Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Chains ❯ Warm Me ( Chapter 32 )

Chapter Thirty-Two: Warm Me


Aya stared at the washcloth in his hand, then at the closed door. His brain felt heavy and slow, refusing to process the erratic morning. He was tired, and he felt a familiar daze falling over him despite his best efforts to fight it back.

When his owner had touched him, the first time, he hadn’t even realized . . . hands were other hands . . .

He shook his head, trying to clear it. What was wrong with him?

Taking a deep breath, Aya finished washing. He was grateful, intensely so, that his owner had left him to do the rest. When Yohji touched his hair, it was almost, he hesitated to apply the word to something so dangerous, but it was almost nice. His hands were gentle, not like others. He didn’t grab or scratch or hurt. But if he had touched Aya there…he shuddered.

How was he going to get through it? Would it be worse for the gentleness his owner was exercising, biting in its comparison when he decided to have Aya that way? Was that what they were preparing for?

No. No, Yohji had said–

He could have laughed at his own naiveté.

Folding the washcloth, he set it aside. Turning his upper body, he folded his arms on the tub’s edge and rested his chin on top of them. The water was warm, and he felt himself lulled into a state of half-sleep, unable to summon the alert he knew he ought to be on.

In the back of his mind, he heard the door open and close. He felt the tentative touch on his shoulder, brushing down his hair. That was okay. That was Yohji.

He had to wake up. But it was warm, and he spent so much time being cold.

The water began to seep from around him, and a fluffy, warm towel was draped around his shoulders.

“I got you,” his owner said, lifting him. So different.

Maybe Yohji would take care of him.

It really didn’t matter anyway.

~*~

If Yohji needed any reminder of Aya’s rather fragile condition, the lethargic, almost unconscious form he pulled from the bathtub served the purpose. He wasn’t sure if it was the heat or the stress, and most likely it was a combination of these with old injuries and a lack of soundness in general, but the boy seemed to be hovering barely on the edge of awareness.

Wrapping him in an oversized white towel, Yohji lifted his princess against his chest. Aya didn’t struggle, his head lolling back first, then, with a shift of Yohji’s arm, to rest against the blonde’s chest. He didn’t make a sound.

Navigating the hall, Yohji laid him carefully on the bed, already prepared with another towel spread out upon it. Whether by instinct or modesty, Aya turned on his side, drawing up his knees and tucking his arms in close. His eyes were open, and they stared blankly at his own fingers. The towel remained over his shoulders, dropping down so that only the lower curve of his bottom was revealed. Still, Yohji draped a third towel over his waist.

For a few minutes he watched Aya breathe and wondered if he ought to check the boy’s blood pressure.

Ultimately, he decided to wait.

Leaving Aya on the bed, Yohji set about dressing himself for the day. He had showered the night before and decided to forgo the repetition in favor of staying with the boy. He stripped off his tank and pants, tossing them in a nearby pile and pulled on a pair of fitted brown corduroys. He added a silver belt before deciding on a dark burgundy t-shirt layered over a white, long-sleeved shirt of white.

His hair received a spritz of leave-in conditioner and a thorough brushing before being drawn into a loose ponytail at the base of his neck.

All of this was completed without removing his sunglasses.

And after another quick smoke, Yohji returned to the bedside. Aya had apparently fallen into a real sleep, a state more comforting than the dull-eyed absence. Yohji wasn’t sure about waking him, but he hated to repeat the whole process when they were this far along, and doing anything to the boy while he was sleeping was out of the question.

“Aya. Aya, wake up.”

At the first tentative touch, the boy started awake, hands snapping up in front of his face only to be jerked back down as soon as purple eyes found Yohji.

“I’m sorry, Yohji,” he said immediately, sitting up and ducking his head. The towel fell from his shoulders, but his hands were quick to curl in the one on his lap, making Yohji glad he had thought of it.

“It’s fine. Worried me a little, though. You feel okay?”

A nod in the affirmative, but Yohji thought it meant little. Aya’s conception of okay seemed to have only the pre-requisite of still breathing.

“Alright, but if you don’t, you tell me. Okay?”

Another nod.

Taking another bottle from his seemingly endless bag of goodies, Yohji lifted it for Aya’s inspection as he took a seat on the bed to Aya’s left.

“Lotion,” he explained. Aya stared at it curiously, head tilted just a little. Yohji fought back a smile, pleased to see an active expression on the boy’s face. Squirting some of the white lotion into his hand, he started at the most innocuous place he could think of. Aya jumped a little at the touch, but sat still and stiff as Yohji rubbed the lotion onto his elbow.

“Smells okay, right?” Yohji questioned, talking more to himself and for the purpose of keeping the mood light rather than making actual conversation. He moved deliberately and efficiently, careful not to linger yet not making any sudden movements that might scare Aya as he rubbed the lotion over the boy’s arms and shoulders. Extra caution was required around his back, but Yohji prattled on while he used two fingers to apply it gently over the healing red lines.

“I think you’ll like the shop; I hope you will. Ken’s there now, but Omi’ll be in this afternoon. We do a lot of arrangements and stuff, some call in orders, lots of on-the-spot things, and some weddings and events.”

Aya seemed to be listening with more intensity than the subject required, but it allowed Yohji to make quick work of rubbing the lotion across his thin chest and sunken stomach.

“There are a lot of regulars, old ladies and business people. Then there’re the fangirls; they’re…well, they’re faithful.”

He shook his head and smiled, dispelling any real disparagement of the young ladies whom he knew loved him dearly in their own, slightly psychopathic, way. Looking down, he thought it best to skip the entire towel-clad area of Aya’s person and went for the boy’s knees instead. They were dry and red, looking like they had been scraped on more than one occasion. Yohji applied the lotion liberally there and moved towards Aya’s feet, thinking it a shame that such fair skin, with its potential to porcelain purity, had been so neglected.

