Rating : PG-15




Ryo was sorry.

Didn’t happen often.

Maybe that was why now that it was happening it was happening on such a grand scale.

He was so sorry.

And he hadn’t the least little idea of what to do about it.

He’d seen Kame’s acting tour de force begin to crumble at the end of the afternoon and, perhaps with as little as a fraction of a second to spare, the Italian director, who seemed to have a doctorate in offhanded dictatorship under his opulent leather belt, had decreed the final cut for the day: he was a slightly cruel, seriously perverted, scarily intelligent man. Sure, he liked the vibrations a vulnerable Kame gave off on screen: but he needed his idol more or less intact tomorrow and the day after that too – for as long as shooting was on, in fact. Ryo was certain that if, when he needed Kame to crumble for good, he’d go for it without a hint of a hesitation.

Simply, he’d schedule that for last.

The kill.

Who was he to criticize, though? Huh? Who?

Wasn’t he the same Nishikido Ryo singlehandedly responsible for the collapse of Kame’s painstakingly put up fortress and hadn’t that been fun?

Hadn’t that, in all probability, been what had eventually led to today’s little basic instinct debacle in the basement?

Wasn’t he even now somehow inexplicably proud that the blame was his and nobody else's?

Yeah, Ryo was.

Except now Kame was crumbling from within somewhere out there in this stupid unknown town, somewhere where?, he couldn’t begin to guess where: so he couldn’t just go straight to Kame like a hot blooded bully and seize him by the wrist and erase any pretense of resistance with the mere force of his arrogance and fuck him up the first wall they hit blindly until they both felt a whole lot better about…

About everything, fuck.

Yeah, it wasn’t an option.

Pacing the room wasn’t an option either. Just like flinging oneself on the bed in order to stop pacing was not an option. Punching the pillow also wasn’t an option. Burying his face into it and inhaling that lingering fragrance deeply until he was fucking hyperventilating on it like some obsessed sicko? Not an option. And feeling the presence of…of…of stuff, all meshed up, inside his chest, that, that most definitely wasn’t an option.

Ryo was all out of options.

So here he was, still and tense, on the bed.

Not waiting, that most unbearable form of inactivity.

He hadn’t turned on the lights yet.

It had grown dark outside while he was considering his lack of options, so it was dark inside now too, of course, as a consequence.

The ball of stupid stuff which wasn’t there in the first place was not growing bigger.

Down below the window, his old chums the punks were hackling and hectoring passers-by for the heck of it. All in all, they didn’t sound like they were having that great a time of it: the nights getting abruptly colder must make it tougher yet to be an original street punk. But they still sounded like they were together, for better, for worse, a pack united against the outside world of pretend normal people.

In contrast, stark, Ryo felt alone.

Well, he was.

Solitude didn’t usually bother him overmuch: on the contrary, he usually welcomed the chance to do some
(usually dishonest, he was aware of this tendency within him) introspection.

But tonight solitude had Ryo thinking about his own pack, his own gang of friends back home.

He missed them, just then, suddenly.

And then, in the wake of that realization came another, one which astounded him: Ryo hadn't truly missed them before now, since he’d arrived in France roughly a month ago.

There had been no space to miss them he reasoned, in this small room, in his omnipresence, every centimetre invaded as it usually was by his fucking fragrance.

The fragrance lingered now, just enough, to make his absence felt.

Yeah Ryo felt even lonelier in the instant after that realization hit him.

Like he’d suddenly tripped on nothing much but was now being catapulted into loneliness as a result.

He felt…

He didn’t want to dwell on how he felt.

He didn’t want to dwell on how he felt either, but it seemed he couldn’t help it.

Where the fuck was he now?

He couldn’t help but wonder where he was.

Wherever he’d gone, chances were, he would be getting cold by now.

Unless he was at someone’s warm.

With someone.

The insignificant nonstuff inside his chest didn’t borrow a series of ugly, twisted, sharp shapes then, because why would it, it didn’t exist okay.

