The Title Will Go Here - 10. Chapter 10

- X -

Stratos opened the door in one quick, hurried motion (“He is hurting...”) and walked inside, immediately seeing Gemini’s rigid figure sitting on the bed with his knees pulled up all the way to his chest, his head buried in his bent elbows, golden hair spread around in a messy wave. He jerked harshly the minute he heard the door opening, and immediately straightened up, his eyes two frozen, dark-golden lakes.

“Stratos...” he muttered when he saw the intense look of bright-blue eyes underneath the dark bangs.

Stratos walked closer to the bed without saying anything, his expression serious and calm. He stopped when his knee almost hit the mattress and remained silent for a few seconds. Gemini hasn’t said anything either, staring at him with the same unblinking darkness. Finally, Stratos let out a sigh.

“Well,” he said calmly. “Katherine left...”

Gemini blinked at that, and Stratos almost laughed out loud when he saw a flash of relieved joy shoot through his eyes, immediately chasing away all the darkness and melting the ice in the golden lakes. He managed to keep the same serious expression, waiting for a reply.

“Oh...” was all Gemini said and shifted his gaze away, clearly doing his best not to let out a trembling smile.

Stratos sighed again.

“You could at least try and fake some regret,” he said with mild reproach, and Gemini looked at him.

“Oh...” he said again and blinked. “I am sorry...” he said quickly a second later, and Stratos snorted at that and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, right...” he said in a low voice, and let out another sigh. “Well... The evening didn’t go as planned...” he said slowly without looking away from the glowing face. “...and now I am excited with nobody to take care of that,” he finished, and the golden eyes clouded with frowned confusion. “Fix it,” he said softly without a smile, and Gemini blinked again, his frown deepening somewhat.

He looked into the bright-blue eyes for a second or so, then blinked once again, slowly shifted his gaze downwards, and suddenly, his frown started trading places with a slow smile. He scooted closer to the edge of the bed, changing his position so he was now facing the standing-still figure, and reached for the belt buckle that ended up in front of his face. He shot a quick glance upwards and his fingers smoothly undid the belt buckle without pausing on anything, and moved towards the button and the zipper.

“Mmm...” he said softly a minute later when the button and the zipper hopelessly lost the battle against his fingers, and Stratos briefly closed his eyes when he felt warm breath envelop him in a soft cloak. “You are excited...”

“Yeah...” Stratos muttered and opened his eyes. He caught another quick golden glance and nodded. “You have that effect on me,” he said quietly.

Gemini blinked at that. He almost said, “I thought it was Katherine who turned you on,” but at the last second, he let out another small smile and leaned forward instead. Stratos closed his eyes again when he felt warm silk of the tongue run along his slightly throbbing self very slowly, pausing for a fraction of a second in just the right spot, soliciting a soft, long ‘Aahh...!’ from his throat. His hand blindly moved forward, looking for the warmth of the soft hair, and he found it almost immediately, sinking his fingers in silky strands and caressing them gently and slowly.

He let out another long ‘Aahh...!’ when he felt the insistent tongue flick lightly over the very top, teasing that sweet string on the underside, which sent shivers down his spine. He slightly tightened his gentle grasp on the warm hair and threw his head back when all the flicking suddenly became less teasing and a lot more serious, running tightly around his entire top, pausing for a second in the perfect middle just so it could deliver several slow, probing thrusts that made Stratos’ hips jerk involuntarily without him even being aware of it.

He continued caressing the silk of the golden hair, never making any attempts to push, to change the rhythm or to demand more. His ‘Aahh...!’s were becoming louder every time one of them would slide out of his throat, making his mouth to open helplessly-wider. His head flew back up when suddenly, his entire length was engulfed by delicious smooth heat that delivered just enough pressure and slow movement to make his eyes fly wide open and his hips jerk forward harder than they did several minutes ago.

“Aahh...!” he said again, quicker and louder this time, and his other hand joined its opposite twin in the golden mess underneath his trembling fingers.

