The Long Night
Summary: Rin takes too long to return from receiving his gift from Shura after the party. Amaimon goes to check on him only to find the kitchen destroyed, Yukio and Shura unconscious… and Rin taken.
Offshoot AU of Incandescence Chapter 9 and Incandescence Sides Chapter 3. Will be massively AU to both the aoex manga and Incandescence for reasons that will become apparent.
Please read the tags, guys, this one's going pretty dark.
A/N: This fic brought to you by the fact that I have no impulse control and a deep, abiding love for that good whump. Thankfully it's a one-shot so I can get back to my other fics, right? :D
Update: it is no longer a one shot. I thought I would knock this out in a weekend, it's now over 30 pages and idk why I lie to myself like this anymore (:
CHAPTER 1
Nocte Intermisse
"Hey, you two love-birds! I need to borrow Rin for a minute."
Amaimon scowled as the call from Shura made Rin leave his arms, an apologetic smile on his face.
Once again his night and his fun had been interrupted.
But, he shivered, both from the cold and the anticipation of finally getting what he'd been building towards, Samael was waiting for them.
The thought of what he had to look forward to had him drawing his tongue over wind-chapped lips, shooting another glare at the dark parking lot he waited in under the streetlamp outside Rin's dorm.
Could he have waited inside? Probably, but that would have meant being stuck in the same room as that twin again- and a drunk Shura, who was an irredeemably loud drunk.
He summoned one of the handmade chocolates Rin had made him for his gift, letting the sweet flavour distract him and give him something to do while he waited.
Of course, his eyes narrowed at the memory, they tasted so much better melting in Rin's mouth, but he would have plenty of time to savor that particular treat at a later point.
Another gust of winter wind cut through his thin sweater. He plucked at the black fabric, fighting the urge to tug it further down over his thighs, seeing as that would hardly help in keeping him warm.
Not for the first time in his long life, Amaimon wondered what it would have been like to have been king of fire and not earth. Iblis certainly didn't have any problems keeping warm in even the coldest corners of Gehenna and Assiah.
Of course, having Rin next to him was nearly as good, the thought of which made him shift in place, irritation building at Rin's absence.
Amaimon wasn't known for his patience.
What gift could Shura possibly have for Rin that could take such a long time? It had been half an hour by now, judging by the rotation of Assiah through the spatial plane.
Was he still expected to play by human rules? He'd behaved all night, surely Rin wouldn't be too upset if he appeared and interrupted whatever was keeping him?
Well, Amaimon narrowed his eyes further, squinting up at the building Rin had disappeared into, he would be making it up to him soon anyway, if he did get upset.
A toothy grin split across his face, fangs itching to extend in his mouth, his real gift for Rin was still on its way, though Rin had liked the other he'd gotten for him well enough. Amaimon brushed his thumb over his jaw, echoing where the ghost of one of Rin's rewarding kisses had landed.
He'd worry about consequences later, giving up on controlling his impulses for the night. Amaimon was bored with pretending to be human.
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than Amaimon vanished from under the streetlamp, appearing in the entryway to the dorm and out of the cold, finally.
Shivers went through his body before he adjusted to the temperature change and tried to guess where Rin was. A careful sniff told him Rin had been somewhere on the first floor recently, so Amaimon headed to the kitchen, assuming he could pick up the trail from there.
Or at least grab something on the way to Rin- Amaimon focused away from thoughts of inhaling whatever was in the fridge, if he could get away with it without irritating Mephisto's familiar who's territory it was- when something made him stop.
One of the chairs was overturned, the table next to it looking as if it had been shoved aside in passing, while the rest of the cafeteria was spotless and orderly because of that twin's incessant need to organize everything.
A flicker of light caught his eye and Amaimon stalked closer, wary now, though he couldn't place why, letting his instincts direct him towards the open window between the kitchen and the cafeteria where the fluorescent lights proved to be the source of the flickering.
Blood.
Amaimon's eyes widened and he vanished into the room, heart freezing in his chest even as he searched out the source of the faint scent amidst the destruction of the kitchen.
There!
Shura and the twin, unconscious and laying in the wreckage beside the center island, shattered plates and cracked tiles and the signs of a short fight surrounding their still forms.
Where was Rin.
Amaimon couldn't detect Rin in the room, just his fading scent and that of any place he frequented, the kitchen as much his territory as Mephisto's familiar, now.
Where was Rin.
His heart thundered in his chest, the beginnings of panic unfurling inside him as Amaimon gave up searching for any signs of Rin, who had clearly been taken from the kitchen without fighting back or Amaimon would have sensed his energy.
