Deep Inside of You part 4
Yohji wondered when he’d gotten so accustomed to lucid dreaming.
He supposed it was yet another little mental holdover from his time inside Schuldig’s brain, like his newfound appreciation for loud, annoying music, sausage, and the masculine form.
Frowning at that thought, Yohji ran a gentle hand along the distinctly feminine curves of the woman who shared his dreamscape, glad that his disturbing confusion over his sexuality had not ruined these treasured interludes with the woman who still held his heart.
Asuka’s fathomless brown eyes stared into his from inches away, her bare skin warm and soft against his own. But tonight they hadn’t made love. Tonight, she had said she just wanted him to hold her, and Yohji was more than willing to oblige. Asuka was not one of his little flings, a one-night-stand good only for relieving the stress of excess hormones and making him too tired for nightmares. Nightmares had not been as much of a problem for him lately, anyway. Certainly not on the nights Asuka came to him.
She was troubled tonight, dark eyes shadowed and unreadable, so he smiled reassuringly at her and pulled her closer still, nestling her head in the curve of his neck. She sighed softly against his skin, a little more of the tension in her body draining away.
She went stiff as a board, though, when the door of the small apartment slammed open and someone stomped inside.
Yohji sat up, turning toward the door and pressing Asuka protectively against the mattress behind him. The intruder stepped into the light spilling through the blinds, familiar taunting smirk in place, spinning a Cattleya between long fingers. Yohji peered at the figure, which did not as closely resemble Schuldig as it had the first few times he’d seen it, almost two months ago. The red hair had become shorter, started to curl, and faded to almost strawberry blond. Sunglasses rested on the end of the figure’s nose, and the green eyes had acquired an epicanthic fold.
Yohji scowled at the bizarre amalgam. Well, I guess I know what the kids would look like, he thought whimsically, then scowled even more darkly at himself for having such a twisted thought.
"What do you want?" Yohji demanded abruptly
The creature which claimed to be his conscience grinned broadly, revealing sharp canines. "Oh, this is just too good, Yohji-kun! Really, it was bad enough that you took advantage of poor Ken’s feelings of abandonment and loneliness over being ditched by Aya, but to go from manipulating one of your best friends into pandering to your twisted desires, to mental necrophilia with the woman who died for loving you? You surpass even my lowest expectations," it declared gleefully.
"This isn’t necrophilia, it’s just a dream," Yohji snapped back, knowing defense was impossible, but unable to keep silent. "And as for Ken… I didn’t force him to do anything. And he hasn’t complained, except that he was tired for his soccer game."
"Oh, no, you didn’t force him. You didn’t hold him down, or tie him up, or knock him out and just take him…although you’d like to, wouldn’t you? But you knew exactly what you were doing. You brought Aya up on purpose, to make him vulnerable, then you set it up sooo perfectly - "
"Oh, that is fucking well enough!" Yohji blinked in surprise at the angry growl from behind him. Asuka pushed herself up, easily shaking off Yohji’s weakened hold. He stared at her dazedly, half-stunned from the onslaught of guilt he’d been experiencing, despite his resolve not to let the strange creature that tormented him twist his actions around again.
Asuka climbed out of bed, apparently completely unselfconscious in her nakedness, and stomped over toward the grinning apparition.
"Oh, this is nice, Yohji-kun," the menace remarked, leering at the naked woman. Then devilish green eyes glanced over to Yohji, and the smooth voice purred, "But wouldn’t you like this better?"
Asuka’s form flickered and melted, and suddenly Schuldig was standing in her place.
Just as naked as she had been.
Yohji’s breath caught in his throat at this unexpected turn of events, even as the displaced German swore colorfully in his native tongue and continued to advance on the snickering image of Yohji’s conscience.
"Look, Yohji-kun, it’s my Mommy!" the demon declared mockingly, moving smoothly away from the naked figure that stalked it around the room. "Or were you thinking he would be the Daddy? Would you rather fuck him hard up the ass, or do you want to feel his cock slamming into you? I bet he likes it both ways, Yohji-kun. Decisions, decisions. So which will it be? Uke or seme? Do you - urk!" Yohji did his best to ignore his flaming cheeks as Schuldig grinned evilly at the creature, his hand clamped firmly around its neck and pressing it to the wall.
