BAD HABITS

    The rain splattered coldly on the window pane.  Benten looked down at the
slender form asleep in his arms.  He was too wound up for sleep.  Fox had been
out on a Run and had returned that night with a fresh set of bruises.  It had
been a minor job, the bruises had come from a slight fall.  The elf was
alright.  Lom, one of the team he worked with, had applied an ice-pack, he
would be better in a few days.  But the boy was so easily hurt.  Benten would
have walked away from such a minor fall unscathed, most people would.
Carefully he disentangled from the boy and quietly slipped out of bed.  He
padded into the kitchen without turning on the lights and pulled out a bottle
of chilled water from the refrigerator.  He did not recognise the brand name on
the label.  Benten smiled to himself, the novelty of Fox's world had not yet
worn off.  So many things the same as his own time and place yet so many
differences.  Most of the differences seemed relatively minor, the names of
companies, the idols of the media, the brands of sparkling water.  He took a
swig from the bottle.
    "Oh that's such a bad habit." A light voice from behind him.  Benten choked
on the cold liquid.  "Now, look at the mess!" Fox reached past him for the
dishcloth.  Benten resisted the urge to strangle him.
    "I thought you were asleep."
    "And that's an excuse?" Fox raised an elegant eyebrow and replaced the
water bottle in the fridge.  His movements were, as always, a study in quiet
grace.  Benten turned and walked back into the bedroom.  He went over to the
window, the frosted armour plated glass was cool against his forehead.  The
rain was still coming down fast.  He was so unused to sharing his space, his
life with others.  Fox had fed him, clothed him, provided a new identity, SIN
number, money.  Opened up his home, his life, to him.  It seemed ungrateful to
tell him to fuck off, to leave Benten alone to his thoughts, to stop caring.
To stop Benten caring for him
    "What's wrong?" There was an edge of anxiety in Fox's voice.  He turned his
head to look at the slight boy framed in the doorway.
    "Nothing, I just ... wanted to.. I didn't mean to disturb you.." he kept
his tone gentle.  The boy got upset so easily, Benten did not want another
scene, his black mood would make him say things he would later regret, words
that Fox really did not deserve.  "I need to get my own place.  I have
disrupted your life quite enough."
    "I told you that wouldn't be a problem.  I can arrange for an apartment,
somewhere.  I don't want you to feel that you have to stay here." The elf's
voice dropped to a whisper.  "I just thought you would..... you know... feel
safer here."
    Benten turned back to the cool glass.  There it was.  The boy had
articulated the one dark, unspoken truth between them.  Benten was not here, in
Fox's life just because he was new to this alien, dangerous world.  One cold,
hard city was pretty much like another.  Normally, Benten could have coped
perfectly well with Seattle, particularly with Fox's shadowy contacts.  But
this was not normally.  He was still here because of the bond of pain, of
horror, which lay between them.  Because neither he nor Fox were convinced that
either of them could cope alone.  Basenji had imprisoned him with bonds far
more secure than anything that Hasegawa or the justice department of Oedo could
have come up with.  Shared fear.
    Fox showed more outward signs.  He woke at least twice a week sobbing
uncontrollably, shaking and sick with memories his dreams dredged from his
mind.  Twice Benten had found him standing before the window, tears streaming
down his thin face, sleepwalking.  Fox was more in touch and open with his
emotions, good or bad.  Far, far more so than Benten who hated the
vulnerability that even admitting to having emotions engendered.  Fox was the
one person he felt able to open up to with any degree of safety.  But it was
Fox who was gradually returning to a routine.  Fox who had been out on a job
that night.  The thought that Benten might need the boy more than the elf
needed him was... horrifying.  He drew a slow breath, misting the glass.  "I
may feel....... safer.. here." There, he had said it.  "But I still feel that I
need to..... become responsible for my life again."
    "I understand."
    Do you? Benten thought.  He smiled, ruefully, into the glass.  If any one
understood him and his internal turmoil it was this soft spoken boy.  He turned
back into the room and opened his arms.  "Come here, little one." Fox crossed
silently over the plush carpet and slid delicate white arms about Benten's
shoulders.  Little one? Benten buried his head in the waterfall of silver hair
which smelt faintly of lavender.  Fox was a good few inches taller than him but
he projected such an air of fragility, of vulnerability, it was easy to think
of him as small.  It was not altogether a true image.  Benten had been into the
complex and dangerous reality of this world's computer system with Fox as his
guide and had seen an altogether different side to him.  But here and now, in
the physical world, in his strong arms, Fox was soft and compliant.
    He picked the boy up with ease, there was no pain from his old injuries,
another wonder of this world, the gentle hands of a magical healer.  Fox
laughed lightly into the curve of Benten's shoulder, his lips brushing the
flesh with a gentle kiss.  Benten laid him down on the low bed, Fox's arms
locked about his neck.  He brought his head down to kiss thin pale lips with
full red ones, enveloping them both with the veil of his own thick white hair.
    "Hokusai."
    With his left hand he clasped the back of the thin white neck and ran his
right down the length of Fox's body, across ribs which jutted so painfully
close to the surface of the skin, down the smooth flat belly.  Fox arched
against him and ran his tongue against the length of Benten's throat, his long
polished nails played lightly across Benten's back, he moaned softly as the
hand closed firmly around his cock.  Benten smiled and moved his mouth down
Fox's body tasting the sweet flesh salt against his tongue.  The soft white
hands buried themselves in Benten's hair, stroking and teasing.  He brought his
head down on the boy's slender cock delighting in the sigh of pleasure and the
responsiveness of the slim body beneath him.