In the street, the group of united punks hooted. And whistled. In derision. Except a few of them couldn’t quite keep a note of pure appreciation from creeping into the meant-to-be-demeaning sound.

Even the barks of their ferocious beast dogs had that horny sound.

That reaction.

It was a universal reaction, really.

One Ryo knew faaar too well himself.

The nonexistent ball of stuff inside Ryo’s chest did not suddenly bloom out of all normal proportion.

Here.

He was.

Would be.

In a minute.

And Ryo wasn’t in the least tempted to avoid confrontation by rolling over on his side and faking sleep. Of course not. It wasn’t his style. Nishikido Ryo faced stuff, even non-existing stuff like that not blooming abnormally within his chest, head on. He affronted life. That was his style. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up full height and full of bravado in the somber room.

Until eventually the elevator bell was going ting outside in the hall on their storey.

Where? The word slashed his mind. Where were you? Who with?

That’s what he wanted to know.

Who the fuck with?

The key turned inside the lock.

Lights!

There on the threshold, looking like a gossamer of a ghost of the little bird bride, he stood.

Kame.

And at the sight of him, “I’m sorry” Ryo blurted out bluntly, unexpectedly, extraordinarily.

He apologized like most people deal a blow.

But he apologized.

It didn’t seem Kame heard, though.

The astounding fact that Nishikido Ryo'd just fucking apologized apparently didn't hit him.

No, he just let the bunch of glossy bags hanging off his wrist slide down to the side of the door and like he was merely prolonging the same motion he slid across the room and into the bathroom, without so much as glancing Ryo's way, closing the door soundlessly behind.

Somehow, going in after him and fucking him until they both felt better still wasn’t an option now that Ryo knew, to the metre, where Kame was.

He didn't want to try that door.

He wasn't scared or anything silly like that, just because Kame was obviously out to sulk for a little while, like a baby. He just didn't want to try the door. He figured he'd made enough efforts for this evening.

He'd fucking apologized, fuck.

Ryo sank back down on the edge of the bed.

Doing nothing.

Very funny.

Kame had arrived and he was still waiting for Kame.

“Fucking diva” He muttered in direction of the bathroom door. “I can’t believe you went shopping.” He voiced sourly. He warmed up to his theme. “Actually, I can.” He glanced at the accumulation of glossy bags, some sporting designer brand names, abandoned near the door and hovered between being aggravated or entertained by the fact.

He sent a wannabe withering glance at the door.

It was fucking inexpressive, though, that door, ensuring that his one-sided exchange with Kame died right then and there.

And fuck. Ryo knew what he wanted to do with Kame, but he really didn't know what to do with himself in the meantime.

He did not want to wait any more, Nishikido Ryo was no good at that, he hadn't been made to wait.

But, Kame showering = Time to Kill (A Mocking Bird Bride) he calculated.

So yeah meanwhile he might as well take charge and plan out their evening ahead.

First, he had better order dinner and get that out of the way.

Yeah, that was never something you could count on Kame to do.

And the sooner they ate and then the sooner they could call it a night in heaven, another one, and Kame could physically acknowledge, if he didn't want to concede it verbally, that was fine, Ryo could get that, the less mushy- mushy talk they indulged in the better as far as he was concerned, that he'd in fact accepted that apology, no problem.

Although forcefeeding Kame first might be fun.

Might even be necessary.

He'd looked sickly on the threshold.

Ryo picked up the phone.

The discreet tap at the door from the landing some minutes later surprised him in the midst of another intent staring down contest with the everbland door.

He wasn't ungrateful for the interruption.

He hadn't exactly been winning that one.

He took the tray carelessly from the hotel’s perpetually disapproving looking, pinched lipped madam and with a curt thank you, closed the door more or less in her face with the heel of his bare foot, spilling some soup from a recipient as he did so. Not much of a loss, by the greenish look of it. He placed the tray on the table and dabbed at the spillage with a disdainful finger. It was cold already. Quite cold. Like it was voluntarily cold. There was no other explanation. Unless maybe the kitchen was as draughty as this room. Apparently they didn’t know about Winter settling in yet here in this hotel.

