A/N: LEMON/SMUT ALERT! Though, sorry to disappoint, it's not William and Aelita. Consider the end of this chapter me practicing for when it's William and Aelita's turn. Sorry, lol.
The late afternoon sun shines into the living room of the Hermitage. Its rays cause a slight glare on Jeremie's laptop screen, and he scrunches his nose in annoyance. Every time he does, his glasses slip further and further down the bridge of his nose.
Sitting near him is Aelita, who is pointedly remaining quiet as the two of them wait for the rest of the group to show up. She has her head in a book, absentmindedly twirling a strand of her hair that has broken free of the loose bun atop her head.
It takes an immense amount of self-control for Jeremie to keep his thoughts to himself. Truth be told, he misses Aelita. He misses how they used to spend so much time together. He misses the walks in the park, the ice cream dates, the nap dates, and just the overall feeling of being in love. He still cares for her–very much so–but it's just not the same as it was before everything blew up in his face.
Just as he opens his mouth to admit even a sliver of his feelings, there's a knock at the door. Aelita leaps up to open the door. Ulrich saunters into the room, looking a little worse for wear.
"Hey guys. Where's everyone else?" he asks as he wipes his forearm across his brow. "I dipped out of Silat practice early for this."
"Beats me," Jeremie says with a shrug.
Another knock sounds at the door. Aelita starts to get up again, but Ulrich gets to the door before she does. William enters, giving Ulrich a nod before wordlessly sitting beside Aelita.
"Hi," Aelita says with a small smile. "How was practice?"
William sighs. "Meh. Pretty rough."
Jeremie takes a quick glance at the two of them and makes an even quicker mental note of Aelita's suddenly more open body language. "Tch," he scoffs to himself. I must be imagining things.
There's another knock at the door, and this time when Ulrich opens it, in come Odd, Sissi, and Herve, in that order.
"What is this place?" Sissi breathes as she takes in her surroundings: the dated furniture and the musty yet not unpleasant smell of old wood. She locks eyes with Aelita and makes her way over to her.
"It's a long story," Aelita says as she pats the empty seat beside her.
"Herve, it will be best if you sit next to me so you can see my screen." Jeremie gestures to either seat near him.
With a haughty air, Herve takes a seat beside Jeremie, leaning over to look at the screen. "What is all this?" he asks, trying to make sense of Jeremie's obscure calculations.
"You'll find out soon enough. You'll hardly even believe it!" Odd quips with a snicker, trying to lighten the heaviness lingering in the air.
Another knock sounds at the door. Yumi shuffles in without acknowledging Ulrich. She takes a seat near Jeremie, who is confused and curious as to what's gotten her in a mood this time.
"Let's get this over with," Yumi deadpans, loud enough for only Jeremie to hear.
Jeremie clears his throat. "Before I begin, everyone in this room needs to understand that what you learn today must never be repeated to anyone not in this room right now under any circumstances. No, we are not a cult, but rather a group bound together by one common, highly important goal. If, at the end of this meeting, you ultimately decide you want no part in any of this, that can be arranged."
The silence that follows hangs thickly in the air as Jeremie purposefully makes eye contact with William, then Sissi, then Herve.
With a gulp, Jeremie continues on. "About eight years ago, when we were all new to Kadic and I hadn't any friends yet, I kept to myself and entertained myself with creating and developing miniature robots. I ended up stumbling upon an entire abandoned factory–yes, that old car factory down the street and across the bridge. I thought I hit the jackpot for robot parts, but I actually discovered a pretty insane laboratory with a huge mainframe and all sorts of related components. More on that later, Herve. After a few weeks, I grew a pair and turned the system on because curiosity got the better of me. When the monitors turned on, a very interesting looking, pink-haired artificial intelligence appeared."
Everyone's eyes dart to Aelita, who takes a nervous gulp before continuing Jeremie's thought. "It wasn't an artificial intelligence after all. It was me, trapped inside a virtual world that I knew little about. I didn't even know who I was at that point."
Sissi gasps. "Wait. How did you get there?" she asks incredulously.
"Long story," Aelita says again. "I'll tell you some other time."
