There's not much changed in this one from the original. There's just some grammar edits and a bit more content. You can't really tell though. LOL.
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~ Love from, CK
Chapter 2 : Begin the Beguine
....
—4 years later—
The warm August sky was painted like one large smudge of baby blue, cloudless and endless against the green forests below. High up on a secluded cliffside, surrounded with green grass, brown woods, and violet flowers, sat an abandoned wooden house. The appearance was run-down and tattered, but had the look of a place that could have been charming if it had been well cared for.
Afternoon sunlight filtered through thin, yellow curtains of the tiny house, falling on the pale form curled amidst thin blue sheets in the upper level bedroom.
Blinking sleep from his eyes, 12-year-old Allen mewled as he let out a yawn, stretching his body as long as he could and pointing his toes. A shiver wracked his body for a moment before all the tension flowed out of him. His white tail swished from side to side as he soaked in the warm sunlight and the soft caress of thin pajama pants on his legs.
Then, he suddenly realized something.
There was no body surrounding his, curled around his, overshadowing his, and blocking the sun from his eyes.
Yuu was not in the bed with him.
He blinked slowly, still feeling half-asleep. He let out another mewl as he yawned again and his ears twitched as he caught the sound of a bird singing and Lavi talking to it outside. He smiled to himself at the mental image that provided.
Then, the smell of fried bologna hit his nose.
Allen forgot all about Lavi and the bird, and he was instantly awake and upright in bed.
He leapt onto the hardwood floor, stumbling slightly as the cold hit his feet, and he threw open the door and ran down the narrow stairway, grabbing the door frame as he swung around the corner. He slowed his steps as he entered the messy kitchen, inhaling the mouth-watering, meaty scent.
He tried to ignore the slight scent of musk that was coming from Lavi's sweaty T-shirt (which was across the back of a nearby chair) and the old pair of boxers that were sitting on one of the counters. (Allen did not even want to know whom those belonged to.)
But on the opposite counter, was a white china plate piled high with that delicious, beautifully sculpted tower of fried bologna. Allen barely noticed the plate of fruit, plate of pancakes, and the jug of milk that sat behind it.
Standing at the stove with a bare chest, pale as cream apart from the dark tattoo imprinted on his chest, was Allen's 16-year old lover. He stood with a scowl on his face and his midnight ears pulled back in distaste, but looking every bit as breathtaking as a god –
"Yuu," Allen sighed, not realizing he had said it aloud.
His lover turned at the sound of Allen's voice.
"Hn. Moyashi," he scoffed out, turning back to the stove. Allen just grinned, spotting how Yuu's tail was swaying despite how he was trying to suppress it.
Happily, Allen skipped over and planted a loving kiss along his Yuu's cheek, feeling extremely pleased as his lover paused in surprise.
"Are you making breakfast?"
"Hn."
"You have your hair down this morning," Allen admired, running his fingers gently through the tangled strands that were the colour of a midnight sky. Yuu purred quietly, almost shamefully, in the back of his throat and tilted his head faintly into Allen's hands.
Allen curled into his mate's hip, purring loudly himself at the beauty of Yuu's hair, Yuu's pale shoulder, and Yuu in general.
"Have I told you how much I love your hair?" Allen sighed out, continuing to dance his fingers through his lover's hair. Yuu let out a little moan, turning to pin Allen with his dark eyes.
Allen froze as his chest swelled with wonder, desire, and a hint of embarrassment.
"Only every day, moyashi," Yuu muttered, his lips brushing Allen's rosy ones in a teasing manner.
"…oh," was the only thing Allen could say, blushing a pretty red.
Yuu just smirked, flicking his tongue out to lick Allen's lips, causing the younger to blush even darker. Yuu smirked for a moment but turned back to the food, knowing Allen would need more food than what was on the counter to keep him full.
"Che, tie my hair up for me, moyashi. It's in the way anyhow," Yuu said sourly, but Allen knew his mate wasn't nearly as angry as he sounded.
"Okay!" Allen chirped, scanning the kitchen until he spotted a hair elastic around the end of a butter knife on the counter. Why it was there, Allen didn't know, but it was helpful.
Happily, Allen moved to grab the elastic before curling back against his lover's hip. He grasped the strands and piled them on top of his lover's head, taking a moment to finish admiring the strands and how they slid like silk through his fingers.
