Saiyuki fic - Gingerbread Castle, part 2
Jul. 31st, 2007 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
new_kateTitle: Gingerbread Castle
Fandom: Saiyuki
Spoilers: Through Burial
Summary and warnings: Alternative timeline in which Gojyo isn't the one who finds wounded Gonou in the woods.
Many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hibem for beta!
Part one is here
He lost track of time again – he was getting sick of feeling disoriented – and couldn’t tell how long it was before he heard voices again, rising up from the bottom of the stairwell. Kami was laughing, high and shrill sounds that made his skin crawl, and Hakkai was talking to someone calmly. There were also strange, desperate wheezing sounds, as if that someone couldn’t get in enough breath to really scream.
Gojyo got up, slowly and carefully, and brushed dry red flakes from his face. Blood on his clothes and on the floor was cold and stinky, but still wet. Cringing, he peeled sticky fabric off his skin and tried to move. It felt strange – the wounds were closed, but still somehow there, pulsing under thin freshly-grown skin, and his knees were weak and wobbly. He made it to the railing and leaned over to take a look.
The staircase was missing the last flight, ending abruptly some twenty feet above the floor. Several wide, elaborately decorated doors opened into the bottom of the round stairwell, and there were some people down there, surrounded by endlessly high carved marble walls: Kami, Hakkai and four more, sprawled at their feet. Only one of them was moving - trying to crawl away, clutching his arm that looked broken or viciously dislocated.
“Just one left,” said Kami. “This batch lasted quite long!”
“Youkai are known for being sturdy,” Hakkai said. “That, of course, is a misconception. They break just as readily as humans. Hmm, what shall we do now? Oh, I know.”
He swiftly dropped into a crouch over the wounded youkai, but instead of healing him as Gojyo half-expected, jabbed a finger into his bad elbow. The youkai howled, shaking, and let out a long string of curses mixed with pleas for mercy.
“Do I have your attention? Good. Now, how about a little riddle?”
The youkai stared at him, perplexed and horrified. Kami clapped his hands delightedly and ran to the doors, waving a huge set of assorted keys. He unlocked two of the doors and stood next to one, grinning broadly in anticipation.
“Bet he won’t get it right,” he giggled.
“It’s a good old classic,” said Hakkai, rising from the crouch. “Stop me if you know this one. You get to choose between these two doors. Behind one of them is a hungry tiger. Behind the other is a little attraction I like to call, ahem, the Maze of Twilight. I designed it myself, and I think it will prove both stimulating and challenging, and should provide plenty of opportunities to reach safety. Ah, that is, if you are at the intermediate reading level, at least. I should probably adjust that in the future – it’s discriminating against those who were less privileged as children, don’t you think? Not everybody had the opportunities an orphanage can offer.”
The youkai’s face, contorted with fear and pain, was turning greenish-white under the streams of sweat. He flinched back from Hakkai’s feet, tried to kneel up, swaying and trembling. Hakkai gave him a charming smile and continued.
“Now, to find the right door, you can ask us one question, no more. There is a little catch – one of us will only tell the truth, and the other…”
The poor guy finally snapped, jumped to his feet and ran for the nearest door, screaming. He ripped it open and was thrown right back by the force pushing to get out.
It was an actual hungry tiger. Not figurative, or toy or origami one, like Gojyo hoped.
In a matter of seconds the guy was pinned to the stone floor. Huge clawed paws rent his shoulders to mince while the other two watched, not disturbed at all by the proximity of a raging predator. Kami’s happy cheers were almost drowned out by the man’s piercing cries and the growls of the animal. The youkai’s good arm snapped inside the tiger’s maw with a loud crack.
“Hold on!” screamed Gojyo and hopped over the railing. He called the shakujou mid-drop, aiming to strike the beast from behind, before he hit the floor. Considering the state of his knees, the pain was going to stun him for longer than he could afford now. But his blade, which always had done exactly what he wanted it to do, twisted and flew widely off-aim. Gojyo let out a growl to rival the tiger’s, retracted the chain, going for the second strike. He was ready to land, balanced and prepared, perfectly judging the distance. When a dozen feet from the floor he crashed head first into absolutely nothing it really took him by surprise.
“You can’t just jump a hungry tiger like that, Gojyo,” he heard, falling on the floor in a messy heap, jarred by the impact, but desperately struggling to recover, because the guy was still alive, still screaming. “That’s against the rules.”
Gojyo gritted his teeth, got up, called the weapon he lost in the fall and rushed the tiger, wielding shakujou like a spear, not trusting his long-distance aim any longer. The thing and its prey were out of reach, protected by the invisible barrier that didn’t give no matter how hard he slammed into it. But since nobody moved to stop him, he kept trying till the screams ceased completely.
After which he fell to his knees which couldn’t take his weight any longer, threw up some of the water he’d drunk earlier and fainted like a girl.
*-*-*
He was lying on the white cold marble, between two flights of wide winding stairs, just like he’d never moved from here in the first place. Only there wasn’t any blood on his face, clothes or on the floor underneath him. No blood at all, no stains, no wounds, no holes in his shirt. The ache still was there, under his skin, and his knees hurt like a bitch and wouldn’t cooperate. Everything that happened since he first woke up in this castle of crazy was beginning to fade together in one confused ball of incomprehensible fuck-uppedness.
“Ah, Gojyo-san, you’re awake,” called the voice from behind. “Please join us.”
