Niji
[Rainbow]

The Thirty-Two Flavors of Somewhat-Crushed-Violets Assassin Orgy Fun!

By Murasaki Suishou and The Queen of Blueberry Toast

~*~

II: "Clover" [Version 1.2]

No matter where the Koneko had been, it was easy to sleep late there.  
The streets would evaporate from silence into the bustle of those 
living simply around the assassins' beds- cars passed, children sang on 
the way to school and the world hummed a few more bars of her celestial 
song as she pirouetted through space, with or without them.  It didn't 
matter where the shop stood, or who lived there of all who had found 
some kind of harbor under the name.  There was always, always the 
gleaming haze of sound.

As the dawn broke, Yuki awakened to find himself staring at a pale 
pastel rainbow cast there by the suncatcher in the neighbor's window.  
He was alone, but Furii's clothes still seeped from the plastic bag he 
had kicked into the corner.  He himself hadn't even bothered to take 
off the rest of his things; he'd simply fallen asleep with his copy of 
Gravity's Rainbow open on his chest.  For a few minutes he lay there, 
hands folded behind his neck as he watched the faded paint above him 
mirror what should have been on the vacant blue cover of his book.  The 
colored light began to fail. In time, he rose, and with his eyes still 
muzzy, walked straight into the door jamb.

Of course, his various optometrists had ALL warned him over and over 
again as to what lack of sleep might do to his already sickly eyes.  
The wounds he'd received in Orphan still troubled him, and his 
borderline obsessive reading brought their ghosts out.  Sometimes in 
the middle of pages he would fancy his irises were bleeding all over 
again.  Sometimes the words would just melt into a thin, grey film.

For a long time Yuki sat in the bathroom, trying to splash the sharp 
tingles from his eyes away with cold water.  Nearly a quarter of an 
hour was up before he was certain he could see again.  His sight 
reclaimed for at least one more day, he showered and brushed his teeth; 
decided there was little hope for the inky milkweed silk of his hair as 
long as it was wet.

He didn't wear underthings.  Ever.  So having fished one relatively 
clean pair of jeans from his hamper of civilian clothes and donned a T-
shirt which read "Live Simply So Others May Simply Live" he stomped 
downstairs with every intention of putting on a pot of coffee.  After 
all, no one else could possibly be up- he'd heard no blood-curdling 
screams so far.

Well, at least it was no one he would have expected to be up, for when 
he rounded the corner that led into their modest, marble-green and 
white kitchen, he found Kuroe's guest sitting at the table, espresso 
cup in hand, watching a few doves outside fight over who got to take a 
bath first.  

Schuldich was wearing a violet dress shirt Yuki recognized at once as 
Kuroe's, and nothing else whatsoever.  His hair had been somewhat 
combed, but there were the kinks of passing fingers still strewn 
through it, and his thighs where the shirt didn't quite cover them 
shone with bruises in the dusty light.

"Guten Morgen, Yuki," he said, yawning, but not bothering to turn 
around.  

Yes, it nonplussed him to see his friend's own personal tart sitting at 
there at a table he had certainly not been invited to, whiling away 
the morning with a cup of THEIR coffee, but then again, he quickly 
realized there was little at all he could do about it, and so answered 
him, "Guten Morgen... Schuldich was it?"

"Yeah." And he did move then, more after his cup than anything else.  
"So, you enjoy doing those Latin conjugations with Furii last night?"

Yuki nodded.  It was this more than anything else their uninvited guest 
said that convinced him that the man HAD to be a telepath.  For 
instance, any one of his teammates he was CERTAIN would have tried to 
make some lewd joke out of it.  Only knowing no such thoughts crossed 
either of their minds ever would have put and end such remarks.  
Despite his trust in Aya's animosities, he had to say it put him at 
ease in a way, not having to worry about offending the stranger.

As such, Yuki poured himself a cup of coffee and took his usual seat at 
the table.   "And did you enjoy... being re-united with Kuroe? I got 
the feeling you two knew each other."

Schuldich simpered, and shook his finger at him.  "Don't be cagey. Ask 
me what you really want to know.  Did I enjoy fucking Kuroe?  Go on."

"Well..." True, there really was no point in hiding it.  Sadly, Yuki 
happened to voice the question in question just as someone's unhappily 
heavy footsteps creaked on the last few steps. 

***

Unfortunately for the peace of the household, that someone happened  
to be Aya. He rounded the corner to the kitchen, clad in a pair of  
baggy, ink blue jeans and an untucked, tan dress shirt. His bangs  
were damp where he'd wet them in the course of washing his face.  
 
His icy gaze met Yuki's only briefly, before he turned the full force  
of his ire upon Schuldich. To his further rage, the redhead only  
yawned unconcernedly, and turned back to the window.  
 
Aya, muttering evilly under his breath, hastily stomped out of the  
kitchen and back up the stairs. When he returned, he flung the 
threadbare blue terry cloth robe he'd retrieved across the table.  
 
"Put it on!" he demanded of Schuldich, his pale cheeks beginning 
to brighten with  the sparking of his anger. "If you're going to 
sit in here--or ANYWHERE!--you're going to do so decently clad."

***

Yuki managed to hastily reconsider the idea of telling his kaichou he 
didn't see anything wrong with how Schuldich was dressed before it was 
too late.  'tis always more prudent, he concluded, to drown one's 
unwise sayings in coffee than to utter them, and subsequently have 
one's breakfast ruined, or hurled at one's head.

"Whatever my little Abyssinian desires," Schuldich said with a bored 
little shrug.  A few more sips of his coffee and he rose at last, 
taking all the pains he dared with stretching before he reached at last 
for the robe.

And then reconsidered.  Humming to himself with the tune bubbling from 
the radio, he promptly stripped.  Underneath the folds of Kuroe's 
shirt, his skin was littered with lovebites and the residual sex flush 
that crossed the insides of his milky thighs before it blossomed just 
beneath the dainty swell of his belly button.  Turning on one heel, he 
also took a few precious seconds to flash Aya the hand prints 
littering his ass before finally setting the robe to rights, and 
sitting down like nothing at all was the matter.

Yuki reached for the sugar and added a few more grains to his cup.  
Before he could replace the shaker on the counter, Schuldich had pulled 
it from his fingers, and held it up with the carafe as he said to Aya, 
"Coffee?"  

***

"No. After that display, I don't even want any breakfast," retorted 
Aya. "You effectively killed my appetite. Bastard." 

Aya retreated to Yuki's side of the table, where he claimed a seat; 
for as much as he loathed the sight of Schuldich, he was NOT going to 
leave his impressionable ward alone with him. 

"What are you still doing here anyway? Kuroe forget to pay you last 
night?" 

***

Schuldich sniffed at this, managing to sound at least somewhat 
indignant, though in fact he was trying to smother a laugh.  "Oh? Is 
that your *subtle* way of asking for a quote?" 

The carafe landed on the counter with a clang, the sugar following 
close behind.  Their guest's foot, however, lit on Aya's crotch without 
so much as a whisper of grating denim.  

"Let's see... two hours, half-and-half with my SPECIAL *HAPPY* Assassin 
discount comes to... about one-thousand American? What's that in pounds?"

Yuki's coffee proceeded to go down the wrong way and a few drops 
dribbled out of his nose and onto his hapless lap.  "You're... one-
hundred thousand yen a night?"

"Well, if the price isn't right, you can just talk to Kuroe about that.  
After all, he's the one who pimped me out a couplea nights in college 
for drinking money."   

***

Schuldich only just avoided having his foot pierced by the paring knife 
Aya had snatched from the block that stood on his side of the table.  
He waved it at the smirking redhead as if to imply he might throw it at 
any moment, consequences be damned.  

"That Kuroe successfully pimped you out doesn't surprise me in the 
least," said Aya, "nor that you allowed him to subject you to such 
treatment.  I never doubted that you would enjoy being so used."  

Schuldich laced his fingers together, and propped his chin upon the 
bridge they formed, batting his eyes mockingly at Aya.  The swordsman, 
in reply, maneuvered the knife for a throw.  He was stopped by the 
sound of a drawling, sleepy voice from the doorway.  

"Mmm...don't Aya," said Kuroe through a yawn.  "Ken will have a fit if 
you mess up his kitchen."  

Aya spun about in his seat to find Kuroe shuffling into the kitchen, a 
black pajama-clad Furii straggling along more-or-less in his wake.  The 
former had only bothered to throw on a dressing gown of gold satin, 
barely held closed by what appeared to be a long, tassled curtain tie-
back of silky silver braid.  His hair, however, had been combed, and 
his eyes were unusually bright despite the early hour.

"I don't think Ken would mind," he retorted, rising from his seat at 
last.  The lure of breakfast proved too much for him to resist any 
longer; Aya opened the refrigerator and began to root through the 
various containers of leftovers stacked on the top shelf.  Driven by 
hunger as well, Furii wandered up behind him, and they fell into quiet 
conversation regarding what might be good for the morning meal.  

"If you say so," replied Kuroe, and he bent to press a lingering kiss 
on Schuldich's lips.  "Guten Morgen."

Schuldich smiled in reply, and passed him the carafe of coffee.  Kuroe 
bent to retrieve his violet shirt from the floor before he accepted it.  

"I never pegged you as being one for violet.  It's a pity I missed your 
change of heart," Kuroe said, offering him a distinct leer as he picked 
up a cup from the table, and took a seat beside Schuldich.  

"And I'm sorry I didn't," retorted Aya, who had returned along with 
Furii to the table.  Both held a jumble of plastic containers, pink, 
blue and green.  Aya only set one of what he held down; the rest, he 
carried over to the far counter, along with a cup newly filled with 
coffee, courtesy of Furii.  

"Don't be so hard, Aya," chided Kuroe.  "Such a lovely creature doesn't 
deserve insults."  

Aya leveled him a dark look, then pointedly turned his back on the 
group, and plunged his fork into the remains of Wednesday's duck 
dinner.  At the table, Furii popped the lid off one largish pink 
container, then replaced it, and slid it towards Yuki.  

"It's Kitsune Udon.  Want it?"  

***

He'd never seen anyone kiss like that in all his life.  He'd never even 
dreamed that people somehow could employ such careless delicacies with 
such clumsy twists of wet muscle; that the surface of a person's lips 
could flow so easily over another.  It looked as effortless as drawing 
breath and yet he knew if he ever even THOUGHT of trying it himself, 
failure and failure alone would be his.  Watching Schuldich and Kuroe 
weave their coffee-warm and wounded lips together like that, the little 
pink flashes of their tongues darting in and out of each other's 
bodies, it was like dreaming lucidly or being very, very drunk with the 
presence of mind to appreciate it.

