PSOH Band Fics II "Was Not Was' Part 1
Ten's Tale, continued…in a way
Leon slammed the Pet Shop door open one wild stormy night, bringing in with him a mass of wind-swept autumn leaves and a spray of rain drops from the rain-dark street.
"Detective!" the Count exclaimed, rising up from his chair, for it was rather late for Leon to be dropping by – Chris had gone to bed more than an hour previous.
"Count D!" Leon was obviously flustered. The damp and dripping bundle he held in both arms wriggled suddenly and then went limp. Tetsu moved to shut the door behind the hapless detective, a curl of amusement on his lips.
"D! I need your help here – this fox kit—kid—! Whoa! Whoa!" The detective staggered back, barely managing to keep the sodden but now much larger shape he grasped upright and steady. The dark fur under his clenched fingers resolved into firm white flesh, clad in damp leather shorts and fishnet stockings, and a cut-off black silk T-shirt that clung to a boyishly narrow chest.
Leon's mouth achieved a perfect 'O'. He stared down at the stranger in his arms, taking in the wet mascara that streaked down from each closed eye, the spiky hair dyed so dark a red it was nearly black, the prostitute's garb that so strangely and so perfectly clothed the boy he held. The detective nearly dropped his unconscious burden from sheer shock.
"Gawd fucking damn! Jeez, D! He's gotta be one of yours! He was fucking furry a minute ago! Take responsibility, damn it!"
"Ohh! He's so cute, Count! Can we keep him?" Pon-chan was by Leon's side immediately, a hand on the kid's limp bare arm, stroking softly. The teen showed no sign of waking under her gentle touch, his dark head lolling back to expose a milk-white throat marred by love bites.
"Ahh, I see," D smiled mysteriously and then bustled into action, leading the way to the sofa. "Kitsune. A young one, and sorely tried, I do not doubt it. Here, Detective. Lay him on the cushions, if you would be so kind. Where ever did you find him?"
Leon eased the teenager down on the floral couch, tugging the rain-streaked black leather shorts back down to a decent level, with a faint spot of embarrassed color tingeing his high cheek bones as he did so, then unlacing the wet and tangled laces of the boy's shiny engineer boots and hauling them off so that they wouldn't mar the fabric of the upholstry. One of the ladies dithering about the edges of the little knot of people rushed forward with a quilt, throwing it over the still form of the young man, so that only his painted waxen face showed. He lay there, unmoving, a Gothic angel adorned with tattered wings.
"Corner o' Lazenby and Market," Leon replied, when the boy was settled. "He was just lying there – really thought he was toast at first. All cold and stiff-like; just like rigor mortis." Leon turned to face the Count, glaring accusingly at his friend-and-nemesis. "Thought he was a fox kit, too, D. Care to explain why he's not?"
A pause, while D smiled sweetly, Leon glared suspiciously and all the others gathered fell back a pace or two and hid their knowing grins.
"Come now, you've heard of shapeshifters, Detective?" D's dulcet tones took up Leon's challenge with a flourish. "Even an American should know of those—"
Leon bridled instantly at the implication Americans were so behind the times. He snorted.
"Aww, come on, D!" he protested, shaking his head. "What're you talking about? This kid's in the circus or something? Is that what you're saying? He's some kind of presto-chango act?"
"If you care to take it that way, Detective."
The Count glided closer to the couch with his usual grace, noting along the way the ugly beginnings of a bruise on the unconscious teenager's white temple, the tear in his rain-wet fishnets. His facile smile vanished like a will 'o wisp. He lifted his sleek seal dark head and regarded Leon in all seriousness, a fingertip hovering a hair's breadth above the worst of the boy's visible bruises: a blossom of yellowing purple across one sunken cheek.
"…Was he like this when you found him, Leon? Was there anyone else—?"
Leon snorted again, in exasperation at the question. What? Did the Count think he didn't know his own business as a cop?
"Believe me, D, I looked. Nobody and nothin', not for blocks. Kid was beaten up bad and dumped there to rot, from all I could find—no perps, no witnesses—no nuthin'! Figured I'd bring him to you, since he looked kinda' like some of the other ones you've got in your Shop. Think you can help him?"
The Count threw another glance at the anxious detective and returned to his usual smiling state, though this time his features were warm with gentle reassurance.
"I can indeed, my dear detective. Do not trouble yourself about it."
