Part 11B- Evenfall in Irish Frost
[Version 1.5]

His head had cleared with the sinking of the sun, and he could not 
help but notice the coincidence.  Surely he couldn't have 
everything, for in the newly cooling air of evenfall, his bruised jaw 
began to ache.  But he felt fine otherwise, and had trouble 
remembering that he had been upset.  But that had happened 
before.  In the present, with the fireflies like streaks of streetlights 
on either side of the carriage, and his hand clamped over what 
would doubtless be a nasty mark, he could not recall that moment, 
nor how long ago it had been.

This relieved him.  The time did not.  And he ordered his driver to 
go as fast as she might up to the Villa, where he thanked her, leapt 
up, and ran through the growing gloom over the path of blue glass 
which seemed now, without the moons, a river of black ice.  At 
least the dew had not come yet to make him slip.  Thinking himself 
lucky, he slammed the door in the face of the nightfall which 
would spawn it.

And reminded himself rather rudely to be more quiet as he kept 
over the upside down ocean of the glass floor.  No one had lit the 
halls, but enough gloaming blue insinuated itself through the 
window panes to see by.  Someone had closed them, that made him 
smile and... more swearing.  Smiling hurt.

Which only made him want to laugh out loud that he had been so 
dumb.

He couldn't let them out though, his ribald giggles at himself.  Not 
for pain, and not for the fact he had come at last upon the entrance 
to the tower he abided in.

His shoes did not, at least for the time being.  He left them by the 
doorframe and split the hinges only wide enough to creep inside.  
The water running in the sink covered the slight squeal.  Prim and 
Fiona were taken with something in the sink for the time being.  
Sounded like a caught spider neither liked, but he, in
his sneaking adored.

His stocking feet made not a sound as he ascended the steps into 
one landing and another.  All that remained was to grab his things 
and duck into the bathroom- stay there until Carly came... then 
everyone would be too distracted or polite to notice.

Although, he came across one door he did not expect to be open.  
That to the living room.  And Ran was there- somber and gorgeous 
as a cloudy dawn after many a rainless day.  And in the half light 
between the window and the single cut glass lamp, there he found 
himself, watching him, with lots of explaining to do.

/Oh... shit./

He supposed he looked like he had a toothache to most, since he 
cradled his jaw as he stepped in and hovered by the door.  Smiling 
even though it hurt.  It was hard not to.  "Ore no ashke... saa! You 
look so kakkoii in that! I could call off dinner right now and just sit 
here admiring you all night."  

***

At the sound of Ken's voice above those of their quarreling 
assistants, Ran sat straight up, eyes shifting from the grey-green 
ceiling to the doorway and now aflame with expectation. But that 
happy glow diminished somewhat when he saw how Ken was 
cupping his cheek. He glanced briefly to the kitchen doorway as he 
rose, and then padded catlike to the living room's threshold. Ken 
sank back a bit more into the gloom upon his approach, but never 
lost his smile. It now looked to Ran more like a grimace, though.  

Of course, he immediately became suspicious. 

"What happened to you?" he asked quietly.

***

It was half a truth and he told it, or decided he would tell it in a 
moment's time.  Just then, Ken took his fingers from his aching 
jaw and smiling with half his lips, smoothed Ran's eartails as he 
lover stood inspecting the ugly, purple splotch 
which was spattered on his face.  The caresses were meant to coax 
him to look up, to see his eyes instead, and they took some time to 
work, but seemed to serve their purpose.

"I walked into a carriage door is all.  It looks nasty, but s'not so 
bad.  Can't exactly cover it up- the bruise or the fact I've gone 
clumsy."

Then, of all things, it seemed too soon, and they stood, so close 
and still so far, in the under story of a pond that was their living 
room.  It just looked that way by evening to him, so tranquil.  So 
like Ran, who he wanted to crush in his arms just then, just to see 
if he was still his.

/But that'd mess up your kimono, wouldn't it? And I couldn't do 
that to you./

So he simply let his fingers steal over his cheeks, and giggled to 
himself, only to find his fingers had slid down the length of his 
beloved's ivory throat, stood now poised at the lip of his collar.  
This he dared to ease away, just enough to make out the lovebite 
he had left behind there, which he fondled deeply.

Before stealing a single trickle of a kiss.

Ran smelled like beeswax and musky evening air.

*** 

And Ran wasn't fooled a bit. While he had never walked into a 
carriage door, or any sort of door for that matter, he was certain 
such a fumble wouldn't leave such an injury. Was still suspicious 
over what exactly had caused it, and, from his weak excuse, was 
quite sure someone had caused it. 

Why had Ken left in such a hurry, and in a bad temper as Primera 
had reported? Ran wanted to ask him, but he knew now was not 
the time. He would get his chance. 

And when he did find out just who had dared to touch him, he 
would seek his revenge on them--but that too, could wait for a little 
while. Ran rubbed his kiss-dampened lips together even as he 
reached for Ken, pulling him close and pushing him deeper into the 
cool shadows simultaneously. 

"I've missed you."

He sought his lover's mouth, and gingerly dealt him a flutter of a 
kiss in return. In one hand, he cradled Ken's battered cheek. 

"Be more careful, anata." 

Another minute kiss, and Ran simply lay his head against 
Ken's. "I've got you a surprise in the freezer, and one in the 
bedroom. Which do you want to see first?"

***

Ken's curiosity, who had otherwise that day been attending to the 
riddles and the implications of keyless doors, perked up, leaving its 
present books behind for something much more refreshing and 
delightful.  Who knows what the doors have done? It had nothing 
to do with his lover and was not a deliberate pleasure. 

"The bedroom," Ken decided, brushing his lashes against Ran's as 
he did so.  And then he remembered.  With a little, glad sigh he 
reached into his pocket and drew out the note which had been left 
to him this morning.  "Is it... somethin' along these lines?" Asking 
so, he kissed the rim of the paper and giggled, even if it hurt.

***

"Something like that," Ran replied, catching his hand as he stepped 
back, and nodding towards the stairs. Silently, they walked to their 
bedroom, hand in hand, and when they got to the door, Ran opened 
it, and bade him to enter first.  

"I thought, after the ladies go home, that we'd come up here, and 
I'd light the candles, and, after coaxing you out of your clothes, I'd 
get you on the bed, and..." Sliding his arms around Ken's waist, 
Ran ducked his head to kiss the side of his lover's neck.  "...Then 
I'll give you a massage."

***

Ken forgot all about his bruise, forgot all about the fact he used to 
live on Antiterra, or that he abided on Terra now.  He held his 
lover's wrists against him, and took two cautious little steps into 
the bedroom, casting his gaze around the shimmering and black 
upside down blooms which dotted the room he had otherwise been 
so familiar with.  The air already bore some fleeting enchantment 
of theirs.  A little peace.

He turned his head at last and nuzzled Ran's cheek, letting his 
lover's eartails fall in his own eyes.

"Oh," it was almost wistful the way he spoke.  "I don't think you're 
gonna have to coax my clothes off, unless you want to, 'cause I do 
kinda like bein' undressed, but I REALLY like massages."

A little titter and amid the winking sentiments of the fireflies who 
alone did roam their garden, Ken nibbled the ear of his sweetheart 
(minding not to knock his teeth against his earrings) and slid one of 
his hands up his shirt and onto his ribs, so he could feel how fast 
his heart was thrumming away.

Mostly with the thought that he had never expected such things 
from his lovely Ran, but also for the sudden melancholy.  The little 
shade of guilt. 

And he almost told him he would always be there, but just in case 
he was wrong, he feel quiet instead, and enjoyed being held, his 
eyes closed to the bedroom.

***

Ran's hands followed Ken's under his shirt, skimming along his 
sides.  He found Ken's hand, and covered it with his own, his other 
skating away to stroke his back.  "I think I would like to undress 
you.  I think I would like that very, very much."

Ken turned his face to his again for another kiss, and Ran obliged 
him--dealing him one just as easy as the others.  Once more, a 
hand found its way to his bruised cheek, and he stroked it lightly 
with his fingertips.

"I know that has to hurt.  Do you want me to scrounge up some ice 
for it? Maybe some aspirin?  Because...as you know, it'll be 
dinnertime soon, and we will be expected downstairs.  It'll be hard 
enough to deal with when you're in pain..."

"Are you sure you want to go through with all this tonight?"

***

Ken tapped his lips to the end of Ran's nose once again, and 
nodded for him, so close when he did so that their bangs brushed.  
"I'll be alright.  I've played soccer with worse, gone on missions 
with worse..." He trailed off then and offered a few gentle caresses 
of his lips.  "Tangled with you with worse."

This uttered with a giggle and a sliding, long embrace as he turned 
in his lover's arms and took him about his shoulders.  "Don't feel 
bad.  It's my own stupid fault for not realizing you're much more 
fun to snuggle." He would nuzzled him then, but Ran held his 
cheek away, cupping it firmly and just shy of painful pressure, 
enough to keep him from making himself hurt.  "Ah, actually, 
some ice sounds good.  But I have to rinse off quick and change.  
Gimme ten minutes."

Saying so, he parted with a squeeze and scampered over to the 
wardrobe where his formal garb was still lying on the bottom, 
wrapped in it's protective paper.  It vaguely occurred to him that 
they might be a bit creased from their journey across 
Terra, but a glance at the clock and he found better things to worry 
about.

When Ran returned with the ice, he found a trail of clothes leading 
from Ken's last known location to the bathroom door, where his 
underwear happened to be lodged between the hinges.

***   

Ran chuckled softly upon finding the door thus decorated, but 
when he reached for the knob, he paused and knocked instead of 
simply barging in. Instead of acting like Kaze might have. 

"Ken? I've brought the ice," he called, shaking the tumbler glass 
that held it for effect. 

Ken's muffled voice and the fainter sound of rushing water came 
from behind the door. Ran then entered upon his lover's request, 
and found him in the shower finishing up his ablutions. The same 
summer rain scent of the soap they'd shared the night before hung 
in the warm, foggy air. Ran set the glass of ice down on the little 
table just inside the door. After removing the short robe he wore 
over his kimono and hanging it up on one of the pegs above it, he 
walked over to the shower stall, and leaned against its grey and 
white tiled outer walls. 

"If I had known you were going to take a shower too, I wouldn't 
have been so quick to take mine when I came home."

***

The shower went off with a loud pressure squeak, though the 
clanging in the lower pipes latest for some seconds afterwards, as 
did the soft plops of the drips leaving Ken's body, which gave 
more of an impression as he, hand resting on the door, paused a 
moment, and having just made out the wry little grin on his 
beloved's face, he shook himself all over like a pooch who has run 
through a sprinkler.

"Oh, but then you wouldn't have smelled so yummy."

And then he rather carelessly popped the door open, revealing 
without haze just what a comical mess his show had made of his 
hair, leaning over for a peck which he bestowed with dainty jerk of 
his form to keep the water on it from running onto Ran's clothing.  

"You'd smelled so good I'd been late for supper! Oh well, next 
time."

He swept out then, yanking a towel from the nearest rack and 
nearly freeing the rack itself from its screws.  He took it in slithers 
down both of his arms, down his torso in big, contorted circles and 
around both legs, which he lifted to dry, and so had to keep 
hopping between them so he wouldn't fall over.  A half expectation 
that his lover would snatch the terry away from him passed his 
thoughts, but a grin over his shoulder confirmed he had himself an 
audience more than content to watch.  

One who had been so good as to fetch him some ice, one cube of 
which he held in his cheeks as he dressed- navy slacks, a black 
dress shirt with short sleeves and clear glass buttons the top two of 
which he left unfastened, and a floppy silk vest, 
rather plain in the front save for a few golden beads about the 
middle of his chest, but bearing an embroidered weeping willow 
whose bowed branches trailed down into the eyes of the two 
herons perched like courtly ladies on Monet-esque footbridge. 

He sighed then, finally able to hold the tumbler of ice cubes to his 
aching jaw.

"Soooo... do you want me to let my hair dry like this so everyone 
will think it's bed-mussed?"

*** 

"I would, except you look less bed-mussed, and more electrocuted. 
No," he said, now coming forward from his post by the shower 
stall when Ken made to flick his finger through his hair, "let me."

/...touch you. All this time I've wanted to.../

Ran smiled down into Ken's eyes as his fingers met the boy's silky 
chocolate locks. He patted here, scrunched there, taming it just 
enough. It only took a minute. 

"There. Smoothed enough to be presentable, but messy enough to 
give your assistants something to grin and tease you over." Ran 
withdrew his fingers from Ken's hair, and started fingering first his 
collar, and then the V of bare skin. Two fingertips he touched to 
the hollow of Ken's throat, and from there he trailed them lightly 
back and forth within the borders of his open neckline. 

"You know...black suits you very well." 

Ran bent and kissed him there, and then at the base of his throat 
before straightening up again. "I like this vest too," he added 
softly, running his fingertips down the golden braiding. When his 
hands reached the end edges, they snuck under them to clasp Ken's 
hips. The briefest of caresses was dealt to his thighs, and then Ran 
moved away from him, and took him in with his intense gaze. 

"You look handsome, Ken." 

With that, he padded over to the rack and swept his haori off the 
peg. He slipped it back on, and gave Ken a small smile. 

"After you," he said, gesturing towards the door. 

(ooc: A haori is, of course, the hip-length robe men wear over their 
kimono. )

***

With half a bow, Ken bounded through the door and down the 
steps, trailing to a much slower pace to watch and make sure his 
lover followed him, which he did, albeit in a much more sedate 
fashion.  They two emerged into a puff of giggles which had 
invaded the dining room.  Prim, it seemed, had been in the middle 
of recounting some rather comical story regarding the behavior of 
one of her mother's more notorious boarders, and Yuriko had fallen 
into the jest by seizing one of the green glass coasters from the 
table and silently pretending it was her monocle.  The room had 
been liberally washed with bunches of lily and iris, all 
nodding in the trickle of air from the open windows.  Candles 
dripped gold and white from the crystal sticks who had been 
placed with no pattern save someone's wishes. 

Ken did not seem to find this in the least remarkable and went 
skipping into the room to tickle Yuriko, who had quite invited the 
jest, with her dress since it had no middle to speak of- consisted of 
a jacket, mandarin in style though it reached only midway past her 
ribs and a narrow skirt with wide slits up the side, which went they 
parted showed an under layer of pastel gauze.  Rather though it 
was made of very pale and shiny silk speckled with nearly 
invisible flowers best felt with finger tips, for they were but shifts 
in the texture of the fabric.  She had tied her hair up with a pearly 
ribbon and carried a sequined pocket book she took up presently so 
she might chase Ken around the room with it.

"Oh! How dare you wear black when I wear white!" she teased.  
"Now everyone will expect me to be good! Naughty, naughty 
Ken."

"Then it's good I wore black! Itn'd it?"

"YOU!"

Primera shook her head at this sight and reached over to adjust the 
sprig of buttercups nestled in Fiona's locks, doubtless meant to 
compliment her yellow dress which she had donned for the 
occasion, and made a great deal of swishing about so Ran could 
see it.  

As for Prim, nearly all save her throat was covered, despite the 
warmth of the evening.  She had fixed herself up for the occasion 
as a little princess in periwinkle blue which bore no glitter, though 
it caught the light as if it did.  Her skirt drifted all the way to the 
floor and was of such light material it flowed after her seconds 
after her actual form had moved.  Her sleeves were gathered about 
her elbows with thick and trailing bows that made great poufs 
between themselves and her shoulders and her gloves wore rings 
on every finger. Two chains of antique glass beads chimed about 
her ears.   She came to Ran and bowed before 
him with a smile.  

And a wink.

Ken's hair had certainly done the trick.

Fiona sighed, only to start when the clock chimed eight.

***

Ran had just murmured "What's that wink for?" to Prim, and made 
her chuckle in turn when the clock sounded. He had simply stood 
by the fireplace and watched Ken and Yuriko cavort about the 
living room in the minutes before, and found it curious how they 
both ceased their teasing upon hearing the bells strike. In fact, all 
seemed to be holding their breath until the chiming quieted. 

Then Fiona bolted for the kitchen in a patter of bare feet and swish 
of skirt--more like a sprite late for a tea party than a human girl off 
to check on dinner. Prim left Ran to check on Fiona. The sounds of 
three voices came from within, however; apparently it had been 
deemed a good idea to recruit one of the boys who'd stayed to 
serve that night (as he had done such at banquets when the former 
Dono was in residence) so that Fiona might enjoy herself as well. 

The tiny bell inside the door rang, signaling that someone was 
outside requesting entrance. Ran looked over at Ken, expecting 
him to go answer, but his lover waved him on with a smile. Ran 
left only with the slightest hesitation--not because he didn't want to 
meet their guest, but because it struck him as improper somehow 
that he go greet her, when he was not the owner of the Villa. 

Hopefully, Carly would not mind. 

When he opened the door and found her elegantly turned out self 
standing there, catching just a glint of the jeweled choker about her 
throat, it was clear that she did not. 

"Youkoso, Carly-sama," he said as he stepped back to allow her 
entrance. 

***

Carly, much to Ran's surprise, wavered a moment at the step into 
the tower, lingering both in and out, a bloom of organdy velvet in 
the early nighttime mist which so stately stayed among the 
uninhabited stretches of the Villa. It was impossible to pin the era 
of her gown, for it made itself the sort of work of art not 
expected to be worn, but simply to be admired as an aspect of 
many a long- lost age, but it fell quite low upon her chest, and the 
sleeves parted into lazy wings, leaving her arms to the gloves of 
black satin, the circlets of heavy tiger zircon and 
butterscotch topaz set in gold of lime and rose which circled her 
here and there.  The light flitted from them as she breathed. The 
black lace of the veil which covered her unbound hair drifted into 
the shadows and stood with them, made it seem as if the darkness 
had left her there upon his doorstep.  The copper on her 
lips crinkled with a smile. 