The rhythm started becoming steady and more insistent, never increasing the tempo, keeping the same mind-blowing slow pace. Stratos mumbled something unintelligible and his back arched when the rhythm was suddenly diluted with magic of the tongue that was dancing everywhere at once, it felt, reaching every single sweet spot, wrapping itself around him in shuddering, silky waves. This was unreal, he thought very hazily, unaware of the fact that his hips started rocking slowly, sliding deeper into the willing throat that adjusted to his rocking easily, without changing the pace.

This was unreal... He had no idea that a tongue could do something like this... Of course, he knew that a tongue was capable of many sweet things, but nothing like this. This was...

“...perfect...” he whispered without looking away from the slowly bobbing head that kept drowning his fingers in the golden waterfall of long hair, and the sight of it kicked his exhilaration to a higher level, making his hips to pick up the tempo ever so slightly. He received a quick golden glance and let out a protesting moan when the heat around him suddenly disappeared. His protests died off almost immediately, however, when all that warm silk traveled farther down, paying attention to every single hidden inch of him that was neglected up until now.

He let out another moan, far from protesting this time, when he felt long fingers wrap around his briefly abandoned length, doing something that made his eyes roll backwards for several seconds, the matching rhythm of hand and tongue making him shudder.

His hips rocked harder with him finally half-noticing that, and several minutes later, he let out a loud, somewhat startled moan when hand and tongue suddenly switched places, obediently following his quickening rhythm, moving in perfect tandem with his impatient hunger. He forced himself to slow down just a little, giving up on trying stopping his hips from moving (he tried and failed at that miserably), wanting to make this to last longer, keeping that electric rush that shot through him at bay for a while, and was surprised when the mouth around him wouldn’t take any of that, never slowing down, kicking his pleasure up a few feverish levels.

The rhythm kept its steady, quickening beat, and suddenly, it settled on the new tempo, cutting off every single hint of accelerando that seemed inevitable. Stratos had no idea how, but he was pushed farther from the cutting edge, even though the electric rush kept zooming through him, making his head spin; but somehow, he was granted that desperate ‘more...!’ that he craved so much.

He was in no position or shape to ask any questions right now, audible or silent, and he just accepted it with feverish gratitude, never looking away from the sight that kept electricity to strengthen its jolts.

He rocked his hips in this new tempo for a while, half-realizing that he was delivering harder thrusts now, and unable to fix that. Then, some sweet, hazy eternity later, when he felt like he couldn’t possibly handle this any longer, the willing mouth around him did something else, some new trick that made him throw his head backwards once again while letting out a short scream.

“Oh, hell...” he panted when another spike of electric rush suddenly transformed into a tightening, pulsating wave of warmth that started slowly spreading upwards, making his fingers to lock harder on the silky strands. “Oh, hell...!” he said again, louder this time when the rhythm smoothly rolled into anticipated, unyielding accelerando that promised absolutely no mercy. “Gemini...!”

He swallowed another quick golden glance, and his hips stopped fighting the quickening tempo, obediently following it and begging for more, craving the exploding coda.

“Gemini...” he muttered again, his body rushing to the final release, making him lightheaded. “Gemini... Ohh, God, Gemini...”

Merciless heat splashed his vision with a blinding curtain of brilliant whiteness and he half-heard himself mewling:

“Oh, hell, so close...!”

‘Close’ became ‘oh-shit-I’m-coming...!’ in a matter of seconds, and he yanked on the silky hair, pulling the magical mouth off him with one hurried pull right before his entire core shuddered with sweet agony, making him explode violently while screaming out:

“Oh, God, Gem, yes...!”

He blindly ran his palm along his sobbing length, his trembling strokes sharpening his peak, making him to groan:

“Oh, Gem, yes...!” once again, seeing, thinking, and caring about nothing right now; nothing but bursting pleasure that threatened to take away his breath for good.

He called out the strange (“perfect”) name several more times while riding out this blinding wave longer than he usually did. Finally, he was able to breathe without gasping, and managed to take a deep sigh. He half-registered quick long fingers that fixed his zipper, button, and belt buckle, putting everything in order, and his knees trembled. He threw his arm sideways and pressed his hand into the wall, leaning on it while trying to regain his balance.

