Chapter four. [SEX. There is SEX in here, euphemistically and artistically portrayed R-type sex, but sex nonetheless, so stay away if you don't truck with it.] Oh, and basketball.] Betcha thought this fic was dead. :P Being terribly dissatisfied with the original plot for this chapter, it was shelved for a long time, till inspiration suddenly hit me a week ago. A strange compulsion grabbed me on Monday somehow, and I scrawled out 7 sides of foolscap with a borrowed red pen all through lectures and tutorials through two days. Am currently doing the same for the last chapter. A lot of the chapter wrote itself, and I was scribbling like a writer possessed, so...well. There.


Chapter Four - Ad Perpetuam Rei Memoriam

He awoke with a prickle of alarm behind his eyelids, that he had not felt in some decades now.

The bed was empty, the neat, folded spread next to him long cooled, his own muddled nest stone cold. Hurriedly, forsaking the cloak, he rushed out into the chapel, his long-dead heart pounding a phantom beat, high in his throat.

"Hana..." he rasped, surprised to find his throat dry, cleared it, called again, urgent and strident, "Hanagata!"

There was no reply.

He could smell blood, a familiar, searing, heady aroma of copper and life.

He could smell...

He...

- choked off the rising bloodlust, bit back the swelling growl in his throat, pushed down the want - the need - to feed that had gone unanswered for days - nights - now.

There were more things to worry about.

Worse things.

"Hanagata?" Desperation.

There was a flutter, he heard, on the edges of his enhanced senses.

A shift. Between the pews.

"H...here." Quiet. Unsteady. Heavy-hearted.

He rushed over to the last two benches. Halted, staring down with a rising dread.

"It's not so bad. You don't have to look at me like that."

The impossibly long legs were drawn up together, knees pressed against his chest, elegant fingers, arms encircling them. The tie had broken loose, and the long dark hair fell in silken waves, hanging heavy around, hiding, the pale face.

That's right, concentrate on the white...

Choke off, bite back, push down.

...not the red. Not the red.

He knelt, a strangely pious gesture, trying to ignore the wood of the pews. Gently skimmed his cold fingers over a gash on the face.

"What happened."

"Nothing." He barely flinched.

"You know of all the things I am, an idiot is not one of them."

"Nothing you should be concerned with."

"Dammit, preacher, tell me."

"Am I 'preacher' now?"

A wry smile, his eyes, where not blackened, glimmered with melancholic mirth.

"You know what I mean."

"Mister Vampire, sir, concern yourself not with my affairs."

He paused, narrowed his ruby gaze.

"Was it about me?"

The priest stared, an inscrutable light, turned away shortly.

"No."

"Thou shalt not lie. I thought you intended to meet your maker with a clean slate."

"I do not lie."

"And I tell the truth." Deep, angered, clutching him by the shoulders, steel fingers digging into flesh.

The priest turned back his gaze, the inscrutability still maddeningly in place. Their eyes locked for a time, till the silence was broken by softness.

"Ay. Ay, you do."

"So it was about me."

"Nay. Concern yourself no more. It is nothing."

"PREACHER!"

"I WILL NOT SPEAK MORE OF IT!!"

The echoes reverberated round the chapel like dying thunder. Their gazes stayed, will against will.

To his dim surprise, he was the one to break away.

"Come. I'll help you with the wounds." Staring at the floor, reaching out a hand.

"I need not your help."

"I would offer it." He looked back, impassive, yet impassioned. "...Hana-chan."

For the first time since evening, a new light entered the priest's eyes. Hesitant, flickering, but alive. An imperceptible nod, he accepted the hand.

* * * * * * *

The priest settled himself delicately on the edge of the bed, clasping together his robes even as he undid them. Turning his back on the sight, he filled the hand-basin from the small barrel placed in the corner, smiled with some exasperation as he returned at the pious modesty.

"Shed them all. There is nothing I haven't yet seen, since last night."

"Last night was different, Fujima-san...and you weren't meant to look last night." A sharp, chiding note.

"Peace, peace. I turned my eyes away where they were not allowed. But drop your robes all the same...I want to see your wounds." Gentle now.

The priest hesitated, acquiesced, fever-red playing about his cheeks.

His paleness seemed gold and white in the faded light. The red and purple of blood and bruises were a marked mar, ugly and cruel. He dipped the washcloth in the basin, ran it lightly against the lip of a cuts, pressed it again more firmly.

The clear water soon turned crimson. He traced the pale pink wet distractedly over sharp white planes of flesh, taking care not to disturb the now clean injuries.

