she wore. 

"We did NOT have sex," he mumbled. "And don't ask such questions of 
people, Fiona-chan. It's rude." 

Wincing slightly, he swept a hand through his hair. Fiona stuck her 
tongue out at him, and settled herself crosslegged on the floor 
beside him. They fell into a curiously companionable silence, 
during which he felt her fingers light upon one flopping eartail. 
Her touch didn't bother him; he even lay still so she could twirl 
it undisturbed. 

When he did speak again, his voice was very hushed. 

"What did you do tonight, Fiona-chan?"

***

She hadn't really had much choice in the matter.  It was find her 
fingers in her unwitting employer's hair or laugh out loud at the 
backwards zig-zag he had crumpled it into, for she could make that out, 
even in the dark.  But it didn't feel awkward at all, playing with his 
ruby fluff there, and he didn't give her hand a smack, or even mumble 
something to get her to go away.  It didn't feel like anything but 
having her hand in something soft.  Like petting a bunny probably 
felt... if she had ever petted a bunny.

So she stayed, and she curled his eartail all up to watch it unwind 
around her knuckles.  

"Ah, not that much.  Primera took the two of us to dinner, forgot to 
mention of course we were goin' to dinner at her mom's place.  You ever 
meet that woman? Lady Jessica? UGH! Mom from hell I guess.  Didn't need 
to stay for the floorshow after all that, and I do mean it was funny 
and all... I mean, even Primera was laughin'... and groping Yuri, but 
she does that anyway.  We got done with supper early, went for a walk, 
had some snow amber out by the lake and went to go listen to all the 
old dukes read bits of Byron and... I dunno really, this play about a 
girl whose dad knocks her up and then there was a lot of dead people."

Curiously, on this conclusion, she almost giggled, but shooed the 
little sound from her lips, and just said, almost brightly, "It was 
fun, even if they didn't get to read any of Christabel.  I always 
wanted to hear that poem."

She yawned then, just a little, but tried to speak before she had 
finished, "'m 'fraid to ask what you did, but I'm doin' it anyway.  
Rude or not! Bad enough everyone was talkin' about the ruckus down at 
Claire's, and now you're sleepin' on the goddamn FLOOR!"

Her words fell away rather quickly, and she almost looked as if she 
wished she had not spoken them so roughly.  All staunchness and ire 
aside. 

***     

Ran had been about to ask her what a snow amber was when she had posed 
that question. So they knew about Claire's, hm? Trust the gossip chain 
to prove unbreakable everytime--he wasn't too surprised that she had 
heard. Still, he scowled at her anyway for even bringing it up. And 
swearing. She knew better than that. 

Grunting softly, he heaved himself off the floor, and eased himself 
around to face her, folding his legs before him as she had done hers. 
Ran sat there, sort of slumped over for a moment as he got his breath 
back from all that moving about, and then he straightened up and ran a 
hand over his touchy side. 

"I made Ken dinner tonight. That's what happened." 

He paused, waiting for her to make some sort of crack or laugh, but she 
did neither. Just looked all solemn. So he continued in the same quiet 
voice, regarding the shadows their dangling fingers made upon the 
moonlit floor. 

"It's not important.  Nothing for you to trouble yourself over.  I got 
angry and we fought.  I came down here and fell asleep, when all I really 
wanted to do was get out of here.  I should have left."  

***

"Not NOW I hope!" Fiona exclaimed, for she had begun to squint faintly 
in the dimness in a vain attempt to better make out just what had 
become of her companion's face.  At least she could tell it was puffy 
about the eyes, see he moved like someone had jabbed pins in him.  He 
started when she spoke though, just as taken with the foolishness of 
the idea as she had been.  

But it left her, and something coy came to the surface of her mind 
instead. "So Ken DIDN'T do this to you?"

Sure enough, one more glare befell her, even by moonlight.  Just one 
more of many as he shook his head, but would not quite look upon her.