Anyway, Ryo guessed he might as well wait for Kame to finish showering to tuck into yuck.

The soup sherbet couldn't get any colder.

Although he had little hopes that this specific fare might induce Kame to ingest food.

But maybe Kame would actually want to have a taste of fucking bona fide French Cuisine.

He was so fucking complicated like that, there was just no divining what he intended to down or not.

The slices of rich chocolate cake with cherries which were tonight's dessert Ryo crossed out for a certainty though.

It'd be double dessert for him again tonight.

He'd been having so much of dessert since they got here, what with always finishing Kame's part as well, not that he minded: he was a glutton like a true proud Eito ranger that way, except usually in Eito you had to fight for your food. Kame always just let him have it, without any fuss, why, fucking gratefully. So instead of the exultation at having ultimately snatched the grand prize and having defeated a fellow friend briefly turned inferior competitor, Ryo only felt this vague worry while he stuffed his face. A vague worry about Kame's wrists and ribs poking out, one which he'd experienced so often now it seemed to have become annoyingly ingrained within him.

He should have thought to precise ice-cream instead.

Off of him, Kame ate it.

And this way Ryo wouldn't have minded the cold.

Oh well.

Certainly once he was done showering Kame would be done sulking as well and feeling open to maybe suck off rich sugary icing from Ryo's fingers, to bite off a cherry or two from Ryo's tongue to…

There the options were actually endless.

Ryo allowed his despondent mood to lift a little.

Yes, hot water always seemed to relax Kame like almost nothing else.

Assuming of course he was taking a hot shower.

And Ryo'd unwind him further.

Yeah, somehow, he didn't want to wind Kame up so much nowadays. Didn't necessarily feel this compulsion to cut him to the quick any longer - there were other effusions of his which he wanted to witness now, more, among the myriad of ways Kame reacted.

Kame's giggles and orgasms.

Those were pretty fascinating to behold in and of their own.

On impulse, Ryo went and turned off the harsh overhead light, leaving only the bedside lamp to bathe the room in its somewhat softer dirty yellow glow.

It made the atmosphere marginally more intimate didn’t it?

Ryo stopped dead in his tracks at his own train of fucking thoughts.

Whatever next? Why didn’t he try lighting fucking scented candles or something while he was at it, for fuck’s sake.

He retraced his steps and flicked the overhead light on once more, a little ragingly.

Then he went, still furious at apparently himself but not able to conjure up control, to listen in at the bathroom door.

It figured that Kame’d open it precisely then.

Contrary little fuck.

His eyes collided with the almond eyes, and they didn't avoid this collision with his own for once, not at all.

He unexpectedly plunged right into their depths and their dark colour held a frightening clarity of emotion tonight

Crazily, Ryo tore his gaze away, fast, before he could put a name to the emotion there, anywhere else would do nicely. Kame's knees poked almost out of his own legs below his long boxer shorts and Ryo really didn't want to rest his eyes upon them, lest he get overpowered by a silly wish to drop down to his own knees and kiss them. On top, Kame'd casually thrown a cool old rock and roll T-Shirt which covered him demurely, to mid-thigh, hiding the center of the universe - and the small wound he'd inflicted to the skin close to it earlier as well, so that he couldn't check on it. But he better not dwell on that either. Ah, he ought to help with the drying of that tousled head of wet hair, he noted, if he didn't want to have to nurse this fragile guy back to health again, and he didn't want to, of course not.

Okay.

Later.

In a minute.

Or two.

Or more.

Probably much more.

When the air between them had cleared.

Because just now the air in the inches separating him from Kame was so thick as to be suffocating.

Thick and cold.

Like gross green soup sherbet.

“Dinner’s served” he informed Kame for something to say because it didn't look like Kame was going to open the festivities tonight.

So he was still sulking, huh?

What a baby.

