Reviewer's corner :
Wonderful to see some RA's « old » friends coming back :
Tiqa: Yhea, I know, I know… Sorry girl. Anyway even this chapter is not my fav either, so please keep on reading till I reach the interessant part of the story, ok?
Cesmith: (glomps) Soooo glad to see you again! So, yup, here's the sequel, even if the atmosphere will be a bit different (a bit darker than RA, in fact). I like playing with Tenpou's character as you noticed, and I'm trying to see till where I can lead it… As for Kenren… Well, simple minds are still harder to write, I'm afraid you might see it here… Fortunately the other characs come back in the next chapter. Anyway I got your funny « god luvs you » mail : it was so nice to think of me! And I saw too you posted a new story. I hope I'll have time to read it before I hit the road tomorrow… See ya!
Zan-chan: (evil glint in the eyes) Here is the last test…I'll wait and see if I can make you run away with too much slushiness! (mwahahaha !) I'm afraid the more I read this chapter, the less I like it…(btw, is kiddo boy better, now ?). Hey, I've still s story of yours to read too!
And now, Yhea! New people! Glad to meet you and thanks for reading!
ennui deMorte, HarryPottergrl19 and Pyro girl: I'm so grateful you let me know you liked it (big smile)…
P.M. (waves madly) Sanada ! Thanks for the beta and good flight to Japan !
Summary : A lazy morning. Because Kenren is a god but also a only man. Because Tenpou has his own way of life. A bit of intimacy before entering the chore of the story… « Morning's Words »OoOoOoO
Kenren's POVIt's wonderful to be alive. I can still listen to his heart. The soft humming sounds of a living body in my arms. It helps me to forget the despair in each of his touches or caresses tonight. I was celebrating he was alive, he was surrendering before my joy. He held me as if it was something like a last chance. Wild and tender in the same time. Hungry and sad. And I refused to hear. To understand. Sometimes, it's better to remain blind.
Sometimes, too, Time passes by so quickly. Emotions are so deep, running wild inside you… To the point you've got the feeling they can burn the minutes and the hours. One night gone by already. I don't recall really. Only some touches. No words. All I know is everything tastes different today. I am different.
I would never have guessed, the first time I entered his library. I would never have guessed it would end like that. My superior officer. It's almost funny. It was preferably other officers' wives I used to sleep with. I was quite disappointed to learn my « new marshal » was single until I learned to appreciate any aspect of this green-eyed toushin god's « singularity ». But where do I go from here? Too much joy. Worry has to come back soon or later, nee?
oOoOoOo
Tenpou's POVHis arm is on me. Neither protective nor possessive. Just here and warm. And his head thinks my back is its pillow. It's strange. Kinda soft. And I go on with the faking of my sleep. To delay the unavoidable. The first look of this morning. Because I don't want reality to come back too quickly. Because I don't want to say right now that this night was a mistake. Because I want to fool myself with the feeling that this night won't be the last one, as it has to be. Because.
Breath, just breath slowly… In… Out… In… Out…
Reason's voice has come back, today, like the sun in the morning's sky. Where was it all the night long? It's already talking sense and mocking inside my skull:
Smile, marshal, you got what you deserved. It's going to be even more difficult to keep him away from you, now. You're going to lie again.
A strategist is an actor, I answer. I'll show you how good my acting is. And I smile. Let's take it like a game. It's easier if it's a game. Let's play the heartbreaker. It's new. It's fun.
Marshal, keep this bitter tone out of your mouth, it could betray you one day…
With a little luck, it's just a fuck for him, and I won't even have to be persuasive.
Yhea, keep telling you that until you believe it, marshal…
Gods. I need a smoke. A little bit of courage would be nice, too, but a cigarette first… Deep sigh. As if I had just come out of my slumber. I hope he is still asleep. No, he isn't. At my first move, his left hand is already leaving my skin, allowing the cold to meet again the place where it had been lingering on my shoulder. Looking for mine, crawling on the sheets. Two hands. Ten intertwined fingers. Don't go, is the mute message. But I have to, even if my body isn't happy at all with that. But, come on… A few minutes. Only a few minutes more of silence…
Are you giving up, marshal? Remember it's for His sake…It's the first time this morning the inward voice isn't sarcastic, or even teasing me. It sounds… sympathetic. I don't need pity. I am what I chose to be! Time to get up. Now. He reluctantly lets me go. But still no words. I've thought of using a sheet to wrap around me while I'm looking for my labcoat somewhere on the floor (I don't remember exactly where it fell from my shoulders yesterday). It's ridiculous after what happened last night, isn't it? What's the point in being shy? I remain naked.
oOoOoOo
Kenren's POVI feel him moving, eventually woken up. I reach for his hand, and his fingers squeeze mine back at once. Well, maybe worry can wait a little bit longer, after all, I think in a satisfied sigh. I could remain like that for days! But obviously, Tenpou doesn't agree with me, already standing up. All I can do to keep contact with him – to touch him again - is looking at every single one of his moves, caressing his skin with my eyes until his body comes back into my hands' reach…
Damn, he looks good.