He got up, clutching at the stairs and the railing. He could’ve sworn there was no doorway on his right before, but apparently one was there now. The doorway opened into a large, candlelit dining room with high shuttered windows and no furniture but a long table in the middle of it. Kami and Hakkai sat close together near one end, their dainty porcelain plates still empty, not touching any of the food stacked on the table before them. There was a third chair and a plate, waiting for him, a little further away.
Gojyo hobbled there and sat down, straightening his legs with a grunt like an old man. He was very hungry, as long as he didn’t think about the tiger, and that probably hadn’t happened anyway. With all the sleeping and passing out he’d done lately he easily could’ve dreamed or hallucinated some of that stuff.
He could really do with a bottle or preferably a crate of beer and a plateful of barbequed beef, some deliciously greasy egg fried rice, sticky spicy pork ribs, a duck roll or ten. Hell, a bowl of plain ramen would taste like heaven right now. He wondered who did the cooking around here - maybe the creepy twins had servants he hadn’t seen yet. Maybe they ordered in. He grabbed the chopsticks, dove for the food and stopped, vaguely revolted.
The table was piled high with lavishly decorated cakes, iced fruit pies, huge bowls of improbably coloured jelly beans. There were sugared plums, almond cookies, those sickening bean paste sweets he could never face, buns, lollipops, gummy bears, chocolate-covered marshmallows and other sugary crap that hurt his teeth even to look at.
“Do you have any real food?” he asked.
Nobody answered at first. Kami was busy stacking pieces of cake in a misshaped gooey tower, sloppily licking whipped cream off his fingers. Hakkai carefully placed one gingerbread man on his plate, plucked out the glazed chocolate button eyes and set them aside.
“Why eat boring food if you don’t have to?” Kami asked, studding his creation with jelly beans. “Go crazy!”
“Um, thanks.”
“It’s very nutritious,” Hakkai broke one gingerbread leg off and nibbled on it slowly. “Fills you up.”
“This shit isn’t good for men. Do you have any meat?”
“No, I’m afraid,” Hakkai said apologetically. “The tiger doesn’t leave much.”
Gojyo threw down the chopsticks and got up, nearly falling over when his knees buckled under him again.
“Speaking of the tiger. You wanna tell me what the fuck that was? Is this how the two of you get your rocks off?”
“They were evil,” Kami said. “Sit! I won’t feed you if you misbehave. Hakkai, tell him!”
“Gojyo-san,” said Hakkai. “Those creatures chose their fate. They came to us, looking for trouble. They were violent animals, rapists and murderers. Everyone is better off with them dead, believe me.”
“So, is this your holy mission – to kill all the bad guys and become the only rapists and murderers in Tongekyo?”
“We didn’t rape anyone,” Hakkai said, cleanly snapping off the gingerbread man’s head, “Yet. Please sit down, Gojyo.”
Gojyo gave them the finger and painfully limped to the doors, looking for possible exists. He clearly started cracking already, because the idea of that crazy hot guy jumping him and using force seemed disturbingly uplifting for some reason.
“Oh-oh,” Hakkai sighed behind him. “He’ll walk right into the fog if he carries on like that.”
“I’ll go fetch him later. Pass the gummy bears,” answered Kami lightly.
*-*-*
When Kami found him in the fog, Gojyo was crouching on the steps with both hands fisted in his hair, staring into the middle distance with wide, dry eyes.
“Are you real?” he asked.
Kami scoffed, pulled him up, hoisted his pliant body against his shoulder and led Gojyo back through the long corridors, into the dark room with that lavish, stuffy bed.
“Lie down.”
Gojyo obediently tumbled on top of the covers, didn’t protest when Kami pulled his arms up and crossed them over his head, didn’t move when strings of beads snaked over his wrists and tightened, chaining him to the headboard.
“Here, so you won’t get into any more trouble while I’m away. Was it bad in the fog?”
“Go try it, if you want to know.”
“It’s always good for me,” Kami shrugged, brushing Gojyo’s hair away from his face. “I get to see Sensei. Hakkai goes there sometimes too, but he never tells me anything about it, which is not very fair. I tell him everything, except stuff that’s a secret. But he’s like that - he’s cool, but he gets weird sometimes, you know?”
Gojyo kept quiet, looking at the dusty, cobweb-covered ceiling, relaxing his arms against the pressure of the beads. Kami poked him in the cheek with a finger, and Gojyo let his head roll limply against the pillow.
“You’re no fun any more,” Kami said.
“Then let me go,” Gojyo suggested blankly. “Or kill me already.”
“Silly,” Kami giggled, tucked a blanket around his bare feet and left, leaving the door ajar again, as if Gojyo was a kid who could get scared of the dark otherwise.
He stared at the ceiling for some time, hoping for spiders or flies to provide entertainment, but eventually gave up and closed his eyes. He didn’t stir even when long warm fingers ran over his legs, carefully probed at his knees, and moved higher.
“You’re not asleep,” Hakkai noted.
“No, I’m not.”
The fingers stilled, then moved again, clinically confident, quickly skimming his body, trailing soothing warmth and ticklish humming magic in their wake.
“You’re healing up very nicely,” Hakkai said. “You should be good as new in several days, if you don’t strain yourself like you did yesterday.”
“That’s yesterday already? Man, time flies when you are having fun.”
