Title: Word Games
Day/Theme: May 19 / To murmur name upon name
Character/Pairing: Ritsuka, Soubi, Ritsuka/Soubi
A/N: Oh, the fluff! It turned out more fluffy than I expected, but at the very least, I didn't lose the style too much. Except at the end. Though, I suppose this is progress for me. It isn't angsty at all!
Summary: Words are powerful, but none as much as his name.
...
...
The words strike the air, piercing his ears as each syllable is pronounced. Something is said, he doesn't remember what, and suddenly his arms are bound. The cold metal slaps his wrists together, casually wraps around his arms, a snake crawling up his shoulders. Then it stops as Soubi strikes back.
Fire, the strength of a pheonix-and the field becomes volcano, the pit of hell. Everything burns, smoke clogs the air, but nothing touches him.
Only, now, hard leather binds his legs and something soft is covering his eyes. A thousand fleeting sensations cross him-heat, cold, the pricks of millions of knives, the quiet sting of a bee. They flit on and off, attaching, detaching, and suddenly the world goes silent.
He could be alone in this world of darkness. Alone and lost but for the arm wrapped around his shoulder, the warm appendage that pulls him tighter to some unknown (he knows it all too well) rock. Fingers dance on his neck, soft butterfly kisses, and that man doesn't know when to stop. He shouldn't do this, especially not now, during a battle.
He shouldn't do it at all. Not ever. Always. His emotions collide, conflicted, wanting and desire facing reality and logic. What he wants, what he doesn't want, they all merge as one.
Soubi's breath is soft against his check, cool and collected as always.
Ritsuka half wants to pull off this chains, turn around and see him. Something changes in Soubi when he fights, something dangerous and untamed emerges, and it's breathtaking.
Confusing, too, because sometimes it makes Ritsuka's heart beat too fast and sometimes he just wants to run away from it all.
He can't, though. Never will. The world is saturated in words, in the binding chains and restraining leather. In the words that cut deeper and harsher than any flesh wound can be.
(His mother, her eyes flashing like lightning, her arms raised, her broken sobs-it's the tears that stab the most)
"It's done," Soubi says suddenly, the world turning on once more. Ritsuka turns away from the thick fabric and looks around to see his opponents have vanished once more. "You should be going home now." Soubi's arm loosens, lightly, and Ritsuka pulls away.
This is embarrassing, he thinks, he feels. What's more embarrassing, though, is that he wants to bury himself further in that warmth, to disappear in the midnight blue of his sweater, to escape the world a little longer.
Soubi's already moving away and he hastens to follow.
How does he manage those battles? Ritsuka can barely follow what happens, the flashing words, the quick returns. It's like a tennis game, hit after hit, the ball bouncing from one court to another. It only takes one strike, a set of words that fly faster than thought, and it's all over.
His words are powerful, then, and his mind quick enough to come up with them.
"Ritsuka?" Soubi questions, looking down at him.
And this is what Ritsuka hates (loves) the most-when Soubi says his name, Ritsuka can't think of another word that can bind him more powerfully than that, that can capture him and leave him further in that senseless world.
All Soubi has to do is say is his name and Ritsuka is lost.
...
...
...