AN:

This was supposed to be crackfic! And then it... grew!

IT HAS A MIND OF ITS OWN

IT'S ALIIIIIIIIVE

Murata, you cheeky devious flirt, you.

Murata likes most of these people, and it's funny, because they don't pay much attention to him here. Even the sheep hates him. They fawn over Shibuya soon as he enters the room, which is pretty funny when you think about it, because they do it for the same traits that Murata has--and for the same traits that the original Great Sage had, which is why they obsess over them in Shibuya.

But they barely even notice Murata. Not that he resents it, or anything, because frankly he's happy to leave Shibuya to the scary fanboys and fangirls of this world. He's not so noble, or self-sacrificing, which frankly might very well be a reason that they don't like him. Shibuya's Great and Noble ways make all the people in the world fall all over themselves at his feet, but...

Well, Murata's mind is what'll keep them there.

He doesn't like to brag, though, so he keeps that to himself even though it's true, and he smiles and angles his glasses so they can't see his eyes for the glare.

It's kind of nice, he thinks, that they'll never understand that he always knows more than he's letting on.

Gwendal, however, is like him.

Murata senses in Gwendal a kindred--if less playful, if you could call Murata that--spirit. Behind the scenes, always watching, endless work to do. And forever willing to die for his Demon King.

Murata's like that, too, but honestly? Dying is a hell of a lot easier when you have memories of your past life and know you'll be coming back. So he admires Gwendal, really, and watches him when he can.

It doesn't hurt that the man's drop-dead gorgeous, too. (Damn, everyone here is! It's gotten worse than last time! ...Well, maybe he means better.)

It does, however, hurt that Murata can remember the great Siegbert Voltaire and an excellent night spent together 4000 years ago, which makes conversing with the already-awkward Gwendal von Voltaire pretty uncomfortable sometimes.

And it hurts that this will end, because Murata likes this life. He doesn't know where it's going, but he knows that it will end, and that the cycle will begin again, probably worse, because he likes this lifetime better than almost all the ones he's had so far. There won't be a Shibuya--at least not a one that he knew like this, and there won't be a Gwendal, or a Conrad, or a Wolfram, or a Gunter, or a Josak like he knows now. There will be other friendships like it, and there have been in the past, but none exactly it.

These moments will never happen again. Murata understands that better than anyone else. There's a bigger picture than the Now, and Murata has seen much more of it than anyone else remembers, and he will continue to do so. He's looking forward to it, but that doesn't mean he doesn't cry sometimes at night over the loss of old friends, old family, old lovers.

And most of all, the loss of chances.

Which the reason he decides to kiss Gwendal, when he does kiss Gwendal, who is staying up for the night watch.

Gwendal is surprised when it happens, but not really, and Murata knows people (and demons!) well enough after 4000 years to know the signs of attraction. He knows Gwendal looks his way sometimes, when he thinks Murata isn't watching, and for all Gwendal's talk of "no interest in love affairs" he sure as hell looks at Jozak's biceps in a way that isn't so much cool appraisal as wanting. ('Course, nothing's going on there--Murata checked that with Jozak, and man, that had been an awkward conversation, but you can't blame a guy for wanting to make sure the recipient of his first kiss of a lifetime hasn't got anything else going on. And besides, Murata and Jozak are buddies anyway.)

Well, anyway. Murata figures out that Gwendal is most definitely not made of stone by the blush of his cheeks and the way he puts a hand on Murata's head, like he wants to push Murata away, or something, so Murata pulls back. He rocks back on his heels, because he had to stand on tiptoe, and he puts his hands behind his back.

"Something wrong?" he asks Gwendal, whose head twitches from side to side in an approximation of the 'no' signal. "Am I not cute enough, or something?" He grins to show he's kidding, and even plays up the cuteness by looking shyly to the side and forcing a blush to his cheeks. "I mean, I know I'm no Shibuya, but..."

Gwendal swallows.

"Y--you're--" definitely cute enough is what goes unsaid, and even if Murata doesn't hear it, the wide-eyed look Gwendal is giving him, complete with furious blushing, is loud enough for even the most clueless of attempting lovers, even if it doesn't get across to Yuuri when Wolfram does it. "It's just-- it's just-- That was... unexpected."

"Really?" said Murata. "Damn, and I thought I was being obvious. I guess we aren't all the Great Sage, though."

"I'm approximately a hundred years older than you," said Gwendal. To be honest, he looks a little sick.

"Only temporally," said Murata. "It's closer to 10, physically. Not to diminish the importance of that, I realize it makes me fairly hormonal and reckless and there's nothing you or I can do about that. But I can remember about 3900 more years than you. What does that make me?"

