(To any of those who are interested, I currently run a VashyronxZephyr blog on Tumblr. I know that the pairing (and the game itself) isn't very popular and it's difficult to find fanart, so I have dedicated some of my time to doing just that. Just in case anyone's interested and would like to see some art of this pairing. Some of it is NSFW. PM me if you would like a link, as I am not going to post it on here. Thanks xx)
Over the next couple of weeks my injuries healed very quickly, mainly due to the fact that Vashyron insisted on doing everything for me and wouldn't let me get off the couch unless it was to use the bathroom. During that time I mostly watched television and ate leftover birthday cake; Vashyron kindly bought one for me despite my trying to explain how much I hated people spending money on me.
It was relaxing, sure, but the entire time the shiny, silver, brand new sub machine gun was just sitting on the table staring at me, and it was taking all of my mental strength not to grab it and run for the door before Vashyron could catch me.
Scratch that. He could probably catch me before I even got up off the couch.
The gun wasn't even the main problem. What I hated the most was not being able to move. I think I'm just one of those people who can't sit still, and when I do it kills me. It's like I get a strange, hot, itching feeling underneath my skin that only appears when my muscles aren't working. A couple of times I tried to beg Vashyron to let me go outside for a walk, but he just kept saying that if I moved around too much I would damage my ankle even more and have to sit still for longer. He was probably right, but that didn't make me any happier about it.
When I eventually was allowed to go outside, however, he did take me straight to the arena to test out my birthday present. It was even more exhilarating than using a handgun, and I took to it more easily, which was fantastic, because I would have felt bad if I couldn't use it properly after I'm assuming he spent a lot of money.
After that, I spent most days in the arena with Vashyron. Apparently, he was just as proficient with a machine gun as with any other weapon. It was really inspiring to watch; the way he could easily take any firearm and master it in a few moves. He told me that it was because he used to be in the army, but surely there must have been more to it than that.
It wasn't just his skill with weapons that was impressive, though. Watching him fight, I almost felt as excited as when I was doing it myself. There was just something so...intense...about it. He had so much passion, so much fire, yet he made it look so easy, like it took no effort at all. Sometimes I could just spend hours sitting watching him and feel as if I had learned more than while doing the training myself.
He didn't just teach me more about guns. He taught me about how to use your body in a fight. I had always thought that I was relatively athletic, but that was until I saw some of the things Vashyron could do. He made extremely complicated manoeuvres look like child's play, and afterwards he was never even a little out of breath.
If I didn't know any better, I'd say he wasn't human.
"So, you can do that, right? Let me see."
He came over to where I was sitting at the edge of the arena, hands on hips. He had just been demonstrating how to quickly avoid an enemy attack with a back flip, something most people won't ever be able to do, but as usual he didn't have a hair out of place, despite having shown me how to do it about six times. Not only that, but it had snowed the day before, and the ground was now icy cold, even though someone had, luckily, scraped away the mush. It didn't seem to bother Vashyron at all, but I was happier to just sit bundled up in my jacket and watch him.
He raised an eyebrow questioningly when I didn't immediately reply.
"Zephyr? Hello? Is anyone in there?"
This time I was actually paying too much attention, and had been completely distracted watching him.
"...Y...yes?"
"You have no idea what I just said, do you?" he laughed.
I shook my head, bringing my eyes up to meet his. He clearly wasn't angry. He never got angry. I still felt kind of bad that I often drifted off into my imagination while he was talking to me.
"No. Sorry."
He chuckled, folding his arms and shaking his head.
"What am I gonna do with you? Honestly. I said 'you can do that, right?'."
"Uhh...I don't know. Maybe."
"It's easy. C'mon, I'll help you."
He held a hand out to me, and I was reluctant to take it. Human contact was still something that made me uncomfortable. But it was Vashyron, so I decided to once again make an exception, sliding my hand into his as he pulled me to my feet.
"You're athletic, so you'll probably be able to do this," he said, walking to the middle of the arena with me following.