"I’ve had just about enough of you," Schuldig growled, his free hand yanking the flower from the other figure’s hand. "Go away now, little figment, before I get really angry." The captive creature glowered at Schuldig a moment, then shimmered and melted into a mirror image of Yohji before disappearing completely. Schuldig made a little noise of satisfaction and dusted his hands off as though they were dirty. Then he, too, shimmered and melted, but instead of disappearing, he simply reformed into Asuka before turning back toward Yohji with a satisfied smile.
"Now, where were we?" Asuka asked softly, beginning to walk back to the bed where Yohji still crouched. But she only made it a few steps before her legs abruptly buckled and she fell to the floor, one hand clutching at her head.
That was enough to break Yohji from his bemused trance. He was kneeling at her side in an instant, pulling her trembling body into his arms. "Asuka? What happened? What’s wrong?" he demanded.
"Yohji-kun…" she murmured, brown eyes dazed as she stared up at him blankly for a moment. Then she smiled again, albeit it weakly, and murmured comfortingly, "It’s nothing, really. I’m just…a little tired."
"Tired," Yohji repeated dully, studying her closely with growing worry. She did look tired, worn out and pale. There was a grayish cast to her skin, a hazy, unfocused look in her eyes that was horribly familiar. But that couldn’t happen here. These dreams had never touched on that old pain more than as a bittersweet reminder of what he’d lost. He’d never been forced to live through her death here in this apartment… These dreams had been the only thing letting him hold himself together lately, with everything in the waking world seeming so strange, full of new thoughts and feelings and perspectives he wasn’t certain were even his own. These dreams, and his time with Asuka, had been his only real comfort, and if he lost them…lost her…
"Would you really miss me so much?" Asuka asked softly, staring up at him in mild surprise.
"I would be lost…without you," Yohji replied quietly.
She suddenly ducked her head against his chest, bumping it gently against him repeatedly, as if she were banging it against a wall. "Stupid, stupid, stupid…" she murmured under her breath, over and over, like a chant. Frowning, Yohji stood up, easily lifting her in his arms, and walked back to the bed. He sat down and settled Asuka in his lap, holding her comfortingly with his cheek pressed to her hair. She’d stopped banging her head on his chest, but was still chanting quietly to herself. Eventually, though, she fell silent.
He just continued to hold her, stroking the smooth skin of her back soothingly. She finally began to speak, face still turned toward his chest.
"I was going to leave you tonight," she admitted. "This was going to be the last time I came. I thought…I thought it was time for you to move on, time for me to…let you go. To let go. To…give you up. I mean, I can never have you anyway, so why…" Her voice trailed off into silence as Yohji’s arms wrapped more tightly around her. Her strange words unnerved and frightened him, but also gave him the impetus to finally voice a private theory.
"You…you’re more than a figment of my imagination, aren’t you?" he asked slowly.
He felt her stiffen in his arms, and wondered if he’d just made a huge mistake.
"Why…do you say that?" she asked warily.
"Give me a little credit," he said wearily. "I was a professional detective, and an assassin. I do have some observational skills. You don’t quite act enough like I would imagine or expect you to for me to believe you’re the product of my imagination. Besides, my imagination has never been that kind to me," he added wryly, thinking of the nightmares that had plagued him for years. Before she had come, and chased them away. "No, you’re something different. Something more, like my conscience there," he added irritably, waving his hand toward the apartment door to indicate their recent "visitor."
"That thing is not your conscience," Asuka insisted firmly, lifting her head at last to frown up at him. "It’s just a manifestation of your self-doubts and repressed desires and ingrained prejudices, and it’s a nasty little creation. Usually that kind of mental bugaboo just gives you a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach or something, but you’ve given it a form, and enough strength to show up and torment you in person…what are you smirking at, Yohji?" The last was delivered in an exasperated tone as Asuka scowled prettily up at him, annoyed that he apparently wasn’t taking her seriously.
Yohji’s smirk widened. "Oh, I was listening. But you just proved my point, because I sure as hell could never have come up with the phrase "mental bugaboo" on my own," he declared triumphantly.
Asuka rolled her eyes at him. "Sure you could. Don’t sell yourself short, Yohji."
Yohji snorted in irritation and frowned at her in disbelief. She blinked innocently at him. He sighed and flopped over onto his back, pulling her down on top of him. She settled easily, familiarly, against his body, a comforting soft warmth. Yohji had always preferred a human blanket to cold sheets.
Asuka snorted. "That’s a nice way of saying you’re a slave to your hormones," she teased.