His nose began to bleed.  Badly.  He was obliged to snatch a napkin 
from the holder and cram it into his dripping nostrils.  Somewhere a 
voice he thought he recognized asked if he was alright and he wanted to 
cry, "YES! YES! I AM BETTER THAN ALRIGHT! I AM...!"

Oh, the udon.

"Yes, please, I would like the udon," he told Furii, a sheepish smile 
forming under the shadow of the napkin feathers still drifting from his 
left nostril.  

His companion nodded and took his hand from the pink box in favor of 
rooting through another which apparently contained fried rice, or some 
reasonable semblance thereof.  Apparently, Furii didn't care much 
himself just what their uninvited guest was doing with Kuroe, and Yuki 
found himself at once ashamed.  And yet strangely elated.  Best to 
concentrate on the udon.  Not to mention heat it up.  He had 
accidentally taken the first bite without first thinking to put it in 
the microwave.

"Maa," Schuldich said as he watched the boy rise.  "Kuroe, I don't want 
leftovers for breakfast.  Make me some toast."

***

"Plain or...French?" 

The two shared a silly smile, ignoring the sidelong looks from the 
surly redhead who nibbled in the corner. Kuroe swooped in for 
another lingering kiss and a hearty grope of Schuldich's thigh, 
before he rose from his seat as well, sidling past Yuki en route on 
his quest for breakfast. Casually, he glanced over at Furii, whom he 
found to be more interested in Yuki than in his fried rice. 

/Hmm.../ he thought at Schuldich. /Notice that? I wonder.../ 

But he needn't have at all, for Furii wasn't in the midst of some X-
rated fantasy involving Yuki--though he was thinking about him: how 
cute he looked when flustered, and how he hadn't been offended by 
what he'd just seen pass between Kuroe and Schuldich. 
He, too, felt curiously elated over the fact that Yuki hadn't 
recoiled from the sight of the lovers greeting each other, but Furii 
didn't care to dwell upon his feelings too closely. Not then, at any 
rate--not with his comrade's lover grinning at him in a most 
disturbing manner. 

Furii met his stare coolly, and at last, with a cheeky wink, 
Schuldich swiveled to watch Kuroe go through the process of making 
toast. In the doing, he was treated to the sight of Aya leaving his 
empty container in the newly filled sink, in favor of a clean coffee 
cup. Both it and his own he filled with fresh coffee, before he departed 
from the kitchen without so much as a glare for Schuldich. Up the 
stairs he went, back to Ken's room to deliver his own private 
wake-up call. 

As the sound of his footsteps receded, Furii tucked into his bowl of 
rice, now topped with a dollop of shrimp from another container. Kuroe 
came back to the table, a plate of wheat toast triangles in one hand; 
a squirt bottle of butter and a jar of raspberry jam were nestled in 
the patch pockets of his robe. 

"Lightly browned," he said, setting the plate down before his lover, 
followed by the condiments. "Just like you like it, as I recall."

***

On his way back up the stairs, Aya, quite torn between his irate 
musings and thoughts of his sleeping lover, didn't notice that the 
vanity lights to the bathroom on his floor were on. It was far from 
an uncommon sight, but the only person to use that particular 
bathroom besides himself and Ken happened to be Michelle, and if he 
had thought him awake, he might have given the door a rap and warn 
him of the sight awaiting him in the kitchen.  As it was, he and his 
blond charge didn't meet each other just yet.

Michelle in fact, feeling curiously elated now the sun was up and his 
lover's other lover now doubtlessly cast away into the wild blue 
yonder, dressed himself up in his most utterly adorable purple and 
white gingham shorts, duckie-embroidered suspenders and feather-
trimmed mint-green shirt. He looked like a skinny, blond Easter egg 
as he came bounding down the stairs, a handful of bachelor buttons 
nicked from his window box nodding in his hands.

"Oh, Kuroe! Mon cher, I..."

But his apologies died a horrible, burning death when he heard from 
within the confines of the kitchen an all too familiar earthly laugh, 
followed by, "Oh, you always know just what I like!" and what 
certainly sounded like a wet, smacking kiss.

"KUROE!!!!!!"

"Oh great, here we go again," Yuki informed his next bite of Kitsune 
udon. 

As Michelle rounded the corner, he found though that he had not just 
missed the tart partaking of his lover's mouth, but was rather in time 
to find him slurping up a blob of raspberry jam from Kuroe's finger in 
the most lecherous of ways. And while there was a perfectly good plate 
of toast slathered with it no less!

"Oh, good morning," Schuldich told him quite calmly. "I was 
wondering when you'd get up. Want some coffee?"

"NOOOOOOOOOOO! I DON'T WANT ANY GODDAMN COFFEE! I WANT..."

"Listen, Michelle," Yuki took it upon himself to interject (for he 
feared for his eardrums at this point: it was bad enough having 
such weak eyes), "maybe you should go upstairs and Furii and I will..."

"It's kona, your favorite," Schuldich added, jiggling the carafe now.

The blond boy's arguments all evaporated from his mouth and heaving a 
sigh, he padded to the cupboard after his coffee up and held it out 
to the usurper he had just been ready to slay horribly with the 
nearest blunt object. "Well, considering this is the best I'm gonna 
get..."

***

Upon witnessing Michelle's sudden capitulation, Furii and Yuki 
briefly exchanged astounded looks. 

"I think," said Furii to his younger companion, "that is the quickest 
I've ever seen him calm down after finding Kuroe with one of 
his...old friends." 

Yuki tilted his head in a considering way, then shrugged, and the two 
returned to their respective breakfasts. Across from them, Kuroe 
plucked one of the bachelor buttons from Michelle's hand, and twirled 
it before his nose, eyeing the boy as he sipped at his coffee. 

"It has come upon you quickly, this forgiving mood of yours. I am 
not complaining, mind," Kuroe amended, lowering the flower with a 
kiss for its azure petals. "I only find it...peculiar." 

With a soft smile, he touched the blossom to Michelle's coffee-
dampened mouth. "Come pet," Kuroe purred. "Don't be angry any 
longer. Let us be friends, hm? Let us ALL be friends." 

And with that, he laid Schuldich's hand atop the one Michelle had 
rested upon the table, and covered them both with his own.

***

The result of this of course happened to be Michelle making a very, 
very interesting noise.  It was almost like fingers squeaking on a 
misty window- shrill more than distressed.  His trill of dismay came to 
an abrupt end though, as Schuldich leaned over in front of Furii and 
kissed him full on the lips with lots of lazy trickles of his tongue 
between.  Now so silenced, the boy's unhappiness manifested in the fact 
his eyes shortly rivaled the coffee cup saucers in size.  His palms 
trembled and his cheeks burned bright peony pink.

Yuki had to dismember another napkin.  /Damn.  No one will EVER kiss me 
like that, not ever! I know it./

The telepath just winked at him, and he felt keenly all through his 
mind and his bones, ::Well, I got no problem with you bein' next, 
y'know.::

/No... I want.../

::It to mean something.  Art is meaningless.::

The slap shortly dealt to the side of Schuldich's head wasn't, however.  
"Hey! What was that for?"

"EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" Wailed the boy, scrubbing at his lips now 
with the back of his hand.  "What is WRONG with you two!? I'd... I'd 
never! You can't expect me to..."

"I don't expect it," Schuldich said as he slicked his mouth rather with 
the jelly on his toast now he could not have Michelle's to interest 
him.  "But it was worth a shot, you gotta give me that."

"I'm not giving you ANYTHING! You TOOK Kuroe from me you, sick..."

"No, I didn't.  He's still all yours.  I'm just BORROWING him."

Everyone fell silent except for the boy on the radio crooning for his 
lost Roxanne.  Kuroe though, rather than shatter the quiet with his 
protest, found himself greeted as well by his lover's thoughts.  
::That's a loaded word and you know it.  So, you just get yourself 
ready to reinterpret everything I'm gonna say to your pet in a week or 
two.::

A conciliatory hand lit on Michelle's shuddering and drooping 
shoulders, and not quite of his own will, the boy found himself turning 
to face the man who had taken his place in Kuroe's bed.  Schuldich's 
eyes shimmered with a kind of motherly concern somewhere below his 
general wickedness.  "Don't you know? I have a lover myself.  But he's 
kicked me out of his bed AND our house.  I have nowhere else to go.  
Kuroe is the only person who's been good enough to take me in."

"Is that so?"

"Yes! I could go to a hotel, I admit that, but your gallant lover 
wouldn't have it.  You know how he is."

They both nodded, and then huffed at one another, withdrawing to their 
own chairs.  

"Well, besides that, how about... I make you a deal? Collateral.  While 
I borrow Kuroe here, you can have my sister."

"WHAT!?"

***

"Did you think I would take up with Schuldich and forget all about 
you?" asked Kuroe. "I don't want you to be lonely, pet. Besides, I 
think you'll find her beautiful. Blonde, blue-eyed, smart..." He 
smiled. "She's not much younger than you." 

Reaching over Schuldich's shoulder, he helped himself to a piece of 
dry toast. "I think she'll be coming over...mm...today? Or is that 
what we decided last night? I can't really remember..." 

Any further remarks from the couple were squelched in a flurry of 
laughing little kisses. Michelle, pale of cheek and aghast, stared 
into space. Furii turned away from the sight of his teammate 
snogging his guest, and gently dabbed a fresh napkin at Yuki's upper 
lip; it was stained with a trace of his blood. When the boy turned 
to him, he found that Furii looked vaguely concerned. 

"Are you okay, Yuki?" 

***

"Aaa, betsuni, Furii-senpai.  Watashi ga..."  Yuki's voice faltered 
abruptly as he realized at last just what language he had answered his 
companion in.  It was the principle of the thing that made him want to 
bury his head in the potting soil their ferns lived in more than his 
odd choice of name suffixes.  One simply didn't switch languages in the 
middle of a conversation- it wasn't polite.

/Well, neither is making out like horny highschoolers at the breakfast 
table but.../

He got the feeling Schuldich had considered answering him in that, but 
gave up in favor of murmuring something raunchy to Kuroe.  Furii didn't 
seem to think a thing of any of this.  He just wet one of the extra 
napkins and began to wash Yuki's face off, as impossible as the 
insistent stream of blood made it to try.  

"B-b-but.  HEY! Cut it out you two!" Michelle whined once his coffee 
had somewhat awakened his voice.  "You know it would have been nice if 
you'd asked me first! About any of this.  Hey guys!"

