Warnings: Spoilers for Yama and Celes. Male/male relationship, sex, language. A fragment of non-con.
Author's Notes: Written in response to a request at the LiveJournal community CLAMPkink, specifying unrequited love and plenty of angst. Happy/sad ending was left up to the author, and I chose the happy route. Written from Fai's point of view. I hope to write Kurogane's point of view eventually to better explain his actions.
Zelinxia has written a companion piece to this fic titled "Words Better Left Unspoken" which retells the tale from Kurogane's viewpoint, which is also uploaded to . To jump there, just type "s/7344580/1/Words_Better_Left_Unspoken" in after fanfiction(dot)net/.
Is it possible for sex to be amazing and terrible at the same time? I think so. I know so.
The first New Moon night, when not even a sliver of the bright shining orb in the sky was visible and there was no trip to the castle for battle, we'd only been in Yama for just over two weeks and everything was still too new and strange and unfamiliar for us to melt into and enjoy the festivities. Even Kurogane who could speak the language and seemed to fit in so well was still holding himself utterly aloof, only taking bottles of alcohol whenever someone staggered near and offered him a drink, otherwise just standing at the edges of the ring of light that the great bonfire cast and watching, watching. All night, only watching, listening, learning. I know because all night I watched him.
I watched him day in and day out. What else was there for me to do? Not talk to the other soldiers; I was playing mute, and they were suspicious of my too-fair skin and unusual blonde hair. I had been accepted at first only as an attachment belonging to the great warrior who had quickly won their respect and later demanded that they respect me as well, or at least my person. That had been thrilling in a darkly secret way, to see him suddenly appear without a noise as if he'd just sprung up from the ground, tearing my attackers away from me with an unintelligible roar. He'd bloodied them all with his bare hands, and by the time he'd turned back to me I'd managed to make myself somewhat presentable, but he still grimaced. What was that, I wonder. Probably not pain at seeing a friend attacked. Maybe a twinge of remorse that someone he held himself responsible for - the strong protect the weak, right? - had nearly been abused while his back was turned. Maybe even disgust that I couldn't defend myself as he could have. As he wouldn't have even needed to. You're not a fair person, Kurogane.
I told him I was fine and tried to laugh to show him it was so, since he couldn't understand my words without Mokona anywhere nearby, but he only scowled at me and snarled something short and clipped and angry before dragging me off to the tent that we shared with several others, so that I could change my torn clothes. The upgrade from the common tents of the least ranks was a relief because the raw, rank air of dozens of men living and laughing and loving - or whatever you call that sweaty after-battle adrenaline-fueled coupling - together had stifled me, but it was horrible because at night, Kurogane's breathing was that much louder in the quieter air, his scent that much stronger in my nostrils. He was angry at me for days for the way I laughed despite my fear, and our enemies suffered for it, and his prowess in battle soon earned us the next steps in rank. Our enemies suffered Kurogane's temper, and Yasha-ou granted him - and me, his shadow - new men for him to command, new weapons for me to wield, beasts to ride and a private tent to share. Our enemies suffered Kurogane's temper, and I suffered his presence.
Our second New Moon festival occurred during our fiftieth day in Yama. Apparently this world has a 33 day lunar cycle. We're in the top five of Yasha-ou's men now, both of us having proven our value in battle. We are strong alone and invincible together, having learned over the past several weeks to communicate without speaking. Kurogane has taught me - taking days upon days, two pots of ink, several sheafs of paper and probably twenty replacement brushes as he snaps them one after the other in frustration - the meanings of certain words. So I learned what things like "behind you", "get down" and "follow me" sound like. There's also something that I believe means "get your fucking ass over here right now, you idiot" which he didn't illustrate for me but I've learned to recognize through repetition. We are also now adept at reading each other's body language, and this we have picked up naturally through constantly being together, he to watch over me, I because I cannot resist the sweet torture of always gazing upon that which I cannot have. He's right; I am an idiot.
Only fifty days and already I am losing my sense of self. Cut off as I am from everyone around me except him whom I feel more estranged from than anyone else in any world or dimension, cut off from Syaoran-kun and Sakura-chan and Mokona, I find it easy to also feel that I am cut off from the destiny that had awaited me. My dark past, my darker future...it all seems so far away, as if he and I have been accidentally dropped through a hole in Fate's pocket and rolled into a crack somewhere, left behind and forgotten. We may be stuck here for the rest of our lives. I may never now save Fai, and I may never now need to kill Kurogane. I can forget about Fei-Wang Reed. I can be free to love whom I wish, and live my life as I may. These thoughts began as fancies, then daydreams, and then dangerous fantasies to lose myself in.
