Lust
By Tien Riu
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Disclaimer:
Weiss Kreuz and all characters do not belong to me. Plot (what little there is of it ^_^) and depiction of characters are mine.
C&C, R&R and any other derivation there of including flames will be appreciated.
"Lust" is the first of three Weiss Kreuz stories that are determinedly yaoi (that means homosexual relationships for the initiated) and (unfortunately, since I was aiming for a PWP at the start and failed miserable) plot-driven. For those who are interested, "Do you believe in sin?" is a short background story to this series - however, you don't need to read it to understand anything that happens.
Extra note: My solemn, sincere and heartfelt thanks to Briar Rose, who beta'd Chapter 14 into something far greater than what it would have been had she not been around. So - if you liked this chapter, it's because of her splendid work (and any problems are the fault my less than fantastic writing skills ^_^).
Enjoy - and please review?
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Of Avoidance and Violence
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Youji
The trick is not in avoidance but in evasion: think not of the subject but on anything unrelated to it. After all, avoidance acknowledges existence, consequently preventing the possibility of denial. Particularly salient facts I coached into catchy maxims during my time at the orphanage.
Thus, on the subjects of one Aya Fujimiya, the prolonged period of celibacy I am currently experiencing and Kritiker's desire to either control my brain or test my ability to function as one of their operatives, I have no answers and do not wish to search for any.
An unfortunate impossibility however, when the central figure of one subject is seated at the other end of the limousine, dreaming the dreams of the unforgivably beautiful.
Aya Fujimiya - stunningly attractive, mysterious (not to mention mystifying, inexplicable, incomprehensible and just plain annoying), capable of out-angsting even Ken with a glare, deadly with a katana and much to my chagrin, straighter than his own sword. The source, cause and subject of my obsession and the uncertainly defined guardian of my sanity.
Kritiker - in the form of Manx - reappeared less then an hour after Aya had finished emptying the vial down the kitchen sink of the chalet. There was no time for explanations. Not that I expected much - but there should have been something. An explanation was probably too much to hope for from Aya, but a schedule of touching (in my dreams - or Ken's at any rate) or affirmation that keeping close proximity would not result in eventual evisceration would have been - nice.
I watched throughout Manx's description of Kritiker's cover identities (the apartment, the car, even a brief back history from Tokyo to Kyoto two minor agents with superficial resemblances to both me and Aya created the old fashion way). There was nothing to show - no twitches or changes in facial expressions (I'd have settled for a sign of something beneath the thick layer of ice embedded in his eyes) - for the deception he - we - have started against Kritiker.
And this coming from a man trained to notice and decipher the small signals of body language. Not to mention an untrained empath.
Only Aya Fujimiya could out-emote an empath.
Manx drove us to the first security point herself, briefing us on the itinerary we were to follow and the security procedures required at the other check points. Kritiker has increased security since the 'Fluffy' incident. She left as soon as the Kritiker-approved driver and limousine arrived - complete with luggage and identification papers (falsified despite the fact that both Aya and I would be using our own names - truth buried beneath lies, is there a safer hiding place?).
The luggage took twenty minutes to go through, the papers another half hour to memorise along with our cover identity. There is a method to Aya's madness - the intensity of his mission focus ensures that what would have taken Omi, Ken and me half a day to fully amalgamate, took less than an hour in his presence.
Another example why not one of us questioned his unofficial role as leader of Weiss. I do not understand Aya Fujimiya - lust after him, think of him constantly and undress him mentally occasionally but understand him? I wonder if anybody does - even Kritiker's psychoanalysts. And yet - despite this - I follow him without question during missions. Trust, it seems, does not always require proof - or even a common point of conversation.
That comes from the assassin, former police officer - and florist.
Hey - have you ever seen what it's like during rush hour at the Koneko? Some of those schoolgirls can flirt for free flowers, argue over prices, short change and drool over Aya at the same time. Nobody ever told me being a flower-man would rack up as many close-contact injuries as professional soccer (Ken again).
On the other hand, Omi said profits definitely go up whenever Aya wears something vaguely form-fitting to the store. . .