Or perhaps he wasn't, Ryo decided. Kame was too fucking mature to even hold a grudge. More likely, he was lacking the energy to even be exceedingly polite, as was his wont. That was all.

But although he made no reply, Kame went to sit at the table, an event in and of itself,

Then with a look of utter concentration, he slowly dragged a dessert plate before him and spooned into the slice of chocolate cherry cake like a toddler tackling a particularly difficult school assignment.

Ryo's eyes very nearly popped out of his head.

He hadn't a clue what was happening here.

Okay it looked pretty simple.

Kame was eating.

Big mouthfuls of dessert.

Good.

Great.

He'd not even had to coax him into it which was…

Good.

Great.

Maybe he wasn't going to be difficult after all and maybe the nonstuff inside Ryo's chest could start resorbing, and wouldn't that be a hell of a relief.

Ryo went to sit on the chair opposite.

Kame didn't look up, still studiously engrossed into his own plate.

"Yeah, I think I'll skip the soup too" Ryo snorted and this was his way of setting out to be agreeable and he really hoped maybe sulky baby over there appreciated just how nice he was trying to act here.

He seized a spoon of his own and then rather than get the other plate with the untouched cake on it, his hand shot out across the small circular table in order to dip into the slice of cake Kame'd already started on. They could eat à deux, right, duel a little for the cake, like a nice prelude to fucking or something.

But Kame's hand, Kame's whole fucking being withdrew like a reflex.

Ryo experienced an unwarranted rush of blood to the head.

Unwarranted because of course Kame's withdrawing like this wasn't linked to his simply putting a hand out his way.

That'd be taking sulking into unacceptable territory, and anyway, Kame was mature, remember, so much more mature than this, it was yawn-inducing how mature he was.

Plus, for memo, and how could he fucking forget such a memorable event, Ryo'd already apologized.

So it was over now, the incident.

They were starting afresh.

Kame ought to have forgiven him ages ago at this point.

But Kame just gripped his spoon so tight his knuckles were very white underneath the neonlike lighting.

Yeah Ryo was watching his hand.

Avoiding his angry almond eyes.

Ryo's own hand lay with the empty spoon upon the table top while the silent stretched.

Eventually Kame brought another spoonful of dessert to his mouth. Ryo watched the spoon travel from the plate to his lips but Kame wasn't making the act erotic.

It even looked robotic.

"It looks like Winter's settling in." Ryo heard himself say.

Not that he was trying to make small talk.

He wasn't sure what waters he was treading exactly here, but the fact was, he never indulged in small talk, not ever, so not now either, not just because Kame happened to be godamn possibly sulky.

In any case Kame didn't answer this non attempt at small talk.

But it hadn't actually been a question.

He took another robotic bite of chocolate and cherry cake.

It was idiotic, all the fun they were missing out on, it could have been so much more amusing having their cake and eating it the way Ryo had planned earlier.

"Is it taste good?" Ryo asked. He was still not making small talk okay. But it was, undoubtedly, a question.

Kame ignored it.

Kame was motherfucking ignoring him.

Was acting like he didn’t exist or something and fuck it, Ryo may not know much about the protocol of apologizing but if there was one thing he knew how to do, it was exist and he'd allow no one to godamn pretend that he didn't.

Kame last of all.

Ryo lost it.

He stood up and stepped over to Kame's side of the table, took hold of his bony wrist and jerked his lightweight body up, off the chair, towards him, forcing Kame to face him, forcing himself to confront Kame in the eye too, dead on, no matter what he might read in there.

As long as he wasn't being ignored.

He wouldn't allow Kame to pretend he was immune to him, ever.

The laden spoon fell to the floor.

“I said I’m sorry”. He spat out. That was twice he’d said it. Twice. He couldn’t believe his own ears. He despised apologizing. He never apologized, not if he could help it but it seemed he couldn’t help it just now. He even meant it. His fingers dug into Kame’s wrist urgently because he couldn’t say more than those three words, they were already too much, he was endangering his own sense of identity to say them, bad, putting his fucking personality on the line.