Hakkai pulled back and stepped away from the bed. For a moment Gojyo was certain he really come in just to check on his injuries, and was going to walk away again and leave him alone to lie there and listed to the sound of his own mind decomposing. He kept quiet, squeezing his eyes shut in strange childish defiance. There was a shuffle of feet, soft clanking, and then - the unmistakable sound of liquid pouring, hitting the bottom of the glass, swirling around, filling it up, little bubbles of air rushing to the surface… The smell of pure clean water hit his nose and his aching, parched throat, and his eyes snapped open against his will.
“Please,” he moaned before he could check himself, and bit hard on the inside of his cheek, disgusted at how little it took to reduce him to begging.
Hakkai bent over him and slipped a hand between his neck and the pillow. His palm was soft, no calluses, surprisingly gentle against Gojyo’s skin. Gojyo held his breath as those fingers slipped into his hair, cupped the back of his head and carefully lifted it up. A large glass of water, beaded with clear drops even on the outside, appeared at his lips. He clamped his teeth on the rim, just in case, and drank it down as fast as he could without chocking.
“More?” asked Hakkai, absent-mindedly stroking his fingertips in Gojyo’s hair while Gojyo caught his breath, feeling almost drunk now. Gojyo nodded against the moving fingers and got treated to a small pleased smile. Hakkai twisted around, still gently cradling his head, refilled a glass from the pitcher on the bedside table and brought it to Gojyo’s lips again. Gojyo blinked, distracted by the way the man’s long neck bent and turned when he moved, and gulped down the second helping, almost as fast.
“I won’t give you any more water for the time being,” said Hakkai, and Gojyo stiffened in his hold, biting down humiliating pleas that threatened to spill in from his still too-dry mouth. “Ah, I’m just worried you might get sick. Let’s take this slow. Would you like to eat something?”
He eased Gojyo’s head down on the pillow and turned back to the tray he had sitting near the bed.
“’I’m not hungry,” Gojyo muttered, clenching his bound fists.
“You must be, Gojyo. You had no food for two days, at least. I know you have no taste for sweets, but I’ve tried to select, well, the least offensive things we have to offer. There are some glazed cherries – it’s essentially fruit, it should be good for you. Cheesecake – eggs and dairy, almost like an omelette, really… No? Hmm, what about some dark chocolate, then? It’s not that sweet, more bitter. And it will improve your mood.”
“You think?” Gojyo asked as sarcastically as he could manage at the moment, trying not to breathe in the rich, tantalizing aroma of cocoa and vanilla, not to look at Hakkai’s fingers breaking the dark bar into small glossy pieces.
“Yes, yes. Chocolate makes you feel loved,” Hakkai announced earnestly and brought one chunk to Gojyo’s lips, letting it hover there. “Please, Gojyo, just give it a try.”
Gojyo’s stomach chose that precise moment to produce a loud, impressively long growl. Hakkai frowned with concern and moved the chocolate piece another eighth of an inch closer, giving new intensity to the teasing smell.
Flushed with embarrassment, Gojyo obediently opened his mouth and let Hakkai slide the treat between his lips. He caught it on his tongue and held there, letting it melt, too aware of Hakkai’s eyes on him to even bring himself to chew. Sweet thick liquid slid down his throat; he swallowed reflexively and almost right away felt new strength rolling fast through his blood, curbing the hunger, clearing his foggy head, making all the colours around him seem more vivid.
He reached for the second piece himself, swallowed it down almost without chewing, but made up for that with the third one, savouring it, sucking on it slowly, letting the bitter velvety taste coat the inside of his mouth, almost shivering with pleasure. But hunger won over, and he opened his mouth again, probably looking like a screaming fledging bird begging for a worm, only right now he was past caring.
“So good,” he moaned, hastily chewing on the next piece while Hakkai already had another one waiting for him. “Fuck, it’s tasty.”
Hakkai was smiling now, pretty face glowing with contentment, clearly happy that he’d finally got their troublesome pet to behave. His fingertips were stained with melted chocolate, but he didn’t seem to mind, still offering Gojyo one bite-sized chunk after another, so absorbed by the task that he could be easily caught off-guard. Gojyo chose a moment carefully, grabbed the chocolate with his teeth and closed his lips around sweet-smelling skin.
“I should have mentioned,” Hakkai said coldly, even as his fingers trembled inside Gojyo’s mouth, not withdrawing. “That I cannot control Kami’s beads. I have no means of releasing you without causing severe damage.”
“’M not afking you to,” Gojyo mumbled, lapping up the skin-warm chocolate off Hakkai’s hand and adventurously sliding his tongue further, ticking sensitive places between the fingers. “’M good here.”
“Then… what do you want?”
“Mmmm,” Gojyo sucked in more of his fingers, nibbled at them a little, flicked his tongue over the webbing between them. “This.”
“G-god,” Hakkai finally pulled his hand away, out of reach, gulping for the air, looking at Gojyo’s smiling mouth with horrified fascination. “Why?”
“You’re hot,” Gojyo shrugged as much as the ropes would let him, wriggled his hips, trying to crawl up higher. “I’m bored. I haven’t had sex for longer than food. Want me to suck on something else? I’m open to ideas.”
Hakkai distractedly brought that hand to his lips, licked at traces of Gojyo’s saliva glistening there, and the sight of his pink tongue moving made Gojyo groan quietly and squirm harder.
“Please don’t do this,” Hakkai whispered. “It’s not exactly fair to me. I’m not – you know, you’ve seen what I am. What I can do. And I’ve been celibate for over a year now. It’s hard for me to keep a level head.”
“Don’t then. Come on. Look, man, I’ll probably die here, so...”
