1.

Right as Saitou pulled him further up on top his thighs and started the hard and earnest penetration, Sanosuke felt his lover's tongue slither its way up the side of his bent neck.

"I'm saying this to you for the last time." Saitou's breath was stinging hot in his ear. "Leave Shishio."

Sano shut his eyes in a tame frown and tried to articulate a reaction with his voice gone puffy. "Fuck...man...not that again."

"Tell that rotten bastard," Saitou persisted, growling, "that you're leaving him."

"I --"

"Right away."

"What?"

"You tell him that right away."

"You fuckin' serious?"

"Are we clear?"

With Saitou driving his cock further in between his legs and his own cock getting even stiffer in the pumping grasp of Saitou's fist, Sano found it severely difficult not to respond with an outright yes...yet he rallied all his efforts not to say it all the same.

This had to be Saitou's another trick of some sort, and he wasn't going to let himself fall for it this time. Especially not when he was at his most, uh, vulnerable.

With his own growl, he buried his blunt nails in the tough muscles of Saitou's shoulders and ground his nude hips round and about down the man's groin, determined not to get distracted by the gravity of the matter. As if this didn't already try him enough, he struggled to keep his suddenly-rigid legs firmly in place around Saitou's torso, and he couldn't quite seem to figure out again how to breathe right.

Dammit.

Sex wasn't supposed to be so goddamn...distressing.

"A fine time y'picked to discuss that shit, huh?!" Sano barked.

Saitou pushed him back then against the pillow, which was laid vertically between himself and the arm of the couch, so he was now half-lying, half-sitting before the thrusting man. "We're not discussing it. I'm telling you to do it."

Naturally, this only managed to infuriate Sano even more.

It was obvious to him that, while the man let his cock caress the sweetest spot deep within his body and made him feel like he (Saitou) was the only alpha male alive who could deliver such pleasure to him, Saitou thought he could easily extract concurrence out of him.

"Bastard! You think screwing me's fucking enough?!"

Following a deep moan of self-indulgence, Saitou drawled out his retort. "What else do you want? A heart-wrenching 'Please?'"

Sano clenched his hands tight around the lumpy corners of his pillow. He meant to swear back at Saitou in indignation, but the foul utterances that managed to escape him in a throaty cry sounded more like encouragement than reprisal. "Shit! -- aaaggghhhhnn! Fuck, Saitou -- fuuuuuck!!"

Damn. Old prick had never given it to him this hard. And this...good. Oh...yeeeaaah. If he were a teeny bit more impulsive he probably wouldn't think twice about severing all ties with Shishio and running away with Saitou right that instant.

...Well...at least he supposed he would, anyway.

Meanwhile, the supposed-to-be heavy couch was rocking vehemently now from their rigorous movements, and for a moment Sano winced at the noise of scraping wood beneath them. Hell, Katsu would go livid to find the parquet floor mangled for sure.

Apparently ill-aware of such a concern, Saitou put more lustful might into his thrusts, as did he put more urgency in his words. "Leave him," he heaved in Sano's dampened forehead, "and live with me."

"I..." Sano gave a broken moan, throwing his trembling arms about Saitou. "...I don't think he'd let me."

"Then make him."

"Yeah right, think it's that easy?" Sano whined, his slack fist caught in Saitou's smooth jet-black hair.

"No, but postponing it won't make it any easier."

Although his muddled thoughts contended, 'What if he threatens to kill me or something?' Sano uttered nothing more in return.

On the one hand, he could always split without telling anyone, anyway, or maybe leave a little note of farewell at the least.

On the other hand...damn. Granted Shishio was a rotten bastard unworthy of his servitude and devotion -- still, he was a rotten bastard who had come to his aid at the time he most needed it, and taken care of him like he was family, and not once demanded of him anything like sex as recompense the whole of the past year. The rotten bastard deserved, and would more than likely appreciate, no less than a sincere, personal goodbye from him. Nope, a grateful little dick couldn't deny that much.

Besides...if he just bolted out without saying anything, odds were Shishio wouldn't find it agreeable one bit. And Sano had already witnessed it for himself many, many times before: displeasing Shishio was tantamount to courting pain -- of every description.

So...

yeah, he'd better just get this leaving shit over with in the soonest. Saitou was probably right. He fucking had to be.

Hell. The things he'd do for this old prick, huh?

"And to think..."

"... What," Saitou groaned back.

