AN: I have been procrastinating with continuation of this story for so long, I almost came to doubt I would continue it, but here I am now - giving you the new chapter, and lol – the boys still haven't gotten to actual lemons in it, though they made some notable progress (and I promise I won't let them – and you – hang on this cliff for too long now).

Huge thanks to YenGirl for beta-ing and generally (pushing) inspiring me all along.

Disclaimer: Cross Academy belongs to wonderful Matsuri Hino and Yagari and Cross belong together (well, at least in my fic).

Jacking himself off in the guest bathroom was a cold comfort, even though the shower Touga was standing under was warm against his naked skin. Doing so under a partially truthful and yet so blatantly false pretense of feeling dirty after his trip from town felt deceitful towards the very host he intended to bed later. Even obscene – because it was the said host's face, the said host's hands that he imagined on his skin while pumping himself furiously…

Furious… is what Kaien would've been if he knew…

But Kaien was not furious, that's the hitch… Most likely than not, he was now flustered and jittery preparing for the continuation of what they started back in the living room…

Or maybe already chickening out and looking for an excuse…

Yes… yes…

Aaahhh!Touga leaned on the wall of the shower-stall, knees buckling from his release.

Yes, he probably shouldn't have left Cross like this, shouldn't have left the older man a moment to think better, but by the time he escaped it could've finished for him with the first touch in the right place, could have blown up in the wide blue yonder before it even began – and he was sure that at this moment in space and time it would've more likely scared the other man rather than fill him with confidence that that was the effect he had on Touga's body, that that was the power he held…

And Touga was determined to make this night perfect for him. So then…

So in the end I'm doing it for his sake…

But not only…

Vigorously rubbing his hair with a dry towel, Touga had to admit that he too felt pretty jittery on the inside. It was bordering on ridiculous, in fact – almost as if he too, was a virgin…

Yeah, sure… let's laugh at that together, guys…crap…

Then again – when was it last that he cared, truly cared how he performed? Sometime in his early twenties, perhaps, when he thought he was in love with that huntress-chick? The one that he actually dated for all of three months? Or at thirty two – when a sharp claw of a level E narrowly missed his balls, leaving him with a jagged scar down his thigh and two months of shock induced impotency, until a very, very skilled with his mouth intern showed him that there was in fact no damage done where it mattered most?

Oh, snap out of it already and go find him before he bolts…

Touga wrapped the towel around his hips and looked at his own face in the slightly steamy bathroom mirror. Sure enough, his one remaining eye looked back from the misty glass with a wild and almost frightened expression…

Geez, do not let me fuck up…

He sorted through the bottles and tubes on the shelf below the mirror: shampoos, conditioners, bath salts in odd flavors – leftovers of the previous occupants of this room. The closest he found to what he needed was some kind of night cream, smelling starkly of violets…

Just great… Remind me again, why don't I carry plain ordinary lube around?..

Apparently because he never bothered… with women he didn't need it, and those men who sought him out usually had their own… Well, even though he somewhat shuddered at the idea of smelling like violets, it certainly beat using something bubbly and soapy… and not really better in the fragrance department…

There was another thing he had left to do, though. Bending down, Touga searched through his things lying in a heap on the bathroom floor… Right… here it was…

The nimble fingers put the leather patch firmly in place almost automatically and he felt marginally better. Cross might accept him with scars and all, but he needed any bit of self-confidence that he could find now. Maybe later… Maybe sometime later… when he himself could look at his own reflection without flinching… but not this night… definitely not this night yet…

Hot damn!

Distracted ramblings of his mind ceased abruptly as he froze as he was – bent double over his own rumpled clothes - hit by the sudden realization that he had absolutely no idea where his duffel bag with all the things he had brought for his long awaited weeklong vacation at the Academy could possibly be now.

He vaguely recalled looking into the unlocked house before going back outside in search of its absent host, he even could recall the exact words he uttered then, cursing the man's lack of self-preservation habits, leaving his door unlocked like this for any miscreant in the country to enter even without a need for "breaking" in…

…could've been a level E too, and what would the fool do then – without his sword?..

…but, nah… level Es acted on instinct, like animals, and that would've warded them off from a place that for them smelled strongly of a hunter permanently residing here, whether the man himself liked to acknowledge himself as one or not…

But the bottomline was – that must've been the moment when Touga dropped the duffel somewhere, yet he couldn't remember whether it was in the living room, or just by the door, or even outside on the porch…

And naturally the excuse of having a shower had not had a chance to evolve into a thought of having a fresh change of clothes – given the haste of his retreat…

'That leaves two options open… right, Touga old boy?' he thought wearily, straightening up and leaning his naked ass at the edge of the sink. Either he could put back on his old, dusty, rumpled and now also somewhat wet clothes… well, jeans if nothing else… or just wrap himself in a towel – not all that big, but definitely clean (if even more wet), and hope he didn't bump into Cross before he found his bag…

