Pairing: Starrk Coyote x Ichigo Kurosaki
Music Heaven, by O.A.R.
Word count: ~ 2,700
Rating: M
Prompt 8: Passions Run
The night was beautiful, deadly, and silent.
Just like him.
Ichigo pressed himself closer to the wall of the building, ankle-deep in the filth of the alley, and held his breath. There was no use in hoping to escape unnoticed, really, but he had never been one to give in without a fight. And if that meant he had to cower in back alleys and flee over rooftops like a startled cat, so be it.
If retreat was his only way of fighting back, then he would take it, and use it, and fight.
The bare, choked breeze that managed to whisper down the street carried with it the heady scent of black currants, lavender, and white musk, touched with the staggering sharpness of thick pine resin. Ichigo took a breath of it and instantly craved another, and another, until he could wrap himself in it and just bask. That scent was power, pure and heady, shocking, fierce, savage, luminous, and hazy, making his head spin and his knees want to give way beneath him.
The streetlamp flickered on the corner, and Ichigo froze, brow furrowing into a scowl and hands clenching into fists. He didn't jump at the sudden thud of boots on the cobblestone street, something of which he was inordinately proud.
The steps came closer, though, and his heart began to pound, loud enough that Ichigo wondered how the man failed to hear it. And he hadn't, Ichigo knew, or the game would have already been long over.
"Well?" An indolent, husky voice drifted over the wind, seeming to twine itself into the breeze. "Where are you hiding, cielito? Will you not come out and face me? Are you not tired of our little game yet, mi amor?"
Slowly, carefully, Ichigo reached down and slid a small knife—one of the many he carried—out of his boot. The footsteps were growing closer, nearly in time with the flickering of the gas lamp in the distance, and he knew there was no time to lose.
"Mi vida, mi alma," the man called softly, languidly. "Mi corazón, I thought we had come to an understanding. Why must you run?"
In a sudden rush, Ichigo spun upright and hurled the dagger out the mouth of the alley, where it slammed into the wooden wall of a boarding house with a sharp crack. The man in the street spun automatically to look for the noise, and Ichigo sprang upward, moving with inhuman speed as he kicked off the alley wall and grabbed the edge of the roof, then pulled himself up and vaulted the gap to the next roof. The moment he found his footing, he was off and running, sliding over loose shingles, ducking around chimneys, and leaping between rooftops, heading deeper into the urban maze. The city spread out below his feet, all the filthy, writhing, human wonder of it.
No matter how long he lived, or how many lifetimes he passed, he knew he would never get used to such wretched, beautiful, terrible, exquisite humanity, packed so close and tight, killing themselves even as they tried to progress. None of them understood the freedom of an empty night, or the perfection of speed, or the thrill of a hunt—hunter or hunted, it was the same ecstasy in the end.
Up here, high above the crowded, dirty streets of Victorian London, the darkness was fresher, freer, and moved more easily. It whispered around him as he ran, bearing a lazy, laughing voice, words thick with the smoky sage, red wine, and cinnamon taste of Spanish. "Mi ángel de la noche. You know I will find you. Give up this foolish chase and return."
"Catch me," he taunted back, scaling the side of an old church with ease, and gliding over its roof with only the irony of his presence there to mark his path. "The moon is up tonight. Can't you do it? Can't you prove your claim?"
A low growl vibrated the air around him, nearly making the tiles under his feet slip, but he just hissed in thinly veiled annoyance and dove forward into a graceful roll, tumbling off the edge of the building to land on his feet in the street below. The people there scattered with cries of alarm, but he ignored them and darted forward, ducking and weaving through the crowd with the scent of his pursuer's anger rising behind him like a cresting wave—violets and bitter orange, twisted with eucalyptus and a touch of biting mint. He mocked it, carefree and bold, slipping out of the lights of the street and easing through a crack in the gate of a small park—really nothing more than a few stands of trees and undergrowth, contained on all sides by a high stone wall so as not to infect the supremely ordered chaos of the surrounding city.
That dark presence, like thunderclouds and whipping rain, followed him through, then down the slight hill to the grove of trees, where Ichigo swung up into the branches with ease and pressed himself against a smooth trunk, concealed from sight by shadows and swaying branches. There were a few moments of silence before his pursuer stepped out of his own shadows, the half-light of the grove casting his face into stark relief. Ichigo felt his breath catch in his throat at the sight.