Sano brought his sliding, sweaty legs together tighter around Saitou's ribcage and braced himself for the euphoric climax. "To think that...I've only, known you for...a week?"

"... Eight days."

In a rapturous space of a few minutes the two conjoined men uttered nothing more than cries, grunts, and the most full-tongued of moans all the while that they bumped and ground and thrust against each other in that blue moonlit room. Until they came. Saitou before/after Sano.

And then it was over.

...Well, not quite. Their bodies remained tightly engaged in mutual exhaustion, Sano's right hand clasped in Saitou's left, as they abused their lips and devoured each other with a prolonged ravenous kiss that wore out even more what strength was left in them.

The minute his mouth was let go, the dizzy Sano tried and panted, "I, like this place, a lot, though. Your place... It, isn't much. Y'know...?"

Retaining Sano's hand in his warm clasp, Saitou leaned his left forearm against the pillow behind Sano and tucked his right snugly under Sano's raised buttocks. He eased himself onto him, bringing his lips down to nip at the smooth inside of Sano's bent arm. "Not to worry. We'll have something better."

"Hoh?"

"Hoh." And Saitou looked his young lover square in the eye. "Just leave the bastard and I assure you: things will be better."

Listening to those reassuring, guaranteeing words, Sano not once drew his gaze away from Saitou, a thin mist gathering over his deep brown eyes before his lover's own fervid pair. He nuzzled his soft spikes of hair closer to the man's forearm, then, sighing, he closed his eyes from the overwhelming golden intensity of the man's irises. "If I weren't, y'know, doing what I do for Houji...would you be objecting as much?"

"It's --"

"I mean, is it just 'cos you don't like me posing and stuff?"

"No. I don't want you associated with Shishio in any way. He may be getting away with his crimes for now, but he'll have to be answerable to them sooner or later. I wouldn't want you caught up in the whole mess when the time comes."

After an insightful pause, Sano stated, "Okay." After all, Saitou's arguments did sound a lot more reasonable to him put that way. But then another, more crucial concern cropped up in his thoughts, causing a slight crinkle across his brow. "What'm I suppose'ta do after I do leave him, anyway? Become your fucking houseboy?"

"Hn." Saitou nibbled the soft, sensitive flesh beneath and behind Sano's ear. "You flatter yourself."

No sooner did Sano open his eyes to glower at the smirking old prick than he attempted to lift his left hand to smack him. "Asshole!"

Saitou, of course, only dodged his hand with natural defensive ease. When Sano swung his hand back for another attempted swat, Saitou caught it with his own and pinned it down firm by their side. "Listen to me."

"Why should I?!"

Sano was still glowering, though it did little to hinder Saitou nonetheless. Looking like he meant business again, the older man shushed Sano down with a pensive stare. Then: "You can go back to school, for the meantime. Then as soon as we get a doctor to okay that hand, you can train to box for competition again."

Almost in a snap, Sano forgot all about his temper. He loosened his right hand from Saitou's hold. "You mean, this hand?" he whispered, stretching out its partially damaged fingers and sliding its palm deliberately across Saitou's sinewy chest.

The firmest nod. "I'll make sure you live out your dream."

To Sano's ears at least, Saitou's declaration resounded with a profound sense of earnestness, one that all but frightened the young man, as well as made his heart thump in the most violent manner. "Jeezuz, man -- are you tryin' to say, like, you love me, or sumthin' like that?" And Sano couldn't help but grin tickled silly up at him.

For the most part of the ensuing minute, Saitou kept his gaze solid down on Sano, his body deathly still and his expression more dead than anything. Then, he just finally pulled his cock completely out of the tight wet crevice that sheathed it, rose from the couch, and began to walk away.

Sano sat up abruptly in bewilderment. "Hey where're you goin'?"

Without a glance back, Saitou replied, "To the toilet. To vomit."

"Oh no you're not, dickhead!" Sano lashed out, lurching forward and succeeding to pull Saitou back on top of him on the couch.

It was right about that instant that the grappling lovers heard the front door, clicking and then swinging open. In the resulting moment, they found themselves bathing in the full force of the chandelier's sunshiny lights. It robbed them of their eyesight for a few seconds.

"Holy...shit..." Standing open-mouthed in the doorway was Katsuhiro, his turquoise eyes growing quintuple their size at the sight of his flatmate writhing naked underneath the equally naked older man.

Saitou hissed chagrined in Sano's ear. "You said he'd be in late tonight."

