Summary: "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." Tai/Taichi is a courtesan while Matt/Yamato is a writer. Drugs, sex and Yamachi in a tale based off of Moulin Rouge.
Ratings: T (PG-13)
Characters/ Pairing:
Yamato Ishida starring as......Christian
Taichi Yagami starring as......Satine
Disclaimer: Sadly, I own neither Digimon nor Moulin Rouge, however, I will borrow Digimon, seasons 1 & 2 characters and the Moulin Rouge plot for my purposes.
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
is just to love and be loved in return."
Moulin Rouge
By splintered
(with quotes and lyrics from Moulin Rouge)
When Taichi Yagami finally passed out on the cold hard-wood floor, he welcomed the comforting darkness with memories of Yamato. But while the clock bells chimed eight times, someone was met with more unwelcome news.
--
He's late, Jyou thought when he first heard the promising echo of footsteps in the dimly lit clock tower. However, the he that the Duke was expecting, turned out to be a she—albeit dressed manly with her short red hair slicked back in a sleek navy blue blazer and matching blue slacks(1). That she was Sora Takenouchi.
The Duke didn't like surprises. He had expected the beautiful courtesan. He didn't like surprises at all. And while his lower lip began to curl into an angry snarl and some choice obscenities were about to arise from his lips, Takenouchi interrupted him.
"He's not ready," Sora simply spoke.
Jyou densely stared at the redhead, his blood beginning to boil with anger. "He's not ready?" he asked incredulously. "I THOUGHT WE HAD AN AGREEMENT!"
"But Duke, we do have an agreement!" Sora exclaimed, trying to ration her way through the situation. "Still, Duke, you must understand...Taichi is...how should I put this..."
Charming...Perfect...Luscious... The horny Duke could supply many adjectives that would satisfy the sentence. However...
"He's like a blushing bride," Sora spoke. "He says you make him feel like a virgin"
...those weren't the words the Duke had expected. "A virgin?" he repeated stupidly.
"You know," Sora whispered, the volume of her voice dropping dramatically.
The Duke leaned in so he could hear better.
"... touched for the very first time. He says it feels so good inside, when you hold him...and you touch him..."
Like a virgin
The Duke's mind could supply many fantasies to Takenouchi's words, as his heart leaped for joy. He was sure his face was probably a few shades redder than he was only moments before.
"He's made it through the wilderness somehow," Sora continued. "He made it though...but he didn't know how lost he was until he found you."
"R—really?" Jyou was sure that his voice cracked a little when he said that.
"Yes, he was beat incomplete. He had been....," Sora remembered the first time she met the brunette. The first time she found the boy lying on the streets. He was beautiful then, too, but he looked so broken. He looked so..."sad and blue." So, she took him home. She introduced and raised him into the Moulin Rouge. She took care of him—like a mother would. And like a mother, this was the hardest thing she had ever done: giving up Taichi, who was like a son to her. Still, the show must go on. That had always been her policy, and it wasn't going to change now! She was Sora Takenouchi—a show person and a salesman among many other things. She wasn't going to let some silly human sentiments stop her! And so she continued with her charade to the Duke, "You made him feel. Yes, you made him feel shiny and new. Do you understand, Duke?"
"I...I think so."
Like a virgin
Touched for the very first time
Like a virgin
When your heart beats close in time
"Well, if you want his love...fear is fading fast. He's saving it all for you, and only love can last. I mean, Duke, you have to understand, Taichi...he's fragile...delicate."
"Delicate? How so?"
"Well, he's so fine and he's nice. And he'll be yours until the end of time...because you made him feel like a virgin who has nothing to hide."
Like a virgin
Touched for the very first time
Like a virgin
When your heart beats close in time
Like a virgin
Feels so good inside
When you hold him and you touch him
Even if Jyou's heart wasn't racing before, it sure was racing now. There was something so fresh and exciting about being someone's first...and he'd be the first to pick at her! His head was swimming with delight. He's so fine...and he's mine. There was no doubt that he wanted to own him. Why wouldn't he? He makes me strong. Yes, and he makes me bold...and his love thawed out what was scared and cold. Taichi made him feel things that he never felt before. Taichi was fresh...exciting...and best of all, the Duke smiled, he was pure!
