No matter how much they try or how intellectual convinced they are of the truth in the Maou's unspoken threats, it is simply not possible to stay in a state of heightened awareness indefinitely. And, as much as he wishes he could deny it, their old instincts are roaring back with a vengeance. They both know better than to try and remain fully alert.
Bad weather means that Lukas has been forced to stay home to avoid betraying how rattled the Maou's visit has made them. Which, in turn, means that his golden lover will have downed his brushes and charcoal as soon as Ken's office hours ended and will be pacing the floor, waiting for his return. Ken shakes out his umbrella and steps into the drizzle. He thinks it's likely to be his turn to cook tonight.
Not Asian food. Steak, perhaps...
It could have been a lot worse.
Later, Ken would admit that it was those long-buried instincts that saved him. Probably not his life: the Earth Maou wasn't quite that stupid. But they saved him all the same.
He had dropped his head against the rain, just enough that the punch that should have broken his jaw, catches his temple instead. He is sent spinning to the ground. He looks up, vision blurred and unfocused to see the grey light overhead being eclipsed by dark, looming shapes.
Then a boot connects with his ribs and whitehot pain shorts out rational thought. Instincts honed to a razor-edge on battlefields far more treacherous than this snarl commands directly into Ken's nervous system. He's back on his feet before the second kick can land.
The rest of the fight is blurred.
He remembers; the flash of light on a ring, gold winking under a coat of his blood: the feel of muscle-fat-bone cracking under a precise, deliberate strike: the loss of his glasses and the tinkling, ringing sounds they make as they shatter on the concrete. He remembers the crude attempts to use maryoku against him and the ease with which he reverses their puny efforts. He remembers the bone-deep need to find Lukas. He remembers pain and cold and damp and the relentless demand that he keep going until he's home.
He doesn't remember getting/walking(/running?) away. He doesn't remember how long it takes him to go home. He doesn't remember if anyone saw him. He doesn't remember how he managed to walk half a mile with cracked ribs and a concussion or how he managed to make it up the stairs with both shoes missing and his feet a mess of blood and dirt.
His memory sharpens, purifies as the door swings open. He stumbles through a haze of pain and fuzziness but his strength is gone and he falls...but there are strong arms to catch him. A warm chest with a powerful beat under his cheek and Ken presses his bloodied cheek against it. "So tired. So sore. Don't leave me?"
He's unconscious before the other can answer. It's all right. He knows that he's safe.
It begins as the least pleasant war he has ever waged, and it promises to end as the most maddening. The hours of frustration, of wondering, are too much to bear. He stalks through the house when no one is there to see him, even the animals slinking out of his way, and thinks furiously. Where is the enemy? Where are his armies? When do they come to try to break me?
This is not that kind of war.
Footsteps, slow and heavy, are the first warning that he has, strangling the breath from his throat in dreadful premonition. That can't be his lover's light step; it hasn't the energy of health or the swiftness or impatience. That is the dazed march of the returning soldier. He's heard it many times before.
No amount of premonition can prepare him for the awful moment when he opens the door and Ken wavers and falls into him.
No, no, no! The man in his frantic embrace is a wreck; bruises and blood mottle pale skin, even smiling features are split and swollen.
An inaudible mumble catches his ears, a faint, "Don't leave me..."
Never by choice. He can't even close the door, can't even breathe for the pulse thundering in his ears; Ken goes limp and the blond sinks to his knees, easing the broken body as gently as he can to the carpet. Let the Maou and his agents see this display of the power they want so badly. They will regret their greed soon enough.
He clenches his teeth and bows his head over Ken and he calls upon his power in earnest, dragging it up through his body and releasing it to his bidding. It simmers in his blood and he feels himself in a golden haze, everything moving slowly, glowing in his streaking vision.
Healing is not his specialty. It is a fine, delicate art that he was never quite comfortable with. But he wields the maryoku as he wields his brush and traces it through the desperate heat of Ken's shivering body; flesh strains to wholeness under his touch, and bruises fade to the flush of healthy skin. Some interminable length of time passes while he kneels there, holding his lover, before he lifts his head. His whole body aches from the sustained throb of narrowly-channeled power but Ken breathes easier now and that is the only thing that matters.
Finally, he leans over and shoves the door closed. The lock clicks on its own.
