Author's Note: I'm getting almost predictable. Osoimaru, this is for you; and Mika, happy birthday!
The shame of standing on the slavers' block was intolerably worse for Kurama whenever he glanced at the vain expression on Karasu's face. Only avoiding fleeting looks in his direction allowed him to subdue the humiliated ache in his chest at his own weakness, and ignore that he stood there trussed up like some common bed slave, or an animal dragged to market.
The red Makaian suns beat down on his naked body, round and unblinking as three familiar eyes. Despite the muggy heat and the stink of bodies unwashed and humans and lesser youkai butchered and burned for meat, Kurama fought down shivers. He couldn't protest his bindings—couldn't, in fact, speak at all, a very neat charm put in place by his first captors, to keep him from revealing himself. Whether they had done so because they didn't want the slavers trumpeting their find stupidly until the news reached the extended networks of Yomi and Mukuro, or because they didn't want the price to be driven down, was up in the air. Kurama tried to keep his face level as the sale was concluded, and Karasu stepped forward, eyes lecherous as he was led over to inspect his prize.
Kurama didn't want to know how the bastard youkai had managed to return to life, or how he came to be at this auction, so routine in the Makai. He did, however, long for a way to wipe that cruel smile from his enemy's strangely mask-less face—or at least a chance to stare back at him boldly without the stinging curl of the lash or another round of the drugs they'd filled him with, which had finally been allowed to dissipate a few hours before the auction.
Kurama's eyes narrowed in mortification when he was turned roughly and bent over, the manacles around his ankles twisting and nearly making him stumble into an ungraceful heap. The sweaty fingers of the slave trader poked and prodded intimate flesh, followed swiftly by digits that were longer, smoother and slimmer, covering the same ground at a slower pace. Kurama saw Karasu smile out of the corner of his eye when a shiver crept up Kurama's exposed back, and hated him.
"Do you attest that the slave you've just purchased is in good condition, and still virgin, as promised?" the grubby trader wheezed, trying to catch his breath in the hot air and keep up his oily demeanor, clearly delighted. Kurama was unsurprised, and nearly lost himself enough to sneer—though he hadn't heard the final bid, the last numbers that had made their way into his ears had been lofty indeed.
"I do," Karasu chuckled, clearly amused, and Kurama wanted to strangle the life from him with something acid-drenched and riddled with spikes.
"Good, good," the trader simpered, clapping his hoary hands together enthusiastically, making droplets of sweat splatter. Kurama winced and watched carefully as Karasu's face twisted into an expression of distaste. "Now, I'll give you the standard restraining devices, and if you'll come this way, we have an absolutely wonderful selection of things to help your new property learn his place."
Kurama's back arched in shocked anger. He forced himself to relax, unable to resist working skillfully at the manacles that curled around his wrists in an uncomfortable figure eight.
The bomb was unexpected—so much so that Kurama had no time to stifle the shocked yell, drawing heated eyes. Karasu grabbed him around his suddenly bleeding arm and pulled, shaking him brutally. Kurama's muscles tightened reflexively as his head jerked from the rough treatment, and then he was curled on the ground, face stinging from a vicious slap. "Now lovely, if I were to return to find you outside of your fetters, I would be quite displeased."
Kurama swallowed a snarl, probing the cuts on the inside of his mouth with his tongue, enraged by the taste of his own blood. He didn't raise his head, however, and could almost feel the smug pleasure radiating from Karasu. Kurama welcomed it. Arrogance would make Karasu careless, and there was little Kurama wanted more than carelessness.
"Anfer," the tinny voice of the old trader hissed, "take down this slave and tie him to the sold post. I will be back shortly."
