DISCLAIMER: All CLAMP stories were created by CLAMP. Characters have been adapted without authorization or approval, and I am making no profit from their use.

NOTE: This chapter has been slightly modified from the original version to meet content guidelines. The unedited version is available on Archive of Our Own.

[Ba~aby]

"Ghosts can absolutely use doors!" Kazahaya hissed, still huddled behind Rikuou's back as they waited for another creak or squeak that never came. "In 'The Heavenly Twins and the Butler from Beyond', the brother had to exorcise a ghost who haunted a door!"

"Well, I've never heard of these ghosts hurting anybody, so keep your panties on, would ya?"

He inched down the passageway with the warm body that clung to his arms stepping on his heels. The echoes in empty halls could confuse the ears, but he was mostly sure it'd come from the far hall. Whoever it was, they weren't getting the magic blue arrow excited at all, so the orb thingy wasn't on 'em. Nor anywhere else down that hall, which was the last hall they had up here. That was all he cared about.

Rikuou peeked around the corner, and all he saw was shadows.

"Good news is, it looks clear."

"Bad news is we still have no idea what we're looking for?"

"That, and it's got to be downstairs. Where we were supposed to check before we got ourselves sent up here for the night."

"That was not my f-"

At the hint of another sound - this time from the steps - Rikuou pushed his partner up against the wall and clapped a hand over his mouth. "Shh." That was definitely footfall coming upstairs, light and quick. "Now that ain't no ghost." For all that their costumes would help them run, hiding was still going to be better. He tested the door handle right next to them, and thanked whatever kind of divinity protected hirelings who raided barwenches' dormitories that it wasn't locked.

He spun Kazahaya in first, lifting the door up off the hinges as he closed it to keep it silent. Rikuou didn't think anything of his partner shaking his sleeve in a tizzy until he'd gotten the latch shut. He was too busy keeping an eye out the crack of the door for whoever'd nearly caught them. Then he saw the pirate and the ninja by the side of the upturned bed, paused in the middle of what was either sex or naked charades for lawn maintenance. And neither Captain Doumeki nor Watanuki seemed much concerned with rugburn.

"Wow," Rikuou coughed. "This bar's soundproofing must be amazing."

Watanuki's ability to return himself to upright from anything but in the blink of an eye was the best proof Rikuou had ever seen that he deserved his ninja rank. "Can you not intuit when two people are interested in a little privacy? And what the hell are you even doing in here? We don't have the orb! Go on! Leave!"

"We'll be out of your hair soon as the hall's clear." Naturally, Kazahaya was huddled in a corner, with his face burning up and his hands over his eyes. Grabbing his partner over by the elbow, Rikuou muttered, "That's not helping."

"But-!" Kazahaya pointed over to the ninja doing his best impression of patience, with his foot tapping out a samba and a remarkable lack of concern for his lack of any clothes whatsoever. "They're-! Um..." He gave a tiny wave to Doumeki, who'd leaned up against the mattress standing against the tumbled bedframe like he was lazing on a hammock on a Sunday afternoon. "Um. Hi," Kazahaya said with a wince. "I guess I didn't thank you for... my stockings..."

"Don't mention it."

"Please don't mention anything but why you're not gone yet! You have a job, and we've got business! Of a personal nature! That we'd like to conduct alone! Without you!"

"Well, I'm sorry if there were people in the hallway!" Kazahaya yelled. He might have done more than yell if Rikuou hadn't grabbed him by the shoulders. "Next time, lock the door!"

"People in the hallway?" the ninja cried with a red-faced screech. "You freaked out over Himawari-chan coming upstairs to check Oruha-san's intruder alarm?"

Whether the tiny click in the corridor before the silence had resumed had been an 'intruder alarm' or an intruder setting it off, Rikuou had learned not to argue with a ninja who was sure about something - not that Kazahaya looked like he cared at the moment. When had picking fights with trained assassins become his partner's new hobby?

"You know you're the only one with super-hearing up here," Captain Doumeki pointed out, rifling through a pile of strewn clothes for a clove cigarette and a match.

