Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Twilight Youji ❯ a troubled sleep ( Chapter 9 )

Twilight Youji 9/?

By Nix Winter

Disclaimers: I do not own Gravitation or Weiss Kreuz. Religious references sorta are a mix of mythology and my own weird take on it.

Warning: As I approach the close of this episode of this story, I realize that there is a lot more that I'd like to tell with it. I also realize that I don't know how Youji is going to get okay yet.

Note: I'm looking for a rp partner. If you have a character who'd be interested in knowing my Youji character, please email me. Duo and Shuichi, and Seifer wouldn't mind a playmate either. Squallsknight@yahoo.com

Twilight Youji

They sat at a cafe table. There was sunlight and coffee. Aya didn't think it was warm though. He'd been cold, cold deep into his bones since that day, two weeks gone, that he'd told Youji he loved him and later watched Balinese fall into Hell. Across the little cafe table sat two blonds, one, a writer he'd read every book by, one Yuki Eiri. It was sheer fate that Kudou would steal Yuki-san's cigarettes and lighter, his lover's cell phone.

"Yes, I really want to know. I'll owe you a favor for the answer, as I have already agreed." The answer was directed to the other blond, Yuki-san's friend Seguchi Tohma, who, it seemed, was on very good terms with Hell.

The smaller blond stirred his coffee, tapped the small spoon lightly against the china bisque cup, resettled the spoon on a pristine white napkin. In those blue eyes, Aya thought he could see the warmth of Hell burning, so subtle under the polite surface. "There will not be a favor required, Fujimiya-san. The debt was paid for you already by another," Tohma lifted his cup, avoiding Eiri's questioning look. "The one you seek is not within the boundaries of Hell. I took the liberty of inquiring with my sources and he is not within the boundaries of Heaven either."

The sound of Ken's teeth grinding, then the metal of his chair grating as he scooted forward filled up the seconds as Tohma's information soaked in. "But we know, from," he hissed, "Our sources that he's not on Earth, not among mortals."

Tohma sipped his coffee, watched Eiri blow thick French cigarette smoke. "Not all things are truly controllable. The heart, a willingness of a soul to pay a debt complete, even though it pours itself out into nothingness. It has happened before, that the price a soul paid was too high and the soul simply ceased to be."

Aya thought Tokyo would never be warm again. "I had always thought death was absolute, that nothing came after."

Ken ran a hand through his hair, shoved his chair back and walked away, broke into a run. The day Youji had fallen into Hell had affected them all. All of them had been there, seen him go, seen the effect on Aya. They hadn't taken a mission since then. Kritiker had as good as fired them all. Life was just too precious, uncontrollable.

Aya, Ran, he corrected himself. He didn't need his sister's name anymore. He would go to whatever plane he needed to go to if he could find Youji there.

Quite out of nowhere, a man spun the little cafe chair that Ken had been sitting on around, and straddled it. Aya was sure that Tohma's hair stood straight up in places, making little horns above his ears, blond debatable little horns, but Eiri just sat there sipping coffee. The man, an Arab looking man in a nice suit, laid a business card down on the table before Aya. "Iscariot, Judas. I understand you're looking for employment."

"He needs nothing to do with you," Tohma snarled, leaning forward and Ran was completely certain there were flames in those blue eyes. "Be gone, apostate, betrayer."

"Tsk," Judas said, not bothering to look really offended. "Some tea parties just need tipped on their sides. Here," he said handing Ran a photo, just a cheap Polaroid, the kind that develops itself.

Ran sat up straighter, turned the photo to over, looking for any kind of forgery, trying to convince himself that it was real. "Where is he?"

Judas picked up his business card, tapped the corner of it against the photo. "To everything there is a price. It took considerable energy and effort to bring our black winged angel back from oblivion. If you were my employee, I'd let you wake him up."

Holding both the photo and the business card, crushing them almost, Ran agreed. "I am your employee."

