Disclaimer: Saiyuki is property of Minekura Kazuya. No copyright infringement intended, and no money is being made from this story.
A/N: Written for Epiphanytiff at the LJ 7th Night Smut anonymous giftfic exchange. Prompt was: the Houtou cast in a darker version of Snow White.
Many years ago, in a land to the far-distant east, there lived a mighty and terrible king. He was hard and war-like, with a cold heart. His entire life was spent in waging battle, and he was responsible for many heinous crimes against those that he conquered. Because of his strength and single-mindedness, he was named 'The Ox King'.
From among the people he subjugated, the Ox King chose a wife. His queen was beautiful and kind, but they held no love for one another. She bore him a son, a good and noble boy who was loved by all who knew him. This was not the only child of the king, however; he had also, a daughter, by his most favoured concubine. The girl was sweet, energetic, and beloved by the young prince.
The terrible deeds of the Ox King did not go unnoticed, and as the countries around him fell steadily under his yoke, the rulers of the lands in the north grew nervous. They were concerned that his eyes would inevitably turn their way, and he would descend upon them, bringing destruction and misery.
So, before he could come to them, the kings of the north joined forces to crush the Ox King.
Years of darkness and pain followed, as the wars raged on, but eventually the combined might of the northern armies overcame those of the corrupt southern king. When the end came, the Queen put her young son in the care of the concubine, who escaped with him and her own child. The Ox King and his Queen were executed.
Peace came again, and the armies of the north departed. The concubine returned to the palace with the children, installing herself as regent until the prince came of age to rule. Year by year he grew, ever more fair and kind, ever more handsome. The concubine became more and more enamoured of the power she wielded and less inclined to give it up; she devised a plan.
The prince had a weakness. He doted on his half-sister, and the concubine, used that against him, threatening to kill the girl unless he obeyed her. In this way, the prince was forced to become nothing more than a servant.
Still, he was loved by his subjects, who anxiously and openly awaited his ascension to the throne.
"Lord Dokugakuji!"
Dokugakuji, captain of the Prince's guard, sat alone in the great room of the living quarters he shared with the rest of Prince Kougaiji's entourage. He rolled his eyes at the insistent summons and simply waited for whomever it was to find him. It never took long. Sure enough, less than thirty seconds later, a rather flustered guard appeared.
"Lord Dokugakuji! I have been calling for you!"
"I heard," Doku replied, lifting an eyebrow. "And I've told you not to call me that. 'Captain' will do just fine, thank you." He waited for the other man to nod before he continued, "Now, what's all the yelling about?"
"Captain, we've found them!"
"What? Where?"
"They're in custody, sir. Being brought to the castle as we speak!"
"Why the hell didn't you tell me?" Doku yelled. He grabbed his coat from the back of his chair, and was halfway across the room before the stunned guard could even turn. His shoulders slumped, a look of beleaguered resignation crossing his face, then turned and followed the captain.
Dokugakuji strode into the dungeon, looking every bit the Captain. Broad-shouldered and tall, his military uniform emphasized these things, making him intimidating from first sight. The captives did their best to try to melt into the wall behind the bench on which they sat. Doku walked to stand directly in front of them, glaring at every one in turn. These were the bandits? This pathetic, ragged group of men - his gaze fell on a shock of long hair and delicate features - and one woman.
"All right," Doku barked, folding his arms across his wide chest, "I don't have time to fuck around. My men tell me that you all were harbouring a fugitive, until recently. Tell me about him."
The assembled captive squirmed, looked at the floor, slumped, and otherwise avoided both the captain's gaze and the question. The only sound was the faint clinking of the chains which bound them. Swallowing his irritation, Doku resisted the urge to begin immediately with the interrogation techniques for reluctant prisoners. Did these idiots really think that he'd had them dragged in here over petty theft?
