Epilogue -

Here I am again…unsure of how to go forward and move on. It has been years since that night in the cave, and I can scarcely believe how everything has changed. I'm at a party; it's late summer, and noise from the Janina streets floods into our living room as effortlessly as the breeze dancing with the curtains. The open layout is typical architecture of Janinan society, and I'm now accustom to the many pillars, screens, and entangling vines that suggest walls more than create actual rooms.

Our home is part of the imperial compound, so even though the structure does little to separate us from the world outside, the noise is mostly music and guards marching by. It's been safe, clean, and comfortable. I'm going to miss it. When we first arrived I'd hated everything about this place, and now I don't know how to say good-bye.

Edmond and Gankutsuou are doing a better job than I am. He's holding Haydee's hand and she's smiling at him. They're sitting at a table sharing a pot of their favorite tea. It's jasmine rose, and I can smell it from here – sweet, aromatic, and soothing.

Just a few years ago they sat at another table, and she sobbed, grateful and angry to have Edmond and Gankutsuou alive and in her life again. Her anger soon faded, and affection and loyalty won out. It wasn't long before she had convinced us to move here so we could practice working things out with our demons (proverbial and literal), and so we could use her resources to seek out other entities that might have needed our help.

It's odd how familiar this scene is. She's dressed in cool greens and blues, he in formal black, and they are talking like old friends – smiling, and at times sadly remembering what they have shared and lost. Occasionally Baptisten and Bertuccio contribute to the conversation and everyone laughs. Even Valentine and Maxamillian laugh at the jokes, having learned to see Edmond for who he is now rather than who he was.

Eugienie is looking at a memorial plaque we keep for Franz, and her new fiancé is holding her hand. I wonder what Franz would have said to us, wonder if she's ever really forgiven me, or Edmond, but I'm grateful she's here all the same.

The time passed so quickly. I'm learning that time works that way. It means a lot that everyone came to see us off. So much hard work, healing, and pain made this gathering possible. Honestly I never thought it would happen. When Edmond and I decided to stay together I expected to loose everyone, and for a while I lost some important people, but we worked hard, and we've come far.

I catch my lover's eyes, and he flashes me a reassuring and charismatic grin. It snaps me out of my solitary vigil. And I move to help Ali with a tray of refreshments.

Later, after the party is over, and we've said our good byes, and made sure everyone knows how much we've appreciated them, I walk my mother and her wife to their room. The bedrooms are a little more private, but I still made sure theirs was a fair distance from ours. She tells me how proud she is of me, and how glad she is Edmond and I found each other. It was hard news to bear at first, difficult for all of us to figure out how to interact and be in the same room. We are so far from where we started, I'm not sure I can give it up even just for the time we'll be away.

She presses a hand into mine, and her earrings clink and jingle like little bells. The years have added lines to her eyes, but she's still so beautiful. Her perfume smells of lily and patchouli, and as I look at her in her blue ocean dress with her tan sand colored skin I muse that she is the very living embodiment of Marseille. She notices my gaze, and smiles, squeezing me gently.

"Love," she almost whispers to me, "Those around you will keep growing old. Every year my age wears on me a little more. You, and Edmond, have not change a bit. Because of what you are, and what you both must do, you will see us all slowly fade. This good-bye is not forever, but it is not the last. I could not be more proud of you, nor surer of what you were meant to do, but it will come with this burden. In case I forget to say it later, or we don't meet again, know that I will always love you."

We share tears, we embrace, and I stare at her door longer than I should before walking back to my room.

0-0-0

Heat - hot water - fell across his skin, soaked his hair, and made him come alive with relief and pleasure. There were so many times Edmond could remember feeling cold, and those moments seemed to last life times. The ocean winds were cold. The Chateau D'if had been cold. Years of living with Gankutsuou had been cold. Even though warmth had returned to his skin years ago, the sensation of warmth was still one he savored.

He tilted his head back and allowed the steam fog up his senses. His heart pumped blood to those areas where water caressed him, causing a rosy blush. Nerves fired and tingled, and he sighed in contentment – igniting ion channels and sending awareness of life into his fingertips. The demon inside of him resisted a purr but failed entirely, and he let out a sound that made Edmond grin.

Then another set of sensations tantalized his attention. First a smell, one he reveled in, that of honey skin and eager youth. Then the sounds of gentle breathes, followed by the shower door opening, and shutting with an unassuming click. He kept his eyes closed, allowing the water to slip over his chest, smiling slightly in knowing anticipation.