And with that, she bowed to him as she had when they first met, a 
Japanese motion set against the boisterousness of her European 
garb.  A thing trickle of light slid from her bodice as she swept 
herself down, the key from her red ribbon dancing now from a fine 
chain.  It fell against her as she rose, and with a with a teasing 
shake of her fingers, she slid it back inside, gave him a wink, and 
retreated behind the curve of her fan- one he had not seen before of 
painted moire paper bearing a bird of paradise and the swords of 
two tropical flowers, probably the fantasy of the artist.  Scooping 
her skirts into her arms to pass his door, she entered at last, but 
would not leave the entryway once Ran had closed the door behind 
her.

Rather, she held one hand up, asked with nothing more for him to 
wait a moment.  From the layers of her skirts she drew first a slip 
of rice paper infused with forget-me-nots.  One which bore, in a 
lively but dignified hand, the simple words: It is such a pleasure to 
have dinner with you this evening, Ran-san.  Please forgive me, I 
am still working on the proper version of your portrait.  

She waited until he had finished to produce her second surprise of 
the evening, or what she, with faint amusement, discovered quite 
astonished her host.    

It was a little, black cage, scarcely four inches across.  Held to it's 
perch with a bit of silver links was a hummingbird of powder blue 
finished off with peridot upon it's bread and citrine about its eyes.  
Its wings it fluttered with a faint buzz upon  

beholding Ran.

***

"...Utsukushii."

Ran's first thought, as he took the cage from Carly's hands, was 
that he'd never seen such a hummingbird quite so lovely. Never 
had he thought he'd ever be presented with one, either. It looked 
like a living jewel, a mystical creature from a fairy tale. 

It looked like...

The creature buzzed its wings again, and scooted to the far end of 
the perch when he drew the cage a little closer for a better look. As 
he watched it, it struck him that the hummingbird was trying to get 
away from him because it was afraid. 

And then, he saw the darkness of it. A wild bird in captivity. A 
small space to fly in, and it couldn't even have that because of its 
short chain. Four inches across and no room for any sort of feeder, 
any sort of water bottle. How did one care for it? Or was that the 
point? 

Was that the point? 

He didn't dwell upon it though, for, as a quick glance in her 
direction showed, Carly was watching him very closely above the 
rim of her fan. He sensed she was judging him. But what could he 
say? And how could he say it without damaging her good will 
towards him?

So, not wanting to offend a woman who meant so much to Ken, he 
took the only avenue he saw open to him. Ran shifted the cage 
carefully to both hands, and bowed again to her, formally. 

"Domo arigatou, Carly-sama."

***

Carly bowed again in return, rising a bit early perhaps so she might 
purse her lips with winder behind her fan.  In the silence of rich 
rustles did they two ascend the steps to the floor where the dining 
room stood.  Once more some enchanted strings did catch her at 
the doorway.  Not the whispering attempts to do
away with what chuckles had not all together flown away, but 
simply the sight of the room.  Oh, thirty years before she would 
have cried out in delight and gone running into someone's arms- 
anyone who happened to be closest.  But thirty years ago... was 
too long.  Pages could yellow and snap by then, tongues go still as 
morning frost, memories as empty as the heavens on a summer's 
day.  

Some tiny fragment of herself did wish then that she might be 
frivolous and utter something affable unto her hosts at least.  But it 
melted away and she swept in at last, meeting every bow so 
offered her.  Fiona first, who nearly fell over from the show of 
respect, Primera who curtseyed rather, Yuriko who had to be 
coaxed with a wave of her hand.  They were both guests of the 
same man after all, at least tonight.  And finally Ken, whose hand 
she made her own then and did thoroughly kiss.

Ken who made that whole affair quite backwards, and giggled as if 
he were the visiting maid and she the dashing lord.

"Thank you for coming to dine with us, Carly-sama! Supper should 
be ready soon."

Carly grinned emphatically.  After all, she had skipped lunch and 
tea in her anticipation of the evening.  Another wish for words 
then, and she quite troubled herself finding two so soon together in 
her heart.  But this one, she knew this one at least, and it meant 
nothing over the heart which held it to be betrayed. Not 
much at least.

A bit of a silence fell, not because they had all gathered about the 
table to wait for someone to pull out someone else's chair, but 
because she had conjured up a pen and a second leaf of parchment 
from the folds of her skirt.

While she wrote, Ken and Yuriko took the time to admire their 
respective sweethearts.  She found a crease in the periwinkle silk 
of Prim's that needed straightened, he found something purring 
between Ran's hands he had simply not expected to see that night, 
or any night which involved his lady companion.

/She gave... him... ah... us... us but especially HIM a 
hummingbird?/

/Oh... my... gosh.../

And from the looks of things, his lover simply did not know what 
to make of the creature, for it was not the floor his eyes had strayed 
too, as his downcast gaze suggested, but the little bound bird in his 
possession.

As surreptitiously as he could manage, he reached over and tapped 
Ran's wrist, pointing to the bird once he had his gaze and then 
mouthing, "Don't put it down."

As for their guest, she laid her pen aside of her spoons at this point, 
creasing the paper she had written upon with her nails, before 
plopping it before her plate and seating herself, grinning all the 
while.

And to her hosts, done up as if for the wedding of a princeling, she 
had written the following message- Please, no need to be so formal 
with me. ^_^

***

/Don't put it down.  Don't set it aside?/

/I have to keep this caged creature on my lap, and listen to it buzz 
about, and why?/

/What is this supposed to...signify...?/

/...../

/As if I didn't know.  As if I...can't see it./

/Why could she?/

Ran slowly raised his eyes from the cage he held on his lap and 
settled them upon Carly, studying her from beneath his long, 
jagged bangs.

/This isn't a bird..../

/...It's me.  It's...my soul.  It's my heart.  It's what I was, and what I 
am now.../

/And I can't save it.  I can't save...myself.../

He glanced once more down at the helpless bird.

/No one can.  Is that what you're saying to me?/

***

Ken caught Ran's arm before he managed to sit down, giving him 
the most gentle yank he had the power to perform.  It made the 
other boy start quite a bit, and Ken regret he had to be rough... 
rough at all with his lover.  But it was probably better than the 
lingering remembered blush embarrassment would leave.

/And you're SUCH an IDIOT Ken! BAKA BAKA BAKA! You 
should have at 
least thought she MIGHT! But no, you had to spend all damn day, 
traipsing about all tralalalala happy! Oh no! She'd never do 
something like this for me and my sweetie 'cause we're ordinary./

The harsh little gleam in Ran's pensive gaze reminded his more 
than all else this wasn't the case.  He sighed, and only for him.  
There was no reason to get upset.  Just catch the salad before it hit 
the floor and everything would be alright.

That made him smile.

"Carly-sama!" just a touch of a whine to set off his words and their 
ghost of a  joke.  "How could you! Put yourself down at my first 
nice dinner party! I tell ya!"

They both shook their heads.  The other guests all exchanged 
startled glances.

Carly stuck her tongue out.  And everyone giggled beside her, 
though she might have, somewhere behind her fan.

"Onegai, err... pardon me for a moment.  Primera-san moved the 
sugar flutes this evening and I need to show Ran where they are.  
Just a moment."

She waved to their fleeing forms as they headed for the stairs.  
Safely out of earshot, Ken gathered his boyfriend into his arms and 
swept him into Fiona's bedroom, since it was near the kitchen, but 
away from the former-harlots' ears.  Half hidden behind the grey 
mist of her curtains, he took the cage between his palms and held it 
up.  Ran, obedient to his half-expressed wishes, did not even then 
release his hold on the loop meant to suspend the cage.

"Wow, she sure got you a pretty one!" Just to accentuate this, the 
bird clicked to itself and turned a pirouette, twisting it's chain 
about both of it's legs.  Through it and the bars of its cage, Ken 
smiled at Ran.  "She really, really likes you! Now ah... god, I 
shoulda thought to bring this up... it's Terran dinner custom, 
usually just for people like Prim's family."

Then the cage he lowers so he might hover over and peck his 
lover's cheek.  

"You're gonna have to take care of it through dinner."

Again, the little aquamarine bird expressed its displeasure with its 
current space pressed between their formal clothes, cheeping and 
flapping it's useless wings about as fast as it could.

***  

Ran gave Ken a perplexed look.  "Take care of it?  But...why?  
How?  Don't these things eat nectar?"

Ken only smiled, and gave him another kiss.  The tiny bird buzzed 
its disapproval upon having its view blocked again by swathes of 
black and grey.

The chain which held it chimed as it darted across its perch.

"Why would she give me something like this anyway...?"

Two fingers came up to toy with one eartail, grazing his cheek.  He 
got yet another kiss, and a look from Ken so searching it made his 
face go warm-but not out of embarrassment.

"Are you going to answer every question I ask with a kiss?"

Ken chuckled, and swooped in to deal another peck on his cheek, 
making Ran smile a little despite his lingering gloomy mood.  
"Okay, okay.  I'll take care of the bird through dinner."

That got him a nod, and a quick squeeze of his free hand, and then 
Ken filed out, holding the curtain back for Ran to follow him.  As 
he walked out,  he held the cage up by the ring and peered in at 
Carly's strange gift.

/But I still think there's more to this than you're telling me.../

***

Ken ushered Ran into the kitchen The whores, though not in the 
most scintillating of moods on account of the fact they had all been 
asked to wear... clothing, of all things, were most grouchy about 
the affair, at least until they got sight of the hummingbird Ran 
carried.

Mori and Mari oohed and ahhed at the top of their lungs, stooping 
a bit in spite of the platters they bore, just to get a good look at the 
creature.  Sauly, fortunately, shooed them both upstairs and so 
back to their duties.  Now left to a relatively quiet kitchen, Ken 
dove for the cabinets.

As if it knew just what its owner's lover was up to, the birds itself, 
no longer spooked by the impromptu attention of the servers, 
calmed down a bit and began to sort at its feathers. 

"Carly brought it because it's... it's kinda like... OUCH!" A spare 
salt shaker fell from one of the cupboards, and for the same of 
further misfortune, landed on Ken's head, lost it's cap and doused 
him with it's contents.  At least he managed to catch the porcelain 
base before it shattered.  The cap however clanged
loudly on the floor, and he shivered with the tickles of a million 
little clear crystals tumbling down his shirt.  

"Ah, it's kinda... like asking you to be her friend, in a REALLY 
complicated... kinda Victorian way.  You know, how they had that 
whole code worked out with flowers between lovers? Only it's not 
about flowers, it's about how you treat the bird."

Dusting what salt he could get from his hair, Ken sighed to 
himself.  /AND she just HAD to give us a HUMMINGBIRD!/ 
Although that did explain a few things.

"Hummingbirds mean... well it represents... they're really hard to 
catch- it's easy to hurt them and all.  It means she trusts you.  
Unless she hurt it first... umm... is it hurt?"

Ran shook his head.

"OK..." a box of brown sugar sailed onto the floor and neither of 
them made any move to pick it up.   "And you thanked her for it, 
right?"

Ran heaved a very conspicuous sigh and nodded.

"Sorry! I just wanted to make sure and... K'SO!" Ken had come to 
the end of the cupboard he was ransacking.  "You can make sugar 
water for those things and they like it alright.  There's no time now.  
It's supposed to have different courses with the rest of us and it's 
already time for appetizer.  We can't fix it one straight off, not that 
it'll be cool enough to drink and..."

He had here begun to pace, occasional flicking salt from his 
clothing.  Ran made a move or two to help him, but he, quite 
accidentally, always took that time to turn on his wayward path.  
At last he paused, and let his lover's hands stray over him, though 
he had actually intended mostly to glare at their aerial dependant.  
Their wide-eyed, most disgruntled aerial dependant, who clacked 
and burbled at him.

But then his eyes lit up.  "Oh! There's a trumpet vine right out..." 
The kitchen window flew open under his gritty hand , and he 
leaned out of it, over the sink.  Something rustled loudly and Ken 
returned bearing not a string of trumpet blooms, but rather the buds 
of a butterfly bush.  "Sometimes they like these... 
we'll just put them in a vase and pray I guess.  Although... I seem 
to remember there's something odd that kind likes... goddamnit!" A 
salty shake of his head.  "We'll just pretend it's a guest and hope 
everything goes alright."

(OOC: You have to boil the sugar water for hummingbirds.) 

***

"Yes.  We'll feed it only two meals during the whole of dinner, and 
Carly will think I'm a boor, and that the boy who's like a son to her 
truly has bad taste in men."

Ken folded his arms across his chest and gave him a extremely 
annoyed look.

"All right.  I'll stick the thing in a glass of water and hope it likes it.  
For both of our sakes."  Ran crossed over to one of the cabinets in 
search of said glass.  Something small.  "It won't do if Carly 
decides to hate me...Where are you going?" he called after Ken's 
retreating figure, as he plopped the discarded
spray of blooms in water and set the cage down next to it, one-
handedly positioning the flowers as close to the hummingbird's 
perch as he could get it.  It took him two tries before it would stay 
in place.

"You can't go out there with salt all over you," Ran said, turning 
around to lean against the counter so he could better view his 
lover.  "Come back here and let me brush some of that stuff off."

***

Ken heaved a sigh and padded back over in a manner not unlike 
that of a boy expecting to get his face spitwashed by a persnickety 
adult.  His gripes, unvoiced as they were, he shortly regretted 
though, for his lover, sighing once again as he pulled himself forth 
from the cabinets, spared him no touch, no little pleasantry of 
fingers as he swept the salt from the folds of his garb, and from 
several places Ken seriously suspected were not at all so seasoned.

It took very little time indeed for him to be assured the Hidaka-
dono wore nothing but black once more, but it seemed like much 
longer, so assured was he in taking his time.  And bestowing all his 
little caresses.

The hummingbird, however, was not especially fond of romantic 
moments it seemed, and sawed as loudly as it could.

They both made faces then as if they blushed, though neither did.

"Thanks, Ran.  I don't know what I'd do without you... well, 
besides go back into the room with Carly all a mess."  He took the 
vase in one hand and his lover with the cage in the other and 
headed back upstairs.  "Just pretend it's a guest and you'll do fine."

They were met with joking applause upon their re-entry of the 
dining room.  Whatever the conversation there had been, it was 
promptly forgotten so there might be time for all eyes to settle on 
Ran's bird, who had, in it's absence, remarkably acquired it's own 
table setting.

Fiona gave Ran a thumbs up as he set the cage down before the 
doll-sized plate, and the vase atop said plate. 

"Oh, it's sooooo cute, Ran-san!" Yuriko began.  "Congratulations! 
What are you going to name it?"

Carly dropped her fan then and leaned just a hair's breadth closer, 
intrigued by the question herself.

As for the bird, it plum ignored the fact it was now the center of 
attention in favor of nuzzling the spring of butterfly bush now and 
then, unsure if it was very fond of it or not.

***

/Arigatou, Yuriko-san, for putting me once more on the spot./

Of course, Ran's statement did NOT betray his mildly sarcastic 
train of thought. His gaze didn't linger upon her indigo own. He 
studied instead the eagerly feasting little bird.

/So what does it look like to you?/

It looked like a lot of things to him. A shooting star. A bit of a 
summer blue sky. A fairy from one of Aya's old storybooks.

But...somehow...none of those really fit.

And then, just as quick as such a creature could flit and streak
across a garden in full bloom, it came to him.

"Negaigoto." The blossoms swayed away from the cage, so pushed 
by a nudge from the hummingbird's bill, and Ran set them to rights 
again.  When he looked up, he found Carly was watching him.

"It means, 'wish', or 'one's desire'."

He lifted his glass of wine, something dry and red to go with the
spicy, saucy hors d'oeuvres the waiters had set before them.  Ran
tossed Ken a tiny smile, took an appreciative sip, and his lover's 
guests fell to chatting with each other.  He took that opportunity to 
wave one of the boys over before they could leave for the kitchen.

"Go out into the garden and pick a few stems of every sort of 
flower that's blooming, no matter what it is," he whispered to the 
youth.  "Put them all in water, and, as the plates are changed, bring 
in some of what you picked."

He didn't even flinch--no doubt used to receiving odd requests 
from his boss, or his boss' guests at such affairs.  The boy only 
bowed, just as he had been taught to do all those years ago, and 
skittered away.

"Whoever made the hors d'oeuvres did a fine job," Ran murmured,
between bites of one.  It was tomato-y rich and oozing with some 
sort of cheese.

"It was Fiona," Prim replied, beaming at the youngest guest. "She's 
a fast learner."

Ran looked over at the (blushing?) girl who sat beside Ken. She
turned the whole of her attention to the appetizers on her plate, and 
seemingly missed the pleased little smile he gave her.

"I'm not surprised in the least."

"Neither was I."  She glanced over at Fiona again, and reached 
over to pat her on the hand.

"You know," Primera continued, glass poised in one hand.  "I 
heard a most interesting bit of gossip today, Ran-san."

"Oh?"

"Hmm...Yes."

"What was that?"

Ran did not miss the teasing little grin that Primera gave
him.  "Just before the Hidaka-dono arrived, Yuriko told me that 
you two are planning to run away to the seashore together.  Is that 
true?"

***

Ken sputtered a bit into his wine, making matters worse for himself 
by trying to stop in the middle.  After setting down his glass, he 
was quite obliged to dab at his lips with his napkin, which he 
peered out from behind only to discover he had quite accidentally 
garnered more attention than Negaigoto, whose master of the 
present he was simply going to have to congratulate. Somehow, in 
some little way.  

He really hadn't seen Ran as the sort for subtle, courtly verbal 
jousting.  Or so he decided the little bird had become the subject 
of.  Nor had he seen himself as anyone's child since his fourteenth 
year, and so had pondered, amid yet another way he might be glad 
his beloved was his and no one else's, the remark that he himself 
was like a son unto the silent lady of Valdemar.

