pairing: Kawada/Shuya/Noriko
author: Molly ("Usagichan")
Summary: missing scene, au-ish. Kawada's dream and secrets prompt all to realize their true feelings. book references.
rating: R. not really graphic sex. ^_^ slash. het. oneshot.
Saigo ni.. ---
Kawada was dreaming. Two days into the Program and he was dreaming. Not that he knew it. He had fallen into a hypnogogic state. In his dream, he sat with Keiko on the porch of the Shrine on the island talking.
"Keiko?"
"Hmm?" She was throwing pebbles down the hill into the grass beyond.
"Why are you here? You're dead."
"Because you're dreaming." She smiled brightly at him, just like in his picture.
"Shit." He swore, standing up, "I'm in the game again, I have to go..."
"Matte! Onegai..." Keiko reached out and grabbed his hand and it felt REAL, "stay with me. You need the sleep. You haven't slept in 48 hours."
"With good reason." He snarled, then caught himself and sat down, "Keiko, can you ever forgive me for killing you?"
"I don't know." She asked with a wry smile, "can you forgive me for this?" She gently ran a finger down his exposed scar. It shocked him. He never kept it uncovered.
"I'm here again." He said softly, burying his head in his hands, "I'm back to the place where it all went wrong."
"You couldn't help getting here." Keiko said, gently drawing him into her arms, laying his head on her breast, "But you can change the outcome. I know..." She stopped suddenly, cradling his head in her hands, making him look up into her unreal eyes, "I know. You want them, don't you? Shuya and Noriko?"
He shuddered and tried to draw away. "What are you..."
For a ghost, her grip was iron.
"You want them both. It's okay." She said softly, "if you love them. You're not destroying my memory or anything. I want you to live. That's why I died. So that you could live. You love them. You've loved Shuya since you saw him mourn Nobu. You've loved Noriko since the trip on the bus-- her kindness, his heartbreak. You want them both to complete you. Shougo, we're all incomplete and damaged creatures when we're alive. What's one night? You may not be alive tomorrow. Why hestitate?"
He began to cry, a very un-Kawada thing to do. "Keiko, why am I here? I should have died with you. I'm so fucked up inside. I want you not dead. I want to be out of Japan. I want to love them, I want to live. Why does fate keep fucking with me like this?"
"I don't know." She murmured, running her hands through his spikey hair. "Shougo, I want you to be happy. Please. Otherwise, that would be insulting my death, what we fought for. Please. I know that Shuya and Noriko, though they may not conciously know it, love you in the same way. You've taken care of each other--that's the kindest thing to come of all of this. Falling in love is only part of the process. Onegai dakara, Shougo, if you want to find out the final meaning of my words..."
As she said this last part, she drew him up to her, gently kissing him fully on the lips.
"I love you. I always will." She whispered.
"I will too." He choked out.
They seperated, and she smiled like the time when she had died.
---
Cool, violet-scented hands caressed his forehead, and he came to. He felt strong and callused thumbs wiping away the shameful tears he'd shed in his sleep. He jumped when both Nanahara Shuya and Nakagawa Noriko's faces came into focused.
He swiped ferociously at his tears. "I wasn't crying, I was sweating, it's glandular.."
The looks on Shuya and Noriko's faces were almost too much to bare. Their tenderness and concern.
"We thought it best for you to sleep." Shuya said, almost guiltily, shifting his eyes away.
They were silent for a little while while Kawada took a heavy slug off of his hip flask.
"It's okay." Noriko said, barely audible, "we all have bad dreams sometimes, Kawada-kun..." Now she turned to look straight into his tortured eyes, "but we also have to leave some for everyone else."
Shuya was wiping his thumbs on his already torn and bloodied shirt. He'd wiped away his tears, Kawada realized suddenly, and Noriko's hands had been on his forehead.
"Keiko." Shuya breathed, and Kawada's gaze swung around sharply.
"What?"
"You were talking in your sleep."
Oh God, he thought, a blush rising up into his cheeks, and smiled uncertainly. "How much did I say?"
