Indian summer (ShoKo one shot)
Title: Indian summer
Pairing: Sakurai Sho/ Yokoyama Yu
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Beta: silverdoll14
Summary: Indians are hunted and have no home, some people want to change this.
The wind was blowing, raising the dust and sand from the street. It was a hot afternoon, and the street was almost empty. The sound of music was echoing from the saloon. Through the swing door stepped a man, drunk. He stumbled across the street, looking to the west when a horse arrived from there.
“You are back,” the man babbled. “Where have you been?”
The man on the horse looked down at him. His dark hair was falling on his forehead, and his brown eyes were small, tired, but also attentive. “I got them,” he finally said.
“You really got them, Sho?” the man on the horse turned to see someone looking at him from right beside the saloon.
“Yes, Ryo, I got them, and I killed them, all,” Sho answered. He stepped down from his horse and bound it to the bar in front of the saloon. He patted the horse’s head and went up to Ryo.
“Come in,” Ryo said. He looked around. The drunken man was already gone. He probably didn’t even realize that Sho was talking with Ryo.
They went into a small room right next to the saloon. The rooms were connected, but the side room was just for special guests. Three men were sitting there, looking at Sho.
“Did everything work out?” One of them wanted to know.
“Okura, you are back?” Sho sat down next to the man. “Yes, I could handle everything.”
“Me and Subaru headed to the north, but they had already left there,” Okura said, pointing at the smaller man next to him.
Sho nodded. “And you, Ryo?”
Ryo stepped closer to the others. He took the glass of whiskey and sipped on it. “I tried finding Hina. But people in the east told me that he left some weeks ago. He searched for the Indians in the south east. I am not sure if he found them.”
“How was your journey,” it was Subaru who asked.
Sho sighed. He felt the tiredness rushing through his body. He was three days out there. He slept somewhere in the desert to get to them, and in the end, he reached a hidden place behind a big rock. “I brought them away,” he said.
The others looked at him. “One hour later and the others would have found them. There are still three families with babies, some guys without family and one couple.”
“Where did you bring them?” Ryo asked.
Sho smiled at him. “I found a cave right outside the town. It’s covered with trees and bushes. They won’t find them there. It’s not an option for forever, but for now it works out.”
“It’s getting worse. The guys from everywhere around make a match out of Indian-hunting. I am afraid we can’t stop them anymore. There are only five groups of Indians left. Probably they get killed in a short time,” Subaru said.
Sho fisted his hands. “I will try everything to protect them. And we’ll find a safe place for them. Maybe far away from here, but there will be a place they can stay.”
Ryo smiled at him. “I wish it would be that easy.”
Sho tilted his head. He knew it wasn’t easy to find a save place for the rest of the Indians, but he wouldn’t give up. “I killed the hunters. All of them,” he grumbled.
Subaru rolled his eyes. “That’s good of course, but we should be careful. We are just only a few of us left.”
Sho grinned at him. “I won’t die.”
“What do we plan to do with them? We need to get them away from the hunters, but we need to watch out. Some check on us already, and the death of white guys is well-known already,” Subaru asked.
“The best thing would be to go away from here, to leave this country and settle down somewhere better,” Sho answered, shrugging his shoulders.
The others nodded silently. Of course, they all knew it wasn’t that easy to leave everything behind and start anew. They didn’t know how it was somewhere else. Maybe there’d be other hunters who’d kill the Indians.
“Three days from here is a big lake. I once crossed it, and there was a small island in the middle of it. Maybe we can settle down there? The hunters need a boat for getting there, and we could see if they plan to come?” Sho suggested.
Subaru rubbed over his chin. “But they’d see it if we cross the lake with our boat, and they’d come to try everything to get us. We wouldn’t be protected there.”
Okura twisted the glass between his fingers. “What about the house we found in the mountains?”
“Impossible,” Sho said. “They came by there last time Hina went there. He saw the hunters searching in the houses to see if there are Indians or leftovers they can use.”
Sho crossed his arms. Slowly, they were running out of ideas. “I’ll visit them tomorrow. I can ask them if they have any ideas.”
