Dragon Knights Fan Fiction ❯ Lock ❯ Out ( Chapter 4 )

Disclaimer: (glomps Kharl) Aw, can't I at least keep this one? :P Stingy lawyers...

 

AN: Yes, despite the fact that I don't actually have anything about him posted (I think -.-;;), Kharl is my favorite character... I know, I'm weird, I prefer to think of it as `special'... hmm... LAST CHATER! Meh, short fic, gomen nasai! Well, it is all happening in the time it takes a key to, heh, pass through someone's, heh, system...

 

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Chapter Four: Out

 

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The silence in the remote magical supplies room seemed to stretch for an eternity in every direction. Finally, Ruwalk risked a peek at his companion. “At least tell me off,” he said grimly.

 

Alfeegi barked out a few harsh syllables to remove the truth spell - it had obviously gone much too far all ready - and slapped the spell book back onto the table with trembling hands. “I... can't believe you never told me! All this time... you could have...”

 

Ruwalk frowned. “Hey - I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but you know I never took advantage of you, if that's what you mean-”

 

“You should have told me!” Alfeegi snapped, and turned away from him. His thin shoulders, Ruwalk noted, were shaking.

 

After a few moments, the brunet man sighed. This wasn't exactly the reaction he'd been expecting; he supposed it was better. “Alfeegi... I really am sorry. I never wanted to keep a secret from you, but... ugh, you know...” `I didn't want to risk losing you altogether...'

 

“Did you really think I was that shallow?-!” Alfeegi shouted, but the effort seemed to sap all of his remaining strength, and he fell silent again.

 

“I never thought that,” Ruwalk insisted hurriedly. “I - I suppose it was irrational - I just didn't want to take any risks...” He trailed off with a grimace; did that mean he hadn't thought what he'd wanted was worth the risk? Surely that wasn't it, he'd just been too scared... with good reason, apparently...

 

From behind, Ruwalk saw Alfeegi lower his head to his hands. “I... I want out of here...” he whispered through clenched teeth, shaking harder, and Ruwalk wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms about him but wasn't sure if he could quite get up the courage...

 

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“Aw, man... Thatz?”

 

“Nnn... away, Rath!”

 

“Hey, come on. Do like the nurse said; just relax.”

 

“Gah... kill...”

 

“So anyway, what's a twelve-letter word for... congestion?”

 

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Alfeegi was crying, and he was humiliated by that, and at the same time he didn't care. Over and over again in his mind he wondered why, and that thought left very little room for anything else.

 

The thing was, he'd been infatuated with Ruwalk since he'd first met him. Born into an upper-class merchant family, Alfeegi had been given a fine education and upbringing, and had been hand-picked by Lykouleon's father to serve the young Dragon Prince. Ruwalk, on the other hand, was just some street kid Lykouleon had befriended, and when he'd heard that such a person had been given a rank equal to his, Alfeegi had resented him on the spot - but it hadn't lasted long. It hadn't exactly been love at first sight - Alfeegi liked to think that he was rather too coolheaded for that sort of thing - perhaps it had started when he'd first opened his mouth...?

 

When he'd first realized his feelings, he'd been horrified, of course. He'd never spent too much time thinking about `love' before - naturally he'd wanted it, in the vague sort of way that everyone did, but no one had ever seriously caught his fancy - and he was surely much too busy to start thinking about it now. A romance with a man was certain to be even more disruptive, even if by some miracle his feelings were actually returned. Worst of all, he found that he'd quickly come to depend on their playful arguments and their long conversations over lunch, and he couldn't - wouldn't - begin to imagine this man looking at him in disgust if his feelings weren't returned...

 

In the end, he'd done the only thing that had seemed possible, and buried himself more deeply than ever in his work, until he could talk to the man calmly, until he could look at him without blushing... Needless to say, it had nearly killed him, and had left him feeling somehow subhuman.

 

He suddenly froze, momentarily shocked right out of his train of thought, as someone pulled him into a tight hug. “I'm so sorry, Alfeegi,” Ruwalk murmured near his ear, sounding completely genuine. “I never wanted you to cry. Why are you crying?”

 

This brought the tears back all over again. Alfeegi clung to the arms around his chest for dear life. “G-Gods damn it, Ruwalk! If you'd just told me...”

 

Ruwalk shook his head. “What? I don't understand-”

 

Alfeegi scoffed. “Did I ever spend so much time with anyone else?”

 

He felt Ruwalk tense as the words sank in; after a moment, he chuckled. “So what you're saying is, you were scared too?”

 

Alfeegi moaned his frustrations, rubbing his eyes brutally with his knuckles, and then he couldn't help it any more, and turned in Ruwalk's arms to face him. They kissed for a few long moments, passionately and deeply, sloppily with haste, until they were forced apart by vertigo. Alfeegi observed the love welling up in Ruwalk's eyes for a few seconds, and then sighed and gently disentangled himself.

 

At the Yellow Officer's open-mouthed shock, Alfeegi shrugged. “I'm sorry... I... don't know... So you love me, and I used to love you.” He smiled sadly. “What makes you think I still do?”

 

Ruwalk nodded solemnly. “Well, that, for one thing.” Alfeegi glared, poking his chest rather hard.

 

“I'm serious. I bottled those feeling up for such a long time... I think I might have killed them.” Ruwalk could easily see how desperate he was to be convinced otherwise; he rolled his eyes.