“It’s not hard. You’ll probably pick up the flower stuff pretty quick, but there’re always chores and stuff. Foot.”

The requested appendage was lifted a few inches, lotion was applied, and its twin was treated in the same manner.

“There,” Yohji decided, setting the bottle aside.

“Next,” he reached to the nightstand for the nail clippers and file, showing them to Aya before dropping the latter between his own crossed legs. The man looked a slightly dubious as he realized he was going to be subject to Yohji’s prolonged attention. “I promised you one official makeover, and I won’t have it said that Yohji Kudou is not thorough in his pursuit of fashionable appearance.”

With that, he reached for Aya’s hand, holding it in his own as he worked around the thin fingers. The nails were rather long, if ragged, and recollecting the boy’s tendency to cut himself with them, Yohji clipped them rather short before filing them into something near perfection, leaving small, clean, white crescents above each.

He moved on to Aya’s earring, over which a hand was instantly clasped, an action simultaneous with Aya’s shielding of his face in anticipation of a blow. After a very slow disclosure of the jewelry, accompanied by multiple promises not to take it off, Yohji had mentally put it in the category of the collar, a remnant of Aya’s old life that he wanted gone as soon as possible. For the moment, he cleaned the area which was red from what appeared to be a recent piercing which he doubted was accomplished in any sterile manner.

He lost Aya for a while during that one, and it took a little recovery time (and physical space) to bring him back. Yohji used to time to smoke, again, and tried to calm his nerves. He couldn’t afford to get frustrated, even when Aya insisted on repeatedly testing his patience with the expectation of being beaten. It wasn’t the boy’s fault; Yohji knew it, but he was getting tired of being the bad guy when doing his best to be the prince.

After their brief hiatus, Aya still regarded him with wary curiosity, but he hadn’t moved yet. His look shifted a little towards surprise when Yohji uncapped and handed over the deodorant he had bought, and then slightly towards what he thought was gratitude. As he popped the cap back on, he placed it with the lotion on the floor.

“We’ll stick all this in the cabinet in the bathroom as soon as I move some of Ken’s junk, that way you’ll know where to find it and use it whenever you want. Oh, here,” he opened a package and handed over the toothbrush along with a tube of toothpaste. Aya looked from the items, resting loosely in his half-closed hand, to Yohji, his expression inscrutable. Then, he surprised Yohji.

“Thank you. I,” a hesitation, a questioning search of Yohji’s face to see if he had said too much before his gaze shifted to the towel, “I appreciate it.”

It was so earnest that Yohji had to fight, hard, the fierce urge to hug him.

“You’re welcome, Aya. I want you to be comfortable here, so if you need anything, just ask me.”

A nod as Aya stared hard at the toothbrush like it was some expensive piece of jewelry rather than a simple necessity. Unable to watch him very long like that, Yohji shifted off the bed and went to dig through their spoils from the day before. Taking out a pair of underwear, boxers, white but silky, he removed the tags and handed them to Aya. The boy set down the toothbrush like he was reluctant to relinquish it, but stood and slipped into the boxers. Ducking his head, he stood quietly as Yohji tried to sort through the clothes, thinking he really ought to have hung them up, but realty space in his closet was a dear commodity.

Deciding it wasn’t going to be a quick process, he sent Aya back to the bathroom to brush his teeth (which the boy seemed more than eager to do) and used to time to try and locate an appropriate outfit for his makeshift debutante. He certainly wouldn’t have Aya coming out in the orange sweater. The guys would see it soon enough, but Yohji didn’t want that fashion disaster falling on his head.

Laying out clothes as he went, Yohji located a pair of light wash jeans with a slight flare at the ankles. These he paired with a button-down shirt of royal blue, the one with three-forth sleeves that he thought accented Aya’s slender waist. He had just located an undershirt and socks when Aya returned.

Gesturing to the pile of items on the floor, Yohji let Aya set down his toothbrush-treasure before suggesting that he dress. The boy did so carefully, as if unsure of exactly how the act was accomplished. He paused more than once, staring at this or that or just the floor, but finally ended up neatly attired and standing by the bed smoothing and resmoothing the creaseless tails of his shirt.

“Looks good,” Yohji commented, scanning him up and down and finding everything reasonably well-fit. It was a vast improvement over the rolled up jeans and short sleeved shirts the boy had borrowed over the past few days. “Sit down for a minute.”

Aya complied in his usual fashion, and Yohji rolled his eyes but kept his mouth shut. New clothes or not, the boy still thought he belonged on the floor. Grabbing one of the last items from the bag, Yohji took a seat on the bed, just to the side of Aya in lieu of being directly behind him. Twisting the top off the small, gray container, he rubbed some of the shiny substance on his hands and began to comb it through Aya’s hair. The boy’s hair responded wonderfully, fuzzy strands smoothed into almost-shining submission as they laid down obediently around Aya’s face. Moving to crouch in front of the boy, Yohji spent a few more minutes styling the eartails until they curled slightly inward on the ends.

He nodded, closing the container and adding it to the growing pile.

Still in front of the boy, Yohji spared one touch to smooth an errant strand of hair then, without thinking too much of it, tilted Aya’s chin so the boy met his eyes. Aya was stiff, but he didn’t pull away. For a moment, Yohji just looked, trying to sort out the mixed messages of amethyst depths.

His hand dropped away.

~tbc~

Evil Hentai Slug: *looks around cautiously, finds his keeper missing, and smiled rather evily and rather hentaily* Which of you is hentai enough to face my challenge? Review and fill in the blank, dear reader:

The prudes all tell me I’m sick
Because of the things that I lick
I just love to love boys
And to handle their toys
I’m expert at sucking a ___