AN: Yes. It's been a while, but we've finally reached winter. This is not the end though folks. There will be one more chapter after this. Just warning you that this story contains shounen-ai, just in case you haven't guessed by the content of the last four chapters. Also, just reminding you that I don't own Demon Diary. If I did, there would have been a different ending. One that involved a kiss for starters.

Chapter Five – Winter

I am Winter, that do keep
Longing safe amidst of sleep:
Who shall say if I were dead
What should be remembered?

From a poem by William Morris


Eclipse looked down at the sleeping face of his master. Raenef's lips moved almost silently, as though talking to someone in his dreams. His face was flushed bright red.

Eclipse put a hand to his master's brow, noting that Raenef had a burning fever.

Raenef whimpered in his sleep, one of his lithe hands gripping tightly around the pink sheets, that, much to Eclipse's dismay, adorned his young master's bed.

It wasn't fitting for a demon lord to have pink sheets, Eclipse decided. Just as it wasn't fitting for a demon lord to befriend people he was supposed to kill, or smile at nearly everyone he passed, or to want a relationship with a demon under his command, but Raenef liked pink sheets, just as he liked being nice to people, and the idea of himself and Eclipse being a couple.

He did make it so difficult sometimes, Eclipse thought, giving in to the temptation to brush a stray strand of blonde hair away from Raenef's face.

If Raenef had been any other demon lord then he would have undoubtedly forced himself on Eclipse by now, and that would have been a suitably demonic thing to do, but as much as Eclipse wanted his master to be a good demon lord, the thought of Raenef forcing himself on anyone was not one that Eclipse liked.

He wanted to be a good servant, and he wanted his master to be a good demon lord, but another part of that seemed to be steadily growing every time Raenef smiled that, despite Eclipse's best efforts to pretend otherwise, just wanted to see Raenef happy, gods-be-damned whether or not it was because of something demonic.

Needless to say it was, at times like this, very difficult to keep these two separate wants of his from driving him completely insane.

He just wished there was some way he could block out the part of him that wanted exactly the same thing Raenef wanted, but then what would happen? Would they simply go back to interacting purely on a master and servant basis? Eclipse doubted it.

Why the hell did Raenef have to make his life so difficult? Before he had come along Eclipse hadn't once even contemplated the idea of falling in love, but now, no matter how hard he tried, love seemed to be pulling him down, using teeth, claws, puppy-dog eyes, and every other method available to make sure he fell deep enough that he could never climb back out again.

It's true, Eclipse thought wearily. You do fall in love, because no-one would willingly jump into feeling like this, would they?

"Hey!" a voice suddenly pulled Eclipse away from his thoughts. His hand snapped back from Raenef's forehead at lightning speed. "Is Raenef okay?" Erutis asked, barging into Raenef's room without even knocking. She took one look at the blush that was forming on Eclipse's cheeks and smiled.

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" Erutis asked, the sly predatory grin never leaving her face.

"Of course not!" Eclipse said, his cheeks just growing more and more red.

Chris appeared at the door beside Erutis, and quickly took in the smile on Erutis's face and the obviously embarrassed Eclipse.

"Am I missing something?" the cleric asked.

"It appears that I have interrupted a very 'delicate' moment between Raenef and Eclipse," Erutis announced, going all starry eyed at the idea.

"Eep!" Chris squealed.

"You did not!" Eclipse protested just as Chris was turning to leave.

"Don't be ashamed Eclipse!" Erutis said. "I just know that Raenef returns your feelings, right Rae?"

"Master Raenef is passed out on the bed, meaning unconscious, therefore you couldn't have interrupted anything between us!" Eclipse pointed out.

The room fell silent as Erutis and Chris turned towards the bed very slowly and took in the sight of the sleeping demon lord.

"Oh," Erutis sounded disappointed.

"Thank Rased," Chris said.