Gwendal looks a little relieved at that, and doesn't answer (Murata likes that Gwendal understood the meaning of "rhetorical question"), but Murata expects it's really just the tip of the iceberg and the easiest to say of Gwendal's objections.

"Anyway," Murata continues. "I think you're pretty hot, since I guess you didn't get that before, and I already know you're attracted to me, what with you being all, y'know, embarrassed and all."

"That is correct," mumbles Gwendal. "However, this is terribly presumptuous of you. What would you have done if I'd turned you down?"

Painful memories flash in Murata's mind of a similar face in another time, but he grins anyway, and tells Gwendal about it like it's funny.

"Siegbert said that, too," he tells Gwendal. "Yeah, you know the one I mean. And yeah. That does mean he didn't turn me down either. He said it with your grumpy-face, too. Well, I mean, you say it with his grumpy-face. Whatever."

Murata kisses him again, and Gwendal's eyes widen, but he doesn't break off the kiss. He's too shocked to do anything else but kiss Murata back, and Murata would be lying if he didn't say he planned this.

Murata likes his lovers like he likes his enemies: completely overwhelmed.

It's kinda fun, really.

It's secret, even though it doesn't have to be, and it's exciting, almost a game, and if Murata has ten councils with Gwendal in one week nobody bats an eye because Belar is always a threat.

Only half are actually about Belar, though, but not for lack of trying on Murata's part. But that's half the fun, anyway. Gwendal is stuffy and a stickler for the rules and the best kisser, if a little timid. And that, of course, makes it just about perfect.

A few lifetimes have passed since Murata had a secret affair. It's even better than he remembered. Stolen kisses in vacant corridors and secret visits during Paperwork Time in Shin Makoku are more exciting than anything on Earth, literally, and because two months pass in Shin Makoku in the blink of an eye on Earth, well, it makes it unbearable, those months where Murata is a 19-year-old kid and bullied and mired in dreary schoolwork.

Sometimes he feels like a middle-schooler with a crush, especially when he sees Gwendal riding up on horseback to tell Murata something and his heart jumps into his throat, but that's okay. He's been that way before and he'll be that way again. And it's nice not to feel so terribly old all the time. Besides, there hasn't been anything like this for a while.

Not for lifetimes, and he revels in feeling and wanting and enjoying and just the whole thrill of it all.

Gwendal is the last person Murata thinks of as having romantic ideas about the notion of love (except maybe himself, he's seen people kill and die for love and he hates it more than people killing and dying for hate), but all that is changed by an arrow to the shoulder one day in battle, which Gwendal dives for, because it is coming at Murata.

For the first time in several emotion-lacking lifetimes, Murata's heart stops.

Huh.

He'd forgotten that feeling.

And the blood. By the Great One, the blood, spreading across that dark green coat and turning it black in places. Even those of the Demon Tribe can't shed so much blood--not without repercussions.

Murata, when he realizes what is happening, suddenly forgets about all that stupid stuff about every-man-for-himself because, shit, that's never true anyway no matter how many times the commander says it.

"Gwendal?" he asks quietly, taking Gwendal's hand in his.

"Yes?" says Gwendal. Good. He's still able to talk. That bodes well. Except his hands are clammy. That does not bode well.

"You shouldn't have done that," says Murata. "It wasn't even necessary."

"Of course it was," says Gwendal, coughing a little, and covering it because he is a polite demon. For the first time in years, in lifetimes, Murata prays: Please don't let there be blood on his hands. There is. Oh, right, there's a reason he stopped praying. "I cannot allow the Great Sage to die. It will take us years to find you again, and years for you to grow up again."

"Thank you," says Murata, trying very hard to appear like he isn't watching his--his boyfriend die, because it all still has to be secret. That's the way this game goes. "Your reasoning is sound, as always."

Gwendal smiles, really smiles, for the first time that Murata's ever seen, and suddenly Murata realizes: We aren't playing anymore.

"That's..." Gwendal clears his throat. "That's not all of why I did that," he says, and kisses Murata's knuckles briefly.

"Well, that was dumb of you," says Murata, and because there is a drop of blood on his hand too when Gwendal's mouth leaves it, he begins to cry, unable to stop himself. If he's lucky, his glasses will hide it, but Gwendal knows him pretty well by now. "My face is right here, you know. Guess you can't reach it right now, though, huh?" So he leans down, and kisses Gwendal, full force in the middle of the battlefield. 4000 years have taught him that these kinds are the best, and he isn't failed now. He tastes blood--Gwendal's blood, oh man oh man oh man, and Gwendal is struggling a little for breath, and Murata's awkwardly crouching over Gwendal, on his hands and knees, twisting himself to avoid touching the arrow, and balancing carefully to lift up his hand and brush Gwendal's hair out of his face, but...