“Holy shit...” he muttered after a minute and focused his gaze on the golden eyes that kept looking at him. “Gemini, you are...” He paused for a second. “...perfect,” he finished in the same panting manner, and loved the quick smile that he received as a result.

“You didn’t have to pull me off...” Gemini murmured without looking away. He made a small shrug when Stratos wouldn’t say anything, his breath slowly returning back to normal. “With you, I don’t mind...” He let out another smile, and Stratos was finally able to let go of the wall.

“You are in the wrong bed...” he muttered and grabbed the slender arms, pulling the body on the bed upwards, getting it closer to himself, and half-closing his eyes at the sweet scent of soft hair.

Gemini slowly wrapped his arms around the neck in front of him, and Stratos opened his eyes, his strangely intense gaze fixed on that magical mouth. He looked at it for almost a minute without a smile, and then leaned closer just a little. Gemini watched him with the identical serious expression, and when Stratos’ face got closer to his own, he slowly parted his lips without moving or saying anything.

Stratos paused once again when he was just an inch away from the perfect mouth, and then his tongue darted forward, hesitantly tracing slightly open lips. He swallowed a quick breath, and closed his eyes, burying fingers of his left hand deeper into the golden hair, and letting his tongue to dive into the warmth of the soft mouth. He felt the body in his arms to slightly relax, draping itself around him, and straightened up when he felt the tight circle of long legs locking around his waist.

He started walking slowly, never letting go of the perfect mouth, and then stopped for a little bit.

“Mmm...” he pulled away just enough to be able to say the words. “I don’t taste as bad as I thought...”

Gemini blinked at that.

“No, you don’t,” he replied softly. “There is nothing bad about you...” he added in a quieter manner, and Stratos kissed him again, tasting himself on the silky tongue.

“Mmm...” Now it was Gemini’s turn to slightly pull away. “You didn’t know?” he asked with a small, questioning frown, and Stratos shook his head.

“No,” he said softly. “Had never tasted myself or anyone else... Couldn’t stand the very thought... With you though...” he smiled. “...I don’t mind,” he finished in a whisper and locked their lips together again.

He resumed his slow walking, managing to open the door, heading to his own bedroom, when suddenly, he heard Katherine’s voice in his head. “I guess he wasn’t the only one who developed feelings...” His pace slightly stuttered and he stopped for a few seconds again. Was she right? He frowned thoughtfully without looking away from the golden eyes, and suddenly, nothing mattered anymore.

“Yes...” he whispered, answering his silent question and smiled, instead of explaining the meaning behind his whisper when he saw slight confusion tremble behind the long eyelashes. “Yes...” he said again, and this time, he didn’t interrupt his kiss until he finally got to his bedroom and habitually kicked the door closed.

****

Stratos was positive that he would sleep like a rock that night, staying in bed probably until noon the following day, since they didn’t fall asleep until almost two in the morning, so he was unpleasantly surprised when he suddenly opened his eyes, feeling irritatingly-awake while blinking remnants of sleep out of his eyelashes in the darkness of the room. He slightly turned his head, trying to look at the glowing green display of the clock, and let out a low hiss when he saw what time it was.

“Three-thirty...?” he thought with dark annoyance. “Are you kidding me?”

He closed his eyes and tried going back to sleep, listening to Gemini’s soft breath and inhaling the calming sweet scent of hair that spilled on the pillow next to his head. After half an hour or so, he let out a very soft, grumbling profanity, realizing that he would not be able to fall asleep again, and carefully got out of bed, making sure he didn’t wake up Gemini. He picked up his clothes from the floor, his eyes adjusted to the darkness by now, and quietly left the room, figuring that he would get dressed somewhere else without worrying about creating an accidental noise.

He went downstairs after carefully shutting the door behind him, and started getting dressed, trying to figure out the reason for his sudden awakening. He was pulling on his pants, when all of a sudden, a strong desire hit him so hard that he felt thirsty. A strong desire to feel smooth keys of a grand piano under his fingers; a strong desire to create music out of nothing; a strong desire to hear.