Schuldich parted from Kuroe long enough to sigh, "Well, you were out 
murdering financiers, what were we supposed to do? Have you paged?"  
And with that, began munching one of the unguarded toast triangles.  

"KUROE! He's not supposed to know about that kinda..."

"...stuff? Oh please.  You people AREN'T the only assassins on the face 
of the earth.  How DID you think I met Aya?"

"Must you talk with your mouth open?" groaned Yuki, whose eyes had 
wandered just enough to stray along the conversation.

The telepath nodded, and while doing so, propped his elbows on the 
table before pulling down one eyelid and glaring in Yuki's general 
direction.  

***

With the mildest of glances towards Schuldich, Furii lay the 
wadded up napkin to the side of his plate in favor of another clean 
one, which he pressed to the side of Yuki's nose. "Can't you reign 
him in, Kuroe?" he asked evenly. "There's no need for him to be rude 
to Yuki. This is his home, too." 

Kuroe paused just short of taking another bite of toast to 
answer. "Yes, and Schuldich is our guest. Besides, Yuki doesn't 
have to be so formal." 

"Schuldich is *your* guest," Furii countered. 

"Semantics. Whatever." Kuroe took a final bite, then reached for 
his coffee. "Perhaps he's been around Aya too long." 

It seemed to Furii that the last part of Kuroe's reply rankled Yuki, 
for he felt him tense, heard the soft intake of his breath. It was 
then that the older boy withdrew his now sodden napkin, and discarded 
it as he had the first. 

"Forget them. Come on, Yuki. Let's go upstairs and see if we can't 
get your nose to stop bleeding," Furii said to the boy beside him, 
pointedly ignoring the looks his companions were giving him across 
the table. 

***

The drips from the dark-haired boy's nose hadn't ceased all together, 
but his ire slowed them somewhat, and so it was with more or less dry 
lips he clambered into Furii's insubstantial shadow.  His ankles 
protested- the bones beneath him felt like rubber.  They almost didn't 
hold him.  One of his chopsticks caught on his sleeve as he rose and 
nearly went flying, bits of broth and all.

Schuldich raised his hand and waved goodbye, even as he remarked 
between one bite and the next- "I mean, if *you* want to be rude..."

"I'm sorry, but how would leaving make us rude?"

"It wouldn't be very nice of you not to hang around and meet your other 
new boarder."  The redhead, announcing this, managed to cram an entire 
toast point into his mouth, except for one trickle of butter oozed onto 
his chin.

"So, you've sent for your sister already?" Unattainable kisses aside, 
not to mention manners, Yuki had to say he was curious, but Furii, 
seeing the all too brilliant smirk conjured on Schuldich's lips when he 
felt the boy's wonderment bloom, gave Yuki's arm a little tug; one 
which Yuki returned with a mitigating pat- the boy would not, it 
seemed, be swayed.

"You bet I have.  In fact, that's her taxi that's just turned the 
corner." One last swig of coffee, and their guest rose to his feet, 
seizing Michelle by the feathers of his collar and hauling him to 
his feet most unceremoniously as he announced, "Your blind 
date's here."

"WAIT JUST A MINUTE!" wailed Michelle, but all he got was a tut from 
Kuroe and a slap to the ass for his troubles.

Coffee cups and toast crumbs in hand (for the telepath had been the 
only one to relinquish his mug) they all marched out into the shop and 
the bleary blue sunlight there, pretending not to be aware that they 
could all be made out quite well through the front windows in all their 
sleepy, occasionally half-dressed glory.

Sure enough, within yawns of their arrival, a white hotel shuttle parked 
along the curb just outside their door.  Out of it tumbled two baggage 
handlers dressed in uniforms that betrayed their five-star providence 
at once.  One set about unloading the trunk and the other opened the 
door to the back seat.

She didn't look like Schuldich, the girl draped over the black-leather 
there, but like a gangly wind up toy.  As Kuroe had promised, her hair 
shone saffron yellow, a few long, loose ripples of it curling down her 
back having slipped the silver net cage that held her bun.  The overlay 
of lace that covered her dull aqua slip dress had snagged a few locks 
itself, and kept them from moving with the rest of her.  Despite the 
delicacy of her garments otherwise, the fine ropes of blue pearl and 
platinum in her hair, she wore an enormous pair of clunky, buckle-up 
black platform-soled boots that hid away the lithe curves of her legs.  
She was slight, yes, but she had a presence like her brother; an 
illusion of power beneath her skin, her muscles, her translucent cobalt 
eyes- beneath the fact she existed at all.  

She also happened to trip and bang her knee getting out of the car.  
"God damn shit!"

"Isn't she adorable?" Schuldich asked his lover, and Kuroe nodded most 
earnestly.

The girl spared them only the slightest wave of greeting (and that made 
him smile more than an embrace might have) before pulling the satin 
scallops of her wrist gloves back down under their silver bracelet 
cuffs with her teeth, doing somewhat the same for the ring her right 
hand glinted with, and reaching into the car. One of her hands she 
filled with the handle of a brass birdcage, and the other with a black 
cat-carrier.  The birdcage housed a tiny, tawny-grey owl, but inside 
the cat carrier was napping something surely not a cat.  Something... 
pink.

She kicked the door open for the porters and they slipped in before 
her, the first two carts of luggage rattling behind them.  The girl 
herself let the door slam and skipped over to stand before the group.  
She smiled.  It wasn't quite Schuldich's simper, but it was close.

"Everyone," he told them.  "I'd like you to meet my sister Saffie."

***

It was Kuroe who moved forward to greet her first, flicking his 
fingers through his golden locks, and straightening the 
lines of his flowing robe. Deftly, he relieved her of the cage, and 
clasped her free hand in his with a gentle stroke of his thumb over 
the back of her wrist. 

"Welkommen, Fraulein Marlow," Kuroe intoned solemnly, though 
something of devilry hovered in his misty blue eyes. He lifted her 
hand to his lips to kiss, then stepped to the side as if presenting 
her to a royal court. 

"I would make introductions, but no doubt your brother has made them 
already. So...shall I show you to you room? Or..." He glanced at 
faintly blushing Michelle, who peered at her from behind the 
inscrutable Furii. 

"Or would you rather Michelle show you? Since he has elected to be 
your companion during your stay."

***

"Well, actually..." Saffie began, one of the fingers still her own 
lighting on the curve of one cheek.  ::Oh, Schu-baby! Memory is but a 
pale reflection of Kuroe's radiance.  Get him to turn around- I wanna 
see his ass.::

::All in due time, mein Liebechen.:: Her brother replied, his own gaze 
aglow with the sort of amused affection older siblings of more ordinary 
means sometimes let flicker in their eyes.  Just the same, he stepped 
forward, and would have caught Kuroe's arm in his own, were it not for 
one small obstacle.

Furii went flying.  He landed with a bang and a gooshy slap in a bucket 
of gardenias.  This collapse also managed to overturn some foxgloves and 
some lupines, the latter of which upended over his head, silty earth 
at the bottom and all.  It was his nasty luck to have ended up standing 
just in front of Michelle.

And Michelle's forgiving mood had departed just as quickly as it came.  
The very air around him seemed to have turned an ewwy-gooey, sticky 
black.  "YOU CAD!"

Kuroe just flashed him a brilliant grin as Yuki, seeing nothing else he 
could presently do to be useful, tried unsuccessfully to help his 
fallen companion up.

"It's not bad enough you have to go out and scromp that... that..."

"Garcon de joie?" suggested Saffie.

"Drab?" suggested Yuki.

"Manslut?" suggested Schuldich.

"Oh, I know! Libertine?" suggested Saffie.

"Kweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" suggested Saffie's bag.

"WHATEVER! But now you have to make GOO-GOO EYES," Michelle made "goo-
goo eyes" sound like some exotic and obscene sexual practice recently 
imported from the boondocks of India, "AT HIS GROSSLY UNDERAGE SISTER!? 
YOU USED TO MAKE GOO-GOO EYES AT ME LIKE THAT! You... you...!!!!"  

"Sub-par ballad-monger?" suggested Saffie.

"Promiscuous fop?" suggested Yuki.

"Lascivious bastard?" suggested Schuldich.

"Over-extended dilettante?" Saffie once more recommended.

"Kweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" suggested Saffie's bag.

"Would you all just SHOVE IT!?" At which anyone who had made any 
attempt to enhance the boy's vocabulary promptly shut up and made as if 
to be staring at once imperfection in the plaster or another.  "AND 
YOU!"

It could only be assumed subsequently that Michelle had risen that 
morning, and donned his dominatrix costume beneath his more ordinary 
clothing.  Kuroe in this had doubtless been doomed.  Much like Furii, 
he found himself sprawling over the shop floor, only rather than 
colliding with any blooms, and he ended up pinned beneath one of his 
former lover's good black leather sneakers which had looked innocent 
enough with his civilian clothing.  Not so against a back drop of 
cock-ring bracelets, a thong that didn't quite cover all and a black 
vinyl bustier gone unstuffed.  The whip conjured from the remains of 
his clothing, Michelle began to bring it down here and there and places 
unnnamed on Kuroe's prone form.

Both of Weiss's guests cheered at this, going so far as to wave 
handkerchiefs when Yuki joined the fray in the interests of 
disentangling the two before anyone lost an eye.  When he whined 
loudly under a stray blow of the white leather whip, Saffie applauded 
wildly, though she did have the sense to move back somewhat, and in 
doing so, quite bumped into a mug someone had left on one of the empty 
tables.  

Once she had given it a sniff, she asked, quite nonchalantly, "Oh, is 
that coffee? Can I have some?"

***

Furii and Yuki, both of whom were in the process of brushing away the 
crumbs and clods of dirt and plant matter which had accumulated on 
the former's head and shoulders, paused in their cleaning to stared 
amazedly at the audacious young maid in their midst. 

"Coffee?" queried Furii above Kuroe's half-hearted protests of 
innocence. "Yes, I suppose you may. Granted, you'll have to get it 
yourself, as it seems the rest of us are indisposed." 

Savil turned and fixed her glum host with an airy little smile, and 
then she flounced away on the arm of her brother, leaving her bags 
and the owl's cage behind her. Furii and Yuki watched her go. In 
unison, they turned their attention to each other, and then to the 
plant-related carnage which covered the shop's floor. 

And they both sighed. 