/Oh, right the conversation.../

Had they two, in the throes of the late evening discussed such a 
thing? Had Crawford knocked it from his head? Ken could not 
remember, but hoped dearly that the flush upon his cheeks would 
be taken as a result of the drinks, and not of the fact he thought his 
mind swept clear of something important.  "Well, it is true." He 
nodded here and nearly had another sip of wine, opting instead to 
leave what had just choked him for the appetizer.  

Everyone quite gasped in mock surprise, even Fiona, who did so 
because Mlle.  Carly had actually made an audible sound with her 
lips.  "But only if Ran has said it's true, then we'll go to the 
seashore for awhile and make you miss us."

Yuriko shook her head and giggled, flipping a few copper strands 
of her hair back over her shoulder when she had concluded.  "He 
hasn't asked you yet? Oh Ran!" A wink for the redhead here.  "It 
seems he's a bit of an adventurer." Carly rather perked and 
somehow managed to swirl only the foot of her goblet between her 
two hands.

Before this remark had even sunken into the Hidaka-dono's mind, 
Primera spoke up, looking at the ceiling as she did so for one 
reason or another.  "You mean he wants to go look for Lorelei?"

"Hey!" Ken again, put off and pouting as daintily as he could.  "It's 
not nice to put words in people's mouths.  And besides, you call 
THIS gossip and you haven't said the word BEDROOM once yet?"

"Things have changed a bit since you left." Carly's latest sign 
intoned with a sort of bland expression to it, like a deliberately 
comical drone.

"SOOOOOOOOOOOO ka." But as much as he couldn't see his 
lover strung over a white horse.  Even though the image of him 
whistling under a backpack refused to come.  No matter how 
elusive the idea of they two making out before a camp fire 
seemed... Ken was really very tempted. "If you want.  It's like to 
see the shore again.  Maybe not super soon but still... hey, just 
what gave you the idea? Has someone been telling you stories 
about mermaids?"

Negaigoto did not flutter in the next moment, but sat watching the 
two lovers as if their conversation had caught his interest.  Whether 
he knew something of such creatures no one at the table ever 
knew, for when he spoke up it was not in human language.

"IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIAMPRITTI! IAMPRITTI! 
Prittiprittiprittiprittiprittipritti!" 

(OOC: There really is a hummingbird with a call pretty much like 
that.  We have them at our feeders.  They don't look like 
Negaigoto, they just sound ever so cute ^.^.)

***

Ran nodded his head at the chattering Negaigoto, murmuring 
dryly,  "He isn't lacking in self-esteem, is he?"  

A grin caught Ken by surprise, and he winced slightly.  Or tried 
not to do it and failed.  Ran let it go, though.  

"It was the dragons that a certain lady spoke of which lured me, 
not Sirens.  And we don't have to go right away, no.  I was 
thinking more along the lines of the weekend before the shop 
opens.  A long weekend."    

That got him Ken's hand upon his knee under the table.  Another of 
those searching looks that made the butterflies take flight in his 
stomach.  Then his attention was diverted by Primera's mention of 
a soiree her mother was going to have next week, one in honor of a 
herald of minor abilities (could only Fetch and was empathic) who 
just happened to be her mother's closest confidants.  

Ran's attention was diverted as well...by the turn of his own 
thoughts.  He was quite happy mulling over the details of their 
future trip.   

/A long weekend with just us and a bottle of that massage oil.  
Clothing optional./

/He can practice dribbling his soccer ball on the sand and I'll run./

And maybe he'd cook for him too.  But he wanted to do that 
anyway.  Just one dinner, and soon, he wanted to cook for them.  
Just them.  Alone.  Something Japanese, for, despite the delicious 
food that had been, and would be placed before him that evening, 
Ran was suddenly yearning for a bowl of rice with some daikon on 
the side. Maybe some dumplings too.  

/I must be homesick./  

And he was, he realized.  For a lot of things.  For people...Or 
rather, one person.  Ran pensively swirled his wine in his glass.  
He dwelt a few moments on that long lived hurt before moving 
back to the matter at hand.  

/Maybe I'll make all that for him./

Over the rim of his glass, Ran eyed him.  Ken was holding forth 
about an incident involving the two of them, a cart of ferns and a 
banana tree (one in which Ran came out looking ridiculous), all 
animated and happy.  The center of attention.  He couldn't help but 
smile a little, albeit in a wistful sort of way.  

/I...sort of miss being able to sit around the table like we used to on 
occasions, late at night when we didn't have missions or the others 
weren't around.  Of course, to you, it probably seemed like we just 
happened to end up in the same place at the same time.  A 
coincidence./

Ken started to laugh.  Their feminine guests all followed.    

/But it never was./  

"Ran-san!" came Primera's giggling voice from the other end of the 
table.  "Did you really do that?"  

Ran, now jarred completely out of his reverie, gazed around at the 
circle of amused faces, willing his foggy state away.    

"Um...No, Prim-san," Ran replied, smirking at Ken as he dabbed 
his fingertips on the napkin in his lap.  "He made that whole last 
part up."  


(ooc:  According to one of the drama cds--the one that tells Ran's 
background, when he went to train as an agent, Shion had him run 
daily for miles in order to build up his stamina.  I don't think he 
stopped doing it, even in Weiss, because in one ep, he challenges 
Sakura-chan to run with him--she was on the track team at her 
school.  And he wins, of course.)

***

Ken rolled his eyes and sighed, "I DID not!"

Here a moment of quiet rife with grins wide and literally saucy in 
Fiona's case.  Primera tapped her shoulder and she dive for her 
napkin. 

"OK... so... maybe I *embellished* it.  Just a little.  The banana 
tree lived for starters..."

"Well!" Yuriko said, tossing her hair.  "That just ruins everything 
for me! You've completely lost my interest."

"Mine too!" their servant chimed in.  And for the time being, as 
she was just as much a guest as any of the other ladies, she made a 
point of asking that one of the former boy harlots to fetch the fork 
she had dropped so she stood no chance of harming her lemony 
gloves by brushing against tines which might NOT have been 
spotless.  

"Just for that, I'm going to have to make the utterly unrealistic 
demand that NONE of you tell Ran anything about dragons! That 
way, he'll be all surprised when we go."

"Actually," Prim sighed, "as demands of yours go, that's not so bad 
at all."

"Why, how gracious of you, Primmy."

But everyone else nodded, with the exception of Negaigoto, who 
decided Ran's sleeve looked potentially sweet with nectar, and so 
took to trying to reach it through the bars.  It was for this that Carly 
neglected her wine for the time being.

Ken considered catching the little bird up with the pads of his 
fingers and steering it back to its flowers.  And not only for his 
curiosity of what it might do if he caught it up; what it might feel 
like in contrast to that dark sleeve he had caressed 
before supper.  But doing so would put him back against that 
sleeve in the little charming ways that dinner parties did best with.  
He went on though, at last.  "Aaaaaaaaaaaaanyway,  if you think 
I've got stories about Ran, you'll just be overwhelmed when it 
comes to what he's got on me!"

/Or what he'd HAVE to have on me after some of the crap I did 
back at that shop./

He had a little sniff then, of the air so close to his beloved.  
Wondered what it would be like turned tangy by the sun and the 
glittering salt caught up in the waves, never at all to return to the 
land in just the same way, just as he had never guessed himself that 
Ran would ever bear that little mark of the seashore so willingly.  
All this while Carly batted her eyes in that do tell way from behind 
her fan.

***  
 
Ran drew his flowing sleeves out of reach of the tiny bird, and 
pulled the glass of flowers around to that side of the cage, hoping 
to divert its attention. Unfortunately, however, it merely called 
again, loudly and in seeming indignation. Ran, frowning slightly, 
plucked the blooms from the glass and fumbled with them. 

"Seems our guest has finished with his appetizer." He set the 
flowers back in the glass, and signaled to the boy who'd lingered to 
fill their wine and water glasses. 

"Take this to the kitchen, and bring back a few of the blooms I had 
requested earlier," he said, setting Negaigoto's dinner glass onto 
the silver tray the boy held. He followed it with his own sauce 
covered plate. As the bird did finish, so would he. More or less. 

The waiter was joined by another boy, and at the summons of their 
dono, and the ladies, proceeded to gather up the rest of the dishes 
as well. They set them upon the cart the second had brought, and 
said second boy rolled the stack away. As the elevator ground out 
its familiar complaints, the last of the first course wine was poured 
for those who wanted it- a new glasses of a golden vintage, the ice 
wine. 

"Oh, yes. I have plenty of stories to tell about Ken. Most amusing. 
Some downright hilarious." Again, he smirked at his lover. 

"Tell us one, Ran-san," piped Primera from the other end of the 
table. Fiona clinked her fork gently against her water glass in 
encouragement. 

Tell a story. He never thought any one would ever ask him to do 
that again. He never thought he'd actually agree to do that again, 
but he did. As much as he hated being the center of anything, he 
did. 

"Well...It was a typically rainy fall in Tokyo. Such days aren't 
always slow ones for florists--people usually crave color, yearn for 
something to cheer them up. Anyway..." 

And so he launched into the tale about when the two of them had 
gone to deliver three bouquets of flowers to a woman named 
Satsuki for a birthday party she was throwing, and said woman and 
her guests took a fancy to Ken and nearly wouldn't let him leave. 
They had plied him with wine and cake, and teasing compliments, 
and a few blatant flirtations. More than one had pressed her 
number into his palm. 

"After that, we beat a hasty retreat. I never thought a man could 
blush as much as he did that day."

"What happened when you came home?" 

"He went to his apartment and locked himself in. Wouldn't come 
down, even when Omi--one of our co-workers--begged him to." 
Ran smiled at his lover. "I was somewhat stunned over his 
behavior. The schoolgirls who used to hang around the shop 
always flirted with him, and he never seemed to mind."

"Maybe that was because they were young girls, and harmless."

"Perhaps. And of course, none of them really chased that hard after 
any of us...Well, none save for that girl who liked Omi." 

Primera giggled. "Such a man of the world. You'd think he 
wouldn't have gotten so flustered over so much attention." 

"It's because he's handsome and doesn't realize just how much." 

Primera smiled at him from behind her wine glass, before she was 
drawn into conversation once more with Yuriko. Ran fussed again 
with Negaigoto, chancing a look at Carly, and finding her eyes 
trained upon him above the folds of her fan. The corners of them 
crinkled the tiniest bit, as it happens sometimes when one smiles at 
another. 

Ran smiled too. 

The waiter who'd helped clear returned at last, table clothed cart in 
tow. His assistant set fresh plates and fresh wine at everyone's 
places, and the one with the cart wheeled it close to the wall behind 
the table. As his co-server finished, he began, a serving tray of 
roast pheasant breasts caught between both hands. Ran could smell 
the orange-spice sauce they'd been smothered with even from 
across the table. 

"Did you do that too, Fiona?"

The girl glanced at Prim, then nodded. Primera tossed him a wink. 

"Once more, I am impressed." 

This time, she grinned, and took a sip of the glass of wine she had 
been permitted to have with this course. As Ran was served, so 
was Negaigoto, the three glasses comprising his next course were 
arranged before his cage. The former and future florist recognized 
them all: four o'clocks, night-blooming jasmine, and a sprig of still 
wakeful coral bells. He adjusted the blossoms so their fragrant, 
petaled lips were facing the hungry little bird. 

/Here's hoping you like at least one of those.../ 


(ooc: You probably know this, but--I looked it up on a site called 
hummingbirds.net, and four o'clocks and coral bells were among 
the list of preferred flowers. The jasmine I only threw in because 
its night-blooming and would have been chosen, more than likely, 
and because I like jasmine. :P)

***

Ken managed to recover from wanting to hide beneath his napkin 
just long enough to taste the pheasant, and to compliment the 
cooks.  If Carly would not have been there, he felt he surely would 
have retreated beneath the burgundy cotton resting in his lap, and 
sat there, breathing in the scent of the lavender 
detergent for as long as it took for everyone to go away.  

But then, of all things that evening, he looked upon his thrumming 
heart to realize he was glad in some funny, funny little way.  Very 
glad.  If life as Weiss had taught him anything, it was that smiles 
were not fit to be hidden.  No matter what.  /It's funny... I'd almost 
forgotten that I... did any of that./

"Actually," he said, rather out of turn and while slicing at his plate, 
"It was because one of them jammed her hand down my pants."

Which caused a momentary cessation of eating, particularly on 
Ran's part.  Even Negaigoto had paused in his inspection of his 
latest buds to cast his swiftly blinking black eyes on the host of the 
evening.  

Who smirked, and shrugged.  "Well, now you know how to get me 
if we ever play 'I never'." /Like no time had passed here and I was 
still just KenKen, not Ken the assassin, not Siberian./

Fiona clapped and sniggered a bit, the first to recover from her 
momentary stunning.  Yuriko followed, groaning quite audibly, 
"That's such a little girl's sleep over game! I can't believe you'd 
ever think of playing it."

"I thought it might go over better than spin the bottle." 

"Point taken."

"What about truth or dare?" Primera chimed in.

"I didn't know your mother let you play THAT!" Responded her 
girlfriend.  

"She didn't, that's why I brought it up."

Ken had a swig of his second wine and starred for a moment at his 
lover's hummingbird, who sat upon his perch, looking over his 
second course as if rather he was an art critic asked to give his 
opinion on this Renoir which had just been released from a private 
collection, or that Dali that just didn't look like a Dali to so-and-so.  
Still facing the be-winged guest- "Oh, and what are you planning 
on daring us to do?" 

Carly's fan fluttered this way and that as she faced the window,
evidentially having thought of a few things herself.  As for Prim, 
she replied, "Well, seeing as you're both Japanese, I guess the 
SCARIEST thing I could dare you to do would be kissing in 
public."  

"You mean like in front of you, or out on the street?" 
"Either way."

"'cause that's really not a problem here!" /I don't want to go back, 
y'know./

A brilliant little laugh.  He had one of Aya's eartails in his hands, 
Ran's gaze within his own, away from the bird who for the time 
being, preferred wire to petals and so stood, quiet as could be, 
seeing nothing.  Just like Carly. /But I wonder if I really could 
have left you, Ran.  Aya./

Who sighed with just a touch of joy to see him as he kissed his 
beloved.  Just a little and without his tongue.  /I don't think so./

IAMPRITTI! IAMPRITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTI! 
PRITTIPRITTIPRITTI! Sang 
Negaigoto who fluttered then, just above his rest, and lead his beak 
into the coral bells, eyes rapturously closed now.

So they were all thinking of something besides supper.

But they were together.

/I don't think so at all./

***  

Ran had started a bit, a tiny bit when Ken touched him. Had frozen 
when Ken kissed him. He was, after all, unused to such public 
displays. Even though they were clearly sleeping with each other, 
were clearly attached...

It had made him tense. Just a little. Not because he didn't want 
his kisses, but because he wanted more. Wanted to forget the 
dinner, and the women, and everything, and take Ken upstairs, and 
he just knew the ladies could see his thoughts reflected in his face. 
He could feel the weight of their curious eyes upon him and it only 
made him that much more nervous. 

Yet...as Ken sat pulled away to gaze at him clearly, Ran's hand 
found its way to the brunet's own, and he gave it a squeeze. Wasn't 
in a hurry to give it back either. 

/I love you./ 

He hoped to hell that Ken could see it. 

He wished fervently that he had seen that woman grope him too. It 
would have been the last damn time she'd do that to someone 
without thinking twice. 

He would have gotten him the hell out of there, too. Flowers and 
money be damned. 

/I should have paid attention./ 

/I shouldn't have let you down./

/I'm so sorry I did./

Ran hoped Ken could see that too. 

The pheasant he only picked at after that, his appetite leaning in 
directions other than food. What he did eat, was good, albeit much 
richer than he was used to, his previous diet being rather poor in 
comparison. 

Once more, Ran hoped no one noticed. 

*** 

Ken gave up feeling abashed halfway through the main course.

Mostly because he ended up spending most of the rest of their 
supper with his head on Ran's shoulder and a big plump kitty-ish 
smile on his lips.

No one begged to differ with him.

Not even Ran.

Not even Negaigoto who drank all his flowers dry and sang for 
more, smelling of jasmine by then as if he was some emanation of 
their buds and no real thing at all.

And it wasn't really because his jaw was achy (because it wasn't so 
much anymore) or because he was tired... of anything.

It was simply because Ran was there, even if he didn't need him, 
which it seemed like he did.  He smelled nice.  Felt nice.  

As for the guests, after a moment or so, they became oblivious to 
whatever affections existed around them, for doubtless nothing 
new had come of such things on Terra, and it was nothing they 
could not see simply strolling down the street or eating elsewhere 
(though they were rather emphatic about the fact they 
would prefer not to do that any longer, remarks which made his 
lover shift a little beneath him as if he did not wish to hear such 
things.  Ken smiled, and winced, and smiled anyway.)

So conversation went on more or less as before, for two 
embarrassing stories were not enough for one evenfall, or even one 
hour.  Prim revealed the unrealistic demands once leveled on her 
mother by all manner of finicky guests- all high ranking, mage-
befriending pompous fellows, many of whom had most intriguing 
fancies for lacy undergarments.  Fiona told much similar tales of 
Ysanne, and in a much more befitting sort of tone- meretricious 
and frank.  Ken almost caught himself peering under the tablecloth 
to make sure the varnish had not begun
to fade.  They were all well enough in their cups to forget whatever 
had kept them from speaking so themselves.  Yuriko's tales of her 
flights around both worlds were not so spicy, not so kicky- so 
exasperating they had to be humorous. This stewardess, that 
drunken businessman.