The others nodded at him. During the last months, Sho got friendly with the Indians. The first time he joined the group around Ryo, he didn’t know exactly what he’d do. He knew he didn’t like the way hunters treated the Indians in their country, so he decided to protect them. That this would include killing men, he didn’t know, but in the end, he got used to it. He once saw one of the hunters killing an Indian woman, and something in him changed. Sho didn’t feel guilty anymore, because the cruelty these men had, shocked him much more than everything else he had seen in his life.
“Yes, ask them. Maybe they have an idea,” Subaru said, but the tone in his voice let Sho knew that Subaru didn’t believe that they’d know a way out of this.
~~~**~~~
Sho lied in his bed. He was thinking about the day and about everything happened. He brought the few Indians to the cave, which was the safest place at the moment. When a thought hit him, he jumped up from his bed, heading to the room next to his. “Subaru?” He knocked at the door.
“What?” Subaru grumbled. His hair was a mess, and he looked grumpily at him.
“I have an idea,” Sho said.
Subaru’s eyes widened a bit. “Come in,” he said.
Sho walked behind the other and sat down on the chair in the corner of the room. Subaru sat on the edge of his bed, looking at Sho with - now - awake eyes. “What idea?”
Sho smiled at him. “There is this forest in the north. You know, the one everyone avoids, even the hunters, because there are stories of old ghost and I don’t know what else is floating about that forest.”
“Yes,” Subaru said. “And I won’t go into that either, because it’s really scary.”
Sho grinned brighter. “You know, the Indians told me about it. They once lived there, it hasn’t been that long ago, but they moved because the younger ones wanted to be close to a town. And we both know what happened then.”
“The hunters started hunting them,” Subaru answered.
“Yes. But there is nothing special about this forest, just the old fairy-tales, which we can use for us. You know, we’ll tell everyone we’ll go there to investigate whether the stories about it is true, or not. Sadly we won’t return,” Sho explained.
“Ah, because of the legend?” Subaru asked.
“Yes. What does the fairy-tale say? People who enter the wood won’t return, and if they do, they’ll die a cruel and painful death,” Sho continued.
“You think if we feign our own death, they won’t go into that wood, and they wouldn’t search for us?”
Sho shrugged his shoulders. “It’s just an idea, I don’t know if it works out.”
“But what about food and the other stuff?” Subaru thought loudly.
Sho nodded. “I thought about that. There is a small town in the west of that forest. They are known for not caring about others. Maybe we can buy our stuff there?”
Subaru sighed. “And you think it’s a good idea to go and just try it?”
Sho looked down and waited a moment before he answered. “You know, we can’t go on like this. They are going to die in the situation they are now.”
Subaru agreed. “Okay, we are going to do this.”
~~~**~~~
Three days later Sho rode with a guy behind him and two guys on a second horse to the forest. “And you think that works out?” the Indian behind Sho asked.
Sho turned to look at the other. He just looked at him for a moment. The intense dark eyes made him mesmerized. The smile curling around the man’s smile made Sho wanting to kiss him right there. “Yes, Yoko. I am sure, it will work out.”
“You’ll ride back to settle the bones and your clothes in the desert?” the man on the second horse asked.
“Yes, Jun. That’s how it is planned,” Sho answered. The man behind Jun leaned against Jun’s back. He was half asleep. “How’s Aiba?” Sho wanted to know.
Jun turned a bit. “He is still sick, but I think now it’s going to be better.”
Sho nodded. They kept silent for the rest of the ride. Subaru and Ryo were already in the forest when Sho and the others arrived. “Have you managed everything?” Sho asked.
The men nodded at him. There were four small houses next to each other. “For now we need to share the place, but we’ll see how it works out during the next weeks.” Subaru said.
Sho helped Jun in bringing Aiba to the first house. They placed him on one of the beds. Jun let his things drop down on a small cupboard. “I will stay here.” He brushed over Aiba’s forehead lovingly.
“How about we share the room next to this?” Yoko suggested. Sho turned to him, smiling. They walked in the next room where a small bed was placed, just big enough for two people and a table with two chairs.
“Looks nice,” Sho said. “And your clan left everything to get into town?”
Yoko’s eyes got sad. “Yes, but I think, if they’d known what would happen to them, they would have stayed here.”