Before this moment, he isn't sure what name he would have answered to. Perhaps he might have recognized himself as Lukas; perhaps "Heika" would have gotten his attention faster, or another name, long buried, long forgotten. But for now, drained and tired and scared, he is Lukas again.
Despite his exhaustion he gathers Ken's thin form into his arms carefully, taking them both to the bedroom. He strips his lover from his ruined clothes and buries him under the coverlet and watches him sleep. Someone will pay for this. But it will have to wait -- Ken asked him to stay, and even if he hadn't, it would be cruel to let him wake up alone.
Lukas sinks into the bed and cradles the smaller man close. He closes his eyes; he opens them again a minute or an hour later, with Ken's hand brushing tears from his cheek and Ken's maryoku soaring into his body with obscene decadence. Every inch of his skin tingles with it, heady and lush. The Sage murmurs, "It's dangerous for you to be weakened now."
Lukas loves him so much, was so frightened for him, that he can't even protest that he is still strong and that Ken should save his strength. The blond makes an inarticulate sound and surges forward to kiss him. Ken clings back and shakes like a leaf, feeling more fragile than Lukas can ever remember thinking him.
A warning? This was a warning. His lover always looks so vulnerable without his glasses, the way only Lukas sees him. There is a spare pair in the bedside stand. They knew I would heal him. If they'd wanted to kill him, they could have. But they wanted to taunt me.
Fools. That cold, cold thought doesn't belong to the man named Lukas. They should have killed him then -- they will not have another chance.
The phone rings and Lukas is out of bed faster than he can recall moving. He yanks the cord from the wall. If they call him on his cell phone he will throw it out the window.
But the landline phone will stay. He may need it later.
Ken: What Dreams may comearamuinApril 4 2006, 07:07:25 UTC
His first thought is that he is dying.
His first emotion is surprise. He really did not think the wounds were enough to kill him. He feels the distant sort of regret that always seems to associate itself with the ending of another life.
The world is sliding away into the bleak gray twilight despite his petty struggles. He doesn't want to go. He has Lukas, a dog, cats, students - all of them depending on him. He's given everything he has, everything he was...surely not even cruel Fate would take anything more.
But his strength is long since bled away and only his faltering, fallible will keeps him clinging on. He can't stop it, can barely even slow Death's progression. But how could he not fight and fight with everything that he has? He. Will. Not. Leave. Lukas. Alone. Again.
Just as his grip slips for the last time, he hears Lukas's voice - taut and deep. Then, Light! Colour! Pain! Pressure!
Unceremoniously hauled back from the brink, he manages to muster his own powers enough to act as a lens for Lukas's power, cushioning the drain. Then, safe and he falls into deep sleep. Nightmares - well nourished by eons of lonely life - creep from the shadows but he is not alone any more. Soft lips brushing against a cheek, rough hands grasping his own and the warmth of another always near at hand. No knight in history has faced peril with weapons and armour more fit for the trial.
He sleeps. And in that sleep, he collects up the fragments of the brittle Sage who feared love so much that he killed to escape it. Memory and understanding fuse the old with new and he is whole once more. Old, cannier and carrying still the scars of the past but stronger and centered so deeply that not even the Maou can hope to unsettle him.
Murata Ken, the Great Sage, opens his eyes to see sunlight all around him and he smiles at the golden figure standing over him.
Lukas: Lie AwakeuneditedApril 5 2006, 17:15:42 UTC
There is no light in the darkness, except for the glowing numbers from their bedside clock.
He can't sleep. He isn't even tired. He knows that he should sleep, that waking up refreshed will make this seem a world easier to deal with; he's been awake all day and the better part of the night. But Lukas still finds his blood burning bright with maryoku and adrenaline thudding into ready muscles as if at any moment he might be forced into battle. With Ken held tight against him and his face buried into the smaller man's shoulder he just lies there with his eyes open and waits.
The rush is gone but the reality is only just settling in.
The Sage has been attacked -- a clumsy attempt at intimidation upon a person far wiser and more graceful than its masterminds could ever hope to be. Ken has been attacked, and so easily the comfort of their private lives is shattered. There is no place that is safe outside of their home, no security beyond these walls.