All the while Carly nibble or sat with her check cradled in her 
glove as the other hand worked her fan.  She, like Ken, turned to 
Ran for the last story of the evening, or seemed to be wishing such 
of him.  She did not say so, and no one asked it of her.  But Ran, as 
dearly as she and her host did wish to hear him speak, begged off 
for the evening, and only added to his lover's account.

Which was about Youji and Omi.  It seemed fitting somehow.  
Remembering they two were real.  Had once been touched, been 
shouted at, been  there with wires and with pins.  But they did not 
come through the doors with dessert, did not come through the 
doors with blood on their hands.  Negaigoto burst into song as if to 
try and drown them out of being, but he lost.

Ken slid his smallest finger of his left hand through the bars after 
him.  

"Just what are you doing?" Primera inquired.  

"Don't know.  He looks soft is all.  Maybe he'll quiet down if I... 
"The hummingbird did nothing of the sort, but chattered and 
chipped as his fingertip brushed his glassy feathers.  It did not try 
to fly away though, or to snap at him, so two more times he 
brushed over the thumping body of it.  "...maybe not."

"I swear, Hidaka-dono! It would make more sense if you offered 
the dear thing wine!"

So Ken took his lover's hand, wound it into a fist, sprinkled the 
inner curl of his finger edges with ice wine and offered it to 
Negaigoto.   

Mlle. Carly here did ease he plate to one side and ever so slightly 
lean across the table for a better look.  For it was once, in the 
redolent days of the city, that milk or cake had been offered the 
birds brought by the most cherish of friends, for that was back 
when people still believed in faeries about Terra.  Such myths had 
faded when none could be found on earth, but they had not died, 
and the glimmering shades of the hummingbirds, but kept them 
there, in the back of thoughts and
bookshelves, never to be see.  Milk or cake or wine, sometimes, if 
there was no milk and there hadn't always been in those days. 

The golden liquid began to trickle from Ran's fist as if his skin 
leaked it, and the bird did stare upon his eyes, rather than his hand.

In silence, the guests waited.

Negaigoto hovered quite close to the aerial boundaries of his 
prison, his beak past the bars as if seeking another bloom indeed, 
his wings beating as if he had come upon one.

He did not drink the wine- they never did, most likely couldn't 
have taken it well if they ever tried.  But he ran just the tip of his 
tongue over the fingertip of Ken's lover, perhaps where he bore a 
trace of orange sauce.  This doing Negaigoto no ill for the time 
being, for he only flicked his beak about a moment and began to 
preen.

And still, no one said anything.

*** 

And the lasting silence struck Ran as unnerving. He wondered if 
there was some significance in the Terran way of thinking to 
having a hummingbird lick his finger. If there was, he couldn't help 
but think it ridiculous--even though he had no idea what sort of 
portent being favored by a hungry bird could be. 

He twisted his hand in Ken's and curled it around that of his lover, 
staining it with wine. Called for yet more flowers to be sent up.  At 
that, the ladies and Ken stirred from their idle staring, and dragged 
themselves back into languid conversation. Too full of wine and 
good food and good spirits to care if they made much sense. 

Ran took that moment to whisper into Ken's ear something about 
the oil being edible and he might be doing more tasting than 
touching.  Took another moment to press a hurried kiss upon his 
startled mouth, and smirked. 

"Shall we," he began, addressing his lover mostly, and the ladies 
secondarily, "retire to the living room for our dessert?" 

A consensus was quickly reached, and Ran, one finger hooked 
around the cage's ring, and one hand cupping his lover's elbow, 
rose. Ken glided up along with him, just a step behind. He guided 
him over to the sofa, and there, in the company of the chattering, 
teasing ladies, he left him. 

All the ladies, that is, save for Carly. She who had not drank to 
excess, but just enough to relax. To her, Ran drew near, Negaigoto 
calling shrilly once more for his errant dessert from the ebon metal 
cage. 

"If I may, Carly-sama...I would like to talk to you." Ran glanced 
meaningfully in the balcony's direction. "In private."

***

Carly's mulberry eyes darted open and closed, like am antique doll 
who has been rocked a little too hard in a girl's arms.  It was the 
only sign she gave of any puzzlement of surprise.  Her lips retained 
their smile, and the copper which had coated them before they had 
known wine glasses.  Ken's lover's eyes darkened a bit though, at 
that one blink.

/So you have noticed even that, my swords boy? If I was not taken 
with your ways before, I am now./

So she nodded unto him and made her veil fall over her shoulders, 
so for a moment she was wrapped in lace midnight which obliged 
itself to be drawn away only by her fingers.  A gasp from the other 
room, she knew not of what, though Ran's head shook almost 
perceptibly as if he did.  

She let him lead her out onto the balcony, a perch of stone supine 
against the tower wall one might reach by passing two French 
doors- beveled glass lines with so little silvering there seemed to 
be nothing between the living room and that  small portal but a few 
distortion lines like wraiths will write behind them. 

Though it did not seem a good night for wraiths.  The two moons 
had risen quite high, and though they were but crescents both at 
that moment, looking as if they might fall into each other like links 
on a chain, they gave a satiny cyan light between the stars.  The 
fireflies had retired, but the cream lassies still wriggled their wings 
in the trees and made falling petals against the aurora nocturnalis 
when they reached very high.  The lights themselves seemed 
pinkish now and then, or peach, though mostly fair, fair icing 
green.  

No crickets, and no birds of the night.  Just her, and Ran and the 
metal dryads of the balcony rail.  Only he might be wont to make a 
sound to breech the peace of that evening,  and she waited for him, 
patient as ever she had been.  Negaigoto only then did realize it 
was past dark, and in clicked in dismay over the
fact he had not thought to go to sleep.  

***  

Ran set Negaigoto's cage down on the foot wide rim of the 
balcony, but did not free his finger from the ring.  The bird skipped 
across his perch, clacked, and then was content to quietly preen.  
Ran watched him dip his slender bill within the folds of his wings 
to fluff them.  

And when he did speak, it was towards Negaigoto, though his 
words 
were meant for Carly's ears.  

"I would say that I was not one to pry, but I would be a liar if I did.  
I am one to pry, just...indirectly.  I never ask, I only watch and 
listen."  Ran canted her a look then.  "Like you."

Ran turned to face her, resting his slim weight against the stone, 
finger still curled around the hook.  "I asked someone about you--
not to gossip, but because I wanted to know you.  There's 
something about you that intrigues me, and Ken thinks so highly of 
you.  No, he does.  You must see it."  

She said nothing, but eyed him above the long sweeps of her fan.  

"I know you can speak, but choose not to.  I can respect that, for 
I'm not really one for talking.  A person can learn more by staying 
silent.  You must see that too."  He gave her a vague half-smile, 
one that faded as quickly as it had appeared.  

"I know you have been wronged too, and grievously so.  And in 
that, again, I think we are alike."  

The fluttering paused, but only for a second.  Her eyes seemed to 
darken and narrow in the light of the twins, above the wavering, 
silken folds of her instrument.  

"And none of what I've heard will I repeat."

Ran turned away from her then, and shifted his attention to 
Negaigoto, who had settled down on his perch, and was apparently 
asleep.  "I brought you out here because I wanted to talk about 
Ken."  

Silence.  He fancied the fan wasn't moving at all now, but he didn't 
even risk a glance in her direction.  

"I know...he was abused.  I know that *he* brought him to the 
Villa.  I suspect that something bad happened to him here, but...I 
can't ask him.  And I know he won't tell me the truth if I did.  He 
only smiles and says its nothing, but I know he's pretending.  He's 
hiding from me, and...I don't know what to do."  

"I wanted to make this tower like a home for him.  I wanted him to 
have some happy memories here, but...now..."  

Ran shook his head, and curled his free hand even tighter into the 
fist in which he'd drawn it.   

"Would you write and tell me if anything bad happened to him in 
this tower?"  

***

The fan clicked closed and came to rest atop the banister, its trail 
of beads wound 'round the ironwork, seeming to be made of the 
same dark metal in the pale light.   Carly was still though, there, 
without it, for awhile.  Looking far past Ran though her gaze 
skated over the plane where he stood; where he made the only 
visible sign as to where she might have found what she saw.  Her 
skirts rustled.  Her earrings clanked and no one heard them but her.  
Her eyes fell closed and she had half a smile he missed because he 
would not look upon her just then.

And she wanted him to.  A few gliding steps across the cobbles 
and she had one of his eartails wound about her glove.  The lock 
she twirled and so coaxed, did Ran meet her eyes, his own as cold 
and distant as a creature of the spaceless hours chained to ordinary 
life.  She, at least, would not let him go until she was certain he 
had a few more moments to spend stranded in the culpable world.  

And he did.  Watched her as she drew out her pen and the few 
leaves of paper still hers to write upon.  These she did not ink at 
first, but glanced between them and the boy that Ken had come 
back with.  

The boy who was coming back for Ken.  In small ways a million 
words would not explain.  But she knew.

And yet there were things she dared not guess at, a curiosity in 
silence she could not allay.  

[Nothing bad /could/ have happened to him here.  The towers were 
empty from times before my own.]

For she did not think she had lived in truth before renouncing 
speech.

But still.

[Abused? I don't understand.]

***

Ran, as he glanced from her note to her, looked a cross between 
slightly irritated and deeply confused.  "No," he said, with a twitch 
of his head, "I don't understand."  

/...or...wait.../

Was she telling the truth?  Was she purposefully putting him off 
just to see how he would act whilst relaying the grim tale he'd 
heard in bits and pieces?  With Carly, who could say?  For all he 
knew, she was playing a sort of game with him.  Was sizing him 
up still more before deeming him worthy of her Ken.

So he lowered his eyes from hers.  

"I think being forced into prostitution by the man who supposedly 
loves you is abuse.  Maybe no one else in Terra does.  But then, I 
don't care about what Terrans think."  

"And if that's not proof enough for you, Carly-sama, then let me 
add-- his back is riddled with burn marks, and his hips bear the 
scars from a chastity belt.  There's no telling what that...what else 
he did to Ken.  What he made him do.  I--"

And then, Ran gave her his full attention for Carly had cupped her 
gloved fingers upon his curled ones, and urged them to relax and 
come away with her own.  Ran let them go.  Even in the eerie light, 
he could see the crescent- shaped puddles of blood on his now 
spread open palm.  Carly slid her fingers across the inside of his 
own lax digits, and there she held him, petting him there as if 
willing him to calm himself.

Though she herself felt tense at his side.  

"He told Yuriko in my presence that he had been here before--here 
in the tower.  I've never known him to outright lie--why should I 
believe that he has now?"

***

Some shred of her almost wanted to pull away from Ran.  She 
hated to see people bleed.  Then why be at the Villa? Why ever 
cross that place where hearts and whip lashes wept?

She thought back, and Carly could not remember at first.

But... where else could she go? Where else did they whisper? Live 
as they had really been meant to live? Forget they were merely 
mortals, not real demons, with no wings, and no gifts outside of the 
momentary glow of beauty.  On some.

Like this one.  He was in the villa, and he was... beyond lovely.  
Not just because Ken adored him.  Another age, and some other 
man, some other boy, might have asked her about him.  And she 
would have smiled.

Nothing more.  

For now, the tip of one finger of her gloves did graze the edge of 
one deep ruby smear across his hands.  Nothing but her saturnine 
fascination.  And she had to do... something, anything... anything 
but say what should have been said.

/Because... no one told you.  Did they? And you would not dare 
write such fancies of your own.  Poor child./

Her glove she had bloodied wound up against his cheek.  Perhaps 
it was only the light or the faint chill of the late hours she could not 
feel, only imagine.  But she thought she felt it tremble.  As with 
tears.  Though all that came of anything- they 
two there upon the balcony overlooking a world which would have 
shut them out even if the morning full would come, and all the 
souls they had ever met together.

Still keeping Ran in one of her hands, she turned to her tablet once 
again...

(A Hyacinth Villa seemed like a good place for souls to meet.  A 
screw before dying.  A screw before eternity.)

... and then took her leave of Ken's beloved.  One stray thread of 
dark silk tangled in his eartail.  One note folded awkwardly 
between his fingers.

[I have never know your Ken to lie either.  Perhaps you have 
misunderstood, or he did.  The Koichirou-dono had an office in a 
tower.  I don't remember which one.  Forgive me.  Mostly for 
saying what I must now.

Kaze never forced Ken to do anything.  

If you would ask more of me about them, I fear you must visit me 
after work on another day.  I could do you no good tonight in this 
matter if I could speak.]

***

[Kaze never forced Ken to do anything.]'

Out of all the words Carly had etched out on the paper in her 
aristocratic hand, those seven had lingered, rocked about his mind 
and turned his assumptions to dust. Lies. Ken hated them, and 
there 
he had lied to himself. He had believed what he wanted about his 
brash, impulsive lover. 

So...all the men he'd been given to, all the bruises and burns and 
cuts Kaze had give him, Ken had wanted. Had asked for, even? He 
couldn't rid himself of those images and others even worse. The 
idea 
of Ken being that submissive was enough to make him sick. But by 
sinking to a kneel beside the fig tree, and drawing in deep lungfuls 
of the night air, he managed to resist the threatening roll of his 
stomach.  The note fell from his grasp to the stone floor, refolding 
itself, and there he left it for the wind to play with.  

As to whether or not he would go see Carly-sama tomorrow...Ran 
didn't 
know. Once more in his life, he wasn't sure how much more of the 
truth he could possibly take.

***

"Now that's pretty weird," Ken said with a sigh as he sagged in the 
recliner and just managed to catch himself before he toed off his 
shoes.  It was hard to laugh so much and not forget the evening 
was supposed to be a formal dinner.  Or at least some reasonable 
equivalent thereof.  There was an iris in the way of
the clock face, so he could not make out the hour.  "You haven't 
seen him at ALL?"

Carly shook her head.

"Now, Ken," Yuriko began, "Ran is old enough to take care of 
himself."

"Unless he's under age and you didn't tell us.  Oooh! You're a 
cradle robber, I knew it!" Primera there, silenced by her own 
hiccup and the chiffon which flew over her subsequent blush.  

Fiona rolled her eyes and for once said something more logical 
than her companions.  "Grumpy bear's probably in the bathroom." 
Not to mention, shut them all up, bringing a wide-eyed stupefying 
multitude of stares.

"Grumpy bear?"

Carly bit her lips and held her fan in front of them.

Though as for the servant girl, she failed to turn any more red than 
she already was.  "You can't tell me it doesn't work." 

"Well, actually," their host began, "The ladies can tell you that if 
you want.  I'm gonna go look for him.  I mean, he couldn't have 
gone far."  So, scratching his head, did the dono rise and step from 
the room.  Half of the candles around the table were out now, and 
having just come from the gleaming aura of the fire,
he had a little trouble seeing, and so whistled in case his lover had 
blended into the shadows somewhere.  He could not find him in 
the after dinner bustle of the kitchen, could not find him outside 
about the grounds in the light of the toppling moons.  Back up the 
stairs, shaking his head to his company, who all
giggled, thinking the redhead had hidden himself in the bedroom.

But no.

His heart sank then, and his memory did unhappy twists, and his 
jaw began to ache afresh.

He sighed, and with his arms wrapped about his chest, padded over 
to the figure kneeling on the balcony floor and crouched beside 
him, trying as best he could not to be too taken with the soaking 
amaranth eyes and then stardust they had left across his lover's pale 
cheeks.

/After all, it's not your fault you look so... enchanting when you 
cry./

/Or that I asked to forget./

"Ran?"

/'cause I did forget something, didn't I?/

The other boy looked upon him then, as if he knew him not, or 
had, in the least of things, expected never to see him again.  Ken 
had thought of reaching out to pull him close.  Just for a moment, 
not too close so his kimono wouldn't be crushed.  
But he couldn't then, the memories not there had asked of him to 
remain but a warm shadow under the skies who had learned to 
paint themselves.

"You Ok?"

No answer, but his beloved would not take his gaze form him.  Just 
starred, looking empty in his heart as the bed of the stars was.

"What's the matter?"

/I didn't mean to./

"If I was I suppose to come out here with...?"

He shook his head.

And then he did catch him with his fingers, roll his cheek against 
his palm and kneel in a droplet of blood he hadn't noticed.  Ran's 
skin was cool and smooth as 
mother of pearl.

"How about I just send everybody home, OK? I'm sure they won't 
mind.  And we can go to bed, or I'll cuddle you for awhile.  Or 
whatever you want, hmm?"

A little sniffle.  He had thought the tears, whenever they had come, 
had once more departed.  But as usual, he hadn't been right.  And 
all he could do now was tug his vest from his shoulder and offer it 
to the boy he had brought with him to
Terra.

***

But Ran didn't want to cry on Ken's shoulder. He was horribly 
embarrassed that he'd even found him in such a state, and he didn't 
want to touch him at all.  So Ran remained where he was, with the 
faint chill of the stone seeping through his hakama to bite at him 
instead of Ken's warmth to comfort him. He awkwardly swiped at 
the tears that sparkled unshed in his eyes; wiped his hands on his 
sleeves and averted his gaze to the nightswept garden below them. 

"You should go back to your guests.  They'll be wondering what 
happened to you." 

***

There was some guise of quiet then that passed between them then, 
like one more color in the sky overhead.  One more coy wink of 
the wrong hue between them and what lay beyond the clouds.

And Ken pouted.  Flat out.  Felt his own eyes sting before he 
finally made up his mind.

No more trepidation.  He got to his feet, didn't even bother to dust 
his trousers off, snatched at the shade so close.  

Just two hard fists on his back, one thump, one snatch at his sides.  
And he gave up.

"They can all go to hell and I mean that too," he whispered, and 
took the shock of red hair in his hand, pushed him down to be 
nuzzled.  Since he needed it, all of his wants aside.

"Why didn't you say something? I would have made them all go 
home HOURS ago."

What murmur came to contradict this, he did not make out, and 
didn't want to.