"Let me go upstairs and clean up, and I'll come back and help you 
with this," said Furii, and he padded miserably off to the stairs, 
not sparing the tussling lovers a second look. Indeed, it was a 
common enough occurrence, seeing them fight--right down to Kuroe's 
moans. 

"Get a room," Furii called, as he reached the first floor landing. 

"I would LOVE to, Furii," cried Kuroe from the protective wrap of his 
arms, "but at the moment, Michelle seems to be more in the mood for 
murder than sex. Though he's certainly not dressed for it." 

The stinging lashes abruptly ceased, and the whip gave one final 
snap, drawn tight in Michelle's palms. Cautiously, Kuroe 
lowered his arms to look up at him. At last, he was fully able to 
take in the sight of him so scantily clad; how shapely his legs were, 
how smooth and supple his skin looked, so creamy against the black. 
He almost wanted to ask him to turn around. The forbidding tinge to 
his lover's fair countenance froze the words in Kuroe's throat. 

"Michelle," he began, raising his hands in a supplicating gesture--a 
wobbling one, when he started to get to his feet. He ached all over, 
but his injuries inspired no dismay in him--rather the opposite. 

"Michelle, listen--just hear me out. I was only being gracious to 
Savil. She's a charming young lady, and Schuldich's only sibling 
besides. What, would you rather have me be rude to her? Would you 
rather have her think that your devoted lover is an outright boor?"

***

"I would rather have her think she could sleep in this house without 
getting groped!" Michelle shouted.  

Yuki ended up cutting off anything else he might have meant to say.  "I 
thought that would be yours to assure since she's going to be staying 
in *your* room." The attention he received lasted only a moment, and 
once everyone had resumed fretting over their own vicissitudes, he took 
the time to put the crotch of his pants back to leaf-less rights.  

The younger boy simply shrugged, and a few feathers that had snagged on 
his costume went flying.  "Good point.  I guess you're off the hook, 
dear."

Of course, as soon as Kuroe made as if to make his way out of the room, 
Michelle had him back on the floor, chest pinned under the toe of one 
of his sneakers.  Across the room, Yuki groaned and came close to 
banging his head on one of the tables just because he couldn't seem to 
express his exasperation in any of the languages he knew.

"Not so fast! Who said I was going to let her stay in my room?" the 
whip dribbled onto the floor as he pressed a palm to his cheek in an 
oh-deary-me sort of way.  "I don't seem to remember... was it you? 
Anyway, she *could* stay with Yuki-kun..." Yuki shook his head quite 
violently at that, even though it had been a rhetorical question and no 
one was looking his way. "...or maybe we can just put her up with Aya and 
Ken so they can have an audience while they fuck! How cute would that 
be?"

"Adorable! But I wouldn't be very good collateral if I didn't stay 
where you could keep an eye on me, silly!" A bubbling laugh appeared at 
Michelle's less-clad shoulder, followed directly by a slurp.  He looked 
over to find Saffie standing at his side without so much as a scrap of 
fear, a blue delft teacup cop shading her grin from his eyes.

"Aww," and here, Michelle tucked both his arms behind his back and 
pouted outright at their guest.  "I was just giving him a hard time.  
I've got no problem at all with you being collateral. I mean, if you 
want to be collateral that is."

"Wouldn't be the first time."

"Or staying in somebody else's room.  You're the guest and... and..."  He 
squealed.  He couldn't help himself.  The crystal glinting on Saffie's 
gloves was too much for the magpie living in his heart to resist.  Once 
it had stopped winking with her sips, he ended up claming her hand very 
much the way his lover had in the first place.  "Where did you get your 
ring?  It's SO beautiful."

For all its complexity it was a dainty, gleaming thing; more light than 
any surer substance.  There were flowers cut in its band, some so tiny 
Michelle couldn't see them properly until he drew her fingers near.  
Closer to the stone they curled away so that the setting nested instead 
between two platinum leaves spangled with Greek writing.  The gem 
itself was emerald cut, mounted sideways in a golden halo, its body the 
color of aquamarine, though it certainly didn't catch the light like 
aquamarine did- it looked like it was full of tiny, swimming fish made 
of opalescent cellophane.  

"Oh, You like it? That's my engagement ring.  My fiance stole it for me 
from a lab in Luxembourg.  There aren't any gems like that anywhere 
else in the world.  He killed five men to get it, including the 
installation's head chemist.  They say his death set the development of 
more crystals like this one back fifty years."

"You're engaged?" Yuki asked credulously over his mop handle as 
Michelle oohed and ahhed.  "How old are you?"

"Oh, I'm thirteen."

"Really?" The blond boy piped up, though his eyes remained fixed to the 
priceless little crystal.  "You looked at least fourteen to me."

"Why thank you."

From the floor where he crouched beside Kuroe and their respective, 
recently retrieved coffee cups, Schuldich sighed contentedly.  "What'd 
I tell you? Problem solved."

***

"Hmm," purred Kuroe, taking his neglected cup in hand and scooting 
back against their long, single work table. "I wonder." 

Beside him, Schuldich cast Kuroe a quizzical look, only to then turn 
his full smirking attention on Michelle and Savil. He laughed before 
his old love even opened his mouth to speak. 

"Mind him, liebechen. Michelle has an eye for pretty stones. He's 
not above stealing those baubles which catch his fancy. And I 
wouldn't, my beloved," he warned, when Michelle made to snap his whip 
at him again. "It's only turning me on, having you sting me while 
you are dressed so. I'm liable to tumble you on the table right here 
in front of everyone." 

Reddening fiercely, Michelle began to splutter. 

"Oh, I could. And Aya's not here to censor me, either." 

Pulling a face, Michelle turned away from the sprawled couple, and, 
taking Savil by the hand, led her back to the kitchen. The delicate 
click-slap of their footsteps was overrun by Furii's plodding tread 
on the stairs. 

"Nor will he be for some time," came Furii's voice from above, just 
seconds before he came into sight. He had showered, and had changed 
into a light grey T-shirt and a pair of faded olive green cargo 
pants; he wore a pair of scuffed pair of black Doc Marten's, and a 
fluffy red towel was draped over his wet hair. 

"Oh?" queried Kuroe. "Do I have to guess why?"

"If you did, you'd probably be right," Furii replied, whipping off 
the towel from his head as he went to retrieve a broom and pan from 
the wooden rack behind the register. His hair stuck out in all 
directions, but he made no attempt to straighten it, save for whisking 
his damp bangs out of his eyes. 

"Hmm..." mused Kuroe, who slid his arm around Schuldich's 
shoulders. "It's not like I blame him." 

The pan landed on the floor by one small pile of soil. "No," said 
Furii dryly, the broom he held now swooshing softly across the smooth 
linoleum. "I didn't think you would. Now...mind telling me why 
Michelle is staring at Savil as if she were a plate of chocolate 
profiteroles?" 

"Oh, she's engaged. He gave her a striking ring, too, the lucky 
girl." 

Furii stopped sweeping. "Engaged? She's a child." 

"She's thirteen," said Kuroe with a shrug. 

"Oh. My bad," countered Furii with a slight quirk of a brow. "I 
forgot we were living in the Dark Ages."

***

"Are we now?" Schuldich inquired between sips of coffee.  "You know, I 
could have SWORN this shop looks an AWFULLY lot like an example of 
late 1980's architecture, but then again, what do we call the eighties 
besides the dark ages? They were a whole millennium ago."

"Hey..." Yuki groaned to himself as he went back to trimming what there 
was to recover of the wounded flowers into somewhat proper shapes.  At 
that moment though, all he could see properly was his collection of 
Depeche Mode cds, and so he ended up decapitating, not one, but two 
blooms with one fell swoop of his shears.  He nearly took one of his 
fingers off as well- but the sound of the first blossom splatting in 
the standing water of her pail caught his attention.  "Oops."  The 
clippers chased her into the little pool.  "Fuck."

Furii gave him a look, but he didn't see it, and Furii meanwhile 
discovered with a kick to his knee that Schuldich was still ranting.

"I guess that toast I had for breakfast was supposed to be for 
trenches, right? And you've all got lice.  Damn pigs.  But how else 
will we eat?  I can hear them rolling around on the basement floor now 
that you mention it.  Oink oink oink!"

Of course, just then, not only did the owl hoot, but Saffie's black 
bag, which had been silent for some time, went "KWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" and 
began to shuffle across the floor of its own accord while whatever 
lived inside it decided to go for a walk.

"Aww," Schuldich groaned.  "C'mere, ya spoiled brat."

The bag, in an utterly shocking display of obedience, did just that.  
"Kweeee kweeee!" it said to him.  And Schuldich, with his coffee cup 
balanced on Kuroe's saucer, undid the zippers.  Out of the bag popped a 
tiny, peach-pink pot-bellied pig.  What fur she had was fine as goose 
down, her hooves like pale onyx.  The curl of her tail had been graced 
with a little blue satin bow, and both her exceptionally large ears had 
golden hoops in them.  Around her neck a ran a chain of filigree 
flowers, at the center of which dangled a four-leaf clover of faceted 
peridot.  

"Kweeee!" She told Schuldich rather than thank him properly, and at 
once trotted over Kuroe's legs in the interests of getting a better 
look at what Furii was presently up too.

"Damn things's even got a sense of irony," complained Schuldich.   

***
 
"How refreshing," droned Furii. "If it defecates on the floor, I'm 
not going to be the one who cleans up the mess." 

Schuldich signed to him that he didn't really give a damn, then 
gathered up his coffee cup, and curled up against Kuroe's side as if 
they were completely alone in the shop. Furii turned away before he 
could witness the completion of their latest kiss. But it wasn't to 
his task where his notice rebounded, but to Yuki, who stood with his 
back to him, still fussing over the pots of injured plants. 

From the kitchen and behind him, laughter rose, and the sweeping 
motion of the broom in Furii's hands slowed, for an idea had taken 
root. With renewed purpose, he briskly attacked the scattered dirt 
and blooms, until it all had been gathered and disposed of. At that 
point, Furii had maneuvered himself right where he wanted to be--
within a foot of Yuki. 

"I was planning to go for a walk in Hyde Park at lunch. Want to 
come?" he asked, as he set the broom and pan back in their respective 
places. 

***

From behind his cloud of mangled flowers Yuki regarded his companion, 
and though his expression warmed, it also grew somewhat calculating.

"I think," He said, "that I would like that.  In fact..."

With a low whistle, the machinations of his mind finally surrendered to 
more culpable proof of what he had been pondering, and he reached into 
his pocket after the slim leather wafer of his wallet which he leafed 
through with the numbers on his bills trickling over his lips.  "I'll 
raise you a cheese and humus sandwich from Nathalie's and a coke." 

