Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Chains ❯ Glean Me ( Chapter 68 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: Miko No Hoshi 
Anime/Manga: Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance / Drama | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 02.08.2011 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.8K | Visits: 283 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance / Drama | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 02.08.2011 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.8K | Visits: 283 | Status: Work In Progress
Chapter Sixty-Eight: Glean Me
Yohji sat in the silence of the garage, listening to his own breathing. He couldn’t stop thinking about the night he had brought Aya home, how he had waited in the same spot, debating if he was really going to take the boy in. As fucked up as everything was, he didn’t regret his choice.
Finally, his hands dropped from the steering wheel and applied themselves to the task of lighting a cigarette. Not until it was between his lips did Yohji try to sort out what had just happened.
It seemed Aya, with some sudden understanding with an origin Yohji couldn’t begin to fathom, was giving him an out. It sounded like Aya was ready to write off the entire incident, mark it down as a mistake.
Part of Yohji wanted to leap at the opportunity, especially if it meant he didn’t have to think about it or talk about it anymore. He wanted to put it behind them and move on, and Aya seemed too willing to do just that.
But, Aya wasn’t the paragon of dealing with interpersonal conflict, and (here Yohji damned the thought even as his mind produced it) it wasn’t the right thing to do.
He knew it. He just fucking knew it. Nothing could be that easy. If he swept this thing under the rug, if he let Aya do that, then it would come back and bite him in the ass. Hard. To say Aya had trust issues was a hell of an understatement, and something like complete violation of trust on Yohji’s part was going to do—had already done—some serious damage. A bandaid of denial wasn’t going to cut it, and as much as Yohji wanted to believe he had been forgiven, even an idiot could see that wasn’t completely true.
Aya was used to accepting a hell of a lot of abuse, enough that what Yohji had done wouldn’t be among the worst crimes against him. Yohji didn’t want him to think that he had to accept things like that here.
Dropping his finished cigarette out the window, the blonde sighed and let his head drop back against the seat. Omi was right; they had to talk about it. Talking about his feelings wasn’t Yohji’s strong point. He could talk someone into something, preferably his bed, or out of acts, information, or clothes, but when it came to dealing with the nitty gritty of emotions, he tried to avoid it at all costs.
Currently feeling like he was getting ready to shoot himself in the foot, Yohji stepped out of the car and went inside.
He stopped just inside the door to kick off his boots and hang his coat in the closet before walking into the dark kitchen. There he waited, stood around looking out the window though there was nothing to see. The shower was running upstairs, and he wanted to give Aya enough time to finish cleaning up before he went up there.
~*~
He knocked against the door, even though it wasn’t closed all the way. There wasn’t an answer, and he didn’t expect one, really.
Despite the twisting of his stomach, Yohji walked into his bedroom with an air of ease. Unsure of getting too close, he went to the end of the bed and sat there on the edge, shoving his sunglasses further up on his nose and trying to gage Aya’s reaction to his presence.
Aya wasn’t moving. Dressed in a pair of gray, cotton pajamas, he sat near the head of the carefully made bed. His bare feet were just visibly under his crossed legs, and his wet hair clung to his face and neck. He looked incredibly young, with the sleeves of his pajamas falling over his wrists and his eyes trying to close with exhaustion. Initially he turned to look in Yohji’s direction, but soon dropped his gaze to focus on the navy comforter.
“Aya,” he started in though he was unsure where exactly he was heading, “We need to talk about what happened.”
Okay, that didn’t sound too bad. But Aya didn’t respond right away, and Yohji had to force himself to wait it out, the silence making him more uncomfortable.
“It was a mistake,” Aya finally replied, his voice soft.
“Yeah,” Yohji agreed. Carefully he moved a little more onto the bed, shifting his pose to mirror Aya’s but keeping his eyes trained on the other. “But we need to talk about it.”
“Why?” Aya questioned, barely more than a whisper.
Yohji sighed and ran a hand through his loose hair.
“Because,” he said, then realized that wasn’t an answer in itself. “Because I can’t tell what you’re thinking, and sometimes we misunderstand each other.”
