I'll be honest: I spent a good portion of my Valentine's Day playing the first Xenosaga game. It was my first time playing through it on my own –although my elder brother was close at hand to tell me when/where to level-grind what characters, haha. I really enjoyed it: I love the first game so much. I'm just worried about what will happen if I manage to beat it, since I've been told the second game sucks hard-core...

Passionate

Fandom: Xenosaga

Teaser: "Maybe I should pay Rubedo a visit, I thought as I took a long drink of the liquid fire in the glass. It's not as thought I'd ever be unwelcome with him, which would be a pleasant change from my own marriage."

Inspiration: My brother –god, this is all his fault, too :P My favorite characters needed the type of love and attention they get from a crazy fan-fiction writer. Not to mention, I didn't want Jinn or Gaignun Kukai/Negrado to die…

Rating: M, for safety... I'm not quite sure where this story will end up yet, so the M rating is just a formality ^^

Warnings:
-Language
-Random supernatural elements
-Norse influences
-Renamed characters (see ANs!)

Main Pairing: Gaignun Kukai, Jr.(Rubedo)/Shion Uzuki

Minor Pairings:
-(past) Shion Uzuki/Allen Ridgeley
-(post) Gaignun Kukai, Jr./Momo Mizrahi
-(past) Shion Uzuki/Kevin Winnicot

Setting: AU! They've taken a little vacation to a world of mine 3

POV: Shion and Junior, since it's more fun that way :P (first person)

Summary: One of the many things Shion Uzuki and Rubedo Kukai have in common is their inability to share their troubles. These two go on pretending everything is fine and dandy because they would rather fake that smile than to be a burden to their friends. Luckily, these two are best friends that can share with each other. But aside from their friendship, a big pot of lust has been boiling over on the back-burner for years. When both of them suddenly become unattached, how can they resist what's always been simmering between them?

Additional ANs: This story is partially due to the lack of good stories for this pairing available at this time. Also, Allen just pisses me off for some reason, so he becomes a pseudo-villain here for my entertainment :P
The soundtracks from the games helped to keep me on course… Must. Play. Xenosaga. Now. .
For the sake of my sanity, 26-year old Rubedo actually looks it and I will continue to refer to him as Rubedo. His younger brother will be referred to as Negredo. Shion's relationship with her brother Jinn is still strained, but I changed the reasoning around some because it was interesting to me…

Universe:"Reunion Federation"
Set in the distant dystopian future. Generally, the things I write occur in large metropolis known as Mystic in the York Providence of the Reunion Federation, on Midgard (Earth) during or around the year 2492 CE.
Around 2137, the Earth suffered a nuclear winter brought on by war. It decimated the population, but the human race lived on because of the sizable Martian colony and the Lunar colony. They rehabilitated the Earth, scrubbing the radiation out of the soil, but meanwhile, the governing body (The Reunion Federation) decided to have a full population ready to be put in place on Earth, which they had taken to calling Midgard once more. Women are allowed to birth up to four of their own children to raise. The rest of their eggs must be "donated" (see "tyrannical government forces") and fertilized. The children are then birthed from artificial wombs and are raised together in crèches. This creates one of the major class differences.
Fast-forward 300-plus years. The world has only gotten worse. The government is hugely ineffective, and the world is run by powerful mafia/mob/yakuza organizations and businessmen.

Shion:

I really should have known that this relationship never stood a chance.

That was my first thought when my husband of nearly three years slipped into my bedroom to tell me that we were over. Like the separate sleeping arrangements hadn't been a big enough clue that I wanted out. He sat on the edge of my bed, telling me things about how I never let him in during the long years we had worked together or in our short marriage. I sat at my desk, nodding methodically as I silently thanked Tor and Loki and whatever other gods might have been out there that my friends had insisted we get a prenuptial agreement and that I had never allowed the merging of our bank accounts.