He zipped up his pants, leaving the shirt on the carpet next to the stairs, and quickly went into one of the farther rooms of the house, his ‘emergency practice room’ as he called it – he rarely worked at home; he found it too distracting. While he walked, he had a brief thought of making a cup of coffee, but that thought disappeared almost immediately – the desire to get his hands on the cool keys of the instrument was too strong, and he simply couldn’t afford wasting any time, even if it would be for making coffee.

He walked into the room, turned on the lights, and shut the door, his fingertips itching with anticipation of creating. He sat down on the piano bench and impatiently lifted the lid. Before finally touching the tantalizing keys, he threw a quick glance above his bare shoulder, making sure that he shut the door completely – he really didn’t want to wake up Gemini.

The door seemed to be just fine, and he slightly nodded to himself and switched his attention to the instrument that he was suddenly craving. He raised his hands, lightly touched the immaculate keys, and froze for a second, thinking. Finally, he blinked and his fingers sank into the anticipated low sounds of the piano. He tried keeping down the soft pedal at first, but ten minutes later, he let go of it, feeling like he couldn’t restrain the sound any longer. He set his hands free, letting them wonder all over the keyboard, giving into that familiar, rushing sensation of creating, half-closing his eyes when a series of chords made him shiver with dark sweetness.

He played the music of nothing for about half an hour when he opened his eyes, and then he frowned. He was in G-minor again, he realized without stopping his fingers, producing more runs and immaculate chords. He was in G-minor again, and he had no idea how and when it happened. The same haunting, ‘disturbingly beautiful’ melody was wrapping itself around him, dancing in his fingers, tuning his heartbeat to its own rhythm and sounds. He let it to take over, feeling strangely relieved when he did, and realized that he just passed the series of chords where Leon interrupted him the day when the melody sneaked up on him for the first time.

Now there were no interruptions, and the melody continued weaving itself into expected shimmery lines without any effort from him – the music felt literally alive; it felt as if it was creating him, and not vice versa. He kept following the labyrinth of dark sounds, and suddenly, he had a very bright image of golden eyes flash in his mind, immediately bringing back the memories of their first time together; the time when he felt complete, the time when he finally knew how the melody would unravel.

“Gemini...” he said without making a single sound, blindly staring at his fingers that kept flying across the keyboard, and seeing nothing but golden eyes and shiny hair.

The melody grew stronger, an expected crescendo making him hold his breath for a few seconds; an anticipated fermata letting him to inhale air again; a slight accelerando making his heartbeat to copy the same dark rhythm that kept emerging from underneath his fingers. He felt almost high when he realized that he would be able to bring this strange, beautiful haunting to the very end tonight; that he would be able to sink into the final chords; that he would be able to...

“Stop...!”

He jerked, almost messed up one of the chords, and slowed down without killing the melody when he turned his head, rapidly blinking at the unexpected intrusion. Then he frowned.

“Gemini...?” he said slowly, and the melody snarled possessively, angry at the fact that something was about to take over, forcing him to pick up the tempo again.

“Stop...!”

This demand was a lot louder than the one before, and the melody suddenly started losing its strange hold on Stratos, waking him up from his bizarre trance, deepening his frown.

“Gemini...” he said again without looking away from the rigid figure in the doorway.

The golden eyes stared at the keyboard without blinking, completely empty and emotion-free, and suddenly, Stratos realized that the blond kelari was asleep.

“Gem...” he was about to say, ‘you are sleepwalking,’ when the golden eyes slightly widened, filling up with an unexpected, startling mix of anger and fright when Stratos’ fingers wouldn’t stop caressing the warm keys of the instrument, unwilling to stop the melody completely, and Gemini’s hands rolled into sudden fists.

“Stop!” he screamed, and Stratos jumped when the window in the room flew wide open, bursting with broken glass and finally killing the last shreds of the stubborn melody.

