Title: Without
By: AtobeLover
Summary: Set of drabbles. Ryoma is a spoiled, lonely prince, next in line to the throne. One day he comes across a slave who he can't forget or let go of. AU.
Rated: M
Disclaimer: Konomi Takeshi owns Prince of Tennis. Not me.
A/N: I don't really know what to say. I listened to WDYWFM by The Neighbourhood while writing this. I'm fucked in the head and my mind is turning into a whore.
I
The maid pulls Ryoma's rich-blue cloak over his shoulders, and fastens the clasp at the base of his neck, at the hollow where his jutting collarbones melt into each other. Ryoma lets her put the crown on his head, too. The glass paints a pretty picture of him. Fiery golden eyes, emerald-black hair, the only heir to the throne staring at himself.
"What would His Majesty desire for breakfast?"
"Anything the chef cares to prepare," Ryoma mumbles, eyes already clouding over at the thought of spending yet another day breathing, laughing, and being all alone.
II
Everyone licks the ground his feet walk on.
Nobody has yet spat on it.
Ryoma Echizen picks up a dead bee from between two stalks of grass. He turns it over on his palm, eyes lighting up along with the spectrum of colors flashing on the papery wings of the bee.
He drops it, and continues on his way to the main palace, intentionally getting his boots wet and soiled, walking in solitude and silence.
III
As he walks into the hall where Nanjiro Echizen is holding court, presiding over it regally, he sees a trial is in session. Two guards are standing guard over a man, a slave, going by the looks of his clothes, whose hands and feet are chained to each other. Ryoma ignores all the murmurs of good morning, prince and welcome, your majesty and directly approaches his father, and the separate throne reserved for him beside his father, the Emperor.
IV
The man is wildly beautiful, and is on trial for attempting to escape the bonded labor that he was destined to spend his entire life doing. Two men are arguing for him, arguing against him.
Ryoma blurts out, interrupting both of them, "Mine."
The assembly falls silent.
Nanjiro looks at him once, and then commands for the slave to now be Prince Ryoma's attendant.
Things happen so easily when you're a prince.
Ryoma wants to be able to fight for what he's getting. But he's not really complaining this time.
V
The slave stands at the foot of Ryoma's bed, head bowed, but not respectfully. Ryoma can see that. A smirk lifts one corner of his mouth. "Change your dirty clothes," he calls. "Such clothing is not fit for a prince's attendant."
The clothes in question are ripped, muddy, along with the slave's skin. Ryoma can see the scars.
"Yes." But the slave doesn't know where to get new clothes.
"You can have anything of mine that fits you," Ryoma drawls.
The slave goes into the separate room that holds all of Ryoma's apparel, and comes out holding his earlier clothes and wearing nothing but a pair of trousers that had been too big for Ryoma.
Ryoma rakes his gaze over the man.
"Tell me your name."
The slave raises his head, and with a glint in his eyes promising the same raw magnificence his face held, says –
"Atobe Keigo."
VI
They always bathe together. Ryoma asks him to accompany him to the huge bath. The maid who clothes Ryoma daily looks at Keigo disapprovingly, and the stare he fixes her with makes away with her expression. Ryoma is somehow proud of this man.
"How did you become a slave?" Ryoma asks as they're sitting in the bath, Atobe soaping Ryoma's arms up, then gently scrubbing them with a washcloth.
"My father sold me to a brothel for money," Atobe replies. "I refused to be bedded, and I was resold to a man who engaged me in labor."
"I imagine your refusal wasn't as simple as you make it sound."
"These scars are proof that it wasn't."
Ryoma loves how Atobe won't address him with more than the bare minimum of politeness required.
VII
Somewhere along the way, Ryoma loses all sense of dignity in front of this man.
Loses all his caution. His self-awareness.
He falls in love with this man, this slave with the scarred skin and the shattered, beautifully blue eyes.
VIII
One day, in the bath, Ryoma stills Atobe's hands, and tells him to stand up. Atobe does so, confusion written clear on his face.
Ryoma gets up, too, and gets on his knees in front of Atobe's body, and opens his mouth and extends his tongue, closing his lips in a kiss on Keigo's cock.
Keigo breathes in sharply. Ryoma licks him, feeling heat suffuse through Keigo, feeling his length harden. When it gets fully hard, Ryoma kisses the tip, licking at the slit. He can feel Keigo bite back a moan.
Ryoma takes him into his mouth a little, sucking softly. Keigo's hands come to bunch in Ryoma's drenched hair. Ryoma pulls away and pushes Keigo backwards until he's leaning against the wall for support, and then closes his mouth around Keigo's hot dick again, licking him, because Keigo had breathed the heaviest when he had first done that.
Then Keigo comes, softly panting and moaning as Ryoma's tongue makes little patterns down Atobe's length. The semen stains Ryoma's face as he raises his eyes to meet Atobe's rough gaze.
IX
Keigo immediately pushes him into the water; Ryoma's head bangs against the marble of the bottom of the bath, and blackness and water close over his eyes and nose for a short while which seems like hours.
Ryoma thinks, he's going to kill me for what I did.
But Keigo gets on top of him, takes Ryoma's hand and makes him push two fingers into Atobe's hole, something which makes Ryoma make a strangled sound, something close to I love you and don't leave me and I'm starving without you.
Then he takes the fingers out and takes something else in. He starts to ride Ryoma, who stops breathing.
Insanely sensual even as he bites his lip to stop from crying out, Keigo's hands claw at Ryoma's body, one of them grabbing hold of Ryoma's hand and gripping it so tightly Ryoma feels light-headed. He raises his head to watch his cock slipping in and out of Keigo. It must hurt. For Keigo, it really must hurt. But it's hard to believe anything else when Keigo's face is showing the rapture it is, a blush coloring his white face, blue eyes boring into Ryoma, even as he purposefully clenches around Ryoma's dick, stroking his own with his free hand.
It doesn't take long for Ryoma to climax and when he does, Keigo does, too.
X
They fuck on every available surface.
Ryoma thinks up the worst places to have sex. Keigo just loves being fucked by Ryoma, so he goes along with it.
And sometimes, when Keigo thinks Ryoma's asleep but Ryoma obviously isn't, he presses soft kisses to Ryoma's hair and neck and mouths Prince, Ryoma, love, I love you into the skin.
XI
Later, Ryoma tries to kiss Keigo on the mouth, but Keigo draws away, making excuses. Ryoma senses the distance. Ryoma senses the detachment. He doesn't know how to fix it. He doesn't know what caused it. Keigo has unravelled.
"I love you," Ryoma moans, broken. Keigo has nothing to give him but a sad smile.
XII
Keigo Atobe is discovered dead in Prince Ryoma's bed with his wrists slit and the blood staining the satin white sheets on which Ryoma made too many memories with the dead man.
Ryoma is crowned Supreme Emperor.
XIII
Sometimes in the middle of the night, Ryoma slips a hand down his trousers and clenches, until he's gripping himself too tightly for it to be anything other than painful, and he jacks himself, slowly, harshly, letting Keigo's blue eyes look at him all they want, and when he comes, he chokes down Keigo's name until he swallows it and sobs like a man denied happiness.
He has no consort.
The Echizen dynasty ends with his death.