Oh - I want to be around when Aya finds out about that particular statistic.
We left the security check point at midnight. That makes it six hours - most of which was spent in silence. Aya drifted off to sleep an hour ago after several hours of staring out the window at the scenery (houses, trees, more houses, some roads, a few cars, the occasional town, and a couple of curious cows).
It's strange but in the six months I have known Aya, I have never been in a situation where he has been so - vulnerable. Strange way to describe sleep - but truth when it comes to Aya Fujimiya, a man who feels only anger but exudes ice.
He looks younger this way. Calmer. The sensation of his emotions - scalding against my skin and twisting through my stomach - belie that particular impression in much the same way ice coats still waters but then, no-one can help how they feel when they dream.
If they could I would have strangled Ken by now and claimed self defence.
Aya asleep is probably something that very few people have seen. Knowing he is sleeping, or that he is going to sleep is one thing - seeing him just as he wakes is another. But watching him sleep - there's something oddly - intimate - about the fact.
I wonder what dreams wander through Aya Fujimiya's mind. Even asleep, he exudes the heat of anger, frustration, hatred, irritation and strawberries - unlike Omi and Ken whose emotions are constantly shifting around a steady whole, even when they are asleep. Except - well, except that one time, two weeks ago.
Aya had been - happy. Or very close to it. For one brief moment, there was no anger. It was - different.
The heat ceased to burn and gradually, warmth spread. And throughout - strawberries. Drowning in strawberries.
The sudden cessation of hurt is the razor edge between pleasure and pain - as comforting in its way as it is shocking.
It took my breath away - left me with a raging hard on till Ken's latest round of erotica began.
And in the end, you were almost relieved when the pain came back - because then at least you would stop feeling so filthy.
Aya
He knew he was asleep - but the knowledge was distilled and distant. He knew he was remembering the past - but that knowledge too was separated from his conscious.
He was young. It was dark. He was meant to be asleep. The air was cold against his face. There was a door in front of him. The rustle of cotton pyjamas against skin. These facts filtered through his mind, creating the scene.
The door opened to a hallway that stretched out on either side - long and cold. Moonlight streamed through windows that lined the hallway - muted by the light that shone through the banisters of a staircase.
He was standing, staring down between the bars of the banister. They stood far below, she on the edge of the stairs leading upwards, he on the floor beside the first step. He did not see them often. But she would sometimes sing lullabies to him - and occasionally he would stop to pat him on the head.
He recognised them - knew them as well as he knew himself. A voice offered their names - but most of the words drifted away before he could catch them. Fujimiya.
They were speaking; he could hear their voices if he concentrated.
"He's not mine. Not with eyes and hair that colour."
There was water on her cheeks, the light shimmered as if tiny stars dotted her skin.
A distant voice whispered: She's crying. But the voice was faraway - he was a child, and she an adult. Adults did not cry. The voice did not belong to a child - and though he knew, dispassionately that he was remembering the past, to his consciousness, he was a child and the past was now.
"Whose is he?" he asked; she shook her head, "Damn you."
He turned and walked away. She turned as well and continued walking up the stairs. He knew he would be caught - out of bed, not sleeping. These were punishable offences for the young. But he stayed, waiting.
She was at the top of the landing, staring down the hallway at him. Then she turned away and walked away.
There was no transition between sleeping and waking. Aya opened his eyes and found himself staring out at the rapidly passing scenery. There was a brief moment of disconcerting disorientation before his memory reported that they were still travelling from the chalet. By the increase of light outside the tinted windows, no more than an hour had passed. He glanced at his watch - it was six in the morning.
"Sleeping Beauty awakens." Youji drawled.
A night's sleep seems to have returned him to normal. Or as normal as Kudou ever gets. Of course now you have to deal with being alone with him again.
Aya turned to glare at Youji, who smirked from his perch at the other end of the limousine, "Pleasant dreams, Aya?" at Aya's silence he continued, "What - no fairy tale princesses and dragons to save with the mighty powers of the Fujimiya-patented glare? How 'bout fluffy kittens?" he mocked, "Not sex either - or you'd be in a better mood." Youji added thoughtfully.
