It was the drums that woke him up.

Suzaku had been dozing in that pleasant haze between waking and sleep when the thud of drums boomed through the floor, swiftly followed by a sizzling guitar riff. Jerking out of bed, he had a moment to remember that the last thing this could possibly be was a surprise inspection, or a bomb threat. Still, what in the world was going on downstairs?

Tugging his t-shirt straight from where it had rucked up during the night and spearing his fingers through his hair in an effort to scrape it back out of his eyes, Suzaku padded down the steps. It didn't matter that his movements were silent; the music was cranked loud enough to have the railing rattling in its moors. Yet somehow, impossibly, she must have heard him.

Because Aurora, her hair still wild with her early morning, haven't-yet-showered tousle, skidded out of the kitchen where the music pounded, her eyes lighting like fireworks at the sight of him. Despite her somewhat less-than-polished state, she managed a jaunty stance any rock star would be proud to flaunt, despite the sleep pants that had probably been orange at some point but had faded to an awful pale color reminiscent of bile, and the paint-splattered t-shirt emblazoned with magenta letters reading "I'm only an angry feminist when you're an ignorant, misogynistic asshole."

With index fingers pointed like pistols, she advanced on him, rocking and swaying to the beat. It was only then that he absorbed the lyrics. It was a classic rock band's birthday song, inviting him to dance. She snagged his hand, and he fell in step, blaming the sleep still clogging his brain for engaging in that particular display, the both of them sleep-ruffled and hardly dressed for company as they twirled and slid. It was only when they spun through the last "Woo-hoo," that Aurora finally spoke.

Laughingly, she clasped his hand between hers, rose on her toes, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Much like the one yesterday, it was entirely innocent, and elicited a response in him way out of proportion. Her words quickly distracted him, though, softly murmured with a genuine smile.

"Happy birthday, Suzaku."

He stared at her, stunned.

Today was July tenth. He was twenty-one years old.

He'd forgotten. It had been years since he'd celebrated his birthday; he was hard-pressed to recall one that wasn't a little stained with some sort of misery.

Against all odds, even his own design, he'd survived to see the final marker of legal adulthood. It seemed ridiculous, breaching that last barrier that held so little weight in his universe. As he gazed at Aurora, her eyes wise and bright, he nodded – what else could he do? She knew, and she'd tried to make it better for him. It didn't have to be a tragedy, she seemed to say silently, slowly running her thumb over the ridges of his scarred knuckles. It could be a salute to those lost, and the ones still living. Including himself.

Clearing his throat against the emotion that thickened it, he memorized the angles of Aurora's face, denuded of make-up and deceptively soft, her hair a crown of disordered waves leaning towards frizz. This too, he would take with him.

"Thanks. So what's for breakfast?"

As it turned out, whatever he wanted. She'd anticipated his request, and so, for the first time in years, Suzaku sipped miso soup with breakfast. It was an instant mix, and far from the best he'd ever had. But that first salty tang of it made his eyes faintly sting, the scent resurrecting nostalgic memories long buried. Along with it was sticky rice, which she'd somehow managed without a steamer, smoked mackerel no doubt from a nearby fishing village, a rolled omelet somewhat ragged around the edges, and pickled plums almost leathery in texture, unsurprising considering how far they were from their place of origin. It wasn't the most stunningly prepared traditional Japanese breakfast he'd ever sat down to, nor were its tastes flawless or fabulous.

But it was delicious. He would have eaten every scrap for the effort of it all alone. As it was, Aurora was a good cook, and the fact that she'd thought of this, put in all this work, to give him something that she knew would matter so much, well. It was in and of itself a superb birthday gift. He nearly wept at the feel of chopsticks in his hand again. It pleased him to see Aurora fairly adept with them.

After, once the kitchen was set to rights by them both – a battle it took Suzaku some time to win – and they sat at the table, sipping their respective morning beverages, Aurora gazed at him over the rim of her mug.

"So. What do you want to do today?"

At his shrug, she continued.

"Anything. Well, within reason. But seriously. Dealer's choice."

"Fishing." Suzaku blinked a few times, shocked the word had come from his mouth so easily without conscious intent. Aurora just blinked at him.

"Fishing," she parroted. Warming to the subject, Suzaku grinned slowly at the thought.

"Yeah. I haven't been in years. It's actually quite nice, once you get the hang of it."

