Soul
Chapter Thirteen
The Western Edge: And So It Ends
The night passes swiftly, too swiftly, the dull black hours racing each other across the land.
Masamune is the first one to wake, the first one to open his eye to the touch of the morning and feel the warm, hard body curved against his chest, yin to his yang.
The night that had passed them by in pleasures was still lingering, the purple twilight of dawn only a shimmer, a faintness of light that came through the slender triangle of the tent's opening. In the scattered silks and silence around them Masamune saw a scene that had happened many times written longhand for his own pleasant perusal.
He relived the darkness in memory, the caress of hands far softer than any warrior's hands had a right to be, the groans and the feeling and the unity that had awoken his soul and sent it fleeing through his flesh like a looming, liquid fire.
He knew suddenly, fully, completely, that the man in his arms was the man he had been waiting for; that he would never be tormented by the memory of a kiss again.
It was then, as he turned, bending over Yukimura's sleep-parted lips, that the truth returned, all of it in one fell swoop.
This is the man I love.
The man I remember.
The man I have been waiting for.
Yukimura turned.
The sheets twisted about his calves and left the rest of his body exposed. Appreciatively, Masamune's eye followed the curve of spine revealed to his eyes, the strong, muscled shoulders, the taut, lean buttocks -
And then the knowledge of identity and consequences that had been branded into his thoughts and then forgotten by force of will returned to him. As sharp and hard and undeniable as it had been the night before, reality assailed him.
Resistance, tattooed on the back of his thigh.
Assassin – mercenary – rebel – murderer.
This is the man I love, and he is here to kill me.
His heart broke freshly across the pattern that had been prepared by his first glimpse of that dark, inked mark. The promise of secret violence stood out in Masamune's thoughts and filled his heart to the brim with betrayal.
If he remembered, could the one beside him do anything else?
We were meant for this moment!
If he had been waiting – why would he be, unless it was for something?
How could you?
Was one night of lust all that was granted to him of heaven?
How could you!
His eye accused the sleeper silently, dark and full with pain. The agony that rose up in him was confusion and panic and fear, betrayal twisted into a rope of why and why and why again.
Again, because there was still the memory that had come before – memory that he would never understand, memory that he had lived to believe.
He had lived through battle and torture and terror and agony and loss.
None of it had prepared him for the moment that was...this.
This, which partook of those things, and yet was none of them, worse than all of them.
This, which washed away all words, all thoughts, but one.
Death.
Death, because he could not, could not live without this man.
This man, whose name he had yet to learn.
This man, whose very existence would destroy or break him.
Beneath his pillow, Masamune's fingers found the short, sharp blade he kept there for emergencies. He barely hesitated for a moment – and such had been his trust for Masamune that Yukimura woke only as the knife slipped expertly between his ribs. He heard Masamune's voice come from a distance, a woolly buzz of sound.
"I couldn't let you kill me – I couldn't – no matter how much I love you -"
Two bubbling breaths sighed past Yukimura's lips, and with them words as sharp and clear as stars in a moonless night.
"Wasn't...going to. Aren't I more...important to you, aren't I? You are – you are -"
His eyes kindled like garnets in the dim morning dusk.
"But you always...want...your own way..."
And then quiet - sudden, endless, full.
Three harsh breaths were all Masamune could hold.
He heard a wail begin, somewhere deep in his soul -
And then the pain in his belly, dull though the blade was sharp; the pain winding around him, comforting, a caress as red and hot as fire.
Blood filled his cupped, stained hands, overflowed like an offering.
The blood and the pain.
Red, and gorgeous.
"Red."
A/N: The most tragic bit so far, I think; the price of misunderstanding and the fear of loss. Next, a bit of time between, as Yukimura reacts and Masamune begins to realize the pain he has caused - the price of tragedy. Dedicated to Naq for ceaseless sessions hashing out character trauma, and endless inspiration and cheerleading! More soon; be awesome, and:
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