That name Kurama knew, and he cringed when the thick, scaly arms, rippling with muscle, sprang the lock keeping his shackles to the stage and dragged him down over splintered wood and into the filthy and lifeless dirt, deprived of even a single blade of grass. Growth had long since drained from this area from the blight of wards and the pain of those dragged through. Some carnivorous flowers suckled under a nearby whipping post, standing up pertly to lick the droplets of blood, but that was all that grew within a mile of here, and Kurama couldn't find it in himself to be glad of those.
"A shame you passed the virgin test, pretty one," the hulking demon muttered into Kurama's cheek, his breath sodden with the sick tang of blood, repeating those sentiments for the twentieth time since Kurama had come under his care. Anfer's hands pawed crudely at the kitsune's nude body, roughly handling him as they passed stalls and cages where other demons sat in thrall on this busy market day, heading towards the giant pillar of metal and wood that jutted into the sky in the middle of the smoke-wreathed camp.
The column was an eyesore made of poor workmanship and iron rings set deeply into the burnt wood, painful to Kurama's aesthetic sensibilities, like the rest of this enclave. This was where slaves who'd been sold were kept until their master came to claim them. Kurama was hardly happy to see it, or be hooked onto one of the rings next to a mouse demon with soft chestnut fur, who looked around shyly, cringing when things came too close. The only good thing Kurama could find was that in this position Anfer couldn't continue to grope him, or whisper promises into his ear that made Kurama blanch with rage.
Kneeling in the dust was difficult for Kurama to do comfortably, especially since the ground was wet with what seemed to be a mixture of blood and urine. His aching bruises and bare knees protested the force with which he'd been pushed down, and the manacles oddly manipulated his arms—though there was little he could do about his discomfort. Kurama had his pride—though it made the stripes that bled down his thighs leak and sting, he knelt painfully upright and kept his chin raised, staring imperiously back at the traders and clients that ran their eyes pitilessly over his and the other slaves' helpless forms.
Once upon a time Kurama had despised the slavers as vermin, unworthy of stealing from, and had killed them wherever he found them. Then, it had never occurred to him that he might one day find his way to being tied up in a cell that was broiling in the daytime and freezing at night, with metal underneath him so unforgiving that laying too long in one position gave him bruises.
The impossible had been done. A very neat act of espionage by enemies of the three kings had catapulted Kurama from a routine mission to subdue an uprising in the far corners of Yomi's kingdom to this stinking place, far out of the lords' control, forcing him to sit and wait for a chance, no matter how small, to return to friendlier territory and then wreak revenge on his erstwhile captors.
With argenta clouding his system and the sophisticated slave wards keeping him cowed, he hadn't had that chance yet. He closed his eyes, however, knowing it was only a matter of time, though he didn't smile. The precious chance might not come until after Karasu had had his way with him, and that was unacceptable.
"Your name is Anfer, isn't it?" Kurama's shocked eyes widened to the roundness of coins at the sudden proximity of Karasu's voice. The hateful man was standing next to the boorish hulk of blue-green flesh crammed into a pair of skin trousers, Anfer, who had been in charge of his cell.
Kurama closed his eyes, remembering his body, drugged into helplessness, being held in that bastard's naked lap one terrible night, the massive aqua cock rubbing along Kurama's flesh as fat, clawed fingers stroked Kurama's delicate penis and then his own, not penetrating for fear of damaging the traders' property.
Kurama wanted to shake his head to rid himself of the drug-addled memories of Anfer whispering, "Pretty, such a pretty young thing," and promising to buy him back if he displeased his new master, to keep him and teach him a slave's place. Kurama remembered how he'd been left, shivering with the fear and humiliation that was made more acute by the argenta, after the semen, his own and Anfer's, was wiped hurriedly from his body.
That was the only of Anfer's assaults Kurama could remember, but he was certain there were others, locked beneath the memories wiped by drugs.
"ÖSo we have reached an agreement," Karasu finished smoothly, and Kurama realized suddenly that he hadn't been listening to the conversation, sunk in the horrible memories of his first experience with violation. He looked up sharply, finding both the men watching him, and a sour look crossed his face. "Where are your lodgings?" Karasu finished, his eyes on Kurama but the question posed to Anfer, who had a look on his face and a mountain in his pants that made Kurama cringe and stare, his throat bathed in ice. What had he missed?
