Understanding

It had to be done, Yohji reminded himself.  They hadn’t had lives anyway, not even the ambulatory ones.  It had to be done.  They’d been doing those poor people–former people–a favor.

He turned the water hotter and reached for the–not the washcloth, the loufa.

No.  The fingernail brush.

Aya had refused to join him, probably wanting to make sure it was over or something.  Yohji wasn’t sure.  Even after all they’d been together, Aya in Abyssinian mode still didn’t talk much.  But that was probably it.  Aya didn’t trust Schu as Yohji–sort of–did.  Or he didn’t know the sadistic bastard as well as he thought, if he thought the explosions would stop before the fight did, stolen powers or not.

Besides, the brainless had stopped attacking, had turned instantly back to attempted-helpful.  Yohji had been forced to teach three to fetch, and sent an orange bouncing down four flights of stairs to be able to shower alone.

Aya had just looked at him when he said he was going to shower.  Thinking he was an idiot, no doubt, not even knowing if they were safe yet.  But he had to wash.  Aya didn’t mind the blood.  Yohji did.

Didn’t mind.  Aya didn’t mind the blood.  Yohji couldn’t stand it.  When it was on Aya’s trench, he could almost ignore it.  But when Aya stood barefoot in blood, white skin spattered, his arms, his chest, his face, sticking his hair into spikes, his eyes glowing but no warmth in them, his features perfect but so remote–

He hadn’t hesitated.  Yohji had explained his guess, and started trying to wake the first one he reached.  Stupid.  Wake the sleeping princess and break the evil spell.  Aya had walked on, and killed four before Yohji realized.  And two more as he watched, mesmerized.  Stab, step, step as the blade swung up, blood flying in an arc, stab, step, step, swing–

At least the mindless had come before he could watch any more.  That had been easier, had been self-defense.  Sort of.  Stupid and smiling even while they attacked barehanded–

The door opened; Aya slipped into the shower.  Yohji stepped back as the water turned red.  He backed another step and lifted his eyes, to make sure none of it was coming from inside Aya.

Kami he was beautiful.  Yohji watched the man revealed as the blood washed away, and felt his body stir.  Sparkling water ran off white limbs, followed the lines of his muscles as he moved, relaxing under the hot spray.  Red hair plastered to his head.  Yohji kept expecting the color to wash off, for the water to run red again–Aya opened those incredible eyes to give Yohji a long look, then reached behind him to turn the hot water down.

“Come here,” he ordered.  Yohji stepped into his lover’s arms with a whimper.

“Aya…”  He tried to kiss him, but Aya held his face away, staring into his eyes.  Yohji shifted against him, wet skin on wet gorgeous skin.  “Ayan, please…”

“Yohji–

“Please, Ayan.  Please, baby, make it go away.”

“Hush,” Aya whispered, pulling Yohji’s face to his.  “I will.”  Lips met, tongues, teeth–Aya. God he’d missed–

Strong arms turned him around; Aya gently pushed Yohji to the wall under the showerhead, and rested his body on Yohji’s.  The blonde moaned at the welcome weight, he needed to feel Aya, he needed everything Aya–

The touch of the washcloth surprised him.  Aya washed him gently from ears to waist, kissing him the while, only breaking away long enough to tell him how beautiful he was, how his elbow was the most perfect of elbows, his navel the most appealing thing Aya had ever seen.  Vanilla scent filled the steamy air, Aya was using lots of soap.  Yohji felt the misery washing out of him.  Aya knew.  He knew what Yohji needed and he would never withhold it.

The washcloth moved below his waist, and went slower.  “This spot right here,” Aya murmured, his fingers tracing the crease where Yohji’s leg met his body.  “I love this spot.”  Yohji lifted his leg, wrapped it around his lover.  “Because when I touch it you do that,” Aya continued with a chuckle.

“Ayan…” Yohji whined.  Patience was a good thing, he would be the first to admit.  But not now.  “Come on, kitten…”

“Sshh…” Aya hushed him again, but coconut scent joined the vanilla, and Yohji felt a slick finger slide inside him.  He let his head fall to Aya’s shoulder and moaned encouragement.  Aya did understand, very soon he tugged at Yohji’s support leg, drawing it around him too.  Yohji threw his head back as his lover entered him.

“Yesss,” he hissed.  “Come on…”

“Ready?” Aya whispered, nuzzling his ear.  Yohji squeezed with arms and legs.

“Fuck me!”

Aya stopped being gentle.  He grabbed Yohji’s hips and slammed him to the wall, withdrew and slammed back, biting Yohji’s ear as he did.