The man was tall and lean, muscled and beautiful in a way that was half-wild and half-refined, dressed like a gentleman but with dark, unkempt brown hair loose around his face and a goatee that needed tending. His blue-grey eyes held a storm behind them, and he carried a thin circle of silver in one hand.
"Mi vida, mi alma, mi corazón," he whispered into the darkness. "I've caught you now, my love. Come down here and let me see your lovely face."
Ichigo loosened his grip on the branch and dropped soundlessly to the ground. "Tired of playing tag already?" he asked coolly, raising an eyebrow. Then his eyes fell on the silver band and he shook his head, caught somewhere between disgust and sadness. His gaze rose, topaz-and-amber meeting sky-and-hurricane, and his lips quirked in what was nearly a smile—dry and bitter, but a smile nonetheless. "You know you can't collar the wind, Starrk. Why are you trying?"
Starrk watched him like he was the last promise of shelter in a storm, the last open door when all others had closed. Around them, the air roiled with lavender and wisteria, heart-wrenching pale rose, desolate white sandalwood and thin, tear-streaked white musk—melancholy and despair given form. "I know, cielito, I know," he whispered, eyes closing as he tipped his head back. "You will have to forgive me for this, my love." The strong, sharp lines of his face were bleak, but the movement let Ichigo see the absence of what should have been around his neck, see that the thin golden chain that was everything had been taken.
"Ah," he hissed, and it was half realization, half fury. Slowly, he moved closer. "What were your orders?"
Sharp eyes followed his movements, the full mouth quirking slightly, though the melancholy still lingered in the planes of his face. "To find you, catch you, collar you, and bring you to him, my beautiful lover. If I had a choice, I would have already torn his face from his body, but he holds my heart." One elegant hand came to rest over his chest, and what Ichigo knew was an empty space. "I cannot disobey him, but…" The hand clenched, and the lazy, half-lidded eyes turned incandescent with rage. "He will want you," Starrk breathed, circling closer, and every step now was like that of a hungry wolf, waiting to pounce. "He will want to take you, possess you, mi amor, because what man would not? You are beautiful, and free, and everything he could never have, and I will be delivering you right to his grasp, mi ángel del viento. How can I possibly live with myself?"
Ichigo watched him circle, turning slowly to always keep him in sight. Then a small smile crossed his face, and he stepped forward. The wind rose, setting the boughs above to dancing, and he swayed with them, eyes becoming half-lidded and full of something dark and heady.
"Trust me, Starrk?" he offered, holding out a hand.
Starrk took it, raising it to his lips and brushing the softest kiss over the peach-colored skin. "With everything that I am, mi amor. Mi vida, mi alma, mi corazón," he repeated. "I would not speak the words if they were empty."
Ichigo used the grip on his hand to pull the man closer, then stepped forward, twining his arms around Starrk's neck and bringing him down to capture his lips. The trees rustled madly, as though caught in a windstorm, and Ichigo's head spun with the force of sensations. The closeness between them was lush, creamy vanilla and the honey of the sweetest kiss, smeared with the burning throb of husky clove and swollen red cherries, darkened with the vampiric sensuality of soporific poppy and blood red wine, and a skin-light pulse of feral musk. It was addicting, and maddening, and Ichigo craved more even before they had fully separated.
"Starrk," his hissed across the mere centimeters separating them. "Now. It's been too long."
Starrk growled, deep in this throat, eyes darkening until Ichigo almost feared the storm in them would overwhelm him and leave nothing behind. Then strong hands closed around his shoulders, dragging him back into another fierce kiss.
"How many years apart?" he murmured, as the separated again, just enough to breathe. "How many lifetimes have I served mortal masters, unable to come when you called me, or chase you when you danced inches beyond my prison door?"
"Too long," Ichigo whispered back, twining his fingers in thick dark hair and resting their foreheads together. It ached inside him, their separation, and even though he rarely counted passing time any longer, he could name every second since Starrk had last been so close to him.
They kissed again, and passion built between them like the heat of a fire. Starrk pressed Ichigo up against the trunk of a tree and Ichigo gasped, tightening his grim on the man's shoulders and twining his legs around his waist. Their arousals pressed together, hot and hard, robbing both of them of breath. Starrk was focused solely on Ichigo's mouth and neck, devouring his lips and nipping along the column of his throat, but Ichigo had the presence of mind to reach down and undo buttons, freeing both of their cocks and pressing them together. The brunet shuddered in his arms, teeth sinking into Ichigo's shoulder hard enough to draw blood as the redhead wrapped long fingers around the erections and stroked, shooting pleasure up their spines.