"Kwee?" Asked Clover, and she stuck her snout up the cuff of his jeans.

"What? Do I smell like something you'd like to eat, pig?"

"Kweeeeeeee!" And with that, she took off out of the room, grunting and 
snuffling the air most purposefully.  Yuki of course dismissed it all 
as the effect of the salad with hot truffle oil dressing they had had 
the week before.  He shrugged for Furii.  On the other side of the 
room, the wet smackings paused just enough for some earthly chuckles.  

***

"A pig roaming loose in the building. Aya will be so pleased," said 
Furii, shaking his head. "Anyway. I'll see your bet, and raise you 
a custard from the same. We can get it as takeaway. I'll bring a 
tablecloth along, and we can have a picnic." 

Behind him, another bubble of laughter rose, and Furii spun to stare 
at the offenders. "What's so funny?"

"Oh, nothing. Don't concern yourself," said Kuroe. 

"I'm not," stated Furii. And with a bland once-over of the pair, he 
turned back to Yuki. "Twelve-ish?" 

The boy nodded, and they drifted apart. Furii went to take the ferns 
they had hanging in the window outside for a thorough watering. Both 
Kuroe and Schuldich, who had watched the whole of their exchange 
between kisses and gropes, now proceeded to compare notes on what 
they had seen. 

/Seems someone's in love. Or interested, at least. I wonder, is it 
returned?/ Kuroe asked of his lover. 

"Either way," he added in a whisper, "it seems we'll have something 
to entertain us for the next few days."

***

Ken lay exactly where Aya had left him- splayed in the exact center 
of the mattress, his naked limbs cast out around him like the points 
of a star. There was no corner of the futon not occupied by his 
drizzly shadow, and Aya, when he had been asleep beside him, had more 
or less been subject to being used as a full-body pillow. Ken snored 
shrilly at the world rather than face it, though the fact was, the 
state of his hair might well have scared it off. Not even the encore 
of Michelle's shouts awakened him, nor the sunshine dancing on his 
eyes.

Even through his lover's footsteps and the squeaking door, he snored 
on. It was not until the cup of cream-shot coffee appeared beside 
his nose that he moved at all, and then he stuck his lips straight in 
the brew and slurped from the dead center of the warm liquid's 
surface.

"Mmm... coffee..."

***

Pulling a face, Aya moved the cup away from Ken's seeking lips, and 
tapped him squarely in the middle of his forehead. Ken groaned, and 
without opening his eyes, he raised a hand from the futon in the 
hopes of meeting with the cup's overwarm sides. Aya was too fast for 
him even then, having had set his own cup down on the floor in order 
to trap Ken's groping paw in his own. 

"Coffee is better drunk when one is fully conscious. Now come on, 
get up, and have some," he coaxed, letting his gaze roam 
appreciatively over his lover's nude form. 

***

"But I do' wanna," Ken complained, and, realizing his grammatical faux 
pas even half awake as he was, added, "get up."  Of course, once his 
mind had consented at last to actually process such useful tidbits of 
information, there was really no point in trying to hold back the tide 
of wakefulness, as much as he might have preferred otherwise.  His skin 
was so warm and the bed was so cozy... not to mention, he finally 
realized, empty.

Cracking open one eyelid resulted in a grumble of pain, and a second 
attempt to try with the other eye fared little better.  One of these 
days they were going to have to get curtains.  That one glance he had 
had of his lover though... something seemed a little strange, and as 
such, he canted him just as much a scowl as his reluctant vision would 
allow.

"Hey, it's not even eight AM and you're ALREADY ogling me!"

***

Aya paused in mid-reach just above Ken's thigh, and turned to face 
his lover, one brow cocked. "It's eight AM, and you're sprawled 
stark naked and sleepy-eyed in the middle of y--*our* bed. Of 
course, I'm ogling you," Aya said with a tiny smile. "How much 
restraint do you think I have anyway?" 

With another appreciative sweep of his bemused gaze, Aya lifted the 
cup he held to his lips, then remembered himself with a shake of his 
head. He promptly held it out to Ken. "Come on and drink this 
before I really do forget myself, and cause both our coffees to grow 
cold." 

***

"Hey, last night's the sorta thing makes me wish you'd forget yourself 
more often and just stay home with me an' a canna whipped cream," Ken 
drolled as he picked himself up.  The sheets fluttered away from where 
they dozed at the foot of the futon, and just to spite his lover, 
sailed into his lap to sleep off the last of the weariness another 
night unwanted had caused them.   

The coffee Ken took and once more, slurped and sucked and blew bubbles 
in like a toddler left unattended with a glass of milk.

"Hey, is that the leftover duck? You REALLY got that away from Furii?  
Duck and coffee for breakfast! I feel loved."

***

Aya set the napkins and container he'd brought along on the bed in 
front of Ken. "And you didn't after last night? I suppose I'll have 
to try harder next time," said Aya with a naughty little 
smirk. "Pity." 

Ken passed Aya his cup of coffee with a flirty little rub shoulder-to-
shoulder. The sauce speckled lid came off the container with a wet 
pop, and Ken, finding himself without eating utensils, 
chose to use his fingers instead. In fact, he seemed quite pleased 
to be able to eat in such a manner. 

"I would have brought a fork, but I was in a hurry to leave the 
kitchen," Aya said between sips of his own unadorned 
brew. "Schuldich was there with Kuroe." 

Ken, munching furiously in indignation, made a noise akin to a 
growl. 

"That's pretty much what I said, too, when I saw them," replied Aya. 

Licking his lips, Ken pinched a piece of sauce-laden duck, and held 
it up to Aya's lips. Without pause, he took it, his lover's 
fingertips and all. He sucked at Ken's digits a little before 
withdrawing altogether. 

"Mmm..." Aya purred, swiping at one corner of his mouth. "I thought 
I'd had my fill, but..." He took another sip of coffee, then set the 
cup aside in favor of pinching another morsel from the bowl. All he 
managed to come away with a coat of red-brown goo. Ken had plucked 
the very last long strip of meat out of his reach just seconds 
before. Smiling like a smug little boy, he gobbled it up before 
Aya's eyes. 

Aya reacted by placing his dripping fingertips onto Ken's left 
collarbone, and streaking a russet curl over his left pectoral. He 
followed the line he'd painted with his tongue, surprising a gasp out 
of his lover. 

"Like I said," Aya added, licking his lips clean. "I haven't had my 
fill, yet."  

***

"OK, but I just ate, so no bouncing," Ken said.  His lover rolled his 
eyes at him, but either way, they both went tumbling down onto the 
futon, Aya tangled up between his companion's arms and the mattress. 

The coffee, which, had only just avoided being upset, stood a less than 
eager witness to Ken's salty kisses, and the foam from one of them he 
smoothed over the other boy's face.  

Ken found along the curve of Aya's throat that his most recent lovebite 
had finally begun to fade- what was left of the bruise, he kissed, and 
Aya moaned for him.  It was, after all, Ken's favorite place to leave 
his wounds.

"Aaa, I bet they couldn't even see this last night.  Not that they'd 
ever doubt you're mine.  But I want them to remember every single time 
they lay eyes on you..."

Saying so, he drew a few stray crimson threads from what remained of 
the mark, and while the spot still shone with the passing of his 
tongue, Ken pressed his mouth to Aya's throat and bit him as hard as he 
could without breaking the ivory shell of his skin.

The smackings of his lips faded in and out, the only sound in the whole 
room besides the arias the birds had written.

"You always hold so still for me.  God, I love it."

Though in his heart he doubted if his lover would stay that way for 
long once he had clasped him between the legs and taken to rubbing him 
through the fabric of his trousers.  

***

Ken's prediction had proved true, for Aya had started at the weight 
of his hand on his groin, and he clutched at him.  For the space of 
two breathless nudgesof his hips, Aya held his lover's gaze, and 
then he closed his eyes, and turned away with a quiet moan. 

"I knew I shouldn't have bothered leaving the bed--no! Don't stop. 
Right..." 

Ken bent over him again, and sank his teeth into the unblemished 
slope Aya had presented to him. Aya squeezed the 
shoulder he held; slid his free hand down his graceful back to stroke 
the well-muscled curves of Ken's ass. 

"Yeah, leave your mark on me," he whispered, turning to gaze sleepy-
eyed at him again. "Prove to everyone who sees me that I've been 
claimed. And when you're finished, you can then prove it to me." 

***

"Oh, so this isn't enough for ya?" Ken teased as he snatched at his 
lover's bangs and once more bared the formerly pristine edge of his 
neck.  In only a handful of moments it had become pristine no longer- 
Ken not only nibbled, but edged it with a thin crescent of pin prick 
marks his canines had left.  "You're a demanding lover if there ever 
was one."

Beneath him, Aya nodded and found himself shortly with his head half-
pinned to their wildly-flung pillows.  The other boy's tongue passed 
over the tender skin between his chin and his throat, and then his 
teeth, just the rims, just enough to scratch, but the fresh wound came 
at the same moment Ken's palm ground into his loins.  

"Maybe," he mused innocently a moment as if pondering rather what to do 
with some of the less content flowers in the shop. "I wonder if you 
don't just want something that might get covered up.  Let me see..."

Aya's pants he tore open then, but paused only long enough to lap his 
tip clean before he climbed onto his thighs and let only his own cock 
brush his lover's.  His mouth was hot and dripping when it sank against 
Aya this time.  He lapped his shoulders and the curve of his bicep, all 
the way down to his forearm, form there to his wrist.  And then he sank 
his teeth into him, everywhere his skin lay wet and waiting.

***

"Yeah," Aya sighed. "Like that."  
 
Softly, Aya hissed and moaned from his lover's savaging of his flesh,  
but he made no move to stop him--only to bend one leg for support  
while he rubbed against Ken. He shivered when Ken's mouth left  
him, the wet, reddened marks cooling in the artificially chilled air  
of their bedroom.  
 
"Come on," he urged, as Ken took his fingers into his mouth, and  
began to bite them in turn. "I'm so cold. Warm me up, Ken."

***

"Like I just said, demanding," Ken spoke with his lover's fingers still 
pressed up against the inside of his cheeks- the words came slippery to 
them both, but clear still.  Once they finished, he bit white plumes 
into the other boy's nails, left the pads of his fingers to pink and 
tremble with the pressure marks that rimmed them.  And then he kissed 
him on the lips, covered him again with his bare self.  "If you're sure 
though, I'd never tell you no.  Not ever."