Like a virgin
Touched for the very first time
Like a virgin
When your heart beats close in time
Like a virgin
Feels so good inside
When you hold him and you touch him
And you hold him and you touch him
Like a virgin
It is going to be so much fun, the Duke thought, to corrupt him!
---
She watched for his nose scrunch up in discomfort as he moaned weakly. A wet cloth rested against his forehead, in effort to cool his light fever.
"It's okay. It's okay," she whispered as she hummed a soft tune—her voice shaky (After all, it wasn't everyday that you found your friend lying unconscious in his room. She remembered the initial panic she had when she found him, sprawled along the hard wood floor, surrounded in blood splatters. "Taichi!" she had screamed. She thought he was dead. A weak pulse and his shallow breathing, however, told her that he was breathing.) — in hopes of soothing him, and perhaps, reassuring herself as well.
But she found her lullaby as reassuring as discovering a lighthouse in a cove of rocks and coral. Yes, her ship could see its way, but only moments before it was shipwrecked along some foreign island, hoping to wash ashore in one piece.
Taichi whimpered again in discomfort, a painful expression marring his light features. He really was beautiful, even when he was sick. His brown hair rested limply against his ghostly pale skin. In the dim candlelight, he had an ethereal presence to him—like that of a harmless fairy or a sleeping angel. However, with his health and condition, she doubted that he would be able to fly with the trapeze artists or frolic with the soccer players anything soon. As she watched him, she hoped that Taichi would get out of this adventure in one piece.
"Meems," she heard her name whispered. His eyes fluttered briefly before she saw those familiar honey brown orbs. "…is that you?"
"Yes, Taichi," the pink-haired girl nodded, as she cried for him. "It's me," she replied, repositioning the cloth on his forehead, wiping off beads of sweat. "How do you feel?"
"I've….been better," he rasped painfully as she watched him in concern.
She nodded again, not trusting herself to speak.
"Hey Meems…You can't...You can't let anyone know, okay?" Taichi rasped. He trusted her with his secret. "You can't let them know that I'm---" He began coughing again, struggling for air, as she supported him with her arms.
She tried to smile for him (she really did...), to let her know that she understood….but as she held him in her arms, the tears wouldn't stop coming.
---
Meanwhile, Yamato sat in his room waiting for his courtesan to show up. 'I'll see you at eight tonight, right?' the blonde writer had asked his courtesan after their rehearsal with the Moulin Rouge that morning. Taichi had nodded absently. He looked preoccupied with other thoughts and the blonde writer had thought nothing of it. Yamato knew that the brunette was very busy as the star of the Moulin Rouge, so when Taichi didn't appear at eight, Yamato wasn't worried. Then eight 'o clock became nine 'o clock and nine became ten as the hours past swiftly and the moon grew bolder against the midsummer night's sky. Yamato paced his room, lost in his thoughts….
These past few days had been simply magical—full of angels and sugar plum fairies. Taichi made him laugh and cry of happiness. Taichi satisfied his desire for love and he satisfied Taichi's cry for poetry. Taichi was like a boy's wet dream, only Yamato had to wake up to make sure the beautiful brunette was truly sleeping in his arms. Each day and each night wrapped around the tendrils of a fairy tale and Yamato was sure that there was a "happily ever after" if Taichi was in it. And while those days turned into nights and the nights turned into weeks, Yamato couldn't even begin to imagine a life without Taichi at all.
However, even snakes lurk in the garden of Edens and the Duke wasn't their only trouble. Yamato remembered a troubling conversation he had yesterday….
He looked so precious, sprawled along the blankets of Yamato's bed, his face buried in his arms while Yamato was giving him a massage.
Feels so good inside
When you hold him and you touch him
And you hold him and you touch him
"I hate this," his angel had whispered very softly, his voice sounding distant and muffled. Yamato almost didn't catch his words, as he leaned in closer to hear.
When your heart beats close in time
"What do you hate?" he had asked in return, as he ran his hand along the curves of the brunette's body. He sure hoped the brunette didn't hate him. He enjoyed giving back rubs and the feel of Taichi's baby soft skin against his palm.
