Author's Corner

I honestly don't know how this happened. One day I was just hit with a huge sudden urge to write for these three, so I did, and thus, this monster was born. I'm not sure exactly how long it will be, but I have a ton of ideas so I guess we'll see how things go.

There will be multiple POV's, as well as pretty... detailed descriptions of sexual content, so if you don't like that (or this relationship), go away. Horror is also a pretty big part of this, so if you're looking for fluff, you reeally won't like this. It's very likely that this won't end in a happily ever after, so as long as you know that before going in, you'll be fine.

If you do like it and want to read more, leave a comment! Enjoy!

(18.11.2017) Reuploaded from Archive of Our Own.

PAPER FLOWERS

Chapter 1: Ghost

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There was a decorum, Kikyo had found, in dying and being born-again. In being taken apart and put back together; in being obliterated and having all the pieces reform into something similar to the original, yet different. She was an enchanted doll, wandering the darkened hallways of a castle forgotten in mist. Sometimes she felt like a ghost, swallowing the souls of lamented maidens in order to keep the clockwork in her porcelain ligaments turning.

If not for the monsters that roamed the same hallways she did, she could have been the only person left in the world.

But she was not.

Her only companions were a demon king—a fallen king, rather, for his kingdom was in shambles and his people were all dead—and a spider made man, whose lust and greed had been so powerful that he too had been reborn as she had. She knew who they were, knew their names and their stories, but those things held little value now.

A memory meant nothing now.

They came to her in the night, and she often found herself unable to distinguish dream from reality in their presence.

Naraku's eyes were red and almost luminous as he loomed above her, filled with malice and desire and hatred. When he entered her, he held her hands above her head by her wrists and never tore his eyes away from hers. His thrusts were well paced and strong, and afterwards, he suckled the base of her neck, his tongue hot and lapping at her pretend flesh. He had wanted this—sold his soul to the darkness itself—for so long. So he took his time, and brought himself to climax after climax, but no matter how much he took, he could never take what he really wanted . . .

He could never make her love him.

Sesshoumaru was different. There was no long-lasting desire with him. No promises. Just quick, desperate oblivion. His face was always cast in shadow, and unlike Naraku, he never looked her in the eyes. Instead, he pulled her close, bit her throat, and fucked her into a stupor. He never tried to revitalise himself, or rise up from the ashes he was drowning in.

When he fucked her, it was like he was trying to make himself disappear.

She never spoke, just gasped and sobbed in the height of her pleasure, and then he was gone, as if he had never been there in the first place.

She was always left alone in the end.

One night, as she perched in her too-large bed waiting for them like an obedient little bird, she decided she didn't want to be a ghost anymore. She didn't want to be a plaything, or a means of simply expelling out their frustrations. She had let them take and take from her, but now she wanted something in return.

She wanted to take something back.

So when Naraku's shadowy silhouette materialised in the doorway, instead of waiting for him to come to her, she slid off the bed and walked towards him. His eyes trapped her, taking her moon-soaked form in, and she stopped just before him. He always looked so much smaller than she remembered. So much less threatening.

So much more like the morning after a dream, where her memories of him were vague, and gradually fading.

She supposed that was his punishment for losing the war over the jewel.

Feeling Sesshoumaru's presence near, she circled Naraku and then stopped behind him, waiting for him to turn around to face her before pushing him towards the bed. He lowered himself down so that he was sitting on the edge, and she stared down at him, her hands sliding up to brush his shoulders. He watched her, curiously, and she pushed the folds of his haori down to expose his bare upper torso. She knew Sesshoumaru was watching from somewhere in the gloom, and a tiny smile played on her lips as she leaned forward and kissed him. The kiss was feather-light, but the air was heavy, and when she pulled away, his breathing was ragged.

Not letting go of his gaze, her hands trailed down his naked chest until they came to rest on top of his thighs. Her grip was hardly crushing, but it was firm, and she held him in place as she planted another brisk kiss to his mouth. This one was harder, more demanding, and he responded by opening his mouth and flicking his tongue against her bottom lip. She moved one hand up from his thigh and pulled at the waistband of his hakama, her fingers dipping past it and across the warm flesh beneath.

Footfalls finally sounded in the doorway and she smiled against his mouth. Pulling away, she turned to glance over her shoulder and saw Sesshoumaru standing there, his youki enormous and burning.

His eyes were glazed over with dripping lust, and the corners of her mouth edged into a winning smirk.

She removed her hands from Naraku's thighs and climbed onto the bed with him. She crawled behind him and massaged her hands across his shoulders and back, her eyes still locked with Sesshoumaru's. Naraku's pulse hammered hard against her palm when she cupped his neck, and she leaned in to press a sequence of unhurried kisses to his shoulder. She could feel Sesshoumaru's desire radiating from the other end of the room, and Naraku's breathing was hoarse as she coiled her legs around him from behind and grazed his skin with her teeth.