"Now don't you fight me!" Almost shouted this.  A flock of 
something small and winged cheeped in the bushed and he would 
have given quite a lot to shush them with only a wave of his hand. 

"You KNOW I'm just an idiot about these things.  If you need me 
DAMNIT! SAY SOMETHING, RAN!" 

And he really was mad.  Mostly at himself.

"'cause I like holding you even when you're not crying.  Not that I 
mind if you are but... you don't have to for me.  Ok?"

He shivered then, and tried to make himself let go.  But the 
embrace, small battle though it had been, was one he would not so 
easily leave the spoils of behind.

"Now, where'd you put that stupid bird.  I'll be the one to let it go."

***

"I don't give a damn about that bird." Ran shifted his gaze sidelong 
to his lover, eyes still soaked with tears but hard.  "As for what's 
wrong...it's nothing.  Nothing but my own mistaken assumptions."  

Ran stared at Ken as if he were a puzzle he couldn't solve, until the 
other boy began to fidget.  Then he shrugged off his hand, and 
inched away from him, folding his hands in his sleeves.    

"He treated you like a toy, and you put up with it.  Passed you off 
to other men, and you didn't protest.  I thought you didn't want me 
because of what he did to you, but that's not true.  It's because I'm 
not him, isn't it?"  

"I don't understand you at all.  Not at all!" 

***

Whether or not his lover might have cried out again, Ken did not 
know, and never found out.  His free hand came down on Ran's 
lips, with a little crack of their skin.  A hiss without words or 
tongue to it.

And he just held him there for a moment, his own eyes scrunched 
closed, breath coming in gasps, feeling that breath slipping past his 
fingers, and the tears which dashed among it.  The bones of his 
wrist creaked.  But he managed to fight his arm around.  Not to 
work free.  But he took Ran, just the same, so they were locked 
together.

Blushing and biting his lips did Ken face his beloved once again.  

"Don't tell me who told you all that, 'cause I don't care.  It's not 
right... okay... well... shit, nonna it was right-right! But that's not 
all true."

Negaigoto, awakened and not buzzing in what millimeters of air he 
could reach above his perch, flitted about, alarmed and craving 
dreams, unable to find what had made such sounds as had 
awakened him.  Unable to stab at it with his bill at least.

"Oh stop it! Stop it please!" Ken said to him, his own words falling 
in on each other.  The bird didn't listen.  The dono just shook his 
lover's wrist in his own.

"You wanted to know so bad? Well, I wanted to tell you so bad.  
But I wanted you to be happy too, not like those two go together, is 
it? So I made you miserable anyway... like I usually do.  And if 
you think it doesn't hurt right back, you're wrong about that too."

A heavy sigh, and he leaned down, close enough that their lips 
would have brushed when he spoke, if he had not kept his hand 
between the way.    

"And not like it's gonna make things any better now, but I'll still 
tell you what's real and what's not.  Starting with the fact I don't 
know *how* to make you happy."

He did kiss him then, against the fresh piercings set with ruby.  
"But God, Ran.  I'd give up forty years of my life to know what 
did."

***

"Then you're safe because I don't know what would make me 
happy.  I thought being with you would," Ran confessed, shaking 
his head.  "I guess I made a mistake.  Too late now."  

He closed his eyes, and Ken took the opportunity to kiss him again, 
and again, until Ran consented to return the favor.  Held him until 
Ran slipped his hands free from their hiding place and lay them 
upon his hips.  

Clouds sailed over the moons' faces, and Ken sat back to look upon 
him at last.  But no hope or joy tinged Ran's aspect, though he 
made no move to release his lover.   

"Tell me what the truth is, Ken."

***

Ken disentangled his fingers from his lover's, wrapping his other 
around about his neck then, and propping himself up on his toes so 
he could let his lips flutter then against his soaking cheeks.  Which 
he did, smearing the saline into the hot blush it rested on.  

He was hesitating to talk, even to wipe away those tears.  But 
under the shifting, nonexistent mist of light about them in the 
heavens... yes, he had to admit he wasn't exactly ready.  It seemed 
like there was something he should say first, some doubt he should 
undo the silver chain of just so he could cast it away to the storms 
and seas of memory.

"But Ran, I..."

The other boy had gone chill for a second in his embrace, as if he 
meant to gather himself up and ask all over again before drifting 
into pieces like camellias would, just before they died and met 
their graves among the winds, be they of the seasons, or the sun or.  
Or maybe even spirits left among the living just to ravage the 
blooms they could not feel the softness of any longer.  Not without 
hands.

Or in Ran's case, for he felt like nothing but the imagines weight, 
the warmth of something disembodied, not without hands free of 
blood.

/So If I hold you any tighter, will you just burst into petals and 
leave me that way?/

"I can feel you breathing, and I like it.  So don't... talk like that 
right now." Said before stepping away into the veils of the stars 
and their shepherdesses.  His vest still hung sideways, and so he 
pulled it back up, smiled, and swayed upon his crossed ankles, like 
a dancer not quite ready to dance.  

"I'm going to send the girls home.  You can wait here if you want, 
or come to the living room after they're gone."

One of his fingers looped about Negaigoto's cage, and drew it with 
it's chattering jewel up into the air.  

"I'm just going to tell them you're tired."

/Tired of me, but they don't have to know that./

"You'd better be here when I come back."

And so he left the balcony for awhile, his steps heavy and 
untraceable.  His gaze lingering amid the indigo shadows as they 
came and went among the wheeling hues beyond the blanket of air 
around the place that wasn't quite earth.

***     

From the oceanic blue gloom on the other side of the beveled glass 
doors, Ran watched Ken until the brunet had crossed the threshold 
of 
the living room. He could just hear his voice over the murmur of 
conversation from the room beyond, and then...

And then, he moved away from the doors, not wanting to hear or 
see anymore. A strip of unnatural black and grey upon a plain of 
ashen stone and swirling teal ether. Ran pressed the heels of his 
cold hands to his aching eyes to blot the moisture away, and held 
them there. He didn't want to stay on the balcony, or go into the 
living room. He didn't want to go anywhere, and yet...He wanted to 
run and run. Ran saw the futility of both. 

Was he going to get the ugly, hideous truth of Ken's life at last? 
The very thing he had wanted so desperately, and now feared so 
utterly. Why had he asked Carly? Why couldn't he have just 
accepted the state of things and leave them?

Ran knew the answer to that question even as he'd asked it of 
himself. It was because--when faced with improbable odds, when 
told all hope was indeed lost, he would opt to believe otherwise. 
Such was his stubborn optimism. 

Now, however, that glass-half-full mentality of his had been 
shaken to the core. He could see nothing positive in his current 
situation. It could have been because he was still feeling ill. It 
could have been because his heart had broken the moment he saw 
Carly's parting note. 
 
The voices of his lover and his lover's guests rose again, more 
clearer than before, and Ran once more moved to the doorway to 
lurk in the pooling shadows like a vengeful wraith.

***

All Ran got to see was the parting shadows as they wound their 
way down the stairs and into the understories of gloom, the bottom 
of the tower, littered with still more puddles of darkness, armies of 
dead light, sleeping forever, or at least until the dawn.

Ken wondered.

Yuriko brushed against his shoulder and he started, but her hands 
fell against him just the same.  She knew, and it made him want to 
scream, because he didn't understand himself, how much she had 
found in his eyes.  And didn't want to. 

Not right then.

"Thank all of you for coming," He said with a bow that was 
swallowed by the swarth of the hall.  Negaigoto was almost turned 
on his side, and sang about it for ages of silent thanks and the 
rejections decorum asked of everyone.

No one came upon them, not a soul, lest the wind between the 
corridors had a mind and an eternity woven together within it. Ken 
simply knew it was cold, that coming into the entryway found four 
moons around them in a magic circle written sideways on the 
eddies of the breeze- two amid the places time dared not touch, 
two written on the silvery floor.  The demons around the windows 
could not even be guessed any longer, and the angels shone with 
the hearts of pearl, twice, for they too existed in the nowhere of the 
mirror.  All the ladies but Carly danced over the seraphim like 
mist.  The mademoiselle herself came after them, gone to purple 
and the purling rushes of her veil- broken up to everything and 
nothing.  

She hugged him goodbye.

He wanted a kiss too, but didn't dare ask.

"I would like for you to come back sometime," stated quite plainly, 
though softly, as if he feared waking who was not there to be 
stirred by his words.  The cage parted, and he snapped the silver 
lips from the perch.  

And to everyone's surprise, from the bird's ankle.  In doing so, he 
promised something far more lavish, something far more intense in 
his heart should he ever set foot in her abode.  Maybe he didn't 
know what that could be but... he couldn't leave the hummingbird 
out in the world, marked forever for his one day at their table as a 
guest.

Negaigoto rested on his hand, or just about it.  All for but a second.  
Then he took off into the distortion of the grass, a shooting star, 
singing out to someone.  I have a story to tell! Someone, anyone! 
Come hear! Come hear!

Ken felt much the same, but it was in silence he came back to his 
chambers.  The fire had fallen into ash, or the former harlots had 
bade it be so.  It didn't matter.  He blew out the candles and turned 
on the lamps amid their smoke, which would fade, and let them 
have more certain vision.  If Ran would come.

He turned around to find him standing in the doorway, just 
watching.  

The cage he held up for him to see before setting it on one of the 
tables, drawing off his shirt and vest to follow it.  Though they 
landed on the floor, and he had to reach down after them as he sat 
down on one of the chaise lounges.

Sideways, so there was room, if anyone wanted to sit beside him, 
though he leaned down over the curve its edges, propping his head 
on his folded arms. 

"You can ask me whatever you want.  And I..."

/Well, you could have before but.  No, not on your own mind I 
don't think.  Not really./

"I don't know where you want me to start.  I'm... sorry.  Is that Ok? 
Just... you know... because I am.  Really."

/Even if you still don't believe me./

***

Ran did not sit next to Ken. He didn't sit anywhere, in fact, 
choosing instead to stand before the remnants of the dying fire 
with his back to him. He couldn't bear to look at him. Cursed him 
silently and vehemently for stripping off his clothing, for Ran's 
eyes had been riveted upon his bared flesh the moment he'd 
crossed the threshold. He wanted to touch him so badly, and 
yet...he was damned if he would. 

/Fuck this.../

He leaned against the heavy oaken mantle, and took up the poker 
from the rack to poke at the crumbled bits of ash. It was cold. He 
was cold. He felt as if he would turn to ice right there, from the 
inside out. 

And if he was cold...How must Ken feel, half-naked as he was 
now? 

/Damned stubborn...!/

/I don't care if you're sorry. I don't care if you're hurting. I've been 
hurting all along and you never once thought of me./ 

Ran stooped to snatch up two logs, and lay them within the hearth; 
stuffed the cracks here and there with kindling. Rose again and 
reached for the fireplace matches that one of the whores had left 
upon the mantle, and struck it. Even after the flames started to 
nibble at the wood, did Ran linger there. 

"Just start at the beginning, Ken."

***

Ken's gaze spun in the scampering heart vapors of the fire, 
searching for some place to hold steady.  Finding none, of course.  
Nothing but the place where Ran was supposed to be, maybe was, 
but he could not see enough of him, not before the flames.  It might 
have been someone else for all he could make out past the 
wheeling brightness.  He could not even find his scent amid the 
aroma of the ash.

Nor could he find the beginning.  If there was one.  Like the fire, or 
the aurora, the sea and the air and the shadows looming outside... 
they places things had started had all run together, become one 
point of light over a million in his mind.  One 
place to hide.

Nothing of their own, with not place to exist, and then no longer 
exist.

And then he folded himself up again, saying only what he wanted 
to;  what came first, out of eons of recollection.

"The scars on my back are from the warehouse fire.  He didn't... 
exactly do that to me.  One of his guys did, but, if you wanna call it 
him, that's fine."

A little sigh, and he smoothed his own bangs.

"He actually... asked me not to wear the chastity belt.  That was all 
my idea.  And I... did it more than once.  To play I mean.  So that's 
why they're so deep and nasty-lookin'.  They're scars on top of 
scars."

Quiet then, as he waited for Ran to say something.  But he didn't, 
and he couldn't remember why he'd ever expected him to do such a 
thing.  Or wanted him too, before such a thing as he wished to 
admit now.

"I used to really like the way the blood felt running down my legs.  
I don't know if I still do.  Seems like something I'd grow outta..."

"But I don't know if I still... and I know it's stupid."

"I was kinda..."

"I was...

"Well... more like really..."

He swallowed then, because his voice had become very small, and 
light, and fragile sounding.  Starting to bother him, even though it 
didn't go away.  No matter what he did.

"Pretty much a masochist."

***

Masochist. He'd had that very word applied to him on more than 
one occasion. But that first time, he didn't know what it meant--
only that it apparently had some sexual connotation. 

He'd found out later that it did, but it meant far more. That it 
attached to a type of person in general. One didn't have to want to 
be hurt during sex to be a masochist. One could hurt one's self in 
many different ways, and still wear that appellation. 

And he knew all sorts of ways in which he could hurt himself. 
Practiced one more than the rest--that of dwelling on his hurts and 
blaming himself for everything. EVERYTHING--his parents' 
death, Aya's accident, Shion's death. Even down to things relating 
to his three fellow Weiss. 

So...he understood Ken--but it didn't make him feel any better. It 
made him feel so much worse. He fairly crumpled in front of the 
fire, as if shouldering a massive burden he could no longer bear. 

That Ken would want to hurt himself made him want to cry, but he 
didn't. Simply, and very slowly, shifted in his spot before the 
flames until their eyes met. 

"Why do you want to hurt yourself?"

***

"I don't," Ken said.  And he smiled, just a little, because Ran had 
finally turned to face him, and it wasn't much, but he felt better 
knowing his lover could still bear to look at him.

Since he didn't much feel like looking at himself.

Especially since he realized he hadn't said exactly what was right.

"Well... I haven't.  How about that.  But I was just now thinking 
maybe I should cut my scars open on my sides just I so could... 
remember right, what it felt like."

He closed his eyes for a moment, seeking some other way, any 
other way to find himself or what part of him had slipped away for 
the time being.  Ran still stared at him when he gazed out at the 
world again.  

"But I never really thought about why.  I couldn't say... it was 
just... how I was.  Never really did it to myself... except for the part 
with the belt.  And I put that on so everyone would know I was 
someone's.  Like to brag.  And it wasn't like I needed it, or I sat 
around thinking about having Kaze whip me, 'cause I
didn't do that."

Though now he supposed it had all gone clear in Ran's mind.  That 
he had been whipped was enough.

Or... it had been to the Ran he knew best.  Aya.  

/And you asked me why.  Guess you're pretty disappointed I can't 
even fuckin' answer you./

"It just didn't bother me when he did."  

***

The hand that Ran had left perched upon the mantle curled into a 
fist, and he bowed his head, turning away just a little. 

And cursed just loud enough for Ken to hear him above the crack 
and hiss of the fire. For several heartbeats, the sound of wood 
burning and crumbling was the only one in the room. Ran stooped 
at last, though, and lay three more upon the pile. Jabbed the 
sizzling lot of it with the poker and then...

Left it. Hesitantly, Ran crossed over to the chaise Ken had chosen 
for himself, and once beside him, reached out to slide his fingers 
through his love's dark hair. 

"I don't know what to say or do, Ken--except that, the thought of 
you wanting to be hurt makes me utterly ill." 

Ran combed his fingers back and away from Ken's chocolate 
locks, and then withdrew his hand altogether. He didn't move away 
though. 

"Is that why you don't want me at all? Because I won't hurt you? 
Or is it because..."

He looked down to the floor, and quietly, calmly asked, "Because 
you love him still, and don't really love me?"

***

Ken shuddered, but only for an instant.  Since he had sat down, he 
had known it was cold in the room, just form the way the air tasted, 
the way the other boy moved.  But he hadn't felt it himself, and he 
didn't now.  Just lay very still while 
he was touched, and shivered when he could not feel the fingers 
against him anymore.  He wanted to reach out then, take him by 
the wrist and simply bury his face in his palms.  Cradle himself 
against him, just like that but...

He didn't.  

"Ran?"

Nothing but stillness then, and he sat up, scrubbing at his own eyes 
like he was begging sleep to leave them and he pleas had gone 
unheeded.  He could see his lover's violet eyes beneath his bangs, 
but they in turn did not see him.

"Ran, look at me."

He wouldn't.  Not at first.  Only with a soft and barely blooming 
fear upon the other boy's face did they meet.

And Ken was still smiling then.  Because he didn't know what else 
to do and he thought his heart would bleed or break if he did else.  
And because he didn't need to ruin whatever hope Ran had.  Not 
anymore, not if he could help it.

And he guessed the all the bitter things in hell would weep before 
he could.

But just the same.

"When did I say I didn't want you?"

Before he even realized what he had done, Ken had taken Ran in 
his arms, just loosely about his waist, and snuggled up against the 
front of his haori.

***

One hand and then the other landed upon Ken's back and head, and 
so Ran cradled him as a lover would his beloved. But the emotion 
lurking within the amethyst depths of Ran's eyes wasn't joy, but 
sorrow. 

He hadn't answered his question. His *real* question--the one 
which would determine their future together. As much as Ran 
feared to press the issue, he knew he had to, else he would always 
wonder.  Else he would never truly find the happiness he craved. 

"Ken?" 

The boy who clung to him rubbed his cheek across his robe, and 
murmured some quiet assent. Ran felt his arms tighten slightly 
around him. 

"It's a simple question. Do you love me, or do you not? I need to 
know the truth, and I beg you to tell me nothing less." 

*** 

"I..."

His embrace faded then, bit by bit, as if he was drawing his arms 
back to his chest so he could hold himself rather.  But he still held 
Ran, just as close, in case he decided he didn't want it, didn't want 
any of this any longer.

