Alpha

1x2

"Master," Kunzite says quietly. "Are we alone?"

It's been three months. Three months since Kunzite appeared before him in the forest outside that damn amusement park. Three months of watching his shoulders become a little less tense every time he visited, of watching his formality and self-discipline settle down to their usual level--still strict, but not the terrible high they'd been on when he first returned. He figured Usagi was part of the problem, too, and Nephrite's romance with Ami, but still...

"Yeah. Usagi's gone for the day." He looks Kunzite up and down. There's clarity in his face. Peace. After untold lifetimes twisted by vengeance. It had been easy to rebuild his loyalty, their friendship...but three months until they were again comfortable with closeness. "I'll close the blinds."

He goes to do so, and latches the windows, and locks the doors. He feels a little paranoid, but his hands move of their own accord, for the part of him that's Endymion needs to feel utterly safe. As does Kunzite, he knows. When two alpha males go to play a game, it's not for their followers, nor anyone else, to know who ends up on top. A matter of honor.

He returns to stand before Kunzite, and for a long while, they just look at each other, two old friends who read each other's faces like open books and do not care what's written in their own. It could go either way. Kunzite so rarely swallows his pride enough to submit to him fully, but he could need it now, need the security, the acceptance. He wonders if he has the presence of mind to take him, if that's what he wants; it's not easy.

"Master," Kunzite says, pleasant and diplomatic. "Am I correct in thinking that you have not had the pleasure of surrender since our falling out in the past life?"

A sort of profound relief washes through him. "No." He smiles ruefully. "It's not like I'd let anyone else do it. You've spoiled me."

There's that familiar lop-sided, twisting curve of Kunzite's lips--an expression of raw confidence and lust far more than happiness. "I'm flattered." After a moment, the smile drains away. "After all I've done," he whispers, "you still--"

"I trust you with my life," Mamoru says, and sinks slowly to his knees before the leader of his Shitennou, and it feels like rediscovering some secret cave, crawling into some safe space he hasn't been in for years, lighting candles and curling up, cradled in the hands of a great man.

Kunzite looks down at him with respect in his tawny eyes, and runs his hands gently through his hair, over his face, as if he'd never expected to see him beneath him again. Gloved hands--he keeps to his uniform, even now, when they're not around strangers. And Mamoru is in just his plain human clothes, feeling small beneath Kunzite's regalia. He leans into the touch a little, and Kunzite pets him like a cat, hands so warm, as they always were.

They both smile, small, at each other, and then Kunzite's smile twists and his eyes spark and Mamoru feels the first hint of delicious, anticipating fear as Kunzite seems to draw power to himself in a sudden storm, looking down at him now with terrible, indomitable force of will, a sense of command that bleeds out into the air around him. And those warm hands leave his face, slide down his neck, and rip his shirt open in one swift, painful tug.