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Authors Note- I'm warning you now. Before you hit that review button and accuse me of murdering the English language, I'd like to alert you to one thing. I am in Advanced Placement English. I do have a command of the language. However, that said, I am aware that more than a few of these sentences may make little or no sense if you take the words at their... ahem... actual meaning. I'd like to say that I'm being poetic, but the truth is more that the sentence came out that way and I couldn't bring myself to change it. If you don't overthink the words, it may make sense. (I'm hoping.)
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The glass panes of the window rattled, slick with the rain pounding against them, battered by the winds that lashed through the trees, slashing uncaring through the black velvet of the night. The storm had raged on for an hour now, a long hour that had trapped him inside the small inn room staring blankly out the window, drowning in rough-woven blankets that were cold as the frostbitten ground beyond the frozen glass.

He was lonely there, alone, but he was proud; proud that he could immerse himself in that cool grey nothingness of his own will. It was hard to remain alone there when Sanzou was only next door... and yet the rain brought out his flaring anger more often than any other day, and it was best to leave him alone.

The clouds covered the sun and left him in darkness... and yet now, when he stretched out his longing hands, warmth was only a storm front away.

The silence shattered into pieces as the door slammed into the far wall, the noisy revelry of the barroom below drifting in on wisps of cigarette smoke. Gokuu started, hands digging into the sparse threads of the blanket he had been sleepily curled around. He watched with round eyes as slender, pale fingers curled around the door and slammed it closed, caring none for the complaint of the hinges as it banged against its frame.

"Sanzou...?"

There was a long silence, broken only by the frantic beating of the rain against the glass panes of the small window.

"You're avoiding me." The words were softly spoken, amaranthine eyes flickering in the shadow of the lightning.

"It's raining," he responded simply.

The floorboards creaked, and he was pliable and unresisting to the hands that pushed him down. Sanzou's heat was close to him, and he drew it in, breathing shallow and eyes burned to the blazing sun so close, golden threads of flame brushing his cheeks as Sanzou's mouth closed on his own. Cigarette smoke and gunpowder scalded him, razing vulnerable flesh, scoring the knees that raised to clasp the leather-bound waist, blistering the forearm that took strong shoulders in a fervent embrace.

"I won't protect you." The words met his ears, and he nodded, breath flooding from his lungs as long fingers took firm hold on his wrists, shoving free of his desperate grip. He didn't move to protest, submitting, his arms flung open, held in surrender by the hot shackling fingers that affixed with grim impatience to his forearm, yielding to the ruthless kiss that crushed him.

Golden eyes flicked up to the window, the glass shuddering with the force of the storm, and he buried himself within the heat that stretched over him, yelping as teeth closed unforgiving on his throat. That heat that overpowered him caught fire against his own flesh, and he could feel the burning in his thighs already. Sanzou... Sanzou, whose touches were so precious, whose fingers pulled tight with pale flesh shied away from even the gentlest stroke of another. Sanzou, whose vehemence scorched him to the core, whose fingertips that scented with gunpowder tore open the white folds of his button-down shirt and scored livid marks along his ribcage.

"You're too much goddamn trouble," came the incensed gripe, amaranthine eyes flashing hot into his own. "Too much-" jagged hips slammed hard into his thighs, and Gokuu choked on his own breath- "fucking trouble, bakazaru, too much fucking trouble."

"Mou, Sanzou, I didn't do anything," he managed to whine, bucking up into the heated leather, knees clinging to the narrow waist, electricity stinging along every nerve. "I saw the rain and came up to my room and left you alone-"

"Because you saw it raining." The mockery in his voice was gentle, somehow, and Gokuu blinked, lifting to his elbows to peer deeper into those eyes.

"Gokuu." Sanzou leaned back, sitting on his heels, one of those hands settling onto his mussed hair just as always, lifting his face and drawing him near, near enough to draw the residual smoke into his lungs. "Gokuu," he whispered again, and his voice was soft, "you know I won't protect you."

"I know," Gokuu protested, breath coming short. "I never asked you to, Sanzou..."

"No, no. No, you didn't, you just asked for everything else." Sanzou was still regarding him with that soft animosity, that gentle rage. "You wanted everything else and I was supposed to just give it. And you didn't even blame me when I didn't." White fingers closed on his face. "What the Hell are you...?"

"Sanzou, I don't understand." Gokuu leaned his chin into the clasp of Sanzou's hand, and he was allowed to fall compliant into the blond's hard-ridged arms. "I just- I just wanna be with you."

"And you're with me, and I've got no choice." Hands were hot on his back, a heartbeat strong underneath his cheek. "Every time I close my eyes, bakazaru, every time I hear that pain in the ass voice of yours and- I don't even hear it anymore, I feel it, I feel you, and- I can't get away from you." Bitter words fell sweetly from an acidic tongue. "I can't protect you, I don't want to, but goddammit, I don't know what happens when you're gone!"

"I'm here," he whispered, and Sanzou went stiff within his arms. "I'm here, Sanzou, I'm never gonna be gone... no matter where you are I'm there, you're... You're my..." Words failed him, and he could only breathe and feel. Breathe and feel, feel with Sanzou and feel Sanzou there. "You don't have to protect me, Sanzou, I... I'm never gonna die. I have to live, because I..." Again, he grasped, felt, felt it there, and yet dancing away from his lips with laughter so light he could taste it... what did it mean?

"Because you have to live." Words were fierce, wrapping around his arms and holding him captive and still. "Because you have to wait for me."

"Yes..." he agreed blindly. He had to live. He had to keep living. Humans and youkai decayed and died and he had to keep on living, because he had to live, because he had to be... he had to be...

"You have to be something I don't have to protect," came the answer, and Gokuu nodded and knew, knew finally that- he knew...? What did he know, what did it mean?

"So you can be strong," he whispered. "Naa, Sanzou?"

"Shut up." The insolent words held no malice, and the thin lips twitched into something that resembled a smile. Before Gokuu could wonder at it too long, Sanzou drowned him in a scalding kiss, hands firm on his back.

It would be a long time until darkness would come to him again, he knew it, so he held tight to the warmth between his hands. Everything was fine, and it would be fine. The light would be there, and the light was there now, and he held it tight.

"Don't be scared," came the words, from his own lips this time, dancing into Sanzou's ear. "You don't have to be scared, I'll protect you, Sanzou... you don't have to take care of me, I'll always be here."

Every time he closed his eyes.