"AHA! You were offended I said that.  I knew it! I knew it.  You *DO* 
want to go upstairs, now, don't you? If you didn't, you woulda gotten 
all sarcastic, like 'oh, yeah, well that's the least of it' or 
mumblered 'not yet', or shi-... crap like that! But you didn't You got 
just a litttttttttle bit mad at me for saying that, even if you didn't 
want to."

Plainly planning to continue her speech, Fiona got to her feet and laid 
her hands to her hips.  She would have stamped her feet too, but could 
not bee sure she wouldn't tread on Ran's fingers, "Now, I don't care 
what the hell else you do, but you ALWAYS apologize for what you say 
when you're drunk, even if you mean it.  If that's the case, well then, 
you say it later, when you're sober, and it comes out right.  Ken's NOT 
asleep I'll have you know, so you might as well go now."

"And then, when you're done, if you don't wanna be spendin' time in his 
bed... you might as well sleep in mine."

Her blush that had come to be regarding her sudden hen-like tone came 
and went as quickly as it could, as did her latest wisecrack she dared 
not speak.

/You two are just miserable when you're together, but you're worse when 
you're apart.  Like you want me to say anything else then...?/

***

"It's none of your concern, Fiona.  Stop being so nosy."  

Ran rubbed gingerly at his eyes, probing at the swollen flesh around them. 
He could just imagine how he looked, but he didn't care. Awkwardly, he 
unwound himself from the position he'd held himself in and got to his feet, 
digging his hands into his pockets, and stared thoughtfully towards the 
window. Then without meeting her eyes, he headed for the door. 

"Go to bed. Sleep in as late as you want. If Primera-san comes 
to get you up, tell her to go away, that I gave you permission, and you 
only answer to me anyway. You can tell them all to go away, if you 
want. I won't care." He stopped on the threshold, and peered back at 
her over his shoulder. "It's no one's business anyway, is it? What 
either of us do." 

Pausing only to study her in the shifting teal glow from the window,  Ran 
stepped out into the gloom of the hallway and shuffled off in the 
direction of the Villa's lobby. 

***

Fiona followed Ran out into the hallway, dancing on his shadow as he 
went along.  Her steps thumped loudly against the floor- the only sign 
of her presence save when they passed before the sometimes open doors 
where the moonlight came to join her and she was not glad about it.  
The treads before her grew faster and faster, and her knees protested 
as she tried to match them.

"You know, it's not very fair to either of you! The way you're drooling 
over him one minute and ready to rip his eyeballs out the next.  Go 
upstairs and make up your mind! Do you really want this night eatin' 
you up for the rest of your life?"

No answer met her, and she paused a moment to try and knock her muscles 
back into working order before coming to follow him once again at an 
even more assertive sort of clip. 

"C'mon! Where the FUCK! Yeah I said FUCK! Fuck! Fuckity fuck fuck FUCK! 
Fuck!" Her profanity got her only the most disappointed of glances, but 
no reprimand, and that only made her that much angrier. "Where *ARE* 
you gonna put up? You got any IDEA how much it costs to rent a place 
round here? That's why nobody comes here alone! Too expensive!" 

A shrug that time, she could not help but feeling as if for the first 
time after years of trying, she had scratched a line upon a diamond.  
Now only to break it to bits, now only to break it...

"Ran, you are an immature, selfish, old GRUMPY BEAR! How do you know he 
doesn't like you? You don't know JACK about that sorta thing and don't 
tell me it's the other way around! You're NOT going, you hear!"

Her hand flew forward and caught his, for by some wonder, she had 
caught him there.  Nothing, once again.  She saw the foxfire glow of 
the mirror up ahead, one pin prick through the dark veil about the 
halls.  No, she didn't know really then why she was so hell bent on 
her employers being together.  She didn't know why she was 
still pretending she hadn't heard... so many things, of this and that 
life.  She didn't know why she did what she did next at all. 

