Title: White Butterfly 19/?
Author: Seraphim Grace
Archive: http://www.geocities.com/taliasen1256.html, http://www.mediaminer.org, http://www.Seraphim-grace.livejournal.com. If you want it ask.
Feedback: Always appreciated and replied to.
Rating: 18.
Pairings: Crawford x Ran others to be notified later.
Warnings:

Aya was woken by Naoe moving his blankets back and laying out a tray of hot spiced beef tea and rice balls laid out on the pewter plates that Baba saved for guests. He tried to sit up but his entire body ached. Naoe looked smug. "So how is our little Tayu this morning?" he looked like he would burst into fits of laughter, "or should it be our little A-yah!?" He mimicked quite accurately the way that Crawford had called out his name.

Aya blushed red even as he reached for the cup. It had not occurred to him that perhaps Crawford had been that loud but the walls in the house were thin and after hours both of them had lost whatever sense of decorum that they might have started with. Naoe rolled up a futon and placed it behind him like a cushion because it was clear he was not in a position to support himself. He sipped the thick tea and looked rather hungrily at the rice balls but lacked the energy to lift them. "Fuji-sama has found some oranges in Baba’s pantry, you can have one if you can get out of bed to get it." Aya glared at him because Naoe knew full well that he couldn’t move.

"You’re finding this funny, aren’t you?" Aya asked into the cup.

"Yes, actually," Naoe said, taking one of the rice balls for himself. "I’m finding it hilariously funny, you should have seen what you did to the master’s back," he laughed to himself, "I think if he had enjoyed it one whit less then Sena might have been taken out for a flogging."

"And not you?" Aya asked.

"No," Naoe said fondly, "I am your lily white hands, Ken- your strong back and Sena is your whipping boy. We wouldn’t want to spoil that lovely skin of yours would we? Now," he reached into the folds of his oba and laid a small inlaid jar on Aya’s futon, "this is for, well," he smiled, "do you want me to apply it, or will you?"

Aya blushed scarlet to the very roots of his hair.

Naoe looked predatory as he opened the jar, "believe me, Aya," he said with an evil smile, "I’ve to clean you and make sure that the master didn’t tear you in his urgency."

"I don’t," Aya said.

Naoe crawled over the futon, "once we’ve done this," he said pushing Aya back into the futon rolled behind him, "then Ken-Ken will carry you to the bath, but we don’t want you hurt, the master has made it clear that you will entertain him again tonight so you are to be prepared. You can sleep in a while, our lovely Aya no Bara." The sound of his laughter lingered even after he had thrown back the blanket over Aya’s legs.

Crawford looked at the papers that were set out on his make shift desk by the fireplace in the main room. He didn’t want to disturb Aya because he had worked him hard the night before and now he felt slightly guilty. He had done it, not because he had wanted to, although once he had started the hunger that he had suppressed for months had taken over, but because he wanted to punish him in some way – to make the boy understand exactly what it was that he demanded so petulantly. The boy was sweet as spun sugar. He took a sip of the tea and pulled a face, it was cold and sour.

"Baba," he said to the old woman where she sat mending the wear in some of the maid’s kimono, "could I have some more tea?"

Baba cast her eyes across to the pot of hot water where it hung over the fire, she clearly didn’t like that he was in her domain. A normal servant would have dropped what she was doing and pandered on her servant but at the same time this was not a normal servant, this was Baba and she scared him, though he wouldn’t have let her know. "Shouldn’t you ask your Aya no Bara?" She said.

Crawford understood then why Baba was annoyed at him. He reached over and poured the dregs of his cold tea into the waste pot and then poured fresh hot water over the dried mint in the bottom of his bowl. "You disagree with how I reacted to his challenge." He said calmly.

"He is only young," she said biting through the thread that she had been using with a nasty snap.

"I didn’t hurt him." Crawford said, "he has been challenging me to do what I did. Now that I have done that I find it will make him trust me more and I can use him in my machinations as I always intended."

"Then you don’t find him lovely?" She asked, wetting the thread to push it through the eye of her bone needle.

"How could I not?" Crawford answered calmly, "he is beautiful until he opens his mouth, but he enjoys his suffering more than anything else in this world."

"He is young," Baba said pulling the needle through the fabric. "and his world has fallen apart."

Rukia descended the stairs behind him wearing one of Naoe’s short kimono’s- despite the cold her legs and arms were bare. It made her look very young and very fresh and her eyes were enlarged by cosmetics making them look like the dark heart of spring pansies. Crawford felt the usual stab of thwarted lust that he felt when he looked at his wife. Rukia was beautiful, but she had never been the princess that he had been asked to marry. Once she had sat, like Aya now did, in her well of perfumed silks with her hair sprawled around her. She had smiled at him from behind her ivory fan and he had agreed and bound himself to the mercurial and often cruel House Fuji.

"My Lady," Baba said looking up from her sewing, "there is hot water if you want tea." She said it deliberately because she wanted Crawford to know just how she was slighting him. She shrugged off the offer and sat down facing her husband, her legs crossed like Buddha showing off a dark blue fundoshi between her legs.