Deciding to see if it was possible, Allen gently took the two strands that always framed Yuu's face and pulled them into the pile of hair he had in his hands. Quickly, the younger boy looped the elastic around the dark hair, tugging softly to secure it, before running his hand down the ponytail and standing back to admire his handiwork.
Yuu turned at the sound of Allen giggling behind him.
Allen just stuck his tongue out at the Japanese NECO, and Yuu had to resist the urge to pin his moyashi to the counter and kiss him.
'Moyashi on the counter…moyashi for breakfast…Mmm now that would be a fucking good meal…' Yuu thought, eyeing his pale lover's chest and those pretty pink nipples.
Allen, ever naïve, missed the way Yuu's midnight tail had taken on a seductive and approving sway.
"I got all of your hair up," Allen said smugly, putting his hands on either side of his face to imitate the characteristic strands that framed Yuu's face.
Yuu just raised an eyebrow at his lover, and then tilted his head to the side.
The two strands fell from the ponytail and claimed their rightful position by Yuu's cheekbones. Yuu righted his head and immediately smirked.
Allen merely pouted and puffed out his cheeks. The image caused Yuu to growl low in his throat.
"You fucking keep pouting like that and I'm going to molest you until you collapse, moyashi," Yuu warned, licking his lips again as he eyed Allen's tempting nipples for a second time.
"Pervert," Allen said half-heartedly, blushing bright red and turning to grab the plate of bologna. There was sudden kiss to the nape of his neck, but by the time Allen had turned around, Yuu was busy over the stove again, acting as if he had not done anything.
Allen smiled to himself, tenderly touching the back of his neck.
This morning could not get any better… Allen thought, turning back to the plate of bologna.
Then the plate was snatched right out of his hands.
Allen froze for a second, feeling stunned, as a shadow was suddenly looming over him. Allen tilted his head back, glaring unsuccessfully at the white dress-shirt and devilish grin he was met with.
Allen repressed the urge to cough as a plume of cigarette smoke was blown past his face.
"Tyy-yyki!" Allen whined.
"Relax, boy," the wolf-eared NECO said, purposefully holding the meat above Allen's reach to irritate him. Tyki took another drag on his cigarette. "You'll get your food once we get ours."
"But I'm Yuu's mate! And Yuu is the leader, so I get to eat first!" Allen said. Tyki was so mean to him sometimes! "You know the order – highest to lowest ranking for everything. The highest ranking gets first choice on everything, and since Yuu -- "
"Excuse me, but I'm the highest ranking male here and the oldest, boy, so I'll eat first" Tyki stated, sitting down in a chair and propping his legs lazily up on another. He took three slices of bologna and slowly laid them on the table before himself. Smugly, he turned to look back at Allen as he gingerly picked up a slice and licked it in a long stroke.
Allen's stomach rumbled in desire.
"Besides," Tyki continued, "you take in as much food as a small European nation. There is no way in hell you're eating first. If you did, there would be nothing left for the rest of us."
Allen scowled, knowing it was true but unwilling to admit it. Tyki just grinned, and tilted his head back as he dropped the bologna into his mouth.
With his mouth open and his eyes closed, Tyki was expecting sweet, crispy meat to fill his mouth.
It never came.
Tyki's eyes shot open, and the first thing he was met with was Yuu's scowling face. The cat-eared NECO had the bologna in his fingers, only inches from Tyki's mouth.
Tyki momentarily wondered if he could gobble it up before Yuu would notice. The bologna was removed from sight, as if Yuu had sensed his thoughts, and Tyki pouted childishly.
"Listen up, fucktard, I. Am. The Leader." Yuu hissed, his pupils narrowed to dangerous slits. "I eat first. Always. And don't give me that shit about you being 'technically' older than me. You're past you're expiration date so your age is worth shit to me. The only reason you're here is because Allen likes the damn usagi, and the damn usagi likes you. Got it?"
"Whatever. Despite what you say, you always let your little pet eat first anyways, Yuu. And I'm not that far past my expiration date!"
"Oi," a cheerful voice said from the open doorway, "you never did tell me what your exact 'expiration date' was."
Sunlight split onto the floor momentarily before the door was closed again. Yuu moved silently to the door, taking the bologna with him as he flicked the lock shut.