Well, honestly?

This might very well rank as the best kiss he's ever had, in 4000 years. Admittedly, lifetimes have gone by when he was a monk or whatever, but damn.

Except he has really, really got to get the man to Gisela if he ever wants to have a kiss like this again.

He paces outside the tent. He's out of the woods, Gisela had told him. You got me to him just barely in time, thank the Great One! Most likely he'll be fine with a little bit of recuperation time, and he'll have to take it easy for a month or two. No slouching at his desk for hours, signing papers! But it really was close, there.

"You... and Gwendal?" asks Yuuri, for the third time, without disgust or horror, just... complete confusion. The battle is over, and they are just waiting for the wounded to be healed. Murata waits with an impatience he's never felt before.

"Yeah," says Murata. He can still taste Gwendal's blood, metallic in his mouth, though he's rinsed his mouth out enough that it shouldn't be possible.

"He always said he never wanted to fall in love," said Wolfram, unsure.

"I'm charming that way," says Murata, but they don't seem to hear him and the joke is only for him to hear. (Gwendal would've laughed, he knows, because Murata says it to him all the time.)

"You can come in now," says Gisela, appearing at the tent door.

Murata is first, before anyone else, and it doesn't take him long to find Gwendal in the rows of the wounded and dying. He is lying very still, and Murata's heart stops again, starts back up when he remembers that Gwendal just does that.

"Hey there," he says, kneeling at Gwendal's bedside, a repeat of the battle, except this time, Gwendal is bare-chested and bandaged and not likely to die.

"Hmph."

"Does it hurt to talk?"

"A little. I can manage."

"Look," says Murata. "Please, don't ever do that again. And don't talk if it hurts, either. I realize I'm important politically, but--"

If I die, I'll still be me, just 19 years younger. If you really want to. If you die, you'll be... somewhere else, somewhere I might not find you again.

"Look, do you really want me to repeat what I said out there?" Gwendal asks, blushing.

Murata grins so hard he feels his face is going to break. "Shibuya and Lord von Bielefelt saw," he tells Gwendal.

"Damn," Gwendal mutters. "I thought the point was to keep this secret?"

"What if it isn't anymore?"

"You... you wouldn't care?"

Shit, was the whole reason Gwendal did it because it was secret? Murata's grin fades.

"I mean--" he sputters, "we could, we could call it off, if you don't want to do it anymore--"

"I nearly died for you an hour ago. I hardly think I need to prove myself more. You're just fishing now," says Gwendal, looking away and closing his eyes, too tired to keep this up. But Murata can see a tiny smile.

And it is true, anyway. Murata's grin returns.

"Yes," says Murata. "Yes, I am. Tell me you're crazy about me. Don't worry, I'll make it up to you. I just want to... you know. Hear it."

Surprisingly, excitingly, Gwendal obliges. Maybe just because he had a brush with death. Or maybe, Murata hopes, because he's been thinking about it for a long, long time and never said anything.

"Absolutely mad."

"Tell me what it is you love about me."

It spills out, like Gwendal can't help himself. Murata's not entirely sure Gwendal's not faking it, but it makes Murata's heart melt, all the same.

"I love... your glasses. You never let me work. Your eyes. Your hair. You're old, but you're young. It's... paradoxical. Fascinating. You always know what I'm going to say, because you're smart. I... miss you... when you're gone... because I take myself too seriously. Is that enough? Why the hell am I still talking?"

Shibuya and the others have crept in, and are watching in horror. Murata grins even wider, and keeps it going.

"And... and are you going to marry me, someday?"

Gwendal sighs, and he is really, really smiling now.

"If that is what you wish."

"That's it," Murata announces to Gwendal's horrified assorted relatives. "He's lost his mind."

Gwendal sits up suddenly, with the most horrified look Murata has ever seen on his face. He also winces, and that doesn't go unnoticed, though Murata ignores it, if the man is going to be dumb then he's going to be dumb. "You didn't--"

"I intend to hold you to that," said Murata. "I want a nice wedding, with all your friends and family. And I want Jennifer of Yokohoma to officiate (yeah, you heard me, Shibuya, I want your mother at my wedding, apron and all). And I want you to sit back down," he adds, tapping Gwendal lightly on the forehead, because Gwendal is now looking like it's getting hard to breathe, and it was okay two seconds ago when it didn't seem dangerous but now it's not. Gwendal scowls at him.