A pair of hands brushed over his chest, teasingly, gently. They moved over his naked torso, taking in the lines of muscle, bone, and intimacy. The water flow, disturbed by the body before him, now left him hyper sensitive at those areas where it splashed upon him.

Hands traveled down, exploring his hips, the muscles that created the shape of a V leading to the base of his dick, and eventually – only when he was hard and already wanting, over his balls, and needy erection.

Edmond gasped and sighed out encouragement, and the smaller frame pressed up against him, their slick wet bodies bathed in steam, water, and the fine fragrance of perfumed soaps. Arms wrapped behind his neck and tilted his face down wherein his lips were captured in a slow and silent kiss.

Their days of mad and passionate fucking were far from over, but as the years had marched on angst and mystery had faded away - leaving in their place a deep friendship, and a synchronous love. As they kissed Edmond could feel his lover's need grow, and his excitement approaching an edge, but as he prepared to turn him, take him, and pound into the smaller man – pump at his dick – and bring them both to climax, his hands were gently, but insistently fixed to his sides.

With an intentional and calculating slowness, capable of driving the most stoic man mad, the smaller began to slip down onto his knees. He moved inch by inch, playing with flesh as he went: biting, kissing, and stealing glances at the gorgeous face above him. His breath tickled hot wet flesh, and every so often he'd reclaim ground, teasing and testing for spots that caused a reaction.

Edmond felt the demon in his mind growing impatient; felt him tearing at the tethers of his host's self control. They opened their eyes and looked down at Albert. He was sucking at flesh on his hip, oh-so-near his cock, which throbbed for attention. The other man's erection bobbed between his legs as he came to a kneel, facing his lovers manhood.

The water was falling over his head and back, running down his cheeks and over the contours of his naked form. Albert drenched and beautiful, ran merely the tip of his tongue over the hard thick head before him, teasing the slit in a long and deliberatively slow movement. Edmond groaned and arched his hips, silently begging to be taken whole, but blue eyes merely twinkled playfully and he smiled a teasing seductive and obstinate challenge.

Purple flashed behind Edmond's eyes. Gankutsuou, as he had transformed over the years, rarely manifested with all of his spider-like eyes, and seemed now to make himself known through subtler means. The flash was enough to announce his impatience. Triumphant, Albert blew gently on the water-heated tip of his lover, who shuttered and moaned.

"Say please." He added coyly.

"Please." Edmond yielded immediately

"Both of you." Albert instructed, running his tongue, once, tortuously, around the crown of the head - merely along the ridge. Water ran around his face and tongue, adding a shock of contrast between the temperature of his mouth and the water.

Gankutsuou growled and fisted Albert's hair, attempting to shove himself in, but Albert simply clenched his teeth and looked up defiantly.

The demon, clearly present in the way Edmond's eyes glowed, let out a second snarl of frustration. He was, for all his changes, still accustom to forcing his hand, and Albert clearly enjoyed rattling the cages of his will. After several moments of wrestling with his pride, and Edmond laughing internally, he acquiesced.

"Please." It sounded, somehow, almost like a threat.

Albert, jubilant, held the gaze of the lovers while he slipped his mouth over, and began to suck, gently and easily at first. He flicked his tongue over and around, broke from sucking to run his lips along the vein on the underside of Edmond's cock, and returned to the tip with slightly longer strokes. He pumped with his mouth, then his hand, and then his mouth again.

His lovers moaned, overtaken by the pleasure coursing through their shared body. Albert responded in kind, and the vibrations around his cock nearly forced them off their feet. A clawed hand braced against the wall and the other fisted into Albert's hair; prompting him to suck harder, mover faster, take him deeper.

Instead he broke the hold, enjoying the disappointed moan that followed, and began to suck hard at Edmond's balls, taking each one into his mouth, running his tongue over the velvety flesh, tugging gently and basking in how his lover squirmed. He formed a circular shape with his thumb and pointer finger and wrapped it tightly around the base of Edmond's cock, and began to squeeze and pump in short strokes, focusing on the base. With his other hand he took the head of Edmond's cock and began mimicking the spasm of an internal orgasm through little short squeezes, all the while continuing to suck and play with his balls

Edmond, or Gankutsuou (or both) let out a string of curses ending with a desperate "god damn it Albert will you get on with sucking me off, or hell as my witness I'm gong to turn you over and fuck you against the wall." Albert noticed that, despite this violent threat, the hand in his hair was making efforts to block the water from running into his eyes – a sweet and tender gesture.

