Mirage Of Blaze Fan Fiction / Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Chasing Twilight ❯ Chapter Fifteen: Until You Know Kindness ( Chapter 15 )

Chasing Twilight

By: Banshee Puppet

Chapter Fifteen: Until You Know Kindness

 

~ “I have this recurring nightmare. It's dark and very loud. I can't think clearly.. I'm alone and something's chasing me. I see a hand reach out, but in the instant before our fingertips touch, I wake up. I guess that means for now, salvation is a long way off.” -Schuldich~

 

There's no place better than a bay window to spend a rainy night. Schuldich always thought so anyway. He almost looked like a completely different person sitting there in a v-neck undershirt and black sweats, barefoot and toying idly with a pack of cigarettes. When the lightning flashes lit up the otherwise darkened dining room, they made his pensive expression look jagged and blue. The winter, he figured, would be harsh if the nights were this cold already.

 

“I didn't know you smoked.” Ah, the familiar lullaby voice of Kosaka Danjoh. Schuldich didn't know what he was doing wandering around the darkened mansion at 3:45 in the morning, but figured it would be a little hypocritical to ask. He looked up at the possessor with an expression much subdued and betraying little of his inner turmoil. Maybe it was the lightning, but for the first time since they'd met Kosaka struck him as being untellably old.

 

“I thought I might start,” Schuldich answered at length. “My nerves are for shit lately.”

 

Kosaka took a seat at the edge of the sill by Schuldich's feet, and Schuldich pulled his knees in to make room for the other man. It seemed such a strange sight—Kosaka without his leather pants and trench coat. Instead, he currently wore a pair of navy flannel pajama pants with white gray slippers and a charcoal sweater to keep warm. The gold choker was still in place. Schuldich didn't think that Kosaka ever removed it. He had this bizarre mental image of a baby Kosaka Danjoh popping out with that same gold ring, somewhat looser, but still in place around his neck.

 

The rustling of paper broke the silence as the assassin broke open the pack of newports and slipped out a rather gloomy looking white cigarette with quivering fingers. He'd blame it on the cold, but he hadn't been kidding about his nerves lately. He was a mess like he'd never been before.

 

Kosaka reached over and stopped the hand. It was ice cold. Schuldich must have been sitting here for hours. “If you have a death wish, wait ti see it through until after the job is done. If you keep sitting here like this night after night, you're going to catch pneumonia.”

 

Schuldich blinked a few times. He felt like his hand was trying to suck Kosaka's body heat right out of him, so hungry for warmth. “Are you concerned,” he tried to tease, but it was too late and they were both too cold and far too tired to really appreciated it. “I didn't know anyone was watching me engage in my bad habits.”

 

Kosaka, for once, returned the redhead's joke with a deadly serious expression. “You're with the Takeda Clan now. If you want to survive the experience, I suggest you don't forget that someone is always watching.” Slender fingers touched his gold choker thoughtfully.

 

“You never take that off. Why?” The words were out of Schuldich's mouth before he even had time to consider them.

 

Kosaka offered a weak smile. “This is my collar,” he said. “I prefer to have a visual reminder that I'm little more than a tamed dog.”

 

Schuldich found that mental image morbidly funny. “That's the last thing I think of when I look at you.”

 

“There are a lot of things you don't know about me,” Kosaka replied, finding himself slightly irritated but offering a cryptic little smirk.

 

“Oh reaaaallllly?” Shucldich asked bemusedly, leaning forward a bit in amusement.

 

“For example,” Kosaka returned, laying the palm of his free hand on Schuldich's cheek and leaning into intimate proximity, too close for idle conversations, “you're exactly my type.” And before Schuldich could react, before he could even fully register the words, Kosaka trapped his lips in a patient, yet still somehow scandalous kiss, slowly coaxing the redhead to respond.

 

At first, Schuldich did. He'd been lonely, longing for the physical comforts of a lover—a kiss, a warm body pressed against his own. It didn't much matter whose. But after a moment he came to his senses and tore his lips away. Farfarello wanted this man. “I…love Omi,” he said, feeling pathetic for the words but knowing that he couldn't very well be the one to tell Kosaka of Farfarello's feelings—that was a personal affair. It wasn't for him to let that cat out of the bag.

