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~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
note: Eek! What are we
gonna do with Ryo? Doesn't think he's
good enough for Mia so he goes
for Rowen... What else can go
wrong with Cye's plan for Mia
and Ryo - and can he fix it? That's
enough narrator-talk from me.
Let the soap opera continue!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Rowen spluttered through
several false starts as he tried to think
of how he could possibly reply to the unanticipated
appeal. He
finally decided he couldn't avoid the dreaded
'but' statement. "Ryo,
I'm flattered that you would think of me like
that but-"
"But nothing, Rowen,"
Ryo broke in, not wanting to hear the
obvious conclusion to that sentence. "All
I want is an answer, not a
speech. Will you?" Ryo could feel
an adrenaline rush sending
jittery, nervous excitement through his limbs.
Rowen hadn't yet put
on anything more than Sage's boxers and it gave
him an excellent
view of the archer's lithe body. With more
than his normal
intensity, Ryo searched Rowen's eyes for some
sign that he would
respond favorably. Please, Rowen, he pleaded
silently, please?
"I'm sorry, Ryo.
You're a good friend and all but I just don't see
you that way." Rowen cringed a little at
his own words. He'd not
only used another 'but', he'd also said something
that wasn't entirely
true. Life was certainly having grand time
throwing awkward and
difficult situations at him. It didn't
help that he was having to deal
with them totally unprepared. His heart
felt like it was going to
pound right out of his ribcage.
Squaring his shoulders
and firming his resolve, Ryo stepped
closer to his tall, blue-haired friend, placing
his hands on the other
man's bare chest and internally shaking away
those last words. He
wasn't ready to let this go. Heat of the
most wonderful kind flushed
through him in a hazy swirl, concentrating sharply
between his legs.
He could hardly believe he was doing this.
He'd never been this
forward when it came to intimate things.
Ryo slowly moved Rowen
back toward the door until his
shoulders came in contact with the wood.
He pressed his damp
body close against Rowen's, slid one hand in
a soft, tingling caress
down the pale skin, and slipped his fingertips
beneath the waistband
of the single article of cloth separating them.
"Don't say no so
quickly," he murmured, wanting this so badly
it hurt.
Rowen swallowed hard
and forced his lungs to draw in air. The
touch of skin on skin was intoxicating, making
his head spin in
reaction. This wasn't anything like when
Sage touched him. Not at
all like that. Ryo radiated a fiery aura
of need that was focused
entirely on him, leaving no escape. Outside
his own idle fantasies,
this was not anything he'd ever have expected
of this man. "Ryo-"
"Shhh," Ryo hushed him,
his breath warm, a finger pressed
against Rowen's lips. Ryo could feel the
response that shivered
through Rowen's form. The body was more
than willing, he noted
with an enraptured thought - *he* had done this!
Now, could he
convince the mind? One way to find out...
He pressed his lips to
Rowen's startled mouth, letting his eyes
slip closed. Taking full advantage of that
parted softness, Ryo slid
his tongue in to taste the quiet warmth.
It was pure, gentle, yet
edged with a sharp clarity...like sunlight glowing
through the moist
atmosphere on a warm spring morning after a long
night of rain.
So this is what Sage had been keeping all to
himself... Moving his
mouth gently against Rowen's, Ryo allowed his
hands to wander
freely over the thin, strong body. One
hand lingered on the firmly
toned rear, tenderly petting and kneading the
silk-covered flesh. He
nearly lost himself when his friend began to
relax into his touches
and return his attentions.
Pulling back just far
enough to see the star-filled, blue eyes had
closed like his own as to better understand the
sensations, Ryo
declared quietly, "I wish I'd gotten to you before
Sage. He's a very
lucky man." Rowen's luminous eyes slipped
open, lids heavy with
the weight of rising desire. The tiny,
demure smile that appeared
on the sensitive lips drove Ryo unswervingly
onward in his
seduction.