"Ichigo," he whispered, laving away the blood with his rough tongue. "Ichigo, I love you. Te amo."
"Love you, Starrk," he murmured in return, back bowing as Starrk covered Ichigo's hand with his own and hit every incendiary spot on his upward stroke. It had been too long, and Ichigo could already feel himself teetering on the edge. Desperately, he pulled Starrk's head down to his, kissing him with lips and teeth and tongue, and Starrk groaned fiercely, hand tightening as they both came together.
They slid down to rest against the tree's roots, surrounded by wild darkness and a playful wind that carried the earthy, heady, musky scent of sex. In the silence, Ichigo's fingers found the thin silver band that now hung around Starrk's wrist, and gently brought it and his lover's hand up to his throat.
"Do it," he ordered softly, and the sound of the lock clicking shut filled the warm night.
The double doors swung apart in front of them, opened by wide-eyed servants unable to take their eyes off the pair before them. Starrk took some satisfaction in that, and in how wild they probably looked, half-drunk off the high of the chase and their reunion, both stained liberally with blood from earlier encounters, their clothes tattered and ripped, Ichigo half-collapsed in his grip. But then, he allowed, they could have been looking solely at his gatito, who was always worth several looks—even more so now, in the zenith of the night, with the full moon outside and the windows of the manor open to allow the fresh air in. Ichigo was a beauty beyond what humans could understand, a creature of wicked thoughts and whimsical desires, strong and swift and graceful, his hair glowing like banked embers and his eyes burning like the sun seen through amber glass.
And he was going to hand him over to a human.
The human in question, Lord Aizen, lounged in an ornate chair at the other end of the room, watching them come close with greedy eyes. That avaricious gaze lingered on Ichigo, and the silver band around his throat, for a moment before a small, satisfied smirk crossed his features.
"Stark," he greeted courteously, waving an indulgent hand. "This is the creature?" His eyes traced every line of Ichigo's body, and Starrk had to fist his hand in the back of Ichigo's shirt to keep from showing Aizen just how little he liked that.
"Yes, Lord Aizen," he managed to say, just barely, through a jaw that wouldn't unclench. "This is the vampire." It was hardly an all-inclusive title, and left out so much of what his cielito was, but it was the term that the foppish lord had used, so he would use it as well.
"Good." Aizen smiled again, deliberately drawing a golden locket out from under his dandyish clothes and toying with it. Starrk gritted his teeth even harder against the growl that wanted to emerge. "Well, vampire? How does it feel to be betrayed by your werewolf lover? To be captured for my amusement?"
Before Starrk could react, his beautiful ángel had slipped from his grip like the wind, the metal collar clattering to the ground, and was at Aizen's throne. He pressed the shocked man back against the ornate back, knife at his throat, and grinned. Sharp white teeth gleamed in the low light.
"Werewolf?" Ichigo purred, and Starrk felt that tone tighten things low in his body, desire rising in tandem with the danger in the air. "You toss those words around like they actually mean something. What you don't seem to understand is that we are not simply not human, we are more than human. And you have been dealing with things that are beyond you. Had you gone much further, you would have realized that the death I give you now is a kindness in comparison to what they would do to you."
Aizen realized what was happening one moment too late. The knife flashed, carving a bloody seal into the side of his neck, and he was gone the moment the final line was drawn.
Silence fell, broken only by the clatter of a golden locket tumbling to the ground. After a moment, Ichigo reached down and picked it up, turning to offer it to Starrk. However, Starrk simply shook his head and slipped the hair-fine chain over Ichigo's head.
"You've always had my heart, mi amor," he said with a lazy smile. "Shall we make it official?"
The breeze from the wide windows picked up, and Ichigo gave him a sinful smile, form already shredding like morning mist. "All right," he agreed, stepping back. The distant lights of the city called them, whispering of a never-ending hunt, a chase that would last until the human world crumbled. "Catch me, wolf?"
"Always, wind," Starrk whispered, and they were gone, only the lingering scent of black currants and lavender, vanilla and clove, left to mark their presence.
Note: The scent descriptions were inspired by/paraphrased from Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs' Bewitching Brews scents, because I am in awe of their beauty and overwhelming perfection.