That's An Order
By EmptyWord

Disclaimer: Mirage of Blaze is the property of Mizuna Kuwabara, Shueisha, Media Blasters, and others I may have missed. These drabbles are purely out of fun (or obsession, matter of degree) with no intent of monetary profit.

Warning: Three separate drabbles in different perspectives and in incredibly shoddy writing. I mean it. I was writing to get an itch out because I couldn't sleep, couldn't do my physics lab, couldn't eat for thinking of this crazy relationship. So it's very jumbled and scattered. (And seriously cliched at points, IMO)

Again. It had happened again, and Naoe had long since run out of excuses. He stood silently, controlling his humiliating panting, and waited obediently for the anvil to fall.

"Touch me again, and I'll have you in chains."

Naoe's eyes dulled, his gaze turning inwards, sketching the invisible lines of those chains. "Would that be so different from now?" he murmured, shoulders slumped.

Kagetora leaned closer, threatening, "Oh, it's different. You wear my collar now, but you're free to move, free to bark. Do you think you would have that much with chains hindering your every breath?"

Collar. Chains. The wording made no difference. He was bound irrevocably, both of them knew, and everything else was technicalities. His every action, his every bark – all of it insignificant; in the end, he answered to his master, not himself.

"Mope and brood all you want, Naoe. Just don't touch me." Kagetora smiled then, gently, knowingly, and Naoe felt his heart beat faster. "Yes, that's an order."

I found him crouched outside my door and sharp jealousy spiked through my chest at the thought of his devotion for his Lord Kagetora. Would I ever live up to the pedestal I inhabit?

He wants my forgiveness, above anything else – even my love, I think at times – but how do I forgive him when I don't know what it is I'm forgiving him of? How does one excuse a wrong that was never committed?

You know, sometimes I think he wants it to be like this, needs the torture, or he won't be happy. Happy the only way he knows how to be. Not that I understand it. I have no idea what happiness for anyone is, but I can't help thinking that four hundred years is a long time to suffer unless he's at least content.

He looks at me, and the unconditional adoration in his eyes unnerves me. Who was this Kagetora to arouse such emotion in this powerful man? He hangs on my every word and numbers my breath when I'm not speaking. He waits for every scrap from me and scrambles on the ground after me. I try so hard to be worthy of him, of his all-consuming love that burns everything he touches, but I don't think I am capable of it. Was Kagetora? It's hard to believe.

Lowest of lows. I understand the meaning of the term so well I could spend four hundred years sketching a manual on how to get there. But today is one of those days when the bottom opens beneath my feet and I learn that I can yet sink a few more inches.

I couldn't bear it. I spent two months away from him and functioned at half my usual pace because every second thought was given to him. When I saw him again today, I nearly tore the clothes off him in my need for closeness. Thankfully, his quelling gaze sent smidgens of reason and control tumbling back into my mind, and when Haruie looked about to comment, I was able to pass off my uncontrollable motions as exhaustion.

It isn't enough, however, to save me now, when he's gone from the room, but the scent of his presence lingers in his discarded running clothes. I curse myself even as I reach for his sweat-dampened shirt, and perhaps once I would have cried as I buried my nose in the soft material, inhaling sharply. It wasn't his scent four hundred years ago, or even thirty years ago, but it is his scent now, and that is enough.

I don't hear the shower turn off, so when he walks in with fresh clothes and a towel at his hair, I am taken off-guard. Frozen.

He stops, his gaze fixed on his dirty shirt, still pressed desperately against my face.

Humiliation blanks my mind, bringing hot surges of blood to my face, and I'm even grateful for the cold cloth against my cheek. He knows, he's always known, but we've both cherished our pretenses, and to have him see me resort to this... And even now, through the burning shame, I am intensely aware of his presence, an inferno of warmth and power that ensnares me and feeds my shame.

There is nothing to say. With one last painful inhalation, as much defiance as I know how to wield, I place his shirt back in a mechanical motion and stand quietly for his command.

I am not prepared when he walks slowly towards me, a whisper of "Naoe" on his lips. This is Takaya, I remember, and I panic.

What would you have me do? There are moments when I can stand his touch, perhaps days when I can bear his closeness without actual contact, and there are moments when I simply can't, moments when I fear my control has been scraped so raw I cannot trust myself. Right now, his scent fresh in my nostrils, my skin still flushed from his discovery of my shame, I can no more stay than I can endure a lightning bolt without a sound.

I flee.

Coward, I rage at myself. Face him. But I am terrified of him and of what I become in his presence, so I step around him and out the door. Outside, I wait for my heartbeat to even and my pupils to contract back to their usual size.

Later, I know, when I allow myself to remember the soft shape of my name on his lips, I will find that I can sink another two inches.

A/N: Um. I did put a warning. "Breathing" by Lifehouse influenced a bit of this. XD

Thanks for reading!
March 19, 2008