And that’s the first time you’ve replied to an "unspoken" thought, Yohji mused to himself, watching her for a reaction. Her lips twitched slightly and she turned her head, not meeting his eyes. You’re more than a memory, I always knew that. But you’re not a fantasy, either. You’re too...human for that. You don’t always go along with my whims, and when we talk, you don’t just agree with everything I say… Okay, so maybe my ideal fantasy woman wouldn’t always agree with me and do what I wanted, but still… It’s like you have a mind of your own. So…are you…some kind of ghost, some part of my mind I don’t know about, or…
"Who are you?" Yohji asked, not really expecting any reply beyond a confused look, but half-dreading one. And half-afraid he knew the true answer to the question, whatever Asuka might say.
She stared down at him thoughtfully, her eyes black in the shadows, then said slowly, "I could tell you…"
"But I don’t think I will," echoed tauntingly in Yohji’s memory.
"But it doesn’t really matter," Asuka finished firmly.
"It matters to me," Yohji insisted. "I’d like to know who I’ve been sharing sex dreams with all this time."
"Why are you suddenly so sure I’m a separate entity?" Asuka demanded irritably.
Yohji’s mind flashed on an image of Asuka’s form melting into Schuldig, without missing a step or seeming at all disconcerted.
Asuka rolled her eyes. "Oh, for Christ’s sake, Kudo, you so obviously have issues with that guy. I mean, your little bugaboo used his form the first time it showed up, right? And most of its strength comes from your…shall we say, gender confusion?" Asuka smirked at him. "You’re such a trip, Yohji-kun. Where do you think it’s written that you can only like girls or boys? There’s plenty of people with an eye for both, you know."
"I always thought that was kind of a cop out," Yohji muttered, annoyed to have his little theory that Asuka was really Schuldig shot down. And privately wondering why that annoyed him so much. "I mean, how can you really be equally attracted to both?"
Asuka shrugged. "I don’t know," she replied. "Why don’t you ask Ken?"
Yohji frowned. Ken. There was another thorny little issue his ersatz conscience had dredged up…
"What did happen with Ken?" Asuka asked quietly.
Yohji turned his frown on her. "Look, are you part of my mind, or not? If you are, why do you need to ask me things like that? Don’t you already know?"
"Of course," Asuka replied easily. "But hasn’t it occurred to you yet that I come here to comfort you? And part of that is helping you deal with things that are bugging you. That’s why we don’t just have sex all the time, although I certainly wouldn’t object."
Yohji blinked in surprise, turning this new information over in his mind. She was there to help him deal with things that bothered him… Yeah, that made sense. From her first appearance, she had been a comforting presence, appearing when he was confused or troubled, chasing away nightmares and self-recrimination with her familiar brassy attitude. They had talked for hours, about any little thing that entered his mind. And she always made him feel, if not better, then at least not alone.
He sighed heavily. "Ken…misses Aya. And I… I’ve been…curious, lately. You know about that already. Well, the other night, I was sitting around, having a few beers, trying to figure some stuff out, and Ken came down to yell at me for having my stereo on. I didn’t even realize it was still playing, it was just some random disc I put in so the silence wouldn’t be so loud. I’m still not used to that. But anyway, he was all pissy, so I offered him a beer, and he took it, and…" Yohji’s voice trailed off as the memory resurfaced, surprisingly clear despite the amount of beer he’d had that night.
Sighing as he gave in to the inevitable, Ken crossed the room and dropped onto the couch, doing his best not to smile at Yohji’s triumphant grin. "You’re too damn charming for my own good, Kudo," he complained half-heartedly, accepting the beer that Yohji had politely opened for him and taking a brief sip.
Yohji snorted and poured half a bottle of amber liquid down his own throat. "Whatever, Kenken. If you think being offered a beer is charming, I could probably seduce you without even trying."
"Probably," Ken agreed easily. "It’s not like you’d have much competition."
"When he said that, I just thought…I don’t know, ‘why not,’ I guess…" Yohji admitted reluctantly. "So, bastard that I am, I brought up Aya…Ken of course brought up Schu in self-defense, and we both had our usual reactions… And I knew that his guilt would be worse than my…whatever. And I was right. And then… Hell, he never had a chance. Ken’s a great guy, and he’s a lot smarter than some people think, but he’s…very emotional. And it’s easy for somebody like me to use that against him," Yohji concluded bitterly.
Asuka frowned at his chest, where she was drawing little circles with her fingertips. "Did you force him?" she asked calmly.