When Aya bit at his mouth, he knew there was no more question besides, 
"Where do you want it?"

The hand of his lover's tangled in his hair fell away and traced a 
little arc on the milky thigh under his own.  A nod, and Ken drew away 
to the shadow where his trousers had fallen the night before.  His pen 
knife still lay folded inside one pocket, and he claimed the blue 
lucite shaft of it before returning to the other boy's side.  

"You know I always gotta ask.  You're the only one ever let me..."

The skin he meant to claim Ken rubbed with his thumb until it pinked.  
His cock dripped, and his own legs shuddered where he crouched, each 
one of his breaths turned to sighs.  With his forefinger covering the 
dull edge to keep it steady, he ran the blade over the blush that had 
gathered on Aya's thigh.  The skin rent. Splatters of red wine slipped 
out over his fingertip as he cut.  The graze he left was shallow, but 
it dripped blood like wet leaves free themselves of fresh rain.

Ken kissed the wound with his tongue, troubled it and let it weep into 
his hand long enough that he could smear the droplets onto his lover's 
chest.

***

It had made Aya ache even more when the naked blade sliced open his 
skin, and the touch of Ken's mouth thrilled him. His fingers were 
quivering when he ran them across his blood-stained chest to gather 
the excess. 

"And you are the only one who ever understood me." 

Carefully, Aya outlined the shape of Ken's mouth with his sanguined 
fingertips, and then he rose to kiss the traces of blood away. He 
could taste himself on his lover's tongue, the bitterness of what 
Ken had drank. Desperately, he drew him close, kissing and kissing 
him as if his hunger for him wouldn't be easily satiated. 

With his hands, he traced the lines of his back, groping the 
shifting, bony knobs of his shoulder blades. His lips met with Ken's 
throat, and Aya bit him hard, making him moan. He was promptly 
shoved away, and Aya fell without complaint onto the mattress. Ken 
brandished his knife again, questioningly, and Aya rolled onto his 
side, cupping Ken's purpling sex in one hand. 

"Do me," he said, gently kneading his erection. "And then I'll do 
you." 

***

Ken nodded.  The pen knife snapped closed and went flying as he, his 
cock still embraced by Aya's fingers, dove for the cabinet where their 
toys lived.  A handful of heartbeats and a flock of happy moans and he 
had the blue plastic box from the bottom shelf clattering in his hands 
as he fought to open it with his quaking fingers.

Inside on a bed of white velvet lay an X-acto knife, some liquid 
bandage, a box of sewing pins and a little bundle of razor blades, one 
of which he pulled loose from the rubber band that held them before he 
slammed their chiming casket.

Aya shivered under him when he held up the little slip of metal for him 
to see; shivered with elation and the dark smile that stained his lips.

"I love you.  God, Aya, I love you so much..."

As he spoke, he descended on his lover with the razor, and sliced him 
open with swirls from his shoulder to the kink in his skin that crowned 
his elbow.  His design dripped though, spread and ran and ruined 
itself, poured onto the sheets before he bent as if to drink.  He 
didn't though, just rubbed his cheek against the leaking wounds.

"Oh Aya..."

***

With a few drops of his own blood, Aya painted the kanji for "Ran" 
over one of Ken's thighs, and leaned in to lick it away with slow 
circles of his tongue. His lover's cock twitched in his hand, as if 
begging for attention, and he shifted just enough to lick its head. 
With a quiet little moan, Ken wrapped an arm around him, curling even 
closer. Aya felt him pinch at his smoothly rendered cut, coaxing 
more blood to the surface. Already, thin red streaks marred the white 
of their sheets. 

"I like how you say my name. I like how you taste. You drive me 
crazy." 

Drawing Ken to him, Aya sat up, and ran a hand along his seeping 
cut. He then captured Ken's cock within it, and fondled him with his 
blood-dampened palm. 

"You are all I ever wanted."

***

"You're everything to me..." Ken choked out between his fragile moans.  
"My dark side and whatever else there is, Aya.  Aya... oh Aya... I'll 
say your name all morning if that's what you want..."

He needed no reply, but slipped against the crimson wetness that had 
gathered on his lover's shoulder once again, though he spoke now, 
whispered out his promise between mouthing the cuts as they bled and he 
thrust back against the fingers that cradled him, dripped on him.

The cut on his lover's thigh still open and oozing, he smeared a little 
red swoop down his side to get to bring it once more within reach of 
his lips.  What film had begun to form on its edges to stem the flow he 
rent with his teeth before he opened a second, longer slice above and 
began to kiss them both.  In between, sometimes he mouthed Aya's penis, 
sometimes he just rubbed him with a little of his own blood.

He only stopped long enough to hand the razor blade over to him, 
breathe against his wounds.  "Alright, my turn."

***

The blade wavered in Aya's grip, but the cut he made in Ken's flesh 
was as shallow as the wounds he'd been dealt. It began as a loose 
curl on his left shoulder, and trailed down his pectoral in a wave, 
curving to a stop an inch above his nipple. Aya dropped the dripping 
razor onto the sheets, and bent his head over Ken to trace the 
bleeding line with his breath. Ken shifted restlessly against him, 
and Aya pressed his cheek upon his lover's chest, and delicately 
lapped at one thin, red rivulet. 

"Call me whatever you want," he sighed. "Just so long as you're mine. 
Or do I need to remind you of that, too?" 

Aya lifted his head to silence any remark of Ken's with a kiss. 
Blindly, he sought the razor, brandishing it in the sunlight, its 
murderous sparkle unseen by either--until Aya released him, and urged 
him down on the mattress. 

"So you won't forget..." he murmured, touching the tip of the razor 
to Ken's thigh. As surely as if he were writing with a brush, he 
lightly sliced his name into his lover's skin.

***

Ken gasped and whimpered through the whole ordeal of being so marked, 
writhing on the sheets beneath his lover's blade in sheer rapture.  The 
cuts, he sex, his tripping mind- they all felt ready to tear open and 
spill his joy upon them both.  When Ran had finished, he drew his leg 
up so he could see the wound clearly between caresses.  The sight of it 
made his heart catch in his throat more than even the tingling pain 
that oozed through the cuts.

"Oh Aya..." This breathed with softness most uncommon in their bedroom.  
"If it fades, cut me open again, just like that.  Please, Aya.  It 
feels so... it feels good, better than the rest.  Aya..."

Aya just kissed him there, kissed his pristine skin and finally kissed 
him all the way down to the root of his cock, which he sucked them with 
his sanguine lips.   

***

"As soon as it fades, I'll mark you anew with my name," Aya whispered 
across the tip of his sex. "I promise." 

Ken's fingertips flexed against his scalp, silently urging him to 
embrace him fully with his mouth. But Aya only pulled free of his 
grasp, and rose over him again, lightly twirling the razor. His 
regard thoughtfully tripped over his prone naked form, casting about 
as it were for the next likely place where he might carve some other 
symbol of his love. 

Unexpectedly, he set the razor aside on the top of their cabinet. When 
he returned to Ken's arms, it was to kiss him fiercely, biting at his 
lips between laps of his tongue. 

"I can't wait anymore," he hissed. "I need you." 

With that, Aya rose over him, and straddled his hips. Gathering 
their blood in his palm, he grasped Ken's cock, and guided it towards 
his ass. The tip, wet and glistening red, breached the contracting 
entrance of his body, and Aya, with a deep, shivering breath, slowly 
began to impale himself on Ken's cock.

***

"Oh God! AYA!" Ken screamed.  His words shortly faded rather to nervous 
cries beneath the fear someone had heard him.  No one had, but just the 
same, he cupped his bloody lips with his hand and moaned only with the 
twittering muscles of his throat.  His lover had to tug his fingers 
away to kiss him, had to fight him for right to fondle the skin he had 
wounded only just moments ago.

But Ken was always a gracious loser, and without his fears now, he 
kissed him and kissed him and pretended he craved nothing of breath; 
that all he needed to sustain his own body was Aya's wound so close 
against the shuddering heat that had thrilled him so.  

He touched him, his lover, everywhere he could- every wound, every 
trace where such things had once crept and with his hands wet as the 
ones that passed over him before Aya had started to ride him, he 
clasped the other boy's penis.

***

Aya gave an inarticulate cry, and Ken tunneled his cock within both  
hands, one cyclically covering as the other revealed. He could  
scarcely catch his breath between caresses, so relentless was Ken.  
 
His name on his whispering lips, Aya leaned back, balancing his  
weight on his hands. Ken's cock buried itself even deeper within as  
Aya rocked against his hips, and the redhead's own sex hung suspended  
from his body in the embrace of Ken's hands. Every nerve felt like  
it was on fire, and Ken clasped him again and again, sending his  
heartbeat spiraling upwards, thump by thump.  
 
"God, Ken. This...is all I need. All I want..." Aya sighed,  
clutching at Ken's invading member once again.

***

"Then that's all you get," Ken gasped and his back arched against the 
mussed covers of their bed as he cast himself once more into the quiet 
ecstasy that Aya's body held.  "I'll fuck you all day,  I'll fuck you 
until I can't even breathe.  I'll fuck you till I die and have nothing 
to dream about but fucking you."

Though his hands were salty with sweat, he drove them into the kanji on 
his thigh, and with the blood brought back on them, once more began to 
massage his lover's cock, rubbing not only for what pleasure he could, 
but to coax some of himself into his lover through the thin shell that 
his skin was.  His hands bobbed with the surges of Aya's hips, never 
missed him, never slipped from him, never left him, not even as his own 
climax began to snatch at his heart, seeped through his veins and fled 
him.

Ken had to bite one corner of their bloody pillow to keep from 
screaming when he came.

***

Aya, though, did not care who heard his cries as his orgasm washed 
over him, if his moaning wafted to the lower reaches of the house. 
All that mattered was that moment: Ken writhing under him, buried in 
him, and the joy he had obviously been able to impart.

His seed splattered over his lover's chest, Aya drew away from him, 
only to tumble to the side onto their futon. Tenderly, he smoothed 
Ken's hair from his forehead, and dabbed his temples with kisses. 

"I love you," he said in his ear, stroking his hair, his back. "God, 
Ken..."

*** 

It was about this time that Clover tired of snuffling around the legs 
of the kitchen table for crumbs.  After all, there weren't any crumbs 
to be had- not a one! Why, Furii's mopping skills were absolutely 
beyond reproach, unless whoever judged them happened to be a pig.  Or, 
in Clover's case, a rather hungry pig.