He gently caught Rowen's
lower lip between his teeth and
nibbled, gaining a soft sigh for his work.
Trailing his open mouth
down the fair, slim neck, Ryo dipped his tongue
into the hollow
between the delicate collar bones. He was
rewarded with an airy
gasp that made him smile. Rowen was literally
trembling under his
advances and Ryo felt his friend's enthusiasm
increasing with each
little bit of contact. Gods, Rowen was
the most sensual being he'd
ever known!
When Rowen's practiced
hands brushed over his chest, pausing
briefly to tease his nipples, Ryo moaned low
in his throat and gave
in fully to his passion. It was as if his
own heat caused Rowen to
melt into him then, letting him take what he
wanted for his own.
His mouth was hard on Rowen's, his tongue gaining
dominance,
leading the archer in this as he had lead him
against the Dynasty.
His hips moved, grinding his hardness against
Rowen's own
growing erection. Almost roughly, he started
to push the green silk
down...
He heard Rowen make a
small sound of discomfort and was
suddenly shoved away. "What's wrong?!"
he snapped in barely
controlled frustration, immediately wishing he
could take back the
angry sounding words.
Rowen stared at him for
an uncounted span of time, fingers
touching the lips swollen from Ryo's aggressive
kisses. His breath
consisted of soft puffs of air, as if a little
hard to come by. A
sorrowful look of - was it regret? guilt? - sat
deep in his beautiful
eyes. "I'm sorry, Ryo," he whispered, "I
can't do this. You belong
with Mia, not me."
He turned quickly and
slipped out the door, leaving Ryo
standing alone, aching with his need for physical
release and a
confused heart, in the steam-filled bathroom.
Water still beat
relentlessly against the tub and tile behind
him.
"Shit," Ryo cursed, furious
with himself. He dragged a hand
cruelly through his wet mess of dark hair.
"Wildfire, you idiot,
what have you done now?"
Leaning his back against
the smooth, untextured wall, Ryo let
himself slip down until he was sitting on the
floor. He stared
blankly at the wooden door of the cabinet directly
across from him.
His mind emptied itself of words, working instead
with only the
unnamed turbulent emotions that whispered a familiar
dark refrain
inside him. How the hell was he ever supposed
to face Rowen
again?
Ryo swung around quickly
and slammed a clenched fist into the
wall with a quick burst of humiliated strength.
The drywall gave
under the impact and left him faced with a fist-sized
hole at
approximately knee-height. "Ah crap," he
muttered in disgust.
Patching the wall without Mia finding out what
he'd done was not
going to be fun.
He could live with the
pain that was starting to replace his hand
and could handle fixing the wall. He couldn't
change what had just
happened between him and one of his closest friends.
He'd not only
embarrassed himself but Rowen, as well.
Already, he could feel the
beginnings of self-doubt and misery stirring
low in his breast,
growing on the already heavy emotions filling
him. Why was he
continually so *stupid*?!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Cye watched, strangely
fascinated, as Yuli whispered something
into Dais' ear and the former Warlord valiantly
struggled not to
laugh. Yuli must have made a vulgar comment,
to judge from his
gleaming eyes and too-virtuous smile. Clearing
his throat lightly,
Cye started, "Not to interrupt you two or anything
but...just how
did you end up-"
"Together?" Yuli supplied with a smirk.
The three of them sat
comfortably at the kitchen table, Kento
having disappeared into the living room to drown
in his video
games fifteen minutes earlier and Mia having
taken to her bedroom
again to look over some papers. Dais and
Yuli were side by side,
the younger of the pair sitting close enough
to the one-time
Dynasty minion as to practically be in his lap.
"Yes, I have been wondering
about that." I also wonder when
you became such an exhibitionist, Cye added silently
to himself.
The boy - no, young *man* - had yet to take his
obviously eager
hands off Dais, constantly touching him in some
way. Cye found it
rather disconcerting, considering their history
with the former
Warlord.