"Your opinion on their abject failure to be sufficient was not required! And all they had to do was hide!"

"Behind what?" Kazahaya yelled just as loud as before, but at least he wasn't struggling to get out of Rikuou's grip. "There's nothing out there but walls and doors! Well, guess what? We're behind a door!"

Watanuki's eyeroll could have bowled a strike on a ten-mile alley. "Why in hell does this have to be done by... by amateurs?" He zipped around the room, picking up stray bits of costumes and tucking them out of sight. Pretty damn far out of sight, since the ninja was too naked to hide anything and didn't have a bag. All the fabric and armor just disappeared somewhere like it had never been. If he could've done that, Rikuou wouldn't have worried about barmaids coming upstairs either. "I have no intention of further subjecting myself to the horror of watching you two bumble around! Just make sure you don't go into any more rooms with people in them! I should think listening at keyholes isn't too complicated."

"Going back to your place?" Doumeki asked.

"Well, I'm not going to the moon!" The ninja dropped a tangle of white fabric, black leather, and shining metal wings on the pirate's lap. "I assume you're inviting yourself along as usual?"

With a wrap and a twist, Captain Doumeki miracled the skirt into some kind of toga as he stood up, wings riding the small of his back. He pulled the clove from his mouth, took his hook from god knows where and said, "You should make waffles for breakfast."

"You will eat what I put on your plate!" In the few seconds that Rikuou and Kazahaya had been watching Doumeki, boggling at seeing a ninja and a pirate in the middle of a domestic, Watanuki had managed to open the window - and rig a fly line out into the night, and look like he was getting tired of waiting, all while getting his pants back on. "And you will like it," he added, poking Doumeki in the chest as he came near.

If Rikuou had ever thought he'd witness a pirate, naked except for a silk toga, grabbing a ninja by the waist and jumping out a window to ride them both down a rope by his hook, he never would have called the pirate's last words being, "I still want waffles."

Must be nice to be a brigand, and never make excuses for laying hands on what caught your eye.

"And he's telling on us for consorting with pirates?" Kazahaya gasped. His partner relaxed out of Rikuou's arms, staring slackjawed at the rippling curtains. "That's... That's...!"

"Captain Doumeki fixed your stockings?" Rikuou asked. Before he could get a handle on his mouth, the words fell off his tongue with more jealousy than he'd wanted anyone to hear, his partner most of all. If Kazahaya's habit of saying whatever popped into his head had rubbed off on him, he might need to beg off work at the store tomorrow - take a personal day to get the man's scent out of his nose and that image out of his head.

"That's your take-away from this? Yes, the salty sea dog is unsurprisingly well-versed in frilly underwear, and he saw fit to fix my stockings. I didn't get much choice, not that the elite ninja boyfriend bothered to care before he had a hissy-"

Rikuou whipped toward the door. He hadn't meant to start this conversation in the first place. "If we're hangin' out, let's do it in our own goddamn room."

"Hey...!" Kazahaya grabbed his arm as he walked away. "What's the-"

Jerking his partner around where he could see his face, Rikuou caught Kazahaya in too close - so close he could feel the brush of his eyelashes before the man leaned his head back. Some comment brewing in his brain dried up on his tongue. Something about knowing better than to ask sharks for favors that personal. The details were gone. One look at wide eyes over blushing cheeks, one touch of the hands clinging to his chest, and the words ripped out of his mind.

"... matter?" Kazahaya murmured.

His fair-haired idiot should have been trying to get away. He should have been screaming about how the one he couldn't trust was Rikuou. Instead, Kazahaya was pushing closer like he was trying to read Rikuou's face in the shadows. Like he was realizing something he oughtn't know, and the breath on his chin was making Rikuou forget all the things that kept him off the edge. Forgetting that it'd be better if his kitten found someone else to look after him. Forgetting that he couldn't tie himself to someone when he might be leaving any day.

Forgetting why it'd be such a bad idea to kiss him after all. At least if he did, he'd have a reason to say he didn't want any pirate so much as fingering the edge of a hem, let alone-

"Rikuou?"

