A/N : For all the Kaname/Aido fans out there! This is a standalone story, but it can be read with my other Kaname/Aido stories and takes place sometime after 'Strawberries in blood'. Hope you guys enjoy this!
Hanabusa Aido's golden head jerked upward when a drop of cold water landed on his cheek. A second drop splashed into his eye, and a third trickled down his temple. To his left and right, villagers were hurrying away to their homes. A downpour was only minutes away!
Aido sprinted a considerable distance from the sidewalk to the shelter beneath an overhead road. Huge stone columns supported the highway above, leaving its underbelly dry and shady. Even in rain, the elevated concrete ground wouldn't flood; it was the kind of perfect temporary shelter which drew travelers and rain-caught people.
Kaname Kuran strolled in from the other side, first seeing Hanabusa Aido treating the convenient roof to his appreciative expression, before seeing Aido's blue eyes widened to comical roundness upon realizing the other's presence.
"I-It's going to rain," Aido coughed out by way of greeting, going ramrod stiff under Kaname's appraising gaze.
"It won't kill you," Kaname replied, stepping past Aido and looking as though he wanted to continue his way out of the shelter.
"But-but-but–"
Aido felt a vague pang of distaste at the thought of getting his clothes and shoes wet.
Just then, the downpour began in earnest. Kaname paused, a wry smile tipping his lips.
"…But it wouldn't hurt to remain dry."
Aido grunted noncommittally and nodded.
Kaname went to one of the columns and sat down on the ledge of its base, extending his legs in preparation of a considerable wait. Hanabusa began to pace back and forth, looking into the misty distance. Presently, however, he became aware that he was looking outside to avoid meeting Kaname's gaze. For he could feel the red eyes on him, following his movements lazily throughout the to and fro of his walking. On the "to" portion of it he felt an unnerving prickle on the back of his neck, and on the "fro" part, he knew his throat was heating up with a deep tropical burn.
Hanabusa risked a glance through his lashes, found that bloody gaze, and immediately ducked his head down again. It was no relief to face away from Kaname because he only felt more apprehensive about the predatory scrutiny he couldn't see. The redness on his neck spread upwards and downwards, and his hands, clasped behind his back, tightened their sweaty grasps on one another.
"- I could run out and get a cab to come by," Aido suggested abruptly.
"That would be unnecessary. That is, unless you are rushing for time?"
"Nonotatall –" Aido swallowed, cracked his knuckles and resumed his pacing, up and down, to and fro, increasingly unnerved by Kaname's unrelenting observation. The tension in his back and stomach reached his knees, and suddenly, as Kaname shifted position slightly, he tripped over his own foot.
"Um!" Aido yelped as he tossed his arms out and narrowly avoided falling completely. Quickly he straightened, expression askew with embarrassment. He took a moment to fidget with his shirt.
"Sit," Kaname said.
Aido dropped to the ground where he stood and froze in that position.
Red eyes examined Aido's pokerfaced countenance with cool amusement.
"I didn't mean where you were," he said drily.
Aido sprang to his feet so quickly he nearly fell over.
"OhbutI –"
Kaname leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and Aido clamped his lips together.
Unhurriedly, Kaname reached out and hooked Aido's belt loop with a forefinger, dragging him close. Aido squawked, fell two startled steps forward and stopped short, right in front of Kaname, his shins between Kaname's inner thighs, his stomach two inches, two scant, endless inches, from Kaname's cold eyes.
When Kaname lifted Aido's shirt and pressed his lips against the supple flesh of his stomach, blood drained from Aido's face.
The warm lips disappeared for a moment and then resumed, this time with a tongue, and then with teeth, gently tracing the curve of his waist before moving down to his abdomen. The mouth got harsher, biting and scratching. Not daring to protest, not even daring to touch, Aido's hands convulsed at his sides. He panted and heaved desperately, unaware of the small, high pitched sounds he made, feeling only the unendurable heat writhing shamelessly in his belly.
Then there was only the pasty, unpleasant shock of his shirt falling back over the red, wet patch of his stomach, and Kaname leaned back on the pillar, waiting impassively for Aido to look down at him. When Aido did so, seemingly stricken by Kaname's cool, red eyes, Kaname jerked his head to one side, indicating the space beside him.
"Sit," he said.
