Warnings: Slash, sexual situations and some hard language. Nothing bad enough to warrant anything but a hard T rating, though.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Harvest Moon. The story, however, is mine.
Veneration
He knew it was wrong. There was no doubt in his mind that the... things he did were reprehensible. And that was how they had to be described. As things. Because to call it something else would be a lie; it would be covering up how wrong it was.
Summer meant heat and sweat. It meant that the already hellish heat of the smithy became absolutely unbearable, and that his clothing would end up saturated with an unpleasant sticky sweat. He was already prone to flights of fancy (the pile of dog-eared fantasy books sitting on his dresser could attest to this), but he found that the summer heat rendered him completely incapable of thinking. It was all he could do to think about his room at the inn, where the promise of ice cold water, a ceiling fan and an open window made the season bearable.
He blamed the heat for the things. Surely if he could think properly, he would never do something so obviously wrong... so sinful... so bad.
His parents had raised him with a belt in one hand and with a Bible in the other, and while he never took to religion (he didn't make his way down to the church except on special occasions, the lax practices of his grandfather a welcome respite to the Bible-thumping of his parents) he did take to the fear. The fear of alienation, of judgment, of rejection and most of all, a fear of the unbearable heat of hellfire most of all.
The whole season just feels like hell.
No one is perfect; everybody sins. He sinned on a regular basis—by disrespecting his grandfather, by disobeying his mother and father and running away from them, by swearing and taking the Lord's name in vain on a regular basis... Yes, he sinned. He never thought much of them, though, because these were sins that everyone committed. No one was perfect... everyone was allowed a few wrongs here and there. It was no big deal...
But surely a sin like this was unforgivable.
Summer meant heat and sweat... but it also meant sin and weakness.
The first time it happened, he hadn't seen it coming. How could he? He had never thought of things like that before (flustered moments in private didn't count, nor did dreams that left him dizzy and confused and feeling wrong), so when he'd been slammed against the wall and had a pair of demanding, insisting, damning lips forced against his own, he didn't know how to respond, how to think.
He'd kissed back (lips moving clumsily, embarrassingly, because he'd never done that before outside stolen thoughts and forbidden fantasies that he would never admit to). And when he was touched, he'd touched back too (hands trembling, shaking against flesh that was burning).
It was so wrong... he knew it was because when it was over, their bodies tangled and drenched and breathing so hard he thought they'd run out of air, he was overcome with a sense of dread that they'd find out. That they'd know about what he'd let happen to him (what they'd done) and call him names. That they'd look at him with hatred and speak to him with venom. That his friends would leave him and that the quiet librarian would refuse to let him into her library (into her life) anymore... That his grandfather would rage and call him a disgrace and tell him to get out, because he was disgusting and made him want to throw up just by breathing the same air.
He was terrified... so damn terrified. He'd gone to church, afterward, still feeling hot and dazed, almost as if he had a fever. Ashamed, he had begged for forgiveness... promised to never do it again...
But it had. A second time, and then a third. And a fourth and a fifth and a sixth and so many times that he lost count.
He wanted to stop. So badly, he just wished that he could stop. That he could just be normal and good, that he could stop thinking about moments where he was pressed up against something, being touched and kissed and... and... held. He wished that he could be the one that wanted to hold, that he could hold someone like her, the shy librarian that seemed so well-suited to him. It wouldn't be perfect (because there's no such thing as perfection except God, they'd taught him) but it would be good. It would make him good. And that would be okay.
Summer meant heat and sweat and sin and weakness...
But it also meant... being held and caressed. Because the first and second times had been all about want and lust and a need so strong that there was no time for thought, but the third time had been slow and... and... it had been about things that were different, things that made him doubt that it was bad.
That's what scared him the most—when he felt like it couldn't be bad at all. He was being made to forget what was wrong and what was right, and the things were slowly acquiring a different meaning.