Had room enough to flee if he wanted to.

"I know, it's been a long time, you must have spent... watching me.  
When I was too... just too stupid to notice."

The both breathed deeply and he felt Ran's heart start to pounding, 
his breath catching...

"And that it's gotta just ruin everything... that I'm not... what you 
thought I was or... what I wished I was even."

Though now that it was such might be asked of him, even if it had 
only been a few days, it felt like all the years that had ever been, 
thousands upon thousands of times that he had been with Ran.  
And it wasn't just for that his pulse began to echo the tripping beat 
of his lovers, bit by bit by bit.

"Especially since, even if I am... just real messed up.  I love you 
too."

He said it then himself, having kissed him upon the crook of his 
ribs.

"Kinda like I would... if I always had."

"But I... I... I don't think you believe me sometimes.  And that's 
OK... I wouldn't believe me either."

***

Ran drew in a sharp breath, and raised his tear-stung eyes to the 
blue dawn ceiling, blinking them rapidly to hold the threatening 
moisture at bay. 

"I would have believed you, but...you never told me how you felt 
about me. And you don't want me to touch you, so I just thought..." 

"I...thought..."

/I thought I hadn't any hope at all.../ 

He scrunched his fingers through Ken's hair, across his shoulder 
blades. Ran felt him pull away a little, and he looked down at him 
at last, and found those blue eyes staring at him most intently. But 
Ran wasn't compelled to speak any more--only to act. 

He dropped to his knees at Ken's feet, poised still between his 
spread legs. And looked at him as if he were wishing to commit his 
features to memory. Without taking his eyes away from him, Ran 
unbuttoned the sole fastening on his haori coat, and then he lay his 
hands upon Ken again, skating along the shallow ridges of his 
ribcage and upwards to the firm hills of his shoulders. Palms flat 
against him there. 

And so, he pulled himself closer until their lips met.

***

Ken kissed Ran back, just as softly as he dared, just once before 
they parted for a moment to hold each other's gazes.  

"It's OK." A little shake of his head that rather turned into an 
Eskimo kiss, and then the trembling tickle of their bangs flitting 
together.  "You can be mad at me allllllllll you want.  I'm just not 
real usedta... being with anyone.  I don't think I 
ever was.  Not the way most people are."

For which he got a questioning little glance amid the few fresh 
tears that had leaked from his lover's eyes.  Before he answered, he 
plucked the droplets away one by one and held them on his finger 
tips a moment, watched them twinkle in the firelight.  And then he 
dusted them over his own cheeks, where they blew away, save one 
which rolled down his throat before vanishing all together.  He 
thought they felt awfully sticky, and they made him want to 
scrunch his eyes closed to work the traces from his skin.

"Not like how I want to be for you."

/'Cause if that's what would make you anything closer to happy, I'll 
say I love you every single day, and I'll hold you just like this 
an'.../

But then he realized he wasn't holding Ran at all, just hovering 
between his lover's hands.  But that was one thing two, with 
amends more easily made.

So he kissed him again, and folded him up between his bare arms 
and his knees, cradling the other boy up against his chest before he 
bent and his tongue asked shyly for another kiss, one that left him 
torn between asking what then came to his mind, and tasting longer 
the smoothness of his mouth.  They both breathed 
through it, in turn and then together, grew tickly and wet from the 
shared tears.

"You... ah... wanna talk a little more? I'll go get the brush and play 
in your hair if you want, or you can just sit with me, and I won't 
open my stupid mouth again until morning."

***

"Yeah, I'd like to talk some more. We've never gotten to do that 
very much, not really. I think we have some catching up to do." 

Ran pressed forward again, sliding his tongue against his lover's 
own in a gentle kiss. 

"You know...Maybe we kind of rushed things. We went from 
being 
teammates and tentative friends to confessing our hidden feelings 
for each other and sleeping in the same bed in a very short time. 
Couples...I guess...don't usually move that quickly." Ran gave him 
a little smile, and drummed his fingertips lightly across his 
shoulders. "So...why don't we date? We could go out for dinners, 
go on walks. Stuff other people would do--except, we'd just be 
coming home together."

"And we'd be ALONE. No Yuriko-san, no Prim-san, no Carly-
sama. 
Maybe occasionally we'll take Fiona-chan, if you don't care. I don't 
think she's ever been allowed to have much fun." 

He drew him into his arms again for a hug, pressing a kiss to his 
nape. Ken's hands drifted under his haori coat, and petted his lower 
back through the thin fabric of his gi, making him smile again. 

"If you remember, I told you I had two surprises for you. I showed 
you one--which I'll gladly indulge you in, if you want--but I didn't 
show you the other." 

Ran pulled back so he could look Ken in the eye. "I bought you 
some ice cream before I left Claire's this afternoon. Mint Chocolate 
Chip."

***

Ken's eyes lit up then, and he took his hands back for a moment.  
Just long enough to clap, and then he had Ran's cheeks between his 
palms while he spoke to him.

"I would LOVE some ice cream, you don't even know! I've been 
soooooooo hungry for it ever since you got the job, and then in the 
bathtub the other night... now, I kinda thought you brought me 
some at first but... that we were gonna have it with dinner or..."

He trailed off, having realized he was babbling, and as if he might 
have on a quiet evening, or out among the streets by sunlight on 
some careless afternoon.

"Well, if you wanna go on dates, then OK! Maybe we're not going 
anywhere, but this is our first! And just because I say so.  After all, 
if you're gonna put up with having me for a boyfriend, I'd better act 
like one for once and take you out for something special when 
you're all sad.  And defend your honor."  A little
wink, which almost appropriately, bothered his cheek, so he 
rubbed at it, and only winced more before leaning down for 
another snuggle.  A reminder honor was not always in one's best 
self interest, especially brash perceptions thereof.

"I guess sneaking downstairs for sweets at sometime past midnight 
counts as out! At least it's naughty."

He had Ran in his arms, even as he stood, and he would not let him 
leave just yet.  Not while they hovered in the stairwell, listening for 
someone else's stirring beneath then, not when they found one, not 
while Ken thought: /You know, we make up, we make ourselves 
OK pretty fast.  And I've never dated... not 
traditionally... anyway... but I've never known anyone like us./  A 
stroke of his lover's hair here.  /But I've never known anyone just 
like you./

He told him so, as they tip-toed down together.  And one more 
thing.  "Maybe rushing's not so great, but I still like you beside me 
in the morning.  You'll stay, won't you? I'll be a good boy."

***

As they came to a standstill before the curtained portal which led 
to both the kitchen and Fiona's room, Ran caught Ken by the arm. 
Leaned over to whisper, "I'll stay, certainly, but...I wouldn't mind if 
you were bad sometimes. If not *all* the time." Ran nibbled at 
Ken's ear before pulling away to deal him a quick kiss. He parted 
the curtains for his lover, mouthing, "After you."

The double doors leading to Fiona's chamber were closed, much to 
their mutual relief. As they slipped into the kitchen, those doors 
were closed too, but even then, neither spoke as they gathered 
spoons and bowls, took turns spooning ice cream into those bowls, 
and topping the generous scoops with the fudge from a brand new 
jar Ken had found on one of the shelves in the door. Then, lips 
bitten and hands cupping smiling mouths, they slunk out of the 
kitchen and back up to the living room. Ran closed the door and 
fell against it, and the two stood there smirking at each other like 
two little boys who'd just done something utterly naughty behind 
their governess' back. 

Ken caught Ran by the hand and led him back to the chaise. Sat 
him down and sat himself down beside him. Ran fumbled with his 
bowl, watching Ken beneath the heavy fall of his bangs. He so 
wished his love was pleased with his choice; some people could be 
so picky about ice cream.

"Um..." Ran began, seeking some topic of conversation that didn't 
allude to Kaze and whoring, "tomorrow night, could we have 
dinner 
alone? And...would you mind if I cooked for you?"

***

Ken set his bowl down for a moment and clapped as softly as he 
could.  "No way! I mean... well, I wouldn't mind at all! We can 
sure have dinner just the two of us! In fact..."  He wiggled his 
shoulders back and forth as very shy girls would do- it was the best 
way he could think of to show he was thinking lightly about
what he said next.  "I'd really like to see you chase Yuriko out, just 
for fun, you know?"

His hands wound up over his giddy lips again.  As wonderful as his 
swallowed giggled might have felt, and even if they tickled the 
sinking feeling in his breast away, he really DID want to try the ice 
cream sometime, so he took it up again, leaning the chilly bowl 
against his bare chest as he only dabbed at the fudge with the rim 
of his spoon.  It smelled like a balmy winter day, almost out of 
season but not quite- peppery and refreshing.  Sweet with hot 
chocolate.

Almost how he remembered some of his birthdays.

A glance to his lover found him only toying with his spoon, 
watching him with the most sedate of contemplations, content to 
be second in his pleasures of the lips, and quietly find pleasure 
elsewhere first, would there be any there for him.  

Ken smiled and dug his spoon in at last, taking what could only be 
called a huge bite, one which clung to the dish with a long, 
winding loop of fudge before he popped it into his mouth.  His 
eyes widened, and his lips worked inside upon the cream- his 
cheeks puffing a little as his tongue glanced against them inside.

And then he fell back against the swoop of the chaise, his head 
rocking over the edge as he purred one 
'mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm'.

He concluded with a giggling understatement, "I like it."

And he sat up properly then, propping the dish rather on his legs 
and taking much more sensible nibbles, which he did not speak 
through, even though there was a lot he wanted to say.  But it 
seemed he had to choose between hearing the voice of the boy he 
adored and knowing the chocolate flecked paradise of mint that
was his Irish Frost.

"Hey, umm... I know this is kinda random, but I wanted to ask you 
this the day we went on our first mission together- the one with the 
doll guy? 'cause I wasn't sure, and you never said anything about it.  
Are you Shinto? Or somethin' else? Nothing else? A little of this 
and that? Got no opinion on God?"

He rolled his eyes at himself then and waggled his spoon between 
his lips.  "Hell of a thing to ask over ice cream in the middle of the 
night."

*** 

"I don't know--this beats the hell out of you asking me about God 
whilst we clean the blood off our blades." Ran shrugged, and 
shifted his eyes to his bowl, edging his spoon through the fudgy 
blanket atop the ice cream. "Besides, the hours of midnight to 
dawn lend themselves to soul-searching and probing questions, 
so...Yes, I do have some faith. I'm Shinto-Buddhist, perhaps more 
of the first than of the last. Just that--although, sometimes I'm not 
really sure if I believe in anything. It's hard to keep faith when 
we've seen the utter vileness of humanity. I don't know if I believe 
that all people are inherently good anymore."

He scooped out the larger of the untouched scoops in his bowl and 
placed it in Ken's bowl. 

"I don't know if I am," he added softly, lowering his gaze once 
more from his lover's face to the bowl between his hands. "I 
always think about how Aya might see me when she does wake up. 
Will she know what I've done, and think me a monster? How will I 
be able to face her when we do meet again?" 

/If we meet again.../

Ran fumbled with his spoon, twirling it between his fingers--but 
then, he abruptly let it go to click against its rim and set it on the 
table. Shrugged off his haori with a half-hearted complaint of how 
warm the room was. 

And when he'd settled once more on the end of the chaise, Ran 
asked, "Anyway...What about you? Do you believe in anything? 
Or do the people of Terra subscribe to the notion of a higher 
power?" 

"And how..." Ran bit his lip to curb his impulse to speak further. 
Finished with an apologetic shake of his head. "Nevermind. Forget 
I said anything."

***

Ken was still torn between admiring Ran sans haori and giving 
similar attention to the half-orb of Irish Frost which had appeared 
in his dish.  He almost handed it back, but remembered then, with a 
fond little smile, that neither of them were supposed to be used to 
rich foods, especially Ran, and that if he didn't want to finish his, it 
would just give him a tummy ache if he shamed him into doing so.

Besides, he felt like the entire container would have been no 
challenge for him.  So he reached a compromise, stilling the 
conversation with his finger and offering one bite to his lover, 
balanced on his own spoon.  The other boy wasn't anxious to take 
it, to be fed in any form of the word, but he obliged him, leaning 
over and cupping it in his lips for a moment.

"Well," Ken began then, drawing his spoon back to his own bowl 
and dipping it into the bit of melted sugar cream the fudge had left.  
"I tend to think most people here are atheists, but they get pretty 
religious about Nabocov sometimes.  I dunno, I guess maybe you 
don't need a god to have religion.  It doesn't sit well
with them, most western kinda ways of thinking, but hey, nothing 
sits well with the people who do think that way."

He paused for a nibble, and a long look out over the lawn.  "I do 
kinda buy into somea the stuff they say about space, that it has 
nothing to do with time, but I don't know why I feel that way.  
Probably just from hearing it a lot, and that's no reason to believe 
anything.   But the rest of me..."

He glanced away here, and turned over one fudgy clump of his 
dessert, blowing on it to try and bring a little haze into his breath.  
Which didn't go very well, so he just held the dish to his cheek.

"Well, they didn't see what I did. Not that it matters, since I'm not 
really anything myself anymore.  It just... I'm not even sure... if I 
haven't convinced myself about it after all this time... either way,  
it's just a happy memory.  Nothin' else."

/I never... even told Kaze this... because then he'd know I didn't 
come straight home that day.../

"I saw snow Kami once when I was little."

***

Ran perked a little at that, and regarded Ken in wonder. "Really?" 
he asked, leaning forward to set the bowl down on the tiny, round 
table that stood between the windows before them. "I once saw 
water Kami, when I was a little boy." 

He got a smile for that, and another minute, offered bite of ice 
cream, which he grudgingly took, twisting in his seat so he faced 
Ken now. 

"Tell me about your experience, and I'll tell you about mine, if you 
want."

***

Ken didn't accept the offer, not formally.  But he certainly didn't 
refuse to tell his tale.  Instead, after another gulp of ice cream, he 
began it with his icy lips.

"OK, well... I was about eight, right? And we had this reallllll cold 
January.  Everybody was totally miserable and all, except for my 
mom and I, 'cause she was just like me and she just LOVED 
weather like that.  We usedta sit and watch for kami all the time in 
fact, and I'd tell her I saw some, just to make her happy and all.  
And we had lotsa time to do it that winter.  Man, it snowed and 
snowed! We had two straight weeks the stuff stayed on the ground, 
just like in those old season paintings for winter are supposedta 
be."

He paused here for a nibble, remembering a trip the museum in 
middle school where he had seen one such scroll, from a set of four 
by a Meiji artist of medium regard. The whole thing had only 
struck him since the painter had thought to add a snowman.

But he went on, just the same.

"Anyway, the afternoon of the second day, I had cleanup duty in 
the classroom, so I was there pretty late, not to mention my mom 
wasn't coming straight home that evening, so I didn't either, being 
a bad boy and all."

He gave Ran a little wink, tucking away the fact he would have to 
leave the real reason for his moment on the bench behind.  "Well, 
it was just before it started to get dark, and I was kinda tired, so I 
sat down on a bench on one of the quieter streets.  Hadn't even 
salted the road there yet, and I think it was just barely starting to 
snow again.  And maybe I was pretty sleepy at first, but I was 
wiiiiide awake then."

He paused in his sipping of the spoon, letting it run this way and 
that against the rim of his bowl, which he cupped as some people 
on chilly days might hold a mug of something warm, though the 
room itself had a pleasing warmth to it by then, and surely the dish 
was icy.

"There was nobody else 'cept for them.  And they were just playing 
in the street.  I know it sounds funny but that was the only place 
the snow wasn't all broken up yet, no one had come down it yet.  
And it was all shiny.  Not as shiny as they were." A little smile.  
"And I know I wasn't seein' things because they
didn't look how they were supposed to at all! They kinda looked 
like people, and they kinda looked like broken glass- lots of little 
pieces from a mirror floating together.  They kept... making 
themselves into different stuff, so I lost count of how many there 
were... four, five... or maybe it was just one.  I don't even know.  
But they just faded in outta nowhere, these big snowflakes of 
whatever they were, or weren't I guess.  And then they made all 
these other things, and wobbled like they were laughing.  Cats and 
foxes and rabbits, like form kid's stories. Then one turned itself an 
old man and picked up the rabbit and ran away, so they chased 
him, all except for this one."

He set down his dish all together and held up his hands, one no 
more than eight inches above the other.  "She was just this big, and 
she turned herself into a pretty girl, pulled a kimono out of thin air, 
put it on, smiled at me and disappeared."

"Like no one had been there at all.  I fell asleep waiting for her to 
come back, but she didn't.  And I never went down that street ever 
again.  Don't really know... how come.  But I didn't."

A shake of his head, and Ken stroked one of his lover's eartails, as 
if trying to brush away whatever doubts his tale could have cast 
about him, and not really thinking he could.  But he smiled then 
and took up his bowl again.  "Lemme hear your story now?"

***

Ran gave him a solemn little nod before launching into his tale. 

"I was...ten. My grandfather lived on Miyajima, had a place in the 
woods. We went there every summer. Anyway, I liked to go for 
walks whenever we were there--often Aya would come with me. 
This time, though, she was sick and couldn't, so..." Ran shrugged. 
"I really didn't mind her absence for once, for I liked the solitude--
something she always spoiled with her questions and games. It 
bored her, being in all that quiet. So I thought I had been given a 
gift." 

"About a mile away from the house lay a waterfall that spilled into 
a deep pool. I had heard it was there, but never dared to look for it 
because of Aya. Now, I had my chance and I took it. And I wasn't 
disappointed when I did find it. It was beautiful--  

surrounded by trees on all sides, the water dissolved into a mist as 
it fell upon the lake's surface; the fall itself was an impressive drop. 
Or so it looked to my child eyes." Ran looked down at his lap with 
a sad little smile. 