"You dumbfuck!" Sano screamed scarlet-faced at Katsu. "Don't you know how to fucking knock?! And shut off the fucking lights!"

"You dumbfuck!" Katsu shot back in a huffy yell. "Who the hell screws in the common living room?!"

The lights went out and the door slammed back shut as the lovers fought blaming each other on end.

Then they had make-up sex on the same couch in the same room not long after.

+

"No, the briefs were brand new, I saw him pull 'em out of a sealed packet."

"Oh. And he asked you to wear them?"

"Yeah, with me still fucking wet in the ass with all your lube."

"That's why he wanted you to wear it."

"But what's sick was after he took a coupl'a shots, he asked for the stupid thing back. He tucked it into his little girly bag then he handed me three gran'."

"Just like that."

"Yeah."

"Wow, Sanosuke. Looks like our new Uncle's taken to you pretty hard!"

"Che!" Sano forced a harsh little sound through his nostrils, flicking the two long, thin strips of his red headband over a shoulder. "I swear they're just getting more 'n more perverted, sons of bitches. How the fuck do these pigs find Houji anyway?"

"Oh you know, word goes around," Soujiro shrugged. He tugged on Sano's hand then that held his own, urging a little more speed on his steps. "Come on, we've made Mr. Shishio wait long enough."

"Oh, yeah," Sano tittered.

The two young men in identical black, close-fitting sleeveless turtlenecks and jeans then climbed their way nimbly up the main staircase, into the long, narrow hallway that led to yet another flight of stairs. Yeah, wealthy people liked their houses real big and mazy.

All throughout the walk, Sano winced everytime his weight shifted to his right. There was this pain by his thigh that, while minimal, was still cutting enough to prove bothersome. It was actually from the show they did just now -- the Uncles had requested Sano go bottom tonight. Not that Soujiro had screwed him too hard; his knee had slipped a bit on the floor just as the younger boy had started to ride him and, coupled with the bad incline at which Soujiro had lodged his cock inside of him and the exorbitant angle of his legs spread apart, this had caused a sharp, little pull in the muscles along his inner thigh.

All told, it had to be the worst night Sano'd ever had on the job.

'Like I'm gonna have any like it again,' Sano staunchly nodded to himself.

Yeah, Saitou was right. He would have to do it already, right away. Leave.

Yeah. That.

He was going to tell Shishio tonight, after all...wasn't he?

As if he'd sensed his waxing torment, Soujiro gave Sano's hand just then a kind of comforting squeeze.

Shortly Sano looked down at his companion, and felt a sudden smart in his chest. Soujiro was proferring him a smile that glittered against the thin metal wires across his teeth, a smile that was all the time sunny, and almost never absent. Until now, it had yet to occur to Sano how huge a difference it'd make not to hang around his pretty partner, and pretty good friend at that, anymore.

Gee. Missing Soujiro would probably be the only downside to life after Shishio.

Damn.

"What's troubling you, Sanosuke? You're so quiet all of a sudden."

The proverbial white lie. "Uh, nothing," he said, smiling absently at the long string of diamonds dangling from Soujiro's left earlobe.

He was thankful, at the least, that Soujiro understood enough not to bother him anymore about it the rest of their walk. Only making it all too plain to him, that he really was going to miss this kid big-time.

+

"Don't bother with me. I'm in no mood for drinking."

Slipping behind the bar by the draped windows, Soujiro nodded. "Okay, Mr. Shishio. What would you like me to fix you, Sanosuke?"

Sano slid his buttocks onto one of the two stools opposite Soujiro, leaning his side against the counter. "I dunno," he shrugged his bared shoulders. "Whatever you got, I guess."

"Make it just cocktails. I need you boys sober tonight."

"Aw." Twiddling with the ends of his headband, Sano tossed a look of sham disappointment to the man there half-across the room from him. Shishio was seated in the velvet blue armchair a few yards away facing the small bar, to his right, placed smack in the center of the large, predominantly red room. Red, as in russet walls, maroon ceiling, crimson carpet, cherry red drapes, yes, all but the entire interior was the color of sunset.

Shishio took a puff from the thin, black smoke pipe he elegantly held. "Especially you, Sanosuke."

"Me?" Sano chirped. "You're looking at someone who never gets drunk, Mr. Shishio!"

Shishio made a low sound that might've sounded like a chuckle. Propping a leg sideways under his mauve kimono and leaning himself back more relaxedly in his seat, he scratched lightly at the white linen wrappings across his cheek.