Things implied sin. Things meant that what they were doing was wrong. If pressed, he would give it the word fucking, because it was harsh and physical and that's what it felt the first two times. Things meant fucking. But things didn't mean... didn't mean...
Kai had called it fucking. He called it that after the first time and right before the second, when he had lashed out at him in rage and confusion and fear and Kai had blocked his punch and pinned him against the wall.
"What the hell is wrong with you! It's just fucking. It doesn't mean anything!" Kai had screamed it, hands making fists around his wrists, causing the fair skin there to bruise. He had been breathing hard, dark eyes impossibly black with rage, and he had been breathing hard too, and before he knew it they were kissing and touching again and he was horrified to remember that he was the one to start it.
It was easy for him to dismiss things like that so easily. Kai was all about doing what felt right and embracing who you are while he was all about doing what was right and pursuing who you should be.
He knew that Kai had done that before. It was obvious, because he had done it so... flippantly (well), with the manner of someone who had done something like that before and no longer attached any special meaning to it. He had been taught that fucking was called sex, and that men and women were supposed to do it when it was right (when they were married, because even if you were a man and a woman doing it beforehand was just as wrong) to have children and that was it. Taking pleasure in it wasn't... wrong, but it wasn't what it was meant for. Kai laughed at that; he was all about feeling, and he especially reveled in feeling pleasure. Sex was about pleasure to him, it was about gratification.
Something about Kai's way of thinking struck him as inherently perverse. It made him think that he was no better than Kai, because since the two of them could not produce children, they were only doing it because it felt... good. And that was wrong.
But then there was the third time. And Kai hadn't snapped at him or pinned him against anything. He had cried when Kai had asked him what was wrong (because everything was, nothing made sense anymore), and after a few moments of silence (besides his pathetic sobbing that wasn't anything like how a man should behave), Kai had held him close. Instead of the urgency to feel, it had been slow. Lips had met in the lightest of brushes, hands holding lightly yet firmly (it had felt safe).
He hadn't attacked Kai afterward. Nor had he run off to the church to pray for forgiveness. He had stayed in his arms and considered... If fucking was about urgency and pleasure, and sex was about creating children, then he didn't know what this was. He didn't have a name for it.
After the fourth and fifth times, he had mustered the courage to ask Kai after. The traveler had smiled, pulled him close and kissed his forehead softly. "It's making love, Gray."
He had considered the term when Kai's breathing became deep and steady. He had stared at the deep mahogany of Kai's skin, the contours of his handsome face and the warmth he felt being as close to him as he was, bare skin touching shamelessly... Making love. Did that mean that they were in love?
Surely that didn't make it wrong? Because he knew that love was something... different. Something good and sacred, perhaps even more so than the Bible... He shuddered at the thought... but he didn't feel bad about thinking it.
He had lost count about how many times it had been after that. After that there had been more than... fucking or sex, or making love (whatever it was, because he still didn't know). There had been time spent laughing together and eating together and just spending time together...
Then one day summer was coming to an end, and the heat was ebbing away and he found that the sweat was too. Kai had taken him aside when the sun was setting on the beach (making the water explode into yellows and oranges and reds so deep he was mesmerized by its beauty) and then he'd told him that he was leaving town, because summer was over and that meant that he had to leave.
And he had cried. "I thought you loved me..." he whispered, feeling weak and stupid and despicable at the same time.
Kai had held him, then. Held him close. "I do," he told him. "And when you love someone, you don't leave them alone. Come with me, Gray."
Summer meant heat and sweat... but most of all it meant love. He'd never felt love before, not like this. He'd never been loved, never created it with someone. It was something intimate... something priceless. Something more sacred than the Bible and the church and God Himself. It meant being... venerated by someone, being worshiped and held like you were the most precious thing in the world and doing the same for them in kind...
So he had nodded into Kai's shoulder.
The summer ended with them on that beach, holding each other in something that felt like relief... but the rest of the year began with Gray out in the world. With Kai at his side.
A/N: I make my return with this. Hope you enjoyed it.
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