disclaimer: Characters created by Kohta Hirano

Note: This was a ghost ship until exactly two days ago. For reasons.

"Maelstrom"

I suppose if I were to be honest, I'd taken that feminine form to complement his considerable youth. Maybe it had been a massive tease, to rile up that young man with a pretty girl's face. Some nights things got strange and complicated. Mouths would find each other in the middle of battle, and his tongue was always smoky sweet like the cigarettes he liked to smoke. I probably shouldn't have let him, but I'd liked the way he'd felt crushed up against me. While those feelings never changed for me, as he'd grown older it became somehow perverse.

The day I'd abandoned that form for the gender I'd been born, Walter had reacted with surprise and eventual scorn. For a long time I'd thought he'd been attached to my former visage, but then again, I'd not missed the curious expressions he'd wear when he thought I wasn't looking. Perhaps he was conflicted by his own sexuality. Just thinking about it left me addled. True, I was not blind to the fact that Walter was male, but gender mattered less where minds and personalities were concerned. Sometimes words could not express desire and our every interaction had become tense.

It had changed him in battle. While it had always been a competitive sport for us, there was no longer the sense of bonding that had gone with it. Every foe I'd fell seemed to darken his eyes and curl his lip. To see it reminded me of a time when I would have laid waste to every enemy between us, just to storm his mouth with the brutality of our victory and bloodlust.

Instead we'd bicker fiercely about his foolish risks and my stubborn arrogance. I didn't want any part in some hot-headed idiot who somehow thought the body count mattered now more than ever. We'd play up a good show of solidarity around others but it only seemed to erode when we were alone. I'd wanted to pry open his mind and try to figure out just how to resolve this discourse.

In a sense, I'd missed him. Yet I had said nothing. What could I have possibly said that wouldn't have been considered malicious? Scorn upon scorn grew until we were at each other's throats. Never literally. That sassy brat had learned a thing or two about discretion and could cut a man down with a single, pointed sentence or cool, condescending eye.

In the midst of battle he was still incandescent, a magnificent example of human perseverance. The fact that he didn't seem to understand that made me angry. I became short with him and I was blunt, cruel. It had come to a head during one of our rougher orders. In fact it had come to blows. While I'd pulled my strength for the sake of his livelihood, I'd happily bloomed bruises across his skin and bloodied his lips.

In the end, I'd found myself laughing, sprawled on my back with Walter crouched over my body and wires slicing thin, crimson lines across my neck. For as lovely the sensation had been, I'd mocked him.

"Are you really threatened by me now?" I'd demanded. "Was it easier to be impressed by a little girl's prowess?"

"You don't understand," Walter's answer had been through gritted teeth as he'd tightened the wires circling my throat.

At that moment I'd wanted to destroy him. What exactly was it that I hadn't understood? Instead I'd gripped the hair at the back of his scalp and pulled hard on that ponytail. The second he'd moaned, if only for the softest, briefest moment, I'd known that the only thing that had changed was my shape. His eyes had spoken a thousand volumes, loud and visceral as the exquisite pain at my throat.

He'd taken a hand off the wires and gripped my hair as tightly as I had held his. This agony slowly scraped away at layers of restraint. Through the red haze of blood lust and strangled desire, I'd focused only on him. His tortured expression and ragged breathing.

"Walter..." My voice had been rough in the tense silence. I'm not sure if it were due to the wires tearing through my skin or the deepening intensity of my longing.

"Don't," He'd snapped before pulling back the wires. They'd been quickly replaced by his hand; fingers had dug into my throat and cut off the air I didn't need. His mouth had followed, quick as the strike of his attacks in battle.

The kiss had been oppressive, clacking teeth and bruising passion. It'd been familiar yet completely different. A maelstrom of emotions had passed between our mouths. Words that could not be spelled, phrases that had no composition. I'd wanted to pull him down into the darkness of this tempest we were drowning in, but I'd resisted. This was no man-child I'd teased with a young girl's coquettish flirtation.

In the wake of my hesitation, he'd pulled back. The stormy glower of his gaze had pinned me as surely as his hand before he abruptly stood up. He'd spared me one last look and the smallest of smiles.

"Let's get out of here," He'd said sharply as he'd wiped his mouth, smearing blood and mingled saliva across the back of his glove.

Finis.