True, her beloved mistress had fed her all manner of preserves for 
breakfast, all of them served on the toast Schuldich had neglected to 
finish, and they had been truly exceptional preserves; sure her 
mistress and the boy who tasted like just-bloomed flowers had petted 
her and rubbed her behind her ears; sure there were an awful lot of 
rackets coming from various places outside, but on top of all this
pampering, Clover could not help but give into the whiles of her
little piggy nose.

And that little piggy nose at present was picking up a most enticing 
aroma.  A familiar one, like cream, and yet like light musk.  One 
which, despite its odd composition, was making her salivate horribly.  
She simply had to know from where the scent was coming, even though it 
seemed to have no beginning and no end there in the kitchen!

Being a sensible pig, Clover left said kitchen just as the two children 
began to laugh, and so her absence went quite unnoticed.  Out into the 
hall she went and all around the living room with her nose to the shag 
carpet- she found nothing there but the somewhat unappetizing aroma of 
Schuldich's semen, and so trotted back into the corridor from which she 
had come- the corridor which, much to her delight, contained the 
stairs, and the stairs were quite rife with the scent that so intrigued 
her.

It took her awhile, but with much scrambling and quiet oinking, she 
made it all the way up to the top floor where the tasty scent lingered 
most strongly of all.  Why, it seemed to be most potent behind one of 
the doors.  A few sniffs against the jamb confirmed this, and sent her 
skipping in circles with pleasure.  Soon the scent would be hers and 
hers alone.

After all, doors were no obstacle to Clover.  She simply got up on her 
hind legs and rubbed against the knob with her snout until it turned, 
then nuzzled her way straight into Aya and Ken's bedroom.

The two boys were lost to the music of their kisses at the time she 
intruded upon them, the younger just about ready to curl up in the 
elder's arms for a mid-morning snooze.

He doubtless would have gotten that snooze too, if Clover hadn't just 
then dashed over and bit Aya as hard as she could on the ankle.

***

Aya cried out in surprise, startling his half-drowsing lover from his 
arms. Clover squealed in response, and skittered away from him on 
her shiny black hooves. From beneath their window she hovered, grunting 
at him in consternation. After all--she only wanted a snack!  

"What the--" Aya began, eyes narrowing at the thin tracks of blood 
that now marred his ankle. "Why the hell's a PIG in here?!" he 
cried, dragging himself reluctantly away from Ken. 

Clover screamed again when Aya raced towards her, though boldly she 
sprinted towards him, darting around him at the last before he could 
even touch her. Growling in rage, Aya spun about to follow her out 
of the room, pausing only to snatch up the robe Ken had offered 
him and one of his own battered sneakers. This last he threw at 
Clover's retreating form, only to miss; it hit the wall an inch 
behind her beribboned, curly tail, and thumped harmlessly through 
the skinny slats of the staircase. 

"Who's pig is that!" he shouted, pounding down the stairs after her. 

***

"Piggy!" cried Saffie.  

Clover, hearing her mistress's voice, yelped and burbled and took a 
skidding turn into the kitchen.  Her hooves caught on the hallway rug 
leaving a great, big bouquet of wrinkles for Aya to narrowly miss, and 
in his evasion of them nearly run straight into the kitchen table, for 
the pig, knowing well enough that her pursuer was too big to follow her 
there, dove between the slats of the chair legs en route to the arms 
that waited to scoop her up and rock her like a baby.  

Once she'd hoisted her pet onto her shoulder, Saffie proceeded to fuss 
and pet and coo and generally behave as if neither Michelle and their 
conversation about crumpets existed any longer, nor Aya where he stood 
fuming silently as he tried to figure out just who the strange girl who 
had taken up residence in his lover's beloved kitchen was!

After awhile, she proved she at least knew his name.  "Oh, my poor, 
little Clover! What did the nasty Mr. Aya pants do to you? Huh? Did he 
throw his shoe at you? Did he? Ohhhhh... no, bad him! Very bad!"

***

"That monster BIT me!" bellowed Aya. "I'm bleeding!" He started to show 
her his injured ankle, but quickly thought better of it. "Who are you 
anyway?" he demanded."How do you know my name?" 

The little girl simpered prettily, but didn't deign to answer him. 
That, she left to Kuroe, who had only just come to the doorway. He 
lounged against the jamb, smirking at her over Aya's shoulder. 

"She's Schuldich's sister. And my guest." 

Aya spun about, missing the pert curtsey Savil had playfully dropped 
to Kuroe. From him to Schuldich he looked, sparking with fury. 

"YOU have a sister?!" he cried. "Oh, let me guess! She's a damn 
telepath, too."

***

"Am not a 'damn' telepath," Saffie protested faintly but with a flushed 
little pout nonetheless, one which apparently enticed Clover to try and 
nibble at her lips and what cake-mix gloss still lingered there.  The 
pig didn't get any, but rather found herself handed off to Michelle, 
who didn't manifest having any clue in the world what to do with her.

Schuldich, either way, went on, "As a matter of fact, she's a very 
talented, refined, intelligent, and sensible telepath." Much to Aya's 
shock and chagrin, he spoke without a hint of sarcasm in his voice, not 
to mention tossed his head and sashayed over to his side, where he took 
the time to flick the red-headed Weiss on the forehead.  And grin.  "In 
other words, she's just like me.  Saffie, don't you dare laugh."

"Well, it's just the day you're refined in the least, I'm going to run 
off to a nunnery in Macedonia and style myself the latest crazed, 
glass-rolling mystic."  

"Great, I'll send you a wimple and a six pack of old-fashioned, bottled 
cokes."  But rather than face either her wrath or what of Aya's was 
destined for his person, Schuldich scampered over to his sister, and 
kissed her on the forehead.  "See? Aren't we cute together?"

***

"'Cute,' isn't the right word," groused Aya. 

"Mm...on the contrary," said Kuroe behind him, "it is. Cute, and 
adorable, and beautiful." His pensive gaze shifted from Savil to 
Schuldich, and then to those of his exasperated housemate. 

"Whatever," Aya said, dismissing the siblings with a wave of his 
hand. "As they're your guests, I'm holding you responsible should 
anything go wrong." 

"Oh, really," drawled Kuroe. "It's not like they'll poison the ferns 
and try to steal the blender. They've only come to visit--and we 
have plenty of room to spare in this rambling old house." 

"How considerate of you," parried Aya. "Remind me to sublet once 
they've left." He started for the stairs, only to pause just short 
of them, adding, "If that pig bites me ANYWHERE else, I'll give it to 
Ken. He's not above sharpening his claws on an animal." 

/You of all people should know that, Schuldich./ 

With that, Aya ascended the stairs, limping just a bit from his 
smarting wound. Kuroe smirked at his retreating form until Aya had 
rounded the corner, and then he lurched away from his post in the 
doorway. 

"Good girl, Clover," he murmured, scratching the tiny pig between her 
pricked, pink ears. 

***

"Kweeeee Kweeeee!" Clover crooned.  The tip of her tail curling with 
the fuzzy ecstasy of being petted just how she liked best in all the 
world.

Saffie giggled, and said to her after leaving a big, wet kiss on the 
back of her head, "Oh yes, good piggy! Such a good piggy.  She missed 
Uncle Chrestien though, she missed him and his happy fingers a lot! 
Almost as much as she missed meaniepants Aya's YUMMY blood."

Rather than pop the last orphan toast point into his mouth, Michelle 
let the oozy drip of jam there splatter on the counter.  After all, he 
just had to ask, "Wait... so you two know each other?"

Kuroe nodded, and, oddly enough, the pig did too.

"Why yes," the little girl told him.  "They've met once or twice 
before.  They're very good friends."

"Aaa... and about the 'meaniepants Aya blood'...?"

"Why, Clover is an attack pig! They don't usually make very good pets, 
but we've specially trained her only to take big, juicy bites out of 
Aya.  Yes, we have, and she's a GOOD attack piggy!"

"I see."  But then again, Michelle was at no especial loss to come up 
with anything to say to that.  It was one peculiarity among many- like 
a single daisy in a field.  To some degree, he found himself 
re-assured that Clover at least had no intention of biting HIM.

"Oh, that reminds me," Schuldich chimed in then.  "We need to introduce 
Jasper to Trabant.  Michi, why don't you go show Saf your room, na?"

***

"Yes, you do that," said Kuroe, with a faint, feline smile for his  
lover. "And do have fun."  
 
Michelle gave him a dark look before turning away from him. Savil  
threaded her arm through his, and thus embraced, they made their way  
up the stairs. The sound of her bubbly giggle bounced off the walls  
as they rounded the corner to the next set of steps. 
 
"They make such an adorable couple, don't they?" he asked, turning to  
Schuldich. "I do hope Trabant gets on that swimmingly with Jasper.  
I should hate it if she mistakes him for an hors d'oeuvre."

***

"Well," said Schuldich, thoughtfully riffling through a few wayward 
strands of his hair, "Only one way to find out.  Hopefully, if she does 
think he looks like a tasty treat, she'll be too tired to nibble on him 
now.  Not that Jasper would mind that."

::He is an idiot after all.  And I would be, too, if I didn't agree with 
you about your little blond and mine.  Or my little blond with you, 
yours with me, if you're into that...?::

The two lovers nodded to each other and swept back to the shop for a 
moment after the cage where the puffball that was Schuldich's pet 
drowsed, looking more like an exceptional wad of dryer lint than an owl 
at present.  Jasper made no indication that the jarring shake his 
master gave his quarters disturbed him in the least; that the curses 
wafting from Aya and Ken's room offended him, or that the squeaking 
steps in any way put him off.  No, he even slept through his door 
being opened, and his self being hoisted off his porch.

"Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" he said only after Schuldich 
knocked him on the head.  The pupils of his enormous eyes shrank only 
slightly in the glossy shimmer that flooded Kuroe's quarters by day.

"Trabant," Schuldich told him, pointing to the speckled, fuzzy tuft 
presently snoozing on Kuroe's rafters. 

***

"Tch. That's no way to call her," chided Kuroe, who stepped behind 
Schuldich to retrieve a tin from his desk; he replaced it with a 
triangular lump of granite atop his scattered papers. "This is how 
you call her." 

The tin landed on the bed, two treats lighter than before, and Kuroe 
twitched his sleeve of his robe down the length of his extended arm, 
calling clearly, "Trabant!" 