"I'm not 'troubled', damn it!" Leon barked. "Look, D, I just don't wanna lug him down to the station when I've got nothing to show for it! His shill's long gone, damn it. The kid'll only get booked for underage selling, with that get-up." Leon gestured vaguely toward the hooker's garb, neatly hidden under the silken coverlet.
"And he's got friggin' nobody—jeez, you can tell that just by looking at him! Be back out on the street in the morning, if he even made it through the night in the lock-up! Fucking shame where these kids end up anymore!"
Leon stalked around, waving his hands, obviously feeling vaguely useless now that the Count had taken over.
"Oh, but good job, Detective." D nodded absentmindedly, his searching gaze back on the unconscious teenager. "You've done a very good job, bringing him to me. I've always known you're a man of rare honour, Leon. Do have a cup of tea before you depart."
"Jeez, D! Don't give me that crap—shut up, already!" Leon huffed and blustered, but he took the tea Pon-chan handed him without a protest, and settled down in the Count's favourite armchair with a hefty sigh. Only to watch D intently as he deftly went about applying witch-hazel and clean cotton bandages to the boy's many small wounds.
Tetsu snickered to himself as he made sure the Shop was locked up securely for the night. He'd take a stroll a little later, he decided, and see what he could see. Sometimes even the Great Detective Orcot needed a little aid and assistance in hunting down his prey.
0O0
The boy woke finally just as his damp, clingy excuse for clothing had been completely removed, and small hands were carefully tugging white pajamas around his freshly-scrubbed limbs. He blinked long lashes, now clear of the gobs of black mascara that had run in the rain, and threw up a scratched and still ever-so-slightly grubby hand to smooth back his red-black hair.
"Wha? Who? Where? Where am I?" He struggled up on his elbows—or tried to, till those same small hands firmly shoved him back down on the bedding beneath him.
"Don't ch'ya' be worrying yourself none now, me boy. You're at Count D's Pet Shop now – you're more than safe enough, I reckon."
"Who?" The boy's eyes widened by degrees. Startled, he stared about him, seeing a swirl of painted rice screens and bamboo matting, silk hangings and another futon spread out on the floor. The room was warm and dim, lit only by a hanging oil lamp, which gave off the most deliciously scented smoke.
"No! I—I must!" With a gasp, he was attempting to rise once more. "I can't!"
It was a little old lady who peered down at him, her voice as ancient and reedy as her body was shrunken and plump, her wrinkled hands adeptly finishing the task of tidying him up even as she cackled reassurances at him. The young man blinked his hazel eyes at her, puzzled and very clearly terrified by the change in his circumstances. He thrashed a bit, feebly, but the old crone had placed a surprisingly strong hand on his thin chest when he'd first started that and she kept it there still. He was effectively immobilized by his unknown nurse.
He subsided, obedient, though his full lower lip quivered yet.
"Now, now, me boy! No need for that nonsense. The Count wants you ta' sleep some more. You're to stay in Lord Ten's room, since the two of ya' are the same kind, thinks he. T'will be some company for ya'."
"But!" It was gulp of protest, barely out before the old woman's voice rolled right over it.
"The Count'll do ya' no harm, boy. He's refuge for ones like us, don't ya' know?" The ancient grinned and winked at him knowingly, revealing a slew of small, sharp teeth that were not human. The boy's eyes went wide at that and then he seemed to accept his new fate altogether, shutting his eyes again so that dark lashes that owed nothing to artifice fanned across his pale cheeks.
"Nor Lord Ten, neither. Him's one that'll take your side here, sonny – that is, if'n he ever deigns to wake up!" The old lady cackled meaningfully, her bright-eyed glance going to the room's other occupant, a youngish blonde man of indeterminate age, clad similarly in white silk pajamas, and presently fast asleep on the next futon over. "Been dreamin', he has."
"L-Lord T-T-Ten?" At the repetition of that name, the boy did sit up, hurriedly, scrabbling away at the covers, his face gone absolutely ashen. "No, no! You don't understand! I-I c-can't stay here! I can't! I mustn't!"
"And why ever not, young kitsune?" Another voice chimed in, startling the distraught boy into the stillness of an animal at bay. He turned his still damp head to face a man who was oddly beautiful, with mismatched eyes of amethyst and gold that radiated a kind and warm welcome – yet which were ever so very faintly amused!
This man, too, wore pajamas of cream-colored silk, just like the boy's newly borrowed ones, but they only made his appearance even more immensely elegant, whereas the boy was reduced to waifishness, swimming as he was in yards of excess cloth.