The thought of letting go - and he had to let go - sent a rough twinge through his chest. Call it a taste of how much it'd hurt to walk away for real, as if he needed a reminder why this was a bad idea. Why wasn't Kazahaya pushing him off like always, telling him he shouldn't bother because he didn't have a chance?

A man coughed over by the door. So much for no one catching them tonight.

Blue ghost outfit, black hair. Oddly happy.

Showed up without knocking, or making any kind of sound he didn't want heard, which meant he sure wasn't some everyday cosplayer.

On the one hand, Rikuou had only seen the bar's specters from a distance, but the man's frame didn't look quite right, and even with sudden appearance he seemed like solid flesh. That, and he had a thick, black book in his hand. The ghosts here, as far as he knew, were more likely to pass through things than pick them up.

"Can we help you?" Rikuou asked.

"Sorry to be a bother," the intruder answered, with his smile too innocent for someone who snuck around like a thief. "I thought I heard Watanuki-san in here. Have you seen him?"

Kazahaya nodded his chin at the open window. "Just missed him."

Disappointment flickered across the stranger's face for a bare fraction of a second, but only that. As he backed away, disappearing into a shadow, he looked as bright as before. "Well, there's always tomorrow, right? I'll leave you two to have your moment, then. Really sorry to have interrupted!"

Except for Kazahaya's heart thrumming hard enough for Rikuou to feel the echoes, the room was still. That didn't mean a man who could melt into shadows was gone, but it was about all they could hope for.

"What moment?" His partner blinked at the darkness as if it could tell him what the probably-another-ninja-damn-the-fuckers had been thinking. "Rikuou, what's he talking about?"

"If you can't tell, it didn't happen," he answered, and pushed Kazahaya toward the door. "Let's figure out how to find this orb thing, and get the hell home."

~/~

Checking a room for intruders in a world with ninja might be a vain practice for a barmaid, Himawari knew, but she'd rather try to make certain there weren't any loons waiting for her mistress at the end of the night. And the door had been rigged especially with ninja in mind - it'd even caught Kazuhiko-san that once, trying to leave a rose and a loveletter on the sly. Goodness knew where Oruha had gotten a trap like that.

Of course, she couldn't find anyone this time. She'd have much rather spotted Kazuhiko-san again, even though she'd made him promise to give all his gifts in person from now on. As it was, she didn't fancy the thought of letting Oruha go to bed alone, but that wasn't her choice to make. The cupboards were empty, the window was latched, no one was outside on the ledge that she could tell. For now, that was all she could do. Himawari locked the door and headed back down the stairs - back to business as usual.

With a glance at the clock, she stepped behind the counter to put on a fresh pot of coffee. Quarter past ten. Kazuhiko would be walking in any minute, and even though he wasn't here for the drinks, she'd rather give him the best they had. He was special to Oruha, after all.

Right on cue, he stepped through the door, fidgeting with his glasses like a grade schooler. Himawari poured a shot of amaretto into a steaming cup of coffee and pushed it to him over the bar. "She's about to start her last set."

"Thanks," he laughed. "I guess I'm predictable."

"It's just bartender magic."

He almost managed to get the coffee to his lips before he met Oruha's eyes on stage. Then his mug hovered in his hands, forgotten while they stared at each other. And while she looked away to fix her microphone, and while she said something impossible for Himawari to hear to a patron at the front table. And the mug went right down on the bar again as soon as the piano started.

But she always made him a new pot anyway. Some nights he got to drink it while it was still hot.

"Kazuhiko-san," a voice called out. The blond who'd been so gallant earlier, Imonoyama-san, waving the more familiar ninja over to his table. "Would you mind joining us for a moment?"

All the missing members of his party had slipped back into their chairs since she'd come down, including the smiling one sipping the tea his girlfriend had poured for him, and the serious one who'd made short work of his Sidecar. Between them, they had a table full of books despite the fact that they hadn't had any bags to carry them in. That was ninja for you. So silly! Always ignoring the laws of time and space.

"I'll be right there," Kazuhiko answered softly, dropping a few coins on the counter to pay for his coffee. Then he whispered, "What's the Chairman doing here?" as soon as the blond's back was turned.