Distance is bearable, for instance, with the entertainment of this voyeur's look… Well, anyway for a long time I've known my mind was in the gutter! I really could do this for days… Nice occasion it is for me just remaining here, just looking at him, the way he moves in the room. Quietly, each step as careful as a cat, in his strange natural habitat which is this mess of a bedroom, that he proves he knows as well as his own hand.
My… I have a very good taste.
Pale, how so pale, skin. Deep darkness of his hair. Striking contrast for somebody I never used to think of like a lethal beauty before. Strange. He is still rummaging in the mess of the room. Whatever he is doing, it seems to be important for him. He is completely lost in his own thoughts, maybe looking for something, I don't know. It's almost frightening, this way he has to be equally fire and ice, like last night. And near me but so far away as well, now, too.
Cigarette? Lighter? So, it was all about that? Damn, I can't believe he needs more nicotine than the sexy god in his bed, right now! I'll have to find a way to have his addiction turned up on me, instead… I'm far better for the health (even if a little bit more exhausting, though).
« Tenpou? Ten-chaaaaan! »
Smirk. Arched eyebrow above a green eye. Yes, you understood me pretty well, marshal: I could use a smoke, too, you know. What, now? I wouldn't have craved for a ciggie if you hadn't left the bed first! Hey! Chotto matte, where you're going? Three long strides, and you're already at the other end of the room. Oh! It's my friend the frog! Come back here with our buddy and your body, Tenpou!
No, Ten-chan sounds definitively better…
But it couldn't last forever, of course. Nothing's eternal. Not even Heaven. It's what I felt. How I noticed. Your kind gesture and the smoke from our two ciggies mingling between us and hiding your face to me.
A few seconds ago, you were coming back towards the bed. You spotted your glasses on the bedside table, grabbed them on your way, put them on your nose. Hello, the marshal is back and my lover is gone. You climbed on the bed, straddled my thighs shamelessly, bending in slightly towards me. You let the ashtray precariously on the top of a pillow. You lit a first ciggie, a second one with your own, which you placed gently between my lips (with a soft brush of you thumb on my lips, I noticed), before inhaling smoke deeply, and a huge grey cloud coming out of your mouth with your breath the second after. And I can't see you any more. The perfect illusion of intimacy.
Illusion because I still can't fathom what is in your head just now. I feel left out.
And then Tenpou gensui said it:
« It was a mistake. »
Damn, I was right… It's time for worrying. Why does it always happen any time that I want to be proven wrong?
oOoOoOo
Tenpou's POV(How could I have let that happen?)
This room needs a little tidying up. I'm going to kill myself by walking on these books, one day. And I would be really ashamed to give such a pleasure to Litouten. Ha, cigarettes. Left pocket of the labcoat, of course (how the hell did it end up on the lamp, I wonder?)…
(How could I tell him so he understands ?)
(But you know he won't, my mind answers at once. )
He thinks these kinds of things are easy. Feelings, I mean: unlike most of the gods, feelings are common thing for him. He lives by listening to them… You just have to want something and it's alright, he is sure. (No wonder he is unable to put on with Goujun-sama. Most of the time, the two of them must be looking at each other like two aliens. It's quite a delight to observe, though…) Life isn't that simple, even in Heaven…
Ho! The lighter was here…
« Tenpou? Ten-chaaaan! »
Oh. Gods. Look at that evil smile on his face. The « spoiled brat » labeled one. I never should have let Goku call me that. Children tend to copy each other… I hope the two gaki won't rub off on Konzen. That would be really, really creepy…
The frog-ashtray, now… Ha! Here it is!
(How could I justify the fact I want to forget everything about this night? )
Especially the dream. This goddam dream which has a goddam meaning I am so goddam smart I understood at once what my goddam subconscious wanted me to know and remember. How I'm afraid of losing him in a diffrent way than I work at losing him right now.
Of course, this dream was awfully familiar. This dream was the night before yesterday. The first blood. What happened that night? What did I tell Goujun about the events? This is what I saw again in my slumber…
A soldier came into my office tonight, tried to stab me. I defended myself. I've won.
