Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ World Curled Dark ❯ Chapter 2

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

World Curled Dark
by scribblemoose & Gwendolyn Flight

2 - Question

The sun curved a shy smile bordering the single window that overlooked Ran's room, and he came slowly to himself bathed in the bright gold-shafting rays of early afternoon. He was lying on his side, one arm curled up with his closed fist near his cheek, the other wrapped around the curve of his ribs in a self-comforting embrace. He was naked. The sheet had slipped somewhere down around his hips, but he didn't bother to retrieve it. The warmth of the winter sun felt good on his pale skin.

Reluctantly he blinked one eye open, catching in flickering frames the verdict from his radio alarm clock. 12:17. PM. The alarm light burned steadily, pale and overpowered by the sun, and a fragmented memory from the early dawn returned in pieces. He closed his eyes again, wondering absently why on earth he'd felt the need to set his alarm for 1PM. But... Ken. Was in the shop alone. Shit. Well, no need to slack now that he was awake...

He raised up on one elbow, fully intending to bound out of bed and into the shower, to rush downstairs and help Ken with the shop until Omi and Aya returned from school. Aya... He groaned softly, and fell face down into the pillow.

His bed was warm. The air beyond the mattress was much colder, as if his body heat and the sun had conspired to create a radiating cocoon of warmth near the futon's surface. He snuggled down into the sleepy warmth. He did *not* wish to face his teammates. The warmth was... good.

He turned languidly onto his back, pushing his arms above his head in a stretch that arched his spine and curled his toes. His arms retracted almost of their own will to rest on belly and chest, and he allowed himself a small sigh of contentment.

This morning had...

A chill crept through his shell, and shivered his nipples erect. He turned restlessly onto his side, snagged the sheet with one long arm, and pulled it up to his neck like shrugging into a jacket, as he rolled onto his stomach. His arms he folded under his head, snugging his cheek into the pillow. Warm again. His toes wriggled restlessly, and his hips arched, pressing his slowly-waking cock into the mattress. He hummed, like a purring cat, and his hips flexed again. His blood-red hair, the only beacon in a sea of white bedclothes, blazed in the golden light.

This morning had been...

His wounds stretched, and ached, but the pain fizzled away in little zings of growing pleasure. Now he pressed his arousal into the sleep-warmed sheets, not moving more than the barest subtle wiggle, stilling the pleasure into a framework of sleep. A kitten-like yawn, a second contented, toe-curling stretch, and he snuggled into the luxury of noon-bright cotton. Nothing evil could lurk in this land of light.

This morning had been...

Sleep retreated on the wings of a fading dream, ragged-recollection of a land of grey earth, a great cascaded lake, and a love beside still waters. He opened his eyes, blinking again at the clock. 12:39. He hadn't actually gotten any more sleep than Ken. He'd just slept at a different time, he justified, refusing to feel any guilt over lying abed as he yawned again. Perhaps a cup of tea...

He wrestled himself onto his back again, rolling the stiffness out of his right shoulder and cracking the knuckles of his left hand. His jaw popped, and the slash along his ribs protested the sudden movement. His right hand crept down his belly, fingering through tangled curls to grasp the base of his cock.

His back arched, and he gasped. Never before, and possibly never again, but his fingers tightened on a mindless spasm of muscle, and he caught his lower lip in his teeth to stop a moan. His left hand came down to press into the flat plain of his belly, stretched into concavity by a flex of hips and thighs, and he was pushing down into the soft flesh, pressing to the pubic bone as he gripped his cock, as though the pressing could push the feeling away. Make it less. Like trying to hold himself down, the desperate arch of back that paid his sore ribs no heed, head tossed back to tangle sweat-streaked hair by scrubbing on white cotton.

This was new. This was more sensitive than he'd ever been. This was...

Precome slid over his grasping hand, and it stroked upward, taking his hips with it, and his voice on a gasp, and his fingers caught the proud-flaring head in a dabbling grip, unsheathing it rhythmically with light, teasing strokes. He tasted blood, and released his lip to savor the coppery flow. His neck strained, head cast away from sensations too intense to bear. He felt bare, heart-hungry, sheet kicked to the floor and a sheen of sweat starting on his moon-pale skin, glimmering in the wash of sunlight.

This morning had been fantastic.

And if Yohji ever touched him again, he would die of bliss.

This is how the certainties of his life would be defined, in the twisting of katana-calloused fingers, in the blush of a remembered hand and a whispered promise, in the pained stretch of thighs spread farther than they would go, in a body supported only by heels and shoulders in his desperation.