Now again – this was starting to get ridiculous… Just what was so terrible about bumping into the other man with only a towel around his hips? Especially considering the kind of activities they planned to engage in directly after? Darn it, what did he have that the ex-hunter hadn't already seen? In the olden days, they could've easily ended up bathing together in the common showers at the Headquarters, washing off the grime and dust alongside another half a dozen hunters just returned from a lengthy assignment…

Only they had not. Touga was positive he'd have remembered it if they ever had. In the end – sour and still grumbling at himself for his utter stupidity – he chose the jeans anyway, solely because they had a pocket that the violet-smelling atrocity would fit into…

Sure… of course…why the heck else…

What Touga certainly didn't count on was bumping into Cross that soon… uh… finding him inside the guest bedroom that is, just as he stepped out from the bathroom… and for a moment all the dark haired hunter could do was just blink stupidly, clearing his eye from the steam that had followed him into the cooler air before the door at his back shut close with a loud thud.

Cross had clearly only entered a moment ago – Touga's duffel in one hand and a pile of bath towels in the other, and he had apparently taken a shower too, all wrapped up now in the oversized bright-rosy robe with a smiling kitten head on the pocket…

'What is with this man and kittens?' Touga chuckled quietly around the first shaky inhale that had followed the initial shock, feeling the warm and shivery knot of affection congeal around his solar plexus at the adorable picture right before his eyes.

No, really. Cross looked adorable like this, all perplexed and blushing, with wet hair tucked carelessly behind one ear and hanging in a limp veil on the other side as he studiously avoided looking at Touga directly, not an easy task since the bare wall that he faced instead offered little in the way of distraction.

"Ah!.. Eh… Touga… I… eh… found your bag," Cross stammered out finally, as the pause lengthened and Yagari still failed to speak out first. "And… eh… I wasn't sure I had put any spare towels in here…" His eyes darted furtively towards Touga, never making it higher than his bare feet, long, long legs in tight-fitting jeans, and, yep, a bath towel casually held by tanned fingers… "I… eh… I see I had…" He finished lamely, the blush now almost rivaling the color of his robe.

"Well then, just drop it somewhere, will you?" Touga's voice sounded careless and gruff even to himself, and it made Kaien look around in something akin to panic as he searched for a shelf or a chair, or something to put the bag on…

…but damn, it was immeasurably hard for Touga to keep his hard won composure around the other man…

Composure? No kidding, you had one?

…and not just draw him into a bear hug and kiss him silly, and have him in the bed and squirming under Touga's caresses all in less time than the pile of towels in the ex-hunter's hands needed to finally overbalance and drop onto the floor…

"Kaien! Towels!"

The warning came too late, or maybe the warning was what only triggered the events to move faster – the flutter of the falling cloths and the dull thud of his duffel hitting the floor as Cross let go of its strap (which was what Touga had intended for him to do to begin with), and both of them crouching on the floor barely three feet apart from each other – Kaien's hand reaching somewhat apprehensively to the smaller towel that lay right by Touga's toes, and the latter's attention totally diverted by the view that their current position allowed – one pale knee and a part of a slender, equally pale thigh covered with fine, sparse and faintly gold hair, peeking out of the half opened panels of the robe.

Were the hairs there as soft as the ones on his head? Or were they wiry and resilient?

The desire to pass his fingers slowly along the partly exposed thigh was breathtakingly, mouth-dryingly strong… But damn, the man wasn't even looking at Touga properly. His posture was tense and his other hand squeezed in a nervous fist upon the knee… would he appreciate the caress?.. or would he just bolt away as the frightened hare he currently so resembled…

Bracing himself, Touga took a deep breath and willed his hand to brush over the knuckles of that tight fist instead.

"Kaien?" He asked carefully in a low and encouraging voice. "Eh… look at me?"

The hazel eyes finally turned straight to him – myopic and longing and confused, but shining with painful honesty, and Touga almost trembled at how the ex-hunter's lips seemed to wrap with tentative tenderness over the sound of his own name.

"Too-uuga…" The eyes tried to stray again, but returned at once, a little, tremulous, self-deprecating smile turning up the corners of Cross's mouth… "I… I lied to you, really… I was… g-getting t-too… starting to… think t-too much… back in my room… so I… came here instead…"

The man was probably unaware of his own actions altogether – of the way his own hand had released the knee and was now clutching at Touga's fingers, the thumb rubbing fiery little circles onto his palm… but it was that very hand that Touga now tugged at gently, moving closer to his friend and wincing half-heartedly at the loud crack in his own knees, as they protested against the uncomfortable crouch…

"Well," he asked simply, because frankly, anything more refined was way beyond him after a confession like this, "you are here now… why don't you kiss me, Kaien?"