duran duran
~ New Moon On Monday~
Stepping as quietly as possible in the old snow, he paused just outside a waist-high stone wall, crumbling, a frozen drift of snow sloping gently down its side. He blinked into the stark wind that blew softly over the frozen ground and through the black trees, the moon round and shockingly white suspended on the velvet blue. He looked up at it through the black lace of the branches that swayed above him, seeing every detail on the white face ever lost to him before, thinking somewhere in the back of his mind that there was always someplace much colder, more barren. The white motionless landscape loomed over the night, the wind sighing sadly and making him shiver, his hands shoved into his coat pockets.
The woods were dark with bright shadows, moon's light on the snow, blinding during the day, luminescent at night. Each sparkle frozen in place until he chose to walk again. He watched the still miracle, his eyes watering from the cold, then looked beyond the small wall. He sighed inwardly, the small sound loud in the night's stillness. Stepping over the wall easily, he walked further into the small clearing that sat beside the creaking woods. He placed a hand on the side of a small stone building, the cold of the stone penetrating through his leather glove. Someone long ago, had carved words into the wall's surface but he couldn't read them, a thick layer of ice turning the once clear message into a hazy whisper of names and dates. Dry brown ivy clung stubbornly to the walls, reaching around their sides; grotesquely warped wrought iron rose blackly from its sloped roof.
He shifted his eyes down the hillside, past the crumbling rock half buried in the snow, past others that sat like it, forgotten long before this winter and many before. Miles of silent woods, the abandoned farm land laying up against it, dead and buried. Stumbling away from the wall, the isolation of it struck him and he opened his mouth to breathe, foggy, lazy vapor drifting in front of his mouth. He wanted to leave, to go back over that stone wall and find his way back to the road where he had left his car. But as he made to turn back, something caught his eye, something lying on a small mound in the snow, so stark against the white frost on which it lay.
He stepped towards it hesitantly. It was something new to this place, not half buried or turning to dust. It lay there purposefully for him to see, not forgotten by a stranger long ago. He moved forward, curious. Standing right before it, he suddenly realized that the mound of snow was covering a small stone slab. Only the very top of it was visible. He reached down slowly to lift the thing off of the buried stone.
It was a rose.
Without thinking, he lifted it to his face. The cold petals were soft, the perfume hard and poignant, the color lost to him in the stark moonlight.
"Hello Ryo."
Ryo made a small sound of surprise, his senses freezing. He turned and looked upwards the voice, to the top of the small building he had just touched. A figure sat comfortably, one arm resting on a knee, as still and as silent as the rest of this place. Ryo blinked up at it, disturbed that someone had been so close to him without his knowledge. Watching him. Waiting for him.
"Hello Seiji," he said, his voice raw. He realized he hadn't spoken for quite some time. Relief washed over him; he wasn't all alone here.
"You got my note." Seiji's voice was low, but it carried easily over the distance, the silence around them even heavier with words. "I'm glad you came."
Ryo's thoughts turned to the small slip of paper he had found waiting for him that day, full of Seiji's sprawling script, giving him the names of roads and towns he had never heard of. "What is this place?" Ryo asked him, his eyes going to the wall again, the path back to the road was dark, disappearing into the woods. Seiji liked to lure him out, a small slip of paper always promised a journey that Ryo had yet to refuse.
Seiji leapt down, landing softly in the snow below him. "Don't you like it?" He too was affected by the bleakness of the place, Ryo could tell, but his voice held something like peace. Seiji's whole manner was at ease, the usual hard set to his features was softened by the light, the cold air suiting him.
"No," Ryo answered truthfully. "We shouldn't be here. This is a place of rest." To his surprise, his voice shook a little. The rose in his hand came back to his lips, his eyes flickering nervously back down to the stone slab buried in the snow and then down the deserted countryside.
"I think that's what drew me to it," Seiji said softly, looking around slowly and finally resting on his gaze on Ryo. "I don't think many people know this place." He smiled shortly. "If any at all."
Frowning, Ryo took the flower away from his face. "I want to leave."