“No, no,” Hakkai shook his head violently, raked both hands through his hair, jaw set with resolve. “No, I won’t let any more harm come to you, I promise. You don’t have to do this.”
“But I want to,” Gojyo untangled one foot from the blankets and slowly slid it across Hakkai’s lap, aiming for the crotch where, he was almost certain, a nice hard surprise would be waiting for him.
“Oh, really?” the man moved, fast as a dark flash of lightning, and fell on top of Gojyo heavily. Gojyo grimaced, pinned to the bed with his legs splayed open, the sudden pressure forcing the air out of his lungs. The shift in position made the ropes tighten so painfully he wanted to scream. He tried to slide back up on the bed, but Hakkai held him in place, breathing hotly in his face, shaking against his skin.
“Are you telling me you want this? Do you want to be held down and not given a choice? Do you want a stranger, a youkai, a murderer, to handle your body as if he has a right to?”
Gojyo twisted, trying to breathe, fighting for purchase, but his feet kept sliding on the clean, thoroughly ironed bedsheets. Hakkai rocked into him once, pressing his cock into Gojyo’s inner thigh, hard, bigger than he expected. Gojyo felt those long fingers curling over the waistband of his pants, tugging it down harshly till the belt was biting into his hip on the other side.
“Tell me again you want to lie here, bound and helpless, while a monster rips into you and you can do nothing to stop him. Go on, Gojyo, I want to hear it.”
“Sh-shit,” Gojyo wheezed. “Wait, move a bit, this fucking hurts. You’re heavier than you look. What’s with the freak-out? Not like I’m forcing myself on you. Calm down.”
“You,” Hakkai eased off him a little, more out of surprise than because he was listening. “You have no idea what you’re playing with. You…”
“Shh, it’s okay, it’s okay. I won’t if it’s such a big deal for you. I was only angling for some harmless fun, but – ah, crap!” he thumped his head against the pillow, angry at himself for being such a dumb asshole. “If you went without for a year it was probably for a reason. What can I say, I’m slow like that. Sorry, man.”
Hakkai blinked and slowly slid off him and down onto the floor, curling up near the bed, almost out of Gojyo’s sight.
“Hey,” Gojyo said, carefully poking his shoulder with a toe. “Whatever happened to you - it’s none of my business, okay? You don’t have to explain. Come back, it’s all good.”
“Half of the time I don’t know what I’m doing,” Hakkai said after a long pause in a muffled voice, as if he had his face buried in his hands. “It’s getting worse. I shouldn’t be around people. I’m dangerous. I’ll talk to Kami, I have to make him see reason and let you go. Our landlord seems to have taken some interest in you, so persuasion will probably fail, but I’ll force the issue if I have to.”
“Eh,” Gojyo smiled sadly, “Not like I have something wonderful waiting for me outside. My landlord is probably fencing my stuff as we speak, since I owed him for two weeks even before I didn’t show up to pay my rent on Sunday. My buddy left town with some serious guys on his tail, both my girls said no more freebies for penniless redheads...”
“You have two girlfriends?” Hakkai asked, vaguely amused.
“Yeah. As in, I know two hookers who used not to charge me. But, sure, life’s not cheap nowadays, girls gotta make their living. Hey, do you wear your limiters all the time?”
“I do.”
“That’s bad for you, you know. My brother used to say it can cripple your youkai powers if you never take them off.”
“I wouldn’t mind that,” Hakkai’s hand came up to touch the limiters, but jerked away at the last moment. He turned around where he sat and leaned his cheek on the bed. “Is your brother a hanyo as well?”
“No, no, Jien’s normal. Full youkai, like you. You have any brothers or sisters yourself?”
“Ah,” Hakkai’s hands twisted in the bed covers, his mouth quirking painfully. “Let’s talk about something else, please, Gojyo.”
“Okay, okay. Hm, what’s up with that Kami guy? How did you two hook up?”
“That – well. He saved my life. He wanted a friend. He… He’s a lonely boy in need of care and companionship. I’m not enough to give him what he needs, but I do what I can.”
“Does he have a real name?”
“I suppose so, but he left it behind out of desire to forget his past. I’m guilty of the same childish tactics myself, actually. ‘Hakkai’ is just a nickname out landlord gave me. He used to joke that I lived like a monk, observing, without having set out to, all the major precepts except one.”
“Which one?”
“He kills,” Kami said from the doorway. “Hakkai, did I say you could play with my new toy?”
“We promised to share everything, remember?” Hakkai said calmly, rising from the floor. Something in the set of his shoulders made Gojyo want to not be on the line between them, and he hastily shifted on the bed, awkwardly twisting his bound arms.
“How is it sharing if I’m not even here?” Kami threw a take-out bag on the bed and released the ropes with one flick of his fingers, making beads bounce and scatter over the floor. “Here, I brought you that meat you wanted. Now get out, I want to sleep.”
“You never sleep here,” Hakkai said.
“I want to now. This is our best bed, and I always give it to the guests who are never grateful,” Kami fell on the covers, barely giving Gojyo time to move aside, snagged the pillow and hugged it to his chest, frowning fiercely. “Go away, both of you.”
Hakkai smiled, pulled the covers over Kami’s defiantly hunched shoulders and patted his back.
“Fine, fine. Join us when you’ve rested, we’ll be waiting for you.”
TBC
Fandom: Saiyuki
Spoilers: Through Burial
Summary and warnings: Alternative timeline in which Gojyo isn't the one who finds wounded Gonou in the woods.