For some reason, just watching Shishio, Sano couldn't help but scratch his own cheek.

It was something he'd never quite learned to get used to, nor more so understand: getting mesmerized by the man. Because -- to begin with, Shishio wasn't anywhere even pleasing from an aesthete standpoint. A (widely believed) freak accident from ten years back had left him completely burned from the tip of his head to the tip of his toe, and he had since then been coping with the hellish pain of his lifelong wounds wrapped entirely in bandages.

It was actually a bit tough for Sano the first time he'd clapped eyes on the unsightly, mummy-like man, since he couldn't entirely decide between:
A.) pitying the poor bastard;
B.) dismissing him as plain crazy.
He would eventually settle on choice B, nonetheless, right after Shishio had eyed him with a transfixing smile/simper/smirk, and then spoken to him in a deep, rasping voice. Ah, Zanza. Those fists of yours -- they're simply too beautiful not to kill.

Yep. The man was definitely insane.

Then again...

it was Sano who would prove to be the crazier one, taking up with the dubious lot of Shishio's loyal associates and followers a short time afterwards...

"Here's your margarita, Sanosuke."

"Huh?" Sano blinked. He turned to see Soujiro pushing a filled, thin-stemmed cocktail glass across the oaken counter top toward him. "Hey thanks, man," he grinned.

"My pleasure."

Feeling parched in the mouth all of a sudden, Sano wasted little time between grabbing for his drink and taking one straight swig of the gold-colored liquor.

"Woah." Soujiro chuckled.

Rolling his tongue then over his lips, Sano put down his emptied glass in seemingly sluggish motion. Although he'd already had more than a few shots of margarita before, it perturbed him a tad how this one seemed to taste kind of funny in his mouth. As a matter of fact, it didn't even seem to taste...at all.

With no trouble nonetheless he shrugged this off grinning at Shishio, who incidentally had yet to take his shadowed eyes off him.

"I can tolerate you boys getting drunk if it can't be helped, but there's one thing I can't approve of you ever doing."

Soujiro dumped a bulky ice cube into his highball glass. "What would that be, Mr. Shishio?" he asked, like a wide-eyed eager child on his father's lap.

"Getting involved with cops."

It took Sano an exceptional deal of effort not to look astounded...much. 'What the fuck was that?'

His mouth was already waxing critically dry again by the second, and if it wasn't such a dead giveaway of his nascent agitation he'd have seized that drink of black russian Soujiro had just mixed for himself.

Nope, it wasn't: abusing lethal doses of drugs, or sleeping with his woman, or butchering his pet terrier, or anything heinously unforgivable like that.

It was: Getting involved with cops.

'He couldn't possibly know who we're seeing. Could he?'

Counting on Soujiro for some answer, somehow, Sano turned a questioning glance to him. But like the blue-eyed boy did under any circumstances, he simply, well, smiled. As if nothing was the matter.

When Shishio went on to expound on his thoughts, Sano was almost sure the dryness in his throat was going to choke him.

"Coppers, I tell you: nothing but bad news. These so-called protectors of the weak? Hn. They're the biggest fuckers around. Better to get fucked up and over by a bitch than by a cop, I'd say."

"But of course," concurred Soujiro, sipping awfully calmly there at his cocktail.

"Good. Will you keep that in mind, Sanosuke?"

His state of unease notwithstanding, Sano managed to cheep out, "Sh-sure, Mr. Shishio," and then tried to loosen the fuzzy cotton around his throat. Damn air conditioner must've conked out just now; the room was suddenly very warm and Sano was convinced it wasn't just him.

Shishio leaned his cheek then onto a palm, letting the bandages rub against themselves. "Sanosuke. Do you remember the night we first met?"

The sudden, unexpected segue left Sano confounded. "What?"

"You don't remember?" Shishio appeared to frown.

"I remember that night," Soujiro piped in, beaming. The shift in topic apparently delighted him. "You had Mr. Houji bring him into the VIP viewing room, it was just after he'd won his fight. He was sporting this angry cut by his left eyebrow and his hair was all wild and soaked."

"Aa." Shishio breathed out a thin ribbon of smoke, his lips set in a small, wistful smile around his pipe. "I can still vividly remember the way you had smelled then. That smell -- it was the smell of a strong, hot-blooded hopeful anxious to become the best prizefighter in the land. Did you know, Sanosuke, it was that smell that had drawn me completely to you? It wouldn't leave me the days after; it was practically all I could smell. I damned myself that I couldn't go out in public and watch you take down some lesser pug again."