Before she could even reach down into his hakama pants, Sesshoumaru was suddenly at the foot of the bed, towering above them both with scorching eyes.

Naraku studied him carefully, seemingly trying to calculate what he was about to do, but Kikyo simply lifted his head with his chin and then nipped the shell of his ear. Holding Sesshoumaru's gaze, her eyes flashed with dangerous boldness.

"Kiss him," she said.

Once he would have been disgusted. Once he would have killed her for even suggesting it, but that was back in a time when they still had places in this life.

Back when he was a sovereign ruling over his people. When Naraku was coveting the jewel and steadily growing in power. And when she was a simple miko, who gathered herbs, prayed in a temple, and cared for her younger sister . . . A whole world ago.

Those people were gone.

Obeying her demand, Sesshoumaru wrapped his hand around Naraku's neck and pulled him in for a harsh, unforgiving kiss. Naraku choked out a gasp as Sesshoumaru squeezed his neck, and Sesshoumaru used the opportunity to plunge his tongue into his mouth.

Heat pooled in the pit of Kikyo's stomach, and she reached forward to pull Sesshoumaru's haori away. The sound of their lips smacking together sent fire spreading through her whole terracotta body. Her nipples ached against the cloth of her kimono, sore and already erect, and she shifted farther back on the bed to grant them more room.

Sesshoumaru used the expanded space and shoved Naraku down onto the bed, climbing on top of him and still devouring his mouth. His fangs were long, she saw as he growled low against Naraku's mouth, and when he opened his eyes, the whites of them were now dark red.

They shot to hers and she felt herself freeze at the sheer brutality she saw—the animalistic haze he'd fallen under.

His true face.

This is what a demon looks like, she thought. This is the creature hiding beneath the sheepskin of a man they charade around in.

Regardless . . . She was not afraid.

Dying, it seemed, had completely destroyed any mark of fear she'd had.

Unexpectedly, shrill laughter burst from Naraku's lips, and the two of them averted their focus to where he laid sprawled out in a mess beneath Sesshoumaru. The laughter was cruel—mocking. The same laughter that had haunted her dreams. But not even that scared her.

She scuttled forward and shoved three fingers into his mouth to silence him.

Sesshoumaru's monstrous face showed traces of amusement at that, before he dug his fingers into her hair and forced her head forward to seal their mouths together. The kiss was violent and demanding, and she found herself moaning into it, her fingers still stuffed tightly in Naraku's mouth.

In all their nights of passion together, he'd never kissed her before. Not once. Not a single time. His head had always remained facedown against her breasts, like he was trying to pretend she was anyone else. Trying to pretend he couldn't stop coming back to her, like a locust to a dandelion.

That wasn't the case now.

His tongue danced around hers and she felt his claws scraping against her scalp, drawing more and headier moans. He caught her bottom lip between his teeth and pulled at it, so hard that it would have drawn blood if she had any to spill.

"Undress," he rasped, then drew away and dragged Naraku up into a seating position.

Filled with wooziness and quickly growing arousal, she slipped out of her kimono and watched his hands wander to Naraku's black hakama pants with intense attentiveness. He tore through the material in a matter of seconds and took his cock in his hand, giving it a couple of hard strokes which withdrew a string of musical groans from Naraku. Kikyo watched the muscles in his back shifting as Sesshoumaru worked him, the bruise-hued spider mark shifting with every ripple as if it were alive and straining to be freed. She felt hypnotised by it, drugged into a sense of wistfulness, and she felt herself falling into a nostalgic trance . . .

The memory of a girl came to her. A girl watching the other village girls with envy as they painted their faces and rouged their lips. That girl had wanted to be like them. Had wanted it so badly. As guardian of the jewel, and village miko, a life like that had been impossible then, but now . . . Now . . .

She just wanted to feel like an ordinary girl.

As she watched her demon king and spider hiss and pleasure each other, the realisation settled that she would never be ordinary. She would never laugh with other girls, she would never marry, and she would never bear any children. Those parts of life had abandoned her. Even her own soul had abandoned her, now warm and bright within Kagome's breast, and filling her with kindness and the ability to do what Kikyo could no longer ever do . . .

Love.

It made her feel angry. So angry.

And sad.

She hated feeling like that.

So she demolished those deplorable cravings of her heart, and yanked Naraku's hair so hard his head shot skyward and a moan exploded from his lips. She turned his head sideways and kissed him, her breasts rubbing against his back and creating a torturous friction.