"*Die*, you evil scum!"
bellowed Kento from the other room.
"You cannot defeat the almighty Kento!
D'oh!"
"I'll tell you everything
*if* you'll answer a personal question for
us," Yuli replied with a look of contrived innocence,
easily ignoring
Kento and tugging on a lock of shoulder-length
black hair. It was
vaguely reminiscent of the more truly innocent
expressions of his
childhood but Cye wasn't fooled in the least.
With a rueful sigh, Torrent
folded his arms across his chest and
puffed his hair out of his face. "Nosy
thing, aren't you?"
"I learned from the best."
The cheeky grin on Yuli's face made
Cye shake his head in mock despair. Dais
observed the scene with
an intrigued eye. He really knew very little
about Yuli's friends -
and most of what he knew was what Yuli had told
him. He hadn't
had much reason to learn more than their deepest
fears when he'd
battled against them.
If only for Yuli's sake,
he needed to understand these people
that had once been his enemies. To know
them better would give
the deeper emotional attachment he found himself
wanting with the
charming, playful scamp he'd grown so fond of.
Yuli made him feel
young - something he hadn't felt in a long time.
"And you would like to
know?" Cye's question broke into his
thoughts. Torrent appeared none to happy
to have his own tactics -
although ones he no longer used - turned against
him.
"You and Kento have been
doing the horizontal hokey pokey,
true or false?" Yuli asked bluntly, leaning forward
over the table
like he was interrogating a hostile witness on
the stand.
Cye's blue-green eyes
went wide. Oh, the brat was *definitely*
getting personal - not to mention unbelievably
crude! Still, it wasn't
as if he'd be telling them something that everyone
hadn't already
assumed as truth. "All right, you silly
little bastard, if that's the
way
you want to play it," he paused and tossed a
not-quite-affronted look
at Dais, "True."
"See?! I told you!"
Yuli jumped up from his chair and crowed
his triumph loudly. He struck a victorious
pose that would have
done a pro wrestling champion proud.
"Fine, fine," Dais held
up his hands in defeat. "You've got two
of three now but I *still* say Wildfire hasn't
had the guts to put the
moves on her yet."
Yuli turned on Dais,
annoyance written on his face. "Ryo's a lot
stronger than you seem to think."
"I also seem to recall
that he's not anywhere near as sure of
himself as *you* think," Dais tossed back easily.
"So," Cye spoke up, seeing
the path this exchange was sure to
take, "do I get my story or do I have to beat
you for it?" If he
didn't get the tale now, Yuli would probably
use it to worm even
more information out of him later.
"There's really not much
to tell, actually," Yuli admitted, a little
chagrinned. "I was out with Shiho a couple
of months ago and she
decided to introduce me to a new friend of hers."
A couple of months! Cye
thought in surprise. How had Yuli
kept this hushed for that long? There hadn't
been so much as even
a casual slip of the tongue in all that time.
And what about Shiho?
What part had she played, besides the reintroduction,
in this?
"Wasn't she surprised
when she found out we'd already met..."
Dais added, his one good eye of palest blue bright
with something
Cye had never thought to see in one of his old
enemies. He had to
admit it - no matter how odd this pairing seemed,
it had done
wonderful things for both Dais and Yuli.
Cye couldn't help but
wonder where the relationship would go, if it
lasted.
Now, Yuli *did* climb
into Dais' lap, tangling his arms around
the slender neck. He wound a stray curl
of white hair around his
index finger and replied with a wide grin, "Wasn't
she, though?"
Looking back at Cye, Yuli continued his explanation,
"We went out
to lunch - the three of us - and Dais and I just
sort of clicked, I
guess. That's pretty much it."
"If someone had told
me when I first met you as a youngster
that we'd end up like this, I would have laughed
and then knocked
his head off," Dais commented, gazing calmly
on his Yuli. "Funny,
isn't it, Torrent, how the world works?"