"You're quite the fit one, for one in such a bookish vocation as a clergyman,' he mused, fascinated by the glistening pink droplets trickling slowly down smooth muscles.

He was rewarded by a heartfelt chuckle.

"A bookish profession? Why, Fujima-san, think you I do naught but write sermons all day long?"

"What else, for a preacher without a congregation?"

"Surely you jest! You only see me during the night, dear sir, I have much work to do in the day!"

He suppressed his laughter, gestured at the sky they could not see.

"It is near winter. I must to gather wood. The water needs drawing from the well - it will be harder when it ices over. Sometimes the church needs repairing - there is no goodly carpenter to help me here...nay, the only carpenter in this town...he took apart the frames with his hammer once. He and the butcher both."

The amusement subsided. He looked away.

"What of sport, then? Naught but work all year long?" his voice was gentle, coaxing in a sober fashion it had never been.

"Sport...there is." A sly, embarrassed smile, "I am particularly fond of one."

"What, then?"

* * * * * * *

"My master taught this me." The priest gestured at the basket nailed high on the trunk, "There was none of such in Kanagawa."

He stepped forward to the strange object, staring with frank interest.

"No. I would think there are none." He acquiesced, "I have seen them. In London, I think. The postillons...they were playing some sort of game."

"I've never been to London. I would have like to see that." A wistful note, "I've only ever played this with my master...and soon he grew too old, and I've played alone ever since."

He laughed softly, casting his eyes down, "It wouldn't have been fair anyway. I was too tall for him, he said."

"The baskets I've seen in London...they didn't have their bottoms out like this."

"I did that myself. It's easier that way."

"I can see why. I remember the retrieval fuss."

"We played it with this -" drawing out from the well-kept bushes a rattan ball, "I coated it with melted gum - it bounces."

The shy, eager smile once more. Almost proud, but afraid.

Charming.

He took the ball gingerly, wondering about the rough-smooth, alien covering. Dropped it experimentally - caught it in surprise as it bounced back off the packed, level sand-ground into his quickly grasping hands.

Marvelled at it.

Once more, off the ground, and he looked up sharply, took aim, and sank it neatly into the basket.

There was a short stunned silence as the ball rolled back to their feet.

He picked up the ball again, turned to look the priest in the eye, grinning ferally.

"Let's have a game. You're not too tall for I."

The priest stared, struggled for words, gave up and nodded weakly.

"Alright."

The game was remarkably well matched, height and skill against sheer reflexes and vampire sense. Between themselves they could scarce believe it, mounting pride pushing on the punishing competition.

"Why, Fujima-san, not bad for one who has never played such a game before!"

"I'm a fast learner, " an arrogant smirk, "as I am in all things. And you, for an invalid, you're holding up quite well."

"In the face of the game, such irritations are insubstantial." For the first time since they'd met, a sharp, feral grin, drunk on life.

They paused, stopped then, in place, in time, staring at each other. His eyes were red without white, swelled to luminous orbs in the lunar glow. The priest's own dark eyes glimmered, divine and mysterious by the moon. And there was something there, something beneath the wildly different frames, different thoughts, different lives, that leaped up and cracked silently in the still, crisp night air, thickening it, daubing it with a muddy passion. There must have been something, that made the priest's eyes darken deeper, made him swallow painfully, a fleeting flicker of a thought that read : I could die for this man.

His own thoughts were better kept dark. Better voiced in action than words. Better to close the distance between them with a predatory pounce of sorts, that the priest was on the ground, he was on the priest, and tearing at his robes.

The priest's white skin glowed dimly in the darkness, his eyes hazy with wanting.

He had never truly seen an angel before.

"You're beautiful." He growled out past a mouthful of white tenderness, ripping apart the ties with his talon-nails to let the black silk fall loose, ripping apart the loose shirt. Fingering coldly with hot passion the air-chilled flesh, palming urgently for the flutter of living warmth beneath it.

Not as cold as he. Not at all.

"You're crazy." The priest laughed shakily, eyes glazing over with each quick, shallow gasp.

He paused, mildly annoyed. "You're supposed to say something along the lines of 'No one's ever told me that before', not call me crazy."

"You're wrong on both counts then, Fujima-san. My mother used to tell me that all the time...and she was crazy."

"Oh. Was she, really?"

"Certainly so, to believe that my father wouldn't hurt her after he'd turned."

His own cold blood pounded against his heart. For a moment, it sickened him.

"I wouldn't say so."

The priest fell still too, studying him with dark eyes.

"No. No, perhaps she wasn't." And drew him closer with long arms, soft like lilies, and kissed him.