"I dunno," the brunette replied, but his shoulders seemed to sag a little, even as Yamato's fingers continued to rub his back in its circular motion. After a while, the brunette spoke again. "…being a courtesan…acting all the time…"
"So why do you do this?" the blonde had asked. He had pondered the answer more than once, especially since the brunette announced that he couldn't love. Since then, the blonde writer had made it his life's mission to show him love, and to prove that good truly existed.
"Mostly for the money," the courtesan explained easily.
Yamato raised his one eyebrow. He didn't think Taichi was that greedy type of person, but then again, it was Tai who was working as a courtesan. Not the easiest lifestyle.
"It's....it's for my sister," he choked when Yamato didn't say anything. "My baby sister…" For some reason he couldn't fathom, Tai felt that he had to explain himself the blonde. He wanted to show that he was sincere towards his affection for the blonde and more than anything, he wanted the blonde to believe him.
"Your sister? I didn't know that you had a sister." The blonde writer suddenly realized that he didn't know very much about his sweet angel.
"Yeah," the brunette replied. He paused, quiet for a moment, with a contemplative look on her face. "...she's sick," he said solemnly.
"Oh."
"My sentiments exactly."
"....I'm sorry I brought this up."
"Don't worry about it," the brunette shrugged off the apology with his easy laughter. "I brought it up…and besides," he began again, regaining his composure, "if I wasn't a courtesan, I wouldn't have met you otherwise."
"True," Yamato agreed. "So, now what?"
"Come what may." Taichi had smiled, as he turned to face the blond. It was heartbreaking, how brave and forced that smile looked. But as Yamato learned more about Taichi and gazed into the brunette's cracked lips and big watery honey gold eyes, Yamato couldn't help but think that Taichi was the most beautiful and fragile creature he met.
He would make Taichi happy, he vowed to himself right there and then. Even if it took him eternity to do so… Yamato had always been a patient person—known for his cool and collectedness. He would wait for the brunette if only he could show him love! However, as he sat in his room at waited long into the twilight hours, the writer couldn't help but feel a little uneasy.
Perhaps, Taichi got sidetracked, Yamato figured. Yamato knew of the courtesan's many admirers—eager fans that swarmed the brunette after every rehearsal, requesting autographs and attention. And Taichi always smiled at them. 'Meet me later,' Taichi sometimes whispered to Yamato as he was caught up in the crowd.
So Yamato waited and waited, but even as the clock struck past midnight, no fairy godmother showed up. Yamato didn't get to see Prince Taichi or attend a grandiose ball full of Moulin Rouge can-can dancers. No, as Yamato fell into an uneasy slumber, he dreamed of snakes in his Garden of Eden, promises of pumpkins and a glass slipper of troubled thoughts.
--
TBC?
Author's Notes:
(1) In my mind, she looks like Tilda Swinton as the Angel Gabriel in the film Constantine starring Keanu Reeves. Don't you see it?
Wow, it has been a little more than a week and a half since I last updated this. I had part of this written before I uploaded the last chapter. ^_^ Anyways, thank you all for reading and reviewing. I hope this chapter is satisfying and not too confusing, especially during the part when I started nesting Yama's thoughts with flashbacks within flashbacks. Please drop by with a review and let me know what you think, okay?
RavenAngelxX: I'm so glad you stopped by, and I do hope you eventually get to see Moulin Rouge! It's a great movie. I'm glad you loved it and I hope you like the rest of the story! Here's an update. :)
krad: Thank you! I try...I'm not sure if I do the characters justice at times, but I try. Anyways, I updated again! :)
Courage Sun: Not yet! See, he's still alive in this chapter! But I still have a few more chapters to go! I hope you like this chapter as well...even if it's not that fluffy...hopefully it's still sorta cute! :)
Sandylee007: Wow. Then I'm honored. :) As you can see the story isn't discontinued (somehow, Yama and Tai wouldn't let me put it down) and I updated again (hopefully soon enough this time)! You're welcome! I hope this chapter was worth the wait as well. Yes, I know the sad part is coming... :( That's gonna be hard to write much less read! Oooh, muffins! *chews on juicy muffins* Thank you!
And many thank yous for reading this! I love reviews and critiques! Any questions or comments or concerns are welcome!