"As you wish." He answered playfully. He moved his mouth from off of Edmond's balls, back up to his head, and began to suck in long, hard, quick strokes. Up and down his cock, almost pulling it from between his lips before thrusting once more along the shaft. His other hand covered the base where his lips could not reach, even while deep taking Edmond deep into his throat, and in unison his mouth and hand moved faster, harder, following the little bucks and pushes of the lovely hips before him.

Steam made his cheeks glow, and water acted like a lubricant and dripped from his nose, down his face, between the thrusts. It splashed off of him as he road Edmond with his mouth, fell over his chin and down his chest, and left glistening beads on his own bobbing erection.

"More." They pleaded, and more Albert gave - humming, moaning, and whimpering onto Edmond – causing delicious vibrations to add to the pleasure we was giving.

The building sensations, harder and rhythmic, were coming to climax. Edmond and Gankutsuou growled together and now with both hands gripping Albert's hair they set an eager and impatient pace. Albert focused on relaxing and moaning, and within a short burst the familiar taste of salt and cum ran down his throat. Edmond gasped and whispered his name, and the younger man rose to his feet to prevent the other from slipping to the floor in his ecstasy while slowly stroking away the last of his erection.

0-0-0

Later in bed my head is on Edmond's chest, and I'm listening to him read a book out loud to me. We're almost finished with this one, but I'm having a hard time paying attention.

Actual walls, unlike those in our living room, surround our bedroom. However the windows have no shutters, for the weather here is constant. We are far up though, so it is private as far as onlookers are concerned, but I'm pretty sure the patrol that passes below is always aware of when we're having sex.

The paintings we've collected hang on the wall, and there are pamphlets from the operas and plays we've attended here-and-there throughout. There's no point in taking any of these things where we are going, and hopefully one day we'll come back.

"He's really nice." I say out loud, interrupting Edmond's reading. I can feel him looking at me and I add quickly, "The Emperor."

He doesn't respond but starts running a hand through my hair, he sets the book down on the bed.

"So that's good at least."

I'm sure it's obvious that I'm nervous, and I don't want to be, I want to be excited, and optimistic. He needs our help after all.

"He's not like us." Edmond muses aloud. "Both Blitzkrieg and Gankutsuou were tainted by other people – through acts that took place independent of us. The thing inside of him was tainted by events that happened directly to him. I've never seen one of these creatures so attached to tormenting its host – it's what it was created to do."

I nod, but at his name I feel the demon inside me awaken, as if someone had ignited a furnace. Edmond feels him too and begins making soothing noises and brushing my hair. Blitzkrieg is a bit unpredictable, but his motives are easier to guess than Gankutsuuou's ever were. He's traumatized though, and doesn't handle seeing conflict well.

He's part of me now, so it feels strange talking about him instead of talking about us, or me, but it's the best way I've got to describe it. It didn't take us as long to start unifying. Thus it's very easy for Edmond to soothe him, considering he feels all the love and safety I do.

"He's nervous." I explain, "Emperors mean armies…armies mean war."

"Perhaps that's why we need to go." I can tell its more Gankutsuou that answers, there's a slight change in Edmond's voice when he talks. An outsider probably wouldn't catch it, but I can tell right away.

I agree, but he must be able to tell we're not totally convinced. I'm suddenly flipped on my back, and both my arms are held down. I look up into shining purple eyes and a pointed fanged grin.

"Blitzkrieg," Gankutsuou growls.

I feel the demon in me look up, and I'm sure there is a red glow to my eyes. He's expecting to be goaded. These two tend to clash a bit, and that's not surprising considering where they met and how each of them seems to suffer from a superiority complex. My body tenses, and is a bit excited. They also tend to have rough see-who-can-pin-the-other-down-and-claim-them sex when they clash.

This time however, and honestly I'm not sure I've ever seen him do this before, Gankutsuou leans down and places a long sweet kiss on our lips. I can feel Edmond there of course, though I have no idea how he's reacting. Fingers brush our cheek and run through our hair, and his other hand pulls us close at the waste.

When he pulls back he kisses our forehead and manages a quiet, "It will be fine."

And somehow we believe him, but fine doesn't mean easy, and I tell him so. He laughs at me, and tells me that's what makes it worthwhile.

I don't have time to wonder at how much he's changed, because he's slipping off our pajama bottoms and Blitzkrieg is letting him top without challenging him…which is another first.

When they…well we really….fuck it's almost sweet, even selfless. I'm almost willing to call it making love. And when Blitzkrieg, and it is Blitzkrieg who is piloting this time, falls asleep in our lovers' arms I'm thinking…maybe we really can handle this.