"No!" Yohji snapped. "I wouldn’t do something like that to anybody, much less somebody I actually care about - "
"So you care about Ken," Asuka interrupted.
"Of course," Yohji muttered. "He’s one of my best friends. Hell, if it wasn’t for him, I might have died, or been stuck inside Schu forever… And he never even told the other guys about that, or made me tell them…"
"So apparently, he cares about you, too," Asuka declared, looking up at Yohji, with a small smile on her lips.
"Well, yeah, I guess," Yohji muttered reluctantly.
"Oh, poor baby, am I getting in the way of your guilt complex?" Asuka teased lightly.
"Shut up," Yohji mock-growled at her. "I don’t remember you being this much of a bitch."
"Saa, you know you like me," she insisted, grinning.
Yohji hugged her tightly for a moment and stated firmly, "No, idiot, I love you." Then he sighed, loosening his hold. "But…about Ken… I did manipulate him into letting me…do things. Of course, he did the same things to me, so…"
"What did you do?" Asuka asked curiously, and Yohji thought he detected a note of jealousy in her voice. "Well, I am a woman," she declared with a smirk.
Yohji chuckled and replied, "We just…kissed, and…well, we…kind of…gave each other hand jobs," he finished in a rush, annoyed to feel himself blushing.
Asuka stifled a snort of laughter, and had to turn her head away for a moment. Yohji frowned at her and grumbled something about insensitive women, but inside, he felt a tight knot of guilt relaxing at last. As usual, telling Asuka about the things that troubled him took the weight off his own shoulders, and when she didn’t condemn him for his thoughts or actions, he was able to let go of some of his guilt.
"Why Ken?" Asuka asked suddenly.
Yohji frowned at the question. "He was there," he temporized, not wanting to go into detail on the subject.
Asuka was persistent, though. "Well, so was Omi. Why not him?" she pressed.
Yohji frowned. "Omi was next door, surfing the net," he pointed out. "Ken was in my apartment, drunk." And besides, Omi’s not… Yohji refused to let his mind complete the thought.
"Omi’s not what?" Asuka demanded sweetly.
Yohji’s frown deepened. "Not legal, for one thing," he snapped.
Asuka shrugged. "Ken’s not that much older," she pointed out.
"Well, he isn’t, but…he is. Ken’s old enough," Yohji insisted. Then, reluctantly, he added, "And…Ken’s…a guy."
"So is Omi."
"Not really. Well, really, but…not in the sense I mean it. Ken is… He’s a soccer player. The first time he met both Aya and me he punched us because we’d pissed him off. He’s not small or delicate or pretty… Not any of the things I usually go for in a girl. Or…or a guy," Yohji admitted hesitantly.
"Why Yohji, do you mean to tell me you like both girls and boys? I thought that was a cop out!" Asuka declared in mock surprise.
"Shut up," Yohji muttered irritably. "I like girls, but there’ve been a few times… Sometimes, if I’m drunk, I…don’t mind messing around with…you know, pretty guys. The feminine types. Not crossdressers, really…well, there was that one time, but I really thought he was a woman… But just…guys who are very girlish. So, you know, I always thought that didn’t mean anything. That I only found them attractive because I was drunk, and they were enough like women that it didn’t make a difference…"
"And now you think differently?" Asuka asked slowly.
"Well, now I… Lately… I’m starting to find myself attracted to guys who are…less girly. I don’t know if that’s something I picked up from Schu, or…or not. But it doesn’t seem to be going away, and I wanted to know…if it was more than just…appreciation. If I could really… If I would like being with somebody who was…"
"Not just a flat-chested girl?" Asuka suggested.
Yohji frowned, but nodded in agreement with a sigh.
"So you picked Ken…not a bad choice. He’s definitely masculine… So are you attracted to him?"
Yohji frowned. "I don’t…know," he admitted. "We’ve been friends for so long, and we’re so close, that I can’t really figure out if there’s anything… I mean, I know I find him attractive. Who wouldn’t? He’s got a great body, a cute face, he’s nice, he argues with me…"
"He argues with you? You find that attractive?" Asuka asked curiously.
Yohji snorted. "Of course I do. I’ve been with lots of women, and a few guys, but the only person I’ve ever loved was you. And we argued all the time, because you’re such a pushy bitch," he declared firmly.
Asuka stuck her tongue out at him. "Only because you’re a stubborn bastard," she shot back.