Many thanks to
hibem for beta!Part one is here
He lost track of time again – he was getting sick of feeling disoriented – and couldn’t tell how long it was before he heard voices again, rising up from the bottom of the stairwell. Kami was laughing, high and shrill sounds that made his skin crawl, and Hakkai was talking to someone calmly. There were also strange, desperate wheezing sounds, as if that someone couldn’t get in enough breath to really scream.
Gojyo got up, slowly and carefully, and brushed dry red flakes from his face. Blood on his clothes and on the floor was cold and stinky, but still wet. Cringing, he peeled sticky fabric off his skin and tried to move. It felt strange – the wounds were closed, but still somehow there, pulsing under thin freshly-grown skin, and his knees were weak and wobbly. He made it to the railing and leaned over to take a look.
The staircase was missing the last flight, ending abruptly some twenty feet above the floor. Several wide, elaborately decorated doors opened into the bottom of the round stairwell, and there were some people down there, surrounded by endlessly high carved marble walls: Kami, Hakkai and four more, sprawled at their feet. Only one of them was moving - trying to crawl away, clutching his arm that looked broken or viciously dislocated.
“Just one left,” said Kami. “This batch lasted quite long!”
“Youkai are known for being sturdy,” Hakkai said. “That, of course, is a misconception. They break just as readily as humans. Hmm, what shall we do now? Oh, I know.”
He swiftly dropped into a crouch over the wounded youkai, but instead of healing him as Gojyo half-expected, jabbed a finger into his bad elbow. The youkai howled, shaking, and let out a long string of curses mixed with pleas for mercy.
“Do I have your attention? Good. Now, how about a little riddle?”
The youkai stared at him, perplexed and horrified. Kami clapped his hands delightedly and ran to the doors, waving a huge set of assorted keys. He unlocked two of the doors and stood next to one, grinning broadly in anticipation.
“Bet he won’t get it right,” he giggled.
“It’s a good old classic,” said Hakkai, rising from the crouch. “Stop me if you know this one. You get to choose between these two doors. Behind one of them is a hungry tiger. Behind the other is a little attraction I like to call, ahem, the Maze of Twilight. I designed it myself, and I think it will prove both stimulating and challenging, and should provide plenty of opportunities to reach safety. Ah, that is, if you are at the intermediate reading level, at least. I should probably adjust that in the future – it’s discriminating against those who were less privileged as children, don’t you think? Not everybody had the opportunities an orphanage can offer.”
The youkai’s face, contorted with fear and pain, was turning greenish-white under the streams of sweat. He flinched back from Hakkai’s feet, tried to kneel up, swaying and trembling. Hakkai gave him a charming smile and continued.
“Now, to find the right door, you can ask us one question, no more. There is a little catch – one of us will only tell the truth, and the other…”
The poor guy finally snapped, jumped to his feet and ran for the nearest door, screaming. He ripped it open and was thrown right back by the force pushing to get out.
It was an actual hungry tiger. Not figurative, or toy or origami one, like Gojyo hoped.
In a matter of seconds the guy was pinned to the stone floor. Huge clawed paws rent his shoulders to mince while the other two watched, not disturbed at all by the proximity of a raging predator. Kami’s happy cheers were almost drowned out by the man’s piercing cries and the growls of the animal. The youkai’s good arm snapped inside the tiger’s maw with a loud crack.
“Hold on!” screamed Gojyo and hopped over the railing. He called the shakujou mid-drop, aiming to strike the beast from behind, before he hit the floor. Considering the state of his knees, the pain was going to stun him for longer than he could afford now. But his blade, which always had done exactly what he wanted it to do, twisted and flew widely off-aim. Gojyo let out a growl to rival the tiger’s, retracted the chain, going for the second strike. He was ready to land, balanced and prepared, perfectly judging the distance. When a dozen feet from the floor he crashed head first into absolutely nothing it really took him by surprise.
“You can’t just jump a hungry tiger like that, Gojyo,” he heard, falling on the floor in a messy heap, jarred by the impact, but desperately struggling to recover, because the guy was still alive, still screaming. “That’s against the rules.”
Gojyo gritted his teeth, got up, called the weapon he lost in the fall and rushed the tiger, wielding shakujou like a spear, not trusting his long-distance aim any longer. The thing and its prey were out of reach, protected by the invisible barrier that didn’t give no matter how hard he slammed into it. But since nobody moved to stop him, he kept trying till the screams ceased completely.
After which he fell to his knees which couldn’t take his weight any longer, threw up some of the water he’d drunk earlier and fainted like a girl.
*-*-*
He was lying on the white cold marble, between two flights of wide winding stairs, just like he’d never moved from here in the first place. Only there wasn’t any blood on his face, clothes or on the floor underneath him. No blood at all, no stains, no wounds, no holes in his shirt. The ache still was there, under his skin, and his knees hurt like a bitch and wouldn’t cooperate. Everything that happened since he first woke up in this castle of crazy was beginning to fade together in one confused ball of incomprehensible fuck-uppedness.
“Ah, Gojyo-san, you’re awake,” called the voice from behind. “Please join us.”
He got up, clutching at the stairs and the railing. He could’ve sworn there was no doorway on his right before, but apparently one was there now. The doorway opened into a large, candlelit dining room with high shuttered windows and no furniture but a long table in the middle of it. Kami and Hakkai sat close together near one end, their dainty porcelain plates still empty, not touching any of the food stacked on the table before them. There was a third chair and a plate, waiting for him, a little further away.