I wasn't quite sure how being athletic automatically meant you could do a back flip, but usually when he said something like that, he was right, so I had no reason to doubt him.
"Okay, first of all, let's try it this way."
He held out one of his arms.
"Lean back over my arm and put your hands against the ground."
"...Okay."
I moved closer to him, resting the arch of my back against his arm, before pausing, looking at him.
"What if I hit my head?"
"Then I don't think it'll make a difference," he chuckled, "Just do it."
I was going to think of a comeback, but he was probably right. My head couldn't get much more damaged than it already was. I leaned back, using his arm to support myself, and rested my hands against the stone floor of the arena. It was like ice.
"Now flip your legs over and stand back up."
"...You said that like it's gonna be easy."
"It is."
For you, maybe.
I contemplated it for a few seconds, but the thought of hitting my head on the concrete and, mainly, making myself look like an idiot in front of him was too much. Normally I would probably be able to try something like this and do it quite easily, but doing it in front of him was different. He was my teacher, and I wanted to impress him.
"...I can't. All of my blood is going to my head and I can't feel my hands."
He laughed.
"Then I guess you'll have to do it quickly so you can get back up."
His arm was stopping me from getting out of this position as easily as I could have.
"Can't I just...stand up again?"
"Go ahead. Good luck with that," he chuckled.
I took this as a challenge, and I knew it was something I could already do anyway, so I lifted my hands off the ground, using the muscles in my stomach to pull the top half of my body back up. The only problem being that the ground was icy, and patches of it were still lightly covered with brown slush that used to be snow. As I was putting a lot of weight onto my feet to stand up properly, I slipped, twisting my now almost fully-healed ankle, causing a spike of pain to shoot up through my leg.
Luckily, Vashyron's arm was still behind me, and he has quick reflexes. He caught me before I fell onto the ground, and I felt his arm quite tight around my waist as he leaned over me, a concerned look on his face.
"Hey, are you alright? Is it your ankle?"
I managed a small nod, but in this current awkward situation couldn't make my mouth form any words. In the process of trying to not make myself look like an idiot in front of him, I had ended up making myself look like an idiot anyway. Only now, it was ten times more embarrassing.
"Okay, we should go home. I knew it was too soon to be doing any more training," he said decidedly, clearly placing the blame on himself.
"N-no! I...I'm fine. In fact, I think we should...keep training. It's the only way I'm gonna get better, right? I mean, sitting around isn't gonna help."
"Zephyr," he said firmly, looking me in the eyes, and I found myself once again unable to speak, "We're going home. C'mon."
He pulled me up properly, moving his arm from my waist and holding onto my arm gently.
"Can you walk?"
I nodded quickly, shrugging his hand off. I felt ashamed of myself. I was worried that I had let him down.
"Alright. Let's go."
I watched as he made his way towards the arena gate, occasionally checking over his shoulder to make sure I was following him, which I was, slowly.
When we got home he tried to get me to sit down so he could take a look at my ankle, but I managed to persuade him that I was okay, and that if it started to really hurt I would let him know, instead retreating into the bedroom.
I kicked my shoes off and flopped down onto the bed, staring at the ceiling for a while, trying to ignore the dull, throbbing pain in my ankle. It wasn't that bad, anyway. The door was closed, but I could still hear the faint sounds of the television coming from the living room where Vashyron was sitting.
It wasn't just the fact that I had made myself look stupid in front of him that was getting to me, it was everything. I just couldn't figure out what my mind was trying to do at the moment. I was still tired most of the time, and still having nightmares on regular occasions. The headaches were becoming less frequent, but there were always times when I awoke in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep. Instead I would spend a lot of time staring at the ceiling, as usual. I'm not sure why, but something about it calmed me down.
The worst thing of all was the fact that, despite how nice Vashyron was to me, I still didn't feel right here. It was nothing to do with him. He never once made me feel unwelcome. The problem was with me. It was almost as if I felt unworthy to be living here with him. I was so pathetic and he was so amazing; most of the time I was worried that I was getting in his way and slowing him down.