For a moment, she wrinkled her nose at him in such a distinctly feminine way, Suzaku nearly snorted. Then her expression cleared, and Aurora rolled her shoulders in that certain way she had; an elegant, non-verbal c'est la vie.

"Well, then. Let's get to it."

Later, Suzaku was exactly where he wanted to be. Seated on the soft bank of a lake mirroring the sky above in bright swatches of rich blue, Suzaku had his legs comfortably crossed, patiently reeling in the line before again casting. The quiet plop of the bait was satisfying in a way he'd be hard put to describe, the breeze, tasting of water and wildflowers, tousling the fringes of hair escaping from under his black ball cap. Sunglasses shielded his eyes from uncharacteristically warm Irish sunshine, the heat of it sinking into his bones, a languid calm stealing over him in the breathing quiet.

Aurora had accompanied Suzaku despite her misgivings, digging out the gear from the shed she'd organized, sacrificing a can of corn and some cheese for the cause. She'd led the way to the lake, a bit of an eastern hike from the house. Ban accompanied them, successfully making sure no wildlife wandered too close to their small band, more by clumsy accident than design. Aurora pointed out the forget-me-not's and lobelia that starred the banks, the bright bursts of color out amongst the lapping ripples of water lilies.

He couldn't have said it surprised him, but Suzaku learned quickly enough that Aurora was terrible at fishing.

More accurately, she had zero patience for it. She'd diligently sat through his introductory instructions, taking well to the movement of casting and baiting her hook. But as time dragged and she had yet to snag a single fish, she'd started to sigh. The more she'd sighed, the more amused Suzaku had been, until finally, he'd rested his hand over hers before she could cast again.

"Did you bring a book?"

She'd looked at him with such wry awareness and relief, he'd been forced to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

"I brought three." By unspoken, tacit agreement, Aurora relinquished her fishing rod and dug out one of the books she'd brought with her. Ban had spent much of the morning shooed out of casting range, nosing among the reeds and watching squirrels skitter through nearby trees with avid interest. Now, however, he returned to his mistress, laying down in the thick grass, Aurora's head pillowed on his muscular rump as she resumed her book where she'd marked it with a scrap of blue silk.

Suzaku discovered a side benefit of the sunglasses Aurora had hooked in the collar of his t-shirt before heading out. He could watch her, observe her at his leisure as he steadily fished, catching a medium-sized trout with so little fanfare that she didn't even notice as he stood, smoothly caught the fish, removed the hook with no fuss, and let it slide back into the water with barely a splash.

Sitting again, he cast, his eyes drifting back to Aurora as he steadily reeled. She'd foregone sunglasses, allowing him to catch the flick and flash of her eyes racing over the words, squinted a little as she'd forgotten her reading glasses. Long limbs stretched out in the grass, as natural in a t-shirt and jeans as she was in beautiful dresses and fierce heels, Aurora still painted a picture with her sleek ponytail and glimmering earrings, this time tiny silver lightning bolts. Suzaku smiled at himself a little sardonically; since when had he ever noticed a woman's earrings?

As they sat in companionable silence, time drifted away like dust, unnoticed and unnecessary. He was so busy admiring the arch of Aurora's wrists that it took Suzaku a moment to notice that he'd caught another fish. This time, the indignant splashing caught Aurora's attention, who launched to her feet like he'd snagged an orca. Bannock, of course, mirrored his mother, so as Suzaku belatedly began to reel the fish in, he had a cheerleading section far more excited than his meager accomplishment called for. Still, it made him smile.

This catch was bigger than the last; conversely, he had a bit more fight in him. By the time the trout and the hook that had fooled him was extracted, then complimented and catalogued before being slipped back into the waters of his home, swimming away with a furious flip of his tail, Aurora had pulled in close to Suzaku's side. Bannock had wandered away, disinterested in this fish business once the evidence disappeared back into the lake waters.

All this coalesced into a single result that Suzaku struggled to calculate or reason out; Aurora snagged her book from where she'd tossed it in her excitement, shuffled a few pages before finding where she'd been, and stretched out on the grass again, her head now comfortably resting on Suzaku's thigh. Her long tail of hair coiled behind the bend of his knee, the warmth of her shoulder near his hip. He just stared down at the top of her head, the fishing rod forgotten in his hands.