The man chuckled. The boy blushed a solid crimson, the color in sharp contrast to his former pallid hue.
"Ten-chan will not mind, my dear," the man said. His voice was cool and terribly cultured, and yet still as warm as his intently observant gaze. "Nor shall I. I'm always overjoyed to have another guest stay at my Shop, do believe me. Besides, you'll need time to rest and recover, if I'm not mistaken. Your chosen line of work evidently has not been at all kind to you. "
The kitsune's pale face flushed an even darker crimson with both shame and foreboding. He struggled out of his self-imposed silence.
"No! Sir, you don't understand!" he exclaimed breathily. "Lord T-Ten wouldn't want me here, I know it! I am unclean. I've—I've sinned, Sir! I cannot—I am not allowed to be anywhere near my Lords! I-it's b-better if I l-leave—!"
"Oh, no. I don't think so, young kitsune," came the suddenly steely reply, and the young man's girlishly long eyelashes fluttered in confusion. He was shy, at best, and retiring, easily swayed by the voice of authority. His Oma had only to bark a few sharp words to her obedient adoptee and he would immediately do whatever he'd been told.
It had always been that way, the kitsune boy knew. It was his nature, however much he might rail against it. He'd never been one of life's leaders; always a follower, him.
He ducked his pointy chin nearly to his chest, focusing on the man's slippered feet instead. The way those eyes regarded him—though most definitely full of care and concern—left him intensely nerve-wracked.
"Stay," the man purred, a perfectly manicured hand rising to indicate the boy's bedding. "Settle down and sleep instead of running, kitsune. There'll be plenty of time for your protestations in the morning." The insistent golden swirl of one odd eye left a strong impression of calm on the skittish young man's mind. He blinked again, sleepily, and ceased all thoughts of arguing, his mouth closing with a snap.
"There's a good boy, then," the old lady said, tucking him back up. "Count D'll never steer ya' wrong. Rest, now. Don't mind the old fox in the corner." Still chuckling, she patted his knee and scuttled out, pulling the door nearly closed behind her.
Hazel eyes went wide with fear at her casual mention of the Fox Spirit. The boy whipped his tousled head on the snowy pillow so he could stare up at the man the badger woman referred to—this strange 'Count D'—his pretty face twisted into a rictus of alarm.
"Wait! I will not offend the Lord Ten, Sir! I dare not! I really must go, Sir—"
"Shush," the odd-eyed man said, waving that expressive hand again. "Do settle down, young man. You're not nearly well enough to offend a mouse, much less the Trickster. I'd worry more that he'd pester you—were he awake, that is. But, fortunately, he is not."
"I am not worthy, Sir! Not even to breath the same air! He is—!"
The odd-eyed man, the one who must be the Count, smiled sweetly, nodded reassuringly, and roundly ignored his frantic protests, as though all the sum of the kitsune's agitation was nothing more than a tiny tempest in a teacup.
"Indeed, kitsune. He is. But you cannot offend him, whither you will it or no. You are my guest, after all. And he is a soft-hearted fox spirit…indeed, as I rather suspect you are. The unpleasant past has no power here, in my domain, kitsune. Be at peace in my Shop, as my Lord Ten is. Rest."
The Count turned away at that, calmly dismissive, obviously intent on leaving the boy to follow his directions, but then glanced back a split second later, one pale hand resting on the brass doorknob.
"Ah, one small thing before I leave you. Have you a name of your own, young man? I cannot continue to refer to you as simply 'kitsune'. So rude." An inquiring brow arched up.
"Ah…um. No, my Lord." The kitsune boy blushed for third time, two high spots of fever running along each washed-out cheek. He cast his misty eyes down, all too obviously ashamed of himself, and fidgeted his hands under the covers, wringing them together. "I do not."
"Hmm," the Count murmured. "Very well. Rest now. We'll deal with whatever else may arise in the morning, as civilized people do. For now, you should not worry unduly about your relative state of spiritual cleanliness, nor let yourself be at all concerned with that wily old rascal. He'll likely still be sleeping when you wake - and never even realize you've been and gone!"
The closing of the door cut off the Count's amused chuckle and shielded the young man's seemingly never-ebbing hot blush. He sighed deeply in relief, his breath hitching in the now quiet room, and risked a fast sidelong glance at the Fox Lord.
