BREAK THE LIMITS: 33/33

[andrew_in_drag]

Title: Break the Limits
Author: andrew_in_drag 
Pairing: Yoshiki x hide
Rating: mature
Warnings: foul language, yaoi, rock 'n roll excess
Genre: AU to bandfic
Note: I first wrote this fic about three (?) years ago, when I was still hallelujah_hide. Oddly enough, I still like it, so I thought I would move it here to my new journal. 
Synopsis: May 1998: Yoshiki Hayashi breaks down in a temple as he tries to take in the news that has changed his life forever - Hideto Matsumoto, the man he has been in love with for seventeen years, is dead. As the other mourners try to comfort him, Yoshiki finds himself falling back through history - to the day when it all began; the day when he met a boy who would, truly, break the limits...

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE:

“Beyond that barely visible sky, birds heading south

Let’s fly once again, cutting down these threads…”

– ‘Pink Spider’, hide

It was six o’clock on the first of May, and the rain was falling so thick and so fast, I could have sworn the sky had split open. The heavens were an expanse of charcoal-coloured cloud and, in the distance, the red and gold sunset. All the light was a soft, warm yellow, shining through the rain thickly.

He stood, dripping, on my doorstep. He was still dressed for the warmth of LA, and his clothing stuck to him like a second skin. He looked so beautiful, I could hardly speak. The way he held his hands in his pockets, hunching his shoulders, seemed touchingly young; his outline was barely formed.

I took his hands.

He let me walk me into the house; there, in the foyer, he removed his shoes. Slowly, still silent, he pulled his wet T-shirt off over his head, dropping it in a sodden puddle to the floor; with his eyes locked on mine, he stripped until he was naked, and slid his arms around my neck. My own hands shook as I reached to touch him, and pull his soft, cold skin closer to my warm one. His eyes were brimming, teeming with energy. Where other people had blood, he had electricity.

I slid my warm hands up his body; those two little peaks on his chest were already stiff with cold and when my hand brushed over them, he sighed softly.

“I missed you,” I said, and felt a flash of ice against my lower back: his hands, brushing under my shirt. His ring was so cold, it burned.

Feeling suddenly as if I could cry, just because I adored him so much, I slid my hands down his body and picked him up, naked as the day he was born – but for that ring. It wasn’t difficult: he was so slight, and I had those long, strong drummer’s muscles. Thunder rumbled in the distance as I clasped him to me and carried him into the large reception room I’d spent most of the day in. The fire in there turned his skin all the shades of red and gold there were, and I deposited him gently on a black rug as thick and soft as cat’s fur.

“I wore the ring all the time,” he told me as I knelt over him, running his hands right up beneath my shirt. “And it did remind me of you. As if I needed reminding.” He smiled. “I carry you with me all the time, Yoshi.”

Incapable of anything else, I kissed him. He pulled the shirt from my body and threw it behind me; he bit down on my lip and drew blood.

“Hey,” I smiled, making light of it, but he leaned forwards and gently ran his tongue over the place where I bled.

There weren’t many words from then. It was as if we had transcended speech and were really linked, really connected, understanding everything. In the firelight, our shadow was of two people, fused irrevocably together. His skin warmed and mine burned under his gaze; his smouldering gaze, so intense I shook. That night, I knew he wanted to become one with me on every level there was – physical, emotional, spiritual – and finally, we were ready for it.

The final limit, to be broken.

I kissed every part of him; when I prepared him, his eyes seemed to flare with passion. It didn’t seem embarrassing; for once, everything I did to him felt as natural as breathing. He lay on his back, propped up by his elbows, watching my actions closely and, when I was finished, the look he gave me travelled straight into my chest and squeezed my heart into a whole new shape.

I kissed his chest; kissed below his navel as I gently guided his hips upwards. Our fingers locked in recognition of what was about to happen; holding my breath, I slid inside him, into the heat of his body.

From that moment, the inferno began. We both gasped, half-laughing, and when I stopped to let him adjust, he pulled me deeper.

And the way he looked at me – as if I was the only person in this new world of ours.

