Disclaimer: see some other chapter.
Notes: Yikes. I completely forgot about this thing.--good grief, -that- long??! Kaeru, please take my new pic ( www .site-bg. com /nightfall /pics /caveat. html ) as an apology, thanks for the nudge; something like that... I think it's an appropriate apology, since for once I delayed a Saiyuki project to work on something slayery. nn;; My poor DJ, shoved aside for knotwork. (grins)
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Holiday
by Nightfall Rising
part fourteen
AwA AwA AwA AwA AwA AwA
They were enough of a height that it didn't matter who led and Xellos, the taller by a few centimeters, seemed content to rest their temples together and let him move them. As they traveled slowly around the room, their feet barely separating and smooth heat reaching out to him through all the cloth, the lump in his throat slowly eased. Eventually, he was able to smile, if a little unsteadily, and gravely inform his partner, "There's a conspiracy against you and me, demon."
"What's that?" asked Xellos in a sleepy, floating tone.
"Avid dominion."
"I know," Xellos admitted, and pulled him tight.
"They won't let you have any fun," he complained softly, gazing past the regular fringe of purple-grey hair in front of his eyes, "and they won't give me time to think."
The fringe tilted and receded as Xellos looked up at him, eyes large and just a little narrow with mocking sympathy. "I suppose," he said, "like the great fathead you are, you went and told Daddy-dearest all your little hopes and dreams." Zel could feel his expression fall just a little, and the demon's supple mouth went long with the irony. "I trust it's all been laid out to your satisfaction. Of course, I haven't put my trust anywhere productive in centuries." After a moment, he added compassionately, "Bad?"
"Bad enough," Zel admitted, shifting his eyes away.
Xellos held him close, and sighed, "Poor boy," and stoked down his back.
Pulling away suddenly so as to look at him better, Zel demanded, "And what about you?"
Xellos screwed his face up into a charming kitty grin, then hesitated and let it fall. "Not so hot, either."
Given this gift of a concession, Zel couldn't do anything else but hold him close and whisper 'poor demon' in turn. They danced a few more slow, rocking steps, and then he pulled away again as a thought hit him. "What if they're right?" he asked, himself startled by the idea.
"Don't you believe it!" Xellos cried in a soft sort of horror, hands fisted in his hideous shirt.
But Zel, shaking his head doubtfully, said, "They're very sure."
"Damn sure," Xellos cried in a horror that was finished being soft, employing the expletive as a verb, not an adjective. "And damn them! Let them be sure! Let them be right, even! What right do they have to decide what's right for you? It's your mistake to make, isn't it? You know where you want to go, don't you?"
"Well, I thought so," he trailed off uncertainly.
Xellos smiled miserably and leaned back against him. "So did I," he sighed wryly. "I hate being off my meds. Just imagine making such a desperate fuss over something as unimportant as this party!"
Zel scoffed, "My announcement party, not important?" and Xellos chuckled. "But really," he said seriously, "what if it's not just a party?"
"You mean, divinity is in the detail?" Xellos asked, and he nodded. "You won't find divinity in this vicinity, Blackbeard. All hope abandon, ye who enter here."
"We don't abandon anything, in my family," Zel said. "-Foy est tout.-"
"Faith is all?" He laughed. "Is that your motto, Greyweir?"
"So they tell me. And I think you're wrong. It is important."
"Well, if it is, then I'm not," Xellos returned, his voice heavy with a forgiving sort of irony. "And you'll have to be satisfied with that answer, because it's the only one I'm getting."
"Xellos!" he blurted, horrified, and was so occupied with not letting himself babble 'you can't think like that, you can't give in like that' that he didn't notice until his gloved fingers were enmeshed in fine purple hair and his lips were pressed between huge purple eyes what he was doing. "You can't abandon me to play drycleaner to the humahide shorts," he mumbled against an eyebrow. His hand at the small of Xellos's back had pulled them together, and that elegantly tailored length was pressed all up against him in shock. He'd never had a real brother to hug, but he didn't think he would have liked it so well.