Before they married Rukia had seemed to be the perfect princess, she had never spoken out of turn, and he wasn’t quite sure what it was that she did for the emperor as a negotiator as most of them were large men good at warfare and spy-craft and she seemed to be a silly girl. Now Crawford recognised her as an equal, as an imperial servant to be feared and respected, both with a blade and with her wits. Sometimes he remembered the fondness he felt for that silly girl that had married him, and a dry hunger for the woman she had turned out to be.

Fuji Syuusuke was feared, he was the empress’ calligrapher and his long term lover was her favoured torturer, not because he was cruel but because he was diligent and thorough. Fuji Syuusuke was wicked and cruel and among the kindest people that Crawford had ever known.

The reputation of the Fuji house was based on the horrors of its men, and Crawford knew it was wrong- it was the women that gave the house it’s strength. Yet, at the same time, she was a Fuji through and through, and not a Crawford. She might serve her husband’s interests, but on the few times she had, she had done it for herself, her house or her emperor.

"My father has sent word to me through one of my servants." She said bluntly and Crawford knew why she had sought him out. Only one of the Fuji children, the youngest, even spoke to their father. "He is calling soon, unfortunately I do not know when, Farfarello can protect my dignity, and he will have no interest in you, but my brother and your little pet will need to be out of the house or he might take action."

"what do you suggest?" He knew that he could trust her counsel, against her father they had been allies many times.

"You have been openly courted by the Takatori in regards to the Fujimiya problem, but only slightly by the Taira, accept their offer of hospitality, you trust Syuusuke with your affairs, and you know he has no interest in your Aya, but a painting of him between the two lovely Sano boys will give him notoriety in court."

"And if I don’t want to share him like that?" Crawford asked.

Rukia laughed, "Something as simple as pouring them tea will suffice, their beauty will overwhelm the emperor and then he will protect your beautiful boy from my father, even if he can never touch him. He likes to be surrounded by beauty. It will enrage the emperor if such a beauty finds an accident against his will, my brother is a skilled artist and the three of them are lovely indeed. Aya will look like a rose between two such lovely dark haired boys, it gives an excuse for you to send Syuusuke and takes him out of the reach of my father."

"Is he still angered with you?" Crawford asked sipping his tea, he did it to control his thoughts, it soothed him and made such machinations easier to work with in his own mind.

"He believes I am barren." Rukia said calmly. Her smile was naughty and lusty. "It is the best time of the month for me to conceive," she said, "I will visit you tonight. I imagine that your Aya could do with the rest, he was certainly loud enough last night."

Fuji looked at the doll on the table. The doll looked back at him. He had quickly discovered it was impossible to stare it out. He frowned at it with his eyes fully open and tried his best to work on his death glare. The doll stared back at him. Tezuka laughed from where he lay sprawled out over the tatami watching his lover. "If it bothers you turn it around, it’s just a doll."

"I don’t like it." Fuji said firmly. "Mitsu, it’s evil, defend me." He pouted, thrusting out his lower lip.

"It’s just a doll, Suki, look." He rolled unto his knees and moved across the tatami and picked the doll up. Under the severe black hair the doll’s face was strangely malformed but as he lifted it the obi fell away from the layers of elaborate robes. He laid the doll down to reach down behind the small altar that the doll had been sat on to pick it up. Fuji snatched the doll and began quickly undressing it, throwing the robes over his shoulder. "Suki," Tezuka chided, "that’s probably a Fujimiya heirloom."

"It’s ugly, and evil looking. I was thinking we could put it in the library tonight any maybe get some sleep without ooh, ooh, aahh, Aaa-yaa."

Tezuka smiled, it was a small secret smile just at the corner of his mouth as if he wanted to laugh but at the same time had too much dignity or knew perfectly well that it would get him in trouble. Fuji recognised the gesture though. "I’m tired, Mitsu, it went on all night, and then this," he brandished the doll, "was staring at me from sun up. It’s got to go." The last layer of kimono fell from the doll and in its place, tied around the doll’s stomach, was a piece of parchment. "What’s this?" Fuji put aside the porcelain doll, which was heavily etched with kanji in lines all over its body, and unfolded the paper.

"It’s a map," Tezuka said looking over his shoulder, "of the house by the look of it."

"It can’t be." Fuji told him, leaning back into Tezuka’s warmth, "look," he pointed out a part of it, "there isn’t a corridor there, that’s the genkan, isn’t it? The only corridor off the genkan is the rope corridor that leads to the main hall, not this one, and this whole bit here," he gestured with his hand to the drawing, "isn’t even here, there is no courtyard behind the fireplace room."

"The house has secrets." Tezuka said with a smile, "maybe we should ask Aya."

Fuji growled, sandy eyed and out of sorts from having being kept awake all night. "Or we could just go look for ourselves."

"Or," Tezuka whispered the end of that sentence in Fuji’s ear.

Fuji smiled, "he would be sleeping now." His smile was slightly cruel, "and Rukia said my father was coming, we should use the advantages we have." He lay back on the tatami and then tilted his head to Tezuka’s kisses. He frowned and then pushed Tezuka away. "Not here," he said taking him by the hand, "that damn doll is looking at me." Tezuka gave him that small smile at the corner of his mouth again, the one that on anyone else would not be a smile.

"It is an evil looking thing," Tezuka picked it up again and opened the drawer on one of the tables, "I just wonder why it’s covered in tattoos."