Confrontation

Here's my latest fic for the Hot Fanfic Contest in the LadyOscar.com Forums. Needless to say, it's lemon XP Still there aren't so many graphic descriptions but you might experience a slight shiver down your spine. If you do, "yay!" for me XDDDDDDDDDDDDD Don't torture your memory about which source of the original story I made reference to. I again mixed the anime and manga versions of how things turn out. I'm really happy with the result and I hope you will be too. Feedback is welcomed. Enjoy! ^^

Huge thanks to glottal for pointing out a grammatical mistake ^^;

*

I woke up hearing that awful sound again. Sometimes it sounded like someone was being strangled, sometimes like the deep sobs of a painful soul and sometimes like the mourns of a slave after being tortured. Whichever it was, it disturbed me. But then, each time I heard that sound, before my mind could make out what it really was, I would lose to the exhaustion caused by the gun shot wound on the upper left side of my chest and fall asleep like a dead man.

How long had it been since I was shot? Was I healing? Where was this place that I was resting? Was Oscar near me? Slowly I had learned the answers to these questions. It had been approximately 2 months since the military intervention order came. As much as my senses allowed me to be aware, we were fighting the German cavalry and I had pushed Oscar away from a deadly bullet and got shot instead.

Thank God, it wasn't her! Thank God, I could finally atone myself and repay her my life debt! But no, I didn't want to die. Now that I had her love, now that a new era was starting, I wanted to live more than ever. Would God grant me this selfish wish too? Thank God, he did.

I was alive. Very weak but alive and with my dear Oscar. I had come to myself for the first time after I got shot with her beautiful voice. She was calling to me as if the image of her carved in the darkness of my blindness had come to life.

"André? Can you hear me, André?!"

I had opened my eyes and the daylight made my darkness somewhat brighter. It was when I felt her grip on my hand that I had come to life as if she was transmitting energy into my body through her warmth. It didn't matter if I was in Heaven or Earth. I was with my Oscar. Swallowing a couple of times to get my voice ready, I had said as audible as I could: "We're even now" and she had broken down into tears.

Since then I had drifted between sleep and consciousness. I had gathered that we were at Rosalie and Bernard's place and would stay there until I got strong enough to get out of bed. I knew I was healing slowly. But there were times when it occurred to me that my body might deceive me. Sometimes my left arm, which was weaker because of its proximity to the wound, wouldn't comply with the orders of my brain. Sometimes the pain in my chest would get so unbearable that it would turn my dreams into nightmares, wake me up screaming. At times like that fear would rise in me: fear of dying, fear of losing my Oscar. A Heaven without her was equal to Hell for me. Even though I couldn't see her, I could tell that she was afraid too. During the few hours when I was awake we would talk about the going-ons in Paris. It was a way to suppress our fear, a way to reassure ourselves that everything was going to be fine. I had felt like talking about it or admitting that it existed would realize it. The only gesture that had revealed that fear was that all that time I would never let go of her hand and she would caress mine until I fell asleep again.

The question I hadn't been able to answer yet was what that disturbing sound was. This time it went on and on. Encouraged by the sudden improvement in my recovery that has been lasting for a week, I decided to grasp this chance to find out its source. I forced myself out of warm cradle of sleep and opened my eyes. I gathered it was night time as total darkness greeted me. I realized that the sound was coming from much closer than I thought. The more consciousness replaced sleep, the clearer the sound got and finally my brain could identify it out of the thousands of sounds it had registered so far. To my horrible realization, it was the sound of a muffled cough followed by a painful attempt to breathe.

Oscar was trying to suppress her coughing by holding something to her mouth. But it didn't sound like a regular cough you get when you have a cold. It was as if her lungs wanted to rip open her chest to get out and she was struggling to keep them in place. I could imagine how violently she must be shaking from the squeaking sounds of the wooden bed. Finally the fit lost its strength and left its place to a rattling breathing. Then I heard her get out of the bed and quietly leave the room.

I laid there thunderstruck for a few seconds. The sleepiness had left me completely. I felt no pain, no fatigue, nothing. It could only mean one thing if someone was coughing that badly but I would cling to any little piece of evidence that would lead me to believe otherwise. Yes, I needed to be hundred percent sure before giving into knot that had already situated itself in my throat. I abruptly got out of the bed but I had to hold on to the walls and wait for the drowsiness to pass. Then slowly I made my way to her bed and sat down. With my good right hand I started to run over the sheet. It was warm, ruffled and, so far, dry. Trying to prevent any emotion to take over my mind, I kept on my inspection until my fingertips came over a wet spot. There, my last shred of hope had shattered. Tears had already started to roll down my cheeks when I brought the soaked material up to my nose and inhaled the strong smell of blood.

I had long suspected that Oscar was hiding something from me. Come to think of it, I had heard her cough once in her office in the French Guards headquarters. It was only a couple of months ago but it felt like years had passed. And then, one of the maids in the Jarjeyes Mansion had told me that there was a blood stain on my shirt the night before we left for the fight. When the signs were all there, why the hell hadn't I realized this earlier? Perhaps I didn't want to realize such an awful truth? No, that wasn't the reason. It seemed that my fear of losing Oscar had thrown my doubts into shadow.

