Summary: After years of sentimental somberness, Lars decided to retrieve Rakuen's soul from the eternal deathbed that was his tomb. A familiar Witch produced the most perverse of all spells, one that would fulfill one while killing the other even in death.

Compelled in the loneliness that wrapped his agony, Rakuen started questioning his desires to remain in the limbo, where everything was dull, where nothing was alive, nor was it dead.

AN/ Grey fic. Rate M.

Grim graze.

There is a nexus between the living and the dead. If exerted correctly, every soul is known to be prevailing enough to open the gates of these universes. The deceased can roam timelessly as long as their soul disdains perishing.

These universes are popularly known as limbos.

Nimble fingertips grazed against the white door borders as if he expected something to change; he exhaled resignedly; it was the same texture, the same opaque lack of pigment, as usual, it was spotlessly clean.

Rakuen walked inside the house and tallied tiredly against the next door, he closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the frame.

With unusual disdain, he realized he felt irritable.

Rakuen foraged his fingernails against the door's metallic pin, he was steadily growing desperate. When the 'promise' of Lars' arrival approached once a month, his tenseness frequently became peculiarly difficult to manage, even for his mind.

The excruciating anticipation to feel the divine sensation of warm skin between his legs was definitely fatiguing as it was; in both their terms and as if a month by himself wasn't painful enough, Lars was already late.

He was supposed to visit him two weeks ago.

As yet another day went by, Rakuen had the increasing dread that probably, Lars chose to move on and forget about him.

But why didn't you let me die if you were going to leave me here? In the nothing, to wander through an eternity, without you.

Hours of insomnia became an unescapable part of his nocturnal routine and teary pouts replaced his once calmed expression. Rakuen started walking through the afternoons outside his house in search for life. A bird, a bug, any noise outside the wind.

It always paid to be futile.

As always, everything was eerily vacant.

Rakuen cleaned the house every day, hoping to have the optimism to expect; dust easily became a wild anticipation for his bland atmosphere. Days went by, in hopes to not lose his mind, because as far as he could tell, losing his own sanity was becoming a painful thing to witness.

It marked two months since he last saw Lars; on a peculiar afternoon and after yet another day of drowning in his head, Rakuen flopped on his couch to bitterly cry about the merciless soul who forgot about him.

The same person he still cherished, the same person who left him where he couldn't move on. He prayed to the God he believed in and soon realized that he probably defied him by accepting to stay in that godless place.

Why didn't he accept his demise when it was due?

Why did the premise of night-after-night sex seemed more valuable than peace at that time? God only knew what went by in that moment and no matter how insistent the tears cascaded now, his mind still lingered below the thoughts of those foreign lips somehow mistreating his skin.

Rakuen cursed- he failed again, he always did. He loved him and he wished the turbulence that surrounded his mind were as shallow and thoughtless as to close the tormenting goes with a lively remark.

This is torturous.

Another day, yet too early for it to reach the night. The living room's clock marked fifteen minutes past six, right before the skies could welcome blackness. The isolated evening became the part of the day where he would walk outside his house to roam through the neighborhood's isolated streets. The way how Rakuen saw it was that his nature brought curiosity. His tail waggled in apprehension.

For once in a long time, he felt enthusiastic.

Seemingly, his limbo was an uncanny replica of the living's world. When he was alive, he made sure to stay in his line, but now that this world was open for him, Rakuen told himself that he would inspect one house a day. Just to kill time, just to entertain his busy mind. Just to forget that he was abandoned like if he meant nothing.

Like if he was dead.

He chuckled bitterly- if he really thought about it, he was in fact- dead. He really didn't mean anything anymore. He also realized that the people who accepted their inevitable death-call, were maybe extinguished and that probably, that fate was way more appealing than his place on that limbo.

Around two in the early morning, he returned to his hollow house. He roamed with the lights off all the way upstairs and closed the door of his bedroom behind him, he flopped tiredly on his bed. There was nothing new about the day. Maybe he could try to escape.

.

Obscure as he realized it was probably past midnight and having waited the entire night in calmness, Lars noticed with a quick glance to his left that the scarce streetlights' illumination from outside provoked a forlorn shade of blue that only reached up to the windows' panes. The night was unforgiving on its overwhelming darkness, inside the house, it remained in black.

Too listless to stand up and turn the lights on, Lars decided to simply wait; anticipate for any source of light that could reach him, before he could decide if it was 'too late'.

His fingers dipped on the leather, they tapped insistently on the couch's arm. His legs were open and his shoulders felt tense yet his back leaned leisurely against the lounger. Lars' face turned to the sound of the front door's knob twisting, his breath contained inside his throat as he heard it click.

His eyebrows furrowed. His mind drowned in dimness, he could barely appreciate the slender silhouette that broke his way through the front door.

Long time, no see… Nakura.

Lars' expression didn't change, he observed in quietness as Rakuen reached down to his pockets and unhurriedly secured the house's door.

Turn the lights on…

I want to see you.

The slender shadow disregarded him as he gracefully turned and aimed left and upwards to the house's stairs. Lars' eyes fastened on the backside of the creature that stepped away, making himself impossible to grasp as he disappeared towards the second floor.

Lars assumed that Rakuen must have missed him entirely out of his perception.

Weren't you supposed to have nocturnal eye-sight?

Lars sighed to himself, the disappearing footsteps confused the panorama prospected in his head. After a while of immersing in a rather odd motionlessness, he decided to stand up. Fighting his own urges wasn't something he wanted to engross in.

Lars breathed in, the ambience's tantalizing aroma scraped his darkest melancholies, his tainted desires that were ungodly yet so holy to even contain; Rakuen's peculiar fragrance was deeply engraved in the fathomless nooks of his chest.