    There was no need for complex rules of dominance and submission between
them.  Their love-making dissolved the tension and pain they shared and built a
bond of mutual trust.  He rested one hand on the boy's stomach and brought the
other down to cup a skinny buttock.  He raised his head and looked up into
Fox's flushed face, his own body was starting to respond to the boy's
pleasure.  Benten reached out and hooked a bottle of scented oil off the
bedside table and carefully oiled his fore-finger, keeping his eyes on the
elf's face, the dilated pupils, the moist lips.  Benten lowered his head and
took him in his mouth again, he slipped his oiled finger gently into the boy.
Fox gasped and the bed shook as his hands grasped the brass bed-head.  He moved
his finger in rhythm to the rise and fall of Fox's hips and ran his tongue
along the length of his straining cock.  He slid a second finger inside, Fox
was trembling now, making small whimpering sounds and suddenly, arching like an
aroused cat, came in Benten's mouth.
    Benten lifted his head and gently withdrew his fingers.  The boy made a
small noise and relaxed back on the damp sheets.  His fine silver hair stuck to
his face like strands of pure silk, he was still breathing heavily.  Benten
moved back up the bed, wiping his fingers on the edge of the sheet and Fox
opened his arms to embrace him.
    "Thank you." he murmured in Benten's ear and kissed the tender flesh behind
it.  "Let me get my breath back and I will show you just how grateful I am."
    Benten smiled gently down at him.  "There's no hurry."
    "I think your body disagrees with you."
    Benten became aware of his hardening erection pressing insistently into
Fox's belly.  He bowed his head.  Desire ached in him.  Fox's fine boned hands
rested on his temples and tilted his face so that their pale gray eyes met.
    "It's all right."
    "Oh God." Benten groaned and rolled off him, burying his head in the crook
of his arm to escape that earnest, gentle face.  They had tried before.  He
remembered the elf crying out with pain, the slender body going rigid and tense
beneath him.  The tears.
    "Please.  It will be all right this time."
    "I shouldn't hurt you.  It shouldn't hurt"
    "Merill, people have been hurting me for.... oh hell.. as long as I can
remember."
    "That doesn't make it right"
    "I'm more relaxed this time, use a little more oil.  I want to feel you
inside me.  Please" He moved behind Benten stroking his neck and shoulders with
experienced hands.  Beneath his hands the muscles in Benten's back were firm
and well defined.  If Fox was a cat, he was a pale tiger.
    "Over the edge of the bed, then." Benten directed quietly.  Fox drew
gracefully away from him and knelt on the plush moss coloured carpet.  Benten
slid down next to him and pushed a strand of hair that dangled in the elf's
face behind the elegantly pointed ear, a single cabochon garnet earring, like a
drop of blood, shone in the dim light.  The rain had stopped and the full moon
showed through the window.  "Promise me.  You will tell me if this gets
uncomfortable."
    "I promise."
    Benten knelt behind him.  The curving white buttocks aroused him.  The
utter vulnerability of Fox's position appalled him.  Trust.  Fox trusted him
not to hurt him.  Benten had to learn to trust in himself.  He reached for the
oil.  It was scented with violet and lavender and musk, sweet and heady.  He
poured some onto his hand and dribbled more down the base of Fox's spine,
between his buttocks.
    "Mm." The elf made a small sound of pleasure, muffled by the sheets.
    Benten's body ached for release but he exerted self-control.  Rushing this
was an error he had made before.  He massaged the oil into soft skin and moved
his dripping hand between Fox's legs to touch his balls.  Then carefully he
slipped his finger again into the boy's body.  Fox was warm and relaxed, and
more than a little aroused.  Benten used his free hand to pour oil onto his own
aching cock.  His red painted nails slipped his foreskin back and he bit back a
groan.  He slowly withdrew his fingers from Fox's arse and pushed his erection
in their place.  He slid inside easily, Fox gasped but opened up willingly for
him.  Benten moaned with pleasure.  His body took up the rhythm as he drove
deeper into soft yielding flesh.  They were a perfectly matched pair, white and
silver in the moonlight He rested his hands on Fox's rib cage, carefully
avoiding the veneer of bruises which marred the skin, and sweat trickled down
his arms and back.  His breathing became uneven, his thrusts more urgent, Fox
was moving against him and Benten cried out and clutched the bony pelvis to him
as he came deep within the boy.  His body kept up the spasm for several seconds
and he was dimly aware of Fox's hips pushing against the bed and of the elf's
own sounds of pleasure.  The sense of release was incredible.  He relaxed
slowly, carefully withdrawing, leaving a smear of oil and semen across the back
of Fox's legs.  He rested back on his heels.  Fox turned and, smiling, knelt
beside him, one arm about his shoulders.  For several minutes they just sat
there.  Eventually Fox rose to his feet.
    "See, I told you this time would be OK." He kissed Benten's cheek.  "I
don't know about you, but I fancy a nice hot bath."
    Benten smiled.  They were two of a kind.  Fox disappeared into the bathroom
and there was the sound of gushing water and billows of steam as he started to
fill the huge cast iron bath tub.  He came back into the bedroom then glanced
down at the rumpled and oil stained bed.
    "Oh goddess!!" He wailed "Look at the mess.  I'll never get the stains out!
I'll have to soak them right away." He made to reach down and strip the
sheets.  Benten grasped his wrist.
    "It will wait."
    "But....."
    Benten sighed and swept Fox up into his arms and carried him, still
protesting into the bathroom.  Tomorrow, he thought ruefully, he was going to
go out and look for a place of his own.  He could only stop himself from
drowning Fox for so long.