As I sank further and further into despair full of guilt, I heard the door open and lifted my head in its direction.

"André, what-?" came her cracked voice full of surprise and was cut in by a gasp. Which one had she noticed first? The trail of tears on my cheeks or the bloody cloth I held in my hands? I waited in vain for her to say something, knowing that she would keep her silence. And she did. For so long that after a while I wasn't even sure if she was still there. At the least sound of movement she made I got up to take her in my arms. But I lost my balance again and she caught me from toppling over at the last minute. The sound of a glass breaking and the wetness I felt on my bare feet indicated that I had knocked down her glass of water.

"Oscar..." A sob escaped me as I embraced her. Was it the mess I made or realizing how thin she had gotten that caused it, I don't know. But at that moment, the fact that my beloved Oscar was suffering from a fatal disease sank in and set free all my fears which took form in a series of nonsense words interrupted by deep sobs.

"Oscar... I was s-so scared... There was pain and-and people were running around, bullets were flying around... Though you w-were holding my hand, it was like you were g-going further a-away from me..."

I couldn't keep talking. My brain could no longer take a grip on my sobs and tears. Then I felt her return my embrace. It calmed me down a bit and I took a deep breath to resume talking.

"And it got colder and colder and... I thank God th-that it wasn't you... I thought I protected you but... B-but... All along... You were... Oh God! I love you so much, Oscar... S-so very much... I don't w-want to lose you... No... Please... I can't even see you anymore, I can't... How am I going to keep protecting you...?"

Hearing this, she abruptly freed herself from the circle of my arms and took my hands into hers. I could tell that she was looking right at me, so I tried to fix my eyes to where I knew her face was.

"André," she started, her voice as sharp as a knife. "I am not going to die. Do you think I can leave you like this? Do you think I can just throw away the beautiful future we will build together? After all we went through? You survived and so will I!"

I couldn't move a muscle after she finished. Rather than what she said, the tone she used had touched me. No wonder how she had disciplined the intractable French Guards. With that determination devoid of the slightest hesitation, she would make any army follow her to hell. But when she spoke those words to me, there was something more in her than the bold commander everybody feared. There was a passionate woman in love who would do anything to grasp the happiness she had long been deprived of. Oh, my dear Oscar! It still amazes me how brave you are, how strong you are.

I nodded in her direction in agreement and perhaps as an apology to my weakness. Suddenly she let my hands go. I heard the rustling sound of a fabric followed by a soft thud of it falling on the bed. With great surprise and a sudden wave of excitement, I realized that it was her night gown. She must have been completely naked in front of me. I opened my mouth to speak but she cut me in.

"And what makes you think that you can't see me anymore? You can, even better than you ever did." she said with a husky voice and took my right hand in hers. She brought it up to her head and brushed it through her soft wavy hair. Then she put my hand flat on her forehead and started to move it downwards. I noted that her eyes were closed as my palm scanned every single feature on her face. As if an invisible hand was drawing her picture, her figure was starting to appear in my darkness. Her long eyelashes, her beautiful nose, her soft lips... Suddenly, I understood what she was doing. She was showing herself to me, making me use my hands in place of my eyes to see her.

She drew my hand down her delicate neck to her bare shoulders. My heart started to beat faster as she led it even further down until it rested on one of her breasts. My fingers needed no guidance at this point as they immediately found the sensitive nipple. Feeling the desire getting stronger in my pants, I started caressing it, noting how soft flesh slowly turned hard. No matter how much I was burning to give my lips a taste of her now aroused tips, I had to rein myself. I didn't want to spoil her game. No, not just yet.

Her moans of pleasure completed the rest of her mental picture. The image of her ecstatic face when I was exploring her body for the first time flashed in my mind. Everything was so new to her. Yet to awaken so much pleasure in her inexperienced flesh had been incredibly arousing for me. And now she was doing the same thing to me. Half playing, half comforting me while she took pleasure in my caresses and satisfaction in feeling my hand shake in hers slightly. With her eyes closed, she was sharing my darkness and proving us both the strength of the sense of touch.

When I was done savoring both breasts, she resumed the guided trip of my hand on her body. My palm was brought downwards to her tummy but suddenly made a u-turn and situated itself on her back. The tips of my fingers slid down the shallow pit of her spine until they felt the curve of her shapely backside. She lifted one leg up and wrapped it around my mine to give more way to my caresses. My palm moved back and forth on her hip, drawing circles, dancing on its smooth texture. Then I pulled it back, setting it free from her hold, and let my fingers work their ways to the soft flesh under her knee. A quiet giggle that escaped her lips indicated that I had found a ticklish zone.