His desire burned anew, he pushed purposefully at his own belt, undid it nimbly, pushed that and that beneath down until his eager member, pale and hard, like a marble shaft sprang proudly forth. The priest's gaze fell, fixed, fascinated, allowing him to press him down, push his legs apart. A brief scuffle, his hand had found its target, here pink, pink and warm with a shy, blushing heat. A glistening trail ran down the tender head; he brushed it up, smoothed it into the sensitive flesh with a thumb. The priest gasped, shuddered, jerked back with his eyes squeezed shut. A steady clear trickle replaced its predecessor. He smiled, tried to stifle his delight, coating his fingers in the slick and bringing them down to work a questing finger into the virgin passage. The priest tensed below him, the tight sphincter clenching down on his finger with at once fear and need. He said nothing, leaned down to lap at the stream.

"Aa-ah!" A piteous, helpless cry, accompanied by a violent jerk. The hips thrust back into the intrusion, impaled itself.

"You taste good." The edge of a fang gleaming in the moonlight. "Sweet."

Pulled out, slicked more, worked two fingers in this time. More, deeper, till he withdrew his hand, grasped the raised knees, rammed into the waiting vice.

"AaAH!" The priest's cry echoed in the clearing. He paused, keeping it deep, deep within, squeezed tight, almost painfully.

"How is it? Is it alright?"

The priest slowly opened his eyes, forced fists to unclench.

"It's...it's a bit cold."

The words hit him, heavy and almost as cold as his own body. For the first time in fifty years, he felt...inadequate. He would have wilted, then, there, if the velvet wetness around him wasn't so inviting.

"I'm sorry."

"N - no! I...I like it." Blinking away tears, a wavering smile. "Please."

He nodded, his undead heart heavy in his chest, thrust, hard.

More, faster, with a growing, clawing, desperate urgency, a burning need, losing himself in the heady unworldly sensation, that blurred his vision and made him forget he could not breathe.

Below him, he dimly noted, with some sharp satisfaction, the priest had started moving, slamming himself downward and upwards to meet his thrusts, emitting soft little cries of hunger, uncontrollable, uncontrolled.

It seared him, it burned him to the core, warming his cold blood.

Once more - hard, and stars exploded behind his shut eyes, and for a brief shining moment, a second of unspeakable clarity, it flamed, branded itself into his inexistent soul forever, that he would never forget.

A feral howl, and slammed forward, pumping jets of cold, searing seed into the deep, grasping sweetness. A sudden contraction, a hot splash of wet across his belly, and he knew the priest had climaxed too.

He smiled, closed his eyes as the last of the sensation ebbed away. Gently withdrew, dripping a trail of slick on the ground, smearing on skin. He gathered the priest into his arms, wiping wet eyes, whispering meaningless endearments.

He had never been in love before.

He no longer wondered.

* * * * * * *

He pressed against the coldness tightly, eyes dark and staring. It was almost dawn.

Reluctantly, he raised himself, reaching for thick glasses, forsaking them as hot tears gathered anew. Brushed absently at them as he left the room.

The sky in the window was a blur, dark. He could not see.

"Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned," he murmured, voice thick and tremulous even in this familiar confession, "I have despoiled myself for a creature of darkness. I have tasted...partaken of the forbidden fruit, and I have...I have...fallen in love..." Helpless, hitching, burying his face in trembling hands.

"Forgive me, Lord, I see no sin in love!" An irrepressible cry.

"...Forgive me...Lord...I have served thee...faithful, true...for many years...I never meant...to sin...I have tried, but I have found myself mortal...and wanting...I seek...I seek...no forgiveness...forgiveness...I seek only...only that you might know my love for thee...my Lord...please give me...but a sign..."

He wept silently, leaden despair lacing his ponderous heart. After a time, he rose.

Hand pressed against the glass. It was storming. Thundering, the sky clouded with dark and grey and some great sorrow; rain pouring down, blurring the windows, flowing, a mirror of the tears on his face.

But somehow...somehow...there was...a rainbow...

...And behind...the sunrise.

He stared, mesmerised, wide-eyed in wonder, for a moment.

And then, with a growing, alarming dread, realised that there were rain-hooded figures, advancing, moving with a purpose.

Towards him.

Realised that they were coming back.

to be continued...


Coming up next : Chapter 5 - Consummatum Est
It is completed.


O.o *pretends she's not one bit embarrassed at all, oh no, especially not when she was writing *that* in school, not at all* Well, I can't really think of anything to say. Not truly satisfied, as usual, but really grateful that I could actually write it.

Translations/Explanations :

Ad Perpetuam Rei Memoriam - For the Perpetual Remembrance