“Yes!”

With a growl Aya let go of the ear, fastened his lips on Yohji’s neck as he slammed in again.  Again.  And again, fucking and sucking hard, it hurt and Yohji wanted it to, he wanted a bruise he’d see for a week, he wanted–

“Aya!” he shouted as everything but heat and steam, vanilla and coconut and the man inside him, melted away.  “Motto, Ayan!”

The swordsman shifted his grip, slowed down and grasped Yohji’s erection, stroking him off as he rocked Yohji against the wall, licking and kissing the sore spot on his neck.  Yohji groaned and came, shaking and gasping.  Aya nuzzled his ear again.

“Yohji,” he breathed, “I–Yohji–je t’aime, Yohji.”

Yohji’s eyes flew open as Aya sagged against him, shuddering with his own release.

Je t’aime?

************

Coward!  Aya told himself again.  Stupid, stupid, what good was that?  Yohji didn’t speak French!

The blonde seemed satisfied, though, considering how drowsy and contented he’d been when Aya dragged them out.  Aya was disturbed that someone had been in the bathroom unnoticed while they showered.  Yohji just laughed at the stacks and stacks of towels, and dragged his lover to bed, where he promptly fell asleep stretched across Aya’s chest.

Leaving Fujimiya Aya, Ran, Abyssinian or whoever, to wonder just how he’d survived this long, considering what a stupid coward he was.

Yohji deserved to hear it.  He wanted to hear it; he needed to hear it.  Aya knew Yohji deserved better than him.  He also knew that somehow, he was what Yohji wanted.  Miracles, it seemed, did happen sometimes.

So.  Yohji, crazy as it seemed, wanted his love.  Pathetic offering though it was, Aya wanted to give it.

All he had to do was say it.

While Yohji slept seemed a good plan.

“Yohji, I–“ The blonde stirred, Aya’s tongue got stuck.  Che!

Try again.  But first–

“Kudou, I brought you Kahlua, cigarettes, and a pair of leather chaps.”

Nothing, Yohji didn’t move again.  Do it.

“Yohji, I–“ Chikusho!

Maybe if he let Yohji say it first.  He’d have to say it then, he couldn’t leave Yohji hanging.  But he’d stopped the blonde so many times when he thought the man might maybe be thinking of saying it, he’d probably never try again.

K’so.

A sea breeze lifted the white curtains from the balcony. Abyssinian analyzed the flow, looking for enemies.

Looking for distractions.  Coward.

Poetry.  Just like katas were the key to swordsmanship, the formalized movements translating into fluid motion…

But first–  “Yohji, I’m drunk and I want to know why you have rope under your bed.”

The blonde grinned against his chest, but showed no other signs of waking.  Wow.  Aya would have bet on that statement bringing Yohji back from the dead.

Quit stalling.

“Lord of my love,” Aya began, and was struck with deja vu.

Kami-sama, had he really quoted that to Crawford?

Suddenly seppuku seemed a viable option again.

Come on, Fujimiya.  Aya twined his fingers in honey-blonde hair–and gave a gentle yank.  No response, Yohji really was out.  Aya didn’t want to wonder why.  He hadn’t slept since Yohji disappeared, and he was still awake.

Aya refused to think about the towel, or anything that might have exhausted Yohji so much.  Yohji loved him.

And damn it, he loved Yohji.

He could think it.  Now if he could just say it…

“Lord of my love…”

He had exhausted his store of appropriate Shakespeare–not that large anyway, the man had been bitter about love–and moved on to his second favorite, and Aya still didn’t feel any braver.

“I am the pool of gold,
When sunset burns and dies, —
You are my deepening skies,
Give me your stars to hold.”

“Ayy-annn,” Yohji whined, “tell me your poetry.  I can understand it.”  Aya froze.  The blonde lifted his head, winced as Aya’s hand, forgotten in his hair, pulled.  Aya let go, and groped for Yohji’s cigarettes.  Distract him, Yohji was easily distracted–

“Stop that.”  His lover moved, and Aya found himself pinned to the bed, those again-sparkling eyes staring into his.  “What does it mean, Ayan?” he asked with a grin.

“It…was just an English poem I thought of.”

“So tell me what it means.”  Yohji bounced.  “Or I’m gonna make you seasick.”  It was a waterbed.

“Is that a challenge?”