In the aftermath of the first round of bells, which he would have been happy to ignore, he could hear the gulp as Xellos pulled back with a bright and thoroughly shaken smile. "You can count on Brother Xellos for that," he chirped, eyes huge, and looked up at the second peal. "Listen!"
"And here we are," Zel said softly, more or less to have something to say.
The third peal, and Xellos turned to him, still looking ruffled. "Proud year death, Pinkeye."
"Happy new year, Xellos." And because he wasn't really a mazoku, he leaned forward and kissed him again, this time in the soft place between temple and cheek, and murmured, "It's our tradition."
This time Xellos really pulled away from him, looking as though he were going to come apart at the seams, but still trying to smile. "You'd better go," he said. His teeth were bared in a carefree enough manner, but the bottoms of his eyes and the corners of his mouth were falling down on the job. "They'll be waiting upstairs."
Encouraged by the mixed messages, Zel slowly began, "Xellos... Your imagination-challenged overbearing red spiny blowfish of a father... well, I won't speak my mind on the subject, but I find myself in a difficult position."
Xellos smiled quick appreciation, and then tilted his head to regard the chimera seriously. Considering Zel's blue zebra-stripes, this displayed his admirable capacity for a discriminating focus. "Zel... do you love Val or don't you?"
"Of course I do," he muttered automatically and somewhat uncomfortably. His terrifying expedition leader, who almost certainly owed her appointment to either habitual (but always unintentional) intimidation or her father's position as Dean of Students and Vice President of the Academy, would have had something to say about people who kissed the eyebrows of the brothers of fiancees, and it would have lasted several minutes.
"Then don't run away the first time he really needs something. No one else can play your part tonight, Zel. Not without a masterpice of an illusion spell," he added thoughtfully, "but the master has already expressed his unwillingness to leave this room before tomorrow. Or, no, wait, that would be later today, now. Either way, you'd better go."
Zel's lips twitched at humility's unabashed absence. Even with the lightened mood, though, it was only with reluctance that he propelled himself through the door and towards the elevator. Zelas came out when it opened, and he unhesitatingly filched her second bottle.
She turned and waved the long, perfectly manicured fingers of her suddenly freed hand at him as the elevator doors closed between them, and he saluted her with the bottle, which turned out to be a nice and earthy sort of smoky white. What he cared about primarily, though, was getting in a few good swallows before the doors opened on the party.
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By the time Zelas had swayed her way back into the crypt, her brother had slumped down into the white sofa. He was managing quite the melodramatic sprawl; Wallis's 'Death of Chatterton' embodied, only without the fallen bottle of poison on the floor.
Fortunately, Zelas had brought one. "Proud year death," she greeted him, snaking into the room.
"Same to you," he smiled listlessly, without moving. She smiled languorously back, and insinuated one of the glasses hanging off her fingers into the relaxed hand on his chest. He rose to a sitting position as though gravity didn't apply to him, and watched her fill their glasses with bloodwine. Almost dreamily, he asked, "What's it like to get drunk, Zelly?"
"It's," she started, then peered at him suspiciously. "How drunk?"
He thought about it for a moment and answered, "Good'n drunk," with a decisive nod.
"Graaaaaand," she sighed expansively, and sank down beside him. He lay back, until his head was resting in her lap. She played idly with his fringe as he thoughtfully swirled his wine up in front of his eyes.
"How?" he asked finally, when the wine didn't seem to have any answers.
"Well, to begin with," she started, toying with his collar, "it... it brings you to life." A collar was no substitute for a thick ruff of dark fur, but any kind of petting would relax him, and this sounded like a conversation he wanted to be bipedal for. "You can feel it all through your veins, like blood on fire."
"Can you?" he asked wistfully. "Does it make you warm?"