Seiji crunched softly through the snow, his hand warm in a thin glove under Ryo's chin, making Ryo look up. "Leave?" His clear blue eyes were slightly confused. The summer sky fixed forever in those eyes. The thought comforted Ryo for no reason he could explain.
"Yes... I think we should go." He moved to leave this place in its silence and cold. A hand gripped his arm and stopped him and he swung around in hostile confusion, his anxiety to get out of sight of the looming stones turning almost to panic.
Seiji didn't say anything for several moments, his pale eyes studying Ryo's face, considering him. He whispered. "I've seen you face death and worse but I've never seen you afraid." He half smiled in wonder. "Until now."
Ryo yanked his arm away, heat flooding into his face despite the cold. "Just leave me alone," he said in a low tone, his eyes narrowing to hard glints in the muted light. When he made no further move to stop him he turned, his eyes set on the wall, the feel of the stones around him like a pressing weight, his hand clutching car keys in the pocket of his black jeans.
"Where is your father buried?" Seiji asked, the question stilling Ryo more than any grip, no matter how strong. The keys in his clenched hand bit into his glove.
"Seiji," he warned. "Don't do this." Seiji resumed. "I've never heard you mention it before." He was seating himself on the stone slab where he had left the rose. "To tell you the truth, it never occurred to me to ask."
Ryo turned, his breath fogging in the stark night air.
Seiji regarded him. "Don't you know where your own father is buried?" A still shape seated on the buried slab, the moon a perfect circle above, Seiji slowly stood.
Tears came, so hot on his cold face, they stung, burning down his cheeks. "They couldn't bring him down after the first snow fall," Ryo murmured. "So they left him up on the mountain."
Seiji moved towards him, footsteps crunching in the snow. "You really don't know then."
"After the storms, I went up... a few months later and left a... a marker..." Ryo explained, "...where I think it happened." Seiji's face was so near his own he could feel the warmth of Seiji's skin against his.
"There's no marker here," Seiji whispered, kissing a hot tear before it rolled down Ryo's cheek. "There's no need to mourn."
Ryo tried to push away his hope for some kind of understanding, if maybe just the knowledge that Seiji knew this was something he couldn't tread on. He didn't want anyone else near this, no matter who they were. But he knew that whatever he felt was lost to the snow and the moon. And they both cared about as much as Seiji seemed to. He turned his head away from Seiji's lips and stepped away. "No," His voice low. "Not here." The stones were looking at him, stuck in their sagging angles in the ground and snow. "I'm going home." Seiji's beauty was lost to him; all he could see was Seiji's desire for his will to be met, and for the first time it sickened him.
Seiji shook his head a little. "Stay." His fingertips were in Ryo's hair, brushing the length of it away from Ryo's shoulder. "I want to watch the moon rise." It wasn't a request. The fingertips curled around his hair up to the base of his neck and jerked it tight, taut around his clenched fist. Ryo hissed, his head forced back, his eyes locked onto Seiji's in the white vapor of their breath.
"Seiji..." Ryo warned, his voice even lower. Seiji seemed to be waiting for him to finish his sentence when Ryo felt the rage smoldering in him ignite. With a deep angry growl, Ryo shoved him away, his hand ripping out of his hair. He watched in a dull angry haze as Seiji smashed back against the gritty stone wall of a moss covered vault, and fell down into the snow. "I can't do this now. I said why Seiji," Ryo gasped, almost too angry to breathe and get his words out." I told you more than anyone." His voice seemed too loud in the cold night, the darkness that surrounded them quietly offended.
Seiji stood up, dragging a hand across his mouth. It came away bloody and he looked at it. "Who do you think..." he began slowly, his eyes glittering like the stars that blinked above them, "...you are?"
"He was all I had, Seiji," Ryo choked, "I am going home." But he didn't turn to leave. The fighter in him saw that it would be unwise to turn his back.
"All you had," Seiji repeated, a thin line of blood running out of the side of his mouth and down his chin. "Poor Ryo."