There was no response this time, and after almost a minute, he pushed on.
“Aya, what I did was so stupid. It was…awful, and I never thought I would do that,” he said. Unable to keep his eyes on the boy, he looked down at his own hands in an unconscious mirror of Aya, “I was drunk, but that’s not an excuse. I wasn’t thinking, and I hurt you. That’s the last thing I want to do. I don’t want to hurt you; I don’t want anyone to hurt you.
“I didn’t even realize what happened that night, not until Ken woke me up. Once I figured it out, god, I just wanted to crawl away and hide. And that you would think of…of killing yourself over that—I’m so sorry, Aya. I am.”
He had to pause for a deep breath, but Yohji knew if he waited for more than a few seconds he might never get through the rest of it.
“I won’t ever do that again. I don’t want you to think that you have to put up with that shit here. You don’t. And you’ve got every right to be mad at me; as much as I hope you’ll forgive me, you’re allowed not to. I just…wanted you to know that.”
Yohji expected the first minute of silence, maybe even the second, but as the moment stretched on, he looked up nervously at Aya. The redhead was staring at his wrist, the gray sleeve pushed back and the fingertips of his right hand tracing and retracing the three deep slashes. Yohji first instinct was to grab at him, to drag him to the bathroom and bandage the wounds before his constant touching reopened them again. But now was not the time.
“Aya?”
Purple eyes snapped up, full of…something. His face impassive, Aya was hard to read.
“Aya,” Yohji tried again. “Talk to me.”
Suddenly expression broke through the mask; Aya looked young and hurt and unsure.
“I don’t know what you want,” he whispered, “I’m always so confused here.”
“I want you to be happy.”
Okay, that looked like it made no sense to Aya. The confusion persisted for a few seconds, then was replaced by a slightly menacing look which was in turn covered by that blankness, leaving Yohji to wonder which he should address.
“Tell me what you were thinking just now.”
Aya spoke, probably reacting to the direct command, but as long as he was talking, Yohji wasn’t going to knock his own methods.
“I don’t know why you want that, or if you really do. I wonder if you’re lying to me, and why.”
Then he looked down, hunching his shoulders a little; it was a pose that Yohji hadn’t seen in weeks, and it stung that Aya still thought the blonde might hit him. Hadn’t they accomplished anything?
“Okay,” he said calmly, “We can deal with that. I want you to be happy because I care about you. I’m not lying to you; I don’t have any reason to do that. Aya, look at me, please.”
To facilitate the request, Yohji pulled off his sunglasses and laid them on the bed. Aya managed to look at him, though his gaze was unsure.
“I told you before, I want to help you. What those bastards—your, the people who kept you, what they did to you was wrong. It was wrong. You know that, right?”
“Yes,” the boy all but hissed at him.
“Okay,” he agreed, a little taken aback by Aya’s shifting moods. Geez, he could be snippy himself, but he didn’t usually hiss at people unless he was too hurt or tired to keep himself…oh. Maybe that was it. There was no way Aya had gotten any sleep the night before last, and Ken had said he looked tired in the shop; there were circles under his eyes, and he was more or less ready to drop off. He might have forgiven Yohji out of sheer exhaustion, unwilling to expend the energy to uphold the tension between them, but it also seemed he was a bit too out of it to police his own actions as tightly as normal.
Maybe.
His instincts were usually spot on about that kind of thing, so Yohji decided to go with it.
Edging closer, Yohji settled about a foot from Aya. Slowly, he reached out and pulled one pale hand away, setting it on the bed before taking the other, the left, in his own and tugging it into his lap. Aya stared at his extended arm, the cuts exposed, red and tender looking against his pallid skin.
“I’m sorry,” Yohji said as he ran his fingers gently over the marks. “I didn’t mean to…Aya, why did you…what were you thinking when you did this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Really?”
Aya tugged his arm and Yohji let it go; the redhead folded it up, pressing both thin limbs against his stomach.
“Tell me, Aya.”
That look was definitely angry, even as Aya drew further into himself. He didn’t want to.