It was intimate, but it didn't have to be sexualized. It was only a comfortable, friendly gesture, if he wanted it to be. Suzaku was starting to realized that he didn't, necessarily. But what would it result in? A catharsis that would only compound later heartache? He was no stranger to duty – it had dogged him all his life. The few times he'd tried to shirk it, the results had been beyond disastrous. So why risk it now?

Because Aurora was worth it. And because she was worth it, he couldn't risk it, or her. The frustration and rage were an ugly pair inside him, controlled like a vicious dog with a practiced hand and a clench of his jaw. Suzaku tried to let it go, worked to release the pain and emotion like a controlled flow of water from behind a burgeoning dam, build by unstable slats of pride and fear, obstinacy and desperation.

Aurora would tell him that eventually the dam would collapse under the strain, and the damage caused could be incalculable. She would tell him that she was a safe repository for his fears and hurts, that she could share a load he didn't need to heft all alone. Because she'd been there; she was a fellow survivor that could commiserate without the sticky gloss of hollow sympathy. It was dangerous to need her like this, because soon enough he wouldn't have her at all. But the fact that Aurora would say it, that she'd tried at all, made him feel more for her than he would have ever thought himself capable of again.

Suzaku gazed down at her, presented with a view of hair like old gold coins, a straight nose and a strong jaw. Girl could take a punch, he though fondly, and when she tightened that jaw and jutted out that stubborn chin, heaven help her opponent. She must have felt the weight of his gaze, because she tilted her head back a little to look at him. The movement against his leg had Suzaku swallowing against a flush of heat against the inside of his skin.

But he managed a smile, soft with affection. She returned it, and his whirling mind settled a little. Noticing the way she narrowed her eyes against the sun, Suzaku took off his hat, settling it over her head with a few easy tugs. He didn't mind; he knew she stole it often.

With that, he turned his attention back to fishing.

In the way of Irish summers, rain came rolling in to squash plans into an unsightly, muddy mess. After a pleasant picnic lunch, the clouds had gathered, and no force of Aurora's will could keep the rain locked inside them until tomorrow. Suzaku just shrugged, pushing the sunglasses he no longer needed up on top of his head. In the drizzle, they packed up their gear, and headed out.

Both were crafted of tough stock, so there was no complaining about a hike in a little rain. Approximately twenty minutes out from the house, however, the drizzle became a deluge, the rain pounding down in sheets. While they'd been selectively damp before, now the trio became utterly soaked in a matter of minutes. With a long exhale, Aurora looked over at Suzaku. When their eyes met, she looked up at the sky, blew a resigned breath out of her nose, then shrugged.

"I guess Ireland is wishing you happy birthday the only way she knows how." The rain might have put a wrinkle in her plans, but if the thought that an ecosystem would put on a show just for his birthday tickled Suzaku enough to have his lips twitch, then it wasn't all bad.

The slog home was long, but not particularly arduous. Suzaku hopped the wall out back, holding out a hand for her to take and allow him to help her over. It almost irritated Aurora, before she decided it was charming. He was so serious about being chivalrous, it made her want to kiss his soaked hair, too heavy with rain to curl much and turned nearly black by the wet. Instead she took his cool, damp hand, and cleared the wall.

The rain had turned the yard into a muddy pit; Bannock had already coated three quarters of his legs with the sludge as he raced through it. As such, when she landed, Aurora skidded a little. She could have corrected herself, if Suzaku hadn't still held her hand, and yanked to pull her upright. It would have worked, if Aurora hadn't been trained since pre-adolescence to return unexpected force against her with its equal, if not exceed it. As such, instead of ceding to his help, she instinctively resisted it, with such power that it overwhelmed their balances, both of which were impressive, but compromised by slick footing. Even as they toppled in a slipping mess of tangled limbs, Aurora thought with a sarcastic inner laugh that they were both too tough for their own good.

Ever the good knight, Suzaku twisted to take the brunt of the fall, finding himself flat on his back in thick Irish mud with Aurora, a spot of it marking the bridge of her cheekbone, ranging over him. Her hand was still gripped in his, his arm having somehow looped around her waist during the whole fiasco. Suzaku saw something glimmer in her gaze; he wondered if she was upset. This was a rather compromising scenario, but he tried not to allow that thought much traction. Just as he opened his mouth to apologize, a glob of mud the size of a baseball splatted against his forehead.