Yohji kissed him, Aya twined his hands in soft hair and kissed back.  No wonder Yohji was addictive, he could make every thought fly straight out of Aya’s brain, and that alone was a miracle.  Then there was the silky hair, the golden skin, the way he wiggled when Aya–

“Tell me what it means,” Yohji breathed, ghosting his lips across Aya’s cheek.  Aya concentrated on the way Yohji’s touch made his skin tingle, and translated the poem.

“I do understand English. But not that. What’s it mean?” Yohji asked his neck.  Aya focused on the feel of Yohji’s hands and explained the tidal pool reflecting the beauty of the sky.

“I don’t like it,” Yohji muttered around a mouthful of Aya-ear.  “You don’ nee’ me…make you beautiful.”

He didn’t understand, and he never would.  Aya gasped and let it go.

“Like that?” Yohji purred.  “Tell me something.”

“Mmm…what?”

“Som’ing.”

Don’t think–Aya found a poem, gave it to him.

“I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be.
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.”

Yohji pulled back to smile at him.  “That’s easy.  Just let go, baby.”  Lips and hands and mind went back to making Aya feel like poor murdered Ran, back when life was so beautiful it cut.  “Sum’pin…else,” he muttered against Aya’s chest, his hands spreading the tingling, his body so lovely warm and smooth, blocking out the world…Aya let his eyes flutter closed and gave his love another poem, an apology.  This was…easier than talking.

“I am alone, in spite of love,
In spite of all I take and give —
In spite of all your tenderness,
Sometimes I am not glad to live.”

“There’s a news flash,” Yohji grumbled against his stomach.  “More.”

Aya could feel Yohji’s heartbeat, the quickening thump below his navel was the sweetest thing he’d ever felt.  And it gave him another poem.

“I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,
Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that recedes;
I would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me,
I would beat with your heart as it beats, I would follow your soul as it leads.”

Yohji’s weight lifted, Aya opened his eyes to find that lovely face above his, eyes wide.

“Aya?”  He licked his lips.  “Ran?”

Maybe it was the exhaustion.  Aya lifted his hand to stroke his lover’s cheek.

“Ran,” Yohji breathed, raining kisses, “Ran.”  He buried his face in Aya’s neck.  “Let me give to you, baby, let me make you feel how you make me feel.”

What Yohji wanted, Yohji would have.  Later Aya would worry about how he could give his love everything, and still do the same for Aya-chan.  Now he simply wrapped his legs around his beautiful lover.

Fortunately the blonde understood.  With lips and hands and all the rest of him, Yohji drove Aya slowly crazy.  “Just let go,” he whispered again and again.  “Let go, baby.  I’ve got you.”

Aya stopped biting his lips against the moans and odd little noises that wanted out.

“Love to hear you,” Yohji encouraged, eliciting a gasp and moan with a long wet finger.  “Oh, kitten!  You’re so tight, when’s the last time–forget it, forget I–“

”Never,” Aya gasped out, gritting his teeth it felt so good.  The finger stilled.

“Oh, baby…” Yohji breathed.

“Yohji…” Aya whined before he could stop himself.

“Sorry!”  Clever fingers went back to work, Aya could feel his mind leaking away and he liked it.

“Yohji…”

“Won’t hurt you,” Yohji growled, nibbling his collar bone as he added a finger.

“Now!” Aya snapped.

“You think…” Yohji gasped, “this isn’t…killing me?”

“Yohhh-jjiiii…”

“I know, baby, I know!”  Finally the fingers withdrew, hot and hard touched him, but Yohji didn’t move.

Aya grabbed his ass and pulled.  Yesss…

“Damn it…ohhh…Ran, you hurt yourself and…unggghhh… I swear I’ll jump–“

”Shut up…Kudou…”

Yohji took forever to ease into Aya, but finally he put his forehead to Aya’s and they both panted, trying to adjust.  “God, kitten…” Yohji gasped.  Aya moaned back, and somehow pulled him even closer.  He felt Yohji’s life inside him, and it was all he felt, all he knew.  All the universe, all of time, was this moment, was Yohji…

“Je t’aime…” he gasped.

“Ai shiteru, Ran.”

“Move, Yohji!”

Yohji moved, and even words went away.  Ran didn’t miss them.

**********

Ohh, I love these guys…

“I am the pool of gold,” is from Peace by Sara Teasdale.  My new favorite poet.  Oh wow.  “I am Not Yours” is from the poem of the same name.  “I am Alone” is from Alone.  “I Would Live in Your Love” is the name of the poem.

*********************
Thanks to Phoenix, for beta-ing.  And since I haven’t remembered to say it in a while–me no own. *sob*