"I sat down on the bank, and took off my shoes and socks, 
intending to bathe them in the water. But just as I crept to the edge 
to dip them in, I caught some movement directly ahead of me. 
When I looked up, I saw nothing, but I was compelled to keep my 
eyes turned in that direction--just at the edges where the lake's 
surface grew smooth once more. And as I watched, I saw what it 
was that had attracted me. It was a fish, one of red and white. 
Brilliant in the mossy water. I thought at first that one of my 
grandfather's koi had somehow gotten away from his pond and into 
this one. I soon realized how wrong I was." 

Ran canted Ken a look. "It went from being a fish to being a boy 
with flowing, silvery hair, and then a girl, and then back to the 
first. Over and over. I scrambled away and prostrated myself 
before it, apologizing for nearly spoiling its domain with my 
presence. I think I lay there for a few seconds before I felt this 
little...tap.  Not a physical one, but...Well, it got my attention. I 
raised my eyes from the ground, and looked towards the falls, and I 
saw it again. It looked like a boy again, clad in garments like the 
mist, with hair that rippled like the waves. He laughed at me, 
silently, and then was gone." 

Ran fell silent himself then, once more studying his folded 
hands. "I never saw anything like that again." 

***

Ken whistled happily like a very shrill sparrow might have, and set 
his dish down on his lap for a moment so he might applaud, which 
he did, at least until the aforementioned dish began to slide down 
across his trousers, headed for the floor.  He rescued it at the very 
last spill-free moment.  "But you tell very good stories about it.  It 
sure was a lot better'n mine.  All mine I told so far tonight!"

Quiet then, for he found his lover simply staring at him with soft 
eyes and only the faintest whisper of a smile.  "So yours kinda 
makes you... just a little sad too, huh? 'Cause you can't go back, 
and it just sits there in your memory, with  nowhere else to go, and 
no things that have anything to do with it."

He turned his glance away then, blushing a little and thinking 
himself to have sounded all too deep then, for he didn't know too 
much about Kami, as much as he thought he should have, what 
with a mystic for a mother, nor did he know much about what 
could be and could not be considered sane philosophy.  About 
anything.

And still, he couldn't quite make himself hold his tongue about the 
thoughts that bubbled in him then.  "I wonder if they're supposed 
to be that way maybe? Like you can only see one, or they're only 
seen once and then they go away.  Like they don't last, or they 
don't want to.  Or they fall apart when we're not there, when we see 
them, but that doesn't make them sad somehow... god, I don't know 
what I'm saying."

A shake of his head, and he managed to get all the last of his ice 
cream into his mouth at once.  "I wonder if they knew before us 
how we were gonna end up after all that.  Makes me wanna 
apologize if they did."

"I wonder if they even live here on Terra."

The dish and the spoon he had licked clean he left to clank together 
on the end table.  Then it was just him and Ran on the couch, so 
Ken scooted up beside him, as close as he could, though he did not 
lean against him, simply wound their arms together. 

"Like you do with me."

***

The tinge of sadness which had haunted Ran's eyes faded 
completely.  He did not lower them from his lover's own for what 
seemed an age, so transfixed was he by their half-shadowed, fire-
kissed depths. 

But at last, he did lean upon him, forehead pressed to the curve of 
Ken's naked shoulder. "If they do, then I doubt they are 
as...happy. And I am happy, really. I guess I just can't get my 
head around it. I never thought I would be. And I thought, when I 
heard about your past..."

Ran raised his head just enough so he could kiss Ken's 
collarbone. "Maybe I dwell upon it too much. Maybe I keep 
seeking 
ways to make myself miserable, just as you want to make yourself 
bleed." 

He kissed him upon the cheek, lingeringly. "But sometimes, I get 
so tired of making myself hurt, so tired of being sad, even as I rip 
open the same old wounds." 

Lips hovering above Ken's skin, Ran moved over and back, just 
enough to clearly see his love's face. "And I don't want you to 
hurt yourself, not ever. Not for or because of me. And certainly 
not for...Anyone else."

Ran kissed the corner of Ken's mouth. "So don't. And I will try to 
do the same for myself, for your sake at least. For the sake of being 
happy."

"And so, for tonight, I am...sorry." 

He kissed him squarely, tenderly on the mouth. 

"Because...All I really wanted was that you love me."

***

Ken didn't say anything at first- he simply let himself be kissed, 
until Ran murmured, perplexed he guessed by his stillness.  It 
would have spoiled the moment to say it had all been because he 
was rapt himself now, so he didn't, merely ushered his lover back, 
coaxed him to his lips once more, and
caressed him back this time, without his lingua but with all the 
tremulous softness he had otherwise.  When he had finished, he 
had two wonder-smitten violet orbs gazing upon him for a 
moment.  Then Ran sank back down, and Ken leaned his head 
against his scarlet locks.

"You don't ever have to apologize for bein' upset, OK? You're 
allowed, you're allowed.  Not matter what."  A little grumble here, 
uttered with a smile.  "B'sides, if you start sayin' your sorry for 
every single little thing, soon you'll be sorry for 
the way we met, and even if that was a little strange... a lot 
strange... the strangest way two people can meet? Well, don't say 
your sorry for that, 'cause I had a good time."

He sighed too and patted Ran's shoulder.  "And I did ~not~ mean 
that the way you think I meant it.  Sometimes, you just appreciate a 
fight for gettin' to throw a couple punches with someone good."

"Or sit and snuggle with someone, which I always thought would 
be the same thing, but their kinda... kinda different, even with the 
same person.  Different in a good way."

His shoes finally came off then, and in much more typical fashion, 
they landed sideways all but dangerously close to the flames, 
where they lay, and Ken had no intention of moving them.

"But...Ran? It's not fair if you promise me something and I don't 
promise anything back."

The socks followed his loafers and left his bare toes to wiggle in 
faint eddies of chill and heated air that raced about just above the 
rug.

"So, I promise I won't hurt myself either.  Even though it's not the 
same way you meant.  I'll still swear on anything you want for it.  
Anything at all."

***   

"Swear on my life. Or swear on nothing at all. Just keep the 
promise you've made, and I'll be content." 

/And I will be. Damn it, I will.../ 

Ken's skin felt warm under his hands as he stroked him--not 
necessarily sexual, but just for the sake of contact. Eyes closed as 
he traced the lines of his back and arms. He felt good, and Ran told 
him as much in a whisper. 

And then, he was face to face with him again, and his gi was being 
stripped from him, arms bared. The black tunic sagged around his 
hips, held in place under the folds of his still sashes hakama. He 
felt his lover's hands slide over his lower back, and linger there. 

Ran gathered him close for another kiss, just as gentle as all the 
others for the sake of his bruised cheek. 

"I always enjoyed our fights too..."

***

"Really?" Ken asked, with all the enthusiasm of a boy who has 
never held a lover who undrapes himself in his arms, though he did 
now, and still, somehow like a child might have, with little thought 
in his moves besides Ran's comfort.  No more, no less.  And he 
kissed him again, licked at the curve of his neck. "We can still 
tussle if you want!"

His fingers skipped down over Ran's back while the other boy 
contemplated this, and did not smile straight out, but rather offered 
him only the faintest touch of a unhappiness upon his lips.  "Not 
now of course!"

And he kissed it away.

"But... you know, if you want to.  Just for fun.  We don't have to 
give that up just 'cause we're together now."

He shifted himself around then, pulling his knees up with him on 
the chaise and sitting on his heels.  The legs squeaked a little 
beneath him then, and he gave no though to it, but instead gathered 
the other boy up against his chest.

/Saa... sorry I keep fidgeting like this./

Ken looked down to find himself holding the swordsman of Weiss 
in his arms- a swordsman who beyond all rites and ways before, 
was breathing with a charming, relaxed slowness.  Who had a 
fluttering pulse, breath to brush against him.

And was no one of Weiss anymore, if he could have his way.

"You were like this before, weren't you? But you never told 
anyone.  Don't you know, Ran? If I promise you something, it's 
supposed to be on my life, not yours.  But that's not enough for me 
anyway.  I swear on my life and everything after and 
anything I have either place."

***

Ran rested there in the circle formed by Ken's arms, and listened to 
him draw breath, to the distant hammer of his heart. It wasn't the 
first time he'd done it, but it was the first time he'd done so not 
because he had been injured, not because he had dared to chase 
after someone in the dark, and Ken had stopped him. 

It was the first time he had done so simply because he could. And 
now, as he had then, Ran didn't push him away. 

"I should like to fight with you. No weapons, just hand-to-hand. 
Like we used to..." 

Ran rocked his head from its perch and kissed Ken; tasted warm, 
salty flesh. He poked his tongue out to lap at that same spot on his 
lover's chest, before arching up to mouth the curve of Ken's 
shoulder, sinking his teeth into his muscle just a little bit. Not hard 
enough to hurt. 

"Come upstairs with me?" he asked softly. "I've yet to give you 
that other surprise I promised you."

***

They both kneeled there on the chaise, facing each other; just each 
other, and a touch of the fire's cherry wood scent, put there by 
perfume, and not grace.  Ken nodded, nodded to everything he had 
said, and still a little flushed with it
all, glanced to the swiftly fading red marks Ran's teeth had left on 
his shoulder.

He had not long to mull over them though, or to glance shyly back 
from them, for his lover rose and put out the fire and the candles.  
The heat lingered, and still a little cool tingle of excitement knew 
Ken's fingers and his toes.  In the dimness he 
rose.  The moons had not yet set, but had rolled to the other side of 
the Villa.  They saw by only the stars and the ash they would not 
yet cease to glow.

He did not go to the door straight off, but to Ran, who seemed only 
a ghost of glass but for the rustles of his movement.

And the way his hair felt in his hands.

"I have to tell you something first."

His hand brushed against his cheek then, seeming much darker 
than it actually was in the monochrome indigo that wrapped them 
both; made his lover pale as ice.

"There was... one thing.  I told him I didn't want.  Just one but it 
makes a lot of difference.  You see, I... well, they used to have 
parties here.  Just regular parties, to show off.  That's why I was 
here."

He smiled halfway and shook his head, wondering if given a 
mirror, he could have caught the motion himself.

"I wasn't a whore."

/In fact, I've never been with anyone else but him.  But that's too 
much for right now./   

And without another word, he slid his arm about Ran's back and 
started up the stairs with him.

***

It did make a difference. It made a WORLD of difference having 
Ken tell him he wasn't a whore. And...it made Ran feel a bit foolish 
in the wake of his teary-eyed raging. But then, what was he to 
think? Kaze had obviously treated him badly, and...

/Oh, shut the fuck up, Ran, and try to enjoy yourself./ 

He passed a hand over his face as they entered the bedroom. The 
door was closed and locked, more out of habit than out of the 
ridiculous notion that Fiona would slip up there to peek at them. 
Ran took the matches he'd brought from the hearth below and 
proceeded to light the candles he'd scattered about earlier that 
afternoon, blowing out the matches as he went. These spent, 
gnarled remnants he cast into the cold hearth before crossing back 
over to the bed where he'd left his lover. And he cupped his cheeks 
in careful hands and kissed him again. 

And then Ran took one step back from him, and proceeded to 
slowly 
strip out of the rest of his clothing. Tugged the ends of his gi 
free from the restraining hakama and let it drop. Loosened the sash 
around his waist just enough to free the hakama from his body. It 
crept over his narrow hips, lean thighs, and then fell with a 
crumpling whoosh! to his ankles, leaving him clad only in the 
sexiest pair of underwear that he owned: a pair of black silky 
boxers that only covered him to the top of his thighs, rode low on 
his hips. These, he left on. Smirked despite the fact he knew he 
was blushing again, and reached for Ken again. 

His mouth found Ken's, and his hands skimmed over Ken's hips, 
his 
waist. Very slow, and easy, until he felt him relax a bit in his 
arms. And then...he let his fingers creep onto the fastenings of his 
trousers, and just as slowly, undid them and drew the garment over 
Ken's ass until he felt gravity take over. 

Then he pulled away, and brazenly looked him over, inhering in 
his perusal of his subject even though he thought he would burst 
into flames at any moment. 

Ran raised his eyes back to Ken's at last, however, and, hand in 
hand now, he stepped back, gently pulling his lover along with 
him. 

"Come on, and lie down on the bed."

***

Ken nodded, but he did so with his nose brushing up against the 
creeping blush upon his lover's cheeks.  He could smell the salt in 
the tracks of his tears, infused as it was, there with the milky clean 
of his skin, the sense of satin just beyond touch.   


The air unfolded herself then and a hundred happy, yellow moons 
took over for those that had sailed away; and they smelled dark, 
and they smelled spicy- the dead of nights for other worlds.  

So it was just the two of them, the stars, and the candles, though 
the last two found themselves outside then, just past the netting 
that fluttered about their bed.  Ran drew it aside and Ken flopped 
down hard enough to make the spring react and cast him upwards 
just a touch so it made more of a show when he rolled into place, 
being flat on his belly then with his hands scrunched under a 
pillow and his feet still kicking a little.

Giggling a little, he reached over and caught the hem of his lover's 
boxers between his thumb and forefinger, "These are NICE! Did 
you get them hear or back on Antiterra? They go with your coat... 
oh, did you usedta wear 'em with it?"

He smiled with his eyes closed, savoring the image of Ran in 
nothing but said coat, parted and with the faint black veil of the 
boxers over his hips.

Nothing more.

"You can take mine off too, if you want.  I don't mind one bit."

Saying so, he took his hands back to himself and lay still for a bit, 
just watching, and enjoying his beloved's flush, for he could not 
muster one on his own.

***

Ah, his back! It was long and well-muscled, and dipped enticingly 
just at the waistband of his boxers; the scars he bore there could 
barely be seen in the flickering candlelight, but even if they could 
be, Ran wouldn't have minded. He reached out and petted him 
where the skin was marred from that remembered agony. 

"You know, I suspect you're enjoying teasing me." 

Ken only simpered at him, rapidly drummed his fingers atop the 
towels he'd stretched out on. Ran arched a brow at him. 

"I see." Ran climbed up on the bed, and knelt there, and glared at 
him--or tried to. The impulse he had to smile back ruined the 
effect. 

"You're wicked." Ran raised his hand to swat Ken on the ass, but 
stopped just before contact was made. He hesitated a heartbeat 
longer before lightly placing his hand upon one firm swell. Ken 
didn't jump, didn't flinch or make any sort of audible complaint 
because of his touch. Ran grew just a bit bolder, giving him a 
squeeze there before taking his waistband between his fingers and 
easing it down, front first and then back and off completely. 

He speculated just how he would feel under his oiled hands. The 
thought made him draw breath sharply, and Ran hurriedly climbed 
off the bed to fish the pilfered bottle of oil from the folds of his gi, 
where he'd stashed it during their foray into the kitchen. It was still 
chilly to the touch, and sweating slightly. 

"This might be kind of cold," he said as he climbed back onto the 
bed. He wriggled the stopper out of the bottle's mouth and poured a 
generous dab of oil into his palm. Set the bottle down on the 
bedside table, and cupped his free hand over the other, trying to 
warm it some. 

Then, he drew his filled hand over Ken's back, and let the oil 
drizzle in a zigzag across his lover's back and ass.

***

Ken has scrunched his face into his pillow for a moment, to make 
sure he would be quiet even if the oil proved quite frigid, but it 
didn't at all, but fell like a thick, cool rain over his body and seeped 
into the his skin between his scars.  It didn't smell like rain of 
course.

As he snuggled own properly this time, head turned against the 
pillowcase so he could just make out the form of his beloved 
kneeling behind him, blurry with the lights and his peripheral 
vision.  

"Mmmmmmmmmm! Butterscotch! You know, I don't think I'll 
mind smelling like a sundae in the morning, not at all!"

A muffled chuckle and he wiggled his bottom back and forth while 
the rest of him sank all that deeper into the folds of the puffy, pale 
blue towels laid out on their bed.  The motion spilled a single drop 
of the massage oil though, and it slipped down his crack, feeling 
almost like a touch.  THAT made him blush, just a
little.

Ran was still all the while, watching him only by the swaying light.  
But the slim hands coasted over his ass then, just lightly, wet 
themselves and spreading the liquid before them.  It felt almost like 
a warm scarf being pulled over him and left, for the heat of the 
caress wash captured by the oil, despite it's
gentleness, that it almost hovered.

Ken felt him brush over him twice, upwards both times as if he, 
like a cat, could only be smoothed in one direction.

/I can't feel your calluses at all.../  And for the first time since he 
had healed, he regretted his singed flesh, fearing it might have lost 
some sense of texture after all, but Ran had his palms set to the 
base of his back then, tight and deep.

And he didn't care about all that much that didn't make him happy.  
Just moaned a little in simple delight, feeling his spine crack in all 
the right places as he closed his eyes.

***

Encouraged by Ken's moan, Ran concentrated his efforts in that 
particular place, feeling a touch of satisfaction whenever he heard 
those tiny pops. Felt the body under his hands go just a little 
limper.

"You sat at that computer for most of the day, didn't you?  Sat 
there and didn't take any breaks.  Did most the work yourself."

He slid his hands upwards hard over the length of Ken's back.

"From now on, quit trying to do every damn thing on your own."

He scooted over to the side to pick up the bottle, wanting to 
moisten his now dry hands.  But as he picked it up, and prepared to 
pour, his gaze fell upon the cd player which stood upon Ken's 
dresser.

The silent cd player.

/Oh, shit.  I forgot all about it./

With a grimace, Ran set the bottle down, hesitating for a moment 
between continuing his labors over Ken's aching back and 
finishing his setting up of the room.  He decided upon the latter; 
music could go so far in helping a person relax.  As gently as 
possible, Ran climbed off the bed, making it only tremble as his 
weight left it.  A glance back gave him a view of a nearly-
completely-out-of-it Ken, so he quickly padded off to the dresser, 
adjusted the volume, and hit play.