"I think..."

Imonoyama-san's riddles about stopping Oruha's tears rang in her memory, just as the lady's voice rang out across the floor - straight at her would-be lover.

"Like the night will find each weakness we betray... The day will take its heartache when I say I can't stay. I'd never leave you lonely if forever could be true, but a lost night's sting walks with you when goodbye comes too soon..."

Seeing the way Kazuhiko's mouth only set itself firmer every time he heard that, Himawari had to smile. She pushed the ninja toward Imonoyama-san's table and answered, "I think he's here for the same reason you are."

~/~

"We can't just wait until close!"

Kazahaya had been jumping up from his seat on the bed every minute or so since they'd set to talking, but so far he'd kept at least arm's length from Rikuou's post by the mirror. Now he collapsed back on the blankets, exposing enough thigh that Rikuou had to look out the window if he wanted to keep thinking. Not that the past hour or so of thinking had gotten them anywhere.

His partner dropped a pillow over his own face. "We don't even know if it's a worker or a customer who's got it. What if they leave the building? Or what if they take it with them to a room at the end of the night? Do you really think they'll just leave a legendary magical artifact lying around downstairs?"

"They might not know what it is."

"Someone's using it! Watanuki said so!"

"Well, we'll know if they leave the building." He twirled the sensor widget around in his fingers, showing off the dull, blue glow of the arrow. "We weren't reading anything before we came in tonight, right? I bet this thing goes dark if they leave. We can follow-"

"You bet?"

"I ain't heard a better idea."

"Then at least let me touch it!"

"Hell. No."

Rikuou had seen enough missions where his partner got the worst of someone's worst days, or lost himself entirely. For all Rikuou knew, the Barrows-Guard was real, and the orb they were looking for had been his. It was bad enough Kazahaya had cut the fingers off his gloves so he could touch things without him trying to 'connect' to an artifact with a one in six chance of having belonged to a deranged, possibly demonic, psychopathic murderer. There went all the work he'd done convincing Saiga to sew the gloves right into the sleeves.

Kazahaya sat up on the bed, the pout filling up his pretty face not likely to move Rikuou any time soon. "I know it's a long shot, but if I really open up, maybe I can sense what set it off!"

"And I said no. You're no good to me stuck in somebody else's head until you faint. Besides, this is ninja tech. You don't know where it's been."

"I think I can handle-"

"And I think we're gonna tear this joint apart from shingles to floorboards before I let you!"

His partner jumped up to argue, but choked back whatever he'd been planning to yell. He blinked and lowered his hands to his sides, whispering, "Are you worried about me?"

The quiet that followed seemed to fill up the air enough that it itched on Rikuou's skin. He'd been wanting to take off the heavy armor all night, but now it felt too tight to breathe in. Turning to face the wall didn't help. The mirror was right there, showing him Kazahaya's face as the realization that, yes - he was - struck it blank. Even in the mirror, they were looking at each other's eyes, and for a second Rikuou wondered if his guard had slipped so his partner's senses could get into his head at last.

But no. It was his tongue that had slipped. He bit it, just til he could feel a twinge, and walked over to the window where he could stare at the cresting moon instead of falling deeper under Kazahaya's spell. "Who wouldn't be, saving you from certain death five times a month?" Somewhere up there, it felt like the stars were laughing at him, and Kazahaya still wasn't answering back. "It puts me in a bind, you know," Rikuou half-lied through gritted teeth. "Bailing out your ass, working a double shift the next day. And maybe you ought to worry about the chance you never come back at all."

"Someday, I'll blow away. Just like the wind."

It wasn't a question. Just a statement that came out of nowhere, like a conversation someone else had been having, and Rikuou turned his head to see Kazahaya slumped back on the bed with his hands hidden under his skirt.

"Just like my name." The distant look in his eyes was enough to make Rikuou pause when, just as suddenly, Kazahaya blotted tears out of his eyes.

Something must have happened, before he wound up in that snowbank. Something Rikuou had never thought to ask about. He'd stopped asking about pasts when he'd gotten one of his own.