Gojyo hobbled there and sat down, straightening his legs with a grunt like an old man. He was very hungry, as long as he didn’t think about the tiger, and that probably hadn’t happened anyway. With all the sleeping and passing out he’d done lately he easily could’ve dreamed or hallucinated some of that stuff.
He could really do with a bottle or preferably a crate of beer and a plateful of barbequed beef, some deliciously greasy egg fried rice, sticky spicy pork ribs, a duck roll or ten. Hell, a bowl of plain ramen would taste like heaven right now. He wondered who did the cooking around here - maybe the creepy twins had servants he hadn’t seen yet. Maybe they ordered in. He grabbed the chopsticks, dove for the food and stopped, vaguely revolted.
The table was piled high with lavishly decorated cakes, iced fruit pies, huge bowls of improbably coloured jelly beans. There were sugared plums, almond cookies, those sickening bean paste sweets he could never face, buns, lollipops, gummy bears, chocolate-covered marshmallows and other sugary crap that hurt his teeth even to look at.
“Do you have any real food?” he asked.
Nobody answered at first. Kami was busy stacking pieces of cake in a misshaped gooey tower, sloppily licking whipped cream off his fingers. Hakkai carefully placed one gingerbread man on his plate, plucked out the glazed chocolate button eyes and set them aside.
“Why eat boring food if you don’t have to?” Kami asked, studding his creation with jelly beans. “Go crazy!”
“Um, thanks.”
“It’s very nutritious,” Hakkai broke one gingerbread leg off and nibbled on it slowly. “Fills you up.”
“This shit isn’t good for men. Do you have any meat?”
“No, I’m afraid,” Hakkai said apologetically. “The tiger doesn’t leave much.”
Gojyo threw down the chopsticks and got up, nearly falling over when his knees buckled under him again.
“Speaking of the tiger. You wanna tell me what the fuck that was? Is this how the two of you get your rocks off?”
“They were evil,” Kami said. “Sit! I won’t feed you if you misbehave. Hakkai, tell him!”
“Gojyo-san,” said Hakkai. “Those creatures chose their fate. They came to us, looking for trouble. They were violent animals, rapists and murderers. Everyone is better off with them dead, believe me.”
“So, is this your holy mission – to kill all the bad guys and become the only rapists and murderers in Tongekyo?”
“We didn’t rape anyone,” Hakkai said, cleanly snapping off the gingerbread man’s head, “Yet. Please sit down, Gojyo.”
Gojyo gave them the finger and painfully limped to the doors, looking for possible exists. He clearly started cracking already, because the idea of that crazy hot guy jumping him and using force seemed disturbingly uplifting for some reason.
“Oh-oh,” Hakkai sighed behind him. “He’ll walk right into the fog if he carries on like that.”
“I’ll go fetch him later. Pass the gummy bears,” answered Kami lightly.
*-*-*
When Kami found him in the fog, Gojyo was crouching on the steps with both hands fisted in his hair, staring into the middle distance with wide, dry eyes.
“Are you real?” he asked.
Kami scoffed, pulled him up, hoisted his pliant body against his shoulder and led Gojyo back through the long corridors, into the dark room with that lavish, stuffy bed.
“Lie down.”
Gojyo obediently tumbled on top of the covers, didn’t protest when Kami pulled his arms up and crossed them over his head, didn’t move when strings of beads snaked over his wrists and tightened, chaining him to the headboard.
“Here, so you won’t get into any more trouble while I’m away. Was it bad in the fog?”
“Go try it, if you want to know.”
“It’s always good for me,” Kami shrugged, brushing Gojyo’s hair away from his face. “I get to see Sensei. Hakkai goes there sometimes too, but he never tells me anything about it, which is not very fair. I tell him everything, except stuff that’s a secret. But he’s like that - he’s cool, but he gets weird sometimes, you know?”
Gojyo kept quiet, looking at the dusty, cobweb-covered ceiling, relaxing his arms against the pressure of the beads. Kami poked him in the cheek with a finger, and Gojyo let his head roll limply against the pillow.
“You’re no fun any more,” Kami said.
“Then let me go,” Gojyo suggested blankly. “Or kill me already.”
“Silly,” Kami giggled, tucked a blanket around his bare feet and left, leaving the door ajar again, as if Gojyo was a kid who could get scared of the dark otherwise.
He stared at the ceiling for some time, hoping for spiders or flies to provide entertainment, but eventually gave up and closed his eyes. He didn’t stir even when long warm fingers ran over his legs, carefully probed at his knees, and moved higher.
“You’re not asleep,” Hakkai noted.
“No, I’m not.”
The fingers stilled, then moved again, clinically confident, quickly skimming his body, trailing soothing warmth and ticklish humming magic in their wake.
“You’re healing up very nicely,” Hakkai said. “You should be good as new in several days, if you don’t strain yourself like you did yesterday.”
“That’s yesterday already? Man, time flies when you are having fun.”
Hakkai pulled back and stepped away from the bed. For a moment Gojyo was certain he really come in just to check on his injuries, and was going to walk away again and leave him alone to lie there and listed to the sound of his own mind decomposing. He kept quiet, squeezing his eyes shut in strange childish defiance. There was a shuffle of feet, soft clanking, and then - the unmistakable sound of liquid pouring, hitting the bottom of the glass, swirling around, filling it up, little bubbles of air rushing to the surface… The smell of pure clean water hit his nose and his aching, parched throat, and his eyes snapped open against his will.