And yet...Vashyron was so kind, and so comforting, and no matter what I did or said he would never be angry or upset with me. If I didn't answer when he spoke to me, he would laugh and shrug it off, making a joke about how antisocial I was or saying 'what am I gonna do with you?' Nothing seemed to get to him. The only time I ever saw him looking worried was...when he thought I was hurt or upset.
I rolled over onto my stomach, hooking my arms underneath the pillow and burying my face into the soft material. It smelt very faintly of almond shampoo. Whether that was from my own hair or Vashyron's, as we used the same shampoo, I didn't know, but part of me really hoped it was due to the fact that he had slept here.
At this thought, my mind drifted elsewhere, and I couldn't help thinking about how his arm had felt around my waist, and how he had been so close to me. He didn't even hesitate when he thought I was going to fall. I wouldn't have really been hurt, and the worst I might have ended up with would be a bump on my head, but he still caught me.
Why?
Why did he have to care so much about me?
Why did he have to be so nice?
Why did he have to be so cool?
I found myself sighing heavily into the pillow, something I had never done before. How was it that I was getting all of these weird feelings now? I didn't ask for them. Was it because I turned sixteen? Maybe you get hormones when you turn sixteen.
No.
That can't be it.
Surely I should have felt like this about someone before.
Anyone.
But I can't think of any.
Why is it just him? He did save my life, and let me live with him, and took care of me when I was ill, and cared for me, and fed me, and bought me new clothes, and taught me how to use a gun properly...and treated me like a person.
That must be it. I like him because he's the first person to ever be kind to me. Not because I'm attracted to him.
Definitely not.
I mean...he is attractive.
Very.
I felt my cheeks heat up a little at the thought. Could I really be attracted to Vashyron? I had never thought about that kind of thing before, but whenever I see him I feel...happy, and safe, and I feel like for the first time in my life someone cares about me. I can imagine what it might be like to be close to him, and I can imagine what...his lips might feel like.
Crap.
I pushed myself up off the bed quickly, pacing around the room a little, still ignoring the complaints from my sprained ankle, before the man himself entered the room, standing in the doorway, stopping me in my tracks.
"I've got a job to go to, so I'm gonna be out for a little while. Maybe an hour or so. Are you gonna be alright on your own, sport?"
"Y...yeah, I'm just gonna...lie down for a while...and get some rest."
I pointed to the bed, as if it wasn't obvious where I would be doing this particular activity.
Jesus, Zephyr.
"Okay, good. If you're hungry, there's still some cake in the refrigerator."
He motioned behind himself to the kitchen, smiling and patting my shoulder gently, before going out, closing the bedroom door behind himself.
I stayed in the same spot until I heard the front door, letting out a deep breath and dropping back down onto the bed face first, making sure to keep my damaged ankle out of the way when doing so.
Okay, it was official. I was attracted to Vashyron. How could I not be? He looked like a male supermodel, but he was funny, and smart, and the kindest person I had ever met. Not only that, but he was so cool sometimes I felt bad just being seen with him.
The only problem was the fact that he clearly liked women. I had occasionally seen him talking to them, and they were always laughing and flirting with him. It was a little bit annoying, but I had never once thought that I might actually be jealous of those women.
But I want him to pay attention to me. I want him to tell me jokes, and tell me about all of the jobs he's done, and I want him to cook me dinner and sit and eat it with me, and I want him to laugh at the things I say, and smile at me, and say good morning to me after I wake up, and...
...I want him to like me as much as I like him.
I buried my face into the pillow again, breathing in the faint smell. If I could never tell him then at least I could still enjoy his company. I would just have to appreciate the times we were close, like today. I played that scene again in my mind; his arm around my waist, his face so close to mine. If anyone else had been touching me like that, I probably would have hit them, but Vashyron is different. It felt nice because it was him.
But it wasn't enough. I wanted more than that. I wanted him to kiss me. I really wanted him to kiss me. Considering the fact that I had never kissed anyone before, and I was already sixteen, I wanted it all the more. I wouldn't consider myself a regular teenager, but even I get curious sometimes.