His partner breathed in deep and marched over to the windowsill. "I won't! Do you think I don't worry you'll give yourself an aneurysm, breaking things with your brain?"

"I'm not gonna-"

"Great! Well, 'I'm not gonna' either! I kind of like being me, ever since you-" Kazahaya turned away, metal wings tinging against the glass. "Ever since I got this job."

"Good."

He stepped a little closer, hitting the sensor rod against the windowsill and listening to the knock fill the little room. When his partner finally faced him, the strange amber of his eyes threatened to drive him out of his mind. How lunatic could infatuation get, that eyes made him a fool every hour of the day? Then Kazahaya reached out his hand to ask for the silver rod, showing off his bare fingers with a pout just the cute side of heart-stabbing. "So no asking me not to be me because you don't trust me to stay me?"

Drawing the rod back, Rikuou took Kazahaya's fingers in his free hand. He didn't think too hard about how they ended up nose to nose again, or how his partner was making a habit of blushing and biting his lip instead of backing off, or how warm Kazahaya's skin was under his fingers. "You really are useless if you faint. Last resort. Deal?"

"Deal. But you'd better have another idea."

"We could still wait," he answered, dropping his hand away when he noticed it straying up to Kazahaya's face. And he wasn't going to let the bed behind them suggest any way to pass the hours, because now was no time to push his luck. "Watanuki didn't lay out a deadline. I don't think this thing's going-"

Before he could finish his sentence, a thin light shot out of the hand where he'd palmed the sensor, hitting the far wall in a bright blue pinpoint. It ran across the wallpaper and the panelling, past the door... at just about the speed of a person walking, if he had to make a guess.

"Ah!" Kazahaya chirped. "Do you think that means what I think it means?"

"I hope so. I wonder if it'd actually kill a ninja to pack a damn guidebook with his tech?"

"Maybe?" His partner clapped his hands over his mouth to hold in a squeal, then vaulted the bed to prance by the moving spot on the wall.

He'd wait til tomorrow, when they didn't have a job to do, to wonder why Kazahaya suddenly seemed close enough to touch. And maybe when he woke up, he'd realize everything in the air tonight was his imagination.

"Ohmygodohymygodohmygodohmygod! I can't believe I'm in the same building as a Divine Warrior's orb!"

"You have been all night," Rikuou reminded him as he dropped the room key on the dresser. Probably wouldn't need that again.

"Yes, but now it's right there!" he called out in a hushed squeal.

The light was stopped now, near the corner of the room, which meant whoever was carrying it had stopped in this hallway. Maybe this was a real lucky break. This time, Rikuou figured he better not jinx it and leaned down to listen at the keyhole for anything he could hear.

The bar owner's voice he knew. Everybody did. The man she was talking to wasn't so familiar. "Of course I believe you," he said, the pitiful tone in his voice making Rikuou feel guilty for eavesdropping. "I've met people who see the future. But you're cheating yourself if you live like you're already dead."

"Kazuhiko-"

"Please. Is it so wrong to take the days we have, before time runs out?"

Rikuou kept his eyes on the spot dancing on the wall. There was no way to figure out from the glow if it was Oruha or her gentleman caller who had their orb, unless sometime in the next few seconds he got magic vision that could see through wood and plaster. He turned the handle by his ear and cracked open the door as quietly as he could, moving it as little as possible. Just enough to get a glimpse down the-

"I don't want to disturb any of your guests," the man said, stepping between the singer and Rikuou's line of sight. So much for trying to sneak a peek. "Can we go into your room?" he asked.

"No, Kazuhiko, I don't think we can." Rikuou closed his door all the way, timing the click of the door latch to Oruha turning a key in her lock. "Let me put down my things and we can talk outside."

"Okay. ... And you don't need to reset that alarm. I'm right here. I promise, I'll stay where you can see me."

Holding his breath, Rikuou watched his partner shimmy in silence next to the floating blue dot's path. The singer's door closed again and both sets of footsteps vanished down the stairs. Then, and only then, Rikuou sighed a wordless thanks to the same god that had punked them in the hall an hour before. Their little guiding light was holding steady now, on the wall over the bed. Whatever Oruha had that the ninja queen wanted, she'd left it in her room and walked away.