He wanted to see him.

Alleviated, sore and tired. Feeling haunted by the thrill, Lars placed both his hands inside his pockets and closed his eyes. There was a tug of ardor and valiance he was missing and he stopped pretending that he didn't kill Rakuen's memory again now that he decided to return.

The sudden sound of footsteps followed by yet another door banging assured him that Rakuen was not yet asleep. His eyes narrowed in the dusk, not enough prudency stopped him from walking all the way upstairs.

In a matter of seconds, he found himself opening Rakuen's bedroom's door.

As he walked in, Lars' eyes skimmed towards the wide chamber, hoping to be met by a strange man with a plum tabby tail and whisky eyes.

.

A hushed caress from the wind apprehended his senses, Lars stood still as he scrutinized the solitary atmosphere and after a while, he found himself eerily trapped inside it's bizarre melancholy.

Something was not right.

Rakuen's windows were set apart, dark blue curtains flailed as the night wooed in contemplation. Lars was silent and innocuous as he stared again at his surroundings. Almost two months since he walked in but it felt like he was somewhere else.

Something is not quite right.

A totally different circumstance, he tried reminding himself but the twisting inside his stomach persisted. He took a glance to his left, there was some shifting on the dark side of the room.

He thought the eyesight of a man hanging from a noose wouldn't perturb him entirely out of his façade. His eyes widened; it totally did.

.

Guarded on the murky corner of the scope and seated inside a rather obscure embrace, Rakuen's back arched in a futile attempt of disengaging from the carnal impulses that were being pushed down his weak mind. His back felt clammy despite the open window's breezy lenience. He bit his bottom lip after a quivering whimper impended to slip, the arms that surrounded him tightened possessively above his ribs.

"What did you think you were doing?" A soft whisper was kissed against his ear, Rakuen's nails clawed down the forearms that pressed over his stomach, his head pressed back against the broad shoulders that carried vane urges down his most vulnerable skin.

An hour ago, he was still hanging from a rope. Lars was sick.

"You can't die, silly." Lars' mouth pressed an affectionate kiss on top of his shoulder and it looked unrealistically cruel as their lips brushed lightly instead of allowing his partner to sob. "Not in this world."

"Ah dont mmn." His whisper was smothered by a tongue that pressed lewdly against his bottom lip; Lars moved his head no and closed his lips against his. He wouldn't listen, not that he needed to. "Please."

"I'm not over this, no. I can't let this go just yet."

Rakuen impended to scoff bitterly but it skidded off of his mouth as he groaned instead, the fingers that were probing at the rim of his entrance, slipped inside and twisted, making his jaw clench and his back arch against Lars' broad chest. "So hold on Nakura."

"Ugh.." Rough fingers started pushing in and out in consistent shoves and his eyes dropped with heavy enthrallment, some spots felt better than others, the idea submerged him in the nihility that remained in their paradise, Rakuen's panting mouth became louder and breathier as the pace became harder up on his sweetest spot.

"mhm. I've been wondering," Lars smiled and pressed his tongue against the nape of his neck. "If it's okay to move on." His fingers slipped out and the fingertips prodded over the rim, "Or do you feel anything for me? Enough so that I stay." Rakuen's tongue tied up, his sore muscles started shuddering on his belly and opening his legs didn't make the fingers thrust inside again.

"Say, are you still there?"

Rakuen's nails stopped denting and the grip easily became a soft caress "…I figured, Nakura." Lars nodded as he smirked sadly, "And by the way, I miss you... I still do."

Gasping as pain, love and erotic slander broke tremors through his psyche, Rakuen closed his eyes and prayed for it to end as much as he craved for it to last forever.

And somehow it wasn't a thought wrapped around sex.

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AN/ Short story. Not that deep. I wanted, in "concept-wise" something close to Inferno (that one fic where Jazz snitches on Aksel's murders and both end up burning in that shithole because they love each other) So I came up with this weird-ass fic.

Here is my explanation so it isn't so random lol

I think everything becomes clearer in the sex scene as the first impression is that Lars only treats Rakuen as an object, after all, he handled the suicide matter indifferently and seemingly, he shoved it under the rug carelessly to go straight for the sexual intercourse.

However, it is simply because Lars doesn't believe in that saidlimbo. That is why he asks Rakuen, or what he thinks it's Rakuen "I've been wondering, if it's okay to move on. Or do you feel anything for me? Enough so that I stay." He isn't wondering if Rakuen, the one he knew alive, still loves him, he is wondering ifthat thing –prototype- that's useful for sex even feels anything for him.

He is wondering if the copy saved every aspect of Rakuen. Including his deep feelings for him.

So Lars probably thinks the limbo isn't real, maybe a projection by the Witch, or a product of his mind, but not real. And if it's real then that's certainly not Rakuen. So sometimes he tries to move on and doesn't visit, then he gives in on his own sadness and longing to see Rakuen and he returns.

"Say, are you still there?"

I hint this distrustfulness at the beginning.

"Weren't you supposed to have nocturnal eye-sight?"

He doesn't think that that's his Rakuen. "And by the way, I miss you... I still do."

"I'm not over this, no. I can't let this go just yet." He isn't speaking to Rakuen, he just can't let go of what he has found, this gives him relief and he is not over the fact that Rakuen isn't really coming back. So he refers to Rakuen as 'this' instead of 'you'.

"He stopped pretending that he didn't kill Rakuen's memory again now that he decided to return." He thinks he taints Rakuen's memory each time he goes back to the limbo.

I'll leave that to you if Rakuen is really Rakuen.

Till next time (next time is fluff Aksel/Jazz)

Batya000