"You can see what others dream." Aya said, forcing his voice to be toneless.
"With everybody else - no problem. With you?" Youji scoffed, "The fates would never be so kind. As far as I can tell, all you ever feel is anger, hatred, frustration, irritation and occasionally rage. Oh - and strawberries."
Strawberries?
"Which has got to be better than Ken Hidaka's Erotic Exploits - at least two shows per night." He said with a twisted grin; he paused, glancing at Aya expectedly.
Aya remained silent.
"My best guess is that you dream you're surrounded by screaming school girls every night - and you never realise you're dreaming till it's too late to kick them all out of the store and use the hose to cool down the ones that keep groping -"
Aya turned back to his view of the passing landscape. In certain moods, Kudou seemed capable of separating mind from mouth. The result was nonsensical conversation - normally devoted to the topics of sex, women, more sex and possibly what he had seen (and occasionally done) at whatever club he frequented the night before.
"Oh come on Aya - we've been travelling for hours and I'm bored!" Youji's tone might have been pleading, but his eyes glowed with laughter over the edge of his sunglasses as he continued, "Talk to me! Tell me something - anything -! About dreams - everybody has dreams."
Aya ignored him and the prolonged moan of feigned misery. The landscape flashed by through the darkened windows of the Kritiker owned limousine. What would he have said even if he was inclined to talk to Kudou? He did not dream.
Ice, death and blood - where is there room for dreams in this nightmare?
Youji
And we're back to staring out the window and watching the oh so fascinating scenery go past. As far as I am concerned, if you have seen one tree, you have seen them all - and as for life stock? I used up my quota for viewing pastoral scenes - complete with animal shapes chewing vegetation - before I turned seventeen.
I hate the country, I hate small town life and I especially hate being trapped with no way out.
At least the driver isn't playing footsie with the accelerator.
Not that I'm admitting any of that to Aya - he already knows too much. And the worse part is that I was the one who told him. Ripped my bloody heart out and bared my soul.
Well, okay, maybe not that far - but closer than anybody else since Asuka. And she doesn't count; she was - well, Asuka.
Nobody else was supposed to get this close ever again. Nobody. The last time I gave up everything I had to stop him.
What if this time you don't have anything to pay your way out?
Stupid voice - stupid past. Repression works fine for other people - but I've never been able to get the hang of it.
I hate feeling this - uncertain.
Not about my future - hell, I've lived with the knowledge of my mortality since before Weiss. You don't get promoted through the police force that quickly without knowing how to use a gun.
And certainly not over the improbability of getting Aya Fujimiya horizontal (or vertical or any mixture in between) with me, some silk sheets and a jar of strawberry jam.
It's this power he has over me.
He's seen it. He's seen how far I can fall; caught me and dropped me - literally.
And what's worse is that nothing changed. Nothing at all. My world went the way of cold porridge - I was five steps away from pink elephants. He put it back together - fixed the porridge, killed the pink elephants and made sure I slept. I'd be on my knees thanking him - but as far as he's concerned, it was just part of his job. Taking care of the useless idiot who got in over his head again.
God I hate feeling like this - especially when I start questioning my abilities.
"Soft - you're very soft, aren't you You~ji? Soft and so very - beautiful. . ."
Hands trailing down across my skin; and fear so entwined with helplessness that it transcends both emotions.
"You don't ever need to be hard -"
The knowledge a bitter psalm in my mind - this was what I had wanted. What I had prayed for. A place - and love. Wasn't this love?
"Just do what I say and you can stay - forever."
I've searched for that word all my life - 'forever'.
"Won't that be nice, Yo-chan?"
And I hate memories that won't leave me alone.
Aya
"So." The woman had blond hair that shimmered with pink highlights under the unfading fluorescent lights.
Aya found his gaze caught by the strange tints in her hair - why was it that 'dark beasts' routinely hired strangely attired employees? In normal business practise, unusual coiffures were rare - especially in a supposedly respectable research and development company like Edo Incorporated. Perhaps we should stop relying on Kritiker's researchers and search instead for businesses with strange dress code standards.