"I will not. I am not listening to you, ever again."

"You will lie back down," says Gisela, in her best Drill Sergeant voice, and Gwendal obeys.

Murata tugs at Gwendal's ponytail, undoing it so it isn't uncomfortably sticking into his head while he's lying down, and gathers all the dark hair, pushing it to the side. "Bet this is uncomfortable, lying on the ground. Would it be more uncomfortable to put your head on my lap? That might squish your chest, though... Best not to?"

"Best not to. And besides, this is normal hospital procedure on the battlefield, we can hardly carry around enough cots for everyone," Gwendal mumbles. He looks awfully tired, anyway, and a little pale. Guess that's from the, y'know, almost-dying thing.

"Gisela, I can stay right here, right? That's all right, isn't it?"

Gisela smiles at him.

"If Gwendal doesn't mind."

"Hmph."

Murata sits on his knees beside Gwendal, occasionally threading his hands through Gwendal's bangs. There's a little bit of blood in his hair, and Murata takes extra care not to pull on that strand.

"What are you doing?" asks Gwendal.

"Am I pulling your hair? I'm sorry. I'll stop. I just like playing with your hair, it's nice."

"No, it... feels good."

Murata smiles, and continues to play with Gwendal's hair, braiding soft dark strands around each other like Jennifer of Yokohoma taught him to, and when he reaches the end, he undoes it and braids it again.

"So," he says. "I said I'd make it up to you."

"Hmph. And whatever you do had better be good."

"I was thinking," said Murata. "Why don't you choose what you want me to do? I'll do whatever you say. When you're better."

He's not gonna lie and say it wasn't meant to be more than a little suggestive.

Of course, Gwendal is Gwendal, and if he were anyone else, Murata wouldn't love him so much.

"All right," says Murata. "Here he is. The anything-you-wanted-in-the-whole-wide-world. His name is Siegbert."

Gwendal stares at him.

They were in Murata's bedroom, with a newly purchased charcoal-gray hamster. Evidently, they were a creature that Yuuri had once described to Gwendal, that was not native to the Demon Kingdom.

"You did not."

"I did."

"You know," says Gwendal, "I'm not so sure I'm entirely comfortable with you naming my hamster after my great-great-grandfather. Who you had relations with."

Murata grins. "It's too late, he already responds to it. Besides, I live to make you uncomfortable."

"I believe it."

"Would you like to hold him?"

Gwendal had been steadily avoiding looking at the cage this entire time, which Murata thought was odd, except when Gwendal finally does chance a peek, he turns bright red. A-ha.

"I--I'd break it. I... didn't think they'd be so... small."

"Aw, come on," said Murata. He pops open the cage door, and scoops the tiny critter out. "Hold out your hands, and we'll hope he doesn't pee on you, or something."

Gwendal's eyes widen, and he catches the hamster with both hands, bringing it up to eye level to inspect it. It scrabbles at his hands with its tiny nails, and finally settles in the middle, nose twitching.

"It's so... cute."

Murata laughs.

"Now pet its head, like this." He demonstrates with one finger, and Gwendal watches carefully, and mimics the movement as gently as possible.

"I... like its ears," Gwendal says brusquely.

"I knew you would. And you can visit him whenever you like, Ulrike said it's all right as long as it's not during times of war or anything and we set up a quick return time. And this is his ball, and this is his food, and--"

Murata smiles, and trails off because Gwendal is leaning towards him with that look in his eyes, and sure enough, Gwendal kisses him.

It's gentle, at least on Gwendal's side, because Gwendal is still holding Siegbert, but Murata's hands are free, and he doesn't hesitate to use them, on Gwendal's face, on his shoulders, on--

"KEN, YOUR BASEBALL FRIEND IS HERE."

Gwendal breaks off the kiss in shock.

"Your mother?" he asks Murata, who nods, a little tightly, because he can't help it if his irritation shows right now.

"She's talking about Yuuri."

"I suppose that means we have to go back to Shin Makoku now?"

Man, cockblocked by the Demon King.

Murata nods again. "This," he says, pushing up his glasses, which had gotten a little displaced, "will be continued later."

He smiles at Gwendal, and Gwendal smiles back.

They put Siegbert back, Murata shows Gwendal how to check his water and his food, and they go down the stairs.

And if they kiss a little in the part of the hall that can't be seen from the front door, well. Murata knows better than anyone else that you can't be sure of a "later".