Sano held back an outburst of flustered laughter. "Nah, you gotta be bullshitting me, Mr. Shishio," he shook his head, though he was too bloated in the ego at the moment to actually mean it, anyway.

Shishio's tone, though, turned even more serious. "I'd have given anything to see your first fight as a pro. 'Twas such a pity that tragedy had to happen to you. Though...if it hadn't been for that, you wouldn't have had any reason to accept my offer. Aa, the past year would've been such a bore if you hadn't joined us..."

It was sometime in the course of putting two and two together that Sano felt a rapid tightening in the pit of his gut.

Was there a point to Shishio lecturing about staying away from cops and then reminiscing about that shit all of a sudden? Why now? Why fucking talk about all that now?

Sano had to squeeze his eyes shut from not blinking for a straight minute. Then he gave the center point of his forehead a harsh rub.

Man. All this red around him just seemed to make shit worse.

"Mr. Shishio?"

At the low, familiar voice, Sano's blurring eyes cracked open and he saw Houji by the door across, walking into the room just now.

Shishio's right-hand man was followed by four agents of the estate's security, and a trio of men Sano hadn't ever seen before. The one ahead was a stocky, fiftysomething man in a dark blue suit, who had graying, greasy black hair and a bushy goatee. The other two tall, slim men in their 20s, on the other hand, were dressed in smart, off-white suits, though this wasn't the first thing about them that stirred Sano out of his casual attention. Those two didn't look anything like Japanese to him.

"Shishio," the old man greeted with a raise of a hand, amethyst gleaming on his ring finger. "You haven't changed a bit after all these years."

"Mifune," Shishio merely returned, puffing indifferently on his pipe.

Houji stood at a distance a little behind Shishio, to his left, while the three guests positioned themselves a few yards away before Shishio, just opposite the bar. Obviously, as the room held no furniture to sit on other than the chair occupied by Shishio, they'd have to stay on their feet like everybody else.

Except for Sano, who was still nailed to his bar stool and now speaking in soft, casual tones to Soujiro. "Hey, who's the old guy?" It was a matter of fact that Shishio rarely gave anyone access to see him, much less invade the sacred privacy of his personal chambers, unless they were someone supremely important or extremely close to him.

"He's a business associate of Mr. Shishio's from way back," informed Soujiro. "Mr. Mifune Taizo."

"How come I've never seen 'im before?"

"They had a falling out a few years ago. Actually, this is the first time they've seen each other since."

"Then what's he doin' here all'a sudden?"

Soujiro only gave Sano a slight, ambiguous shrug for an answer, then resumed downing the rest of his black russian.

Just then: "Ah, Soujiro," Mifune gestured a friendly little wave at him. "You're a grown boy now! And still pretty I see!"

Soujiro merely bowed smiling in acknowledgment.

As Sano was just beside Soujiro, it'd have to be intentional on Mifune's part not to notice him, too. Mifune even gave him a once-over, those barely reticent eyes making Sano wish he'd donned something twice looser, but before the man could say something, as he looked like he wanted to do, Shishio spoke.

"And how was Thailand?"

"Thailand. Hot," replied Mifune, his upper face wrinkling somewhat. "The autumn's a perfect time to be back here, though, don't you think?"

"Indeed." Shishio slowly nodded. "And these men are...?"

"These men. May I introduce Crawford, and Schuldig." Said men each offered a bow that could pass as civil. "They're my bodyguards."

"Your bodyguards?"

Sano frowned scoffing at the term. He'd seen and been around a broad assortment of bodyguards since his boxing days, and those two sure as hell looked like anything but bodyguards to him. They looked a little too...too...flagrant, for the job. Damn if any old fool couldn't tell they were more than they appeared to be.

The taller of them there with his arms crossed coolly over his chest, the one called Crawford, had short, sleek black hair that looked a tad mussed up in the bangs, but in a peculiarly neat, deliberate kind of way. His eyes appeared to have some color of a yellowish hue, but it was hard to ascertain from where Sano could see it, mainly because of the reflection of light over his thin-rimmed eyeglasses. Though his looks and overall demeanor fared admittedly better than the conventional bodyguard, his face held a constant expression that was as open as the federal bank vault.