But it was still very interesting that the first thought I had entertained after Allen's declaration was that dire prediction that my dear friend Rubedo had made about his own relationship with the lovable and adorable Momo Mizrahi. I found it funny that it was my marriage that lasted the shortest length of time between the two relationships.

"I just feel like you have completely shut me out," Allen was saying as I tuned back into his one-sided conversation. He hadn't even noticed that I hadn't been paying the least bit of attention. "At first, I thought that some of this was about Jinn, but this goes way beyond! You obviously can't function in a relationship that's in the least bit normal!"

My heart clenched tightly, then turned to stone in my chest. "Get out," I ordered, angrier than I had been in a long time. How dare he! How dare he bring up my brother at a time like this! And how dare he insinuate that he found me lacking because I wasn't normal!

He looked incredulous and stunned. "Wh-what?"

"Get. Out. Now." I bit out each word curtly as wave after wave of rage washed over me. I may have married this man –for the life of me I could no longer remember why, even if he could be called a man– but right now, I never wanted to see his face again. How dare he bring up Jinn! He was my brother, and I'd informed Allen a long time ago that Jinn was an off-limits topic. Then again, should it shock me that conversation was like everything else in our marriage: something he neglected to remember? Trembling in rage, I eyed him.

His eyes went wide and he just stared at me a moment before fleeing like a spooked rabbit, glancing back over his shoulder at me a few times as though to make sure I hadn't released Fenrir to nip at his heels. Not that I had that much pull with the god of chaos, but that was neither here nor there: he was still horribly afraid of me.

It shouldn't have surmised me, really. Allen hadn't seen me get well and truly angry in years. Every time I became passionate about anything –revenge, sex, friends, chocolate– Allen would become utterly terrified, as though my passions had been what had brought the Gnosis and the spirits to our door.

I gave a very un-ladylike snort. Trust that particular moron to misinterpret utter anguish as passion.

What was even more pathetic that not having had any good sex since before my relationship with Allen had begun was perhaps that my husband seemed bent on proving just how spineless he truly was. He couldn't even tell me that he'd cheated with various nameless and faceless women –I had to hear that from friends and the PI I'd hired to keep track of his movements. But then again, it wasn't as though I hadn't expected that, not with our love-life in the sorry state it was in. Perhaps, if I had wanted to be totally honest, I should have informed him of the warm spiral of stirring feelings in the pit of my stomach that was caused by one of our oldest friends, but then again, I liked having the high ground for our divorce and I had no doubt that Allen would insinuate that I had cheated as well if in possession of such knowledge.

Sighing, I opened the cabinet next to my desk and pulled out the antique red-glass decanter that had been my favorite out of all of the wedding presents –it was from Rubedo, of course, because he knew me better than anyone else. I poured a large volume of bourbon from the decanter into a clear-glass tumbler. Silently, I stared at the amber liquid as my thoughts wandered. As I recalled, dark liquors had also been what Rubedo had preferred.

When I was hurting deeply, there was only one man on Midgard I trusted to have my back and hide me away from the world: Rubedo Kukai. Not only was he filthy rich and responsible for wielding a heavy amount of power in Mystic, he was my dearest and very best friend. It was a bad business habit of his to drop everything and come running when I needed him; however, should I be completely honest, I would do the same. While neither of us was particularly strong as sharing our hurts, we'd found that we could share them with each other and it had bonded us closely together. Even better, he accepted me for who and what I am –and that included soothing my anguish and preventing me from ripping another hole in the fabric of space-time.

Maybe I should pay Rubedo a visit, I thought as I took a long drink of the liquid fire in the glass. It's not as thought I'd ever be unwelcome with him, which would be a pleasant change from my own marriage.

I hope this isn't too much of a tease... I've had this started for a while, but this is the only part of it that is currently complete enough to post...

So! Let me know what you think on it: if I'm crazy as all hell for supporting this pairing, if you don't think Shion would drink bourbon, if you think I'm insane for choosing to call Junior "Rubedo" instead... ect. al.

Just REVIEW!