Title: The Hunter in Your Eyes

Summary: Adrian and Lawrence, one rainy morning.

Disclaimer: Boys Next Door and all characters belong to Kaori Yuki.

Notes: Bdsm fluff.  This one's for Penny Paperbrain, who also helped pre- and proofread.  Thank you!  *_*  Some minor edits from original version first posted on my Livejournal (user name: eag).

            It's raining in Los Angeles.

            By the end of the day, the storm will blow away, leaving the ever-present sun to dry the city.  It will be windy and the dried husks of palm fronds will fall into the street to crack under the rubber tread of the cars.

            But right now, it's raining in Los Angeles.

            Last night Adrian dreamt of fishes.  They had long, beautiful blue tails, and they swam out of the water and through the air to his outstretched hands.

            Adrian lies in bed with Lawrence because he cannot sleep.  There isn't enough time for sleep or anything else, even when there are dishes to be washed and clothes to be cleaned.  Not time enough in the world, not while he's with Lawrence.

            The rain patters down, trickling off of the eaves of the little house to splash against the ground, soaking into the parched earth.  The sky is dark, and the light coming through the blinds is tinted a chill dark gray.  In the uncertain light, he doesn't know whether it's night or day.

            Pauses and silences disappear into the misting gray.

            Somewhere, someone is playing the cello.  Adrian can hear it through the wall.

***

            "Adrian."

            His name, that sound; it's an instant that defines him.  His fingers, Adrian, his own toes and eyes and teeth – all Adrian.  The word, rounded out like a prayer, a blessing, a curse, a breath and a miss. 

            Love, is it, or something else?  As if touching a mystery, his hands, the ones that say Adrian down to the sinew and bone, reach up to touch the hair long enough to slide lasciviously down toward the curve of Lawrence's spine.  Long enough to slip teasingly over the collarbone, sliding toward him as if beckoning like mermaid's tails or the teasing fronds of seaweed in the Sargasso Sea.

            Touching this, this secret, this siren's song from beneath the waves of reptilian cold eyes, a cool mirrored sea that reflects the moon's chill cast.  Nothing else needs to be spoken; nothing else needs to be said.

            In this instance, I seek redemption.

            Adrian touches the curve of the lip that turns up into a smile at the coaxing of his hand, Lawrence – no – Lawr, the diminutive slipping up and past his teeth out into the air like a sigh.

            Outside, it's raining.

***

            A sacrifice, one that follows willingly, blindly, to the sacrificial altar of the bed, and Lawrence knots Adrian's wrists with his own ties to the slats between the headboard, the wood sturdy enough to hold him tight.  Adrian bares his throat in a soft motion of submission, to which Lawrence brings down the slice of his kiss, knife-hot in the cool rain-damp air.

            Beyond the cage of Lawrence's hair, the ceiling is wet with rain – the roof is leaking, just a little.  But Adrian doesn't care.

            In this instance, I bring redemption.

            Lawrence curls Adrian's belt between his hands, the buckle cool and heavy between his fingers. 

            "Tell me…" Lawrence says, even as Adrian shakes his head, knowing the shape of this ritual, the action second nature, moving before thought, beyond thought.

            "When you want to be released," Lawrence continues, more for his own benefit than Adrian.  "Just say that one word.  Balloon."

            A trickle of time along an ocean breeze, and Adrian momentarily feels cold; another tie, gray and blandly stolid moving over his eyes, is closing him off from Lawrence.   

            Almost, almost panic, and he feels the sightless ghosts coming toward him in the dark, their hair dripping blood.

            "Lawr!"  Adrian cries out, before he can stop himself. 

            But those gentling hands come down to him, touching his bare skin, the edge of the belt sliding against his skin, a teasing scrape.

            "Shhh…I'm here."  His eyes, they're open to darkness.  Adrian is being guided, and obligingly, he turns over, the bonds on his wrist loose enough to twist so that he kneels against the bed with his back to the sky.

            Meat, an animal that can be eaten.  Adrian twists against the bed, blood rushing through his body with a pounding fury, his desire built up into a blade of sharp lust that slices through him as Lawrence's hands, those loving hands, the ones that protect him and catch him and are beautiful, the hands that snap the whip of the belt down, the buckle hard against his skin like Lawrence's kisses that go on and on.

            Adrian cries out, hoarse moaning sounds that sound like love or something else.

            Through it, Lawrence frees him and in this moment, he's lost himself in Lawrence, the marrow of his bones, the blood of his heart, the pulses of quivering life in the secret parts of his body. 

            All of them yours.  I give them all to you.

            In that gray morning that could be evening or something else, it's a moment of perfect clarity as Adrian is brought closer to the fire of Lawrence's love, hidden beyond the gray clouds of the lingering past.

            Aching, wanting, burning…and hands, those fingers that save him, the scratch of fingernails and the slippery hair that falls down into a congealed veil of black, they come to him all together in the strange and beautiful creature that is Lawrence, who can see through him and into him and the marrow of Adrian's bones belong to him.

            The blindfold is taken away.  To those eyes he's turned, those sea-still eyes.

            "I see the hunter in your eyes."  Adrian's own trickle with tears.  Is it already over?  Lawrence's eyes search his, looking into the ice-blue eyes, the eyes that have seen a half-dozen deaths, the eyes that cannot stand to be watched.

            "Do you see the hunter in mine?"  Lawrence's hands slip down those hot weals against his skin, and he kisses Adrian with his mouth, such stinging purity.  Adrian writhes against Lawrence's touch, the fabric of the bonds cutting into his wrists, a delightful pain.

            Let me belong only to you. 

            In this instance, the sentiment outlasts the endless rainy morning.