That Schuldig guy with hands in his pockets, meanwhile, had orange-dyed hair (it had to be dyed) that flowed softly down his shoulders. He held it away from his face with a wide bandanna the shade of green that closely matched his eyes. He had a pair of red-tinted sunglasses pushed up over the bandanna, too. Sano wouldn't dare so far as calling him pretty, or handsome, but despite that small, wry grin he wore that promised nothing in line of trustworthiness, he resembled the type who could charm his way into someone's pants nonetheless.

And then:

Those white suits. That was the most screwed-up part. Besides that white looked malapropos-ly medical and hygienic, it made them stand out like zits on a movie star's nose. Plus the way those white suits looked on them: there was just something about it that...that disturbed Sano. Any shade whiter and he'd suspect something very foul.

Che.

'Bodyguards, my ass.'

Right as Sano turned to finally gaze away, he thought he saw, from his peripheral vision, Schuldig fix an eye on him. When he focused his eyes back on Schuldig to confirm this, he found the guy looking elsewhere.

He was, however, smirking. As if amused.

It irritated Sano no end.

"My bodyguards, yes, for now. I've had to fire my old security force and Takatori was -- you remember our old friend Takatori Reiji, don't you?"

"Aa."

"He's offered to lend these two to me for the time being."

"And you trust them, apparently."

Mifune broke into a strained chuckle. "I think I ought to bring to your attention that these two can understand anything you say. They do know their Nihongo, you see."

"I see," was Shishio's seemingly bored reply.

Nevertheless, Crawford and Schuldig appeared in no form discomfitted by the pointed remark.

"Oh where is Miss Yumi, by the way?"

"... She's resting."

"Resting. Already? You musn't tire her out so early." Mifune laughed at his own lousy attempt at jest.

Swiftly, Sano took a sideways look at Shishio, and wasn't surprised in the least to see him staring sharply at his guest, thoroughly unamused. At this, Sano couldn't help but smirk to himself...

but only very briefly, for this time he was sure as hell Schuldig was, and had been, staring at him. So he hastened to turn and found the asshole, apparently, again, looking in another direction, refusing to meet his eyes. To add to Sano's increasing aggravation, Schuldig still had that smirk frolicking all over his lips.

Sano visibly bristled in his seat. And clenched the fists on his knees. And gnashed his teeth for the next several moments. Each time he looked away he'd feel the hefty weight of those crafty green eyes right on him, but everytime he'd try and catch Schuldig staring, he'd deftly beat him to it and himself look away, smirking that annoying godfucking smirk of his.

'Slutty dick.'

It did little to demoralize Sano, though. If Schuldig was playing some kind of hide and seek with him, he wasn't going to let himself stay goddamn it any longer. And so he stared hard at the smirking asshole, purpose unfaltering, valiantly daring him to stare back.

That was, until Mifune snagged him right out of his combative mood:

"I don't think we've met before. Have we?"

Sano turned momentarily to the man and, in reply, shook his head no with disinterest.

"No, we haven't. What is the boy's name?" Mifune directed at Houji. "What does he do for you?"

Houji seemed to mull over an answer for a moment. "This is Sanosuke, Mr. Mifune. He is partners with Soujiro."

"Partners with Soujiro. Oh." Mifune looked Sano up and down again in a way that made the boy want to drub him.

Almost as if in haste, Shishio announced, "You boys had better leave us now."

Sano sighed in relief, as well as groaned frustrated in the same breath. While he was pleased that he wouldn't have to be around these dicks a second longer, it seemed pretty unlikely he'd get the chance to have Shishio all to himself tonight for even just a few minutes either.

'Guess I'm gonna have to wait 'til tomorrow night, then.'

Fuck.

Damn this Mifune and his stinking business with Shishio, whatever the fuck it was anyway.

"Let's go, Sanosuke." Soujiro started to pull him off his seat by the wrist.

With their backs now turned to the bar the two young men began to head for the door, pausing just before Shishio to give him their parting bows.

And as they walked hand in hand at last out of the room, Sano turned one final time to the still Crawford, then to Schuldig, whom he was utterly sure had yet to stop sneaking stares at him. Schuldig still wouldn't meet his eyes, though he continued to smirk toward about Sano's direction, this time letting the knuckle of a bent finger caress his chin. Sano was only too generous with his last glare.

Then, just as he stepped past the door, Sano felt a faint chill rush down his back, and thought he heard a strange voice -- in his head?? -- going, purring...

Meeooow.

+

Perhaps it was because Sanosuke tasted and smelled and felt so good in his mouth and in his arms and against his aching crotch, that Saitou barely caught the boy's words in between their kisses.