“Tell me,” Yohji tried again, letting a little frustration bleed into his tone. It wasn’t the best plan, but if he had a chance of making Aya open up, this was it.
“I,” he stopped after that word. He always did. “I was upset.”
“You were angry?”
Red brows drew together, like he was just puzzling it out for himself, “Yes…no…”
Yohji almost said something, but closed his mouth when Aya continued. If he could just shut up and get the boy going…it had worked in the past.
“I…I was angry, at first. You lied to me, I trusted you and… I wanted to—never mind.
“I was surprised. I didn’t think—you said…you said you didn’t want that. I wasn’t…you surprised me.”
Scared. That’s what he wasn’t saying. You scared me.
“I wanted to get away. It was so much like…I thought you were going to…that you wouldn’t let me go. And I ran away.”
He shook his head, looking down as he kept on in the quiet voice.
“I never run away,” he defended. “I don’t. At least, I didn’t, before. It was…pathetic.
“Everything was so confusing,” he said. Yohji felt the momentum of the talk, and he doubted Aya even realized he was going on. “I was by myself, and I kept thinking about things, about how everything had been before I came here and how everything’s been here, how nice you were to me.”
God, that broke Yohji’s heart. He had to bite his lip to keep himself from apologizing again.
“I didn’t know…I thought you had lied to me. He always lied to me. I realized how stupid I had been to trust…I thought…I thought you would come get me, and I was hiding.”
There was a bit of a tremor in his voice, and Yohji was starting to get uneasy.
“My father,” Aya paused, reached up a hand to tug on his hair, and went on, “he taught me better. He did. I swear. And I could hear him…and my sister, my job, my responsibility… I thought…I thought I couldn’t do it again, not even for her. I failed. Always failed.”
Yohji wanted to think about that, but Aya was moving. Both hands came up now, tangling in his hair and pulling hard. Yohji reached, and Aya pulled away, his back hitting the headboard.
“Aya…I’m not gonna hurt you.”
“I know,” the boy whined, pulling all the harder on his hair.
Deciding to go with the words and not the actions that seemed to contradict them, Yohji reached again. Aya shivered but didn’t move. Gently he cupped his hands over smaller, paler ones, holding them still until Aya’s fingers started to relax. His own body was tense as he carefully pulled Aya’s hands away and put them back on the bedspread. Next he reached for Aya’s chin, lifting it just a little.
Again it surprised him that there were no tears; purple eyes blinked open and, though uncertain, held his own.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Yes.” It was shaky whisper.
“Alright.”
Thinking he had done about as much damage as good, Yohji sighed and got off the bed. Aya watched him. He looked ready to fall over, more tired than ever. His eyes actually closed, snapped open , and threatened to close again. If Yohji hadn’t been so stressed out, it would have made him smile.
“Go to sleep, princess,” he said, grabbing a pair of sweatpants from his drawer. “I’m going downstairs to the couch.”
He was to the door before he thought he heard Aya say something. Turning back, he looked, wondering if he had imagined it, “Huh?”
“It’s cold when you’re not here.”
~*~
Yohji woke up feeling overheated. Freeing a hand from the thick covers, he pushed his damp hair away face before trying to shove the layers of blankets away. He never slept with so much on top of him and was at a loss as to his new habit until he felt something shift and move closer to him.
Aya.
He looked as much to the left as he could, a process made difficult by the head wedged under his chin. As it was, he could only catch a glimpse of red hair poking up from under the blankets.
Not quite on top of him, Aya was curled close to his side. Flat on his back, Yohji had one arm wrapped around thin shoulders and could feel one of Aya’s wrapped tightly around his waist.
As much of a disaster as their chat seemed to have been, it had gotten him this far, thought maybe that was simply because Aya was cold. The boy had been almost cool to the touch, and after his plea for Yohji to stay, the blonde had found a few extra blankets to add to their bed. After laying down, he had been treated to a hesitant hand on his shoulder and soon had a chilled redhead in his arms. There was a lot to work on, but Yohji felt at least one thing was right with the world. As if in agreement, Aya made a small noise and snuggled closer.