Lukas stretches out his senses and checks the wards on the walls, the doors, the windows: wards placed almost unconsciously, reinforced every time they laugh or cook or think, 'this is where happiness is', because when you are happy someplace you have to make certain it is protected. For those forged in centuries of war, it is second nature.
The wards are powerful and heavy. There's no need to repair them because no one has tampered with them. Lukas reels himself back in and shifts restlessly, turning to his other side, facing away from his lover.
The Maou has attacked Ken. Tomorrow it will be long past time to lay plans to make him regret his audacity. Lukas runs over his assets with a military precision -- his own power and Ken's reserve are nothing to be brushed aside lightly and as much as Lukas might like to nail shut the front door and keep Ken from ever leaving again ever, there is too much of the pragmatic warlord in him to think that depriving himself of that pillar of support will be of any benefit, not even to his scattered nerves. He has the wards on this place, he has the advantage of age and experience. He has Ulrike, who is surely still listening for his voice if she has spoken recently to the Maou of Earth on his behalf, and no doubt the resources that she can command.
(He cannot spare the energy to be angry at her for her part in this; she is suffering too, in her way. It is not her fault that she loves him with the single-minded devotion that has always been required in his priestesses, and worries about him in his absence. It is certainly not her fault that her confidence has been betrayed. It is, and has ever been, Bob's fault.)
He thinks of the assets at the Maou's disposal, mostly guesses and estimates, because he has no sure knowledge of the man's resources. Manpower, connections, knowledge, money. Perhaps in the morning he will call the butcher and discern the extent of his loyalty. If he is faithful, hang up and no harm done, and if he is not, well, perhaps he will have a better idea of what Lukas is up against.
Even if Lukas is overestimating the Maou's resources, they cannot do this alone.
Ken's lips press to the nape of his neck, his quiet way of letting Lukas know that he is awake again and here if needed. A smile sneaks up on the blond before he realizes it -- that unintrusive touch is so beloved and so familiar that it makes it hard to remember whatever grim thoughts turned his back on the smaller man in the first place.
I wouldn't let it come to this for anyone else. I don't even know if I'd do it for me. But since it's you...
He can't remember the last time he felt such intense fear as in that moment when Ken crumpled into his arms. The instinct that had taken him over had stopped any frantic worries then, but once the emergency had passed, the desperate thoughts crept back with a vengeance: What if...? and How could I...?
It's too dark to be awake -- that is why he is beset by these thoughts -- but he can't sleep. At least it won't be long before the sun rises.
No matter how much they try or how intellectual convinced they are of the truth in the Maou's unspoken threats, it is simply not possible to stay in a state of heightened awareness indefinitely. And, as much as he wishes he could deny it, their old instincts are roaring back with a vengeance. They both know better than to try and remain fully alert.
Bad weather means that Lukas has been forced to stay home to avoid betraying how rattled the Maou's visit has made them. Which, in turn, means that his golden lover will have downed his brushes and charcoal as soon as Ken's office hours ended and will be pacing the floor, waiting for his return. Ken shakes out his umbrella and steps into the drizzle. He thinks it's likely to be his turn to cook tonight.
Not Asian food. Steak, perhaps...
It could have been a lot worse.
Later, Ken would admit that it was those long-buried instincts that saved him. Probably not his life: the Earth Maou wasn't quite that stupid. But they saved him all the same.
He had dropped his head against the rain, just enough that the punch that should have broken his jaw, catches his temple instead. He is sent spinning to the ground. He looks up, vision blurred and unfocused to see the grey light overhead being eclipsed by dark, looming shapes.
Then a boot connects with his ribs and whitehot pain shorts out rational thought. Instincts honed to a razor-edge on battlefields far more treacherous than this snarl commands directly into Ken's nervous system. He's back on his feet before the second kick can land.
The rest of the fight is blurred.
He remembers; the flash of light on a ring, gold winking under a coat of his blood: the feel of muscle-fat-bone cracking under a precise, deliberate strike: the loss of his glasses and the tinkling, ringing sounds they make as they shatter on the concrete. He remembers the crude attempts to use maryoku against him and the ease with which he reverses their puny efforts. He remembers the bone-deep need to find Lukas. He remembers pain and cold and damp and the relentless demand that he keep going until he's home.