"What?" the man groaned, when he finally found it in himself to draw his lips away from Sano's.

"You prob'ly think it's too soon, huh," Sano murmured, his gaze following a downcast trail.

Saitou tilted up the lovely face he held in his cupped hands. "I didn't hear you the first time. Say it again." Apparently, he didn't sound as impatient as he thought he was.

Sano eased himself onto the wall against his back, creating a slight vacuum between their pressed bodies. "I said..." Deep breath. "I love you." And uttering this whispered phrase, he drew Saitou closer down to him.

For possibly just the second or third time his whole life, Saitou couldn't believe he seemed suddenly deprived of speech. Out of surprise or whatever emotion, he was unable to tell for sure, either.

"Yeah, I guess it's too soon." Sano rubbed the bridge of his nose gently against Saitou's chin. "Sorry if I spoiled it for ya. Now, where were we?" Leaning up and forward once more into Saitou, Sano locked an arm more stably around him, pushed back the four long strands of hair from his face, and let his tongue coax the man's lips into opening up again.

In spite of himself Saitou was uninclined to demur, and thus yielded to another, hopefully longer spell of ardent kissing with his young lover. He was starting to get harder now, too, and the urgency to do something about it, intensifying in the most drastic proportions. Damn, if only Sano didn't always make him want to stick his cock into his body whenever they were this close...

Not a few seconds into their kiss, Saitou heard Sano squeeze in the same three words between their lips.

"I...love...you."

Actually, Saitou thought he felt it -- experienced it -- more than heard: in the slow swipe of Sano's tongue across his own; in the tender grip of Sano's fingers around his hair; in the little caress of Sano's foot up his left ankle; even in the building warmth all encompassing them.

This time, however, though still at a loss for words, Saitou had a clue just how to respond.

In no hurry he brought his hands down from Sano's jaw, letting one glide over to the back of Sano's neck and the other further down to grasp his hip. He pulled Sano closer and crushed himself against him at the same time, and kissed the handsome youth -- licked, sucked, savored everything of his mouth -- kissed him with all the earnestness and passion one would prove to the person they felt most intensely for. Perhaps...loved?

It was probably too early -- as Sano himself had supposed -- to feel anything deeply at this point in the relationship, but Saitou'd be making a lying fool of himself if he said he was doing all this for Sano just, well, for the plain heck of it. Because why, for starters, would he even take him into his own house? Why bring such a consuming force into his life just as it was starting to settle itself on a plain? Why complicate things with such a risky commitment? And above all, why had he chosen to pursue someone bound to some menace to society, anyway?...

At the thought of Shishio, Saitou couldn't help bristling. And while barely a movement, it wasn't lost on Sano nonetheless.

"What is it?" the boy asked, severing the kiss.

Saitou opened his eyes to look down into orbs of deep dark brown. Always, without fail, they made him feel like he didn't ever need hide anything.

But Saitou couldn't do it.

He couldn't get himself to open up and break the heart-rending truth: about Shishio, that it was the bastard himself behind the assault that had ruined Sano's hand, that Shishio had perpetrated such viciousness so no one'd take interest in Sano when he turned professional, that Shishio had practically poached Sano for his own gain alone -- to retain him as his top prizefighter in the not-too-distant future -- under the guise of avenging the boy and helping him heal, and in exchange for his thorough submission and allegiance to Shishio himself.

...Of course, Saitou had yet to prove it all factual at this time (how could he, anyway, when all potential witnesses have long met their deaths), but he was sure he wasn't mistaken about it, if only because he had almost always been right about things like this.

It would only do bad to disclose it all to Sano...just yet. Or maybe, at least, until the kid decided for himself that Shishio truly was nothing but filth. In Sano's eyes Shishio was still his hero, after all. For now, there was only so much Saitou could do to taint the concept...

Sano's voice tore through his impervious thoughts. "Did you just remember some important shit ya gotta do?"

"No," he answered truthfully.

"So why're you looking at me like you're looking at something else far from here?" Sano pushed Saitou a little away from him then, and started to strip off his t-shirt. Right hand clutching the left hem, left hand the right hem, he pulled the cotton top over his head with his arms in a tight criss-cross.

Now half-naked, Sano brought his hands to snap free the last four buttons down Saitou's white shirt, the man's suit jacket and tie already discarded a little while ago. He ran kisses down Saitou's jawline, speaking to him in a husky whisper. "I'm gonna make ya think of nothing else."

