A/N: For all Heine/Naoto fans out there :) Doesn't really have a specific place in their universe, just sorta a ditty thrown together because I could. My belated V-day tribute. Lol.
Disclaimer: Don't own.
"I'm not like you." He says between fervent kisses, "I'm not like you."
Whether it's to reassure himself or to try to establish some sort of barrier between them, Naoto doesn't know. All she knows—feels—is the searing touch of his hot lips lighting a trail along the skin of her scars, his eyes lit in a hazy wine tint that run as scorching as the blood singing through her veins.
Words die into a choked moan upon her own mouth.
What can she say to him, other than call his name in breathy whispers, burying quivering fingers into the white of his hair, wrapping sinfully long legs around his waist and simply expressing through every cell of her body what she couldn't articulate?
Heine doesn't need more coaxing.
There's an urgency in the both of them, an itch maybe, a hunger to feel the warmth of something there, if only for right now. Because in the morning he will be Heine and she will become Naoto and things will not be any different from before.
There will be no memory of his strong shoulders or the perfect skin underneath her fingertips. The marveling sight of muscle rippling under skin with each of his movements against her will be nothing but a fleeting thought. Not even the way she arches her back for him and sends his mind spiraling will be there in his eyes when they meet among the crowded streets in daylight.
Tomorrow won't bring memory of the hot breath against her skin or the way her eyes flutter closed as she exposes the long, pale column of her neck to him in offer, in pleading.
I'm not like you, he wants to say as his long pale fingers find purchase in her inky black tresses and he buries his face into the crook of her neck, savoring the taste of her.
Because she's human, and she's normal, and surely there's someone just as human and normal and strong out there who could protect her, who could make her lower down the blade and allow her to put it away forever so she could know what it is that normal human females do in a regular world.
In a place he will never reach.
So it shouldn't feel this good, what they are doing. It shouldn't make him quail at the thought of her beneath him, shouldn't bring to mind—to reach—the idea of a life outside their hell where he could protect her, where he could be the strong one.
Where he could keep her like this—in ecstasy, radiant, beautiful; in a little world all of their own where nothing was wrong and Heine and Naoto were just names they saw in a newspaper somewhere while waiting for their breakfast in a local café.
Where she smiled for him.
But that was what being a stray dog meant. It meant taking what they could get whenever getting the opportunity. It became the satiating of hunger—be it for blood or otherwise—until one was full.
A gluttony rampaging while the deadly sins others avoided became simple guidelines to basic survival taken into consideration like a passing fancy.
He almost let out a breathy chuckle, savoring the way she shivered when he nibbled on her ear.
Funny, how her eyes glimmered in the light as she stirred and he thought—if only for a moment—that she was the deadliest sin of all.
Mockery . . . could mockery be a sin?
But then she moved against him and all coherent thought collapsed, leaving him breathless as his hold on her hair tightened.
He couldn't call out her name.
He shouldn't call out her name.
Even as she made him gasp at the onslaught of pleasure overloading his system and turned his world upside down.
Then again, all he wanted in that moment was to get rid of this itch, of the necessity to smother her mouth with his and steal the breath she tried to take. If she was taking a breath it would be one from him. It would be a taste of him on her tongue, the vision of him reflecting in her gaze, and the feel of him and him alone upon her body.
He didn't care for the world—it could all burn in hell. All he knew was that this woman was Naoto—would always be whether or not she fleshed out the ghosts of her past—and that this woman belonged to him.
She belonged. To him.
Even in the morning. Even after she stopped writhing underneath him and picked up the katana and left not even a phantom trace of herself. When she stepped into the shower, drank a cup of coffee in the local café alone, smiled at Nill and frowned disapprovingly at Badou—even then she would belong to him.
And though her nails clawed tattoos of her presence across his back in patterns he would never forget, he knew they would be gone before long.
Just like she would be—just like the urge to grab her arm as she's opening the door to his apartment to leave.
But suddenly it's near dawn and she's grabbing her things and wrapping her scarf around her neck, strapping the katana to her back with an ease that should not be there. And then her steps lead her farther and farther until he can't take any more and his fingers curl around her arm, freezing her in place as she turns to look at him in surprise.
Their eyes meet and Heine can believe mockery is a sin, and he wonders whether he should tell the blind priest about this interesting revelation of sorts.
This is the part where usually he doesn't touch her, doesn't speak—just watches her leave.
His hand is still on her arm and her eyes are questioning, he can tell even in the dark.
"Stay." He whispers then.
A moment of silence, of contemplation at all the possible implications of the new development. It seems like forever before is hand lowers and her own starts to slowly, hesitantly loosens her scarf. She sets the katana aside and begins on the buttons of her coat.
Nothing is said as he helps her undo the last buttons and pulls her to him, letting the coat fall to the floor.
I'm not like you, he thinks as he kisses her fervently once more.
The hunger is getting worse, he realizes somewhere in the back of his mind. But she moans into their kiss and any coherent thought of his is gone with her touch.
And though he knows (as does she) that hell is right outside the door—would always be—somehow they found their legs tangled together again, found she still jumped when she felt his fingertips tease along the base of her ribcage.
Maybe, if only for tonight, he'd allow himself to pretend the katana on the carpet was stained with the rust of neglect and that Naoto had just come home from a long shift at her new job. That the last time he had used his guns were to scare the neighbor who was hitting on his wife and that in another room down the hall somewhere, their daughter slept soundly.
And that just for tonight, he wasn't a stray howling at the moon.