/But Fiona? Girl.  Something is wrong with you./

But when he shook her free, she lunged yet again and snapped both of 
her hands around his wrist.

"Alright! You can go! But I'm coming with you, damnit!"

Ran tried to pull away, and did himself no good.  So he kept walking,  
down to the length of her skinny arms.  Her skirt dragged up around her 
waist, and both her elbows popped, but she didn't let go.

"And with God as my witness, I'll make every minute of your life a 
living hell until you come to your senses!"

***

Just short of the movie star staircase that linked the first floor to 
the foyer, Ran came to an unexpected halt. "Practically every minute of 
my life has been a living hell, you brat. Especially the last three 
years!" Ran whipped his head around to give Fiona his death glare, only 
to hastily avert his eyes again. 

"Get up off the floor and pull down your skirt, damn it! You're 15 
years old, not a little kid! Show some modesty!" 

He gave his arm a fierce, rigid shake, but only when it had fallen 
still to his side again did she let go. He heard the rasp of her 
clothing as she sat up and quickly fluffed the skirts over her legs. 
But she didn't rise, and her hands immediately found his wrist again, 
seizing it with her surprisingly strong grip.  

Ran gave her a look out of the corner of his eye, huffed in irritation, 
and then peered down at her. Fiona was kneeling primly on the floor, 
skirts puffed out around her, and looking as determined as a bulldog. 
He could scowl at her all he liked, she was not going to be dissuaded. 
Stubbornly, he glared at her anyway, not wanting to speak, not knowing 
what to do at all. 

He wound up confessing. 

"I know he doesn't like me because he still loves Kaze!" That 
last whispered. "He very rarely tells me that he loves me, and even 
when he does bother, he won't look me in the eye; its like I'm forcing 
him to say it. He treats me like I'm some basket case, when he's no 
better off than me! Believe me, I know. I KNOW." 

Ran tried to pull away from her again, but she only moved with him. So 
with a angry little growl, he dug his other hand under her cupped 
palms, forcibly prising them away, not caring at that point if he was a 
little rough with her. But as fast as he could get one loose, the other 
would grab at him again until Ran was on the point of exploding. 
Finally, he twisted his trapped hand around to firmly clasp her wrist 
and dragged her onto her feet. It was either stand or be thrown 
forward. 

And as soon as she had found her feet upon the carpeted hall, Ran spun 
her about, and wrapped his free arm around her waist, and lifted her 
off the ground, managing to sling her sideways over his shoulders, like 
a stole. "That's IT! I'm taking you back into the Tower and I'm going 
to shut you up in your bedroom! I will not be dictated to by a 
uncontrollable, hateful kid!"

***

"Probably because you *ARE* an uncontrollable, hateful kid!" Fiona 
screeched.  Once and only once did she jamb her fists into Ran's side, 
but otherwise, she did not fight him with her form, even when she 
doubtless could have done a good deal of damage and probably gotten 
herself dropped at last considering the state her caretaker was in.

But she kept on shouting.  All the way down the hall, and for once it 
was all intelligible to Ran when it was words and not the swimming of 
her tongue.  

"Oh yeah, like you expect him to be NORMAL!? For starters, he's goin' 
out with YOU, isn't he? Why would a normal person ever put themselves 
through THAT? Did it ever once occur to you he's acting however the 
hell he is because he can't help it? HUH? Because he doesn't know what 
else to do, kinda like I don't either! You know, you don't listen to be 
unless I'm SHOUTING! Not really! And against my better judgment, I'm 
S'POSEDTA be here to HELP you! I'm HERE to NAG and you hardly ever NAG 
ME.  So what good am I? B'sides moppin' up your stupid dinner at two in 
the goddamn morning! Do you think I wanted to do that? NO! But what 
else can I do for you, you stupid..."