"Weird things started to happen, then," says Ulrich, continuing the recounts. "First, I watched Jeremie get electrocuted by a vending machine and had to take him to the infirmary. Then, later that same day, I heard him screaming in his room and found him being attacked by his own mini robots. I knew some weird shit was going on and I wouldn't take no for an answer. He took me to the factory, showed me the supercomputer, and introduced me to Aelita, who he'd dubbed as 'Maya' for a bit there. Then he starts talking about materialization and what not, to get Maya earthside. He needed a guinea pig, and I wasn't gonna do it, so I stole Odd's stupid dog to use him as the guinea pig."
"One of the rudest things you've ever done, by the way," Odd says with a pout. "What'd my little diggity dog ever do to you, anyway?"
"Eat my homework, piss in my shoes, shit on my bed… need I go on?"
Several people in the room snicker.
"Mm…no. Well, anyway, I tried to grab Kiwi out of the scanner and it closed up on me. Next thing you know, I'm in a virtual forest, dressed like a giant purple cat. I don't even like cats. Oh, by the way, snookums, you actually followed me and Ulrich to the factory and witnessed this happen." He gives his girlfriend's hand a squeeze. "You don't remember it, though."
"Uh…no…I don't…."
Jeremie clears his throat again. "Well, anyway, I end up needing to virtualize Ulrich, too. Sissi, you were too scared to. Blah blah blah, a bunch of stuff happens, Yumi ends up joining in after more weird shit happens in the real world–including Sissi being electrocuted and breaking her word of secrecy in the infirmary. To stop all the weird shit that happens on Earth, you have to locate and deactivate an activated tower on Lyoko."
Herve interrupts Jeremie. "Lyoko. I assume that's the name of this virtual world."
"Correct. There are towers all over Lyoko, and they can be activated by us or by our enemy, XANA. XANA is an artificially intelligent multi-agent system created by Aelita's father. XANA is responsible for all the weird shit. Anyway, after fighting monsters and getting to the activated tower, Maya entered it."
"A screen popped up that said 'Aelita' once I placed my hand on it. Then it said, 'Code: Lyoko.' Once that happened, the weird shit on Earth stopped," Aelita chimes in.
Jeremie continues. "I launched a program called 'Return to the Past,' which turns time back by about a day for the whole planet. Thing is, if you haven't been scanned by the supercomputer, you won't remember a thing. So, I scanned myself in, and if you agree to keep our secret, you will be too, Sissi and Herve."
"What about William?" Sissi asks.
"Funny story–" Odd starts. He's interrupted by Jeremie.
"We spent quite a bit of time thwarting XANA's attacks. We even managed to materialize Aelita, as you can see. We ended up needing more manpower on the team, so I brought up the possibility of William joining us. On his first trip to Lyoko, XANA used one of his monsters to possess him. He used William to destroy Lyoko, escaped the supercomputer and got into the Internet, then enslaved him for months on end. It was a nightmare. I had to create a polymorphic specter using what I knew of his basic memories and the bare minimum emotions."
Yumi pipes up for the first time. "You were right all along, Sissi. The William you knew back then was not the real one. That was just a placeholder until we could free him from XANA's clutches."
"Aha!" Sissi exclaims. "I knew I wasn't losing my fucking mind. I knew you all had something to do with it!"
Ulrich's gaze shifts to William, and he sneers, his upper lip curling in disdain. "William was quite the menace. He did everything to keep us from deactivating towers. But, worst of all, he was relentless about going after Aelita. He was always trying to push or throw her into the Digital Sea. He actually did it one time, too. The Digital Sea is the Internet - fall in and you're virtualized forever. Deleted." Ulrich glares at William, who is now hunched over, with his face in his hands. "The bastard actually deleted Aelita, and if it wasn't for her father's intervention, she would be dead and gone. I don't know about you guys, but I personally wouldn't date someone who at one point killed me."
Aelita takes in a sharp breath. Her eyes dart to Jeremie, who is now looking at her with a mixture of confusion and disbelief on his features.
"Dude, what the fuck?" Odd snaps.
"That's enough, Ulrich." Yumi shoots him a look of frustration. "You can't keep holding onto the past like this. You had a front-row seat to him about to risk his own reputation just to protect Aelita, literally one week ago. Get off your high horse."
Ulrich meets her simmering glare with his own. "Yumi. You know what he did when he was possessed. You remember."
"Yes, I remember. But it's not like you're some patron saint of Lyoko who's never made mistakes in your life."
"Mistakes? Yumi, it's hardly a mistake to throw someone into the Digital Sea as forcefully as he did."