"See?" he said with a grin. Then he sighed, and continued more seriously, "But anyway, Kenken… I like him. I care about him. I don’t think I have any romantic type feelings for him. And even if I did, he’s hopelessly hung up on that jerk Aya, and will be dealing with that for probably the next ten years or so," he declared bitterly.
"That jerk Aya?" Asuka repeated questioningly.
"Ken’s my friend," Yohji stated flatly.
"And Aya isn’t?"
"Aya…Aya isn’t the one who had his feelings trampled all over. Aya isn’t the one who got used for sex and then dumped without a word," Yohji spat.
Asuka just raised an eloquent eyebrow at him
Yohji rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I’m a goddamn hypocrite. But I never did that to somebody I knew, and supposedly cared about."
"No, you didn’t," Asuka agreed, laying her head down on his chest. "Yohji…I’m tired of talking," she announced quietly.
"Okay," he said, wrapping his arms around her again. "You just want to snuggle some more?"
"Snuggle," she repeated, sounding bemused by the term. "Is that what we’re doing?"
"I don’t know what else you’d call it," Yohji murmured, rubbing his cheek against her soft hair. For a moment, he imagined what it would be like if her hair were longer, spilling across his chest in a wave of silken strands, sunset orange against his own pale skin…
Except, of course, that Asuka’s hair was black. Not orange.
"You’ll come back, won’t you?" Yohji asked quietly. "You said before you were planning not to, but…you will, won’t you?"
"I…I think so. I want to, anyway. As long as you want me to," she replied.
"I’ll always want you to," Yohji murmured. "I’ll always love you."
"Even though we can never really be together?" Asuka asked.
"We’re together right now. It’s good enough for me," Yohji replied firmly.
"Even though…it’s pointless?" Asuka pressed quietly.
Yohji frowned, holding her a bit tighter as she shivered lightly against him. "Love is never pointless," he murmured. "It just is. We can’t control it. We can only cherish it, and if we are lucky enough to have it reciprocated, hold onto it to our dying breath…and even beyond."
Asuka raised her head to stare at him, dark eyes wide and glistening slightly with unshed tears. The dull yellow light of memory reflected off the shimmering wetness, giving her brown eyes a greenish cast in the shadows. "Yohji…I - "
The sound of Omi’s voice loudly informing him he was going to be late to work, accompanied by heavy pounding on his door, woke Yohji suddenly from his dream. He blinked at his ceiling in confusion for a moment, disoriented to find himself in a different apartment, then cursed loudly as he realized he’d woken up.
"All right, damn it, I’m up!" he shouted at the door, startling Omi into silence with this uncharacteristic flare of anger. Yohji was often irritable in the morning, but this had gone beyond his usual grumpy muttering, and he winced silently. He’d have to apologize to Omi later. But damn it, he wanted to know what Asuka had been about to say!
Oh well, he could ask her next time.
Provided there was a next time.
She’d come back.
Wouldn’t she?
She’d said she wanted to, not that she would…
She had to. What would he do without her?
"Maybe go back to having a real sex life?" he suggested to the ceiling, but the joke fell flat. It was so much easier to have dream sex with Asuka than to try and figure out what the hell he found attractive in the waking world these days.
He sighed as he abruptly realized he was hugging a pillow to his chest. "Easy it may be, but it’s also damned pathetic," Yohji informed himself bluntly. Okay. He would stop mooning and moping and going to bed early, hoping for a visit from his dream lover. He would go out and find himself a living, breathing human being to have some uncomplicated, no-strings-or-emotions-attached sex with. Yes, by God, he would.
One of these days.
Yohji set his pillow aside with a fond little pat and got out of bed with his customary groan, at least marginally prepared to face the day. As he stumbled to the bathroom, he wondered idly if Schuldig were experiencing any sort of discomfort or disorientation as a result of their…time together.
He certainly hoped so. It just wouldn’t be fair if he were the only one who’d been knocked off balance by it.
"All’s fair in love and war," memory taunted him.
Yohji scowled into the bathroom mirror as he brushed his teeth. Don’t you start, he warned his memory. A familiar laugh, not his own, echoed through his mind, bringing with it the image of edelweiss. Yohji snarled at himself around his toothbrush. Fine then, if that’s the way you want it, tell me which one this is, he demanded.
There was no reply, and Yohji rinsed his mouth before smiling at his reflection in satisfaction. That’s what I thought.
He could have sworn his reflection was smirking back at him.
"Yeah, I definitely have to start getting out more," Yohji declared firmly, stepping into the shower.