Sho stepped closer and took the other’s hands in his. He could understand Yoko’s feelings. More than a hundred Indians were killed during the last years, and most of them were connected to Yoko. Sho let his hand wander down Yoko’s face. He brushed over the other’s lips before he bend forward to kiss him softly. “Now everything will be alright, okay?” He said after breaking the kiss.
Yoko just nodded at him, his eyes still sad, but there was a tiny glint of hope in it.
~~~**~~~
Ryo, Subaru and Sho rode deeper into the desert. They had some old clothes, and they remember the place where dead bodies of hunters were left behind. It lied there for weeks, so no one would probably recognize that these bodies weren’t Subaru, Ryo, or Sho.”
“There are three,” Subaru said, pointing at three corpses.
They jumped off the horse and changed the clothes of the men with their own. “That’s really gruesome.”
Sho laughed out loud. “You killed various people, but you think this is horrible.”
“I am undressing and redressing a man who is already dead for - I don’t know - four weeks. It has horrible smell, and he doesn’t look that good anymore,” Subaru grumbled.
They all laughed. It was the first time since weeks they laughed together. It was a sparkle of hope rising in them, like they’d start a new life now.
~~~**~~~
Yoko was already waiting for him when He came back to the forest.“ Have you done everything?”
Sho nodded at him. “Yes, and now we wait.”
“How will you know if everything went out well?” Jun asked.
Sho looked at him, a grin around his lips. “Hina is our runner. He is always on the way. He never stays long at a place, so he doesn’t need to mock his death. He will ride into town, spreading the news of our death. Then he’ll come here and tell us before he is on his way again.”
~~~**~~~
Two weeks passed till Hina came to visit them, telling them that the town believes in their death, and they swore to avoid the forest much more than they did before.
No one knew if it would be a place they could stay at forever, but for now it seemed to be a good solution for them.
Sho sat on the terrace with Yoko next to him. Their hands were intertwined. The feeling of having a home together felt good for Sho. He didn’t need to think about running away for now, and the Indians were safe. At least for now.
“Can you help with cooking?” Aiba asked. He got his health back pretty soon after having a bed and a warm place to stay again.
“Sure,” Yoko said. He stood up, but Sho pulled him back to kiss him before he let him go.
He hoped it would stay like this forever.
Pairing: Sakurai Sho/ Yokoyama Yu
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Beta: silverdoll14
Summary: Indians are hunted and have no home, some people want to change this.
The wind was blowing, raising the dust and sand from the street. It was a hot afternoon, and the street was almost empty. The sound of music was echoing from the saloon. Through the swing door stepped a man, drunk. He stumbled across the street, looking to the west when a horse arrived from there.
“You are back,” the man babbled. “Where have you been?”
The man on the horse looked down at him. His dark hair was falling on his forehead, and his brown eyes were small, tired, but also attentive. “I got them,” he finally said.
“You really got them, Sho?” the man on the horse turned to see someone looking at him from right beside the saloon.
“Yes, Ryo, I got them, and I killed them, all,” Sho answered. He stepped down from his horse and bound it to the bar in front of the saloon. He patted the horse’s head and went up to Ryo.
“Come in,” Ryo said. He looked around. The drunken man was already gone. He probably didn’t even realize that Sho was talking with Ryo.
They went into a small room right next to the saloon. The rooms were connected, but the side room was just for special guests. Three men were sitting there, looking at Sho.
“Did everything work out?” One of them wanted to know.
“Okura, you are back?” Sho sat down next to the man. “Yes, I could handle everything.”
“Me and Subaru headed to the north, but they had already left there,” Okura said, pointing at the smaller man next to him.
Sho nodded. “And you, Ryo?”
Ryo stepped closer to the others. He took the glass of whiskey and sipped on it. “I tried finding Hina. But people in the east told me that he left some weeks ago. He searched for the Indians in the south east. I am not sure if he found them.”
“How was your journey,” it was Subaru who asked.
Sho sighed. He felt the tiredness rushing through his body. He was three days out there. He slept somewhere in the desert to get to them, and in the end, he reached a hidden place behind a big rock. “I brought them away,” he said.
The others looked at him. “One hour later and the others would have found them. There are still three families with babies, some guys without family and one couple.”
“Where did you bring them?” Ryo asked.
Sho smiled at him. “I found a cave right outside the town. It’s covered with trees and bushes. They won’t find them there. It’s not an option for forever, but for now it works out.”