"We're here to discuss the present and the future, not rehash the past, Ulrich." Aelita's voice trembles with emotion. She puts a hand softly on William's shoulder.
But Ulrich is not ready to back down. He continues, his words dripping with sarcasm. "Oh, so we're just supposed to forget everything he did? Pretend it didn't happen?"
The room seems to grow smaller as the tension further thickens. William lifts his face from his hands with a seething, white-hot stare. "Since you're so stuck in the past, why don't you worry about yourself and your pathetic inability to actually go after the woman you claim to want, instead of sulking all the time and being too much of a fucking pussy to make an actual move." He spits the words out so bitterly that Aelita leans away, removing her hand from his shoulder like it's a hot stove.
Ulrich's face reddens with anger. "You've sure got a lot of fucking nerve, William."
Jeremie slams his laptop shut loudly. "Enough!"
The room falls into silence as Jeremie's outburst reverberates through the air. Everyone in the room exchanges tense glances.
Jeremie takes a deep breath to regain his composure. "Look. We can argue about the past all day, but right now we need to focus on the present."
Yumi sits on the park bench, the wind blowing through her short black hair. She grits her teeth as she recalls the tension of the meeting an hour ago. Jeremie took control of the rest of the meeting, which went relatively uneventfully, and now most of the others are down in the factory getting a briefing.
Her cell phone begins to ring. Upon seeing Ulrich on the caller ID, she rolls her eyes and ignores the call. Then, an incoming text message arrives, also from Ulrich. She immediately deletes it without reading it.
In the back of her mind, she knows William was right to say what he said about Ulrich. But, the rational side of her brain also knows that Ulrich had every reason to be upset.
Her cheeks burn as she recalls all the times through the years that she put herself out there, hoping that Ulrich would notice and take action. He never did. In fact, he made certain to always remind her that they were just "good friends." An angry tear escapes and makes its way down her cheek. She quickly swipes it away with her sleeve and stands up. She makes a beeline right for Ulrich's dorm room, her footfalls heavy with fury.
She's going to settle this score once and for all.
She knocks loudly on the door. No response. She knocks again harder, this time shouting his name. Still no response.
With ire flowing through her veins, she brusquely enters the room, slamming the door shut behind her.
"Go away," comes Ulrich's voice from beneath the covers.
"No."
"Go away!"
"No!" Yumi rips the covers off of him.
"Yumi!" Ulrich cries indignantly.
"How could you treat William like that after everything he's done to make up for it?"
"I could ask you the same thing about the way you were glaring at him at the party, but I guess you're such a good friend of his now that it wouldn't matter."
"You're being ridiculous."
"Me? I'm ridiculous? Look who's talking! You storm into my room, rip the covers off me, and for what? So you can stand there feeling righteous about how forgiving you are?"
"This has nothing to do with how forgiving I am. This has everything to do with how childish and petty you are."
Ulrich leaps out of bed. "You have no fucking right to call me childish."
"Oh, yes I do. You're either childish or you're super fucking oblivious. You wanna talk about the party? How about the fact that you ignored me the whole time, like I didn't even exist. You didn't acknowledge my presence or even speak to me. You sure as hell didn't notice the fucking outfit I wore just for you. But you just had to go playing the hero, as always, saving the day like you always do for everyone else."
Ulrich's anger starts to intensify. "What are you on about? You're the one who's fucking oblivious. I literally could not take my eyes off of you from the second you walked in the door. You think I didn't notice your outfit? It's because I noticed your outfit and knew I had alcohol in my system and didn't want to make a mistake I would later regret that I kept myself on the opposite side of the room from you. Honestly, it's a miracle I even noticed William winding up to punch Pelletier."
Yumi is dumbstruck.
Ulrich throws his arms up in the air. "But God forbid I give a shit about you. God forbid I keep myself away from you when I know I'm not at my best. You have no idea how much fucking self-control I had to exercise."
Yumi takes a step closer to Ulrich. "Why the hell would you think you needed self-control?"
"How is it possible you haven't figured it out yet?" Now Ulrich takes a step closer, bringing their faces inches apart.
Yumi's heart races at the realization of how close they are to each other. "Figured out what, Ulrich?"
Instead of a verbal answer, Ulrich grabs Yumi's face and kisses her.
When their lips finally meet, the electricity she feels is like nothing she's ever felt before.
"God, Yumi," Ulrich breathes as he breaks the kiss. "Do you know how long I've been wanting to do that?"