Saitou smirked. "I already am." With his shirt tossed away then Saitou seized Sano's lips once more with his lips, a tingle coursing along his thigh upon contact of the bare, firm flesh of their chests. They rubbed against each other, rubbed their lips, noses, thighs, nipples, knees, groins...all of them, together. For a moment, Saitou felt Sano lean into him standing on the tip of his toes. He'd have probably done the same himself.

Before Saitou had the chance to draw Sano even closer, the boy pried his mouth away much to the man's vexation, turning around to face the clean wall. "Now, Saitou," he wildly breathed out, pushing his just-unbuckled jeans down from his hips. "I want you now."

Then, with his jeans and underpants off to the floor, Sano braced himself leaning onto his forearm against the wall, bent just a little over with one long tail of his headband running down his back, as he nudged his full naked buttocks to Saitou.

At the first touch of Sano's derriere against his clothed crotch, Saitou felt a surge of heat around his loins that shot down his long legs and made them tremble. When he nudged himself forward for more of the contact, it felt all too good he thought he could just as well have reached orgasm.

But first things first. Sano had to be prepared.

Saitou took the fore and middle fingers of his right hand into his mouth, washing them unsparingly with saliva. As he did so, he placed his left hand on Sano's hip, then let his thumb caress the small, red kanji of 'aku' on the base of the boy's spine, part-wishing it was the kanji of his name instead that was there.

"You know what, Saitou?"

"What," he asked back, after releasing his fingers from his mouth. Slowly, and carefully, then, he inserted the tips of the dripping wet digits between the silky, firm cheeks of Sano's buttocks. He heard himself gasp at the tight heat that welcomed them.

Wincing and hissing slightly, Sano turned a little to the back to face Saitou. "You gotta believe it -- you've just been the second person to fuck me ever." He flashed him a lopsided smile.

"Only the second, huh."

"Yep."

"... I assume the first one was Seta?"

"Uh-huh."

"Hn." Saitou worked his fingers in one last circling motion inside Sano, before slowly withdrawing them.

If the man had any less control of himself, he probably would be ripping off the fly of his trousers right now, instead of calmly pulling down its zipper to free his painfully stiff and thickened cock at long last.

With Sano's hips firm and steady in his hands, his cock positioned right for Sano to receive him, Saitou then pushed himself forward, once, making Sano cry out, and then twice in succession, burying and sinking himself deeper.

Sano leaned his forehead onto his forearms and began to push back. "You wanna, know, another thing, Saitou?" he heaved.

Saitou let his right hand slide up Sano's curved back. "I want to know," he tried to say to him without moaning.

Turning a slight angle to his right, just enough to meet his lover's gaze again, Sano took Saitou's hand off his back and pulled it close to his lips. "You're the only one I allow to fuck me outside the job...y'know, personal-wise? ...and without a goddam condom on."

"Hn. You think I didn't know?"

"You knew?"

"Just as you know you're the only one I care to fuck, anyway."

"But, but I didn't know that."

"So now we're even." Saitou bent down to kiss Sano in the right ear, to lip that earlobe peeping from under those soft brown strands of hair.

Sano slathered the man's hand with a few more kisses, before he let it go and turned to lean face front again onto the wall.

Saitou was shoving into him even harder now, and faster, his profound desire to grind and rub his cock ceaselessly inside Sano's heavenly tight hole hastened and heightened by the sound of the boy's restrained cries and groans, the sight of his tanned, unmarred skin, the taste of his sweat-coated shoulder, and the feel of his glowing hot, receptive body.

Right as he felt himself about to explode, Saitou wrapped his arms around Sano's chest easing him away from the wall. He buried his parted lips in the exposed hollow of Sano's throat as he pushed down their joined selves to kneel on the parquet floor. Then he placed a palm over the moist head of Sano's cock, rocking their bodies fiercely together with his continuous thrusts, until climax made the world spin right in his head and brought their intercourse to its regretful conclusion.

Together they dropped to their sides in a panting heap, Saitou keeping Sano snug in his arms despite the wetness stuck between them.

"I think you're bullshitting," Sano said just then, still a tad out of wind.

Saitou nestled the side of his face in Sano's hair. "About what?"

"About me being the only one you've ever fucked."

"I didn't say that, blockhead."

"I heard it."

"What I said was you're the only one I care to fuck. There's a difference."

"... I still think you're bullshitting, anyway."

"Think what you like. I'm going to sleep."

And as it turned out, unsurprisingly, Sano himself had already started to doze off.

3-4.