The way Kazahaya bounced across the room, Rikuou wondered if the wings on his back had started to work. He didn't seem to touch the floor. He floated as Rikuou stood up, dropping right into whispering distance with his amber eyes twinkling. "You can't tell me this isn't awesome."

"Let's just get in, get the goods, and get gone." Much more of this, and he'd have to admit that he couldn't see anything right now but his partner's smile. Bad enough that his hands had snuck onto Kazahaya's hips, and he could justify it by saying he had to push the man out the door. Or by saying, if Caldina caught them in the hallway, a little body contact might keep them from blowing their cover.

"Then maybe you can get me out of this dress," Kazahaya laughed.

Rikuou cracked the door wide enough to shove his partner into the hall, although he couldn't quite let go. "Don't tempt me," he whispered against the other clerk's hair. That was how their relationship was supposed to work. He traded lewd come-ons for his kitten's innocent nothings, and got himself a stomp on the foot.

Or, this time, a slap on the wrist. An actual slap on the wrist. He let go of the man's hip by reflex, but it barely hurt at all. Like his partner had been playing. As Kazahaya bounded over to the door marked by the blue light, Rikuou knew it wasn't the time to ask why, but he had to wonder. Did he still have a shot? That bridge should have long since burned.

Then again, maybe his partner was just too excited over the mission to let anything ruin his mood. Kazahaya's grip on the door handle and pleading eyes while he mouthed, "Open it!" sure looked more like being clueless than like flirting.

And that was for the better, Rikuou thought, focusing on the knob long enough to snap the lock inside. He didn't want hope fouling up his lifestyle choices. "Ducats to doughnuts, it's her microphone," Rikuou murmured. They stole into the diva's room, following the blue light through the shadows - and, surprise surprise, their ninja beacon had its sights on a frame of twisted, black metal lying on Oruha's makeup table. He hoped for her sake that wasn't how she held an audience spellbound. What he and Kazahaya had been hired to take, they took.

A flash of white ran by him, with squeals of "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!" devolving to a high-pitched shriek.

It all happened in an instant - the trailing skirt slipping away before he could grab it, a yell to let someone less at risk pick the damn thing up, cut off before it started, Kazahaya's knees giving out underneath him. Rikuou made it in time to keep his partner from hitting the floor or banging his head, but the real damage had been done. A full blackout meant his partner wouldn't be the one who stood up. As the microphone's black metal dripped up from Kazahaya's hand, changing and collecting into a silver sphere in the air, all he could do was hope that whoever'd stolen his stray cat's body was harmless. If he had to take on a legend, maybe one of those twins he'd said he used to act out when he was a kid.

The way Kazahaya drew his legs together and his shoulders back said, 'Woman', almost for sure. And the foreign glint in his possessed eyes made one thing harder to deny every time - the package was nice, but it wasn't what Rikuou cared about. The thought of playing along while some ghost or memory draped his partner's arms around his neck made him sick. Like a whole symphony played off-key.

How long could he take this? Not that he had a choice.

"Kazuhiko," she whispered in Kazahaya's voice. So it was Oruha. That figured. And just his luck, knowing the shade was a modern day songstress instead of some fiendish horror didn't take the hurt out of hearing another man's name cross those lips. Same sore twist as had started cropping up in his gut a few months ago. The kind that took most of the next day to unknot. Two days, lately. "Kazuhiko, I want to stop pretending I'm not in love with you. But-"

He cupped the man's face in his hands and tried to see past the frank expression of the woman inside. Any reasons she had, he could guess. All the feelings she'd sung into that microphone; all the fragments she'd glimpsed of the future, sending her into mourning for the end she could see coming. He knew how it hurt to miss someone, how it hurt to be missed, and he didn't want to hear it. He could already tell, when it came back at him in someone else's voice, it'd just sound like piss-poor excuses. So Rikuou stroked Kazahaya's cheek and let his eyes flit around the mess of tawny hair.

