Kids, cover your eyes!!

Junko: (covers eyes)

Chapter Nineteen - For Now

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Obsession.

Pure and simple.

No excuses and no lies. It is undeniable and all-encompassing. It is wrong - one might even call it evil.

But whatever you call it; it is always there. Heavy and intoxicating; icy and refreshing all at once. Ever present and looming in the background, waiting to spring.

He is there. Neither of them should be, of course. But so it happens, almost everyone does things he or she shouldn't. And for that very reason, she is there too. She can feel him there. She knows he is thinking about her.

Impossible.

But very true.

He catches her eyes from across the room, through the curtains and smoke. Through all the people who probably shouldn't be there either. Like magnets, her emerald rings dotted with the darkest onyx scrape against the red beams of his and hold there. One of the many reels of time being spun through at this very moment stops.

He fights.

To get to her; to get through everything else.

She searches.

For anywhere to hide.

And in exactly twenty five seconds, his hand is around her tiny wrist and she is pulling him toward a door. A door into a dark room full of boxes and cobwebs and all the little things that make a secret need keeping.

What are you doing here? Her gaze brushes down his neck and chest; her fingers cup the sides of his face. His hands skirt her waist as if it is too hot to grip.

Too wonderful to really be there.

Me? What are you doing here? Why… her fingertips brush the roots of his hair and the smoke in his mind swirls thicker. …why are you…

I've been looking for you. I missed you. She is breathing as hard as if he were about to kill her. Little, sharp, ragged sweepings in and out of lungs being pounded on by a fluttering heart. But if she were to die, only she would be to blame.

No words touch her ears. He speaks with his hands, gripping and grasping and touching everything. His fingers hook around her shoulders. They wander down her back. The right hand finally stops on her neck. Her palms are against his chest.

I've been busy. But I can't stop thinking about you.

An admission that weakens him to the core to let go.

Obvious; superfluous.

I… she evaluates. Was it necessary to say? Did he already know?

She hates small talk.

He lets off a sound when she kisses him. It is low and rumbling, and the break in his mouth moves as her lips push against it. She withdraws and he catches her lips again; heart racing. Body pulsing with the frenetic heartbeat only achieved by doing something you really shouldn't.

Tingles.

Tiny and twisted and scampering through nerves and to minds and racing over goosebumps under armor and leather and pride.

No, we can't – their lips meet again. –we can't do this. Not now.

Yes we – his mind's eye flutters momentarily closed as she kisses his neck. –yes we can. Just don't let it…

Don't let it…

Let it what?

Let it get the best of you?

Haunt your every thought; your every movement for weeks?

A laugh.

A little sound of delight as his teeth brush the tender skin at the base of her neck. A sound shared between those in companionship. Those who trust each other.

Between a hero and a villain.

We're going to get caught. A prospect that would kill both of them, let off in a playful, careless tone.

Whatever it takes to get you going. Another laugh and another, harder, feverish kiss. The people outside have no idea. The stares scrape against each other, the impact on the two bodies cushioned by heavy whooshing breaths and warmth spanning their entire bodies, heating the ends of her long hair and the tips of her fingernails.

Worry.

An urgency that makes his hands work faster at the stupid straps on the armor protecting her stomach. If they do get caught, it will be a victory to that cursed thing that binds them together with its filthy, twisted, silken fingers. It will laugh as they are both hanged for treason.

Need.

A sound works its was from between her parted lips; one that is not a word yet speaks volumes. A sound that has passed through many mouths of many different people for as long as Time itself can remember. A sound that is very human; very physical. Yet the closest thing to magic ever to be heard.

Heat.

A floor that has been less than half a human's usual body heat is now hotter than a summer day. Heavy breaths swirl into the still, sludgy air, spinning and mixing it to life once more.

Mocking.

Love mocking stiffly-clothed Good-versus-Evil, scoffing at the total disregard of the rules he has built. This is wrong and therefore they choose it for the wrong reasons, he says gruffly, waving the magic that's flickering through the air away from his face.

Love doesn't have to say anything. She merely points.

For though he is her enemy, she grips his shoulders because they're his shoulders.

Kisses his cheek because its his.

Gazes into his eyes because they belong to him.

He presses his lips to the small indentation on her pale forehead. The one he made when he struck her with the tip of his sword. The one she swore she'd kill him for. He rests his head against the shoulder he nearly dislocated when he kicked her, when she tried to attack his master. He holds onto her side, thumb over her small stomach. He is steadying it against all the things he's done that make her sick. Because this thick, heady intoxication is so close to love it's frightening.

Don't stop.

He's not sure if he imagined it or if she really said it.

She isn't either.

Never.

He makes a point of not knowing whether his words were thought or spoken.

She does as well.

Curiosity.

It's not like neither of them has done this before. Nobody waits anymore, nobody has that much self-respect.

Yet for some reason, he's always a little bit afraid.

For some reason, she expects to learn things she didn't know.

His eyes wander over her as if he's never seen a woman before. He's seen hundreds.

But she makes him feel as if this is the first.

She stares at his scars. She wonders how he got them.

She wonders how many are from her.

Thoughts.

Because no matter how normal it would be to let it all go, to not think, so simply feel, they can't help themselves. There's so much to her and so much to him and though they've given each other all they have to give, they're strangers.

Unfamiliar.

Her eyes keep wandering over his muscles. She thinks of the years it took to develop them. Of all the hard work. She wishes she knew what he's wondering as another moan slides between her lips.

He wishes he had the time to stay with her after this to tell her. He buries his head in the crook of her neck. Ironic. The commander of uncountable armies hiding against somebody else.

Pain.

Because ending, finishing, parting is all so much harder when it can't be counted on to happen again.

A goodbye only hurts when it could be the last.

Their lips are like magnets, too hard to pull apart. Especially after all that's just been done to their muscles and nerve endings and souls. They're exhausted. Maybe that's why love is designed the way it is. To cement the two to the spot where the deepest declaration of affection has been made. So when one wakes up, he sees her next to him. To establish trust, just in case it's all been done backwards.

Like with these two.

Her hands run across his chest once more, warm under his leather and armor. Because a whole adventure is no longer between her and he and their parting. Because the creature she's holding onto could be buried or burned or torn apart before she has another chance to be close to him.

He wraps his arms around her, holding her against him. They're very close, of course. But a physical metaphor won't hurt. He clutches his little enemy, knowing that the next time he holds her, he could be carrying her corpse back to his master as a trophy.

They are enemies, after all.

It's perfectly practical.

And so the obsession grows a little more. Its vines grow a little thicker as the memories of one another's scents and voices are implanted a little deeper into their minds. The hunger for her expands just a little as she gazes back at him, making her way through the crowd. As she escapes the crime scene.

As she escapes him.

He stands at the door. He watches her go. He closes his beautiful red eyes and tries to imagine her walking down the street, eyes shifting warily and tongue still thick with his flavor.

She is gone.

The hole in his heart is full. For now.

HOLY GEEZ! That took forever!!

Inspired by "Shh," by Frou Frou. It's a great song.