Yohji had...

The buzz of the alarm startled him, and his left hand slammed it into silence and he was thrust into a single bright point of ecstasy as his toes curled and his knees buckled forward, spilling him onto his side as he ribboned himself in streamers of white. His hand clenched, and he shuddered, hips shuffling in a final spurt before he could let go.

Yohji had been kind, and offered promises of hope, and he was a fool to believe.

The pleasure washed away in a flush of loathing. The sun crept upward beyond his window, it's sliver-smile fading into brilliant blue, too winter-bright to ignore. A shiver caught him, and he curled around the tangle of his crushed arms. He couldn't live like this, his seed sticky and drying on his shivering skin. He couldn't live like this. Something had to give.

* * * * * * *

Aya-chan watched Omi fiddling with a long strand of ribbon and a piece of wire, and smiled to herself. He was making a real mess of it. Not like Omi at all; like all four of them he was very skilled at his job and could usually manipulate the tools of his trade with ease.

Omi was nervous.

She supressed a giggle, and continued to dust, flicking the damp cloth over all the hard to reach nooks and crannies on the display shelves.

Omi took a deep breath.

Aya waited.

The bell rang as the shop door opened, and Ken bounded in. Flushed and beaming from soccer practice, with that gleam in his eyes which only his favourite sport seemed to be able to put there.

"Hey Ken," she said, with a smile. "I was going to make some tea. Would you like some?"

He shook his head. "No thanks. I'm just back for a quick shower, then I've got to go to the shops, pick up the new strip for the kids' team. It's red and white," he said, excitedly. "Really professional. It's really important for their motivation. How's Ran?"

"The same," said Aya. "Stubborn, pigheaded and refusing to eat."

Ken gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "He'll be alright. He just needs time. He's survived worse."

"Yeah," said Aya, but she remained unconvinced. Ran's physical injuries were healing okay - as okay as could be expected considering he refused to nourish himself and spent so much time out on the roof, heedless of the cold. She was more worried about his state of mind. Something had happened to him, she knew it. Something they weren't telling her about. She wasn't stupid; she'd helped Omi to dress Ran's wounds and she knew they weren't the result of a car accident. He'd been cut by something, something sharp. She knew Ran practiced with her father's old katana.

She knew there was something Sakura had almost told her, more than once, but never had.

Ken left the shop and could be heard bounding up the stairs, two at a time. She was alone with Omi again.

At last.

"Hey, Omi," she said, wondering if she dared to-

"AyaIhavesomethingtoaskyou," said Omi, and didn't even draw breath when he got to the end.

"Yes?" She shouldn't have enjoyed the scared look in those adorable blue eyes.

But she did.

"I was wondering if you felt like going to the movies tonight?" And then, finally, Omi let himself gasp breath.

Aya smiled at him, her heart beating just a little faster, and ran her tongue swiftly over her dry lips. "Yes please," she said.

Somewhere in the background she could hear Ken yelling at Yohji for hogging the bathroom. Familiar sounds. Home.

She let herself enjoy a little burst of happiness that spilled out as a giggle.

And then she remembered Ran.

"I'd better make that tea," she said.

* * * * * * *

Yohji took pride in the fact that he could manage to smoke and shower at the same time. It was a useful skill, not least because it was one of the few places in the apartment where he could smoke indoors without Ran or Ken glaring at him. Not that their opinion stopped him much, but it took away some of the pleasure, and Yohji really enjoyed smoking.

So he leaned his back into the hot blast of water, bracing himself with one hand flat against the tile in front of him, the other holding his cigarette close to the extractor fan, watching it suck out the smoke he didn't need in blue clouds amid the steam. Then he brought it to his lips, damp but still lit and sucked hard, pulling deep into his lungs.

Of course Ran always noticed somehow, and usually complained, one way or the other. But he wasn't here right now. Yohji blew a few lazy smoke rings to celebrate that fact, before he realised that actually, there would be advantages to Ran being there.

His cock twitched.

Especially a naked Ran, all hot and slinky and not complaining about anything.

He froze, cigarette half way to his lips.

Like that would ever happen. Unless.

Damn. His cigarette had been drowned by a ricochet of water from the tile. Yohji sighed regretfully, dropped the soggy stub down the drain, and put his head under the spray, reaching for shampoo as the water plastered his thick hair to his skull. He lathered quickly, keen to get the stinging stuff out of his eyes and get back to enjoying the massage of hot water over his naked body.

