Notes: in compliance with FFn's regulation on content, this chapter has been edited to maintain a PG-13 rating. The unedited, thousand word longer, NC-17 version is available at CLAMPesque.
Please comment here, though, and not over there, so it's not just "Anonymous" on their boards.
Danke!
Omnia
Sol Temperat - Chapter 6
The only thought he could give voice to sounded pathetic and small: "Why do you
want me to kill you?"
Outside, it continued raining.
Fuuma gave a low, languorous chuckle which caused Subaru's skin to prickle.
"Isn't is obvious, Subaru-kun?"
"Don't," He stiffened. "Don't call me that."
"Oh? You're in quite the position to be making demands, aren't you?" Another
bolt of electricity struck nearby, and Subaru felt the electric energy spike in
the room and watched a sneer play across the flash-lit features.
Subaru met the stare with equal intensity.
"Here are your alternatives, Subaru-kun… One, I could take all the fun out of
this and," he tossed his head to the side, "kill you now…"
A hand drifted dangerously low on Subaru's back, causing a jag of anger to
shoot through his system.
"You think I'd let you?" Subaru spat.
The grip tightened around Subaru's waist, and he found himself looking into
Fuuma's eyes through the dim light. "Saa. But it's worth finding out, don't you
agree?" His tone softened to a rumbling whisper. "For me either way is
acceptable… If you fight me, you wouldn't hesitate to use all of your power."
Subaru blinked slowly.
"So adorable, my Subaru-kun," he smiled stickily. "Force would stop me quite
effectively."
"No!" Fuuma was losing his mind. It was obvious he hadn't lost his identity of
the Dragon of Earth's Kamui, even though he simultaneously posessed the
identity of Dragon of Heaven's as well.
Subaru felt a twist of unwelcome sympathy.
He knew Fuuma must feel confused and broken, stretched between two extremes of
light and dark, wishing for life and wishing for death. Equally Sakurazukamori
and Sumeragi, Subaru understood this suffering from his own experience. At a
younger age, he would have shed tears at the unfairness that faced them both.
Fuuma's suppressed pain would only fester in the wound. In his own case, he
knew that keeping his own pain tightly bound, as Seishirou-san had, had been
slowly distorting his mind, so he allowed himself to visit the penguins in
Ikebukuro every other week. He paid the extra fee to visit Tokyo Tower's observation deck whenever he felt
lost and cold. When he stood there overlooking Tokyo, feeling tears fall from
Seishirou-san's eye felt right, as if he were crying tears Seishirou-san hadn't
been able to let go.
In a sense, depression was enough.
Kamui's wish had blocked the outflow of Fuuma's feelings.
Subaru chilled. What would happen to Fuuma's mind, torn between two extremes,
without an outlet?
It slipped, obviously. It exploded with all the force of restrained energy of
tectonic plate collisions. The dark Kamui appeared after long periods of
pressure and stress, so all his attacks were very likely perverted
manifestations of his guilt and pain. And Subaru's empathy screamed that, yes,
suicide often seemed like the sole path away from this unparalleled torture. It
would be merciful of him to relieve Fuuma. He would have peace. The killings
would stop.
But he couldn't.
Even if he wanted to, he couldn't.
"I'd also destroy the kekkai… I can't do that." Subaru fought to remain
impassive.
"And it would make my job so much easier. Just a little of your ability would
be all it took, too, since you're too weak to properly restrain
yourself." Fuuma laughed mirthfully.
"Of course, I would do it myself: drown in a pool, overdose on sleeping pills,
have a run-in with a kitchen knife… but suicide," he sighed, as if delegating
away an unpleasant task, "would make the kekkai permanent… And last I checked,
if I want someone to… you're the only one on the planet with enough power." He
leaned close, millimeters from Subaru's mouth.
"Please?"
But there were two things Subaru would never allow, and one was the collapse of
the earth's kekkai. Subaru rolled from his grip the moment he felt it loosen
around him.
"Oh, so you'll fight me?" Fuuma sounded amused. He took strides forward until
Subaru found himself backed into a corner of his living room. "Finally."
Subaru knew he must have looked anything but threatening: empathy and grief
made him look younger, wiping the steel and jade from his eyes. Subaru visibly
shrank, and his eyes closed.
"I won't."
Silence stretched between them like glacial ice as Subaru's quickened pulse
dilated time itself. Heavy rain beat against the glass of a window.
"Martyrship is so very cute, isn't it."
Behind the darkness of closed lids, Subaru felt inevitable smoothness against
his mouth.
Is this kissing? Subaru's last kiss had also been his first, and though
he tried to commit the sensation to memory, it must have escaped him in the
emotional flurry.
He remembered he'd pressed himself to Seishirou-san's whitening lips, and they
had responded eagerly. But movement faded after just a few moments of contact.
Subaru continued the kiss until it grew cold to the touch, then buried hot
tears in the lapel of a ruined suit. Seishirou had tasted of death and tobacco,
and kissing was all of these things to Subaru.
Fuuma yanked Subaru from his consuming déjà vu by slipping his tongue tip
delicately along the lower lip. Before Subaru could react, he felt warm silk
within his mouth, stroking his tongue into response.
It felt beautiful, whole.
Centuries later, he pulled away slightly, keeping his eyes shut. His throat
closed off as he exhaled a jagged, breath-filled "Seishirou-san."
"Subaru-kun," came the equally lust-heavy response.
"Sei-?"
He was silenced with a feather-light kiss.
Confusion darkened his brow, but love for Seishirou-san derailed any train of
thought he'd once had. Problems dissolved in his mind, and suddenly, it seemed
as if… as if he could have Seishirou-san, if only for a moment.
"Or do you not want… this…" Soft fingers were running along the trace of his
spine.
And it would be enough. If something had been bothering him, he couldn't
remember quite what it had been. He instead reached around broad shoulders to
draw Seishirou-san's scent closer. This felt too right to let go.
"Don't leave me."
It was all the encouragement he needed to sweep Suabru into another soul-involving,
sensory-blowing kiss.
Subaru's inexperience caused him to fumble for a few moments, but decided
quickly that he kind of liked kissing. He realized he hadn't been in any actual
physical contact with another person in… years.
Prolonged deprivation heightens everything. His hands had been the same way,
without gloves; the most nuanced shifts felt strange, intense. Subaru
surrendered his mind: he drowned in the sensation of touch.
And then Seishirou-san withdrew. No! Subaru broke open and clutched
violently at the shoulders against his chest. Don't leave me. He
wouldn't be left alone and broken a third time. I don't care what you've
done or who you really are or who you've killed or how you hurt me. Just don't
leave. He laid biting kisses along a strong neck. Stay…
Something at the back of his mind wanted attention, but Subaru had no energy to
spare a thought for it. He blinked, but his eyes quickly relaxed closed again
when he felt gentle fingers massaging his scalp.
Seishirou-san.