Aido swallowed, teetered for a moment, then stepped drunkenly over Kaname's leg. Instead of sitting on the ledge, he sank down on the ground in front of it, breathing quickly and irregularly.
He never knew why it was that, when it concerned Kaname, duty was never quite enough for him, friendship was always rather too disrespectful, and physical desire, no matter what, was inexplicably distressing and terrifying. His hand itched to lift his shirt and touch the red, damp flesh of his stomach, hoped to find and linger over the indents of Kaname's teeth, but he was afraid to do so where he could be seen doing it – his trachea seemed to wither at the very thought of doing so. He could have rested his chin on Kaname's knee, if it had seemed proper to do so.
In the microcosm kept away from the world by a veil of grey water, all senses were lulled into stillness by the constant, susurrus legato. Down there on the ground, in the half-light, beside Kaname's leg, with the memory of Kaname's mouth on him playing over and over again, against the fragrance of falling rain, Aido never knew how he found, after an uncountable number of minutes, the courage to break the silence.
"Kaname-sama…do you – want to – do anything?"
"What do you have in mind?"
Kaname stood up and stretched comfortably, and ambled, if anyone could amble with a viperous nonchalance, to the edge of the bridge. Water splashed onto his head and face.
"– I – don't – nothing – anything. Anything you want."
With a sudden, suggestive, dreadful indolence, Kaname stepped back towards Aido, who reeled in his legs quickly, finding them too long and ungainly. When his knees were drawn up, Aido quailed and pressed back against the column as the slow, quiet 'klop' of Kaname's shoes neared him.
Black shoes drew level with a final thud, and Aido flinched at the noise. Pressing his lips together, Aido forced himself to breathe slowly through his nose, with the result that it sounded extremely loud and shaky to his own ears.
Kaname hooked his hands easily in his own pockets and kicked Aido's right knee back. A short, panicked cry burst from Aido. His left knee was kicked back, spreading his legs alarmingly wide.
"Anything," Kaname repeated. Already unhinged by his own lewd, graceless position, Aido jerked sharply at the ruthlessness in Kaname's voice.
Kaname was very near now, leaning directly over Aido, supporting his weight on the column with one arm. A drop of water fell, from Kaname's hair, and landed on Aido's cheek. The noble blinked, swallowed and stared straight ahead. His insides convulsed beneath the cool, polished mahogany of Kaname's passionless gaze, and once more a dangerous fire was fanned into living in the pit below his stomach.
Kaname placed knee under Aido's chin and forced it up. Aido had to look at the hard, lean frame above his. When he arched away from Kaname's knee, his groin touched Kaname's foot, and it burned him to feel own body reacting in the worse possible way.
"Scared?"
Aido heard the word through his ragged breathing. Behind him, between his body and the column, his fists clenched, and an imperceptible shiver began at his elbows.
"NoI'mnot."
Kaname pushed his knee into Aido's throat. Aido wanted to gasp, but couldn't. He thought he bellowed, but it was a pleading whimper that came out. His fingers dug into the unyielding ground and the trembling in his shoulders intensified. It was unreasonable that his perfectly proportioned skeleton should liquefy under a mere stare, but of course it did, and closing his eyes, struggling for breath, availed Aido nothing.
Slowly, Kaname removed his knee and pushed himself away from the column. When Aido's shaking had stilled and his breathing evened out, he opened his eyes, to find them in their original position – Kaname sitting on the ledge, and he himself sitting on the ground. He snapped his legs shut, then felt unreasonably ashamed to admit that he should have done that so reflexively. Looking up at Kaname's, seeing that his attention was no longer him, Aido felt something loosen in him. Unabated relief and desolation coursed through him in equal measure.
"I – I wasn't scared – not really."
He saw the corner of Kaname's mouth lift disbelievingly, mockingly.
A nameless regret and despair took shape in the set of Aido's hunched, drooping posture.
"You shouldn't care," Aido said, his voice muffled. "You, of all people, shouldn't have to care."
Kaname didn't deign to acknowledge him.
The rain stopped soon after, and once again Kaname was part of the world and no longer only with Aido. Kaname sauntered outside, tilting his face into the sun. Aido followed, blinking at the sunlight, feeling angry at the jauntiness of a world returning to light.
END
How was it? Thank you for reading till the end - comments and criticisms are very welcome, guys!
-Cheers, and Happy Chinese New Year! from Talking Cockerel