8 Jun 2000

Here's the next installment of Perfect Days. Ahead thar be fairytales and one great make-out scene. ^_~

Pairing: 13x6/6x13

WARNING: YAOI - serious kissing; sap; storytime

Perfect Days by Kat & kumiko

Part 4

"It'll certainly be relaxing," Treize mused, walking beside his companion. Yes, they'd read... in front of a fire, perhaps, or in his drawing room. The one with the huge leather chair that could sit two, if Zechs were willing to sit slightly on his lap.

They found the car and driver at the end of the boulevard and in 30 minutes they were in the front hall at the estate. Zechs looked down at the neatly wrapped parcel in his hands. "Where should we read it?" he asked.

"How about in my drawing room?" he asked, already leading Zechs there. It had been hard to control himself with thoughts of the chair in mind, and sitting there with Zechs...

Zechs followed Treize obediently down the main hall towards the back of the house. The room itself was dim and a bit chilly, a startling change from the warm afternoon outside. It contained a group of detailed botanical prints, apparently commissioned by the Khushrenada family, and several rare brass pieces the late Count had collected on his travels. The windows were tall and heavy brocade drapes were drawn back on either side of them. They offered a view of the rose garden beyond the terrace. In the middle of the room was a large, overstuffed leather chair. Zechs shivered a bit at the room's coolness, then walked to the window. Turning to look at Treize, he smiled. "You've got an absolutely marvelous view from here."

Treize smiled, eyes fixed only on Zechs, as he moved to sit in that chair. "Yes, you are a marvelous view. Now, come, sit."

"Not me," he said smiling self-consciously. "Um - is there room for me? Should I get another chair?"

A slow smile crept over Treize's face. "There's plenty of room, beautiful one."

Zechs smiled and ducked his head, his cheeks reddening once again and his heart ready to pound its way out of his chest. He slid in beside Treize and swung his legs up, draping them over Treize's lap. The feeling of the older man this close was sheer paradise. He unwrapped the book slowly and opened to the first page, snuggling down a bit as he did and letting his head rest on Treize's shoulder.

Treize slid an arm behind Zechs' back, shifting him closer as he looked at the first print within the book. Color, with the same vibrancy of the cover: two people, a poor man and a poor woman, standing side by side in front of a ramshackle house.

Zechs began reading first. "There were once a man and a woman who had long in vain wished for a child. At length the woman hoped that God was about to grant her desire. These people had a little window at the back of their house from which a splendid garden could be seen, which was full of the most beautiful flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and no one dared to go into it because it belonged to an enchantress, who had great power and was dreaded by all the world.

"One day the woman was standing by this window and looking down into the garden, when she saw a bed which was planted with the most beautiful rampion - rapunzel, and it looked so fresh and green that she longed for it, and had the greatest desire to eat some. This desire increased every day, and as she knew that she could not get any of it, she quite pined away, and began to look pale and miserable. Then her husband was alarmed, and asked, 'What ails you, dear wife?' 'Ah,' she replied, 'if I can't eat some of the rampion, which is in the garden behind our house, I shall die.' The man, who loved her, thought, sooner than let your wife die, bring her some of the rampion yourself, let it cost what it will.

"At twilight, he clambered down over the wall into the garden of the enchantress, hastily clutched a handful of rampion, and took it to his wife She at once made herself a salad of it, and ate it greedily. It tasted so good to her - so very good, that the next day she longed for it three times as much as before."

Zechs looked up at his companion with a wry smile. "Something tells me the husband's going to be for it, poor man. Look at the expression on his face. He's terrified!" The blond boy laughed softly. "Your turn next?" he said, giving Treize a little nudge with his arm.

Treize only smirked, tugging Zechs a little closer. The closer Zechs was to him, the better it was.

"If he was to have any rest, her husband must once more descend into the garden. In the gloom of evening, therefore, he let himself down again. But when he had clambered down the wall he was terribly afraid, for he saw the enchantress standing before him. 'How can you dare,' said she with angry look, 'descend into my garden and steal my rampion like a thief. You shall suffer for it.' 'Ah,' answered he, 'let mercy take the place of justice, I only made up my mind to do it out of necessity. My wife saw your rampion from the window, and felt such longing for it that she would have died if she had not got some to eat.'

"Then the enchantress allowed her anger to be softened, and said to him, 'If the case be as you say, I will allow you to take away with you as much rampion as you will, only I make one condition, you must give me the child which your wife will bring into the world. It shall be well treated, and I will care for it like a mother.' The man in his terror consented to everything, and when the woman was brought to bed, the enchantress appeared at once, gave the child the name of rapunzel, and took it away with her."

Treize raised one eyebrow, smiling faintly. "It must be terrible, to be named after a type of vegetable."

Zechs dissolved into undignified giggles and buried his face in Treize's shirt. Finally recovering himself he said, "Yes, well. At least it's not your common *ordinary* vegetable. I've never known *anyone* to get that obsessed with peas and carrots. Now then, where were we... ah, yes -Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun."

"They always, do, you know," he said to Treize. "Can't write a fairy tale about a girl who looks plain, or athletic, or just *merely* pretty, now can we?" He turned the page to a glowing picture of a deep green forest and a tall, pale tower. "When she was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower, which lay in a forest, and had neither stairs nor door, but quite at the top was a little window."

Zechs paused and frowned down at the book. "But then... how did she get Rapunzel up there in the first place, if she had to use Rapunzel's hair to get in?" he asked, looking up at Treize in puzzlement.