I don’t know how long we lay there, just breathing. He took my hand wordlessly and laid it on his lower abdomen.

“I can feel your pulse,” he whispered, and I imagined I could feel it, my own heartbeat channelled through his body.

There was something so tender between us then, so sweet and so tremulous. I found myself holding my breath, needing him more than I’d ever needed him before – and loving him. Loving him so much I couldn’t stand it.

It was the kind of night that, I knew, the fates had planned long ago: one last night of love, of bliss and ecstasy. We just clung to each other, panting for breath, making love until the sky outside was dark, and the fire burned down to a few smoking embers, and his skin was blue and silver in the moonlight. The same magic that touched him had touched me: my hand spanned his stomach and his nails scraped my spine, our bodies shaking with the sheer weight of our need to love each other, to be close; to give into the feelings that had begun back when we were teenagers.

“This is all I’ve ever wanted,” I told him dazedly, “You and me, like this, it’s all I ever wanted.”

His answer was a sigh like a sob that caught in the back of his throat. When his orgasm hit him that time, he actually wept, clutching my body to his as close as he could.

It was nearing midnight before we finally fell apart, our breathing ragged. Even in the moonlight, I could see he was exhausted, lying on his back as his chest rose and fell. I traced the cupid’s bow in his upper lip with my smallest finger, shaking from exertion.

“I can’t believe I have to leave in a few hours,” I said softly, and he smiled against my skin.

“Soon,” he said, very quietly, “Summer will be here again. That’s what I consoled myself with whilst I was all the way away in LA. Our first summer. Our first real summer.”

I knew what he meant. I couldn’t count those other years as us, somehow, not in the way we were now: it had been hell – the crying, the arguing, the loneliness…

But, I thought suddenly, none of it had been boring. You couldn’t say that. Every memory I had of him crackled with energy or smouldered with desire or radiated contentment; the fights, the sex; all the times I’d watched him sleep. And, even though he didn’t say anything, I heard his voice pass my ears, clear as day, as if blown on the breeze.

I heard, “If I can only have you this once, I’d kind of like to make the most of it.”

I heard, “Oh, I’m the one acting spoilt!”

And I smiled now, if I didn’t smile then. Maybe none of it had been as bad as I’d thought – not hellish but spirited, excited, in a constant state of flux. I’d never known what was going to happen, and when I thought about it, the unpredictability of him was what had attracted me in the first place: his utter difference.

It had been off again, on again, off again – so many times I could hardly count. It had been all or nothing, do or die; talk yourself out of it or give into everything: there hadn’t been a middle ground. One word, one kiss, wouldnever be enough. My limits, I thought idly, were like glass; strong but brittle – allow one crack and the whole thing would fall down. One little leak becomes a lake.

Then I thought about what limits were left, and laughed out loud – really laughed, softly and reflectively – because there were none left, now!

We’d broken every last one.

“What’s funny?” he asked softly, and I heard the smile in his voice.

“Just thinking,” I whispered, “That once this trip to Los Angeles is over, I’m quitting from music altogether. I’m ready to retire, now. I’ve got what I wanted out of it. I’ve got what I always wanted, most of all.”

I propped myself up on an elbow to look at him, caressing the side of his face cherishingly. “I’ll miss it,” I confessed, “A little. It was the music that brought you back to me, after all…”

And I thought of the sweetness of our youth; all the Hides I’d seen, over the years – and that one, special face, that time when he’d been backlit by the sun in my bedroom, half his face golden, making me fall in love with him. That had been the different side of him; the bit he kept hidden but for very few small, sleepy moments…the side of me he was showing now, that evening, listening to my heartbeat in the darkness.

“I love you,” he said in a very small voice. And after that, I suppose he fell asleep in front of the fire. Only when I really had to go did I carry him up to bed and lie him down; after that, I showered and dressed, and picked up my bags for my early flight. A cab was waiting outside when I kissed him gently on the forehead.

“Sleep well,” I said for some reason. And, locking the house behind me, I left him for the last time.

END OF PART THREE