Okay, so I wanted him to kiss me, but what else was there?
My mind had never really wandered further than that. I am not exaggerating when I say that I know absolutely nothing about sex.
...But Vasyhron does.
I felt my cheeks heat up again as I considered the many possibilities of what exactly Vashyron knew. He's an adult, right? And he obviously likes women, and women like him, and he's very good-looking. I can at least figure that much out.
What about me? I know absolutely nothing. If anything were ever to happen...would that bother him?
Probably not.
I found it difficult to stop my mind from conjuring up a scenario in which something like that did happen. He would probably be nice about it, and he would make me feel comfortable, and he would go slowly. I suppose that's what I would want.
Then again, there's another part of me, deep down...that wants the opposite; the part that wants him to want me, and to suddenly burst into the room and...
...and what?
What would he do to me?
I let out another frustrated sigh as I felt an uncomfortable heat building in the pit of my stomach, and realized that my jeans were slightly tighter than usual. I knew what it was, of course, but this rarely happened to me; I never wasted time thinking about stuff like that aside from the odd dream, but that was beyond my control.
However, that didn't change the fact that my clothes were now irritating my skin somewhat...in some places more than others, and that I still couldn't manage to block my earlier thoughts out. Being in Vashyron's bedroom, and lying on his bed, of all places, did not help matters. It felt wrong for me to be thinking about him in that way while I was in here...which somehow made me want it all the more.
I slid one of my hands out from underneath the pillow, resting it against my stomach and pushing my t-shirt just a little way up using my fingers. It felt kind of nice having my bare skin touching the bed sheets, and I silently cursed myself for thinking it, but I couldn't ignore the thought that, at some point, Vashyron had been lying here.
Shifting my hips slightly so I could reach further down, I brushed my fingers over the fastening on my jeans, before pressing my palm down over the material, immediately feeling a small spike of heat through my abdomen.
I was beginning to wonder when exactly it was that I had last done this.
A long time ago, I'd say.
It's not that I was a prude or anything. I had shared a room with some of the other boys at the orphanage, which meant I had little time for 'experimenting' with such things. Aside from that I never really felt the need to do it.
'I'm feeling the need right now. That's for sure,' I thought to myself as I slid my hand down between my thighs and then back again painfully slowly, pushing down harder when I felt my body jolt a little in reaction, and I subconsciously slid my thighs a little further apart against the bed. Normally I would have been embarrassed that my body seemed so needy, but it had been such a long time, and it felt so good, that I was really finding it hard to justify not continuing, so I rather hastily unfastened my jeans, repeating the movement over the much thinner material of my underwear.
As I continued this, more roughly than before, and the heat in the pit of my stomach intensified, it became increasingly difficult to stop myself from moving my underwear out of the way, but I couldn't bear the thought of possibly making a mess on Vashyron's bed.
What's more, I was a little concerned and embarrassed by the fact that I was getting so close so quickly, to the point of which a small section of my underwear had become ever so slightly damp. Luckily, that worry was pushed to the back of my mind as I slowly rubbed my thumb over that area, which was definitely much more sensitive than I remember it being.
Trying to go slowly didn't help, and I found myself biting my lip to suppress the inevitably embarrassing noises that were trying to escape as the knot of heat deep in my abdomen seemed to tighten, and I gripped the pillow beneath my head. The fact that there was nobody there to hear me didn't matter; I couldn't bear even hearing myself like that. Even a very quiet, slightly lusty sigh made my cheeks burn when it passed the gap between my lips.
After another few minutes of this teasing, I couldn't take it anymore, raising my hips off the bed so I could move my hand more quickly over the front of the material, which was now unbearably tight. It only took what felt like a couple of seconds for me to reach the edge, and I bucked against my palm, feeling more of the material dampen, some of it sticking lightly to my skin. I still managed not to make any noise, but let out a shaky breath which it felt like I had been holding the whole time.
I didn't want to think about the reason it had all ended so quickly, but in my mind, the hand touching me definitely wasn't my own.