 

“Relax Schuldich, I'm not looking for love,” Kosaka purred, making sure to keep all due sexiness in his voice and gaze at the other man through half-lidded eyes. “It's rainy and cold, the middle of the night and you look damn sexy in the moonlight,” he whispered, nipping gently at the redhead's jaw line and letting warm fingertips weasel their way under his shirt to trace the muscles in his abdomen. “Let me warm you up.”

 

Schuldich didn't know why he relented, his frayed nerves or his need to be wanted, perhaps. He no longer cared to think of the consequences if Farfarello ever found out, at least not for now, with warm hands working his clothes away and talented lips slowly easing the tension out of his body, spreading a trail of warmth in their wake.

 

It was a taboo comfort, a somewhat masochistic seduction, having sex in a windowsill in the middle of the night with the person your friend is in love with while he was in love with someone else entirely…but right now, Schuldich just didn't care. He'd take what he could get. Anything else was too much to hope for.

 

~*~

 

“Naoe? Is it much farther?” Yuzuru didn't want to sound like an irritable child asking `are we there yet?' but they'd been in the car for nearly four hours and his rear end was going numb. He wiggled his toes a bit and adjusted his seatbelt. Naoe looked as calm and thoughtful as ever and he wondered if Naoe ever got irritable or tired. He'd never seen the man look particularly stressed out. It seemed a subtle expression.

 

For himself, Naoe had been so lost in thought that it had slipped his mind that Yuzuru might not be accustomed to such long drives. He himself had grown so used to them over the years that he hardly noticed anymore.

 

“It isn't much farther to the hotel,” he answered. “An hour or so. I'll pull over for a bit so you can stretch your legs.”

 

Yuzuru thanked the older man, glad he'd bought a small cooler with sandwiches and iced tea because it was almost noon and he'd skipped breakfast in favor of last-minute packing. He'd planned to do it the previous night, but for some unfathomable reason, Chiaki had him on the phone until almost two A.M. They weren't discussing anything important, but Yuzuru never could bring himself to hang up on Chiaki—especially now that he finally understood his true feelings—so he'd just dozed off listening to the other man's deep voice for hours. `I guess he was just worried about me,' the teenager thought as he stretched the kinks out of his back. `It's kind of sweet, really.'

 

He rifled through the back seat a bit until he managed to uncover the cooler.

 

“Naoe.”

 

“Hm?” Naoe asked. He'd been staring off towards the horizon thinking about…well, who knows what Naoe is ever thinking about when he's not thinking about Takaya in some shape or form.

 

“Tuna, or ham and cheese?” Yuzuru asked with an amiable smile, holding up a pair of sandwiches.

 

“Ham, I suppose,” Naoe answered at length and accepted the small meal and a can of cold tea. He supposed he was a bit hungry, now that the subject had been brought to his attention.

 

“I thought so,” Yuzuru smiled as if he'd just claimed some small victory.

 

“You thought so?” Naoe asked.

 

“Well, yeah, Takaya said you liked ham.”

 

“I didn't realize he'd noticed,” the older man said with a faint smile. He was pleasantly surprised by the fact. It meant after four hundred years, his lord, whether called Kagetora, Takaya, or whatever other name he might choose, was finally taking a genuine interest in him.

 

The two men leaned against the car eating in silence for a while before Yuzuru finally reached the subject that was on his mind since yesterday afternoon. “Naoe…why did you pick me to come with you? I mean…”

 

“You're able to notice things that other people can't see,” Naoe answered immediately. He wouldn't explain more than that. He knew the few times Yuzuru had exercised his power he hadn't been able to control it and it had exhausted him. “Besides,” he added. “Without some time apart you and Chiaki were likely to kill each other before the week was out.”

 

Yuzuru blushed a bit and looked down. He knew that things had been tense between them since Chiaki's brush with death, but he hadn't realized that everyone else had noticed too.

 

“It's just that he's so stubborn,” he answered. “He tries to bear everything alone and won't accept help from anyone. It's frustrating.”

 

They fell into silence again as Yuzuru grasped for something to talk about, but what could he say? “You and Takaya are doing well?” he asked before realizing that was probably a bad choice of subject and wishing he could take the words back into his mouth as if they'd never been said.

 

Naoe simply nodded in reply. “We're doing well,” he answered. `Too well,' he thought. `I feel like I'm waiting for everything to shatter.'