"Does that mean you were gazing lovingly at Raenef while he slept, Eclipse?" Erutis squealed, not giving up in her attempt to prove that she had indeed interrupted a tender moment.

"NO!" Eclipse lied, although the blush on his face seemed intent on giving him away.

"Awww…" Erutis cooed. "You should really tell him how you feel Eclipse, because I meant what I said before. Raenef really likes y…"

"I know damned well that Raenef is in love with me!" Eclipse shouted. "And he knows how I feel about him, all right? We have since before the two of you idiotic humans showed up!"

"Huh?" Erutis sounded confused. "Then why…"

"Because we're demons!" Eclipse yelled. "Demons don't fall in love, and we certainly don't live happily ever after, as you humans seem so fond of doing."

"Why not?"

Eclipse and Erutis were both surprised to find out that the question came from Chris.

"I mean," Chris continued, "having a couple of humans living in your castle isn't exactly demonic either, but Raenef's doing it. If you love one another then it's a bit stupid to pretend otherwise."

"But…" Eclipse protested.

"Don't 'but' me!" Chris snapped. "I may not be gay or anything like you two are, and you along with every Rased-loving reader of the comic think I'm just in there to be funny, but I'm still Raenef's friend, and I say it's stupid for you two to be gay and not together."

Eclipse stared in mute shock. Who would have expected Chris to be so definite about the matter?

"Besides," Chris went on. "If Raenef isn't with you then he might get lonely and want to start dating me, and I don't want that to happen."

"Idiot," Erutis said, hitting Chris on the head. "You had to go and ruin the moment, didn't you? You've got to admit that he has a point though, right Eclipse?"

"I'm not too sure I want to take any advice from him seriously," Eclipse snarled, "since because of him, his so-called friend is now lying unconscious in bed with one of the worst cases of influenza I have ever seen."

"How is that my fault?" Chris asked as he picked himself up from the floor after being hit by Erutis.

"You do realise it's snowing outside, right?" Erutis reminded the cleric, pointing to the window.

"The sudden change in temperature hit Master Raenef hard," Eclipse commented. "And I think I know how this happened, so don't even bother trying to claim that this wasn't your fault, cleric."

"What did I do?" Chris protested.

"I suspect you raided Raenef's library looking for a way to undo the master's mistake, am I right?"

"Yes…" Chris mumbled.

"And you came across a reversal spell, am I right?"

"Yes…"

"Reversal spells don't undo a spell, rather, they cause an effect exactly the opposite to the spell the original spell-caster was trying to achieve, hence why when you used it to get rid of a heat wave, it caused a cold snap. Reversal spells are usually used in defence to turn a spell cast on you back on the attacker."

"How was I supposed to know that!"

Eclipse ignored Chris and continued to speak. "Now that I know for certain what you've done I should be able to fix it."

"Couldn't you just cast a reversal spell on my reversal spell?" Chris asked.

"No," Eclipse answered. "Not unless I want to cause a heat wave a thousand times worse than the one you were aiming to stop, because that, oh all-powerful-super-genius Chris, is what would happen."

"Eclipse," a weak voice called out from the bed. "Can't it wait? I…" The sentence broke as Raenef stopped to sneeze. "I've never seen snow before," Raenef concluded.

"Master Raenef," Eclipse sighed, flying back to Raenef's side. He placed a hand on Raenef's brow, checking to see if the fever was still high, and pulled his hand back quickly as he realised that if anything, it had gotten worse.

"Ssh," Eclipse soothed Raenef, stroking his forehead. "You must get some rest. You need to get better."

"But the snow…"

"It's all right Master Raenef. I promise I won't get rid of the snow until you're better."

This, Eclipse silently admitted, would make Raenef's recovery all the more difficult.

Raenef's eyes fluttered closed once more, making Eclipse think that his master had indeed done as he suggested and fallen asleep, until his voice called out once more.

"Eclipse," Raenef whispered. "Do we have a fireplace?"