I lay there for a while after cleaning myself up, staring at the ceiling again and feeling guilty about what I had just done. I was obviously much more relaxed than before, if a little dizzy, but I was really wishing that I had used some other means to reach this state. Now all I could think about was how awkward I was going to feel seeing Vashyron again. Clearly, he would have no clue about what I had done, but I just knew it would end up weighing on my conscience.
I wonder how he would react if he did know.
Well, he was Vashyron. He would probably laugh it off and make a joke about puberty or something, not even realizing that he was the reason behind it. It still wouldn't make it any less awkward.
After worrying about this for a while I decided to take a cool shower to better dispose of any evidence, hearing the front door while I was drying my hair in front of the bathroom mirror.
"Zephyr?!"
"...Yeah?!"
I heard him mutter something along the lines of 'oh, you're in the bathroom', before his voice grew clearer as, I'm assuming, he came over to the bathroom door.
"I bought us something to eat while I was out, so I hope you're hungry!"
There was a brief pause, before he added, "Are you feeling any better?"
Luckily I was already dressed, so I draped the damp towel around my shoulders and opened the door so we could speak face-to-face.
"Yeah, I am. Thanks."
"Well, I'm glad to hear it. I was a little worried before when you said that your ankle was hurting again," he beamed, reaching out to ruffle my hair, which was still wet. He didn't seem to care.
"Oh. Yeah, well, it's fine now. It doesn't hurt anymore." I said, truthfully. It really wasn't hurting anymore. It must have just been a temporary lapse.
"Great! C'mon. I got us some of that take-out food that you really like." He held up a pale blue, plastic bag briefly, before taking it over to the table. I followed him and sat down. Truthfully, I was actually starving.
While we were eating I tried to avoid making eye contact with him at all, worried that if I looked directly at him he might somehow read my mind and know what I had been doing while he was out, but it was difficult, considering the fact that the whole time he was telling me about the job he had just done, and I didn't want to seem like I didn't care. I actually loved hearing about his work. It was really interesting; he had always met some strange people or done something exciting; most of the time I actually felt jealous that I couldn't go with him and see it firsthand.
However, I knew that he had seen through my plan when he stopped eating and I felt him watching me from the other side of the table.
"...Are you okay? You're even quieter than usual."
This time I felt obliged to actually look him in the eye, hoping that my expression didn't give anything away.
"Y...yeah. I'm just tired."
"...But I thought you were gonna take a nap. You just said you were feeling better."
Shit.
"...W...well..."
"Was it something that I did? Wait..." he paused, and I felt my throat become dry as he watched me, before he pointed at my chest, clicking his fingers, "You're embarrassed because you couldn't do a back flip. Is that it?"
Not exactly.
"...Yes...I am."
I am a terrible liar.
Luckily, he bought it, chuckling and shaking his head as he ate another french fry.
"You don't have to be embarrassed. Most people couldn't even bend that far down to touch the floor to begin with, but you did it easily. You should feel lucky that you're so flexible."
Oh God.
"...I...guess so. So...what's your next job?" I asked, raising my eyebrows and trying to look interested, hoping that the conversation would change and he would quickly forget about my being quiet and the whole back flip thing. Thankfully he took the bait, and for the rest of the meal I managed to get him to talk about other things, listening and nodding along, the whole time trying not to think about the cheeseburger I was eating, and the fact that he had known it was my favourite and bought it for me especially because of that.
After the meal he went to take a shower, leaving me to clear away the trash, before I once again returned to my...his room, spending the rest of the night in there while listening to the strangely comforting sound of the television, and the occasional clink of a glass bottle against the coffee table.
He came in a few times to see if I was okay, each time commenting on how quiet I was and saying that if I wanted to talk that he was happy to listen, but I couldn't bring myself to go out and sit with him, so each time I tried my best to smile and assure him that I was fine, and each time he returned to the living room seeming somewhat put out.
I wasn't particularly unhappy.
It just felt...different now.
And I had no idea what to do.