“It’s getting worse. The guys from everywhere around make a match out of Indian-hunting. I am afraid we can’t stop them anymore. There are only five groups of Indians left. Probably they get killed in a short time,” Subaru said.
Sho fisted his hands. “I will try everything to protect them. And we’ll find a safe place for them. Maybe far away from here, but there will be a place they can stay.”
Ryo smiled at him. “I wish it would be that easy.”
Sho tilted his head. He knew it wasn’t easy to find a save place for the rest of the Indians, but he wouldn’t give up. “I killed the hunters. All of them,” he grumbled.
Subaru rolled his eyes. “That’s good of course, but we should be careful. We are just only a few of us left.”
Sho grinned at him. “I won’t die.”
“What do we plan to do with them? We need to get them away from the hunters, but we need to watch out. Some check on us already, and the death of white guys is well-known already,” Subaru asked.
“The best thing would be to go away from here, to leave this country and settle down somewhere better,” Sho answered, shrugging his shoulders.
The others nodded silently. Of course, they all knew it wasn’t that easy to leave everything behind and start anew. They didn’t know how it was somewhere else. Maybe there’d be other hunters who’d kill the Indians.
“Three days from here is a big lake. I once crossed it, and there was a small island in the middle of it. Maybe we can settle down there? The hunters need a boat for getting there, and we could see if they plan to come?” Sho suggested.
Subaru rubbed over his chin. “But they’d see it if we cross the lake with our boat, and they’d come to try everything to get us. We wouldn’t be protected there.”
Okura twisted the glass between his fingers. “What about the house we found in the mountains?”
“Impossible,” Sho said. “They came by there last time Hina went there. He saw the hunters searching in the houses to see if there are Indians or leftovers they can use.”
Sho crossed his arms. Slowly, they were running out of ideas. “I’ll visit them tomorrow. I can ask them if they have any ideas.”
The others nodded at him. During the last months, Sho got friendly with the Indians. The first time he joined the group around Ryo, he didn’t know exactly what he’d do. He knew he didn’t like the way hunters treated the Indians in their country, so he decided to protect them. That this would include killing men, he didn’t know, but in the end, he got used to it. He once saw one of the hunters killing an Indian woman, and something in him changed. Sho didn’t feel guilty anymore, because the cruelty these men had, shocked him much more than everything else he had seen in his life.
“Yes, ask them. Maybe they have an idea,” Subaru said, but the tone in his voice let Sho knew that Subaru didn’t believe that they’d know a way out of this.
~~~**~~~
Sho lied in his bed. He was thinking about the day and about everything happened. He brought the few Indians to the cave, which was the safest place at the moment. When a thought hit him, he jumped up from his bed, heading to the room next to his. “Subaru?” He knocked at the door.
“What?” Subaru grumbled. His hair was a mess, and he looked grumpily at him.
“I have an idea,” Sho said.
Subaru’s eyes widened a bit. “Come in,” he said.
Sho walked behind the other and sat down on the chair in the corner of the room. Subaru sat on the edge of his bed, looking at Sho with - now - awake eyes. “What idea?”
Sho smiled at him. “There is this forest in the north. You know, the one everyone avoids, even the hunters, because there are stories of old ghost and I don’t know what else is floating about that forest.”
“Yes,” Subaru said. “And I won’t go into that either, because it’s really scary.”
Sho grinned brighter. “You know, the Indians told me about it. They once lived there, it hasn’t been that long ago, but they moved because the younger ones wanted to be close to a town. And we both know what happened then.”
“The hunters started hunting them,” Subaru answered.
“Yes. But there is nothing special about this forest, just the old fairy-tales, which we can use for us. You know, we’ll tell everyone we’ll go there to investigate whether the stories about it is true, or not. Sadly we won’t return,” Sho explained.
“Ah, because of the legend?” Subaru asked.
“Yes. What does the fairy-tale say? People who enter the wood won’t return, and if they do, they’ll die a cruel and painful death,” Sho continued.
“You think if we feign our own death, they won’t go into that wood, and they wouldn’t search for us?”
Sho shrugged his shoulders. “It’s just an idea, I don’t know if it works out.”