 

“I really don't think you can kill feeling like that anywhere near that easily... Even if a person went away for a long time - even if they died...” He grinned. “Give it a week. Actually, in a place like this, a few hours-”

 

Alfeegi continued to scowl bitterly. “You don't understand! Even if we could make it work somehow, we don't have time for this! It'd be even worse because we'd have to hide it-”

 

Ruwalk glowered too, but more mildly. “Does it have to come back to this again? What's the point of working so hard if you never get to enjoy yourself? Anyway, everybody knows that Kai-stern's seeing someone down in the village, and he still manages to do his job-”

 

Alfeegi blinked. “Kai-stern is... seeing someone? Really?” Ruwalk looked at him quizzically. “Anyway, he doesn't do his job very well, you know! He's a slacker - he's horrible at keeping track of his finances-”

 

Ruwalk held up his hands to stem the verbal onslaught. “To you, everybody's a slacker. The point is, he'd no worse than he was a few months ago, right?” Alfeegi looked down abruptly; Ruwalk smiled. “You know, with all these protests, I think you're still scared...”

 

“I'm just trying to be practical,” Alfeegi insisted. “I'm not scared - I don't know where you get the idea that-” He broke off abruptly when Ruwalk reached up to touch his face. There was that loving look again, that one that made it so hard to meet his eyes...

 

“Good - I'm glad you're not scared. As long as you're not scared, everything will work out all right, don't you think?” And before Alfeegi had time to protest the faulty logic of the statement - or even to ponder why he could never think of the most perfectly romantic thing to say in any given situation - Ruwalk kissed him. He started out slow, giving Alfeegi ample time to pull away, which was probably why Alfeegi sighed in defeat against his mouth and wrapped his arms around his neck, pulling their bodies flush together.

 

Later on, he would recall being amazed that another person could feel so warm, that two bodies could fit together so comfortably. He'd always used to think that kisses would be more awkward somehow, that the noses would get in the way, but it was actually the most equally thrilling and relaxing thing he'd ever felt. Huh... who knew...

 

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Rath paced back and forth in front of the bathroom door, half-listening as one nurse tried to calm a second, more hysterical one. “It's too quite - it's been so long - he's dead! - we should've broken the door down -”

 

“Thatz!” Rath hollered suddenly. “You're gonna miss dinner if you don't get out of there already!”

 

There was another long stretch of silence... then, so quite that they almost missed it, a hopeful whimper: “Dinner...?”

 

The two nurses hugged joyously. “He's cured!” Rath beamed proudly. The expression dropped instantly from his face, however, when Thatz opened the door. The Earth Knight leaned heavily against the door frame, and he wordlessly held out... the key...

 

Rath sweatdropped, edging way. “I... heh... think you'd better hold on to that...”

 

Thatz shook his head ardently. “No way. I'm not opening that door; Alfeegi's gonna kill me.”

 

“Us,” Rath reminded him. “I'm planning on being lost at sea by the time someone opens that door, personally.”

 

At the same time, they turned to look expectantly at the nurses, who returned looks of foreboding distain. Thatz threw up his hands in disgust. “Fine! But I'm not going without at least a few Dragon Fighters.”

 

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Thus it came to be that Thatz, Rath, Rune, two Dragon Officers, two nurses, four Dragon Fighters, and Lord Lykouleon all wound up witnessing the rather peculiar event of Alfeegi and Ruwalk being rescued from the storage room.

 

When Rune took it upon himself to announce jubilantly that they'd come to let them out, the group was greeted by some oddly muffled squeaks and some scrambling noises that cumulated in a crash. After nearly a minute of silence, Ruwalk called out: “Er, okay.”

 

That seemed to be about it. The members of the small mob exchanged confused glances as Thatz turned the key. The situation only became stranger when the pair of Officers stepped out of the room. They looked somehow mildly disheveled, and Alfeegi in particular refused to meet anyone's eyes. A knowing grin graced Lykouleon's features, but he hurriedly composed himself before asking, “So... did you ever find out if anything had gone missing?”

 

That got Alfeegi's attention; he gaped. “I... I... I forgot...” He looked so close to tears that Lykouleon couldn't help it; he grasped the teal-haired man's shoulder kindly.

 

“Don't worry about it. In fact, why don't you two take the rest of the day off? Ah, ah - I insist. I'm sure it was a very... harrowing experience.”

 

Meanwhile, Thatz and Rath were discreetly edging away down the hall. The movement did not escape Alfeegi's notice; he seized gratefully on the opportunity for a distraction. “Hey, you two!”

 

The pair froze as Alfeegi stormed over to them. Thatz whimpered like a puppy; just at Alfeegi reached them, he gave a deep bow. “We're really, really sorry! Really!”

 

Alfeegi stared at him, apparently oblivious to Rath muttering `We...?' under his breath. After a few seconds, he reached out and patted Thatz absentmindedly on the head. “Well, all right then.” Thatz gawked at him; one of the Dragon Fighters swooned.

 

All in all, it was truly a remarkable occasion. Incidentally, it took Alfeegi and Ruwalk a very long time to finish checking the storage room's catalog... though they did finish eventually, and Alfeegi did put two and two together, and did proceed to make Rath and Thatz's lives completely miserable for a while, but they'd kind of been expecting it anyway.

 

Owari

 

AN: (beam) Aw, fluff! Sorry there was no lemon or anything, but I thought it would feel a bit out of place since this is primarily a humor fic, and anyway the couple is really more cute than erotic here, nervous grin. Plus, I was feeling kind of lazy... too many Angel Sanctuary lemons that still need to be written... Feh, just go read `The Impression That I Get' if you want an AlfeegiRuwalk lemon (coughshamelessplugcough). But review first, 'negai! (beam) Hope everybody liked the ending, I truly do - er, Yoda? O.o 's obviously past my bed time... But on a completely different note, I have a truly ghastly sunburn right now, so review for cripe's sake!!