"What does Shiho say
about this?" Cye asked seriously. The
shock of the situation was wearing off and he
needed to know how
all parties in this were handling it. He
really didn't want to end up
in the middle of a bad, real-life soap opera.
Yuli smiled cheerfully. "It's what she was hoping for!"
"What?!"
"It's the truth, I swear
it. Shiho - wait..." Yuli said, suddenly
seeing what was confusing Cye. "You - *all*
of you - thought that
Shiho and I were-" He made a 'you know' motion
with his left hand
and snickered. "Oh no. She and I
never - we're only friends - and
*you* thought..." Yuli lost it and sputtered
into Dais' shoulder,
overtaken by convulsive laughter.
"Well, what were we supposed
to think?" Cye countered, feeling
his cheeks redden in embarrassment. He
knew there really wasn't a
reason to be blushing but he couldn't exactly
help it. "You never
told us she *wasn't* your girlfriend!"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The bedroom door shut
with a loud click. Halo looked up from
his journal and watched Rowen move across the
floor, sinuous and
supple. Sage felt honored to call this
tall, breathtaking creature his
own. As soon as he came within range, though,
the archer crashed
inelegantly onto the mattress face down, instantly
shattering the
faery-illusion. "Is something wrong?"
Rowen gave his lover
a confused look. His confusion stemmed
from Ryo's sudden interest - and sudden it was,
for he'd never seen
even a hint that Ryo might swing this way before
now. It was only
a few short months ago that he'd realized and
accepted that *he*
was attracted to other men. Namely Sage.
Of course, he'd
indulged in fantasies involving the others -
many of which had him
gladly submitting and allowing Ryo do as he wished.
The man was
almost supernaturally good looking and terribly
erotic but...they
were just nice dreams. Sage was all he
needed, wasn't he?
"Well? I can tell
when something's bothering you, you know.
Talk to me."
Remaining silent, thinking
of how to approach telling Sage what
had occurred, Rowen crawled over the small space
between them.
He laid his head on Sage's now linen-clad thigh,
curling his body
loosely over the thick quilt covering the bed,
oddly desperate for
this simple contact, to clear his thinking.
He felt better when a
gentle hand began to stroke his short, blue hair,
and he came to his
decision. Why beat around the bush?
"Ryo just came on to
me." Actually, it was a bit more than a
come on but you don't need to know that, he added
privately for his
own benefit.
The hand stilled.
"Are you serious?" The calm voice held a hint of amusement.
He nodded against the
covered thigh beneath his cheek. It
would've been nicer without the cloth but he
doubted Sage could be
coaxed out of his clothes at the moment.
Rowen sighed. There
was nothing to do but finish the conversation.
"What do you want to
do about it?" Sage then asked without
any sign of emotion, except maybe a little curiosity.
He was
carefully concealing any personal feelings about
the situation until
he'd had time to consider it further, Rowen knew.
It was just the
way Sage did things.
"I don't know," Rowen
confessed, his voice hardly more than a
whisper.
"Do you want to be with him?"
The question was thoroughly
unexpected. Was the entire *day*
going to be like this?! He didn't know
how many more surprises he
could take.
Rowen sat up and stared
hard at Sage. He couldn't find what
was prompting the query in the near-silver eyes.
Had Sage noticed
the way his cheeks were still flushed?
The way his body was still
responding to Ryo's amorous touches...?
Of course he had. This
was Sage, the one person that knew him better
than anyone. His
other self.
Unable to look at Sage
any longer, Rowen lowered his gaze to
the quilt, studying intently the familiar wispy
swirls of blues and
greens. It had been a gift for both of
them from Sage's mother
when she'd found out her son had finally been
brave enough to take
that first step. A matching one was spread
(although not anywhere
near as neatly) over the bed in his own room.
Those knowing fingers
that had played through his hair only a
handful of seconds ago now brushed across his
averted cheek. A
softly spoken question caressed his ears.
"Do you?"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
END PART THREE