“But what about food and the other stuff?” Subaru thought loudly.
Sho nodded. “I thought about that. There is a small town in the west of that forest. They are known for not caring about others. Maybe we can buy our stuff there?”
Subaru sighed. “And you think it’s a good idea to go and just try it?”
Sho looked down and waited a moment before he answered. “You know, we can’t go on like this. They are going to die in the situation they are now.”
Subaru agreed. “Okay, we are going to do this.”
~~~**~~~
Three days later Sho rode with a guy behind him and two guys on a second horse to the forest. “And you think that works out?” the Indian behind Sho asked.
Sho turned to look at the other. He just looked at him for a moment. The intense dark eyes made him mesmerized. The smile curling around the man’s smile made Sho wanting to kiss him right there. “Yes, Yoko. I am sure, it will work out.”
“You’ll ride back to settle the bones and your clothes in the desert?” the man on the second horse asked.
“Yes, Jun. That’s how it is planned,” Sho answered. The man behind Jun leaned against Jun’s back. He was half asleep. “How’s Aiba?” Sho wanted to know.
Jun turned a bit. “He is still sick, but I think now it’s going to be better.”
Sho nodded. They kept silent for the rest of the ride. Subaru and Ryo were already in the forest when Sho and the others arrived. “Have you managed everything?” Sho asked.
The men nodded at him. There were four small houses next to each other. “For now we need to share the place, but we’ll see how it works out during the next weeks.” Subaru said.
Sho helped Jun in bringing Aiba to the first house. They placed him on one of the beds. Jun let his things drop down on a small cupboard. “I will stay here.” He brushed over Aiba’s forehead lovingly.
“How about we share the room next to this?” Yoko suggested. Sho turned to him, smiling. They walked in the next room where a small bed was placed, just big enough for two people and a table with two chairs.
“Looks nice,” Sho said. “And your clan left everything to get into town?”
Yoko’s eyes got sad. “Yes, but I think, if they’d known what would happen to them, they would have stayed here.”
Sho stepped closer and took the other’s hands in his. He could understand Yoko’s feelings. More than a hundred Indians were killed during the last years, and most of them were connected to Yoko. Sho let his hand wander down Yoko’s face. He brushed over the other’s lips before he bend forward to kiss him softly. “Now everything will be alright, okay?” He said after breaking the kiss.
Yoko just nodded at him, his eyes still sad, but there was a tiny glint of hope in it.
~~~**~~~
Ryo, Subaru and Sho rode deeper into the desert. They had some old clothes, and they remember the place where dead bodies of hunters were left behind. It lied there for weeks, so no one would probably recognize that these bodies weren’t Subaru, Ryo, or Sho.”
“There are three,” Subaru said, pointing at three corpses.
They jumped off the horse and changed the clothes of the men with their own. “That’s really gruesome.”
Sho laughed out loud. “You killed various people, but you think this is horrible.”
“I am undressing and redressing a man who is already dead for - I don’t know - four weeks. It has horrible smell, and he doesn’t look that good anymore,” Subaru grumbled.
They all laughed. It was the first time since weeks they laughed together. It was a sparkle of hope rising in them, like they’d start a new life now.
~~~**~~~
Yoko was already waiting for him when He came back to the forest.“ Have you done everything?”
Sho nodded at him. “Yes, and now we wait.”
“How will you know if everything went out well?” Jun asked.
Sho looked at him, a grin around his lips. “Hina is our runner. He is always on the way. He never stays long at a place, so he doesn’t need to mock his death. He will ride into town, spreading the news of our death. Then he’ll come here and tell us before he is on his way again.”
~~~**~~~
Two weeks passed till Hina came to visit them, telling them that the town believes in their death, and they swore to avoid the forest much more than they did before.
No one knew if it would be a place they could stay at forever, but for now it seemed to be a good solution for them.
Sho sat on the terrace with Yoko next to him. Their hands were intertwined. The feeling of having a home together felt good for Sho. He didn’t need to think about running away for now, and the Indians were safe. At least for now.
“Can you help with cooking?” Aiba asked. He got his health back pretty soon after having a bed and a warm place to stay again.
“Sure,” Yoko said. He stood up, but Sho pulled him back to kiss him before he let him go.
He hoped it would stay like this forever.