He stared at Aurora, stunned, even as muck dripped down his temples and back into his hair. That glimmer was easy enough to identify now, paired with a smirk arranged across her pretty lips; she was massively amused and dangerously mischievous.

"Sorry. I couldn't resist." She didn't sound apologetic, though; she sounded enormously entertained. He could hear the laughter in her words. Before Suzaku could rally his brain to utter something intelligent in return, Aurora shot up, loping away with a maniacal giggle. With someone else, on another day, Suzaku supposed he would have slowly sat up, wiped the glop from his face with a glower, and shut her down with a cutting phrase before stomping inside. Because this was ridiculous.

But not with Aurora. Not today. Before he thought it through, Suzaku launched to his feet with a playful growl, grinning like the devil himself as he caught Aurora's eye, and gave chase.

Like children, they mucked around in the mud and thick rain, handfuls of mire flying even as the occasional squeal or grunt shot through the air. Aurora had fought Suzaku before, but never with projectiles. He had an excellent aim, arm, and awareness. And while she'd started this mess, Aurora took her fair share of casualties with bright good cheer, not complaining in the least when Suzaku smeared the back of her neck with cold gunk, instead shrieking delightedly when he tipped them both into a puddle with a geysering splash.

Ban was not spared, and by now was completely brown, caked in the stuff. His lolling tongue was shockingly pink against his grimy exterior as he danced around the two of them wrestling, barking his encouragement.

Hands slid off of mud-slicked skin, the two of them slippery as otters as they both tried, and failed, to gain the upper hand. Laughter panted out, and when the braced heels of Aurora's palms slid in the mud as she ranged over him, bumping their noses together and pressing her body full-length against Suzaku's, they held still for a breathless moment, every slope and valley aligned without reservation or guile as they tried not to breathe, not to move.

His eyes dominated Aurora's vision; deep and green and achingly innocent. Because she saw a flicker of shock and fear race through that verdant color, Aurora pulled back slightly, even as every sliver of muscle yearned towards him. With a crooked grin, she tapped the tip of her mud-coated finger against his nose before rolling aside to her feet and galloping away. Even as her heart bled, she spun and laughed, daring him to come after her.

Suzaku shook his head like she'd clocked him in the temple, instead of gently tapping his nose. His brain still fried from that press of muscle and softness against him, he eventually got his head back in the game. They played like wolf pups as the rainfall lightened, until it misted more than rained, the mere suggestion of moisture drifting down at gravity's behest. And in the midst of these fairy tears, the two of them finally stood in the middle of the yard, thoroughly and wretchedly filthy, breathing hard and doing their damndest not to giggle, deciding the battle, though fierce, could be considered a draw. The sheepish grin Suzaku shot Aurora was startling white against the dark smear of muck against his skin.

"You're a mess," she said with an easy laugh. Suzaku just raised a brow at the glaring obviousness of her observation after glancing down at himself – he looked like he'd been rolling around in the mud for twenty minutes. Convenient, considering it was accurate.

"Because you're so clean," he threw back wryly, the glitter of her hair utterly obscured by a dense coat of mud, even as her eyes flashed and danced. Playfully, she stuck out her tongue.

Eventually, they figured out the best way to scrape off the worst of the damage – Ban was happy enough to be hosed off, because apparently a garden hose was in no way similar to the warm waters of a bathtub. On damp tip-toes, they gingerly crept over clean kitchen tiles, disgusting boots left by the door. Just then, Bannock gleefully trotted in, clean but dripping wet. Suzaku managed to snag his soaked collar, while Aurora lunged to the laundry room for one of the designated dog towels. Tossing one to Suzaku, they set to quick work, Ban happily squirming at the attention. Once he was dried and released, Aurora rolled up the hems of her jeans, stopping to wash up to her elbows. She waved Suzaku on to the downstairs bathroom, promising to drop off some towels once her hands were clean. He'd just managed to strip off his socks when she knocked, towels and a bottle of his shampoo in hand.

Just as she started down the hallway after dropping off her offerings, something made Aurora look back over her shoulder. The door knob was a little faulty, and the tiny snick as the mechanism slid free had drawn her attention. Moving back to pull it shut, Aurora froze as her eyes rose, her hand lifted ineffectually to the knob.

