A disclaimer: Ronin Warriors is not mine, but they have my love.
A warning: Here be boy love.

A note: This is Ryo/Keisuke(OC). Keisuke is Ryo's infamous boyfriend from my story "Persuasion," but you don't need to read one to understand the other.

Diamond and Pearls

Keisuke tilted his head back a little, back straight. He blew out the smoke slowly, cigarette held negligently between two long fingers at the end of the arm resting over his knee.

Ryo lay back on the bed and watched Keisuke's delicate pose through half-closed eyes. It reminded him of Sage a little, the grace, except that compared to Halo, Keisuke was always forced, and Sage didn't smoke. Also, Keisuke's hair was more of a dirty, sandy color, the strands thicker and not so soft.

"Did you still want to see that movie, Ry?" Keisuke raised the cigarette back to his lips, crawled on all fours across the big bedspread to where Ryo sprawled across the foot, sideways. Keisuke had a thing about nicknames; felt it was real solid proof of intimacy. Ryo hadn't thought his name could really get shorter.

Then Keisuke was leaning in to kiss him. A flick of his tongue sent the cigarette to the side of his mouth, sticking far out to the side so he could actually get away with kissing Ryo's cheek and smoking at the same time.

Too bad Ryo was horrible with smoke and thought it was disgusting anyway. Not that it stopped Keisuke. Keisuke had weird ideas about what looked cool taken entirely from blockbuster movies and primetime television. Ryo had caught him practicing poses with unlit cigarettes in the bathroom mirror.

Keisuke pulled back, exhaling smoke, and Ryo started coughing in loud, paralyzing shudders like he always did when Keisuke came near him with his cigarettes. Reached up to grab the small white stick of tobacco from Keisuke's mouth and threw it blindly away.

He didn't normally do that, this being Keisuke's house and what Keisuke did here seemed to him to be mostly Keisuke's business. But sometimes...

Keisuke watched it arc away onto the carpeting with a vague sort of horror. "Fuck." He lost his focus on Ryo, rolling over to sit, leaning back on his arms, hands behind him on the bed. "Are you trying to burn down my fucking house?"

"Won't burn," Ryo said moodily. Keisuke frowned at the utter certainty in Ryo's voice, levered himself off the bed, saying nothing.

Closet doors were thrown open. Keisuke disappeared. He came out with a box, sizeable, bigger than a bread box anyway, and then he was rooting through it on the bed.

"Found this stuff the other day." Scarves and musty clothing spread out on the floor until Keisuke pulled out a pale silk bag. Obviously jewelry inside. And then another box, small and velvet.

Out of this box came a diamond ring. Huge, gaudy, innumerable small stones atop tarnished metal. "Will you look at that?"

Ryo made a face.

"My grandparents had a lot of taste, eh? They were also rich. Can you tell?"

"And that?" Ryo touched the silk bag.

"You don't like the ring, don't want to try it on?" Keisuke teased. Ryo ignored him. Keisuke pulled more silk out of the bag, unrolled it to show the longest string of pearls Ryo had ever seen. They were small and a little irregular.

"Irregular means they're real," Keisuke said, like he knew what Ryo was thinking. "Small means they weren't as expensive as they could have been." Then, with a smirking grin, he threw it, catching Ryo's neck like a lasso.

Ryo put a hand up and froze because he wanted to pull it off but was terrified he'd break it. Keisuke was on the bed again, coming forward to trail a hand down the pearls lying against Ryo's chest and his black shirt. "My grandmother's... she had a lot of nice things. My mother doesn't like any of them though." Keisuke found a clasp, undid it and started looping it again and again around Ryo's neck.

"Keisuke, don't..." Ryo was aghast a little at the disregard for such a thing, something ancestral that cost so much and had been passed down from mother to daughter... Ryo had been brought up to treat that sort of thing with religious respect.

Which, of course, meant Keisuke thought of it as a great toy for mucking with Ryo's sensibilities. Meaning sex.

"Don't? No... You're so dark, it's beautiful." The blond finished, disappointed that the pearls didn't go around another time, leaving most of the loops choker-tight while one hung down too loose. Keisuke pushed Ryo down into the bed, leaned over him appreciatively. Ryo let him do it, upset.

"Your neck is too thin, eh? Kind a snap-able, Ry." Keisuke was laughing a little, putting an experimental hand around Ryo's neck, palm resting over his windpipe and the antique pearls.

Not unexpected. Keisuke had a thing about violence. Not for-real violence, he didn't have the stomach for it, though Keisuke had never been in a situation to discover that. Ryo just could tell. Had gotten pretty good at judging these things in the course of his experience.

Keisuke's hand trailed down to tug on the lowest, wider loop of the pearl necklace, and the heirloom tightened around Ryo's neck. He smiled, a cruel tease, expression lazy but eyes excited. No, not for-real violence. Imaginary, just enough to make sex seem dangerous.

Ryo tilted his head back, let his eyes fall shut under black lashes, and Keisuke leaned down to put his lips on the skin just under Ryo's jaw, fingers still hooked in the string of pearls. His other hand found Ryo's left wrist, grabbed it, forced it against the mattress, like he was holding Ryo down.

Ryo tended not to like that so much, but it would take a little longer before he pressed the issue. Ryo usually let Keisuke have his way with foreplay, the blonde having poor habits of wretched pouting when he didn't get his way in bed.