He doesn't remember getting/walking(/running?) away. He doesn't remember how long it takes him to go home. He doesn't remember if anyone saw him. He doesn't remember how he managed to walk half a mile with cracked ribs and a concussion or how he managed to make it up the stairs with both shoes missing and his feet a mess of blood and dirt.
His memory sharpens, purifies as the door swings open. He stumbles through a haze of pain and fuzziness but his strength is gone and he falls...but there are strong arms to catch him. A warm chest with a powerful beat under his cheek and Ken presses his bloodied cheek against it. "So tired. So sore. Don't leave me?"
He's unconscious before the other can answer. It's all right. He knows that he's safe.
Home
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This is not that kind of war.
Footsteps, slow and heavy, are the first warning that he has, strangling the breath from his throat in dreadful premonition. That can't be his lover's light step; it hasn't the energy of health or the swiftness or impatience. That is the dazed march of the returning soldier. He's heard it many times before.
No amount of premonition can prepare him for the awful moment when he opens the door and Ken wavers and falls into him.
No, no, no! The man in his frantic embrace is a wreck; bruises and blood mottle pale skin, even smiling features are split and swollen.
An inaudible mumble catches his ears, a faint, "Don't leave me..."
Never by choice. He can't even close the door, can't even breathe for the pulse thundering in his ears; Ken goes limp and the blond sinks to his knees, easing the broken body as gently as he can to the carpet. Let the Maou and his agents see this display of the power they want so badly. They will regret their greed soon enough.
He clenches his teeth and bows his head over Ken and he calls upon his power in earnest, dragging it up through his body and releasing it to his bidding. It simmers in his blood and he feels himself in a golden haze, everything moving slowly, glowing in his streaking vision.
Healing is not his specialty. It is a fine, delicate art that he was never quite comfortable with. But he wields the maryoku as he wields his brush and traces it through the desperate heat of Ken's shivering body; flesh strains to wholeness under his touch, and bruises fade to the flush of healthy skin. Some interminable length of time passes while he kneels there, holding his lover, before he lifts his head. His whole body aches from the sustained throb of narrowly-channeled power but Ken breathes easier now and that is the only thing that matters.
Finally, he leans over and shoves the door closed. The lock clicks on its own.
Before this moment, he isn't sure what name he would have answered to. Perhaps he might have recognized himself as Lukas; perhaps "Heika" would have gotten his attention faster, or another name, long buried, long forgotten. But for now, drained and tired and scared, he is Lukas again.
Despite his exhaustion he gathers Ken's thin form into his arms carefully, taking them both to the bedroom. He strips his lover from his ruined clothes and buries him under the coverlet and watches him sleep. Someone will pay for this. But it will have to wait -- Ken asked him to stay, and even if he hadn't, it would be cruel to let him wake up alone.
Lukas sinks into the bed and cradles the smaller man close. He closes his eyes; he opens them again a minute or an hour later, with Ken's hand brushing tears from his cheek and Ken's maryoku soaring into his body with obscene decadence. Every inch of his skin tingles with it, heady and lush. The Sage murmurs, "It's dangerous for you to be weakened now."
Lukas loves him so much, was so frightened for him, that he can't even protest that he is still strong and that Ken should save his strength. The blond makes an inarticulate sound and surges forward to kiss him. Ken clings back and shakes like a leaf, feeling more fragile than Lukas can ever remember thinking him.
A warning? This was a warning. His lover always looks so vulnerable without his glasses, the way only Lukas sees him. There is a spare pair in the bedside stand. They knew I would heal him. If they'd wanted to kill him, they could have. But they wanted to taunt me.
Fools. That cold, cold thought doesn't belong to the man named Lukas. They should have killed him then -- they will not have another chance.
The phone rings and Lukas is out of bed faster than he can recall moving. He yanks the cord from the wall. If they call him on his cell phone he will throw it out the window.
But the landline phone will stay. He may need it later.
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His first emotion is surprise. He really did not think the wounds were enough to kill him. He feels the distant sort of regret that always seems to associate itself with the ending of another life.
The world is sliding away into the bleak gray twilight despite his petty struggles. He doesn't want to go. He has Lukas, a dog, cats, students - all of them depending on him. He's given everything he has, everything he was...surely not even cruel Fate would take anything more.
