Branded variety
Summary: What would it be like if Yamato was a priest and Taichi was a pirate? O.o
AN: It's cheesy, it's fluffy, it's silly, it's romantic… it's TAITO!
Well, I know that Yama's waaaay OOC, but whatever. He's confused, okay? P
Warnings: Gayness, violence, language
Chapter 2: Of tales and biology
The rain mercilessly poured down upon the lands. Between the ocean in the east and the deep dark forests of the west, between the majestic mountains guarding the northern and the southern borders of the country, water fell from the sky as if the end of the world was far closer than anyone had ever expected. Lightning struck trees and buildings, causing raging fires that, despite the furious rain, threatened whole villages and lit up even the darkest of corners. The peasants hurried home and locked themselves and their families up indoors, watching as their crops got drowned by the rain or burned by the fires. Thunder made teeth clatter and hearts skip a beat as they all waited for either the end of the storm or the end of their own lives.
These summer storms were feared by many; they usually caused floods, fires and great landslides. The people of the villages paid attention to every gust of wind and every drop of rain, knowing that a landslide would probably kill them all any moment. In the cities, where the houses were made out of stone and where the ground was more solid, the inhabitants calmly, although slightly annoyed, watched the downpour and listened to the thunder. Older relatives told their children and grandchildren about other storms, about nights of fear a long time ago. Those who lived in the capitol, the seaport called Tallon, anxiously watched as the ocean level raised – floods were common, and when it happened, the only thing one could do was to leave the city and try to reach the Temple on the mountain that could barely be seen from the city through the curtain of rain. The priests of said Temple performed holy rites to make the Lords stop the rain. They also began looking for a certain blond priest who was reported missing.
The old barn was barely worthy of being called a building. It only had three walls and the roof was on the verge of falling in. But it was a shelter none the less, the roof could still keep the wet away, and Taichi led Yamato into the semi-darkness inside. They sat down on the old hay, the only sound interfering with the thunder and the rain against the roof being the rustle when mice moved away from the humans through the hay.
Yamato watched Taichi as he lay down on his back with his hands behind his head. Drops of water hung in his hair and his clothes clung to his skin. Yamato could feel the wetness of his own clothes and shuddered.
"I guess the rain won't stop 'til tomorrow" Taichi mumbled. "It would probably be wisest to wait it out in here."
"Tomorrow?" Yamato echoed. "I can't be gone all night; they'll start looking for me any minute now!"
"Well, you're free to leave, it's not like I'm gonna stop you", Taichi said calmly, his eyes closed and his voice a bit drowsy.
"Are you going to fall asleep now?" Yamato asked angrily.
The brunette opened one eye and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.
"Yeah. Unless you have a better idea. We're gonna be trapped in here for quite a while."
"Talk to me."
Yamato realised a bit too late that it was said with the usual priest voice; it was a demand rather than a question. Taichi raised his eyebrows and looked at the blonde with a mix of amusement and annoyance.
"And what would you want me to talk about, Your Highness?" he asked politely, acid in his voice.
"No, I didn't mean it like that", Yamato protested. "I meant… well, would you please talk to me? I've… um… I've never met a… I've never met anyone like you before."
"Like me?"
"Yeah, you know… someone who doesn't live in the Temple."
"Are you serious?"
"Huh?"
"You've actually never met real people before?"
"As far as I'm concerned, my kind of people are the real people," Yamato all but snorted, not particularly pleased with Taichi's way of making him feel like an idiot.
"Really."
Taichi was obviously very amused by this, but Yamato didn't feel like discussing the matter further. He had more interesting things to ask the brunette.
"So… you're a real pirate, aren't you?" he asked, trying to sound politely curious.
"A real pirate?" Taichi said with a laugh. "What else would I be? A fake pirate? You're the weirdest dude I've met in ages."
Yamato didn't really like being called a 'weird dude'. He was used to being called a god, a prince, a beauty, an angel, a being as close to perfection as humanly possible, anything along that line. Not a 'weird dude'.
It was harder to communicate with this person than he'd initially thought, and he begun to regret his decision to follow him here. There had to be a reason why he'd been raised inside the Temple and not allowed to go outside; people in the outside world were obviously not on the same level of intelligence as the priests. Taichi used all kinds of forbidden words that Yamato had never heard before, he was covered in dust, his clothes were dirty, he didn't seem very intelligent at all… what a shame that he was so beautiful, Yamato thought as he stared at Taichi.
"Yes, I'm a 'real' pirate", Taichi said, forcing Yamato back to reality.
"But… If you're a pirate, then why are you here? Shouldn't you live on a boat or something?"
Taichi sighed.
"Long story."
"We've got a few hours ahead of us", Yamato said eagerly, excited about hearing a true story from the world outside the Temple.
There were lots of books in the Temple, some of them filled with stories about adventures. But this was different. This was something that had happened to someone for real, and Yamato didn't care if it was the most tedious story ever told, because at least it would be true. He also didn't care about the fact that he'd just recently thought of Taichi as rather stupid – there was something about the young man that intrigued him and he desperately wanted to know more about him.