Yumi doesn't answer. Instead, she wraps her arms around Ulrich's neck and kisses him even deeper than before.
Without warning, Ulrich grabs her hips and effortlessly picks her up. She wraps her legs tightly around him as he carries her over to his bed. He breaks the kiss again.
"Are you sure, Yumi?" His eyes burn with a combination of desire and vulnerability.
"Absolutely."
The tension between the two of them had been building up over years and years. And now, after everything they've been through together and all the times Ulrich had pulled away out of fear, it's finally about to reach a turning point... the point of no return.
Their eyes never breaking contact, Ulrich sets Yumi down on the bed and climbs on top of her, his face hovering just inches above hers. Without hesitation, she reaches up to remove his shirt. With an amused smile, he does the same for her. He leans in to kiss her again. He moves his kisses to her jawline and then to her neck. His heart leaps as he hears a soft moan escape her mouth.
He moves to undo her bra. She stops him, though.
"Let me," she breathes into his ear. She expertly unhooks her bra and discards it. Ulrich's mouth gapes as he takes in the sight of her. He has to remind himself to close it.
"Touch me," she says, almost like a command, bringing him back to reality.
"Gladly," he whispers huskily. He cups one breast with his left hand and the other with his right, and caresses them with his thumbs. Yumi arches her back in response. Ulrich plants kisses on the sensitive skin between her breasts. She threads her fingers through his hair and gasps.
Ulrich plants soft kisses on Yumi's stomach as he moves down her body. His lips linger at her belly button. He glances up at her, looking for confirmation before proceeding further.
"Yes," she whimpers.
With one hand, he undoes her belt and unbuttons her pants, then does the same to his. He slowly pulls her jeans off of her. She wriggles out of them. He tosses them carelessly aside.
He kisses the inside of her thigh, teasing her by moving closer to where she wants him to go but not quite getting there yet. She tugs at his hair in frustration. He obliges, kissing her through the thin fabric of her panties. She lets out a low moan.
Ulrich hooks his index fingers on her waistband. "Last chance," he says as he looks up at her again.
"Stop playing around and take them off already," Yumi huffs impatiently.
She doesn't have to ask him twice. He removes her panties and dives right in. He licks her in circles, taking his time as he goes, savoring the feeling of making her come undone. Her soft moans only motivate him further. He uses his fingers to explore, finding the most sensitive spots.
After a few more moments, she grabs his shoulders and roughly flips him over so that she's on top of him now. With an impish grin, she straddles him, pinning him to the bed. He grows even harder at the sight of her towering over him, the look of anticipation on her face.
"My turn," she purrs. She kisses him deeply, running her hands all over his muscular body. Her lips make a trail from his jawline to his collarbone, and then to his chest. She drags her tongue down his toned abs to just above where his boxer briefs begin. He bucks his hips needily.
Yumi smirks. She teasingly hooks her fingers on his waistband and takes her time to pull his underwear off, revealing his now fully erect cock. Ulrich closes his eyes and swears as Yumi takes him in her mouth, moving her head up and down in a rhythm that drives him mad.
He threads his fingers through her hair and gently pulls it.
She stops and looks up at him.
"As good as that feels, Yumi, I can't hold myself back much longer." His breath is ragged.
Wordlessly, she climbs back on top of him and slowly sinks onto him, both of them gasping and moaning. Once he's completely inside her, she stops to adjust to his size.
They keep a steady and slow pace. Yumi moves her hips up and down, and Ulrich thrusts up into her. Their breathing grows heavier and heavier with each new thrust. He reaches for her hips to increase the speed, and she allows it.
Soon enough, Ulrich flips them over so that he is once again on top. He pulls her hips close to him, his fingertips digging into her soft skin as he drives himself further into her. Yumi gasps and arches her back in pleasure. Her moans grow louder as Ulrich picks up speed. He buries his face in the crook of her neck, his hot breath sending chills down her spine.
"Holy shit," he whispers. He pulls her impossibly closer to him and thrusts one final time. His climax sends Yumi over the edge, and she bites her lip to keep from crying out.
Spent, Ulrich collapses beside Yumi and wraps her in his arms. They remain in silence for several minutes, catching their breaths and relishing in post-coital bliss.
Finally, Ulrich breaks the silence. "So. I guess this means we're more than just good friends, huh?"
"You idiot," Yumi chuckles as she kisses him.