The eagle owl unfurled from her hunched sleeping position, ruffling 
her feathers as if in displeasure over being awakened mid-nap. Kuroe 
waggled his curled hand at her, within which he had tucked the treats 
he'd gathered. With a clicking of her beak, she spread her wings, 
and swooped down from the rafters to perch upon his arm. Her brown 
claws dug into him through the barrier of cloth, but he didn't seem 
to mind it at all. 

"Isn't she gorgeous?" he asked, tenderly stroking his pet's barred 
grey back as she nibbled at her snacks.

***

"As if you would ever have any other kind of owl." Schuldich whistled 
at Trabant as a workman might at a passing woman whose skirt had blown 
up in the wind.  

Half a treat still clasped in her beak, Trabant looked up at her 
lover's guest, scowled just as much as an owl could before resuming her 
snack and culpable disinterest.

Of course, said disinterest didn't apply in the least to Jasper, who 
began to whoot and caw and make a host of very odd noises that he kept 
up until such time as his master groaned and scratched his owly chin.  
In return, he bit Schuldich, and sat instead on Kuroe's arm.

Jasper as a head shorter than Trabant, noticeably more unkempt about 
his ruff and possessed of enormous, vacant eyes- jasper in color while 
the rest of him was a strange molting of pale grey and moss brown, more 
brown beneath and more grey above.  He was obviously a cross-breed of 
some sort.  

"Whoooooooo!" he said to Trabant. 

***

Snapping down the last of her treat, Trabant drew herself up to her 
full height, and cast the impertinent Jasper a look of queenly 
disdain--to which he had no better sense than to whoop again in 
reply. Trabant blinked her dark eyes at him, and slowly, she pivoted 
around to face him, wavering only once on her master's arm. Jasper 
didn't see the threat she posed, but Kuroe did, and he attempted to 
shoo him away before the now hissing Trabant could sink her beak into 
him. He only succeeded at the last; it took an angry lunge from 
Trabant for Jasper to fly away for the safety of Kuroe's desk. 

Which he promptly relieved himself upon, to the disgrace of the 
papers beneath. 

"Get off!" cried Kuroe, who sent Trabant off with a wave of his arm. 
She landed upon one thick knob of the bed's footboard, where she 
coolly observed her master's attempts to clear the unseemly Jasper 
away from his precious writings. 

"Ohhh..." he moaned, holding up two sheets in disgust. "My 
sonnets!"

***

"Hey," Schuldich sighed.  "It's just a little owl shit.  If you let it 
dry, it comes right off."

He nodded, Jasper seemed to echo his movements, even as he took flight 
so as to better perch his tactless bottom on Kuroe's shoulder.  

"Cwooooo," he told his master's lover.  His master, of course, had no 
way of knowing if this was owl for "Sorry" or "What's the big deal, 
fucktard?" Trabant though gave an irate little squawk and subsequently 
began to preen, leading Schuldich to believe it was something closer to 
the latter.

Kuroe just starrrrrrrrrred at him.  "Seriously, works like a charm.  
They you just photocopy 'em and presto! Good as new.  And if that 
fails, I strip naked and you write an ode to me comparing me to 
something strange."

Telepath or not, Schuldich's grin certainly gave away the fact he had 
NO CLUE whatsoever about how poems are conceived, born, and reared into 
delightful little terrors.  Either way, he threw off the robe Aya had 
given him and planted his hands on his hips.   

***

Kuroe permitted himself the luxury of gazing upon Schuldich's naked 
body. In the morning light, he looked as if he had been chiseled out 
of ivory, and given life by some smitten goddess. His hair was 
appealingly mussed, inviting further rumplings by careless fingers, 
and his eyes winked as wickedly as hot coals. 

"When I look at you, composing a poem is the last thing on my mind. 
Although..." He cast a look to the slanted ceiling over his bed, 
then back to his lover's blissfully nude figure. A devilish little 
smile formed over Kuroe's face, and with a casual wave of his hand, 
he sent the addled Jasper sailing across the room to Trabant's perch 
by the window. 

Kuroe started towards Schuldich, unwinding the heavy sash from his 
waist, and slipping his robe off his shoulders. He cupped his face 
between his hands when he drew near, and kissed him as tenderly as if 
it were their last. 

"I want to paint you. Before you leave me, if you leave me...let me 
do it."

***

It was one of the smaller bedrooms and shared space with the bathroom 
of its respective floor.  It's one tiny window looked over what they 
had of a back yard, and everyone else's back yard, from behind a 
pleated shade of faded copper silk.  Any other house and it might have 
been a girl's room, but there were no girls in Kryptonbrand Side B, 
just Michelle and his love of mint-green gauze.  He had hung enormous 
swags of it over the wall in scallops that weren't quite even, covered 
the shades of his ceiling fan's lights with it and tied bows of it on 
the pulls.  The curtains on his canopy bed and all the sheets were made 
of similar but softer stuff, all his garage sale peach-beaded lamps 
painted around their bases with false patina that almost matched.  The 
sling where his stuffed unicorns- and he had an entire herd -was woven 
of matching rope, his runners sewn with matching lace, the cracks in 
the posts of his bed painted over so they looked like they had grown 
leaves.

"You've got to understand, it's not you that I'm so unhappy about," 
Michelle said softly as the warm tickle on his fingers spread once more 
over his knuckles after the last cool leaf of lettuce there.  "I just 
don't like..."

"...being pushed around?" Saffie concluded.  

She left the task of straightening the hangers that had formed a 
plastic spider's web over the better half of his closet and once more 
crouched on the floor with her roommate, her pig, and her pig's brunch.  
With her legs so bent, the rims of her boots dug into her skin and left 
a little dovetail between the vinyl and her naked legs.  He thought it 
looked awfully uncomfortable...

"Hey, it's okay.  You don't have to explain anything to me.  I'm a 
telepath, remember? Even if it doesn't make sense, it's totally 
alright." Like a butterfly balancing on the calyx of a flower, she 
reached out and ran the courses of her thoughts over his.  ::I 
understand.:: It didn't seem to startle him, but that was usually the 
case with assassins, even assassins who were presently worried more 
about the bite marks her buckles were leaving on her thighs, and how 
fragile her ring looked.

"But I want to.  I'm used to saying it." Michelle told her, and his 
eyes finally met hers.  

"I know that too, but you don't have to, if you want to try and do 
without."

Clover finally looked up from his fingers, gave the two children a 
swift assessing gaze, and at once determined her meal was over and she 
should to go exploring, or she would have, had the boy not trapped her 
in his leather and sweaty skin embrace.  

"Do you always hear what's going through my head or do you have to 
try?"

"I don't hear thoughts, I taste them.  Right here."  A little pink 
petal of her tongue flicked out, and Saffie gave it a tap.  "And I 
always taste them unless I put my shields up.  If it makes you 
uncomfortable, I can fix it so your mind doesn't come through.  It's 
not hard."

With his lip worrying in his teeth, Michelle considered the issue.  
Certainly, it meant going a little more naked, surrendering a part of 
his privacy, but then again, he quickly realized that since he had 
never dwelt on having that privacy, he honestly had no qualms with 
losing it.  His response came clear and deliberately flavored by him 
with all his memories of cheesecake.   /No.  You know, I don't think it 
does./

::Oh cool! I love it when people learn fast.  And you taste like 
cake!::

They both began to giggle, each perfectly aware of the jest behind the 
creamy softness.  He gave Saffie a little push to her knee so she 
toppled over onto the floor and her boots popped back up to where they 
should be.

"Then it's settled.  I'll stay here." ::And here.::  " And you can keep 
your bed.  I like sleeping on the floor- it's exciting.  We can make me 
a nest just like Clover."

Clover presently seemed to have changed her mind about exploring and 
instead rubbed up against the bone slats under his bustier.  He 
scratched her behind the ears a little and she began to grunt so softly 
it sounded like a purr.  

"Hey, we didn't discuss that at ALL." His indignance was more chuckles 
than sincerity out loud, as real as that sincerity might have been.  "I 
don't want to be THAT inhospitable." 

"If you don't mind, I'm OK with sharing the bed.  I don't grope like 
some people." It was with a shoulder tumble and a whistle she reached 
out and pinched one of his half-exposed nipples.  "You think I'd be 
uncomfortable sleeping with someone who isn't My Fallen Angel." 

"You have to admit most people would be, even though..."

"...I'm not most people."

"No, you certainly aren't."

Saffie sighed and shook her head.  "I trust you.  Nothing crossed your 
mind besides being practical, and after all, you thought of it first."

It was true, he had.

"If you're not OK, you should be.  No offense or anything, but you're 
really not my type.  You'll make an excellent gossip-friend, but not a 
sex-friend."  This admitted casually as if she were rather assessing 
the clouds and how they billowed over the city.

Michelle certainly found himself taken aback, her soothing looks aside, 
but she let the reasons come to him rather than offer them outright.  
After a moment, it started to make sense: if she knew more of him than 
most people did, she would naturally make her more decisions with more 
alacrity than most.  And besides, this way was better than her using 
only her sight to judge him against the rest of the world.  Had she not 
just called him a future friend, too?

"I sure did!"

"And you know, I have to admit," he intoned, preening a little.  
"You're not very much my type either.  What is your sort anyway? I'm 
given to slutty poets and you...?"

"Oh," Saffie sang in whispers.  "I like the taciturn and angsty kind, 
just like my fiance.  Your friend Furii? He's MUCH more my sort of 
dish."

"Really now!"

"Hell, yes!" Clover seemed to approve of the chap as well, as she 
squealed along with the giggles his name had called from their lips, 
and then again as their clambering to their feet gave her a jostle.  
Saffie had pulled Michelle up along with herself.  "Well, if we're 
going to have pillow talk, let's do it in bed.  We have to see if we'll 
both fit, after all."

And the next thing he knew, Michelle found himself sprawled, pig and 
all, just to the side of the tiny rut where he usually slept.  His 
companion had curled up like a little mouse on the side of the bed 
closest the window, while he, as if on a bed of grass, lay on his back 
with his hands behind his bed.  God, Saffie wasn't warm at all, but 
milky cool.  It was maybe a few tenths of a degree between their body 
temperatures, but it felt almost like having the air-conditioning 
personified beside him.

He sighed.

"You know, my making you uncomfortable just doesn't have to mean..."

"...you could be bothering me just because you have a body, and I have so 
recently lost a lover.  But you know that isn't true."

Her fingers felt like glass beads dripping over his forehead after his 
bangs.

"Most of me is just relieved it's over."

And since she could not know those words for as horrible as they 
sounded, he let them be all the more he said of Kuroe for that moment.

***

Niji II: "Clover" End

Next Time: Niji III: "Paint"

*****