"If you want to stop pretending, then stop. You're not making anybody happy by lying to yourself."

Neither was he, although Kazahaya wasn't a sure thing. Not like the man courting the singer in the alley.

The shade shook off his hands, burying Kazahaya's face in his shirt. "Will you tell me it's not too late?" she asked, while he stared past her at the black metal figure forgetting its shape and held his partner close.

"You know it's not," Rikuou answered.

Kazahaya's body went limp in his arms. With a pinch in his throat he couldn't swallow down, Rikuou kissed his partner's hair and let himself linger in its scent.

"I ought to be saying that. Not you."

~/~

Winter moon hung high,
Shone, twinned in a lake like ink
She, her face eclipsed

A name to him, nothing more,
"Tsukiko's" memory sang

Chill stirs rocked the waves
In words too well remembered:
"Til then, and ever

Adrift I tatter and fade
And even earth blows to dust."

There, amongst the rocks
Summer grass in noontime green
Stood where sky bled blue

"Where it began, where it ends
As you run far, far away."

Chill though in sunlight
Locked within their golden cage
Her voice not her own

She, whose hand was close as air
Who once held his world in bound

He stood as Autumn
With daylight's glow at his back
In his steps, green fades

The dark world looms with the moon
Past not gone, future not here

Chaining summer arms
Tight around his head and chest,
Though winter waited

By his ear, her breath blew cool. The light faded with their voices.

Now, as once seemed sure, he feared he'd melt clean away - into the darkness.
How could he still be standing? Deserted, both women gone?

The air felt solid and warm, as if he'd caught some substance.

Or been caught there, within void and storm, beating his body beyond recalling where he'd been, or how he'd left. As if born new, curled in the dark-kissed space while it closed against his skin - drawing tighter, drawing soft, wrapping him like a blanket spun out of midnight.

Never so easy to say, "It's a dream," as that time when reality pushes in, with aches and with scents of sweat on sheets, although fancy kept its hold a bit longer. A warmth clasped near his chest, a memory of wind tickling his cheek.

More than a memory. No. That was someone close to him, laying near enough to feel his breath. While he'd slept, some other man pressed close, he'd only dreamed it was wind. And that firmness he'd felt - a body? Arms around his waist, his arms circling that someone...

Clear as the light glowing through his eyelids from the windows as he woke, now he could feel someone whose shape he knew before he opened his eyes.

Rikuou.

He was in Rikuou's bed. He had to be. It didn't smell anything like his own bed. It smelled like shirt, and shampoo, and shaggy idiot. All of that could have been explained by Rikuou being in bed with him, his partner's hand pressing on his back through the sheets, but his wakening senses screamed, 'Not my bed!' from the tips of his lethargic toes to the twitching curl of his ears.

How he'd gotten there was a no-brainer. His still-sleeping bedmate must have carried him home - this time, depositing him here instead of the second, equally convenient cot. And lying close to him felt so snug, so different from Rikuou's old games of Space Invasion... Like last night had felt different. The question was, how much of last night might he have been dreaming?

Where had the sneers gone? When had his partner started touching him and drawing him close without setting off his Lying, Teasing Jerk alarms?

Because that was kind of hot.

Kazahaya forced himself to crack open his eyes and look. All he could do now was see if the sunlight showed the same face as haunted his moonlit memories, although the brightness hit him with a fear that squeezed his ribs tight. Riding on the memory of Rikuou acting ... sweet... he remembered that odd lift, the feel of being too happy not to dance. How everything had suddenly seemed better, and now he didn't want the morning to tell him he'd been wrong. The last time he'd been so scared to lose something had been the day he ran away from home. Did he care that much about whether Rikuou wanted him around?

Their noses were nearly touching, which made it hard to see the shape of Rikuou's sleeping face. Loose hair was falling in front of the man's eyes, too. Closed or open, he wouldn't have been able to read them. But Rikuou's mouth was twitching. It looked like the nervous impulses from a bad dream breaking through, and out of reflex, Kazahaya pulled his hand to the man's cheek. His brain hadn't quite decided whether Rikuou's cheek was cool or his hand was warm when his bedmate shifted the landscape of the narrow cot.