Still the same…
I was sitting on the floor, reading, surrounded as I was by (« walls » of) books. I vaguely heard somebody knocking at the door, and coming straight in without waiting for an answer. This late... I knew only one person who would do that, so I kept reading. I caught a glimpse of leather uniform, and thought I was right. In fact, the book piles saved my life. The soldier, even striking at sight, missed his first move only because I was well-protected behind all those books and I raised up on my feet, too much surprised to duck the next blow, the one which caught me deep in the arm. But I am a field marshal. And I know how to fight. All came with instinct of self-preservation. When I have grabbed the man's own dagger, I plunged it right in the heart, without thinking. Well, maybe not straight in the heart, there's too much bleeding.
…But Not only that…
In my dream, my hand held out on its own to turn the corpse's face towards me. And the dead god laying there on the floor was Kenren this time. Obviously.
And then… Cold sweat making ice-cold rivulets in my back. Heartbeat I couldn't slow down. And pure absolute fear. And a few seconds later again, the feeling of his arm on me in his quiet slumber…
That's true. It was a mistake. A goddam mistake.
And my mind scolds me again.
(Don't curse. It's losing time. You should learn to behave more politely…)
I look at him beneath me through the smoke, and I talk:
« It was a mistake. »
He blanched as soon as the words left my mouth I noticed absentmindedly.
« Kenren. It was just a fuck. »
He just stares, unruffled, unbelieving. Ho, very brilliant! Am I losing my skills? Keep concentrating. Damn, just don't look at him, fuck the pride, lower your gaze if you can't bear his eyes on you, right now… And here comes the inspiration, the sincerity, the truth in the web of lies, like usual…
« You don't know me. »
Listen Kenren, it's maybe the first time today I'm telling you the truth…
oOoOoOo
Kenren's POV« Kenren. It was just a fuck. You don't know me. »
But I know it's wrong. And he does know it's wrong. But he won't change his mind. So, somehow he is right. I've awoken beside a perfect stranger.
Making love, or having sex. All this time to learn the difference. But I do know now. Damn it. It's easy to know. I'm not living only for myself anymore. I should have guessed before. I jumped on that beast on Earth without even thinking because he was in danger. I hid a corpse because he was in danger. I already cared and never realized how much. I'm not Kenren taishou anymore. I am Tenpou's. The question is what am I. Tenpou's subordinate? Last fuck (well, at least this one is sure)? Less than a friend? At least a friend? More than a friend?
« I do. »
« You're wrong, » he tried to argue. « It is sex, wonderful sex, and nothing more. »
Nothing more? He is a fucking damn good lover, if you want to know. I should have realized before: this man is like some kind of joker card. He can be whatever he wants to be. Maybe it's why he is so confident, most of the time. Dreamer. Bookworm. Schemer. Fighter. Strategist… Lover. And loving if you believe what happened that night.
Whatever he says, I know the body can't lie. What the body says? Only the truth. It is my belief. The only one I ever had. He can read a lot of ancient (or even dead) languages, whereas I can read body's language. There is more subtlety in this than you would think. I may be wrong and see love where there is only lust… NO. I'm not. This slight touch, with the tip of his fingers on my face, in the sex's afterglow… Green eyes looking strangely at mine, as if he had found something in here he wouldn't have thought possible… And these eyes left me to look away, and I felt awfully lost, even with his body still so near of mine, like I have never been before as my past lovers left my side, my room or even my life…
« There is no feelings involved, » he keeps on.
Though, not even for a second did I have any doubt. Not even for a second did I think it couldn't be love but simple lust. I never doubted about his love for me, his feelings in spite of everything he says. I could have : it would have been the most logical. He is the smart one and I can make mistakes and misunderstand things and gestures and intentions… The certitude is so strong… My wisdom isn't the same kind as his. But it doesn't matter. And I know he is lying. I have to know why. BECAUSE I DO KNOW HIM.
But I'm already standing, leaving his suddenly unresponsive body on the bed. Damn, I have no choice, right now. I'm not going to beg!
You don't know who I am, he says. The lightning struck in my mind, turned into fear as I looked at him and as the chill crawled along my back… As I read him. This is frightening. Does he know himself who he is?
Quick moves to grab my clothes, quick-dressing on my way to the door (I had a lot of training before with my past - married - lovers and hurried mornings before early-scheduled debriefings). But it's the first time in my fucking love life I am the one who leaves first… And I leave the only person I really cared for ever.
« Ja nee, » I just say.
Don't believe you chased me away, that you won this round. I'll come back… Be sure of that.
OOoOoOo TBC (day after day in paradise, part 1)