Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Beating Hearts are Overrated ❯ Zwei ( Chapter 2 )

A/N: The best explanation I can provide for this story as it develops is that a number of people have said it wasn't what they were expecting. I think they meant that in a good way. Or not.

 

 

xXx

 

 

Sho first noticed that although the air within the stone walls was cool, it lacked the dank quality he expected. There was no reek of moldering flesh, no dust clogging his nostrils. He was forced to rely on these indistinct senses because he could see nothing, drenched as he was in a thick, cloying darkness. Naomi was able to navigate with perfect ease, however. His stride was quick and confident, lapsing only when he transferred his firm grip to the back of Sho's neck.

 

 

An occasional misstep caused Sho to brush against a wall. At first he encountered stone, but it gave way to the glossy smoothness of paint over plaster. It seemed impossible that they could still be walking. Though the structure had seemed large enough from the outside, it could not have possibly contained so many winding corridors. It was not until Naomi stepped behind him and guided his hand to a railing that Sho realized they had reached a set of stairs. And they had likely been descending for some time.

 

 

Their advance down the steps was made all the more difficult by his attempt to slip out of Naomi's grasp and injure the man in whatever way possible. Which resulted in a slim knee connecting brutally with his groin. A pause was required for Sho to regain his breath, stop swearing, and affirm that he would still be capable of someday fathering children.

 

 

Eventually a pinpoint of light became visible. It grew until they turned into an open doorway.

 

 

Sho craned his neck upward to catch a glimpse of the ceiling in the colossal room. Though windowless, ample light was provided by both ornate chandeliers and chic lamps atop numerous desks. At first glance Sho would have called it a library, but the high, seemingly endless shelves were stuffed with more binders and folios than books.

 

 

Though the desks were attired with sleek monitors and personal artifacts, only one was occupied. Closet to the door a desk was set apart from the others. The man residing there did not react to their entry, intent upon his rapid typing. After a moment he paused, eyes scanning the screen with apparent satisfaction. When he glanced up at them, he smiled slightly. The expression was warm and honest, made striking only by the barely discernable reactions to which Sho had quickly adjusted.

 

 

“Naomi, good to see you. I was starting to think you wouldn't make it.” His tone was comfortable, familiar. The two were apparently more than acquaintances. Sho found himself noticing this, as well as relatively minor details around him. His more analytical skills had come to him on the coattails of relief, and that relief via a certain happy realization: None of this was real. He was either crazy or dreaming, but even the physical pains could be products of a malfunctioning mind.

 

 

He studied the seated man avidly, surprised at the detail of his subconscious. Though dressed in a well-tailored charcoal suit, he possessed an ease and languor Sho had never associated with desk jockeys on the clock. Tousled black hair fell in unkempt waves to his shoulders. His darkly lined eyes were incongruous behind the rimless spectacles perched upon his aristocratic nose.

 

 

Naomi's hand slipped again, this time to his shoulder, and Sho was tugged forward. His petite abductor offered only an uninflected shrug to the bespectacled man, who seemed more than capable of interpreting it.

 

 

“Name?”

 

 

Sho started, unaware of how still the room had grown until the silence fractured. Still startled, he replied with his usual amount of consideration and foresight.

 

 

“You first, four-eyes.”

 

 

The man stilled, before smiling thinly.

 

 

“My name is Dorian. And I'm surprised to find you still breathing, if that's the way you've been addressing Nao.”

 

 

Even as the retort left his lips, Sho had not expected an answer. Given one, it seemed churlish to withhold his own from a generous product of his imagination.

 

 

“Sho.” A swift elbow in his side had him spluttering before adding: “Suzukura. Sho Suzukura.”

 

 

Dorian's agile hands danced briefly over the keys before stilling once more.

 

 

“Date of birth?”

 

 

“October thirty-first, nineteen eighty-one.”

 

 

The questions were basic at first, and went smoothly; height and weight, medical conditions, place of birth, date of last physical, tendency to smoke and drink, etc.

 

 

There were no real problems until they reached his family. Sho refused to divulge any information. In the back of his mind there was the gnawing hangnail of a possibility that this was really happening. And if that was so, he didn't want his parents anywhere near it.

 

 

His toes became well-acquainted with the stacked heels of Naomi's boots.

 

 

“Nao!” A frown creased Dorian's open face. “Could you stop hitting the man? Is that so much to ask? I'm a clerk, not your referee.”

 

 

Naomi stiffened slightly and drew away, looking at Dorian's still fingers rather than Sho.

 

 

He began flatly, lacking as much inflection as ever. But Sho felt remarkably like he had been hit by a truck.

 

 

“He was adopted at the age of four months by a Caucasian female named Delia Stuart and her husband, an ethnically Japanese male named Jiro Suzukuru. Both were born and reside within the continental United States. Their ages are currently fifty-two and fifty-six. They have no other children. The name of his biological mother is unknown, as she died in labor after arriving in the emergency ward. Her body was not identified. No kin are known. Via his mother he is half Japanese, but while he is generally assumed to be of full Japanese descent, his paternity is unknown. He possesses no close relatives beyond his parents.”