Fingers he hadn't accounted for trailed into his hair, and as Rikuou pulled tighter on his waist, three things became obvious. First, he had instincts about sharing a bed with Rikuou, and they thought the right thing for him to do was wrap his leg over the other man's hip. Second, he was definitely not wearing any underwear. And third, there were sheets and blankets between the two of them, so his skin was practically screaming to tear off the bedding and feel Rikuou between his naked thi-

Aye-yi-yi! Had... he just thought that?

Holy crap. He had. And he'd meant it, too. Worst of all, the flutter in his chest was just enough like what he'd been feeling all year to know that 'how he felt when Rikuou wasn't being a dick' was apparently fucking horny. And he couldn't exactly jack off to deal with it when he was in Rikuou's bed, with Rikuou! Though the sensitivity down in his nether regions wasn't quite severe enough to distract from the fact that an enormous doofus had put him under the sheets, then laid himself on top with only his coat for a cover! But his heart was sprinting and his skin was tingling all over, and his stomach was flippy-flopping, none of which was letting Kazahaya think anything clear enough to say it out loud.

So he kicked Rikuou instead.

Right in the shin.

Dark head jerking and eyes blinking open, his bedmate stared for half a second at his snarl. "Good morning to you, too."

"Get under here, you idiot! Do you want to catch your death of cold?"

"Excuse me for trying not to offend your virgin sensibilities."

"That's what putting me in my bed is for!"

Rikuou flung back the blanket, sending a chill blast across Kazahaya's skin - and with his nightshirt ridden up to his stomach, revealing that he'd been almost right about having no underwear on. He nearly fell off the edge of the bed as he curled up his legs and brought his hands down to hide his 'toy soldier', not covered a bit by the lace and ribbons he was still wearing. "You... you stripped me out of everything but the stockings?" he hissed. Somehow, having just his naughty bits exposed made him feel more naked than naked.

And to make it worse, the clippy thing was digging into his thighs with the painful older cousin of an itch. Maybe he could spare one hand, just for a second, to reach for the clips and take the damn things off...

"I like them," Rikuou said, and brushed his hand away - off the side of the bed so Kazahaya unbalanced himself and had to grab the sheets with his other hand to stay up! Now he was totally exposed! And... and who gave Rikuou permission to make his pulse race just by pushing a knee between his thighs and leaning over next to his ear? "You should get a pair of white ones to keep."

"You really are a pervert."

Somehow, that wasn't as upsetting as it had been yesterday. Not by half.

"I'm not gonna make you stay in bed with me," Rikuou answered.

Another toss settled the blanket over both of them, and all at once Kazahaya realized how small the bed was for two people. Rikuou must've had his back right up against the wall while they were sleeping. Letting his legs drift around the other man's hips was much more comfortable. He'd never realized how good it could feel to have someone's skin next to his. Even though he could feel his heart pounding, time felt like it had slowed down and left him calm.

Kazahaya found his voice somewhere down in his stomach. "So why did you put me here?"

"I wanted to sleep with you," his partner said, and shrugged. That started something simmering in his belly that wasn't exactly not lust, but it wasn't exactly hunky-dory either. "I might be gone any day," the man continued. "That could've been my last chance."

"Don't you get all sweet and pathetic with me, mister!" He was up on his knees before he knew it, straddling Rikuou's stomach as he grabbed his partner up by the shirt. "You could've had all the chances! I..."

Feeling the ... solidness of his fellow clerk's body so close, and the race of his heart in the instant Rikuou's hands reached under his shirt to clasp his back, all Kazahaya could see was his lips. And kissing him felt so much like riding the tide. It was so easy to let his body surge with it, to give in to the tingle of how nice it felt all over and just float. He trailed his hands down Rikuou's arms, letting the touch of skin against skin go to his head. "I might like you when you're not acting like a jackass."

"You need to stop being so fucking sexy first thing in the morning, or we're going to be late for work."

[Whereupon they were very late for work.]