“Please,” he moaned before he could check himself, and bit hard on the inside of his cheek, disgusted at how little it took to reduce him to begging.
Hakkai bent over him and slipped a hand between his neck and the pillow. His palm was soft, no calluses, surprisingly gentle against Gojyo’s skin. Gojyo held his breath as those fingers slipped into his hair, cupped the back of his head and carefully lifted it up. A large glass of water, beaded with clear drops even on the outside, appeared at his lips. He clamped his teeth on the rim, just in case, and drank it down as fast as he could without chocking.
“More?” asked Hakkai, absent-mindedly stroking his fingertips in Gojyo’s hair while Gojyo caught his breath, feeling almost drunk now. Gojyo nodded against the moving fingers and got treated to a small pleased smile. Hakkai twisted around, still gently cradling his head, refilled a glass from the pitcher on the bedside table and brought it to Gojyo’s lips again. Gojyo blinked, distracted by the way the man’s long neck bent and turned when he moved, and gulped down the second helping, almost as fast.
“I won’t give you any more water for the time being,” said Hakkai, and Gojyo stiffened in his hold, biting down humiliating pleas that threatened to spill in from his still too-dry mouth. “Ah, I’m just worried you might get sick. Let’s take this slow. Would you like to eat something?”
He eased Gojyo’s head down on the pillow and turned back to the tray he had sitting near the bed.
“’I’m not hungry,” Gojyo muttered, clenching his bound fists.
“You must be, Gojyo. You had no food for two days, at least. I know you have no taste for sweets, but I’ve tried to select, well, the least offensive things we have to offer. There are some glazed cherries – it’s essentially fruit, it should be good for you. Cheesecake – eggs and dairy, almost like an omelette, really… No? Hmm, what about some dark chocolate, then? It’s not that sweet, more bitter. And it will improve your mood.”
“You think?” Gojyo asked as sarcastically as he could manage at the moment, trying not to breathe in the rich, tantalizing aroma of cocoa and vanilla, not to look at Hakkai’s fingers breaking the dark bar into small glossy pieces.
“Yes, yes. Chocolate makes you feel loved,” Hakkai announced earnestly and brought one chunk to Gojyo’s lips, letting it hover there. “Please, Gojyo, just give it a try.”
Gojyo’s stomach chose that precise moment to produce a loud, impressively long growl. Hakkai frowned with concern and moved the chocolate piece another eighth of an inch closer, giving new intensity to the teasing smell.
Flushed with embarrassment, Gojyo obediently opened his mouth and let Hakkai slide the treat between his lips. He caught it on his tongue and held there, letting it melt, too aware of Hakkai’s eyes on him to even bring himself to chew. Sweet thick liquid slid down his throat; he swallowed reflexively and almost right away felt new strength rolling fast through his blood, curbing the hunger, clearing his foggy head, making all the colours around him seem more vivid.
He reached for the second piece himself, swallowed it down almost without chewing, but made up for that with the third one, savouring it, sucking on it slowly, letting the bitter velvety taste coat the inside of his mouth, almost shivering with pleasure. But hunger won over, and he opened his mouth again, probably looking like a screaming fledging bird begging for a worm, only right now he was past caring.
“So good,” he moaned, hastily chewing on the next piece while Hakkai already had another one waiting for him. “Fuck, it’s tasty.”
Hakkai was smiling now, pretty face glowing with contentment, clearly happy that he’d finally got their troublesome pet to behave. His fingertips were stained with melted chocolate, but he didn’t seem to mind, still offering Gojyo one bite-sized chunk after another, so absorbed by the task that he could be easily caught off-guard. Gojyo chose a moment carefully, grabbed the chocolate with his teeth and closed his lips around sweet-smelling skin.
“I should have mentioned,” Hakkai said coldly, even as his fingers trembled inside Gojyo’s mouth, not withdrawing. “That I cannot control Kami’s beads. I have no means of releasing you without causing severe damage.”
“’M not afking you to,” Gojyo mumbled, lapping up the skin-warm chocolate off Hakkai’s hand and adventurously sliding his tongue further, ticking sensitive places between the fingers. “’M good here.”
“Then… what do you want?”
“Mmmm,” Gojyo sucked in more of his fingers, nibbled at them a little, flicked his tongue over the webbing between them. “This.”
“G-god,” Hakkai finally pulled his hand away, out of reach, gulping for the air, looking at Gojyo’s smiling mouth with horrified fascination. “Why?”
“You’re hot,” Gojyo shrugged as much as the ropes would let him, wriggled his hips, trying to crawl up higher. “I’m bored. I haven’t had sex for longer than food. Want me to suck on something else? I’m open to ideas.”
Hakkai distractedly brought that hand to his lips, licked at traces of Gojyo’s saliva glistening there, and the sight of his pink tongue moving made Gojyo groan quietly and squirm harder.
“Please don’t do this,” Hakkai whispered. “It’s not exactly fair to me. I’m not – you know, you’ve seen what I am. What I can do. And I’ve been celibate for over a year now. It’s hard for me to keep a level head.”
“Don’t then. Come on. Look, man, I’ll probably die here, so...”
“No, no,” Hakkai shook his head violently, raked both hands through his hair, jaw set with resolve. “No, I won’t let any more harm come to you, I promise. You don’t have to do this.”
“But I want to,” Gojyo untangled one foot from the blankets and slowly slid it across Hakkai’s lap, aiming for the crotch where, he was almost certain, a nice hard surprise would be waiting for him.