Why?
A sharp snap of his fingers had the humans waking up, the most efficient way to find Rin.
"Mmn- ugh, my head," Shura was the first to speak, hand coming up to prod at the sluggishly bleeding bruise on her temple that had been the source of the blood Amaimon had smelled.
"Where is he!" Amaimon snarled, not having patience for human weakness when Rin had been gone for an unknown amount of time and could be anywhere.
"Rin!"
Amaimon glared down at the twin when he woke, too.
"Dammit!" Shura's violent curse had Amaimon's claws flexing in growing anger.
Why couldn't the humans just give him what he needed to know instead of wasting his time?
"They took him," Yukio whispered, eyes darting behind the cracked lenses of his glasses.
That wasn't an answer.
"Where. Is. Rin!" Amaimon snarled, the earth beneath them trembling as his patience reached its limits and sending the humans scrambling to their feet, fear shaking them as much as the earth did.
"Amaimon! Cool it!" The woman shouted above the rattling of anything not tied down in the room as she moved to guard the twin with her arms, shoving him behind her like that would protect him from Amaimon's wrath.
"You're gonna bring the whole building down on us and then we'll never find him, dammit!" Her pupils were pinpricks in the lavender of her irises, sweat trickling down her neck over a fluttering pulse that had Amaimon zeroing in on the revealed weakness.
"We have no idea who they were!" The twin finally spoke up and Amaimon almost killed him for it, his voice irritating on the best of days, until he registered the words.
"They used wind summons to bind us after Rin collapsed, we didn't get anything else off of them!"
Useless!
A piece of the ceiling cracked from the strain it was under, falling to knock into the twin's shoulder on the way down.
"Agh!"
He was going to-!
Amaimon howled his rage, the sound lost in the shattered glass and panicked cries from the humans.
Rin's humans.
Rin.
Amaimon used the last of his control to vanish from the room, not bothering to snap his fingers. He was beyond theatrics and worthless gestures.
He needed Samael.
He appeared in Samael's bedroom, body hunched in a stark curve as his shriek sent whipcord tension stringing along his spine.
Amaimon couldn't hold himself back any longer.
"He's gone!" His guttural scream barely sounded like words, the foundation of the mansion shaking as Amaimon felt his control slipping under a black sea of welling panic.
Only to gag on a silent breath, scream cutting off with his air.
"Where. Is. Rin."
The shaking earth had stopped. Everything had stopped, still and silent in the dark of the bedroom.
Samael tightened the claws he'd dug into and through Amaimon's jugular, any deeper and he'd have crushed it in his fist.
But it hadn't stopped the panic in his mind, a litany of he's gone he's gone he's gone as he choked, blood running down his throat in Samael's unforgiving grip.
His eyes rolled wildly in his skull, vision beginning to spot with black dots as his oxygen ran out and he suffocated on the liquid filling his lungs and still Samael didn't let go.
The roaring pulse in his veins, flooded with adrenaline, grew louder as he began to struggle, writhing movements an automatic reaction to the threat of his host body's approaching death.
Right up until even that was too much. Gravity pulled against the weight of Samael's clawed fingers dug through him, the only thing keeping him up as his struggles ceased like his strings had been cut.
Amaimon hung, slumped, energy fading with his consciousness until Samael dropped him to the ground in a dazed heap and numb limbs.
"Judging by your wailing, something has happened to Rin," Samael snapped, his anger visible even over the buzzing in Amaimon's ears and the pain of his healing body where he shuddered on the floor in a pool of his own blood.
A wretched moan left Amaimon's mouth and a snarl left Samael's at the confirmation as he started pacing the carpeted floor, his tail lashing under his robe.
"Under your watch, Amaimon, King of Earth and Seventh in Gehenna," Samael hissed his full title out, mocking, and a sneer twisted his lips over his fangs- going straight for the jugular, for his weaknesses.
There would be no mercy from Samael tonight.
Good.
Amaimon calmed, finally, throat healed as he coughed up a glob of the remaining congealed blood from his lungs, black on the light carpet in the night-dark room. It didn't matter, he could see clearly, rationally, now, his emotions suppressed again after the overwhelming swell that had washed away his mind.
He rose, the last of the weakness leaving his bones.
"Well?" Samael prompted, and Amaimon knew if he tried to pull what those humans had he really would be dead.
"Half an hour, taken from his kitchen without a fight, the twin and your exorcist tried to put up a fight and were dealt with with wind summons, they didn't know who attacked them," Amaimon laid out everything he'd been able to observe before his emotions had overcome him.