 

 

Only his one certainty kept him calm, kept him steady. Of course Naomi knew everything about him. Naomi was some suppressed part of him, though hopefully not a part involving questionable sexuality.

 

 

Just as Dorian turned his attention from the monitor to Sho, a heavy wooden door on the far side of the room slammed open.

 

 

Sho had thought, up to that moment, that he had fallen in with the strangest person (asshole, he noted absently) possible. But Naomi suddenly seemed as conservative as the family station wagon.

 

 

His eyes began at the ground. The long legs drawing closer every moment were gleaming ivory, impossibly slender yet shapely. A pair of jet stilettos served only to accentuate them. It was with an appreciative male eye that Sho reached the narrow hips sashaying beneath a silky black negligee.

 

 

The shoulders were slim and creamy, the neck delicate, the stomach nearly concave. The lips were full and lush, the jaw elegant. Violently purple hair was swept up and intricately styled.

 

 

And the fabric did nothing to hide a certain unmistakable bulge.

 

 

Sho choked, and found no relief as he watched the “woman” he had been upraising reach out to brush his hair. Long nails tipped in white toyed with the thick black strands that brushed his jaw, and her - his - full mouth pursed as if in consternation. He considered naming his first son Dorian when the man intervened.

 

 

“I'm afraid we were rather preoccupied, Adan.”

 

 

The statuesque “Adan” released Sho in favor of sauntering toward the man who remained seated, seemingly unruffled by his visitor and the state of said visitor's undress.

 

 

“Dorian, are you going to make me tell Majesty that you're interfering with my duties?”

 

 

The clerk stifled a growl, though Sho thought he caught a glint of merriment in those long-lidded eyes. “I hardly think primping recruits falls under an ambassador's jurisdiction.”

 

 

“Well what else would you have me do?” The ambassador's tone had taken a definite teasing edge. Sho realized with an embarrassed shock that they seemed to be flirting. “I'm certainly not going to spend all my time watching the prince moon over that ice bitch you call a queen.”

 

 

Again the clerk attempted to school his features into a stern mask, but his barely suppressed snicker gave him away. “If he ever hears you calling him “ice bitch,” he'll personally throw you in the freezers.”

 

 

“But you aren't going to tell him, are you?” Adan's husky voice turned even huskier, low and deadly sultry even in a brightly lit room with multiple onlookers, “Why is that, Dorian?” He batted a set of lashes as long and elegant as butterfly wings. The faintest tint appeared high in Dorian's colorless cheeks.

 

 

Naomi cleared his throat hastily, saving Dorian from answering. As Adan rounded on them, however, Sho watched Naomi's eyes widen slightly. It was the closest he had seen the slim man to panic.

 

 

“Nao, darling,” the Ambassador of Questionable Origin purred. As he drew closer, Sho suddenly recognized the factor that made those long-lashed eyes so disturbing: they were entirely black from end to end, refracting light like oil. Streaks of gold, violet, and cerulean caught on a myriad of tiny facets that were distinguishable only as Adan brushed past him to sling an arm around Naomi's suddenly stiff shoulders. “We have to do something about your hair.”

 

 

In this yellow light the strands resembled gleaming sheets of frozen caramel, glossy and thick. His stoic abductor patted his hair protectively, overcoming the initial panic that had resembled one's reaction to the sudden appearance of a bloodthirsty pink elephant. From the terribly intimidating (as Sho was now willing to admit) it was surprising to hear a note of childish petulance in his usual flatness.

 

 

“You will not touch my hair. Last time you curled it, and I had to walk around looking like some ridiculous French doll.”

 

 

Caught up in a mental picture that was the equivalent of imagining an audience in their underwear, Sho didn't feel the hand around his bicep until it was tugging him toward a third door. Naomi shot an inscrutable glance to Dorian, who nodded. The clerk rose and offered a gallant arm to Adan, who readily accepted.

 

 

Naomi led him down well-lit halls, over polished hardwood floors, around corners and up and down winding staircases.

 

 

And Sho found his mind more active than he wished it to be.

 

 

Black eyes, devoid of white or iris, faceted like an insect's. A library beneath a mausoleum. A clerk taking note of his personal information. Majesty. Queen. Prince. Ambassador.

 

 

“I hardly think primping recruits falls under an ambassador's jurisdiction.”

 

 

Recruits.

 

 

They slowed in a narrow corridor lined with metal doors.

 

 

Even as certain mental alarms struggled with his comforting assumption of insanity, Naomi pulled the bar from the steel door. With no apparent effort he tossed Sho in.

 

 

The door swung shut resoundingly. Sho heard the bar sliding back in place.

 

 

Even as he tried to rise, a small square of light appeared. The tiniest of windows. Sho could distinguish one of Naomi's dark eyes peering in with as little emotion as he had come to expect.

 

 

“Sleep.”

 

 

The light disappeared, and the sound of Naomi's footsteps faded.

 

 

The dark swallowed him.

 

 

xXx

 

 

Leijhana tu'sai to all readers and reviewers. To those who will hopefully share their opinions on this story with me: you are often what gets me out of bed in the morning, the reason I put up with school and too much drama. I love you always!