We drink away most of the evening of our second New Moon festivities, part of it out among the men and then part of it in the comparative quiet of our tent. He empties bottle after bottle and I quietly babble away at him as is my habit now, when we are alone. We pass bottles back and forth but I only drink enough to put the scent of spirits on my breath. I am drunk on the sight and scent of him; I don't need alcohol. Giddy with the fantasy I am indulging in that this is our new life together and bold because I know he cannot understand me, I tell him I love him for about an hour. I recite a long list of everything that I love about him; physical features, character traits, even his faults and foibles that I find so endearing. I grow a bit melancholy toward the end of it, my delusions not quite so fixed that I can truly believe I am safe here in this little tent with him, that Fate will not reach out her claws to pierce me once more. I tell him that I love him and it's a desperate, choking thing now. I don't purposefully put any plea or sorrow into my voice, but it must leak out because he gives me a strange look and I startle, and in my panic I make a mistake. I laugh.
It's not one of the laughs that I've come to use here where I can speak to him and not lie. I've told him everything in our evenings together when he allows me to babble after a whole day of playing mute. I've told him about my brother, our parents, our grandfather, the tower and valley, my choice, my crime, my rescue, my curse, my education, my betrayal...I've told him everything and I've laughed wryly and bitterly and ruefully and he has just watched me silently through it all. I've grown sorrowful and depressed and he has just knocked me on the head with a low murmur or passed me a bottle with a short sentence. I've gotten frustrated and angry and sarcastic with him and he has just snarled right back at me or even chuckled and smirked. Bastard. I love you.
But now I laugh, and it is that bright, brittle, shallow, stupid laugh that he hates most of all. It seems to offend and anger him like nothing else under the sun, and either my timing is abysmal or he is a bit too drunk, because he growls, throws the bottle in his hand aside to go clattering and clinking among the others littering the floor of our tent and then he is on me. He is the one talking, now, snarling in that clipped, measured language of his with one hand splayed out on the floor and the other shaking me roughly by the collar. It's shocking to me to have him so angry at me when I'd been pouring out my feelings to him just a moment ago. I've born his temper before but I had my armor on. Now he's struck a blow just at the moment when my heart was out in the open, naked and vulnerable, and idiot that I am, when he pauses for breath, I just laugh again.
The look on his face is amazing. He's incredulous. He's not angry anymore, he's infuriated. I can feel his fist tighten in the way my shirt is suddenly choking me and I wonder if he's going to kill me. He kisses me instead. My eyes widen and then shut, and we tumble to the floor, mouths still locked together and hands all over each other. But it's not a romantic scene by any means.
My eyes are screwed shut in pain because the kiss is fierce and ferocious and if it was out of passion it would be incredible, but it's not. It's not. He's angry at me and he's punishing me in the only way that's left to him. I can laugh in his face and evade his sword swings but now my mouth is crushed under his and my body is pinned to the floor. My hands are on his shoulders at first, fisted tight in his shirt and trying desperately to push him off and I part my lips to cry out to him for mercy or forgiveness but then his tongue is in my mouth and I'm pulling now instead of pushing. He growls and I can feel it in my teeth and in my chest and definitely lower down and now I'm clawing at him and pressing up into him and he stops abusing my mouth long enough to bite me hard at the base of my neck. I'm not laughing anymore.
We fuck. It's not love-making. It's hardly even sex. It's a savage rutting between savage beasts. He's asserting his power and dominance over me and I yield to everything he does out of a wild desperation that I can hardly define. I'll never have him as I wish; I might as well take what I can of him. It's all I'll get. It's all I'll ever have the chance for. It's all I deserve.
He douses the lamp and uses the oil to slick himself, and me. I wish I could read something of care and concern in the fact that he even bothers to prepare me but I suppose it's the logical thing to do; we have to be back in the saddle tomorrow evening and he's used to me watching his back. He works me over with his hands, rough and hard and I'm coming before he's even pushed into me. And then he does, and I'd scream with pain and pleasure, love and lust, fear and frustration, save that he's plundering my mouth with his tongue as harsh and hard as our other joining, and the sounds are lost between us.
He's moving in me, draped over my back now and I'm quiet and quivering, mindless from my second orgasm and only half-aware of him growling something at me over and over as he thrusts, one of his hands gripping the arm I have splayed over the bed and the other bruising my hip as I kneel on the floor. It's dark and hot and stifling in the tent, the lamp out, no moon, even the torches of the revelry doused at this late-early hour. Everything is dark, dark, and all I can see is black and red and all I can hear are his hot breaths in my ear saying something that I don't understand.
Maybe he's telling me how much he hates weaklings like me.
When he finally unravels, clutching me convulsively against him as he goes taut and tense, filling me pulse after pulse, he bites me again on the shoulder and I sob.