Samael nodded, "let's return and hope your fit hasn't destroyed what evidence there may have been."
Amaimon accepted the admonishment and they vanished back to the kitchen, startling the humans who had been in the process of recovering themselves.
"Sir Pheles?" The twin yelped, sending out prey signals to Amaimon's instincts that had him suppressing the urge to growl again.
"Mephisto," Shura came to attention, the time Amaimon had been gone allowing her to gather her wits. Good, that was one less annoyance.
Samael bowed his head to her, one of those human mannerisms he liked to employ to pacify them, "what happened here, Miss Kirigakure?"
Amaimon began the search, keeping one ear on the conversation, though he left that aspect to Samael to focus on, his job would be to look for the physical signs of Rin's capture.
He stalked around the chaotic mess the kitchen had become, noticing Samael's familiar in a heap against one of the cabinets and snapped the creature awake, growl already on his lips to temper the beast into immediate obeisance. The creature heaved itself up and scurried to Samael's side, knowing Amaimon was in no mood to speak.
There, Amaimon narrowed his eyes, some sign other than the damage caused by his rage and that which was done to subdue the humans.
Samael's gift to Rin lay scattered on the floor, decorative wrapping paper and rumpled clothes spilled from the opening of the bag. The sight made Amaimon want to rampage all over again but he contained it, letting it build to release on the dead creatures walking when he found them.
But that was it, the scents of the room belonged only to the current occupants and the faded parts of Rin. Whoever had taken Rin had known to conceal their scent, had known to anticipate demons hunting for them. Had known Amaimon and Samael would come for them.
It was a planned attack. Amaimon let a heated breath exhale from his nose, scanning the rest of the kitchen but anticipating not finding any other clues, the culprits too thorough.
Amaimon returned to Samael's side, interrupting whatever nonsense the humans had been spewing, "there's nothing here to trace them with, no sign of Rin. They left through the cafeteria, dragging him."
The table and chair that had been skewed may have been from Rin struggling, or his captors simply not paying attention to being careful with his body.
Every bit of damage done to Rin would be taken out of their worthless hides strip by painful strip, Amaimon decided, already imagining his vengeance.
"Amaimon," Samael said, voice deceptively quiet and bringing Amaimon out of his bloody daydreams in an instant, "the only hint we have is that they used wind summons. They captured Rin after he collapsed suddenly and they fought Miss Kirigakure and Mr. Okumura without speaking or letting onto their motives."
"Hn," Amaimon grunted, not surprised and not happy about it, either, but already moving to act, "track them from here, then?"
"They'll have covered their tracks but we may discover something following it, regardless," Samael murmured back, joining him as they turned to leave the room, the humans silent behind them. Amaimon could hear the frustrated, distraught, cry from the twin the moment they left their sight.
The cold winter air swallowed them up as they followed the faint scent of Rin from the dorm and into the night.
"Wake up, kiddo."
Rin gasped, awareness hitting him like one of Amaimon's punches. Feeling followed right after and Rin winced, struck by a weakness he hadn't felt since the end of the Impure King mission when he'd over-extended himself. A draining on his energy that reminded him of the last time he'd had the flu, sick in a way he hadn't been since his days as a human.
"You with us, yet, Rin?"
That voice, Rin groaned around a dry throat and forced his eyes open, only to snap them closed, the blinding lights that greeted him too much to take at once.
But he managed it, needing to figure out what the hell was going on and pushing past the discomfort with a flutter of his lashes until he could see.
"There you are."
It was…
"Lightning?" Rin rasped the name, a question, even as his heart stuttered in his chest and his breaths shortened. The last time he'd seen him-
-The party?
Lighting smiled, broad, friendly, his hand rubbing at the back of his ratty unwashed hair. The smile didn't reach his eyes when he pinned his gaze to Rin's.
He stepped closer, Rin flinched back, breath hitching when he jerked in place instead of going anywhere.
"Hey, what gives!" It was a statement made to buy time more than a real question, it didn't really matter why.
Because just being in the same room as Lightning, one of the famed Arc Knights of the Order, the one who'd been perfectly ready to torture Shima for information and, most prominent in Rin's mind, the one who had mimicked a demon's claim on him all to find out what, if any, relationship was there between he and Mephisto, shot sharp terror straight into his core.
Lightning was a man willing to do anything to further his goals, whatever those were. A true demon in all but the literal sense.
Mephisto had cautioned him to stay away, to not be alone with Lightning. Amaimon had gone with him to every class he had with the arc knight as his instructor, even after Rin had assured him he could handle it, now.
It hadn't been enough.