The burn that hit his arm was instantaneous, zipped from the inside of his elbow to his wrist before he could shove his shirt sleeve back and look. It was the same mark he'd seen on Youji's arm, the rainbow fleur de lis with the silver shimmering infinity symbol. "I want to see him. I want to go now."

Judas smiled, the sunlight making his hair seem to glint blue and Aya remembered the cold electric taste to Youji's kiss.

"You're a fool," Tohma said, but Ran wasn't sure if the blond mean him or if he mean Judas.

Smirking Judas bowed to the agent of Hell. "Only fools and romantics ever engage in real rebellion for the sake of freedom and love, is that not so, Eiri-san?"

Eiri flicked ash over the railing and onto the sidewalk. "That's the way it is in my books. The real world is more dangerous."

"You're all courting real death, oblivion," Tohma's voice was frosty, hellishly certain of what he knew, "Fujimiya-san, if the one you seek wears that mark, he is more lost than oblivion. Both Hell and Heaven stand against him. Give me your hand, align with us, and I can remove the mark from you before it is too late. You should chose a side that might win before the war starts in earnest."

"I am grateful, Seguchi-san," Ran said, sliding the photo of Youji and the business card into his jacket pocket, "But I'm afraid I my choice and allegiance have already been given."

"Think of your sister!" Tohma scrunched up the napkin in his fist ,making even Eiri's eyebrows rise.

Ran bowed slightly, an offering of respect. "I think my sister leans more towards Heaven than to the honorable house you serve."

As Ran walked away, he watched Tohma watch him in the mirrored window of the cafe and he was sure the smoke haloing Tohma had to be from Eiri's cigarette.

"He wouldn't be able to save you a second time," Tohma taunted.

Judas waved to a taxi, as he mouthed, "This time, I'll save him." To Ran he said, "You must love him a deeply. Most former demons align with Hell automatically."

Ran's response was a slightly lifted eyebrow as he slipped into the taxi.

"Hell will not be happy with you," Judas said, pulling out what looked very much like a palmtop computer from his jacket pocket.

"What makes you think they were happy with me before," Ran replied as the tip of one red eartail burst in flame.

Judas' mouth dropped open, hesitated. "You're still a demon! Can you fully transform?"

"Yes."

"Are you," Judas sought for a delight way to ask, "Are you still sane in your demon form?"

"Perhaps," Ran shrugged. "I burned Youji's Grandmother's house, which she then blamed on Youji."

"This is wonderful! I have a twilight angel and a twilight demon who are in love with each other," Judas said, smiling contentedly. "Blink, Fujimiya-san."

Ran didn't mean to, but he did. Blinking was so natural, except this one took an eternity. It was an eternity in which he didn't breath, like the longest kiss when he'd fallen from one train into the other with Youji. He forced breath into his mouth, down into his chest, forced time to answer to him and felt the taxi dissolve, felt an arm around him, pulling him into a run. It was all one blink, and when breath did hit him, it came with a rush. His eyes snapped open and they were in a forest.

Wide trees that grew no where in Japan, trees so tall and tree, dripping with rain, ancient trees that stood around them like a cathedral. Ran stumbled and only Judas' grip on him held him upright. "Where?"

"We are no where," Judas explained, "A place in between, where people have not lived before. Come."

Ran followed now, down a mossy path in the green shadow of the giant redwood rain forest. It felt as if he were walking in a cathedral that none had ever left foot prints in before. "Youji?"

Judas motioned and stepped aside. "He paid Akron the price of your life, and Akron freed you from what he had laid upon, restoring your human life."

Laying on a mossy hill, wide and high as bed, wet with the rain that had just fallen lay an angel with blacks wings and golden hair. Covered only in green silk, a wet silk that clung to a lean muscular body, he slept, his wings to those two who watched him. The moss cradling him moved, breathed with his slight movements, giving freedom to wings that might find no comfort in an ordinary bed. The wings were the darkest black in the forest, the midnight sky that the canopy of green would never admit to the forest floor.