"I assure you," he said, attempting a reassuring tone, "that you will be released, without penalty, if you tell me what I want to know. Of course," Doku inwardly smiled as one of his well-trained men held up something that looked as though it could cause vast amounts of pain, "you will certainly tell me, in the end."
The prisoners' eyes were all fixed on whatever instrument of torture his subordinate displayed. Doku saw fear in their gazes, but there was something else, too. A kind of resignation seemed to settle over them, as if they were readying themselves to submit to intimate knowledge of that object. Strangely, this was the one thing that made him certain that they had the information he sought. It was exactly the same look he would have, in their position.
"Lieutenant," he said softly.
The lieutenant moved immediately, choosing the smallest of the men on the bench and hauling him to his feet. He attempted a kind of passive resistance, simply refusing to walk, but it was an old tactic. The lieutenant simply fisted the front of the man's shirt and began to drag him across the room. The other five men watched with fear and sympathy, though they did not attempt to interfere.
"Stop!"
Everyone turned their eyes to the woman, who had risen from the bench. Her cheeks shone with tears, but her expression was fierce. Her hands, manacled though they were, had curled into fists.
"I'll tell you whatever you want to know. Just please don't hurt my men. Let them go, and I will cooperate." The woman's voice was shaking, though with fear or anger, Doku was not certain. Murmurs of shock rose from the prisoners.
Turning toward them, she said quietly to her men, "Am I your leader, or am I not? You must trust me, as you always have. They will not harm me." The men subsided, though Doku was treated to quite a few glares. The woman looked back to the captain.
"Let them go, and I will talk, but you will get nothing until you have set them free." She lifted her chin, defiant in captivity for the safety of her men. Doku began to feel that he quite liked her.
"How do I know that you have anything useful?" he challenged.
She hesitated, obviously weighing the implications of the question. Doku watched her as she mentally sifted through the information she had, attempting to decide what would be enough without giving away too much.
"I know who that 'fugitive' really is," she finally responded.
Doku lifted an eyebrow. "Well?"
The woman pursed her lips. It hadn't worked out quite the way she had wanted, that much was clear. She glanced over to her men, met the eyes of the small one still caught in the lieutenant's grip.
"He is My Lord Prince Kougaiji."
Doku stared at her, and she held his gaze steadily. Seeing nothing that would indicate subterfuge, he decided to take a chance. She seemed sincere, and her answers were precisely what he had hoped they would be. He gestured to his men, who detached the woman's bindings from those of her cohort before leading them out of the room. When the door had closed behind them, Doku took a step closer to the woman.
What is your name?" His voice was gentler now. There was no need to be rough, if she was willing to talk.
"Yaone, my lord."
Doku grimaced a little. "Please don't call me that. I am Dokugakuji, Captain of the prince's guard."
"Captain," she corrected, her face relaxing a little.
"Good. Please, sit." She did, and he sat beside her on the bench. "Now, Yaone, I need to know exactly what happened, after the prince took refuge with your group."
"Are my men safe? You're letting them go?"
"I am a man of my word, Yaone. Your men are being released as we speak. I am only interested in finding Prince Kougaiji."
Yaone slumped a little in relief. She took a moment, while Doku unlocked the manacles binding her wrists, to compose herself. It was a short tale, but strange.
Several months prior to the capture of Yaone and her band, they had gone out to execute a long-planned ambush. Flush with their success and wanting to celebrate, they had ridden at full speed, back to their camp. What they found there was unexpected, to say the least.
Far back in the cave that they called home, lay a man. He was unconscious, the broken shaft of an arrow in his back. Fortunately for him, the wound was relatively shallow and slightly too high to have pierced his heart. Yaone, who had some experience with medicines, soon had him on the road to recovery.
The men had argued with her over keeping the strange man with them. He could be anyone, they said, he could mean them harm. Yaone countered that it would be ridiculous to go to the trouble and danger of having someone shoot you, simply to spy on a tiny group of bandits. Besides, if he was a spy, then whoever had sent him already knew their location, and could come for them at any time. Eventually, the men saw the wisdom in this, and reluctantly let the matter drop.