His terror was visible, by the way Lighting halted and cocked his head, smile still on his face, "hey now, I haven't even told you what you're here for, there's no need for that."
"Let me go," Rin said, a low growl enhancing his demand as his fangs slid down to fill his mouth.
A short laugh was his answer, "no can do, Rin, you're kinda necessary."
"Necessary for what?" Rin hissed out as flames coiled inside him.
Lightning shoved his hands in the pockets of his worn pants, shrugging, "ah, why don't we wait until the others get here, I just came to make sure that seal was nice and tight on you so we don't have any accidents with those flames of yours, ya' know?"
"Wha-?" Rin didn't bother finishing his whispered question, calling his flames, willing them to burst from under his skin, to incinerate his bonds and the bastard smiling that damn sheepish smile at him from a few feet away.
Nothing.
Fire churned in his belly and in his lungs, overheating until he thought he might pass out with the energy building inside, and it. Wouldn't. Come to him!
A snarl, half fury, half horror, erupted from behind his extended fangs and Rin began struggling anew, wrenching his body against whatever was holding him and snapping his teeth when Lighting leaned closer as if to get a better look.
"Woah, look at those chompers!" The cheer in Lightning's voice never left, Rin's actions seeming to make him happier as he peered at the demonic features now formed.
And his hand was in Rin's hair, ruffling it like he was some sort of dog, fingers scratching through the strands like only Mephisto and Amaimon did to him now.
"You keep that up and we'll have to muzzle you, Rin."
The casual promise stopped Rin short, breaths coming faster through his nose as he hyperventilated because that hand was still there.
He couldn't move.
"There, that's better," Lightning patted his head one more time, the touch a solid weight that sent a heavy gasp to shatter behind his teeth and escape in a thin hiss as Rin tried to contain a shudder of revulsion.
Two doors opened, steel and cold and matching the rest of the metal of what Rin was now realizing made up a lab of some sort.
Rin couldn't tell if he was happy for the new arrivals stopping Lightning from putting his hands on him, the arc knight stepping away to wait, or if he was just terrified all over again.
The three who entered were all clearly at least half demonic, the pointed ears, sharp claws, and slit-pupiled eyes a dead giveaway even if the scent coming off of them wasn't clue enough.
"Who the hell are you guys?" Rin said as they stopped to examine him from next to Lightning.
His question only got him a dismissive frown from one of the three, a short man with choppy straw-blonde hair and pale gray eyes that swept over his bound form before returning to regard Lightning, "you've checked the seals, Lewin?"
"Yessir," Lightning said, giving a thumbs-up as he waved his other hand in Rin's direction, "he's all good to go, I figured I'd wait to say anything until everyone was here."
"Excellent work, Lewin," the second demon said, this one around Rin's height with short hair another darker shade of blonde and eyes a darker gray. His fangs flashed when he spoke and Rin's grit in response, he was noticing a trend with his captors now and he didn't like it.
"If you could explain, then, Lewin, we should get that out of the way," the second continued as the third, a woman this time with that same blonde-gray color scheme, moved to start messing with something out of Rin's view.
"Tilt him back please, Micah," came the cool voice from the woman, startling Rin and sending him jolting in his restraints again as the taller man, Micah moved forward.
"Don't touch me!" Rin snapped, head knocking into the hard surface behind it- a table, he was strapped to a table. In a lab.
Micah pushed back on the metal surface, ignoring Rin again, as the table slid until Rin lay horizontal, forced to stare up at the bright lights above him as his heart beat a staccato rhythm in his chest.
"Sorry, Rin," Lightning began, crossing his arms as he finally dropped the cheerful facade from his face, "like I said, you're necessary or we wouldn't be doing this- well, not that I would pass up such a cool opportunity to study a half-demon like you, but this isn't about me."
Rin couldn't take his eyes away from the detached expression in Lightning's piercing eyes, a sick dread building in his stomach when he just smiled again, "the world's a bit more complicated than that, but anyway, lemme introduce you to these guys, huh."
"You've heard Micah's name already, that's Ariette, and he's Feris."
At his name, Feris scoffed, "why bother introducing us, Lewin, it's not going to mean anything to him anyway."
Rin stayed silent, the implications stealing his voice and leaving him stunned on the table.
"Ah, you're right," Lightning rubbed at his head, as he gave another sheepish laugh, "sorry, where was I, oh yeah, the reason you're here."
He cocked a thumb over his shoulder to the woman, Ariette, "these three are nephilim of the demon king of spirits, Azazel, from the line that everyone thinks died out a few centuries ago but didn't actually, and are the third side to the war between the Baal and Sol, and, of course, Satan."