They had come within sight of the end of the hall by then and been 
caught there by a little shimmer of light rather than the slide of 
shadows beneath the half-cocked door.  Ken did not come out at once, 
rather, he hovered a moment behind the door and then swept out.  He had 
in a blue robe and his trousers, no shirt, and he had done a poor job 
of tying the robe.

Scowling, he marched over to the pair and stood before his servant's 
sideways eyes.

"Now just what the hell do you think you're doing! Do you know what 
time it is? No, I guess you don't care! Any time's a good time to yell 
and scream like it's the end of the world! I bet.  Now what've you done 
to Ran? C'mon, better tell me before he does.  I MIGHT go easier on 
you, 'cause this is just too much.  You're in DEEP trouble now!"

Fiona said nothing, but almost started to smile in the half gleam from 
the tower.  Ken though traced his fingers over his lover's eartail, 
just as she had done not too long ago.

***

Ran had averted his eyes from Ken the moment he saw how underdressed he 
was, but didn't attempt to elude his fingers as he didn't want to make 
any sign of acceptance or rejection of him before Fiona. It was none of 
her business anyway. 

"She hasn't done anything save stop me from going on a walk through the 
garden. I didn't know it was such a crime." Ran gave her a nasty, 
slanted look, to which she only pulled a face. He swung her down to the 
floor almost at once, doing his best to ignore the teeth-grinding stab 
of pain which raked through him as a result--but he wasn't quite 
through with her yet. 

"I never asked you to help me," he growled. "I've NEVER asked you for 
a DAMN thing, Fiona. I never wanted a servant, and you obviously don't 
want me for an employer, so why don't I just give you to Ken? You would 
get to keep your nice new room, and since neither of you know how to act 
around stupid, horrible, bastard me, you would probably get along just fine." 

He glowered at her, then shifted his attention back to Ken, and the 
anger he'd felt was at once softened slightly by longing and hurt. Ran 
dropped his gaze once more to the floor, arms folded across his chest. 
It broke his heart all over again just to look at him. 

Sighing deeply, he began, "It's over.  I only want to get a change of 
clothes for in the morning, and then I'll go back to my own room."
***

"Yeah! That's just what you are! A stupid, lousy, WHINY-ASS bastard!" 
Fiona wailed before Ken would even open his mouth to answer.  Without 
another word, she broke for her own room, face hidden by a shadow or 
her fingers as they kneeled alongside her face and slammed the door 
behind her and before the two pairs of eyes that had followed her.

Ran's lover pulled his own hand back from where she had once been and 
shook his head somewhat.  Then, flushing a little about his ears, he 
drew his robe much tighter around his chest, almost like a girl might 
have.

Though he did not look away, did not seem to be wishing be could cast 
his gaze elsewhere.  His eyes met the other boy's.  This time, they 
stayed, crystal grey in the pale, golden light and trembling just as 
slightly as if they were but dew born on the wings of more earthly 
moths than abided on Terra.

"It's your bed too, y'know.  You can sleep there whenever you want.  
B'sides, you're the one who's all banged up.  The floor's not gonna do 
wonders for that." He said the refusal with a flicker of his hand and 
shook his head.  "Don't... start with... just hear me out.  I've been 
upstairs thinkin' about what I wanted to say forever..."

/Because I.../

/I.../

"I don't want it to be morning and us still mad at each other, OK? Now, 
I... I'm really not mad at you.  And I really... meant that I *DON'T* 
want you to go, or hurt, or..."

Ken paused and swallowed hard, but would could turn away, though it 
seemed he was entitled to just then.  Somehow.  "But, then again, I'm 
not... you.  I've just been... one disappointment after another, and 
everything I ever loved before you has been too.  Like I said... I'm 
not you.  But I'm sorry, not that it does any good."

A kind of hush fell over them then, the long space between words that 
his lover knew not to break.  He bent though, and took his wounded hand 
in both of his own.  Caressed it with his lips a moment before holding 
it rather to his chest, though a little film of old blood had brushed 
off on one of his cheeks.