She nodded solemnly, although she didn't know if he'd see it. Her own eyes had drifted shut with the lassitude of lying down with a packmate and murmering comfort-stories. "N'after a while," she smiled lazily, "you start to know."
"What do you know, Zelly?"
"Oh... you just do, that's all. You feel... I d'no. Important."
He wiggled a little, and she could hear him smiling in satisfaction. "That must be good."
"Good," she echoed, her lips curling up. Then she thought of something else, and shook him a little, a quick rub over his collarbone just to get his attention. "Oi. But then the game starts."
"What game?" he asked drowsily, putting the glass down and snuggling up to her, his pointed little chin resting on her knee, his cheek resting on crossed arms and his feet dangling up behind him.
"Mm," she smiled. "Like hunting in the water. In sand. You think sharp as pain, clear as diamond, eeeeeasy. But every move, every sentence is a problem." She sank comfortably into the couch. "It gets pret-ty int'resting," she warned, smiling like a sleepy shark.
He frowned, tilted his head up at her. "You get beaten, though, don't you," he confided.
"Sure," she comforted him, petting his neck soothingly, "but that's good too. And you don't mind anything, baby," she whispered, stroking down his back. "None of it matters. You don't mind anything at all. And you can sleep."
"How long can you keep it up?" he asked solemnly.
She opened her eyes and looked down at him surprised. "Long while; long as you last."
She watched his face crumble before he buried it against her leg. "Oh, Zelly, that's awful."
"Think so?" she smiled lazily, bitterly. "Other things're worse."
"Where does it end up?" he asked bravely, wide-eyed, as though it were just the end of a fairy tale.
"Where does everyone end up?" she laughed down at him, not unkindly. "You die." He sighed, disappointed, and she caressed him again. "But that's all right, too."
"Zelas?" he asked curiously. "Can you do it on bloodwine?"
"Can you..." she started, puzzled. He'd developed the stuff himself; it was about three hundred proof. But then she looked down. And she'd thought he was crumbling before. She fisted his chin hard, pulled him up, dug her claws into his jaws to keep him with her. "What's'a matter, baby?"
"Nothing," he smiled up at her, and she'd never seen a thinking entity look quite so miserable. His closed eyes were in danger of spilling over with blood.
She pulled him roughly up, head on her shoulder, and wrapped herself around him. "I know."
"Oh?" he sniffed, blinking hard.
She knew he kept handkerchiefs up his sleeves, but she didn't take them out. "Zel?"
His face turned to iron and, forgetting about the untouched glass on the floor, he demanded, "Give me some more wine, Zelas."
"Between the tiger and hyena?"
"Give me some, Zelly."
"You can tell me, cublet." He vibrated against her for a moment, then, defeated, drooped into her neck and spoke quietly, just a few words. She nodded for a moment--satisfied? Resigned? Whatever else, she wasn't surprised. "That so. Something else, isn't it."
He laughed bitterly. "Terrific."
"Luck to you," she wished him, and raised her glass to clink against his eyebrows.
At once, he recoiled violently, scrambling off of her and tearing her stockings with a careless motion of his boot. "I don't want any of that," he said fiercely, and tore away on foot, just like a male, through the door and to the elevator, going up to Val.
It was probably too much to hope that he'd manage to sabotage matters by failing to pull himself together and opening the doors with that face still on. She sighed, and downed her wine. And then, reflectively, she sipped away at his until it was gone, and poured them both another glass.
end part fourteen
Next chapter: Return of the Humor! The Mazoku Strike Back! (Lucas references not included.)
I may be unworthy of feedback at the moment (cringes) . But as you can see, I –respond- to it like anything! For example, Kaeru Shisho gave me a very polite kick in the tail this morning, and voila! Post! And picture. So, you see? Reviews will definitely be met with positive reinforcement! It could extend to pound cake. (nods impressively, then goes and locks self in sheep paddock where self belongs...)