Through the sliver of an opening, she could see the reflection of Suzaku as he stood and stripped off his wet t-shirt. She knew what Suzaku looked like – she'd seen him sick and hurt, healing and strong. But there was something about the slope of his defined shoulders, the way his spine dipped to impossibly narrow hips, where his jeans, heavy with wet, currently hung a little precariously. The mud obscured some of the scarring on his back, but not all of it. The shiny swatches of burns, the ripples of old lacerations. And there, high on his left shoulder, was a small, brutal disk, an echo of the bullets that had almost killed him.

It made her palms damp, the wanting of him. The way Aurora wanted to trace her fingers, her lips, over the tapestry of old wounds. To ease what still pulsed with hurt; at the very least, to make his pain a little bit hers. Because Suzaku's damage made him, much the way hers did. And if she could take nothing else of him with her, then maybe she could carry a little bit of his suffering, gleaned from a contact that meant more to both of them than most would understand.

Loneliness bloomed like a dark flower inside her. It was something she rarely tolerated in herself, often choking it out of existence before it had a chance to take root. What right had she? – Aurora had family, even if it was one she'd made herself. But she was tired of holding herself apart, even if it was a last, desperate act of self-preservation. Tired of standing aside and wishing, even as every scrap of logic fluttering through her brain demanded that the distance wasn't great enough; this close to that kind of heat, she was bound to get burned. Badly enough to scar.

Gritting her teeth, she silently shut the door, careful to make sure the mechanism fell home. She turned away, pausing at the base of the stairs, her hand vising around the newel post. She wasn't stupid enough to throw away everything on a hot-blooded desire. But, apparently, she also wasn't smart enough to step far enough back to avoid lasting damage. Caught in an emotional no-man's land, yearning to go back but struggling to tamp down the urge to flee, Aurora worked to just breathe. Once she'd managed it, she began to the motions of climbing the stairs. Just a little longer, she reminded herself. Just a little longer, and her choice wouldn't matter. The pendulum will have swung; by then, she could bring herself to deal with the consequences.

For now, she needed to get cleaned up. Drying mud itched.

The clouds fell back, and a bright, deep summer sun flooded the wet land with its lingering light. Tea time came, and was observed with pleasantly weary muscles clothed in lounging pants and soft t-shirts. Suzaku had barely started into his Earl Gray when Aurora set a box on the table. Uncomprehendingly, he stared at it.

It was small, barely the size of a credit card. It was wrapped in shimmering burgundy paper, the fanciful golden bow just the sort of touch Aurora would affix to something. It was beautiful. And yet, he still didn't understand it.

"It's a birthday present, you goof," she said with a gentle laugh. Blushing a little, he took the box, carefully undoing the ribbon and swiftly and cleanly doing away with the paper. Still bemused, as the box was quite light, he lifted the lid, and stared at the contents.

It was a key.

He'd seen one just like it before. Aurora had used it to lock or unlock the doors to this house.

"I know you'll be leaving soon. But I wanted to be certain that you understood; that you believed. This will always be a safe place to you, a sanctuary should you need it. You only have to ask, Suzaku. And we'll be here for you." Her words were a little rushed, her cheeks a little pink. Because he was moved by the gravity of the gesture, he could comprehend her concern about making it, if not her embarrassment at revealing her vulnerabilities with such an action. Even if it was just a spare key, it still meant a great deal. It took Suzaku a while to master himself enough to speak.

"Thank you, Aurora. Sincerely." Uncertain, and a little embarrassed by what he intended, Suzaku reached forward, and gently cupped her cheek in his hand. Her skin was so soft, the edge of her cheekbone and the fragility of her temple a manifestation of her strengths and delicacies. He weakened at the wanting slowly surging through him, and so stayed still, longingly, when her hand crept up to clasp around his wrist.

They came closer, drawn slowly like magnets, heads tipping closer until their foreheads rested together. They breathed one another's air, shared a warmth that they promised themselves could sustain them through the coming days. The summer light blessed them, dancing through the air to merrily bathe the pair in the light of the fleeting season.

I waited a while to post this chapter because it is, indeed, July 10th. I so badly wanted to post the first chapter about his birthday actually on his birthday. It pleases the dork in me.

Part 1 of the Birthday Bash. I hope you all enjoyed these dumbasses being cute together, because there's more where that came from. I'm going to try really, REALLY hard to get the next part out tomorrow, but it's a little massive, so we'll have to see how the day goes. Tentatively, there are two more parts to follow the next chapter. Enjoy the volume, because more than likely it won't last long.

Hope you like it!

Love, Tango