Ai No Kusabi Fan Fiction ❯ Falling Into the Darkness ❯ My Last Breath ( Chapter 10 )

My Last Breath…

The explosions get closer as we run to the entrance of Dana Bahn, I running on my own as best I can while you are ahead of me, carrying my beloved Guy. I struggle as your longer stride takes you farther from me, but Guy's survival is more important to me right now than my own. After all, we…you and I… brought him to the place he is now.

It is my fault that all of this happened. It could have all been avoided if I had just been honest with Guy when I first returned to Bison that fateful night you gave me my reprieve. Instead, I did not tell him about the three years I spent in your `care'. I wanted to, but the time never seemed right to tell my pairing partner that I spent all the time away learning to please someone else.

It wouldn't have mattered that for the most part, if I ever cried out in the passion of the moment, it was his name I called. The anger on your face and the bruises on my body were testament to that fact. Instead, Guy would have just felt betrayed much sooner.

Still, I think if I'd only given him that hurt sooner, we would not be trying to race the flames. You asked me if I still love Guy that much, and I told you truthfully that I do not. The years apart have changed us all…myself most of all.

I tried to make my partner happy. I tried to make that be enough. Instead, my thoughts drifted back to you. The sound of your blonde hair whispering down my body as you slid to the foot of our bed still resounded in my head. Your eyes continued to bore through me as you watched me while you devoured my essence. The feel of your hands as they took control of me and drew my hips toward your own lingered like a phantom on my skin.

My pride the night we met doomed me to a lifetime of need that I didn't realize had been met until I left you for my former life. If you had only let me stay in that life, the feelings would have faded with time. I may never have truly been happy, but I could have become content just the same. You were determined, however, that it was not to be.

You should have saved yourself tonight. Guy did the only thing he could to ensure you and I could never again be together. His pride was completely destroyed when I showed him those things that made you more desirable in my eyes. Still, he couldn't accept that a *Blondie* would want a Mongrel in any form. He was determined to see me free of you, little knowing that I would still need to see you safe. Katze and I tried to be here in time, but I was just a little too slow in getting to the tracer. The exquisite pain would have been all a dream if only I could have alerted you before you went into the dark shelter that was Dana Bahn.

I failed. I'm sorry.

I know you think I should leave you alone to die, but my last breath cannot be spent if it is not by your side. Guy will go on without me, and Katze will survive without you. The love in his eyes was apparent every time he spoke of the days when he was your private Furniture. I knew he envied me; I knew he wished our roles had been reversed. He would have given up every bit of prestige he'd earned on his own for one hour of your loving care. In the end, not even Katze could deny his feelings. Iason, my love, you have that effect on us. You could have been a Mongrel such as me, and we would have not been strong enough to avoid your reach.

When he gave me the Black Moon cigarettes, Katze asked me if I was sure about my feelings. I knew that I could have always just handed them back and walked away. Granted, Bison would reform and I would go back to my old habits, but the joyous business relationship we had with the black market would have dried up as so much dust. Katze would have hated me, but I know he would have understood.

I couldn't do that to you and continue to live with myself. My pride started this wild ride. My pride will end it as well. As you have given all for me, I will be nothing without you, and I will willingly give my all for you.

My eyes are wide open as I light first your Black Moon and then my own. The taste is sweet in a way that what I smoked was not, yet it is not unpleasant for me. The smoke fills my lungs and the drug fills my body, gradually making me numb as it spreads. I feel your gaze upon me, and I turn to meet your eyes. The heat they convey surpasses the desperate inferno beginning to lap at our backs. As you wrap your arms around me one last time, I lay my head upon your shoulder. You ask me if I am regretting my choice to spend your last day with you. I put all the emotion I can into my voice as I tell you I would make the choice again if it were given me to do so. I love you, and I am not afraid to die with you.

Our mouths join for a last passionate kiss. Your tongue still causes sensations that the drug cannot replace. Brave "Riki the Dark" that I am, my eyes cannot help but fill with tears of sadness that we will never again have the satisfaction of our hungers for one another. You smile and tell me that my return to you has made this inconvenience worth the pain.

"Inconvenience?" I ask incredulously, and you answer only by holding me even more tightly. You close your eyes and I feel you begin to slip away. Taking your hand in mine, I place a final gentle kiss upon your palm, and I close my eyes as well.

Drifting away on the cloud of the Black Moon, my last thoughts while the flames embrace us both are of the love I had with you. Goodnight, my love…