Title: Chasing the Dream
Genre: Romance
Rating: T
Pairing: Dark x OC, Daisuke x Riku, Satoshi x Risa
Spoilers: N/A
Summary: They used to say that if man was meant to fly, he'd have wings. But he did fly. He discovered that he had to.
Word Count: 2,459
Warnings: I'm pretending the anime ending never happened. So this is going the based off the abrupt ending of the manga and make assumptions as to what happened from there.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Summary is from Star Trek: The Original Series.

A/N: Dark deserves love. And if I'm being completely honest with you, I never liked Risa (other stories involving her notwithstanding). So I'm not pairing her with him here, and only for sake of avoiding two OC characters am I putting her with my Satoshi.

With nothing before them but a sea of red flowers and the blue, blue sky, there was nothing to say that wasn't already being thought. They were trapped here, until Hiwatari regained enough strength to open another door (unlikely to happen any time soon) or until they discovered the creator of this world and destroyed him (not likely with Takara's sprained ankle.)

Speaking of which…

"Um, you can put me down now… Dark."

When Dark glanced down, he sucked in his breath. Takara was still nestled in his arms, she was so slight he had almost forgotten. Her hands were fisted in the material of his shirt, the press of fingertips just noticeable through the fabric. Her gaze was slanted away from him, but he could see the bloom of an embarrassed blush on her cheek. Even though he was nervous with her closeness, he felt a purely male surge of pride burst through him at the sight.

"I doubt you could walk, Takara. We should find somewhere to rest for a bit while we come up with a plan. Besides," he jiggled her in his arms, grinning as she shrieked and threw her arms around his neck to hold on, "you're not heavy. I could carry you all day." Her blush returned, and with a wink, he turned and began the trek back to where they had first arrived her.

They traveled in silence for a few moments, before Dark, unable to help himself, glanced down at her, where she was steadfastly refusing to look at him. "Ne, Takara, what's wrong?"

"Nothing." She still wasn't looking at him.

"If you say so." When she snapped her head around to glare at the flippant, disbelieving tone he had affected, he beamed at her.

"Stop that."

His smile grew cheek-achingly wide. "Stop what?" Stop playing with fire, you idiot.

"That." She pointed at him as well she could in such close quarters. "Being charming." She frowned, her lips a sexy pout. "It's not fair."

Dark knew he shouldn't, he really shouldn't, but he couldn't help himself. He winked. "Aw, Takara-chan," (a blush), "I think you're charming, too."

They were barely at the outreaches of the poppy field, just walking through the small spattering of blooms, which was a good thing, because Dark tripped and would have crashed to the ground at Takara's sudden move. As it was, he still stumbled, but managed to hold himself up against a nearby tree, when Takara leaned up until her breath was ghosting hot and intimate in his ear. "Do you now?" And then she pressed a kiss against the line of his chin, smile curving into his skin.

Oh, shit…

Bark pressed threw his shirt, tearing skin as he slid down the tree on legs suddenly turned to jelly. But he didn't feel it. He didn't feel the hard ground underneath him either. He felt Takara settle more firmly into his lap and press a kiss of teeth and tongue against his neck, drawing a line of fire down his throat. His arms hauled her to him. Someone was groaning deep in the chest, and Dark was startled to realize it was him,

She pressed a kiss against the dip between his collarbones. He panted. "So, you think, I'm charming, huh?" She bit his Adam's apple, then soothed it with her tongue. He shifted his hips. "That's good to know." Her nose bumped his chin and she suddenly slid up his body to stare into his eyes. "Dark."

When she sighed out his name in a voice gone heavy and seductive, Dark gave a strangled cry, unable to sit there any longer. He smashed his mouth into hers, no grace, no finesse, no suave Phantom Thief. Just a man on the brink with a beautiful girl.

With his arms still wrapped around her he kept moving forward, until he tumbled her to the ground, until they were sprawled out in the riot of flowers at the edge of the field, until he could press himself against the entire line of her body and drown in her.

Lips murmured against her, speaking nonsense, speaking nothing. When her legs fell open naturally, he practically purred, and settled himself more firmly against the cradle of her hips, feeling like he would die from the sheer perfect agony of it all. His hands danced up her arms so they could grab fistfuls of that perfect hair, so he could press his face into the curve of skin where her cheek met her throat and breathe in the heady floral scent of her.

Why? The thought would not leave his mind, it bounced around in his skull even as her own hands traveled to his shoulders, fingers digging in with pleasure/pain. How? When he pressed a kiss to her throat, she turned her head, extending the entire swan-like column to his hungry gaze. Why do I feel this ache around her? She was making mewling noises low in her throat, making his heart clench, making him press into her unconsciously harder. How do I feel this so quickly? He wanted to melt into her. He wanted all of her. Everything. He wanted to see her come undone beneath him, for him, because of him. What is this?

A breeze blew the sickly sweet scent of flora past his nose and, with a start, Dark remembered where he was. This wasn't right. With a bone-deep feeling of regret, he softened his kissed, loosened his grip on her hair, and began to run his hands down in arms in a gesture more soothing than arousing. More calming then stimulating. "Takara…"

When her head slowly turned towards him, her eyes were glazed with need, pupils blown wide with want, the blue only a thin line. She smiled slow and dreamy, flushed with desire, eyes seeing Dark and wanting him. "Hm?"

His gut clenched with the knowledge that he could make her his. She would not tell him no. The thought made his hands instinctively slide down to her hips, which had, minutes ago, began a slow roll that was filling his head with fog. She would enjoy it. He would take his time. He would treasure every moment, make every second perfect, a dream…

No…

Hands slid behind her, pressing her upwards as he leaned back, until he was sitting, with her sprawled in his lap, legs still straddling his hips. She quirked an eyebrow at the change in position, but remained silent. He leaned his forehead into hers, eyes close and intimate. "Takara…"

"Dark…" She mirrored his tone perfectly.