What? A third?
So casual- he was so casual about the truth bomb he'd just laid out as if it was the simplest thing in the world that there was yet another side to the war between Assiah and Gehenna, a war Rin had only learned about within the last year that had already seemed so complicated.
"What does that have to do with me?" Rin felt himself ask through a haze.
Lightning smiled down at him, "we need you to see about using those blue flames of yours to strike at Satan- you're connected to him through them, you know, and, well, Sir Pheles would never have let us do any kind of testing on you, so we had to arrange this whole mess just to get you here."
"Testing?" Rin breathed the word out, a strangled whimper following it that he couldn't control even if he'd wanted to.
"Sure thing," Lightning practically chirped, excited smile lighting on his face as he leaned over Rin, a dark figure haloed by the cold lights above him until all Rin could see were his intense eyes beneath his shaggy fringe, "if we want to take out Satan, it's gotta be through you, we just need to figure out how- that's the fun part."
"What does that even mean?" Rin said, hoarse as the question left his mouth, pulled out more by the desire to prolong the future whose shape he could see building on the horizon.
"He means, we'll be using the blue flames you inherited from Satan to strike back at him," Ariette said, coming to stand over him- and she had a large needle in her hand that she flicked a few times to prepare, cocking her head to peer at his tensed arm where it was strapped down to the table, "we need to get some baseline data from you first, however."
"We'll begin the stress tests after this," Micah said, drawing Rin's horrified attention to him as he pulled out a tablet and started typing on it, then gestured to Feris, "please go make sure the temperature chamber is prepped, I'd like to start with that test first after we've put in the implants."
The word 'implants' ran through Rin's head in an ever increasing repetition and a cold sweat broke out on his skin as he began to tremble.
"Let me go," his voice sounded far away, a bare shiver past his lips, his chest heaving in small gasps as Ariette slid the needle into his vein, a sharp slice of pain lost in the chaotic sea his thoughts had become.
He barely registered it when the needle slipped back out, still trying to call his flames from beneath his skin to protect himself and fighting back his defensive growls that were starting to sound more like whimpers the longer he couldn't do anything.
And then Micah came towards him, taking Ariette's place with a scalpel in one hand and a tray with metal chips in the other and Rin couldn't stop the panic attack.
"Let me go!" He shrieked, the demand running out of his mouth over and over, echoing the flood in his mind until it roared out of him, deafening in the hollow room as he thrashed in his bindings.
Until a hand clamped over his mouth, another in his hair, fingers tightening until strands ripped out with each jerk of his head. Rin reacted before he could think, jaw dropping as wide as it would go so he could sink his fangs deep.
Blood rushed down his throat, gagging him and making him unlatch from the hand so he could cough, sending trails over his lips to pool at his head. But the moment he stopped coughing, something cold and metal pressed into his lips while his head was raised by the hand still gripping his hair. Finally, a latch clicked and his head was dropped to thud to the table, sending tears prickling at his eyes.
"I warned you, kiddo," Lightning's voice doused his panic under heavy sheets of ice as he realized what had happened, "keep that up and the muzzle comes out."
Rin sucked in harsh breaths through his nose, eyes wide and staring at the dangerous scowl on Feris' face as he shook his healing hand- the one Rin had bit, before wiping at it with a cloth to clear the blood.
"Tch," he muttered, tossing the used cloth to a nearby counter before nodding at Micah as if forgetting Rin's presence entirely, "chamber's prepped and ready to go whenever."
"Good, now that that excitement's over," and Micah leaned over Rin, not even looking at his eyes once, to carve into his skin and insert the implants.
It was over in moments, Rin healing without a trace, Micah even going so far as to wipe away the trickle of blood from the cuts so that it was like nothing had been done at all.
He still felt them, or Rin thought he did, like parasites burrowed in his skin, an itch just beneath the surface.
A whimper tried to escape his mouth, muffled by the metal until he thought only he could hear it.
"Let's move him into the chamber then," Micah brushed his hands on his lab coat, already walking out of Rin's line of sight.
And Lightning, quirking his lips in an apologetic smile down at Rin, began rolling the table as directed. The squeak of wheels on the floor rang discordant in Rin's ears until it almost covered the sound of his pulse throbbing there too.
The harsh lights blinded him but he was unable to take his eyes from their lock on the ceiling.
Rin wanted…
He wanted Mephisto.
He wanted Amaimon.
He wanted...
Help me.
Someone.
Please.
The heavy door closed and it was just Rin alone in the chamber.
A vibration started in the walls and the temperature dropped.
He began to shiver.