"And Youji? What happened to him?" Aya had the feeling that he should remove his shoes as he stepped into the clearing, walking slowly around the mossy dais, until Youji's sleeping face came into view. The wings made him look larger, as his clothes did for most of the time Ran had known him. Seeing him sleeping, vulnerable, protected only by a thin silk sheet, Ran understood how fragile, delicate, Youji could be without the projection of his personality. "Has he slept all this time?"

"It hasn't been an easy sleep," Judas said, voice betraying this to be an understatement. "He wavered. It was my promise to bring you here, to this corner of Purgatory that solidified him."

Ran's fingers reached out to touch Youji's rain damp curls, to brush them back from a face that seemed so serene that nothing could ever have troubled it. "I thought Purgatory was a place between Heaven and Hell where people suffered until they paid for their sins and could go to Heaven."

"Perhaps it was," Judas said, his smile hiding more than it told. "But there was a little rebellion. Now it's mine. I will leave you with him. I will come if you call. If he will not wake, I will come for you."

Slowly, unconscious of the movement, Ran sank to his knees, soaking his pants, his shirt as he leaned against the mossy bed. Fingers traveled down to Youji's lips, which looked so naked without a cigarette, a smirk, some rude comment. "You're not an asshole, Youji," Ran whispered, "You're brave and vibrant. You're beautiful, Kudou Youji, beautiful and kind. You kept me waking up in the mornings because I knew I'd see you some time during the day. I knew you'd make me angry, make me feel. I love your stupid goldfish. Youji," Ran whispered, "I searched the world over for you, Hell, and Heaven, and I've promised myself to some rebellion that I don't know a thing about. So you'd bloody well better wake up. You hear me?"

The angelic Youji gave no real sign of hearing, waking, only his lips parted and he sighed softly. Ran ran his fingers over those lips, so much softer than they'd ever been in the shop, ever been on a mission they'd shared. Tears, they were like rain of the soul, cleaning and carrying excess emotion. "Youji, I saw your grandmother, when I was looking for you. I thought, maybe, just maybe you'd gone there. She made me awfully angry."

Time passed as Ran spoke, cried, counted Youji's pulse, looking for any response. Night settled in over head and Ran lay down on the bed of moss, soaked and chilled. "Alright, Youji," he said, forcing himself into the sleeping man's arms. "You've slept for a month. You were always happiest asleep or seducing someone. Just let me sleep with you, alright? The world is a dangerous and ugly place. Aya-chan is safe and happy now, as much as anyone in the world. Ken and Omi have each other, and I can not bear the loneliness that's followed me since you fell into that hole. I can't stop what came awake in my heart for you, Youji. So let me into your dream. Let me lay here in this no where and sleep with you."

"Okay," a sleepy voice purred against his ear, then the tip of a tongue flicked out and licked the back of his ear.

"Ack!" Ran sat bolt up right and grabbed Youji's arm. "You licked me!"

Rain darkened lashes trembled and then green eyes opened. So slowly, as if he'd not moved in so long, as if his muscles were slowly coming back from being stone. "You didn't want me to?"

"Youji! You're awake!" Ran took Youji's face between his hands, smiling, searching those eyes. "You can lick me any where you want! Just don't leave me!"

One black wing reached, stretched, the very tip shivering, then it moved forward to lay on Ran's shoulder, to draw him down. "Lay with me, sleep for just a little longer. I feel so weak."

"You almost died! Really died!" Ran accused, letting himself be pulled back down next to Youji in the wet. "We're in trouble, Youji. There is some kind of war and we're caught in the middle."

"I want to lick your ear again," Youji whispered. "I don't know anything of wars, but I feel like I've waited a lifetime to lick your ear, to kiss you. I want to know you, your heart, your soul, to hear you cry out as you release, to taste the fruit of your passion."

"Fucking poet," Ran complained, but he couldn't really deny it, this powerful pull towards the most primal of life. He rolled in Youji's arm, the tips of his eartails lighting with golden fire that did not burn either of them as Youji's wing covered them both from the rain that started again. "Beautiful fucking poet."