But before he could find Benedict with the pad of his fingers and press all of it into him, because Benedict understood basic things like that, Benedict might maybe convey them to Kame’s stubborn little sulky head, Kame had snatched his whole arm away and balled his hand into one big knuckle and punched him in the stomach.

Whoosh.

Ryo didn’t know why anyone, least of all himself worried about Kame.

Okay Kame was frail and right now pale and trembling but anyway.

Kame was strong.

Ryo doubled up and staggered a step backwards.

All of the air had been knocked out of his lungs.

When he at last managed to suck in a hiss of hurtful air, Ryo straightened himself up.

Bizarrely, now that Kame had hit him for real, hard, he felt lots better. Lots. Like the nonstuff had whooshed out of his lungs, along with the air perhaps.

“Okay. Okay fine, I guess I deserved that. Now let’s call this whole incident over and have dinner.”

Everything was going to be fine now.

“Incident?” Kame said very, very, very quietly.

Ryo had been on the verge of smiling.

The nonstuff whooshing back inside his chest sucked that smile along inward too.

“Look Ryo, I’ll take my share of responsibility for acting like a bitch in heat today. I should have stopped us from the start. We should never have gotten started. But…” Kame’s mouth curled, quietly too, irrelevantly smudged with maroon. "That trick with the switch? I despise you”. He spelled out at Ryo.

The punch had been nothing.

Ryo was used to hurting other people with words but he, and maybe that was even the whole reason why he surged forward first verbally, always, to avoid having it happen to him, he really couldn't bear it, he wasn't all that tough, not inside, he, he wasn't used to having others' words cut him to the quick like this.

Fuck usually he just didn't care.


How could three clipped, clichéd words have so much impact on his psyche? It wasn’t normal. None of this was normal. All of this godawful melodrama unfolding between them wasn’t supposed to happen. Nevermind that it was girly and gay, but above all, they didn’t fucking have time for it, didn’t Kame understand?

One month in which to fuck, flying by, at lightning speed. That was all they had, so this, that and anything else, anything which didn't consist of the two of them giving each other as much pleasure as they could possibly pack in was useless, was a ridiculous, ridiculous waste of time.

Kame must be made to understand.

“I just wanted…” Ryo started and stopped.

But poised to speak and explain, Ryo all of a sudden found himself dispossessed of words. For the life of him, he couldn't say what he had wanted to accomplish by turning that switch on.

There, his poison tongue had turned on him, like it had been threatening to forever, fake friend that it was. And words weren’t the way to make Kame understand because Kame, words and he, they had a history, and it wasn't a nice one.

No words, no.

Ryo stepped forward.

He knew what he wanted now.

He wanted Kame.

They were almost touching again now.

And yes, this was how he should go about apologizing.

This ought to do the trick.

Touching.

Like this he had a shot at making everything better.

An excellent shot, he thought.

His hand cupped Kame's jaw. Instantly, it clenched inside his palm and he hesitated before he leaned in to kiss the mouth which was down to a thin line.

He shouldn't have hesitated.

"You can’t be serious” Kame spoke with unconcerned incredulity, like the fact that Ryo burnt to be inside him so bad it was unbearable was no longer any of his business.

Ryo could have howled with frustration.

A few hours of shopping and the fortress was up once more.

Well he wasn’t letting it get any higher. He was knocking it right back down. He was tackling Kame.

There.

Here.

They could solve this in bed.

He tried to kiss him forcefully, he wanted to cover Kame’s mouth so he could be sure he wouldn’t be able to tell him things like that he despised him, things which were obviously untrue, if they’d been true Kame would have been pushing him away now instead of…

Kame was pushing him away, trying to, trying hard, kicking, so many pointed bones protesting, poking.

Ryo struggled, grabbing his T-Shirt, tearing at it, needing to get at Kame's skin underneath.

This was the way for them to be reconciled, he knew it, his every instinct screamed it.

Fucking.