But his strength is long since bled away and only his faltering, fallible will keeps him clinging on. He can't stop it, can barely even slow Death's progression. But how could he not fight and fight with everything that he has? He. Will. Not. Leave. Lukas. Alone. Again.
Just as his grip slips for the last time, he hears Lukas's voice - taut and deep. Then, Light! Colour! Pain! Pressure!
Unceremoniously hauled back from the brink, he manages to muster his own powers enough to act as a lens for Lukas's power, cushioning the drain. Then, safe and he falls into deep sleep. Nightmares - well nourished by eons of lonely life - creep from the shadows but he is not alone any more. Soft lips brushing against a cheek, rough hands grasping his own and the warmth of another always near at hand. No knight in history has faced peril with weapons and armour more fit for the trial.
He sleeps. And in that sleep, he collects up the fragments of the brittle Sage who feared love so much that he killed to escape it. Memory and understanding fuse the old with new and he is whole once more. Old, cannier and carrying still the scars of the past but stronger and centered so deeply that not even the Maou can hope to unsettle him.
Murata Ken, the Great Sage, opens his eyes to see sunlight all around him and he smiles at the golden figure standing over him.
"Tadaima."
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He can't sleep. He isn't even tired. He knows that he should sleep, that waking up refreshed will make this seem a world easier to deal with; he's been awake all day and the better part of the night. But Lukas still finds his blood burning bright with maryoku and adrenaline thudding into ready muscles as if at any moment he might be forced into battle. With Ken held tight against him and his face buried into the smaller man's shoulder he just lies there with his eyes open and waits.
The rush is gone but the reality is only just settling in.
The Sage has been attacked -- a clumsy attempt at intimidation upon a person far wiser and more graceful than its masterminds could ever hope to be. Ken has been attacked, and so easily the comfort of their private lives is shattered. There is no place that is safe outside of their home, no security beyond these walls.
Lukas stretches out his senses and checks the wards on the walls, the doors, the windows: wards placed almost unconsciously, reinforced every time they laugh or cook or think, 'this is where happiness is', because when you are happy someplace you have to make certain it is protected. For those forged in centuries of war, it is second nature.
The wards are powerful and heavy. There's no need to repair them because no one has tampered with them. Lukas reels himself back in and shifts restlessly, turning to his other side, facing away from his lover.
The Maou has attacked Ken. Tomorrow it will be long past time to lay plans to make him regret his audacity. Lukas runs over his assets with a military precision -- his own power and Ken's reserve are nothing to be brushed aside lightly and as much as Lukas might like to nail shut the front door and keep Ken from ever leaving again ever, there is too much of the pragmatic warlord in him to think that depriving himself of that pillar of support will be of any benefit, not even to his scattered nerves. He has the wards on this place, he has the advantage of age and experience. He has Ulrike, who is surely still listening for his voice if she has spoken recently to the Maou of Earth on his behalf, and no doubt the resources that she can command.
(He cannot spare the energy to be angry at her for her part in this; she is suffering too, in her way. It is not her fault that she loves him with the single-minded devotion that has always been required in his priestesses, and worries about him in his absence. It is certainly not her fault that her confidence has been betrayed. It is, and has ever been, Bob's fault.)
He thinks of the assets at the Maou's disposal, mostly guesses and estimates, because he has no sure knowledge of the man's resources. Manpower, connections, knowledge, money. Perhaps in the morning he will call the butcher and discern the extent of his loyalty. If he is faithful, hang up and no harm done, and if he is not, well, perhaps he will have a better idea of what Lukas is up against.
Even if Lukas is overestimating the Maou's resources, they cannot do this alone.
Ken's lips press to the nape of his neck, his quiet way of letting Lukas know that he is awake again and here if needed. A smile sneaks up on the blond before he realizes it -- that unintrusive touch is so beloved and so familiar that it makes it hard to remember whatever grim thoughts turned his back on the smaller man in the first place.
I wouldn't let it come to this for anyone else. I don't even know if I'd do it for me. But since it's you...
He can't remember the last time he felt such intense fear as in that moment when Ken crumpled into his arms. The instinct that had taken him over had stopped any frantic worries then, but once the emergency had passed, the desperate thoughts crept back with a vengeance: What if...? and How could I...?
It's too dark to be awake -- that is why he is beset by these thoughts -- but he can't sleep. At least it won't be long before the sun rises.
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