 

~*~

 

Everyone has their little habits. Farfarello was no exception. He went to bed early and regardless of the weather got up at 4:30 and walked around the mansion four times, completing his circuit at about 5 A.M. He wouldn't be able to tell you why. It was just a habit he had. Today was no different. He started heading west first as usual. There was a bay window facing a garden and he often saw Schuldich out cold there after having stayed up most of the night. If he was awake, Fafarello would incline his head in greeting before continuing on as he always did. Since it was such an ordinary affair, he had become accustomed to looking for that window in his travels, but what he saw this morning through the glass was not what he'd expected.

 

~*~

 

Schuldich moaned, fingers threading in the dark shaggy locks of the man who claimed to be a tame dog but made love in a manner that was anything but tame. He knew they'd been at it for a while because in spite of the pleasure, which there was plenty of, his back was a bit sore from the awkward positioning. Oh, but he didn't really care, not right now. He was sweaty and wanton, his body thumping roughly against the small stretch of wall beside the window, talented hands and mouth everywhere on him that mattered. Before long, white heat engulfed him as climax overtook his body and he felt Kosaka's orgasm follow immediately thereafter. It would be a while before Schuldich was ready to face the implications of their tryst, and even longer before he realized that Kosaka's words were more true than he understood—someone was always watching.

 

~*~

 

Farfarello fell to his knees in shock. Kosaka had no reason to be loyal to him by any stretch of the imagination no matter what his own underused feelings might be, but Schuldich…

 

Schuldich was practically family. And Schuldich understood what he was feeling even better than he understood it himself.

 

`Pain…this must be pain..' Farfarello thought. `I can't breathe…'

 

~*~

 

~8:30 A.M., two days prior~

 

“You wanted to see me, Lady Minako?”

 

“You've certainly kept me waiting, Kosaka,” the woman said testily. She'd become so accustomed to people answering her every beckoned call that delays now tried her ever-thinning patience.

 

“My apologies. I was at a business luncheon with Estet in Tokyo. It was a long drive back. I only just got the message,” Kosaka replied politely.

 

That seemed to satisfy the woman. “I have a little chore for you.”

 

She appeared to be waiting for a reply so he said simply, “I'm listening.”

 

“Schuldich is rather untrusting and I don't think he's very loyal. The other one is much easier to manipulate.”

 

Kosaka didn't disagree. Farfarello seemed willing to run around the compound in a tutu if Kosaka asked him to. On the other hand, Schuldich tended to be extremely argumentative.

 

“Seduce him,” the woman said rather frankly.

 

Kosaka blinked a few times trying to determine if he'd heard her right. “You want me to seduce Schuldich?” He asked as if she'd lost her mind. It was unintentional, but he was rather surprised. “You realize that he's only helping us to catch the attention of that boy.” He knew he sounded argumentative, and corrected himself a bit. “Don't misunderstand. I'm not arguing with you, but I'll be better equipped to handle the job if I know what you're thinking.”

 

“He doesn't need to fall in love with you,” Minako said. “That boy might have his heart, but you can still seduce his body and fool him into trusting you.” Kosaka happened to know she spoke from experience. She'd once been in a situation between two men very similar to the one she intended to put Schuldich in now. “He can't figure out how to read the minds of possessors, so he won't suspect a thing.”

 

“Seduce Schuldich. Me,” Kosaka mused, a little doubtful. “I'll do it, but it will be troublesome. I don't think I'm his type.”

 

“Just do it,” Minako snapped a bit. “Oh, and Kosaka…”

 

“Yes, Lady Minako?” he asked as politely as he could given the circumstances.

 

“Make sure Farfarello finds out about it. Better yet if he sees you.”

 

 

Schuldich had fallen asleep against the windowsill almost immediately after their little midnight rendezvous. Now, pulling his sweater back on, Kosaka glanced out the bay window subtly, watching out of the corner of his eye as Minako held out an umbrella to the slender albino and offered him an amiable, understanding smile.

 

Farfarello was looking up at her as if she were some kind of angel and Kosaka took a moment to watch more carefully. It was hard to tell in this foul weather, still dark as night though the sun was trying to rise, but the man looked almost heartbroken. Kosaka turned away, furrowing his brow in thought. Absentmindedly, he pushed a few strands of hair from Schuldich's face. `I guess until you know kindness, nothing can change,' he thought. `If that's the case, then you're far from the only person who was screwed tonight, Schuldich. I have a sinking feeling that this time, even I somehow got played.'

 

~*~

 

A/N: Another one down. Another one to type, and I believe halfway through writing the one after that. Making up for lost time much? Will have another one up soon.