Stratos shivered from a sudden, furious gust of the wind that immediately took advantage of the broken window, showering him with tiny bits of broken glass and frozen snow. He instinctively closed his eyes for a second, and then shook his head and stood up, wondering whether he was asleep right now and not Gemini – the entire scene was bizarre, to say the least.

He quickly walked towards the rigid figure in the doorway, shuddering from another gust of the wind, and when he got close enough to see the golden eyes clearly, he stopped frozen in his tracks.

“Holy shit...” he muttered very softly without looking away.

The eyes kept staring at the open lid of the abandoned instrument without seeing it, and this time, they were pure gold – there was nothing else. It looked like all that gold was threatening to spill through the frozen eyelashes, leaving behind nothing but emptiness. Stratos stared into the unblinking eyes that didn’t have pupils or whites, and he felt a shiver run down his spine, and the wind wasn’t the one to blame for that.

“Gem...” he called very carefully, debating with himself whether it was a smart idea to touch the rigid shoulder right now. “Gem...”

Suddenly, the gold in the empty eyes shifted with some strange shady wave, and the eyelashes slightly trembled, sending another shiver down Stratos’ spine.

“Don’t open that door,” Gemini said in a lifeless voice, and then he finally blinked several times, and Stratos stopped breathing for a second or two when he saw two precise black pupils suddenly emerging from the golden depths, and the eyes blinking back to normal, shrinking the golden flood down to its original size.

Gemini slowly looked around, clearly awake now, and stopped his gaze on Stratos’ stunned face.

“What... Ohh...” was all he said before his eyes rolled backwards and he dropped on the floor, hitting his head on the bottom of the open door.

That immediately brought Stratos back to life, and he fell onto his knees, reaching for the side of the pale neck with a trembling hand. He let out a shaky breath when he felt slow but steady pulse underneath his fingertips, and moved his hand onto the unmoving shoulder.

“Gem...” he called and slightly shook the unconscious figure on the floor.

Gemini let out a small sigh without opening his eyes, and Stratos realized that he was asleep again. He took another breath and stood up, carefully lifting the limp body off the floor and pressing his face into the soft hair when the sleeping (“lifeless”) head rolled onto his shoulder. He carried the sleeping perfection upstairs, back to the bedroom after shutting the door behind him and figuring that he would deal with the broken window in the morning.

“You are freezing,” he muttered and held the unconscious body tighter when he felt how cold it was – when Gemini came downstairs in his bizarre, scary trance, he was wearing nothing but an empty expression in his eyes, and the broken window made the room temperature drop in less than two minutes.

Stratos sighed and walked faster. He made it to the bedroom, kicked the door shut, and slowly walked to the bed, trying not to bump into anything in the dark. He was successful, and a minute later, he lowered Gemini onto the bed and slid next to him, covering both of them with the thick blanket and pressing himself tighter into the cold body. He grimaced a few seconds later when he realized that he forgot to take off his pants, let out another sigh, and sat up, quickly working his button and the zipper – he hated having anything on him when he slept. He threw the quickly surrendered pants on the floor, and suddenly, Gemini shifted slightly next to him and half-opened his eyes. Stratos stopped moving for a second, wondering if the weird trance was about to emerge again.

“Stratos, are you awake...?” the blond kelari muttered in a sleepy voice, and Stratos’ shoulders relaxed. The trance was gone for good, he thought, and slid back onto the pillows.

“Shhh,” he said and pulled the warming up body closer to him once again. “Go back to sleep...”

Gemini let out a deep sigh and wrapped one arm around Stratos’ waist, fitting his head into the crook of the other man’s neck.

“Okay...” he muttered in the same sleepy manner and closed his eyes.

Stratos buried his face in the soft hair and wrapped his own arm around the warm by now shoulders, knowing that there was no way in hell he would be able to fall asleep now, and wondering what in the world happened fifteen minutes ago, when all of a sudden, his eyes closed and he fell through growing velvet of heavy sleep, as if someone drugged him.

“What the...” was the last thought on his mind before he lost his grip on reality, never taking his face away from the soft, sweet-smelling hair.