She heard a soft growling coming from the back of Sesshoumaru's throat, so she stretched out her hand, still kissing Naraku relentlessly, and pushed a finger into his mouth. She could feel his sharp canines and the vibration of his growls, until he caught her wrist with his free hand and began swirling his tongue around her finger.

The sensation caused a slickness to gather between her legs, and she rolled her hips rhythmically against the bedsheets as her stimulated sighs were swallowed by Naraku's mouth. She wanted to take and take from them until she forgot her own name, her memories, and whatever remaining purpose she had in this poisoned world. She wanted everything to fade away into obscurity, to ink on a page, to an ancient fairy tale that would be told like a secret.

Hysteria swallowed her whole.

Her lips broke away from Naraku's with a loud smack! and she shoved him down onto the bed in one swift motion. She stared down at him, his skin translucent and twisting with pleasure as Sesshoumaru's hand continued to pump his cock, and his hair was fanned out all around him in dark waves of ink. Her face was a blend of madness and severity as she looked down on him, and he laughed at the sight of it.

She hated him. Hated him for tearing apart her life.

Folding her hands around his neck, she squeezed hard and breathed a feverish laugh at the choking sound he made when Sesshoumaru finally brought him to completion. She could kill him. She could kill him right there. Crush his windpipe, burn off his face with her powers, anything. He was completely and hopelessly at her mercy. He deserved to die at her hand, but somehow, still . . . She felt her traitorous mind falling victim to the seduction.

If she killed him, that would be one less face to look at her with anything other than bitterness or pity.

Sesshoumaru would come to his senses one day. At some point, he would leave this cursed place and never come back, but Naraku wasn't that strong. No, not in the slightest.

He wasn't strong enough to break free from her.

He was the only thing that was truly and utterly hers.

He panted, skin coated with sweat, and she let go of his throat. He stared at her, still breathing deeply in the wake of his orgasm, before he shot up and grabbed her. Before she could react, he shoved her legs apart and buried his face in her cunt.

She cried out as his tongue stoked the fires inside her, and opened her eyes to peek at Sesshoumaru, whose eyes were still locked on her. They were like rubies, glowing in the dark, and she stifled a sob as he shifted closer and carefully cupped her cheeks. The stripes on his cheeks were jagged and changing, and she reached out to lightly brush her fingers along them. She never broke eye contact with him. Even when Naraku added his fingers to her dripping slit and made her gasp and tremble. She came twice from his hands alone, and Sesshoumaru kissed her again as she rode out the aftershocks of her orgasm.

She could feel it again as he did. That desperation—him trying to throw himself into the abyss that came after this world.

Perhaps he hoped she would kill him, like she'd contemplated killing Naraku just then. Perhaps he hoped she would burn all three of them, and take them away from this horrible place and into a silence they could sleep forever in.

She secretly wished that she would.

Naraku lifted his head from between her legs and smiled.

It was the smile of a murderer.

Sesshoumaru reached for him and lapped up the juices running down his chin as if it was a sweet wine. Her juices. Her breathing was soft and laboured as she watched them finish each other.

Just as he had with her, Sesshoumaru clamped his teeth down on Naraku's neck and bucked into his hand. His sharp teeth pierced his flesh and blood spilt down his chest and stomach. Kikyo leaned forward and kissed down the trail of red. It painted her lips and stained her hands.

The only rouge she would ever wear.

She stroked and tasted it, feeling Sesshoumaru's claws graze the small of her back, and Naraku moaned under the fog of the many sensations. She didn't know how long they stayed like that, just touching one another, or when she started to cry. Sesshoumaru cleaned up her tears with his tongue, and she felt Naraku's hands slide between her legs again. Her makeshift heart hammered in her chest and she laid down on the bedsheets. She could have sworn there were more than two pairs of hands on her. Like the darkness of the castle itself had grown hands and was caressing her too, fucking her with its monstrous phantom fingers.

If she turned her head towards the open shoji screens, she could see the night sky, and the half-moon suspended in the centre of it.

Her Shinidamachu sailed above the rolling mist, like ghosts, and her eyelids floated closed. With every climax, she felt like she was flying with them. Like she'd grown imaginary wings and was high above all this . . . Where Naraku was only a whisper of darkness, Sesshoumaru was not a king in exile, and her heartbeat filled her with relentless warmth instead of ice. She didn't have to hide in the shadows of a lonely castle there, and her dreams weren't hollow or foolish.

Kikyo had not dreamed since her revival, but that night she did as she slept in the tangle of Naraku and Sesshoumaru's limbs. She dreamed of golden fields and flowers, blue skies and a summer breeze, and children smiling as they waited for her on the riverbank.

She dreamed of a world where she was no longer an unwanted ghost.

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