"Damn you," Ryo whispered, fresh tears spilling down his frozen face. He tried to back away from the hands he saw coming for him but his vision was a blur, and before he knew it he was on his back in the snow, Seiji's hands twisted into his jacket, pale face inches from his own.
"Do you have any idea, how many people who would die for one second of what you had?" Seiji's voice was unhurried but tense, the constant calm set to his eyes was lost, the normally passive mouth, never sharing more than a smirk, was delicately contorted in a sneer. Ryo realized quite suddenly, that Seiji was enraged.
"Let me go," Ryo said, devoid of all feeling; as cold as the snow that had gotten crushed into his collar and into his gloves.
Seiji stood, dragging Ryo with him, the snow clinging to Ryo's jacket and in his black hair. "Go where, Ryo?" Seiji asked, his grip on him still firm.
Anger rushed back like heat, every detail of the silent clearing jumping out at him in sudden clarity. "Stop! Please just stop it!" Ryo cried, his hands on Seiji's, trying to pull them away, so he could get away from this place. Get away from these words.
Seiji's mouth was on his, smothering his cries; Seiji was talking into him, Seiji's lips moving against his own but he understood- somehow he knew his every word as if he were thinking it himself. "Are you angry? Do you want God to fix it?" Ryo felt himself thrown backwards, weightless for a second then, contact, hard and sharp against a tree's bark, a hand solid and numb across his face, the hot salt of blood in his mouth. "Do you want it to be all better?" A knee in his chest knocked him backwards, his jacket flying open, his arms out to either side. "...a happy ending?..." Small, bright spots of blood hit the white snow as he struggled to his knees.
Ryo stood, swaying to the side as he did, his glove slick on his mouth. Blood splattered into the snow as he whipped it behind him. Seiji's eyes narrowed, his hands still up, willing to do violence. Ryo sagged as he staggered forward, collapsing into him, pushing him down back up against a crumbling vault that sat in the snow behind them. Seiji let him, only grimacing a little when his back hit the wall. He ignored Ryo's hands working the edges of his open coat. "Don't you get it?" Seiji hissed, his hands seized the long black hair and pulled Ryo's face to his. "There are no happy endings."
Ryo's jaw shook in frustration. "There has to be something..." He brought Seiji several inches away from the wall and slammed him back up against it.
"There's nothing..." Seiji whispered, his mouth moving against Ryo's lips, and when he pulled his face away again, Ryo saw his own blood smeared on the white skin of Seiji's cheek, blood made black in the stark white light from above. "....except ~me~." Such pale eyes regarded him, their fury magnified, despite the dark night. Its force loud even in the silence; the very hillside seemed to hold it's breath, waiting for more hot blood to spill on the snow.
"Seiji..." Ryo almost couldn't go on, his voice shaking. "...you, you can't use this...not ~this~ Seiji..." His thoughts turned to the rose laying forgotten, crushed in the snow. Much too fragile to leave if even only for one moment. It was regretful suddenly, to have so carelessly let it be lost. Like his father, far up on the mountain. Hot tears ran from his eyes, and he furiously blinked them back. But then a cool hand was on his cheek, the leather soft on his skin, Seiji's body sliding down the side of the vault under him, pulling him down as well, his hands still clutching Seiji's coat. Seiji was sitting in the snow, Ryo leaning over him, eyes locked in a new kind of tension- the clear blue eyes never leaving his, Seiji's head rolled back against the frost- laced stone wall behind him. He left his long legs sprawled to either side.
"Then.." Seiji whispered, his hand bringing Ryo's face to his again."...use this." His other hand slid between Ryo's legs and squeezed gently, his tongue slipping into Ryo's mouth at the same moment, hot and wet, the smell of Seiji overcoming his senses. Ryo moaned a little. The gentle squeeze stopping and the hand sliding back further between his legs and up behind him, Seiji pressing softly with his forearm while using his hand to pull Ryo closer.