Over the next several weeks, the young man recovered steadily, though he never told anyone what had happened to him, other than to say that it was not safe for him to venture outside. He proposed a partnership. Because the bandits were in constant danger of discovery, and because he himself could not travel in safety, it was decided that the stranger would remain at the camp while the others went out to 'work'. He would act as a lookout, waiting to warn them away, should their hideout ever be discovered. Since he had some skill with it, he became their default cook, which was what they came to call him, since he refused to divulge his name.
The weeks stretched into months, and the men became fond of their newest member. He was charismatic and noble, a kind and gentle man who, nevertheless, did not fault them for being thieves. He inspired a quiet, fierce loyalty; any one of the men would willingly have died to protect him, though none of them could ever have said why. Only Yaone, who went into town for supplies, ever guessed at his true identity.
Then, after a particularly fruitful week, Yaone decided to give her men a treat. She stopped at a stall on the outskirts of town and purchased several bottles of alcohol. It didn't occur to her until much later, after she returned to town to find the stall gone, that she had never seen it before that day, either.
After they had finished their evening meal, Yaone brought out the bottles, and they made quite merry, through the night. In the morning, there was more than one man who didn't want to get up, but the only one they couldn't wake, was Cook. He was pale, cold and still as death. Yaone, hugging him to her in grief, was fortunate to notice the slow beating of his heart. They might otherwise have buried him.
Once more, she practiced her healing arts, making antidotes to every kind of poison she knew, but nothing brought Cook out of his deathlike slumber. One day, one of the men asked her, what she thought had caused this condition, and the only answer she could make was that it must have been something in the alcohol. Why, then, had it affected only Cook? Yaone rode to town in search of the crone who had worked the stall where she had purchased it, but the whole thing had disappeared.
Vowing to find a cure, Yaone kept and cared for the mysterious young man. However, such things did not eliminate the need to eat, so she was forced, occasionally, to venture out with her band. They returned to an empty camp. Cook had disappeared, and they were unable to find any clues to his whereabouts.
"That was two weeks ago, and now here we are," Yaone concluded sadly.
Doku's brow furrowed as he went over the details in his head. There had to be isomething/i, damn it! Some tiny clue, somewhere, that would help him find the prince. The fact that only he, of everyone, had been affected...it was too odd not to be important.
"Yaone, how much medical knowledge do you actually have? I mean, do you have any idea how a poison could affect only one person?"
She bit her lip, staring at the floor. "Well," she replied, "I thought about that a lot. I can't say for certain, but the only way that I could think of, was for it to have been bio-engineered. If someone had access to the right information and equipment, they might be able to make a poison that was structured to attack something singular, something that was unique to one biology."
The moment the implications of Yaone's words sank in, Doku leapt up from the bench. In a flash, he was opening the door. He turned back to her. "Are you coming?"
Yaone, confused, followed.
Doku set a furious pace, and Yaone almost had to run to keep up. Through long hallways and down stairs he led her, deeper and deeper into the bowels of the castle.
"Captain," she panted, "where are we going?"
"Down to the labs," Doku replied, "I think I know what happened. The regent, Lady Gyokumen, had her twisted little sidekick poison the prince. I figured that she was behind his disappearance, but I couldn't prove anything! He was supposed to have died in a 'hunting accident'. That's why he had been shot when you found him. When she found out that he had escaped, she probably sent Nii after him. This kind of sick game is just his style."
They stopped in front of a metal panel. Dokugakuji pressed a button on the wall beside it, and the door slid open. Yaone looked a little frightened, but she followed him into the small space beyond. He pushed another button, and the panel slid closed again.
"Don't worry," he reassured, "it's strange, but I can assure you that it's completely safe. This will take us to the lowest level of the castle. That's where the labs are, and that worm, Nii. He's the only one who could have done this. Prepare yourself. There are things down here, the like of which you've never seen. It's all his work. He's a genius, but he's a twisted bastard."