~tbc~
Notes: I thought we could use a few warm fuzzies. Of course, the slug wants to eat them…quick, give him something else to snack on or it’s back to the angst!
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Yohji sat in the silence of the garage, listening to his own breathing. He couldn’t stop thinking about the night he had brought Aya home, how he had waited in the same spot, debating if he was really going to take the boy in. As fucked up as everything was, he didn’t regret his choice.
Finally, his hands dropped from the steering wheel and applied themselves to the task of lighting a cigarette. Not until it was between his lips did Yohji try to sort out what had just happened.
It seemed Aya, with some sudden understanding with an origin Yohji couldn’t begin to fathom, was giving him an out. It sounded like Aya was ready to write off the entire incident, mark it down as a mistake.
Part of Yohji wanted to leap at the opportunity, especially if it meant he didn’t have to think about it or talk about it anymore. He wanted to put it behind them and move on, and Aya seemed too willing to do just that.
But, Aya wasn’t the paragon of dealing with interpersonal conflict, and (here Yohji damned the thought even as his mind produced it) it wasn’t the right thing to do.
He knew it. He just fucking knew it. Nothing could be that easy. If he swept this thing under the rug, if he let Aya do that, then it would come back and bite him in the ass. Hard. To say Aya had trust issues was a hell of an understatement, and something like complete violation of trust on Yohji’s part was going to do—had already done—some serious damage. A bandaid of denial wasn’t going to cut it, and as much as Yohji wanted to believe he had been forgiven, even an idiot could see that wasn’t completely true.
Aya was used to accepting a hell of a lot of abuse, enough that what Yohji had done wouldn’t be among the worst crimes against him. Yohji didn’t want him to think that he had to accept things like that here.
Dropping his finished cigarette out the window, the blonde sighed and let his head drop back against the seat. Omi was right; they had to talk about it. Talking about his feelings wasn’t Yohji’s strong point. He could talk someone into something, preferably his bed, or out of acts, information, or clothes, but when it came to dealing with the nitty gritty of emotions, he tried to avoid it at all costs.
Currently feeling like he was getting ready to shoot himself in the foot, Yohji stepped out of the car and went inside.
He stopped just inside the door to kick off his boots and hang his coat in the closet before walking into the dark kitchen. There he waited, stood around looking out the window though there was nothing to see. The shower was running upstairs, and he wanted to give Aya enough time to finish cleaning up before he went up there.
~*~
He knocked against the door, even though it wasn’t closed all the way. There wasn’t an answer, and he didn’t expect one, really.
Despite the twisting of his stomach, Yohji walked into his bedroom with an air of ease. Unsure of getting too close, he went to the end of the bed and sat there on the edge, shoving his sunglasses further up on his nose and trying to gage Aya’s reaction to his presence.
Aya wasn’t moving. Dressed in a pair of gray, cotton pajamas, he sat near the head of the carefully made bed. His bare feet were just visibly under his crossed legs, and his wet hair clung to his face and neck. He looked incredibly young, with the sleeves of his pajamas falling over his wrists and his eyes trying to close with exhaustion. Initially he turned to look in Yohji’s direction, but soon dropped his gaze to focus on the navy comforter.
“Aya,” he started in though he was unsure where exactly he was heading, “We need to talk about what happened.”
Okay, that didn’t sound too bad. But Aya didn’t respond right away, and Yohji had to force himself to wait it out, the silence making him more uncomfortable.
“It was a mistake,” Aya finally replied, his voice soft.
“Yeah,” Yohji agreed. Carefully he moved a little more onto the bed, shifting his pose to mirror Aya’s but keeping his eyes trained on the other. “But we need to talk about it.”
“Why?” Aya questioned, barely more than a whisper.
Yohji sighed and ran a hand through his loose hair.
“Because,” he said, then realized that wasn’t an answer in itself. “Because I can’t tell what you’re thinking, and sometimes we misunderstand each other.”
There was no response this time, and after almost a minute, he pushed on.