"Well, if you really want to know…" Taichi said slowly and laughed at Yamato's eager nods. "Just don't feel sorry for me or anything, okay? It may seem like quite a sad story, but it's really not."
Yamato nodded again.
"Okay then."
Taichi stared out into space for a few moments, probably thinking about how to phrase himself.
"I was born in Tallon, in the slum area, so to say. My mother sold fish at the market and I never met my father. I have six older brothers and one younger sister, and it was tough growing up like that. There was barely any food at all; you had to fight to get your share. But it was never enough and we soon had to start stealing food. All the kids in the neighbourhood did that; it was natural to us."
Taichi stopped as he saw Yamato's shocked face.
"You started stealing when you were just a kid?" he asked, bewildered.
"Well, I had to eat, right?"
"Yeah, but… why didn't your mother give you food?"
"She didn't have any."
"But why didn't she buy you food?"
Taichi sighed.
"You don't know shit about the real world, do you?"
Yamato snorted but Taichi didn't give him a chance to speak.
"People are poor, Yamato. Lots of people in Tallon can barely afford to feed their kids. And my mother was of the poorest kind."
Yamato just shook his head. He never knew. He'd grown up with unlimited amounts of food and clothes and books and everything. He hadn't for a second thought about what it would be like to be poor.
"But why didn't you get a job?" he asked.
"I did. When I was eight years old, I got caught while stealing a loaf of bread. The baker beat me up and told me he'd kill me if he ever saw me again. Unfortunately, I told my mother about it, and she knew who he was and told me that he was serious and probably would kill me. She didn't want me to die of course so she forced me to enrol as a seaman on one of the ships in the harbour. It was one of the ships involved in foreign trade, transporting rocks to Carta."
Carta was an island (or more like a huge heap of sand) a few weeks' journey away from Tallon, populated by a tribe of arrogant and insanely rich people who thought they were too important to mix with ordinary people. Since there were no natural resources on the island, they bought everything they needed from Tallon, the closest seaport. This included huge rocks to build houses of.
Yamato had heard of those rock-ships; the crew had to carry ridiculous amounts of rocks aboard the ships and then unload it when they arrived in Carta. There was a discussion going on among the priests if they should make a law that would forbid this, as two thirds of the crew died of overexertion during their first year.
"How did you survive if you were just a kid?" he asked with wide eyes.
"Well, they gave me an introductory period, so to speak."
"But still…"
"Well, at least it taught me humility. It's not easy to be cocky and self-assured while carrying around a rock that could easily crush you."
Yamato felt tears stinging in his eyes and angrily blinked them away. He didn't want to cry in front of Taichi. But he felt so sorry for the eight-year-old Taichi who'd been forced to work so hard. When Yamato was eight, he played with his friends, ate delicious food, read books and was taught to play the flute.
"Well, anyways, when I was thirteen, I finally quit."
"You worked there for five years?"
"Yeah, that was the deal. I went back to the place where we used to live, but it was empty. I had no idea where my family was, and I still don't know. I've been trying to find them, but…" he trailed off.
Yamato once again had to blink away his tears, reminding himself that he had promised not to feel sorry for the brunette.
"I didn't really know what to do. I didn't want to go back to the ship, but that was really all I knew – it was the only kind of work I could get. I spent a few weeks hiding in this very barn."
"Really?" Yamato asked, leaning forward so that he wouldn't miss a word of the story.
"Yeah. But I had no money and no food, so I decided to return to the harbour. I'd rather die in ten years from overexertion than die that very week from starvation. But as I arrived at the harbour, there was a certain ship that caught my attention. I'd never seen it before; it was large and almost black and people seemed to avoid it. But one of the men guarding the gangway was playing with a gold coin, and that was what made me make my decision. So I approached the ship and told the guy that I wanted to enrol. He laughed at me and asked me if I knew what kind of ship it was. I said that I didn't care as long as it wasn't a rock-ship, 'cause I was sick and tired of those. This caught his attention for some reason and he led me to the captain, John Hammer. When I met him, I realised right away that I was dealing with pirates. Hammer is one of the most notorious pirate captains of the seas. There is no man who can scare you with just one glance as Hammer can."
Yamato had actually heard of the feared captain Hammer. He was said to be a cruel man, a skilful fighter, a vicious enemy and an amazing sailor. No one could catch up with his ship.
"I had my doubts about joining a pirate crew, but I needed money and I'd been stealing my whole life so that part didn't really bother me. For some reason, I got along very well with Hammer, and he became a substitute father for me, sort of. I've been sailing with him ever since. That's almost seven years."
"But what are you doing here?" Yamato asked.
"I actually thought you would figure that out. It is your fault after all."
When he saw Yamato's perplexed face, he explained further.
"Well, maybe not your fault. But the priests' fault. As you should know, they've ordered the King's fleet to increase Tallon's naval protection for the next few months because of the prince's wedding. Obviously they think that the risk of being attacked is tenfold bigger just because that snob found himself a wife at last. However, we can't make port right now. Me and a few others took one of the small rowing boats and managed to get ashore. We're hiding a few kilometres away from here. I was supposed to get us some dinner, since we've ran out of money. We've been close to starvation for a few days now."