"You're still the best friend I ever had in the world, OK? And I mean 
that.  I didn't... I didn't really have any friends before.  Not ever.  
So you know what? I do love you, no matter what."

Without his wide irises falling to the shades about them, he Gave Ran 
his hand back, and then embraced him but softly before drawing back 
into the spotlight falling through the stairwell.  "But how I do? 
That's all up to you.  I guess."

***

"So it's up to me? Wonderful. Terrific. What am I supposed to say to 
that? Tell you I want you, which I do? Tell you I love you, which I do? 
Why? What difference does it make? I'm not Kaze. I'm not what you want, 
or who you really love. I'm your big disappointment." 

Ran screwed his eyes up shut even though it pained him to do so. "I'm 
not asking you again. I shouldn't have before.  I...I'm just a fool." 

He stood there in uncertainty, feeling Ken beside him and wanting to 
touch him even though he knew he dare not do it. Ran wouldn't even 
raise his eyes to him, just started up the stairs; stopped again after 
three. Ran cast a reluctant look back at Ken over his shoulder. 

"I'm in pain, and I just want to go to sleep. If you'll let me use your 
bed tonight, then okay. I'll stay on my side of it, I won't touch you 
at all. I..." 

"I'm sorry, Ken."

***

Ken said nothing, but ascended to the second step, and stood there for 
a moment, holding his companion still with his gaze and the little bit 
of mutual wonder upon them that neither of them had fled, or so it 
seemed to him.  A moment passed and he took up one of Ran's hands 
again, rather in the manner of a little boy unwilling to part with his 
beloved blanket before sleep.

He waited by the door until the light had flickered off and the murmurs 
of the sheets ceased.  Slipping in, he stayed for but a moment, taking 
no more time than what he needed to retrieve his pajamas, which he 
changed into while standing in stairwell, leaving his robe and his 
trousers behind.

The moons were pale that night and made Ran's cheeks flicker as with 
the dust of sky blue diamonds.  His eyes were open and resting on them 
while the sheets lay strewn around him as if gathered in a hurry.  

He breathed a sort of cheerful little goodnight as he drew back the 
mosquito netting and stretched out under the covers himself- supine and 
with one arm resting on the pillow above his head.  His lashes fell 
closed and he made himself pretend to dream of what the cobalt dimness 
wrought beneath them in his sightlessness.  He did not even try to 
sleep.

Time passed, and the breathing beside him grew much softer, but still 
caught now and then, even in rest.  He could not be awake the other 
boy, for there was peace about his face beneath the straying gleams.  
Nothing of sadness.

/If he asks, I'll just tell him he rolled over in his sleep and I did 
too./

He turned onto his side and took Ran about his shoulders with as little 
pressure as he thought might move him, might draw him into his arms, 
where he laid him, with his head against his chest and his own fingers 
tangled in the scarlet fluff of his hair.

***

For the better part of the night they had romped and screwed and 
generally wreaked havoc upon their massive bed, with Crawford willingly 
submitting himself to Schuldich's little schemes--no matter what they 
were. 

And now, he was well and truly exhausted, and even so, he didn't want 
to sleep. He had thought it would come the moment the candles had all 
burned out and his lover had flopped down on the mattress next to him. 
But after his head had hit the pillow, the urge to slumber left him. 

The urge to admire his lover did not. Schuldich lay with his back to 
him, just far enough away from his body for Crawford to see him 
clearly. The sheet lay draped at an angle across his hip, dipping down 
to expose the uppermost curve of his right cheek. Crawford dragged it 
the rest of the way down, baring him to the absoluteness of the moons' 
illumination. 

Where his eyes tracked, his fingers trailed ever so gently down the 
slopes and planes of his lover's back and sides. His arms. His thighs. 
And then back to the wild tumble of his hair. This, Crawford scrunched 
in his fingers, trapping it against his palms, whispering so softly, 
"As much as a cynic can feel about a manipulator, I..." 