Eclipse didn't need any other command. Wordlessly he knelt down and picked his lord up off the bed, still wrapped up in his blankets, and held him close, letting the demon lord's head rest against his shoulder.

"Go," Eclipse said, and the two of them were transported from the room.

"Damn!" Erutis cursed. "Now I know we're going to miss out on something special."

"You're weird," Chris commented. "Personally I'm glad."

"You have no sense of romance."

"My sense of romance is fine, thank you! It's just that they're both guys!"

"So?"


All it took to light the fireplace was a flick of Eclipse's fingers. Fire lighting was an incredibly useful skill, and one which Eclipse had learnt off by heart many centuries ago.

"Could you teach me how to do that Eclipse?" Raenef asked, cuddling in closer to the raven-haired demon.

"As long as you promise to pay attention," Eclipse answered, giving his lord a small smile.

"I can't help it," Raenef whispered. "You distract me."

"I distract you…" Eclipse sighed. "How can I distract you from your studies when I'm the one you're supposed to be paying attention to?"

Eclipse settled himself down on the floor with Raenef in his lap, making sure to tuck the blanket around Raenef's shoulders.

A small sniffling sound came from somewhere around Eclipse's shoulder, and he looked down to discover that Raenef was crying.

"Master," he asked, hoping that Raenef wasn't too upset.

"Please don't call me that," Raenef sniffed. "You know that I don't like it."

"But Mas… Raenef, that's what you are to me."

"No, no, no," Raenef sobbed, wrapping his arms around Eclipse's neck. "It's not and you know it. I try to be what you want me to Eclipse, and now that I'm complete, I'd like to think that I've done some really demonic things, and I never stuff up when there are other demons around, but that's not good enough for you, is it?"

"Master Raenef, I…"

Eclipse realised too late that he had still added the title.

"I'm sorry… Raenef, but I… it's not that you're not good enough. If anything I should be the one fearing I'm not good enough, seeing as you're a lord and I'm only a servant."

"Then why?" Raenef sobbed. "And don't you dare say that we've been through this before, because you've never given me a real reason, and I don't mean something like 'it's not proper' because that's not a real reason Eclipse! It's not! If you don't really love me back; if you were just saying what you did so I'd be happy then tell me!"

"Raenef; I do love you," Eclipse said before he could stop himself. "It's just that…"

"Then prove it!"

Eclipse was startled to say the least. Raenef very rarely showed his more demonic side, and it was always a shock when he did. Caught between an almost hysterical master and his own forbidden desires, it seemed there was only one thing to do.

Before Eclipse could think about what he was doing, he took Raenef's tear-streaked face in his hands and pressed their lips together ever-so-gently. For the first time in his long life Eclipse let his emotions rule him completely; let them flow through his lips into Raenef's as he kissed his soft lips.

Raenef was so shocked that it took him a couple of moment before he kissed back. He wasn't really sure what he was doing, but that didn't really matter. Eclipse was kissing him, and Raenef was quite content to let the older demon take the lead.

Raenef whimpered in pleasure as Eclipse took one of his lips between his own. The sound startled Eclipse, and the kiss was broken.

Raenef stared up into Eclipse's deep purple eyes, unable to find words for what had just happened.

Eclipse merely smiled, and pulled Raenef back against him, letting the demon lord's head rest against his shoulder once more.

"Sleep," he told Raenef. "You need to get well again."

"Uh-huh," Raenef agreed, not able to protest.

For a moment the two of them sat there in front of the fire, content just to listen to each other's breathing.

"Eclipse?" Raenef finally spoke.

"Mmm?" Eclipse questioned.

"I'm not going to make you get sick, am I?"

Eclipse laughed. "Don't worry Raenef; demons aren't supposed to get sick either."

Raenef gave him a questioning look.

"I'll be fine," Eclipse told him, pulling him impossibly closer. "As long as you're happy, I'll be fine."