"So." Youji drawled, leaning forward slightly, "When do we get to meet your boss?" his lips quirked into what Omi had once referred to as Youji's 'make the girls squeal' smile; today, the flash of white seemed forced.
The woman noticed as well - she frowned, uneasy, and that was unusual for Youji could charm females effortlessly. The fault seemed in the easy grace as much a part of Kudou as his ever-present sunglasses and smoking. He isn't wearing his sunglasses, and he hasn't smoked since before the chalet. As if those two objects held up the third, Kudou was uneasy - the motions too. . . Forced.
He's trying too hard.
The woman smiled in automatic response, "I'm afraid Doctor Tsukino is unavailable for interviews, Mr. Kudou. However, the Public Relations Department is -"
How can you tell?
"Please - call me Youji." Youji murmured, leaning back in the chair, "I think you have - misconstrued - the reasons for us being here." He added, "I - that is to say - we -" he glanced at Aya, smile turning softer - Softer? - "We've travelled a long way to talk to her about - well, about her research."
I watch him too much.
Once he might have ignored the voice that questioned his knowledge, now, while they began the first delicate steps in their investigation, he accepted it.
What of your promise to Aya-chan? What of waiting? You said that when she woke, Ran and Aya would continue as they always had - step by step through life, together. What of your promise? The one you swore you would never break?
The woman paused, then frowned, "Wait - Kudou and Fujimiya -" her eyes widened, and she glanced at the computer screen, fingers moving with competency and speed over the keyboard, "Ah - you are listed as two potential candidates from earlier trials."
I - I am not Ran.
"We are -?" Youji glanced to Aya, the feigned surprise an obvious ploy to pass the conversation to him.
"Mr. Fujimiya?" the woman prompted.
Youji was staring at him, green eyes bright with mock anger and confusion.
"It was a surprise. You were very - unhappy - about the -" Aya paused and added delicately, " - condition. Doctor Tamahino's experiment seemed to promise the greatest possibility of success."
"Condition?" the woman asked uncertainly, glancing from Youji to Aya, "I am afraid I don't understand -?"
Youji swore lightly under his breath, "It started five months ago -"
"One year, Youji." Aya said - corrected - quietly; it sounded rehearsed - perhaps that merely added to the image they projected.
Youji glared at him, " - one year ago." His voice was a low growl - that at least was not feigned, "I - just couldn't you know?"
"Couldn't?" the woman's eyes widened in understanding, "Oh."
Ran died on Aya-chan's hospital bed.
"It got better - then worse. And nothing we tried fixed it. Then Doctor Tamahino invited us to participate in the experiment - but then, it didn't look like there was a problem and we forgot to tell him and then -" Youji shrugged uneasily, "But we heard that Doctor Tsukino was continuing Doctor Tamahino's experiments - and well. . ." he trailed off, glancing at her thoughtfully, "We really do need to talk to Doctor Tsukino - about joining the experimental group." He said, attempting a smile that looked strained.
If I don't care - if it means nothing - if I'm not Ran - then the promise isn't broken.
The woman leaned back in her seat, thoughtfully tapping a polished nail on the edge of the metallic desk.
So the answer is not to feel. Just - take. Don't feel. Merely take. He wants you -
He wants me.
She smiled finally, "I am afraid that it is impossible for you to meet with Doctor Tsukino today," she said, "But - I can arrange a time for you to meet her tomorrow at nine. And I can almost guarantee that you will be accepted into the experiment's research group again."
Take him because you can. Take him because it won't matter.
Youji flashed a smile then turned to Aya; to an outsider, the smile was one of shared emotion. He knew it was a lie - an act, created for the purpose of projecting a specific image for others.
Take him because Ran is dead and Aya-chan won't wake up.
Aya nodded to the woman - whose name he could not remember - and waited till Youji had risen from the chair before bowing formally.
"Thank you for your time and help." He said; this too was part of the unwritten script.
Youji grinned, feigning unrepentant ignorance of manners. His cheeky smile was answered by the woman's flush and self-conscious touch to her unconventional hair style. Aya touched Youji's arm in a gesture that probably looked affectionate to the watching woman; he allowed his fingers to brush Youji's cheek - another scene to the act they portrayed. Youji smiled - but there was a puzzled expression in his eyes.