/...I.../ 

His hands ceased their flexing of Schuldich's hair, and slid upon his 
shoulders instead. Crawford leaned in to kiss the hard mound of his 
left, and then moved away from him altogether. He drew himself out of 
the bed as quietly as he could, and took his robe down from the hook 
behind the door, slipping it on as he marked the slow shift of his 
breathing. Then, lingering, the belt tightening with a jerk around his 
waist, Crawford turned and left. 

And a few minutes later, the lulling strains of a Chopin prelude rolled 
through the church from the piano below. 

***

The moons had sunk a little lower as they chased each other down the 
cobalt curves of the nighttime firmament and the aurora turned 
unseasonably fair-twilight blue rather than the summer twinges of pale 
green it usually knew by the time spring had passed, though it still 
smelled warm where the cream lassies fluttered.  

No nightingales sang as Schuldich too slipped out of bed, and one of 
the unspent candles kindled once again wept wax on his hand as he 
padded down into the sanctuary.  No sisters of the tiny flame lay 
there, for the heavens lit themselves with reflected silver only that 
curled and danced about the long shadows and the backwards effigies of 
saints that stood and watched Crawford play rather than swoon about 
him.  The keys and a few fragments of glass still gleamed like droplets 
of dew on the surface of the piano where he had lain.  They snatched at 
his candle flame, but he put it out before they could have it, and just 
watched in the arms of the lingering night.

Bradley did not look at him, but he was smiling, though silent by lips 
and by mind.  A few steps put him between his lover and the holy souls 
in the windows and he sat there with the water of the silk runner upon 
him and no more, for he had come into the church naked but for the lip 
prints on his body.  

He waited there for the song to finish, half wondering if it ever 
would.  The notes fell away a last, but Crawford remained on his stool, 
hands poised around the keys and brushed upon by some uncanny and 
inaudible applause that broke off rather suddenly.

::You know, I realized something just when you got up and I almost 
chased you into the hall over it but...::

::And it's so strange I almost decided not to tell you.::

::Just the same.::

"You taste really fine when you're mad but... I don't think I like 
fighting with you. Crazy, huh?"

Schuldich sounded like a little boy who had just found a faerie in his 
lunchbox. 

***

Crawford turned then to regard his moonlight-clothed lover in mild 
wonderment. The smile Monsieur Chopin's creation had brought to his 
lips brightened just a shade, just for his redhead. 

"I would say to that, 'Then perhaps we shouldn't fight anymore', for I 
don't like it either. If only we didn't make up so damn well..." 

/Or so very thoroughly.../ 

His right hand sought out a D minor chord, and rested there until the 
echoes of the lower note died away. Then Crawford left his beloved 
piano for his lover. The fingers which had so lovingly stroked cold 
ivory now traversed warm, pliant flesh--with much the same tenderness. 
His shields came down with all the grace of a scarf in the hands of a 
practiced stripper. 

/I don't know which I like to touch better: You or the piano. Perhaps 
it's a tie?/ 

The silk of his sleeves swept over Schuldich's bared, spread thighs in 
the wake of his hands, and Crawford's lips found the curve of his 
cheek. 

And then his lips. 

/I'll never ever get tired of either./

***

Schuldich smiled under that sensuous assault, only to part his lips in 
the end as he threaded his arms over Bradley's stooped shoulders.  One 
hand tangled in his hair, tugging him down just enough so he could 
reach into him with his tongue and tickle him a little there.

They hung together like that for interminable moonlit moments, between 
the silver of the sofa, and that of the two moons watching them as they 
let their mouths embrace just as surely as the rest of their bodies 
did.  

::A tie, mon petit lapin, is a wonderful thing in this situation, I 
would say.  I am not too jealous of her.:: The vision of the piano 
transposed with that of a lush Victorian lassie melted into sort of way 
he liked best to make one remember how wonderful.  The way it felt 
licked from his mind, only this time he left them seem to be savored on 
his own lips, rather than sent second hand, even if that would have 
been a little more intense.  Perhaps.  He gave little thought too it, 
and they both parted in the end, only for air, both gasping and 
stroking one another still with their fingers.  