“Aya, what I did was so stupid. It was…awful, and I never thought I would do that,” he said. Unable to keep his eyes on the boy, he looked down at his own hands in an unconscious mirror of Aya, “I was drunk, but that’s not an excuse. I wasn’t thinking, and I hurt you. That’s the last thing I want to do. I don’t want to hurt you; I don’t want anyone to hurt you.
“I didn’t even realize what happened that night, not until Ken woke me up. Once I figured it out, god, I just wanted to crawl away and hide. And that you would think of…of killing yourself over that—I’m so sorry, Aya. I am.”
He had to pause for a deep breath, but Yohji knew if he waited for more than a few seconds he might never get through the rest of it.
“I won’t ever do that again. I don’t want you to think that you have to put up with that shit here. You don’t. And you’ve got every right to be mad at me; as much as I hope you’ll forgive me, you’re allowed not to. I just…wanted you to know that.”
Yohji expected the first minute of silence, maybe even the second, but as the moment stretched on, he looked up nervously at Aya. The redhead was staring at his wrist, the gray sleeve pushed back and the fingertips of his right hand tracing and retracing the three deep slashes. Yohji first instinct was to grab at him, to drag him to the bathroom and bandage the wounds before his constant touching reopened them again. But now was not the time.
“Aya?”
Purple eyes snapped up, full of…something. His face impassive, Aya was hard to read.
“Aya,” Yohji tried again. “Talk to me.”
Suddenly expression broke through the mask; Aya looked young and hurt and unsure.
“I don’t know what you want,” he whispered, “I’m always so confused here.”
“I want you to be happy.”
Okay, that looked like it made no sense to Aya. The confusion persisted for a few seconds, then was replaced by a slightly menacing look which was in turn covered by that blankness, leaving Yohji to wonder which he should address.
“Tell me what you were thinking just now.”
Aya spoke, probably reacting to the direct command, but as long as he was talking, Yohji wasn’t going to knock his own methods.
“I don’t know why you want that, or if you really do. I wonder if you’re lying to me, and why.”
Then he looked down, hunching his shoulders a little; it was a pose that Yohji hadn’t seen in weeks, and it stung that Aya still thought the blonde might hit him. Hadn’t they accomplished anything?
“Okay,” he said calmly, “We can deal with that. I want you to be happy because I care about you. I’m not lying to you; I don’t have any reason to do that. Aya, look at me, please.”
To facilitate the request, Yohji pulled off his sunglasses and laid them on the bed. Aya managed to look at him, though his gaze was unsure.
“I told you before, I want to help you. What those bastards—your, the people who kept you, what they did to you was wrong. It was wrong. You know that, right?”
“Yes,” the boy all but hissed at him.
“Okay,” he agreed, a little taken aback by Aya’s shifting moods. Geez, he could be snippy himself, but he didn’t usually hiss at people unless he was too hurt or tired to keep himself…oh. Maybe that was it. There was no way Aya had gotten any sleep the night before last, and Ken had said he looked tired in the shop; there were circles under his eyes, and he was more or less ready to drop off. He might have forgiven Yohji out of sheer exhaustion, unwilling to expend the energy to uphold the tension between them, but it also seemed he was a bit too out of it to police his own actions as tightly as normal.
Maybe.
His instincts were usually spot on about that kind of thing, so Yohji decided to go with it.
Edging closer, Yohji settled about a foot from Aya. Slowly, he reached out and pulled one pale hand away, setting it on the bed before taking the other, the left, in his own and tugging it into his lap. Aya stared at his extended arm, the cuts exposed, red and tender looking against his pallid skin.
“I’m sorry,” Yohji said as he ran his fingers gently over the marks. “I didn’t mean to…Aya, why did you…what were you thinking when you did this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Really?”
Aya tugged his arm and Yohji let it go; the redhead folded it up, pressing both thin limbs against his stomach.
“Tell me, Aya.”
That look was definitely angry, even as Aya drew further into himself. He didn’t want to.
“Tell me,” Yohji tried again, letting a little frustration bleed into his tone. It wasn’t the best plan, but if he had a chance of making Aya open up, this was it.