But it seemed today Keisuke had another objective. Fingers entwined with Ryo's, holding something cold and a little sharp that went around his finger. The ring finger. It was heavy.

"What? Keisuke – " Turned to see the gaudy ring on his finger now, like a farce of an engagement ring. It didn't quite fit. He wondered how he'd get it off.

"It's too bad," Keisuke mused, "but I think you'd notice if I tried to slip on the skirt."

Ryo glared. "No."

"No?" Keisuke pouted. "Didn't you ever play around with any of that stuff as a kid? You know, try to figure just how gay were you."

Ryo blinked up at him, irritation muted a little in confusion. "No... did you?"

Keisuke seemed to lose interest in the whole thing, lying on the bed half on top of Ryo, one leg thrown over the smaller man and head turned so that he was breathing lightly against Ryo's face with his smoker's breath. "My family wasn't so into sex-education beyond tab A goes into slot B and the evils of masturbation. The stories I got about people like me were kind of... freakish."

"Oh," Ryo said.

"Though my brother was kind enough to tell me where Dad kept his pornography," Keisuke added thoughtfully, running his hand through Ryo's hair. "Didn't like any of it. Too heterosexual. Was really very disappointed."

Ryo laughed.

Abruptly Keisuke sat up, going over to rummage through the drawers of the old mahogany vanity against the wall. Most of the rest of the room was beige. Ryo looked it over again, spending more thought on it than he had at first. "Keisuke... this isn't your parents' room is it?" He was suddenly self-conscious.

"Neh. But... we could go in there if you want?" Keisuke was glancing back, an almost feral grin on his face. Ryo didn't want him to be so taken with the idea.

"No. No, I don't want to – what? What are those?"

Keisuke walked back to the bed hands closed around something, several somethings actually. "I promise they won't be back until Sunday and we could wash the sheets..."

Ryo tugged at Keisuke's hands, vaguely anxious, now that he was half decked out in expensive jewels with Keisuke only turning more mischievous. Keisuke shrugged and opened his fists, letting his findings tumble onto the bed between Ryo's legs.

Cosmetics. Lipstick, rogue, an eyeliner pencil, eye shadow in several colors. All old, all expensive – an older woman's collection.

"What's this Keisuke?"

"My toys. This is my grandmother's room. I used to hide stuff in here because it could soak up the things that weren't... masculine enough. Wouldn't be too weird finding make-up in here, though the gay porn I hid under the mattress might have been a little odd."

Ryo picked up a marbled plastic case, flipped it open and looked at the pink powder inside. "You wore make-up?" He flipped it shut again, browsing through the things Keisuke had found.

The springs bounced as Keisuke slumped back onto the bed, legs crossed and shoulder to shoulder with Ryo. "No. Like I said, I was... well, I wasn't sure how gay I was."

Ryo blinked at him.

"Okay, okay. Look, I only got the most outlandish stories. I didn't hear about guys who just liked guys. They all dressed up like women and went shopping all the time or slept around until they died of horrible gay diseases or... went after little kids. It was always fucked up. I mean, there was this one time my brother was telling me about our uncle who can only have sex if he's wearing lacy stockings..."

Ryo slipped the top off the lipstick, twisting it up and considering it critically.

"Eh, you don't like it?" Keisuke cocked his head watching Ryo with his gray eyes. He was pale and the freckles on his skin stood out, the most obvious inheritance from his western mother besides the hair.

Ryo held it up to Keisuke's skin and made a face. "It's too dark..."

Keisuke stared. "Too dark?" And then he was pressing his lips to the hair behind Ryo's ear and shaking with laughter. "You... I would not have thought... thank you for the expert opinion... oh, aha ha ha haaa..."

Ryo examined the purple color a little more. More pink than violet and more brown than pink. Keisuke calmed down, took it from him, looking it over seriously. "Mmm... too dark is right. S'okay, never wore it out. Never liked the make-up, 'cept for a little bit of eyeliner at a few parties."

Ryo nodded absently.

"Your color'd be good though." Keisuke grinned. Ryo's eyes widened a little in startlement.

"Me?"

"Eh. Hold still." Keisuke's arm went around his shoulders tightly, a futile attempt at pinning him. He lifted the tube, got a little dab on Ryo's upper lip before Ryo smiled in embarrassment, twisting his head away, and messed him up.

"Damnit, Ryo, now you've got a weird line off on your cheek."

"Stockings?" Ryo prompted, rubbing at the lipstick with the back of his hand.

"Eh? Oh, my uncle. No, I don't think he exists. Or, well, even if he did, he was on my Dad's side, meaning he got disowned years ago."

"Disowned?" Ryo had a sudden thought. "Keisuke..." he started, worried.

"What?"

"Are your parents... okay with you?"

Keisuke shrugged, but he also pulled ever so slightly away from Ryo, suddenly uncomfortable. "Yeah, I guess so. I mean, my mom's American. Everybody's gay in America."

"Keisuke..."

"Well," Keisuke admitted, "that's what my grandfather says anyway." He turned over, putting an hand on the other side of Ryo's waist and walked forward on his hands so that Ryo had to gradually fall back onto the bed. "Ne, I think he might be exaggerating a little?"

"Keisuke..."

Keisuke's breath against his lips, a knee between his legs, cosmetics scattered, and then they weren't talking much.