::I've got an idea...::

"Hey, you remember back when we were working in Munich? Right before 
Takatori hired us? That great, big, old building they usedta make us 
stay in even on the rainiest days that ever were in Germany, and the 
most lusty nights?"

::Call me poetic and I won't go on!::

"You remember the room we'd always sneak into, right? The one with the 
black leather couch and the lock that always stuck? But we'd make it 
work anyway if they didn't let us go home to sleep.  And we'd just nap 
there, one at a time until we figured out how we could both lie down on 
it?"

He tipped his head towards one of their own sofas, sliding to his feet 
before any sort of an answer, physical or mental had been offered him, 
and slunk over to the piano.  His hand ran down her lower notes.

"I'll play you something nice first."

He did, a few notes of the Aida overture, too slow and stilted to be 
called pretty any longer, and besides, he broke from that to take up 
the box his ring had appeared in and a few of the little keys scattered 
there.  By chance, he got the first to fit into the slit in the music 
box there.  Having wound it, he held the mechanism still with the bit 
of metal for a moment, looked down to see the gold circlet still 
resting on it.

And then he pulled they key out with a great flourish only to find 
himself laughing outright under the restless aurora. 

The song was Berceuse.

(OOC: It's funny because Berceuse, aka Lullaby, is also a piece by 
Chopin.) 

***

A silver fringed cushion went flying through the air from the vicinity 
of Savil's chair and landed upon the middle of the sofa. "So that tacky 
little music box had some merit after all." 

Crawford walked over to the spare sofa and gathered up the small mound 
of silver satin throw pillows that rested in the corners as decoration. 
He heard a jingle of metal behind him, and when he turned, he found 
Schuldich standing there, grinning and swinging the keys from his index 
finger. When he attempted to grab them, Schuldich closed his hand 
around them and jerked them away. 

"Won't you let me play with your toys too?" 

That got him a mocking little pout and a slow kiss. His tongue began to 
trace the smooth flesh clothing his bones there, but Schuldich only 
stayed for a few seconds before he pulled away. Their hands found each 
other, and together they walked to the well-cushioned sofa. Crawford 
immediately flopped down upon it, legs bent slightly and spread apart, 
and held one hand out to his lover. 

"We haven't done this in a long, long time. I thought you might have 
forgotten all about it."

***

Schuldich shook his head, pawing at his lover's hair and fingers for a 
moment before hooking the ring of keys over his ear.  A few more still 
shone on the piano, and if his sister missed any, he supposed she could 
have the distant ones while he played with those so close to his 
companion's skin.

"Don't you know?" He said softly then, drawing himself onto the far 
edge of the couch at last, crossing his ankles and drawing them up 
close behind him.  As if he had a fishtail rather, and he might well 
have in the moonlight for all the could be made out with certainty.  
The light had turned his hair a blueish teal.  "No one ever forgets 
anything, not the way the word thinks it means.  Everything is just 
misplaced, but it's still there.  Every single moment, even if you try 
to loose them."

Bradley's robe came undone under the wills of his fingers and fell away 
around the white shoulders. 

"So, I didn't 'forget'.  And I never have.  Never will."

Uttered that with the most sanguine little touch of wistfulness to the 
words, though he rolled his eyes a little at himself as he slid over 
and between his companion's legs.  Until they were hip to hip there on 
the silver silk, and he had his head against his chest, tucked just 
under his chin.

"I never loose anything like that.  It always comes back to me when I 
look for it."

And drawing the edges of the robe around them both now, he purred a 
little and rubbed his cheek against the middle of Crawford's ribs.  The 
music box finally wound down, and he, in his own way, did too.

"I'd never want to anyway."

::Forget.  Even if I could.::

"Good night, Brad."

*****