"Maybe we should rest your ankle and then search for a way out of here." It killed him to say that to her, to not just push her back into the dirt and pick up where he had left off. He snapped out of his daydream when she heaved a sigh.

"You think I don't know that." She smiled at him and Dark almost went cross-eyed trying to look at it from this angle. "You think, even though I saw her leave, I'm not incredibly worried about my sister. Thank I'm not worried we might never make it out of her. That I'm still not even sure this entire day hasn't been some strange dream." She laughed, breath heavy between them. "Hell, maybe a loose trapeze performer fell on me and I'm in a coma right now." When she pulled back, he made to follow her, but she pressed a palm against his chest to stop him, forcing him to look at her. "But don't you think that maybe I wanted just a moment of happiness amidst all of that?"

Amethyst eyes blinked at her in bewilderment. "Happiness?"

She laughed in amusement, leaning back on her hands to watch him. "Yeah, you loon. You make me happy." She shrugged, even as her brows pulled down in a frown, more serious thought than anything else. "I don't really know why though. Ever since I met you in the park, I've felt like…" She struggled to find words.

"Like what?"

"Like I'd been waiting my whole life to meet you." Dark felt that it was a very good thing that he could feel the ground underneath him, otherwise he would have said he was falling. She smiled. "Is that silly?"

"No." His answer was exhaled on a breath, and he reached up to brush his knuckles against her smile. "No, that's not silly at all. I – " He paused. What could he say? That he felt the same? That the moment his eyes met hers it felt like he understood why he had spent generations and generations feeling like his life was missing something? That, for the first time, he wasn't jealous that his tamer's every lifetime got to find love? That, slowly, hesitantly, but with the gathering steam of a train, Dark was beginning to think that maybe he loved her? "Me, too."

She beamed at him, bright and joyful.

"But, Takara…" Her smile relaxed, but didn't fade. "I'm not –" He swallowed around the lump in his throat and forced him to say what at haunted him for lifespans. "I'm not real."

Her forehead crinkled when she frowned. "I really crashed into you in the park, didn't I?" When Dai's name started to pass his lips, she spoke over him. "I really went on a date with you at the circus. You really helped by sister escape this place. And," this smile was tinged with affection and want, "you really tried to get into my pants like five minutes ago." When Dark blushed red enough to match the poppies, she laughed. "You're real to me, Dark. It feels like we're the only things that are real right now."

His eyes softened at her, mouth beginning to quirk upwards at the corner in a smile. She was right. It did feel like they were the only real things in the world. Like… well, like it was dream world created just for them.

"Come on, we should find somewhere comfortable to rest and check your ankle." Placing his hands underneath her thighs, he stood, letting her legs wrap around him, sending his good thoughts spiraling into the gutter. He cleared his throat, but his next statement still came out rough. "And come up with a plan."

Walking under a copse of nearby trees, he settled them in the shade against its trunk, so they could stare out at the sea of poppies. The circle under the branches was fairly clear of the blooms, only small scatterings here and there.

"I remember in the Wizard of Oz wondering if poppies really did make people sleepy," came Takara's voice suddenly. Her ankle was stretched out across his lap, and Dark was doing his absolute best to focus on checking the injured limb and not running his hands up with smooth expanse of leg her shorts bared to his view. He made a noncommittal sound at her statement. "Of course, when I got older I learned poppy juice was an ingredient in opium, so it kind of does." He made another agreeable sound, poking at her ankle. It seemed fine. She wiggled her toes enticingly, and pressed her foot against him. "I'm not very tired though…"

His breath hissed out of him, and his fingers clutched at her leg. No that's worse. Because now he could feel smooth, smooth skin and all he could picture was skin, skin, skin, and nothing else. His brain was doing an admirable job of trying to keep Dark focused though, because even as his finger pads began a slow dance up her calf, touching her so teasingly that she fell back against the ground with a whimper, his head was thinking about her observation.

Why weren't they tired? Requiem was an artwork that fed off of people's dreams. It needed them to live. That was its sole reason for drawing someone into its canvas. When its power began to diminish, when it go too low, anyone who touched the ink was drawn into its folds. And Requiem would never let them go. It would put them to sleep, and it would make them dream until they died. And every perfect dream was power for it. Every second of ecstasy that you imagined, the perfect life, it fed off, until it regained its strength.

Requiem had drawn them in because it needed power, and none of them had slept. Why?

When Dark's fingers brushed against the sensitive skin behind her knee and Takara gasped, his gaze was drawn to her: head thrown back in abandon, fingers clutching fistfuls of grass, knees pressed tightly together, and Dark had a sudden, irrational thought.

He didn't have a dream more perfect than this.

This young woman was every hope and every dream he could have imagined, whether he knew it or not. Maybe he couldn't fall asleep here, because his reality was better than anything anyone could imagine for him. This girl, this maiden –

"Daaarrrrk." His name was moaned out so sweetly he felt faint, he felt the same heart-clenching emotion that he had felt from every Niwa he had ever resided within, he felt -

Love.

"Dark!"

His eyes snapped up to her face, but she wasn't looking at him. She was staring behind her, head tilted back at an almost impossible angle. But her voice hadn't been seductive, it had been worried.

"What's wrong?" He forced his hands to still.

"Are those flowers coming closer?"

When he looked up, she saw what she meant. When they had sat beneath the tree, the intense field of bloom ended meters away, only a dozen were scattered beneath the tree's branches. But now… now the hoard of blooms was only a few feet from them, having inched closer and closer, so silently neither of them had noticed a thing. The scent was heady and overpowering. Dark paled.

The flowers.

The Hikari had become the flowers.