"Damn you Seiji," he whispered, the cold air hurtful on his skin when the zipper was pulled down. He watched the vapor of his breath fog and obscure his vision, his eyes half closing when the hot mouth between his legs took him all the way in and down. It was too hot, he thought, his hands working against the gritty face of the wall. The icy breeze picked back up and caressed his face with sharp, bitter love, the moon, a silent but smirking witness, letting no racing cloud that sped across the dark sky obscure her view.
v v v
Seiji let it hit the back of his throat, liking the way it filled his mouth, liking the way it made Ryo shudder over him even more. Ryo was his in such moments, the blinding burn of his unconquerable will dimming to almost nothing. A soft breath, a sharp hiss, and his fire was extinguished. Protests gone even as they reached Ryo's lips. Seiji took each shaky whisper in his kiss, and every timid touch into his embrace.
Ryo's face shone in the light above him, the tears still glistening on his skin. Pushing forward, he took Ryo by surprise, shoving him back onto the snow, his legs spread out on either side of Seiji's kneeling form. Seiji cherished the moment, drawing back and simply looking at Ryo laying there, his black clothing stark and jarring against the luminescent white snow in which he lay, panting and uncertain, looking up at Seiji's face. His jeans open , his black gloved hands going between his own legs, Ryo's dark blue eyes were watching him urgently, his breath coming hard and fast.
"Who are you Ryo?" Seiji asked, a small smile on his pale face. It was an old game; he didn't remember how it had started. One rainy day in afternoon silence maybe, one of the many times Ryo wanted to swear himself to him. It was the closest words would come to what Ryo wanted to hear.
Ryo answered softly, his breathing slowing down. "Yours."
"When?" Seiji asked, his head tilted to the side, his hands pulling down the black denim and sliding his hands around the hard, sun-dark thighs. Ryo let him, his head falling back against the snow, his gaze on the stones that loomed around them.
"Forever." He spread his legs without being told.
Seiji knelt over him, grazing his cheek against the soft skin of Ryo's lower stomach, the warm scent of his skin like burnt sugar. Brushing Ryo's lips with his own, his mouth closed over the one under him when Ryo cried out a little, Seiji pushing into him, their bodies becoming one. "Say it again."
The body under his was so hot he couldn't feel the wind, wet snow turned water running down his skin. Ryo moaned under him, arms running up his back, gloved hands going up into his pale hair. "...forever.." A tremor in his whisper, Ryo breathed into their kiss, pushing his hips back up against his body. Seiji pushed into Ryo again, the body under him yielding completely, content to just lie there for a moment, meeting Ryo's violent kisses. Ryo held him with shaky hands, as if he were afraid to touch him, afraid to ask for any more. He pushed Ryo's hand away, refusing to give the permission that was needed, and slammed Ryo's wrist back into the snow, pinning it there, and then did the same to the other hand. Ryo tried to lean forward under him, to keep kissing him after he had pulled away, but Seiji simply looked at him.
Ryo was his absolutely.
Forced down in the snow, sprawled under him and kept there by will or force-- there didn't seem to be much difference. It was the last question of the game they played. Ryo gasped when Seiji shoved into his body, his head going back, his wrists twisting under Seiji's grasp. The moonlight was blinding. His body jarring into the soft snow under him, his eyes watering from intensity of heat that held them.
Ryo answered him. Breathing the words back, disappearing in a moan. A single snow flake fluttered to earth beside them, the wind sweeping the glittering dust around the stones and into the stark black sky. Then another and another, the night suddenly filled with perfect lace, falling silently on the frozen stones and dusting the black branches that reached over them. Seiji watched the snow drift down into Ryo's black hair, one flake resting on Ryo's cheek for a few delicate moments before it turned to water and rolled down his face, the sky crying with him. He wondered about the one angle a person needs to suddenly become beautiful, the right light that transforms the average to angel. Ryo needed nothing but his grief , turning him into an exquisite child, afraid and alone, his pain making him as desolate as the moon but just as radiant. Tears running like they were impossible to stop, save for his kiss and his touch. Seiji did both, taking him slowly in the shadows, shutting their eyes, the sharp shine of ice full of the moon's light, kissing each fluttering crystal goodnight.
~the end~
*Dedicated with much love to Kirsten, whom without, this graveyard would not have been possible... *