A lot, it turned out. The room he was dragged into at the back of the trading post spoke of lived-in squalor, gaudy things like a gold chamber pot barely hiding the common meanness of the room itself, the sheets that had seen too many sweaty bodies and too few cleanings, the old blood stains and ratty rug, the tatty curtains over a barred window and gouges in the off-white wall, from what, Kurama couldn't guess. Karasu came in after them, not sitting or leaning on the walls, obviously disgusted by the grime and gauche lack of taste surrounding them.
Kurama fought again as he was picked up and crushed to Anfer's greasy bulk, just a quick flail of his arms and legs that made a shaky moan curl from Anfer's throat. Kurama was grim and soundless as his naked body was gruffly handled. When he opened his mouth to breathe more easily, a hand in his hair curled his body into a painful arch as a tactless mouth closed over his lips and teeth and kissed him, raped his mouth, making Kurama's pride rear up in disgust.
"Pretty thing, pretty thing," Anfer whispered shakily as he stroked the young body, hands petting a flaccid cock and smooth haunch with impunity. Kurama was dropped on his stomach and then left alone, his thin, small form stretched and shaking before them.
Only until his manacles had been hooked into another warded ring. Then Kurama, looking up angrily, saw Anfer peeling off his pants, revealing an ugly, outsized manhood, and climbing onto the bed. Kurama flinched and pulled away from him, only to find another unpleasant dimension to his reality.
The wards on this ring did something to the chains, and when he resisted, crawling to the edge of the bed, he found his back arching like a cat's as he tumbled down, half off the damn mattress, curling into himself as his nerves screamed pain, pain, pain at him. He heard his own yowling cries, and couldn't stop them.
He was pulled back, and abruptly the pain stopped. Blearily, he realized his hips were being maneuvered and lifted, but he was still surprised when he came to, and found Anfer's blubbery lips slavering like a dog's as he leaned over him, waiting for him to rouse. Kurama thrashed and shouted as Anfer grabbed the two buttocks situated cleanly in his hands and forced them apart, his breath stuttering disgustingly as Kurama belatedly kneed at his sides, twisting away from him, only to howl again in pain.
When I fight, Kurama thought once his vision cleared. I'm incapacitated when I fight.
Having discovered this handicap too late, he looked up at Anfer with hate in his eyes. Anfer grinned, his disturbingly pale irises skittering over Karasu, who stood impassively in the doorway, having clearly never moved a muscle from that spot—his hands in his pockets, his lips smirking, his small, wide eyes swimming with crimson. Smiling at him and licking his lips, Anfer slammed his hips forward, moaning at the sudden tight heat as he neatly breached muscle and flesh, his aim accurate from practice, if nothing else.
Kurama squalled and choked at the sudden unkind entry, his muscles clenching and agony searing up his spine as Anfer immediately began to couple with him, selfish jerks of his hips dragging him in and out hurriedly. Kurama growled, and was once again eaten alive by agony.
Anfer laughed, and Karasu, so silent before now, chuckled.
Kurama went up into his head, where music and his mother and a thousand pleasing thoughts and images welcomed his escaping mind, as he was used with all the finesse allocated to the cheapest of whores.
Then it was over, and Kurama came sinking back to his body slowly, the whole rape so perfunctory that Anfer didn't even stay on the bed, immediately rising with a grunt to wipe off his cock, leaving Kurama laying where he'd been left on the dirty blanket, shaking.
Karasu was too shocked to register or react to being whisked away once Anfer undid his chains, a hand on the back of Kurama's neck marching him out the cloth-hung door and away from the slave traders' enclave, Kurama's eyes blurry and his feet stumbling as he was dragged out into the cold, bright world.