And maybe another cigarette.

He tipped his head back, rinsing his hair, feeling water and foam run down his body. Irresistibly, his hand snaked between his legs, wrapping around his cock, stroking lazily, half washing, half caressing, enjoying the feel of it in his hand. It was already hard.

He smiled to himself. If there was one thing Yohji enjoyed more than smoking, it was sex. Preferably sex with another person, but sex was sex, and if there was no-one else available he was more than happy to take his own pleasure. He leaned into the water, fingers of one hand splayed over his chest while the other teased sensitive skin, his fist a loose tunnel over his erection. He searched his mind for a fantasy, an idea, a thought, the right one for that particular moment: like choosing the right shirt for a date, or the right flower for a gift. It wasn't always the obvious one. Like the arrangement Ran had done for a wedding that time, a long time ago now, when he was Aya and never really seemed to think of such things. The girl had wanted yellow carnations, to go with the table decorations, she said; but Aya had insisted, by refusing to even discuss the issue, on orange blossom and white roses. It turned out as one of his best arrangements, and the girl was delighted. It amused Yohji, that for someone who'd taken floristry as a route to revenge, Ran was very good at it. But then, the man was like that. He either did things to perfection, or he didn't do them at all.

It must be intolerable, Yohji thought, to try to live up to perfection. No wonder Ran was finding it so hard to care for Aya-chan. In a sudden flash of insight, Yohji understood a little of what Ran had told him the night before. Of how impossible it was for him to be a perfect brother, a perfect guardian: hard enough for anyone as young as Ran, who had lived without family himself for so long, but completely impossible when your soul was stained with blood and killing. And oh, the aching irony of it, that he'd been brought to that state of sin for no reason other than to care for his sister.

It was easier for Yohji. He expected little of himself, except to protect and care for those who were vulnerable, and those he loved. God knows, he thought, that's hard enough. Especially when the people you cared about didn't let you help them. Like Ran.

Only, not anymore, Yohji realised. Last night, Ran had come to him, and asked him for help.

God. He really had.

He remembered the look on Ran's face, the desperation, all the questions in his eyes that couldn't get as far as his words.

He remembered long, pale fingers, streaking through crimson hair.

Suddenly, he had an image he could really work with.

The part of Yohji that had been enjoying the stroke of his hand on his cock all this time, regardless of what else he might have been thinking about, reasserted itself fiercely, dominating his mind with a flash of lust. It was so powerful that he had no difficulty in pushing any contemplation of his emotions swiftly to one side, and surrendered to the memory of Ran, vulnerable, open and needing him.

And beautiful. So, so beautiful: all that strength wrapped up in porcelain skin and graceful movement. Yohji contemplated what that skin might feel like to touch, not the brief squeeze of solidarity to a team-mate's shoulder, but lingering contact of lover's fingers on bare flesh. He recalled a patchwork of memories of Ran, and before Ran, Aya, surprised by the wealth of secrets his mind had hidden away: the exact colour and texture of Ran's skin when he'd stitched his torn flesh after missions; the golden play of sunlight across his shoulders when he'd come out of the shower wrapped in a towel; the ripple of muscles slicing curved blade; the soft hand around Aya-chan's, comforting her after a nightmare... memories that Yohji had thought meant no more than friendship filled him with hot desire; he stretched his body and gloried in it, pulling steadily on his cock, biting his lip to keep from crying out.

Then the hair, and the eyes, of course: crimson and lavender, fire and crystal. And his mouth, soft and wet. Yohji's imagination asserted itself over his memory, making the leap from aesthetics to carnality, and wrapped that perfect mouth around Yohji's sex, taking him all down, red hair splashed over Yohji's tight, golden thighs.

Yohji roared as he came, unable to stop himself even if he had been aware of the noise, mind blanked with surprise and searing pleasure.

He slumped against the shower wall, absently licking threads of white from his fingers, stretching sensuously; eventually his breath returned and his heartbeat slowed enough that his brain started to think again, albeit still drunk with afterglow.

He opened his eyes, submitting to the return of reality.

He needed to do some thinking. But not now. Not yet.

Yohji sighed with the satisfaction of the moment. For now, he felt warm, his skin tingled and his balls were humming pleasantly. He felt damn good.

He stuck one hand out of the shower to rummage in the pile of clothes and towels on the floor. He was vaguely aware of Ken's voice outside, telling him to hurry up, but Ken was easily ignored.

Yohji smiled as he let the water caress his glowing skin, and lit another cigarette.