Noriko's long white hands reached out to him, and in a very surreal moment, gently pressed her lips to his, kissing him. Then she pulled back and smiled.
"First kiss from a guy." She rubbed her lips on the back of her hand.
Kawada then noticed that all this time Shuya was looking vaguely uncomfortable, his eyes darting around the room. Shuya spoke softly.
"It's okay." He echoed Noriko, his eyes still on the floor, and he shakingly slipped his hand into Kawada's hand.
"I was never able to love Nobu."
Only then did he look up and nod. Even for a boy, Kawada noticed, Shuya's hands were small.
"Like you were never able to love Keiko." said Noriko.
"But I wanted to." Shuya had tears rising into his eyes, "and you seemed to understand."
Kawada haltingly spoke.
"In my dream, Keiko told me to be happy...and to do so otherwise..."
"would be an insult to her memory..." Shuya and Noriko finished.
In that moment, Kawada Shougo made his decision. He took off his bandana, which skillfully hid his scar. It glimmered darkly in the candle half-light.
"So I will." He said, and smiled, truly, for the first time.
Noriko uncertainly inched toward him, taking his face in her hands. The expression on her face, so like Keiko's in the dream. He kissed her. He could feel Shuya's callused fingers gently running down his neck and ripping gently at his undershirt, scraping gently at his abs. He felt Shuya's lips on his neck, and Noriko's tears gently running down her face. He pressed his lips to those tears and drank them in.
"Nakanaide." He said softly while doing so, and felt her sigh. Shuya gently kissed her, then him, harder than he'd kissed Noriko. His hands wandered to her small waist, up the torn shirt, afraid to go any further. Shuya stopped too and looked at her.
"Ii no. Suzukete." She smiled, "I want this. I had a dream about it.." She looked away and blushed.
A throaty laugh from Shuya. "Nakagawa mou hentai ne?" He kissed the back of her neck, peeling off the now sweat-soaked shirt. The night was warm and so were they. She arched in her two princes' embrace. Kawada grinned ferally.
"I rather like that response." He growled, gently nipping at her navel, then turned to Shuya. His eyes were like that of a wild beast, "but Nanahara here's being ignored."
Shuya lunged at Kawada. "I'm so not." He whispered between ferocious kisses, trailing down his neck, nipping at his bare chest. Noriko's lazy laugh echoed in his ears like bells. She took off her skirt and petticoat with a smile.
"Ano ne, Shuya, aren't you a bit overdressed?" she said, creeping in back of him and deftly removing clothes out of Kawada's way so that he wouldn't rip them to shreds. Shuya jumped slightly at the feeling of her against him. Nobu must be laughing in heaven by now, he thought, or masturbating at watching us. The thought made him laugh out loud.
"Arigato, Keiko." whispered Noriko.
--- Soon they intertwined, candlelight making it impossible to tell where they started and began. Those who passed by during the night wondered if they were really hearing the soft laughter and shouts inside. It was like they were in another world. They got very used to each other, now not shy at all or decorous--all formalities were dropped in lieu of a comfortable and cheerfully lewd attitude. Kawada showed Noriko how to smoke in one of their numerous breaks, which made her cough and Shuya laugh until his sides felt like splitting. But the smoking incident only serve to renew their interests; The sight of Kawada blowing smoke into Noriko's lush mouth only made him crazier--toppling Noriko and Kawada simultaneously.
In the small hours of the morning and the lull before dawn, they talked. Kawada's head on Noriko's breast as he smoked and told them about his history, Noriko resting in the ample groove in Shuya's shoulder while he talked of when his father died. Shuya and Noriko talked of Nobu, laughed and cried with Kawada, who had barely known him. They talked reverently of Keiko and Kawada talked of his dream.
The sun rose on them like that, naked as the day they were born (except for the BR collars), barely covered in a blanket from the clinic bed, with Noriko in a Kawada-and-Shuya sandwich, all tenderly holding the other around the middle and for the first time since the Program started, lightly but peacefully, aware of what may come, weapons at hand.
END.