"Well.... maybe she had a door there when she brought the girl in, and then she bricked it in," Treize replied with equal puzzlement.

"Seems kind of a clumsy thing for an enchantress to have to do," Zechs smiled and snuggled deeper into Treize's arms as the nobleman picked up the story.

"When the enchantress wanted to go in, she placed herself beneath it and cried, 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair to me.' Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and when she heard the voice of the enchantress she unfastened her braided tresses, wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the hair fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it."

Treize looked more amused than before. "Now do you have any idea how far an 'ell' is? And why do the women always have beautiful golden spun hair?" he asked, leaning closer to Zechs, one hand threading through the younger man's golden locks. "I know one beautiful boy in particular who would make a perfect member of the fairy-tale world. A beautiful form and a beautiful soul..."

Zechs kept his gaze lowered for a moment, savoring the feeling of Treize's elegant fingers stroking his hair. He looked up at the older man slowly, staring into his eyes with wonderment and adoration. "Treize..." he whispered in mild protest.

"I love you, Milliard Peacecraft, and someday I will convince you that you've done everything to deserve it -- and no arguments, not now," Treize whispered, taking a kiss. Deep, probing, as if the two of them could become one. They already shared one soul, stretched thin between two bodies that weren't completely whole without the other half.

Zechs fell into the kiss as a man would fall into a endless ravine. Weightless, in free fall, and caring nothing for the world he'd just left. Knowing only the fall, and the welcoming arms of the enveloping cliffs. Long, slender fingers tangled in Treize's hair, pulling the man down towards him, needing the nobleman's company as he fell. For a moment, as long as the kisses endured, the world outside was nothing.

The book, spread open between them, closed when Treize pulled Zechs more onto his lap, letting himself be dragged down for kisses, passionate and drawing. Ah, but he wanted to stay that way for the rest of his life, wanted to remain as he was, kissing his love, his soul...

And someday, he promised himself, he'd make Zechs' dreams come true. All of them -- no matter the cost, Zechs would find the happiness, the joyous fairy tale ending that both of them wanted to live out.

Zechs felt the desire in him grow more keen as the fairy tale slid to the floor. Kisses and kisses, slow, heated, making him so dizzy. Wanting to be ever closer to Treize, and always there was a boundary of flesh that he couldn't cross. But he could imagine them, flowing into one another. Getting closer than Zechs had ever been with anyone or anything in his life. Such cruel perfection; longing so strong it cut like a knife and he bled gladly for his friend, for his love.

"Treize..." he whispered, voice no more than a panted breath between kisses. "Oh, Treize... I love you so..."

"I'll always love you loyally, Milliard," Treize promised, taking more of those heated kisses, pulling Zechs as close to him as possible. /To the end, I'll love you. Fairy tales don't really happen, but... Oh, I can hope. I can hope./

/How do I give him more? What can I do to make him understand how thoroughly he's captured me...? If I could give him my very soul, I'd do it.../ Zechs made a small growling noise in the back of his throat and shifted so that he was facing Treize on his knees, one on either side of the tall man's lap. His hands remained tangled in the silky, golden-brown hair and his lips brushed Treize's - almost kisses but not quite. Their panted breaths mingled and Zechs trailed his lips over his older friend's cheeks, kissing closed eyelids and whimpering softly as he slowly licked Treize's brows. But always he returned to that warm, giving mouth, as if life itself was what he took from it.

And perhaps it was. Treize's hands had pulled Zechs so that they were pressed chest to chest, and their mouths seemed to move as one, always seeking the other out. And Zechs' instincts were so erotic -- no other lover would have spent so much time kissing his face, his strange eyebrows, just kissing. And Zechs knew, if not with the words then with his heart, that the lips spoke for the soul.

/Drunk with his kisses... that's what I am. And I never knew I could feel something this strong, this far down inside.../ Zechs pulled back, just a bit, his hands on Treize's head, the fingers twined in ginger waves. He nuzzled against the older man once or twice, and then could only stare, as if hypnotized, into the compelling blue of his eyes. Running slender fingers over Treize's lips, he asked his questions quietly. "Are these mine, Treize? Do you ever taste me on them when I'm nowhere nearby? Do they feel hungry for mine, just as mine hunger for yours...?"

"My lips will hunger eternally for you, Milliard, because they are insatiable -- and eternity of your kisses will not be enough, my love," he breathed softly -- fancy words, but his tone and his eyes were warm, aching and sincere as they held onto the frost of his younger lover's eyes. "My lips are yours, as is my heart."

"Treize..." One word, breathed as if in prayer, before Zechs took his man's mouth again, harder this time, and pressed himself, from knees to shoulders, against the taller man's frame. "I want you... so badly..."

A shuddery breath of pleasure left the young officer. "I want *you*, Milliard -- how do you want me? Let me provide."

"Bed..." the boy panted, trailing kisses along the noble jaw line, "and... skin and kisses and hands and... I want to be..." Zechs pulled back a little, breathing heavily, his eyes searching Treize's face. "I want to be... on top... this time..." Their eyes had met now, and Zechs stared into sapphire mirrors, waiting for judgment.

"Yes," Treize murmured, leaning in to take another kiss. "You're on top this time."

Zechs slipped off of Treize's lap, took a hold of one of his hands in both of his smaller ones, and tugged the nobleman out of his chair. He pulled him back along the main hall and up the stairs. Looking over at his companion, Zechs smiled, almost playfully. "Race you to the bed."

End of Part 4

(:./kumiko/bblood11)