He doesn't understand.
It didn't matter.
What is your answer, A~ya?
Aya had already made his decision.
Yes.
Youji
Another corridor - another day in the warped, distorted life of one Youji Kudou. It seems as if lately, I spend most of my time walking down corridors - and other than changes in colour and the occasional potted plant, they all seem exactly the same. Monotonous with a decided lack of beautiful women - well yes, there's Aya but straight men with sharp implements don't count.
Our steps are slow as we walk calmly down towards the elevator at the end of the hallway. I can tell the exact moment we both slip out of our cover identities and become Abyssinian and Balinese. Loud - in my ears at least - our footsteps converge, we are walking in time. It is not a trick Kritiker can teach to operatives - though they try. Being able to sound like one rather than two or four requires more than theory and dancing lessons. It's something to do with timing - knowledge of why and when a person moves. Omi and I picked it up after a year of working together, Ken took slightly longer. Why doesn't it surprise me that Aya managed in the half year we've known him?
If he weren't an assassin - if he were not Weiss -
I can't imagine someone who is so natural at death and bloodshed being anything as innocuous as a delivery boy or a salary man. Then again the same can be said for me.
"One minute." Abyssinian says; I've already broken the lock of the storage room with a simple hard - twist.
He brushes past me - the sensation of strawberries and heat spreads through me - and the door closes behind him silently. The motion took less than five seconds - without a break in stride.
Fifty seconds.
And I am walking down the corridor - alone but for Aya's emotions, a scalding caress trickling over my body.
He touched me -
The receptionist seated at the desk at the end of the corridor hasn't looked up yet.
Thirty seconds.
Her head lifts up as I continue down the corridor. Behind the expensive façade of the bar that runs across the mock-wood of her desk, a computer is flashing the ETA of our arrival and departure from her realm.
Fifteen.
My hand reaches into my jacket.
Ten.
It is light, the size and shape of the human end of a car alarm.
Five.
"Hi." I flash a smile; she smiles back - but it doesn't reach her eyes.
Zero.
The alarms go off. The receptionist rises in surprise - then fear as a digitalised voice recommends immediate evacuation.
The corridor is suddenly filled with people in suits, all looking surprised and panicked. I can smell strawberries - and Aya. Not a scent so much as a sensation - as if he is near, or around me. His warmth burning my skin, twisting through my stomach. A white-hot iron branding my flesh. I can feel him - rather than them.
It's a good thing at least one of us has a handle on my so-called-talent. I didn't even think about what it would be like to be trapped in a crowd of panicking professionals. Probably worse than lust-crazed schoolgirls.
"Please use the stairs in an emergency -" somebody - possibly the receptionist - called over the rush of noise.
She is drowned out in the stampede of voices and human flesh - it is easy to slide past, unseen and into the storage room. We had been unsure how easily I would be able to make it back without notice. My primary mission had been to distract them if they tried to find Aya before leaving the building. Take that Kritiker - goal reached and nothing more required then good old sneakiness.
"Five minutes before security start sweeping the floor for anybody left behind in the -" I blink.
The small area is filled with brooms, a vacuum cleaner, a small trolley containing five toilet rolls, a bottle of disinfectant and a large plastic bin painted a garish shade of yellow. Aya, however, is missing from the ensemble.
He knew that I would know the second he moved -
Unless he touched me.
Or brushed past me.
Idiot! You should have known -
As if Aya would ever willingly touch me without some ulterior motive.
More important than my ego: as if Aya did anything without a reason. So, mister hot-shot detective you can deduce two things from this. One, Aya is out there, without backup, doing god knows what. Two - he didn't trust that you wouldn't screw up whatever he's doing, to tell you.
Four minutes, twenty seconds - and then I stage the 'where is my gay lover' portion of this fucked up plan. Which means it will be six minutes and forty seconds before we get back to the car and I can practise severe, gratuitous violence to his arrogant head for doing this!
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A/N: Please review? If only to point out my gaping plot holes?