“Oh, really?” the man moved, fast as a dark flash of lightning, and fell on top of Gojyo heavily. Gojyo grimaced, pinned to the bed with his legs splayed open, the sudden pressure forcing the air out of his lungs. The shift in position made the ropes tighten so painfully he wanted to scream. He tried to slide back up on the bed, but Hakkai held him in place, breathing hotly in his face, shaking against his skin.
“Are you telling me you want this? Do you want to be held down and not given a choice? Do you want a stranger, a youkai, a murderer, to handle your body as if he has a right to?”
Gojyo twisted, trying to breathe, fighting for purchase, but his feet kept sliding on the clean, thoroughly ironed bedsheets. Hakkai rocked into him once, pressing his cock into Gojyo’s inner thigh, hard, bigger than he expected. Gojyo felt those long fingers curling over the waistband of his pants, tugging it down harshly till the belt was biting into his hip on the other side.
“Tell me again you want to lie here, bound and helpless, while a monster rips into you and you can do nothing to stop him. Go on, Gojyo, I want to hear it.”
“Sh-shit,” Gojyo wheezed. “Wait, move a bit, this fucking hurts. You’re heavier than you look. What’s with the freak-out? Not like I’m forcing myself on you. Calm down.”
“You,” Hakkai eased off him a little, more out of surprise than because he was listening. “You have no idea what you’re playing with. You…”
“Shh, it’s okay, it’s okay. I won’t if it’s such a big deal for you. I was only angling for some harmless fun, but – ah, crap!” he thumped his head against the pillow, angry at himself for being such a dumb asshole. “If you went without for a year it was probably for a reason. What can I say, I’m slow like that. Sorry, man.”
Hakkai blinked and slowly slid off him and down onto the floor, curling up near the bed, almost out of Gojyo’s sight.
“Hey,” Gojyo said, carefully poking his shoulder with a toe. “Whatever happened to you - it’s none of my business, okay? You don’t have to explain. Come back, it’s all good.”
“Half of the time I don’t know what I’m doing,” Hakkai said after a long pause in a muffled voice, as if he had his face buried in his hands. “It’s getting worse. I shouldn’t be around people. I’m dangerous. I’ll talk to Kami, I have to make him see reason and let you go. Our landlord seems to have taken some interest in you, so persuasion will probably fail, but I’ll force the issue if I have to.”
“Eh,” Gojyo smiled sadly, “Not like I have something wonderful waiting for me outside. My landlord is probably fencing my stuff as we speak, since I owed him for two weeks even before I didn’t show up to pay my rent on Sunday. My buddy left town with some serious guys on his tail, both my girls said no more freebies for penniless redheads...”
“You have two girlfriends?” Hakkai asked, vaguely amused.
“Yeah. As in, I know two hookers who used not to charge me. But, sure, life’s not cheap nowadays, girls gotta make their living. Hey, do you wear your limiters all the time?”
“I do.”
“That’s bad for you, you know. My brother used to say it can cripple your youkai powers if you never take them off.”
“I wouldn’t mind that,” Hakkai’s hand came up to touch the limiters, but jerked away at the last moment. He turned around where he sat and leaned his cheek on the bed. “Is your brother a hanyo as well?”
“No, no, Jien’s normal. Full youkai, like you. You have any brothers or sisters yourself?”
“Ah,” Hakkai’s hands twisted in the bed covers, his mouth quirking painfully. “Let’s talk about something else, please, Gojyo.”
“Okay, okay. Hm, what’s up with that Kami guy? How did you two hook up?”
“That – well. He saved my life. He wanted a friend. He… He’s a lonely boy in need of care and companionship. I’m not enough to give him what he needs, but I do what I can.”
“Does he have a real name?”
“I suppose so, but he left it behind out of desire to forget his past. I’m guilty of the same childish tactics myself, actually. ‘Hakkai’ is just a nickname out landlord gave me. He used to joke that I lived like a monk, observing, without having set out to, all the major precepts except one.”
“Which one?”
“He kills,” Kami said from the doorway. “Hakkai, did I say you could play with my new toy?”
“We promised to share everything, remember?” Hakkai said calmly, rising from the floor. Something in the set of his shoulders made Gojyo want to not be on the line between them, and he hastily shifted on the bed, awkwardly twisting his bound arms.
“How is it sharing if I’m not even here?” Kami threw a take-out bag on the bed and released the ropes with one flick of his fingers, making beads bounce and scatter over the floor. “Here, I brought you that meat you wanted. Now get out, I want to sleep.”
“You never sleep here,” Hakkai said.
“I want to now. This is our best bed, and I always give it to the guests who are never grateful,” Kami fell on the covers, barely giving Gojyo time to move aside, snagged the pillow and hugged it to his chest, frowning fiercely. “Go away, both of you.”
Hakkai smiled, pulled the covers over Kami’s defiantly hunched shoulders and patted his back.
“Fine, fine. Join us when you’ve rested, we’ll be waiting for you.”
TBC
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-01 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-01 03:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-01 09:33 am (UTC)i'm glad you got rec'd and i found you.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-01 11:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-01 01:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-03 01:02 am (UTC)OUCH!
This is very good. Hakkai is so fucking sadistic and twisted and so very in-character. and he's going to fuck gojyo, yes?
~ pets Gojyo ~
no subject
Date: 2007-08-20 08:44 am (UTC)This is brilliant!