Meanwhile, she took my left hand carefully as she knew it was weaker compared to its counterpart. I didn't know what she was up to until my frail fingertips felt the feathery surface between her thighs. Desire exploded in me like a volcano at this unexpected gesture. She drew my hand further down, stroking the hot flesh with my fingertips. Once, twice, thrice... Just like how a doe teaches her baby to stand up, she was encouraging me to move my fingers by myself. "A very clever way to exercise," I thought, as she knew no matter how weak my hand was, it wouldn't be able to let got of her seducing warmth. I slowly moved my fingers, feeling the wetness of her desire already there. The moment she realized that I had taken control, she let go of my hand. As my skin went past the hideout of her source of desire, her breathing quickened and it became a weak moan when I inserted one finger inside her. Her slick walls that gave me so much pleasure greeted me with their abundant juices. The heat was so intense and so welcoming that it could melt down any wall of temptation. The more I moved my finger the more yearning her moans got. And that was when I understood that I couldn't hold myself back anymore.

Thinking that this game had lasted for too long, I wrapped my right arm around her waist and pulled her closer to finally seal my lips on hers. With the agility of a skilled swordswoman she stopped me half-way by putting a hand on my lips and said "No, don't!"

I didn't insist, no matter how strong my desire was. Something in her tone made me do it. She sounded so different than before. She had given an order but it lacked the strong confident tone of the fearless commander. It was weaker, frustrated and afraid as if that strong woman that preached me just a moment ago had left her place to someone frail and insecure.

I waited for her to say something but her silence had given her away. She was refusing to kiss me for fear that she might transmit the disease to me. I seized her hand and kissed the backs of her long thin fingers. "Why didn't you tell me that you were sick?" I asked, bringing her hand up to my forehead. Perhaps the frustration of not being allowed to claim her lips had started to push me to the edge of desperation again because I knew that she wouldn't answer me. Her stubbornness to keep her silence at times like this was enough to drive someone mad. But I was used to it. The years I spent with her had thought me her ways of dealing with people no matter who it was. Besides, I knew bloody well why she hid her disease from me all this time. I could read her like a map. But what I heard next proved that I could make mistakes from time to time.

"I was going to. It's just... I didn't want to worry you further while you were still recovering and..." She took a deep breath. "And no matter how much I want to kiss you, to join you, to feel you, I can't afford to take you down with me right now." she said in a guilty tone.

Was this to be interpreted as a change of character after what we went through? No, she was scared as well. Now it was her turn to admit her fears just like I did. But what had pushed her to the edge when she appeared so strong only minutes ago?

Suddenly, it was all there, right in front of me, as clear as crystal: the reason why she had let her guard down. I could see right through her. More than she wanted to allow me to with her little game of seduction to cheer me up. She had just said it: the thought of spreading her disease to me was unbearable for her especially when I was still so weak. Although, I would gladly share her suffering and allow the disease in me, I knew my Oscar and I trusted her will to win this battle with all my heart. If depriving myself from her would guarantee us the future we aspire, then I was ready to control the desires of flesh. Besides, I had already excelled in the subject.

I put a hand on her face. As I expected her cheeks were wet with tears. Seeing that she was crying silently, I realized how worried she must have been ever since I was wounded. I tried to put myself in her place. What if she was the one who... No! The thought was too horrible to even finish it.

But I couldn't stand seeing her this way. It was almost as if I was her weakness rather than her strength and that disturbed me a lot. Now it was my turn to reassure her. Carefully, trying not to scare her off, I took her in my arms again. Noticing that she was shaking like a leaf as she pressed her naked body on mine, I immediately took my shirt off and wrapped it around her shoulders. We stayed like that for a long time. Then I buried my face in her hair, breathing in her drugging scent. Gently stroking her head, I whispered to her ear. "My dear Oscar... I will always be your shadow because you are the light in my darkness. I love you more than anything else in this universe and I swear I will never ever leave your side again. Do you promise me that we will never be apart?"

"I do." she whispered back.

It took me a while to comprehend what she really meant. Then it hit me, filling my heart with joy, making me dizzy, causing tears to gather in my eyes again. Before I knew it, she had straightened up and took both my hands in hers.

"I, Oscar, take you, André, as my husband to love and support you forever in sickness and in health."

Her voice was shaking but her determination didn't slip my attention. My heart was pounding madly, making it harder for me to breath. But I knew what I must do, what I had come to this world to do.

"I, André, take you, Oscar, as my wife to love and support you forever in sickness and in health."

I entwined my fingers into hers to pledge my vow because I had no rings with me. As it was time to kiss my bride, I slipped a hand around her belly to bend her backwards and kissed the valley between her bare breasts, wishing with all my heart to heal her lungs with the touch of my lips. In return, she rose on her toes and put the lightest of kisses on the wound on my chest.

And thus we were pronounced husband and wife.

*

After trying to write from Oscar's point of view, I decided to take a shot for André too. I must say that it was a lot harder, mainly because he's a guy. But what a guy! *melts* Also this time I created a whole new story, taking the original one a step further. Mark my words, RoV is perfect the way it is! I never thought making Oscar and André survive would be so hard. Look at it this way: Oscar is sick, André's blind and they run away to fight in one of the most bloody revolutions of all times. See the impossibility? I will never forgive Riyoko Ikeda for what she has done to those two! *growls* XP That's why every attempt I made to create an original story so far resulted in failure. They all sounded so superficial and unreal except for this one. I'm pretty satisfied with how this one turned out *grins* :D

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