"Okay," Yaone replied, her voice small. "How much lower can it go, though? Aren't dungeons meant to be at the bottom?"
Oddly, Doku laughed. It was loud in the tiny compartment, making Yaone cringe a little. "You know, you're right about that. But, in this case, that's not the way it is, I'm afraid."
The box in which they rode slowed to a halt, and the panel before them slid open once again. Doku poked his head out briefly before taking Yaone's hand and leading her into the hallway beyond.
"Okay, now just stick close to me and you'll be all right," Doku told her, missing her blush, entirely. With that, he set off down the hallway, at the end of which stood a pair of huge doors. With a complete lack of tact or subtlety, the big man flung one of them open, hard enough to hit the wall behind. The sound of it reverberated through the cavernous space into which he dragged the somewhat overwhelmed Yaone.
Banks of lights, levers and stranger things lined the walls, some standing free in the middle of the floor. Yaone looked about with wide eyes as Doku strode to the centre of the room.
"NII!" he bellowed, "Get your scrawny ass out here!"
From some hidden nook or crevice of the room came the sound of a muffled chuckle. The acoustic of the space made it impossible to tell from where it was originating.
"Oh, my Captain!" The disembodied voice fairly dripped with sarcasm. "Such aggression. Tsk, tsk! If I come out, I fear you'll hurt me."
Yaone stepped a little closer to Doku, who ground his teeth in frustration. That rat probably has a warren of secret passageways and such, hidden around the room. He hesitated, trying to decide if he should chase Nii, or forget about him land try to find the prince.
"Where's Kougaiji?" he called out, figuring it was worth a try. You could never tell with Nii - he just might answer.
"Oh, but that's no fun, Captain! It's a treasure hunt. If you find him, you can have him. It's not hard, you know...just look around."
Doku's fists curled in frustration. If he took the time to look, Nii would get away. He was certain of that. For all he knew, the prince could already be dead. If he let the killer escape, too... In the end, it was really no choice at all, though. He could hunt Nii down later. The gods only knew what was happening to Prince Kougaiji, while he stood there debating. He walked away, leaving Yaone, who moved toward one of the banks of machinery.
Nii laughed again, somewhere in the maze that was the lab. "Cold, Captain! You'll never find him there."
"Fuck off!" Doku yelled back.
"Well, if that's the way you feel about it, I'll just be off. Have fun, Captain."
Within seconds, the sound of metal scraping against metal could be heard, and then silence. Nii was gone.
"Good riddance," Doku mumbled, and even that echoed. He spent the better part of a half-hour systematically searching the huge room, before he found Prince Kougaiji. He was laying in a kind of cupboard with a sliding glass door, near the floor in one of the machinery banks. The light inside was a pale green, and it was cold.
Doku called for Yaone, who helped him to extract the prince from his tiny prison. Hefting Kougaiji's body over one shoulder, Doku told Yaone to follow him back to their quarters. After stopping briefly to grab a stack of papers, she did.
It was still several weeks before Yaone, working with what information she could gather from Nii's data, was able to create an antidote. She was unable to use the equipment in the laboratory, so the best she could do was a solution that had to be administered orally. She gave it to Doku, who fed it to Prince Kougaiji a little at a time, mouth-to-mouth. This kept the prince from choking, which would have led to waste and a long wait for Yaone to make more.
At the end of the first day of treatment, Kougaiji opened his eyes and asked for water. The sound of his hoarse, cracked voice brought both Doku and Yaone to the edge of tears; they spent the rest of the evening feeding their prince broth and watching over him as he slept. It would be some time before he was completely recovered.