Lavi, dressed in a green shirt and a pair of white jeans, skipped into the kitchen and heaved two metal buckets of water onto the counter. Lavi paused for a moment upon seeing the black boxers thrown across the countertop, but then shrugged and moved over to wrap his arms around his Portuguese lover's shoulders.
Tyki hummed in approval and swiftly pulled the rabbit onto his lap.
"I'm not telling you my expiration date, quierda," Tyki murmured.
The redhead just pouted, causing Tyki's dark, mused tail to wag against the back of the chair. This sight did not go unnoticed by Lavi, who was more than willing to point out that fact.
"Aww, look at your tail wag! It's so cute!" Lavi teased, pointing at it with a cheeky grin. "Are you really that happy to see me, Tyki?"
"Mmm, that's not the only part of me that's happy to see you."
"… Down boy."
"What? It's the truth. And besides, quierda, I happen to like your tail a lot. Yours is much cuter than mine."
A large tanned hand slipped down to Lavi's white-clad rear, groping it shamelessly. Lavi just grinned even wider.
"Tyki, my tail is higher than that. It is at the base of my spine."
"Really? I had no idea. Oops."
The hand continued its shameless groping and Allen blushed at the sight of the two older men being so… so… open, about how they touched each other.
Lavi was so calm about being molested that it was stunning to Allen. Allen almost felt guilty because he was always surprised when Yuu touched him like that. Allen always found, even if Yuu told him when he was going to touch his …err, bum, he couldn't resist yelping or jumping or turning red at the contact.
…even if… the feel of Yuu's hands on him was really really good…
Allen quickly shook the dirty thoughts from his mind, feeling his face grow hot.
Were all mates supposed to be perverted with one another? Allen honestly wished he knew.
Lavi and Tyki were the only other mates he knew of –despite that the two of them were different brands of NECO – and they were just as perverted, if not more so, than his Yuu.
Yuu.
Yuu was his mate.
His.
Allen still couldn't believe, even after all these years, that he had someone as wonderful and as strong as Yuu all to himself. Yuu was there to protect him and cuddle with him and stay with him forever.
"If you two start making out, I'm going to fucking kill you both," Yuu hissed at the rabbit and wolf NECO, his long tail rigid in irritation. Yuu glared at the two of them for a moment before he slid up the plate of bologna towards Allen.
Allen's eyes went wide as his silver tail waved happily.
"Thank you, Yuu!" Allen said, hugging his lover tightly and planted another kiss on his cheek.
Allen quickly took a seat and dug into the plate of meat with gusto, moaning as the rich and crispy taste hit his tongue and melted in his mouth.
He missed the way Yuu flushed at the sound, his blue eyes pinned on his mate, and how Yuu's tail began to sashay again.
"So, what did I miss while I was out getting water?" Lavi asked. "Did I walk in to hear that Yuu was calling my Tyki old?"
"Shut up, usagi!" Yuu snapped loudly, his dark eyes still trained on the way Allen was innocently using his little pink tongue to lick his lips. "Hn. And you know damn well that your man-whore is old and way-fucking-past his expiration date. "
Allen blinked as he tried to process what was going on. He'd never heard of that word before – ex-pir-a-tion.
"Umm Lavi? What's an expiration date?" Allen asked.
The peaceful and teasing morning atmosphere seemed to deflate like a balloon, leaving a stale taste in the air. Three sets of eyes turned to gaze at Allen.
The platinum-haired boy almost regretted asking now that he was being stared at so intently. And Tyki looked almost…sad.
"Oh, that's easy, moyashi!" Lavi answered, as if nothing had happened, "What your oh-so-loving Yuu means is that all of us NECOs have a limited amount of time to live."
Allen's eyes went wide in horror and he dropped the piece of bologna he'd been eating.
"What I meant to say," Lavi supplied quickly, his long crimson ears pulled to his skull at the sound of Yuu preparing to kill him, "is that all living things have expected time frames to live. Everything in life has an expiration date. Humans usually live to be about 80 or so. Human pets live for a maximum of 15 years. We NECOs were designed to live until the age of 20. And you know how old Tyki is, right?"
Allen swallowed back the fear he had felt before, feeling slightly reassured by Lavi's gentle tone and his explanation. The platinum haired boy bit his lip as he tried to rack his brain to remember Tyki's age.