A moment of silence, the whirr of the laser as it kissed the shining 
silver disc inside, and then he heard the first haunting notes of the 
dragons.  Ran turned the volume up a shade more, and hastened 
back to the bed, pouring a dram more of the oil into his palm 
before he climbed back onto the bed. Straddled Ken's
hips once more, but didn't rest upon him, and began to work his 
slick palms and knuckles once more across his lover's lower back.

"I thought we could use a little music," he murmured, half-smiling 
at him.

***

He didn't answer, just smiled and shook his head at the first few 
remarks, perked and purred again at the last.  Ken had watched his 
lover padding over to the dresser, wondering over just how the 
other boy had managed to rise without him feeling his movements 
in the slightest until the end.  It was almost as if
he had willed himself to appear over by the CD player.  And since 
he seemed fair and sleek as naught but a moonbeam as Ken sow 
him through the lashes of his one open eye... he smiled, picturing 
Ran got up like a mage, not the solemn sort of course like they 
knew on the west of Antiterra, but the disconcertingly lively kind.  
Who came back and settled just above his thighs once more.  

While the candles pirouetted now in the sound of the waves, he 
drew his ankles tight and set his toes to the sheets they rested on 
beneath the towels, so he could push from them, and brush his legs 
against Ran's bottom and the silky black that covered them.

Only to earn himself a bit of a swat on his calves and a print of the 
cool oil to ease them as well.

"Hey..." he mumbled.  "You don't weigh enough to bother me, 
so..."

And then he heard it, jumping just a little beneath the palms he 
found now on his shoulder blades, and the slick fingers that half 
circled his neck trying to ease him back into the soothing clouds of 
a quiet mind.

And his heart melted along with his muscles.  He could not speak 
for some time, only feel the fuchsia morning so long past, the 
tourmaline across the waking ocean and the sand that had clung to 
the soles of his feet.  But the caresses came with him to his 
memory, and willingly, he wore them, both places and nowhere at 
once.

"Where did you get this?" he finally asked, starting to scrunch up 
his shoulder to turn about and face his lover as he asked, but Ran's 
fingers dusted against him then just there before sinking into him 
fully.  "It's so... so... mmmmmm... so wonderful.  I didn't know 
anyone ever taped dragons, not here, or that you even 
knew or... oh, I remember.  Not that.  Not anything from before.  I 
just remember them."

/And it's almost like you remember too.../

That made him smile, seeing Wizard Ran as the happy jelly he 
himself felt like at the moment, so gathered in the velvet wrapped 
around his arms.

***

"I got that recording from the same person who told me there were 
dragons on Terra.  And that's all I'm going to tell you."

He smiled when Ken let out an disappointed little moan, and 
pressed down just a bit harder across his upper back.  The joints 
there popped most satisfyingly, and he got a murmur of approval 
from his jelly-boned lover. Ran worked his hands across Ken's 
neck and shoulders for a few minutes more, alternately kneading
and stroking.  Then he withdrew them altogether, having had 
worked his magic so successfully.

But he didn't get up, and nor did it seem he was finished with him, 
for Ran picked up the bottle of oil once more and uncorked it.  
Carefully poured a heavy stream over one finger, the residue from 
which dripped teasingly across Ken's ass.  Ran held his finger 
there, and watched the liquid drizzle down into the shadowy 
crevice.

Then he leaned over and began to write a word down the ridge of 
his spine, ending just at the slope of his tailbone.

And then, when he'd finished, he scooted back just a bit, and bent 
to place a kiss upon the skin beneath the last stroke of kanji.  
Hovered there, and took in the view from that angle for a moment, 
lightly petting his hips, eartails brushing Ken's thighs as he moved.  
He felt the indentations of his scars, and Ran rose up then and 
kissed him there too, hands now shifted to massage the curves of 
his rear.

"Guess what I wrote."

***

Ken had just started to wonder if he had turned into a towel 
himself, for he felt nothing holding his muscles any longer.  No 
tension, no marrow, no thoughts. 

Almost as if they had left him, taking his achy nerves away with 
them.  And he didn't mind going without them or blushing against 
his pillows as the oil crept all tickly over his underside and down 
into the back of his still sex.  He sighed a little over the fact most 
any other boy, fond or other boys would have been stiff
and hot against the mattress.  But he wasn't.  He just felt serenity 
and rosewater through his body, and the sort of quivering wonder 
one knew in the presence of ethereal being.  Dragons or not, he 
could sense Ran's lips against his scars, and relished it even more 
than the adept little strokes that had come before.

He giggled.  "Umm... now let me think a second..."  His lover 
nodded, brushing his eartails quick against him, which only made 
him giggle all the more.  And yet he didn't try to squirm away like 
most people so teased.  Then again, he hadn't been so touched in 
ages.  And of the ways he had been touched at all.  It
was rather hard to replay the paths of Ran's fingers though, 
especially considering his beloved had taken to giving him a fanny 
rub as well.  "Koko ni?"

A shake of the other boy's head which brought about another 
dusting by way of his silky, red threads.  And another laugh.  And 
a little thwap of Ken's bottom that left his palm still resting on his 
skin where he began to stroke him once again.

He pondered now, one finger brushing his own lips, trying to find 
the answer, or at least and answer that wouldn't get him another 
knock on his bum.  One of the lines, still wet, lost a drop that rolled 
down over his shoulder blade and dissolved into his chest.  He 
knew it then, and said so, sounding moved, and sleepy and wanting 
of a kiss.  "Aishite'ru?"  

***

"You are correct, Hidaka-dono." 

Ran ended his massage with one last fondle of Ken's ass, and then, 
placing both hands upon the mattress on either side of his lover's 
body, he pushed himself up.  Braced himself as he hovered and 
then descended upon Ken's back to drop a kiss between his 
shoulder blades. 

"You win." 

He crawled a step forward and brushed his lips against Ken's nape, 
then pushed himself back up on all fours. 

"What prize will you claim?" 

A drowsy little chuckle, and Ken gingerly rolled onto his side. Hair 
sliding back from his face, laying the contours of it exposed to the 
candlelight. Tiny flames danced on fields of blue. He looked more 
golden than brown in that subtle glow, and Ran smiled down at 
him appreciatively. 

"A kiss? You want so little?" 

Ken said nothing, did not smile; simply rocked a bit more back on 
one hip and twined one insistent arm around Ran's neck. Drew him 
unresistingly down onto him, onto the bed, and Ran draped his 
arms around him as he pressed his mouth to Ken's.

***

They were both breathing hard when they parted it last, and it was 
but scarcely Ken could see, for his mind danced elsewhere with the 
sparking dawn of the dragons' singing, the starlight of the candles, 
the cradling cage that was Ran's body, where he sighed a bit, and 
dissolved beneath him once again.

Though his fingers stayed and brushed his cheeks while he thought 
of how nice and squirmy the other boy felt near him- all puppyish 
and soft...

"I love you too," and then with the slightest hint of a tease as his 
fingers ran up the sinew of Ran's arm, "And I'm not going 
anywhere, so you don't worry." The other boy gave a small sigh 
then and melted as close to him as he could draw himself without 
collapsing all together.  Although it seemed rather as if he
would have liked to.  His cheek fell to his shoulder and rubbed him 
there, so he smiled and combed his fingertips along his collar bone, 
coming to a place where the oil from his back had left a little line 
of wetness where he tarried for a moment before drawing his hand 
away.  And sticking it straight in his mouth with a grin.

It tasted like butterscotch and Ran, something most delightful and 
fragile than either would have been alone.  So he was very careful 
when he took him once more about his neck and pulled him down 
to lie beside him on the rumples on the towels.  Laid his head in 
the crook of his elbow as if he was putting him to bed, 
though such was not exactly his intent, for his palms coasted over 
his side, dipping the waist of his shorts just the slightest bit lower, 
and his lips followed down along his ribs hoping to find another 
trace of the massage oil.  Which they did.  As so he kissed him 
again, with it smeared all over his skin.

"I know... we said we were gonna date for awhile, and I don't want 
to take that back or anything but... even if the ice cream was out 
first and all... you wanna play awhile? I don't mind, even if it's not 
first date kinda stuff."

A wink.  "I just thought of something fun we could do!"

***

Ran had worked hard at keeping his libido at bay by forcing 
himself to think of all the things he considered definite turn-offs: 
Sakura; the girls in the shop; Sakura; pink sweaters. And so on. He 
had been successful during the whole of his massaging of his 
lover's body in not becoming aroused. 

Until now. But it was hard to keep his mind focused on say, some 
ridiculous, fawning girl, when gorgeous, blue-eyed, hotheaded Ken 
was touching him in little teasing ways. Kissing him on places 
other than his lips even, and singing his nerves in the process. He 
could feel Ken's fingers playing along the top of his partially bared 
hip, and what little defenses he had failed him. 

"Umm.." 

As did coherent speech. 

"You don't have..." 

Ken's fingers swooped upwards from his side to tap his lips into 
stillness.  His lover shook his haloed head, and he caught the glint 
of his teeth in the candlelight as Ken bent to kiss him again. 
Another breathless, blush inspiring one. 

It was Ran's turn to melt in Ken's arms this time, and he 
surrendered with a sigh. It was Ken's suggestion after all, not his. 

"Well, we've already messed around once...so I guess it doesn't 
matter if we play on our first date." A little smile. Ran tangled his 
fingers Ken's hair and playfully tugged on the silken clump he'd 
gathered. 

"So...what did you have in mind?"

***

Ken smiled and rubbed against the fingers in his hair, just breathed 
for a moment and felt himself be petted.  His wrist came close 
enough to his lips for a kiss, and so he had him there, leaving the 
wet print of his tongue behind.  He was chest to chest with the 
other boy who he looked upon at last, only to find him gallantly 
trying to hold some innocent sort of look when a sexy pout was 
clinging rather to the scarlet bruises on his mouth.

"Just a little excuse to hold you this close for a little longer.  I don't 
know any nice words for it."

A more experienced lover perhaps would have nodded with a wise 
guess there, but he got only hotter flush about Ran's cheeks and 
nuzzled him for it.  "Mmnnnnn, ashke." 

Who leaned over at the sound of the word he now knew himself to 
be and bussed the curve of his neck before flopping back to where 
he had been.  He chewed on his lip a little.  Waiting.    

"Just pass me the oil and..."

He didn't have to ask twice.  The word had scarcely been spoken 
before he found the bottle pressed to his palm.

"Alright.  Now ah... hmm... scoot down a little.  Towards the 
bottom of the mattress."  Though rather he was pushed a bit, and 
his red floss ran rather comically up against the sheets, making it 
look as if he had been sleeping already, or had fallen rather in the 
middle of a passionate moment.

Ken chuckled and propped his back arm beneath his head, which 
obliged him then to uncork the oil with his teeth, and tip it just 
enough for one palm full with only one hand to steady it.  Which 
he had done before without spilling, and managed to accomplish 
once again.    

The butterscotch liquid he slathered over the inside of his thighs 
until they were shimmery and moist.  A little too moist.  Drippy.  
And inviting looking he hoped.  His still drenched fingers crept 
inside Ran's boxers and petted his stirring
sex, pulling down, bit by bit, until his fingers had left his lover.  
The same to be said for his shorts.

"Go on, don't be shy.  Just cuddle up as close as you can and put 
yourself there."

***

Oh, the only part Ran wanted to put upon Ken's glistening thighs 
was his mouth. Lap his skin clean of the oil. He couldn't quite get 
it around his befuddled head at first what his lover wanted him to 
do, but he scooted over close to him anyway. Slung his arms 
around his waist and pressed his body against Ken's own. Where 
he touched his thighs was slippery and he was suddenly struck 
with the urge to moan a little--it felt that good to his aching sex. 
Ran wriggled a bit against him, and felt his flesh slide across 
Ken's. 

And then he did moan, softly. Clung to Ken, panting a tiny bit, and 
nuzzling him. 

"What...do you want me to do now?"

***

"Whatever feels good," Ken replied with a whisper.  He shifted his 
own hips then, cupping Ran's shoulder blade in one hand to keep 
the distance just the same as he moved.  For it had been a small 
selfish thing of his own, the way he settled himself.  As if he had 
pinched himself almost  or licked the icing from a
cake leaving the fluff within behind.  All to see if his lover's cock 
would answer him with another happy shudder like it had when it 
first pressed between his legs.

And it did.  The other boy gasped when he crossed his ankles to 
hold himself a little tighter.  He bent one knee and then the other, 
sliding against the stiffness he held.  

"'cause don't you go thinking I'm not enjoying this."

Ken kissed his way through the tickling threads of his beloved's 
hair until he reached his ear where he whispered.  "I love being this 
close to you that I can feel your pulse getting faster and hear the 
little wet sound your making."

He shook his head at his own dreamy prose though and relaxed 
enough to prove

Ran was allowed to do whatever he liked from where he was.

***

And what Ran wanted to do was squirm and wriggle and plunge 
his erection between Ken's dripping, glossy thighs. He could hear 
his heart beating in his ears as he made that first awkward thrust, 
panting as he drew back. One hand he brought down from the 
small of his lover's back, and cupped his topmost thigh with it, 
burning with embarrassment all the while. 

"If you...don't mind..." 

A hand landed upon his head, petting him, and Ran curled up, 
resting his forehead against Ken's chest, and plunged forward 
again, and then again, shyly.  Experimenting. 

And the more he played, the heavier and heavier his pleasure grew, 
uncoiling from his loins and flooding through him. His thrusts 
became more frantic, and he arched, head back. Hips pumping 
hard against Ken's bent legs. He felt Ken's muscles tighten and 
loosen around him, matching the rhythm he'd set up.
Images of himself penetrating Ken's lovely ass, him writhing in 
pleasure beneath him flashed through his mind, and he reached the 
brink with one quiet moan. Ran wanted to hide his face against 
Ken's chest even as he violently worked his sex through his 
blinding orgasm, but Ken had cupped his chin in one hand, and 
wouldn't let him go. 

And it was his face that he saw first when at last he opened his 
dazed eyes.  His thighs were still moist, and over the scent of 
butterscotch and spicy candles lay the smell of sex. 

Ran pulled away, and slid upwards those few inches and wrapped a 
slightly trembling hand around the back of Ken's head. And then 
he gave him a kiss full of sleepy passion.

***

Ken in turn swung his arms just a little tighter around his lover's 
shoulders and held him still and oh so class as they lay together 
then, lips twining and sliding together for some indeterminate time 
he never did wish to know the exact lasting 
of.  When they had finished, they both sighed, catching their 
breath.  The heat between his thighs was fading as the last of the 
oil melted in even with none of Ran's body to stir it.  He still had 
all of him though, pressed to him all over rather than wound 
between his skin.

And the other boy's blush didn't fade for all the time he kept him 
cuddled close, and his tired eyes grey no less bright even as they 
started to fall closed.  And then there was nothing he wanted to ask 
for in the world besides a few more minutes admiring his dreamy 
beloved with his fingers dawdling over his flush and his closed 
eyes.  Though he saw a glint of purple there, as he pulled away and 
a few of the candles snuffed themselves out in their own liquid.

"You still awake?"

A little nod, and a kiss about the lines of his jaw.

"Maa, just wondering.  You don't have to stay up."

Which got him a touch of a frown and a brush of some curiously 
seeking fingers over his thighs, which he shifted, and then creased 
his brows a bit.

"Hmm..."

One of his arms he tugged away, finding his own skin with his 
fingers, just below his bottom, creeping lower until he brushed 
against the tell-tale cum-splatter there, which he gathered up on his 
finger tips, holding it to his own lips.

Which smiled as he drew the first droplets inside.

***

Ran sank down on the mattress, onto the pillow that was Ken's 
arm, and molded his hand around the one his lover held to his 
mouth. Curled his fingers around it, and gently tugged it back, and 
drew it down to cradle against his chest. 

"...I got you all sticky. I'm sorry." 

Ken shrugged, and shifted across the rumpled towels to kiss Ran 
along one temple. Whispered something slightly naughty in his 
ear, which made the redhead blush a bit, and grin. 

"Such language." Ran wound his arm around Ken's neck, and 
added in a whisper. "I must say...I kind of like it." 

He leaned forward to kiss him again, same slow exploration of his 
lover's mouth.  Then he released him, and, taking the towel he had 
lain upon, gathered it up and began to clean Ken's thighs of the 
mess he'd made of them. And when he was finished, he bundled it 
up and threw it onto the floor, and lay back down beside his lover; 
slung his arm over his waist. 

"Want to get between the sheets with me?"

***

Ken nodded, even as he was drawing the bedclothes out from 
beneath them, which of course had them shifting this way and that 
over each other, a sort of wrong ways acrobatics with many a 
shake of his lover's head...  His lover who would move with him, 
but not from him it seemed, for even as the sheets billowed up in 
his hold and came whirling down again, his arm remained to cross 
his waist.  Scrunching down into the pillow they were almost 
sharing (Ran was mutely insisting on keeping his head elsewhere), 
Ken folded his own against it and tried to rock the other boy's 
cheek onto his chest.  

Ran wouldn't budge of course, except to ever so daintily chance 
one of his scars.  And to smile.

"Well, if you think that was naughty, how about..." a long 
pondering 'hmmmmm' escaped him, one purely for show.  "You 
can get me sticky whenever you want! And maybe you can even 
ruin the sheets next time! Oooh! Now that's bad!"

Which got him a touch of a glare before his beloved's eyes slid 
closed. Curious it seemed to him though, for it was only so gently 
blinded he could catch no trace of care in him, in his darling 
swordsman.  Who was simply graced with haunted eyes he 
guessed.

And who was still wearing a few tear marks on his blush.

So he licked them away for his goodnight kiss, hardly able to 
remember how they had gotten there, those dustings of saline 
traces.  It seemed a million miles away now, but still somehow just 
in reach.

*****