The next couple of weeks saw the prince growing stronger, day by day. Yaone expressed her surprise at the speed of his convalescence, noting that it must be the presence of his loyal Captain by his side. She could see the bond between them, even if it was never acknowledged by anyone else. A part of her grieved for the loss that it meant for her, but she could never have chosen, anyway.
Men had been sent to take Gyokumen into custody, but she was found alone in her room, apparently having decided that death was preferable to capture. Her daughter, Prince Kougaiji's half-sister, had also been secreted away in a hidden room off the laboratory. She heard the commotion of people moving about, and screamed until they found her. Fortunately, she had been deemed important enough to take care of, so she was none the worse for it.
"Hey," Doku greeted Kougaiji as he brought in a tray of food for his prince. He closed the door behind himself, placed the tray on the table near Kougaiji's bed, and settled on his customary stool. Kougaiji smiled and thanked him for taking such good care of his invalid prince. They ate, discussing many things both important and not, and when they were done, Kougaiji looked earnestly at the captain of his guard.
"Doku," he said in a low voice, "come here." The big man moved to sit on the bed, beside Kougaiji. The prince reached out to lay a hand on the back of Doku's neck, pulling him in for a soft kiss.
"Kou," Doku croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again, "Kou, this isn't...you're not recovered."
"I have spent months without you," Kougaiji responded, leaning forward so their foreheads touched. "Even before I was poisoned...so many months out there alone, wanting so badly to come home. Wanting you."
Doku smiled and raised a hand to his prince's cheek. "Are you sure, Kou? I don't want to hurt you."
Kougaiji smiled. "Be gentle with me," he teased, batting his eyelashes dramatically. Doku laughed and leaned in for another kiss. All the months apart came crashing in on them, the washing away the weight of fear and uncertainty. Their embrace grew heated, and before long, Doku was pressing Kougaiji back and lying beside him.
For a while, they stayed that way, exploring with mouths and hands, reining in the desire to let their passions control them. Doku revelled in the scent, the texture and the taste of his prince's skin, the heat of that sinewy body below him once again. Too long had he been without the one person he loved more than anything in life, and he silently swore to hunt down the one responsible. If it took until the end of his days, he would be as faithful to that vow as he was to this man.
Kougaiji's long fingers worked at the buttons of Doku's shirt, fumbling a bit their haste. His own hands travelled the length and breadth of Kougaiji's body, roaming wherever they could reach. He reminded himself over and over, not to rush. Kou was better, but it wouldn't take much to set him back, and Doku was simply not about to risk that. Oh, but the joy, the comfort of having him back, made it so difficult to control himself.
The silence of the room made their gasping breath seem deafening to their own ears. When his chest was bared, Doku didn't bother even to shrug it off, simply pressing down until he felt the warmth of Kou's skin against his own. Claiming swollen lips in another hungry kiss, Doku slid his hand beneath the covers once more, taking hold of the hard length of Kou's sex. The moan that elicited sent a current racing down his spine that curled into his groin with an excruciating sweetness.
Slowly, tenderly, he began to pump a rhythm, guided by Kougaiji's sounds of pleasure and encouragement. His own hips rolled slowly against the prince's hip, the friction a delicious torment. Kougaiji's hands wandered over the muscular expanse of Dokugakuji's chest, pausing now and then to scrape lightly along his ribs, or to tweak a hard nipple. Their mouths continued to meet and part, a nip of teeth here and the flick of a tongue there, driving each other on more and more urgently.
Suddenly, something occurred to Doku, instantly stilling his movements.
"What?" Kougaiji inquired, the tiniest hint of frustration in his voice.
"Um...I wasn't expecting this."
Kougaiji squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Then, "What?"
"I wasn't expecting this," Doku repeated, "I didn't exactly come...prepared."
The prince burst out laughing. Doku frowned. With one hand, Kougaiji reached over to open the little drawer in the nightstand. When he brought it back, he held a small vial of oil. He laughed again at the look of scandalised shock on Doku's face.