"But why are you here? Why didn't you just stay on the ship, or make port somewhere else?" Yamato asked, ignoring the feeling of guilt that nestled itself in his chest.
He'd never ever thought of pirates and other criminals as people. During all the hangings he'd visited, all the decapitations and tortures, he'd never thought of the reason why someone committed a crime. He just thought that some people were evil. But now, once he'd heard the young pirate's tale, he begun to think of all the fathers who'd been stealing food for their starving children and therefore had had their arm amputated. He thought of the ones who couldn't get jobs and had to steal to survive and were hanged for that.
At the same time, he was more than convinced that many of these felons deserved their punishment. They stole because they were lazy or greedy, and they were rightfully tortured and branded as thieves.
Suddenly, something that had been in the back of Yamato's head ever since he met Taichi reached his consciousness.
"You're branded!" he suddenly spat out.
Taichi merely stared at him.
"Yeah, I'm aware of that. Besides, you've already pointed it out several times. Why so surprised all of a sudden?"
"Because… because to get branded, you have to get caught. And if you're a convicted pirate, you either get killed or mutilated."
Taichi made an undistinguishable noise that could have meant just about anything.
"But you're neither!" Yamato exclaimed, and the statement was followed by particularly loud thunder.
Taichi hummed again, eyes closed and chest heaving slightly with every breath. The air smelled of hay and with every flash of lightning one could see the millions of specks of dust in the air. But otherwise, the light was dim despite the earliness of the evening. Yamato stared at the tired young man, who was obviously exhausted from starvation and exertion, and for the first time in his life, he felt something warm starting to glow inside his chest. It wasn't desire – he'd felt that a million times. No, this was something else. It was an urge to protect the brunette, strange as it may seem, for he didn't look like he needed protection. It was a fondness Yamato had never experienced before, he felt like he could just sit here and look at him for hours, that no matter what Taichi said or did, he would never think less of him because he suddenly admired him so much.
Yamato liked this feeling a lot, but he still tried to knock some sense into himself. He didn't know this person. He couldn't feel all those things about someone he'd only met twice.
Pushing thoughts like wanting to hug and comfort Taichi into the back of his mind, Yamato spoke up again.
"What happened?"
Taichi opened one eye and looked at him with slight annoyance.
"Now, that's none of your business. Let's sleep."
And with those words, he closed his eyes again and went quiet.
Yamato kept staring at him for a while, while listening to the thunder and watching the water flood by just outside the barn which, miraculously enough, was still dry and comfortable.
As he spotted a bush he recognised, he smiled to himself and stood up. He'd been raised in the Temple, but that didn't mean he was uneducated. On the contrary; he'd had a very thorough education and one of his favourite subjects besides music had always been biology. He'd gotten use of his knowledge about edible plants during his daily walks in the forest.
He gathered his robes and swiftly ran across the temporary brook where the path had been earlier. He reached the bush and started to collect the leaves, which were large and thick and juicy despite their modest appearance. As he looked around, he spotted other edible plants, and soon he had his arms full. He quickly made his way back to the barn and dumped the food close to Taichi's head. The young pirate woke up immediately with a confused look on his face, which only deepened as he realised that there was a heap of leaves, mushrooms, berries and roots next to his head.
"What's this?" he asked suspiciously, slowly sitting up.
"It's food", Yamato explained and started chewing on a leaf. "Try some."
Taichi looked very sceptical and Yamato made the conclusion that pirates probably didn't eat that much vegetables. However, a starving man has never denied food, and neither did Taichi. Within minutes, it was all gone.
"I never knew you could eat weed", Taichi said and lay down with a sigh of content.
"It's not weed, it's…"
"I don't give a shit about what it is, as long as it's edible", Taichi interrupted.
Beginning to get used to the foul language, Yamato didn't even flinch. But that might also have been because of the wetness of his clothes. He'd been outside in the downpour for only a minute or two, but he was soaked and as night fell, it was getting colder. He shivered a bit and wrapped his arms around himself.
"You cold?" Taichi mumbled, sounding like he was on the verge of sleeping.
"N… no" Yamato stuttered, his teeth clattering.
Taichi sighed and motioned for him to come closer.
"C'mere", he mumbled.
"What?" Yamato squeaked and was immediately embarrassed by his high-pitched voice.
"I said come here. You'll never get warm over there by yourself. The only way to get warm is by body heat."
"But… but…"
"Oh, come on, I'm not gonna rape you or whatever, I promise."
Yamato was starting to believe that maybe Taichi was an unusually kind pirate. Then, on the other hand, the brunette could be acting, trying to gain his trust only to try to kill him later.
The cold made the decision for him and before he knew it, he was curled up against Taichi's side, much like a child would lie beside its mother.
"Now sleep" Taichi mumbled, slipping his arm under Yamato's neck and pulling him closer.
With his head on the other man's shoulder, and the heat of another body seeping through his wet clothes, Yamato felt his eyes close slowly as he fell into the deepest and most relaxed slumber of his life.
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