“I,” he stopped after that word. He always did. “I was upset.”
“You were angry?”
Red brows drew together, like he was just puzzling it out for himself, “Yes…no…”
Yohji almost said something, but closed his mouth when Aya continued. If he could just shut up and get the boy going…it had worked in the past.
“I…I was angry, at first. You lied to me, I trusted you and… I wanted to—never mind.
“I was surprised. I didn’t think—you said…you said you didn’t want that. I wasn’t…you surprised me.”
Scared. That’s what he wasn’t saying. You scared me.
“I wanted to get away. It was so much like…I thought you were going to…that you wouldn’t let me go. And I ran away.”
He shook his head, looking down as he kept on in the quiet voice.
“I never run away,” he defended. “I don’t. At least, I didn’t, before. It was…pathetic.
“Everything was so confusing,” he said. Yohji felt the momentum of the talk, and he doubted Aya even realized he was going on. “I was by myself, and I kept thinking about things, about how everything had been before I came here and how everything’s been here, how nice you were to me.”
God, that broke Yohji’s heart. He had to bite his lip to keep himself from apologizing again.
“I didn’t know…I thought you had lied to me. He always lied to me. I realized how stupid I had been to trust…I thought…I thought you would come get me, and I was hiding.”
There was a bit of a tremor in his voice, and Yohji was starting to get uneasy.
“My father,” Aya paused, reached up a hand to tug on his hair, and went on, “he taught me better. He did. I swear. And I could hear him…and my sister, my job, my responsibility… I thought…I thought I couldn’t do it again, not even for her. I failed. Always failed.”
Yohji wanted to think about that, but Aya was moving. Both hands came up now, tangling in his hair and pulling hard. Yohji reached, and Aya pulled away, his back hitting the headboard.
“Aya…I’m not gonna hurt you.”
“I know,” the boy whined, pulling all the harder on his hair.
Deciding to go with the words and not the actions that seemed to contradict them, Yohji reached again. Aya shivered but didn’t move. Gently he cupped his hands over smaller, paler ones, holding them still until Aya’s fingers started to relax. His own body was tense as he carefully pulled Aya’s hands away and put them back on the bedspread. Next he reached for Aya’s chin, lifting it just a little.
Again it surprised him that there were no tears; purple eyes blinked open and, though uncertain, held his own.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Yes.” It was shaky whisper.
“Alright.”
Thinking he had done about as much damage as good, Yohji sighed and got off the bed. Aya watched him. He looked ready to fall over, more tired than ever. His eyes actually closed, snapped open , and threatened to close again. If Yohji hadn’t been so stressed out, it would have made him smile.
“Go to sleep, princess,” he said, grabbing a pair of sweatpants from his drawer. “I’m going downstairs to the couch.”
He was to the door before he thought he heard Aya say something. Turning back, he looked, wondering if he had imagined it, “Huh?”
“It’s cold when you’re not here.”
~*~
Yohji woke up feeling overheated. Freeing a hand from the thick covers, he pushed his damp hair away face before trying to shove the layers of blankets away. He never slept with so much on top of him and was at a loss as to his new habit until he felt something shift and move closer to him.
Aya.
He looked as much to the left as he could, a process made difficult by the head wedged under his chin. As it was, he could only catch a glimpse of red hair poking up from under the blankets.
Not quite on top of him, Aya was curled close to his side. Flat on his back, Yohji had one arm wrapped around thin shoulders and could feel one of Aya’s wrapped tightly around his waist.
As much of a disaster as their chat seemed to have been, it had gotten him this far, thought maybe that was simply because Aya was cold. The boy had been almost cool to the touch, and after his plea for Yohji to stay, the blonde had found a few extra blankets to add to their bed. After laying down, he had been treated to a hesitant hand on his shoulder and soon had a chilled redhead in his arms. There was a lot to work on, but Yohji felt at least one thing was right with the world. As if in agreement, Aya made a small noise and snuggled closer.
~tbc~
Notes: I thought we could use a few warm fuzzies. Of course, the slug wants to eat them…quick, give him something else to snack on or it’s back to the angst!
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