"Uhh... 40?"
Tyki looked like he'd been shot in the heart.
'His cigarette even fell out of his mouth,' Allen noted with a smug satisfaction. Allen stuck his tongue out at the older NECO to show he was kidding.
"Tyki's 24, right?"
"Yup! So he's past his 'expiration date'."
"Oh! Okay – " Allen began, but then had to pause as another yawn worked itself out of him. Tears welled up in the corner of his eyes and he rubbed them away with his blackened left hand.
Lavi watched the entire incident and his brow furrowed in concern.
Allen's shoulders were droopy. His ears seemed less perky than usual. Even his silver eyes seemed to have lost some of their light.
"You seem unusually tired this morning, moyashi. You okay?" Lavi said, moving to check on his young friend. Tyki refused to let the one-eyed rabbit go, so Lavi made due with craning across the table to peer worriedly at Allen.
The catboy nodded, his silver ears twitching.
"I'm fine, Lavi."
Lavi raised a skeptical eyebrow at his best friend.
"Really, I'm fine," Allen promised. "I'm just tired because I stayed up late last night."
Tyki grinned ferally at the innocent words, his eyes taking on a hungry golden tint.
"Gee, I wonder what could've possibly kept you up all night, boy? Your Japanese lover, perhaps?"
Allen tilted his head to the side in an adorable display of confusion.
"Umm, sorry, but I don't know what you mean. I was working on …" Allen flushed and tried to look serious, "…Well, it's something I can't tell you about. But I was working on it last night, so I didn't really see Yuu until I went to bed."
"Hmm, and did your little Yuu keep you up for the rest of the night?" Tyki growled seductively. "Did he reward you for all your hard work on that 'something-you-cant-tell-me-about?'
Yuu glared at the Portuguese man, wondering if he could rip the bastard's tongue out so he wouldn't have to listen to his perverted shit anymore.
'Although, Allen would get upset if I did that,' Yuu thought sourly. 'Damn it'.
"I don't get it," Allen said, frowning in puzzlement.
"Oh, you'll get it," Tyki muttered with a sadistic grin, "when Yuu takes you for the first time, and shoves his –"
'Fuck it. Allen can be upset.'
Yuu slammed his fist into Tyki's jaw.
The midnight-haired teen heard Lavi yelp and Allen gasp, but the most satisfying noise to him was the crack that came from Tyki's jaw. A thin trail of blood leaked out of the wolf NECO's mouth, dripping onto the once crisp shirt, as he turned silently to stare at Yuu with his golden eyes narrowed in fury.
Silence stretched over the room as the two dark haired males stared each other down.
"Shut your mouth, you filthy dog," Yuu ordered.
"Make me, pussycat," Tyki hissed.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
All four NECOs froze, muscles tense and ears pinned back to their skulls, as there was a sudden and desperate pounding on the door to their home.
It sounded like someone was trying to break down the door.
The cliff-side home that the four NECOs had claimed was almost unreachable to humans, yet if there were humans here – scientists who wanted to take them back to the Rejection Center or humans who wanted to become their Masters – then they had no way to escape.
"Take Allen and hide," Yuu ordered lowly.
Tyki and Lavi immediately grabbed Allen by the arms and pulled him out of the room. Allen opened his mouth to cry out, but Lavi had a hand clamped firmly over the young boy's mouth before he could try. Allen was dragged up the stairs, his feet barely touching the floor from the way Lavi and Tyki held him.
Meanwhile, Yuu stared straight ahead at the solid wood door that served as the entryway to the house. He let his eyes narrow to slits and let his fangs bare themselves as he crouched in an aggressive stance.
No one was supposed to know they had escaped.
No one was supposed to know that they were here in this house.
Any NECO found without a microchip implanted in their neck was considered a free slave, and any free slave -- if caught -- could be commanded or controlled without the law being able to do anything about it.
Any free-slave could be killed, tortured, collared, forced into prostitution, forced into the bed of the person who'd found them, or forced into a cage.
Yuu would be damned to hell if anyone in his house ever had to endure that.
Especially Allen.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
The next chapter is where the good dramatic stuff starts. =P And I'm bringing back an ahem "old friend" of Allen's.
You win free cookies and internets if you can guess who it is.