Tender

by scribblemoose

I can remember the night he finally let me in.

It was raining, and we'd come back from a particularly messy mission. I managed to get first shower, on the grounds that I was covered in blood and gore, while the others mostly just got blood. Ken called me a wuss for caring so much, but then he's more used to being up close and personal in the killing.

Aya was last; he had to scout the area after we left.

I don't know what made me go check on him. Sure, he'd been in the shower for an age, but who could blame him. Compensation for being last in: get to stay in until the water runs cold. Or longer, if a body can take it. I wasn't looking for sex, not after that bloodbath. Sometimes we'd comforted each other that way, when things ran close to home and hurt, or when we were on a high. But Aya had put a stop to that, a few weeks before. Not good for the team, he said.

Aya's not above cliches.

He was in there an hour, and for the last quarter I'd been chainsmoking, pacing my room like a caged panther. I don't know why, to this day I don't. It was the same instinct that keeps the team alive on missions, that's the only way I can describe it.

I could have gone to Ken and Omi, who were downstairs watching some film on TV, I could have said 'hey, is Aya okay, d'you think, guys?' and Omi would probably have gone to check, or Ken might have yelled up the stairs... but I didn't.

I kicked in the bathroom door with one bare foot, and found him kneeling naked in the shower with his sword.

His fucking sword.

He looked up at me; lips blue with cold, and sobbed. It racked his shoulders, he looked so thin. Not frail, Aya could never look frail, but thin. The katana clattered to the tiles.

I took him in my arms, and held him, kissed his dripping hair. Heard Ken's voice and told him to fuck off - a little harsh, I know, but I knew Aya wouldn't want anyone else to see him like this. Probably didn't want me too, either, but fuck that.

Whether he wanted me to or not, I already loved him.

I turned off the water somehow without letting go, and snagged a towel, realising he wasn't letting go of me, either. He was shaking, clinging to me, hot tears splashing on my neck and shoulders. I was soaked too by now; somehow I got him out of the shower, wrapped him in the towel and grabbed another for myself. Steered him to my room.

I didn't ask him what was wrong. Didn't have to. Aya's the strongest of all of us, but he's still human. It has to come out somehow, and we all deal with it in our own way. The important thing was to look after each other, to make sure the line between coping and escaping was never crossed.

I held him, rocked him, whispered reassurance in his ear. Whispers turned to feather kisses, rocking turned to grinding, holding turned to possession. He took me inside him for the first time that night, he cried as he came and he told me he loved me.

We lay awake for the rest of the night, sharing feelings with soft voices. He stopped fucking me, he said, because it was starting to mean too much. Because he didn't want to feel.

As if it was as simple as that; if we stop fucking, we stop feeling.

If we stop killing, we stop hurting.

No. It doesn't work that way.

I threaded my fingers through his hair, brushed my lips against his skin, and for the first time, felt that he was mine.

illustration by Tsuki

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