"You see," he said through chuckles, "I did expect this." Doku laughed then, too. He should have known, really. Kou was a marvellous tactical planner, after all.
"Thank the gods," Doku whispered, "that you're back with me again." Kougaiji signal his agreement with a kiss as he placed the vial in Doku's hand. Needing no further encouragement, the captain sat up long enough to pour the contents of the small bottle onto his fingers. He secreted it in his other hand as he descended to claim his lover.
Kougaiji kicked the covers off, bending his knees up and reaching down with both hands. One he used to begin stroking himself, the other fought with the fastening on Doku's trousers. Eventually the prince won over the pants, and he slipped long warm fingers inside to wrap around the hard flesh there. Doku let his eyes slide shut for just a moment, losing himself in the sensation.
He didn't let it last too long, though - Kou had been known to bite. With infinite, almost exaggerated care, Doku pressed slick fingers to Kougaiji's entrance. He massaged in slow circles, increasing the pressure to match the speed of the prince's strokes. Drinking in the sight of his prince's handsome, bronzed face as it twisted with pleasure, Doku thought that he would never see anything to match it's beauty.
He pushed inside slowly, groaning at the combined sensations of Kougaiji's hand around his cock and the heat inside his body. It had been so long, and he wanted nothing more than to bury himself in that liquid heat. Forcing himself to stay calm, Dokugakuji pumped large fingers into his prince's body, waiting for total relaxation before slipping another in beside the first, then a third. He leaned down to flick lightly at a nipple, loving the sounds, the movements below him.
"Doku," Kougaiji moaned, "please, I need you."
The words were hardly out of his mouth before Doku was kneeling up, moving Kou's legs to position himself between them. He was all for restraint, but he had reached the end of his tether. What the prince wanted, Doku would always happily provide. He opened the vial again, pouring a generous measure into the palm of his hand. With quick movements that nonetheless made thought difficult, he coated himself in the slippery liquid and scooted forward, poised for entry.
Leaning forward over Kougaiji's body, he pushed slowly forward, watching for signs of pain. Kou paced his breath very deliberately, using it to help him stay relaxed. It had, after all, been months since Doku had last taken him, and his body was no longer used to it. Still, he did not tense or cry out, and soon Doku was as deep inside as he could ever have wanted.
He shifted his weight down, onto his elbows, wanting to be as close as possible, wanting to feel every inch of Kou's body against his own. When he felt long legs wrap around his waist, he began with gentle thrusts. The prince whimpered, but his expression was ecstatic. With each roll of his hips, Doku's movements grew stronger. Kougaiji's legs pulled at him, entreating him to ever more urgency.
Kou's eyes were closed, but Doku dared not look away. He wanted to see every twinge, every expression on his lover's face. A hand snaked between them, Kougaiji reaching to pump himself as Doku moved inside him. The sliding of Kou's hand against his abdomen was fuel for the fire, and Doku could hardly retain his control. It really had been a long time; not much more time had passed before Kougaiji's body stiffened, and he loosed a ragged cry into the quiet room as he came.
The sticky heat between them, the exquisite tightening of Kou's body around him brought Doku quickly to the edge, and he caught Kou for a kiss, groaning his release into his prince's mouth.
Eventually, Doku managed to rouse himself enough to retrieve towels and clean up after them. They lay together in the bed for a while, revelling in the comfort of being together again. Half asleep, neither of them heard the knocking on the door.
It opened, and Yaone walked in, a tray balanced on one hand.
"I'm sorry my lord," she was saying as she kicked the door shut behind her, "I don't know where the Captain has-" In her shock, Yaone dropped the tray, her face flushing a bright red. "I-I'm sorry," she stammered, turning around and heading for the door again.
"Yaone," Kougaiji called. She stopped, hesitantly turning back in their direction. Kou lifted a hand to her. After a moment, she took the few steps toward him and put her hand in his.
Kougaiji and Doku both smiled, and they welcomed her into their embrace.