Except Kame wasn't complying.

Hell.

He was actively resisting with what strength he had left, which seemed not to be much, but was enough to make any kind of union an impossibility.

Ryo couldn't even get to the center of the universe because Kame was flailing like mad.

"Don't!" Ryo meant to issue it as an order but it sounded desperate. "Fuck, DON'T!" He was getting horrifically frustrated and angry and Kame was laughing suddenly, stridently.

"Don't what?" It seemed to strike him as hysterically funny. "You're the one attempting to rape me".

Those coldly hysterical giggles.

They drove Ryo crazy.

He grabbed both Kame's fists and held them together while he yelled into his gaunt stubborn face.

"I said I'm sorry I'M SORRY I'M FUCKING SORRY now you stop your fucking opera and let me fuck you like you're dying to be, you little cunt."

Kame had laughed so hard, he was crying a little.

Ryo was sorry.

Wasn’t that all there was to it?

He wanted Kame and he wanted him all pliant, all needy, all eager and willing, so wonderfully willing, all, like this morning like last night like yesterday and the day before like… not like this.

Ryo released his wrists and pushed himself up partially on his elbows, breathing roughly, clueless as to what to do next, and underneath him Kame's body seemingly registered this truce too. It was no longer unreasonably resisting but just lying there, exhausted.

Except for the almond eyes staring up at him.

With undiluted hatred.

But Kame couldn’t hate him.

It was going to be unbearable.

This room was much too small already: as it was it barely contained Kame’s fragrance, his cries of pleasure, Ryo’s. It was utterly full, the small room, crammed with sensation. There was going to be simply no place for hatred. No place for any emotion that strong.

They were going to be suffocating.

Didn’t Kame get it?

It was a matter of survival.

Kame couldn’t hate Ryo.

Or was he planning on emptying the room of the pleasure altogether, to make space for the hatred? It’d be the pleasure, having to go, because the fragrance wasn’t something you could get rid of, unfortunately. Ryo was almost sure Kame didn’t even know about the irrelevant existence of it.

Kame's contemptuous eyes.

He didn't want.

No.

When Ryo looked away, his gaze grazed the small glaring red wound visible so near Kame's now exposed bellybutton.

And it made the nonstuff inside his chest go wild to have his eyes just graze at it.

"Get off" Kame murmured, his voice not assured.

Ryo obeyed.

On the bed below, reclining, Kame looked entirely too vulnerable.

But then he quickly got up too, mercifully tugging his torn T-Shirt down over the small wound.

He announced:"I'm gonna go brush my teeth now".

It didn't sound like he was addressing Ryo, but rather like he was enumerating another item on some mental to-do list.

The item that simply happened to come after "Deny Ryo."

And Kame was back inside his darling hiding place, the bathroom.

Ryo sedately sat back down at the table and proceeded to swallow his bowl of now colder than cold disgusting soup. It tasted a little like blood, eerily, and Ryo only identified why after a few seconds, when he realized that in trying to kiss Kame he'd reopened his own small wound, to his lower lip. After some mouthfuls, he put the spoon aside and just brought the bowl to his mouth, gulping all of the moss-coloured liquid in one bloody go.

He hoped to slosh a dose of reality down his throat, he guessed.

To drown the miserable nonstuff.

But it did nothing of the sort.

Now, in addition to having nonstuff spreading inside his chest, he felt sick to the stomach.

Kame calmly came out of the bathroom after a few minutes, like nothing was the matter with his world, and went and soundlessly slid into bed.

The other bed.

The one by the window.

Ryo watched the back of Kame's head, the only thing to show because he'd covered himself up to there.

Well, he hoped the blanket provided warmth at least, because it offered fucking little protection in case of assault, he speculated derisively.

Kame's wet hair darkened the pillowcase in the spot under his head.

But Ryo didn't really want to assault Kame anymore.

He longed to dry his locks.

It didn't look like a likely option, though.

He had been wrong earlier, but he only knew it now.

Now, now he was all out of options.