His Lordship Ten was also an oddly beautiful man, his golden locks trailing across a white pillow, his slight form curled neatly in sleep. He gave off an certain aura of benign good nature, a particular playfulness, even asleep, and even though the young kitsune knew for fact the Fox God was a terribly powerful one, and sometimes even known to be cruel in his jests. The youth's mind drifted as he gazed his fill at the one who had haunted him, sleeping and waking, for more years than he could count.
Oma had told him of such a one, years ago, back when she first hadn't eaten him. He'd been barely able to care for himself then, truly a pup, and still amazed that some strange twist of unkind fate allowed him life.
The kitsune had their God, as did the owls, she'd said. When Oma had told him tales of the great Lord Ten, the young kitsune pup had shivered in response, both delighted and afraid. He had not known there could be such a one, greater than all the rest, nor even that there were others like him, capable of modifying their physical forms at will. The knowledge gave him a furtive happiness, all alone in his unbearable youth and utterly at the mercy of his natural enemy, but the Fox God's name had struck some odd, uneasy chord in his soul.
The kit had trembled at its first mention and felt his heart racing unbearably fast. His breath came in gasps, and fear and joy had swamped him, nearly carrying him away from consciousness. Oma had been hard-pressed to calm him down, pecking his small head sharply to regain his childish attention.
For hours after, he'd laid curled into a tiny ball, nursing that strange, unearthly excitement.
Oma took care to speak of the great Lord Ten seldom after that first incident, for the kit she had rescued became entirely too agitated, every time. And she would brook no uncalled for excitement, and especially not for a God who hadn't walked incarnate amongst his followers for centuries.
The Great Horned Owl Oma had been the kitsune's surrogate mother, of sorts, whisking his cowering form off the damp midnight grass and carrying him far from the scene of his family's demise, the cold air nearly knocking the kit fox senseless when at last she swooped down from dark, frigid skies with her prey, settling silent and lordly at the base of the ancient oak she called home.
Oma hadn't eaten him. It still shocked the young kitsune, that fact, no matter how much time passed. He hadn't understood her actions then, nor could he now, for the owl had never claimed a single jot of affection for him, even as a helpless babe. But his mother's face – the childish voices of his dead siblings – they were but ghosts of memories now, and Oma…Oma was clear and fresh in his mind, a strict and solemn personality so imprinted on his soul that the boy could not even imagine being raised by any other.
He had been Oma's child, in soul if not in egg, and still was, though she would have surely slit his throat with one great talon if she knew what he did now to earn his keep.
'No better than he should be.'
Self-condemnation surged through the kitsune again, as it had so many times since he'd ventured out of Oma's lands. He turned his weary hazel eyes away from the Fox God, for he wasn't fit to view someone as holy as Lord Ten.
He shouldn't even be in the same room with his revered Lord. He was unclean, a fallen one, a blot on the Fox God's horizon. He should, by all rights, be dead.
But he didn't know any other way, his tortured, naïve young soul cried out, in pitiable self-defense. How else could he live here in this grey, faceless city, so close to these all-powerful humans? What else was he to do, trapped by their falsehoods, shunned by his own kind? If even there existed any more like him, save the God himself.
Oma's owls hadn't wanted him either, driving him from her Tree, chasing him from his night's long vigil by her cold, silent body.
The boy slept at last, in desperation, for he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer, no matter how guilty he felt for simply daring to exist in this warm, quiet room, laid out alongside of his people's Lord. He dreamt: of Oma sheltering his shivering form with one huge wing, her feathers soft as down against the snow of his makeshift burrow, her golden eyes alert and unblinking.
He dreamt, for he had been happy then, and that happiness led him back, past this life and into others, till he tripped the stairs of memory altogether and lost his footing; fell headlong into the distant past.
0O0
"Who're you?"
He had turned slowly, ever the most graceful one of his father's many children, his long dark hair of which he was so proud flowing like a great cloud of silky smoke across his white-clad back. The melodious voice had surprised him, caught him unawares as he gazed at the peaceful river, dreamily eying the pleasure boats.
When he looked, it had been all over, in one single crystalline instant of time. He had fallen in love, tumbled headlong into adoration and lust and wanton desire, so hard and so hopelessly that he'd lost his breath altogether and could only gasp at the face of the fairest man he'd ever the pleasure of viewing; a radiant presence that made him feel at once both very small and very, very special.
It had been the first and only time the boy had loved like that, a humble, fervent supplicant at the feet of his heart's lord. There had never been another, and he could not even comprehend the possibility. His love for his Lord had been all-consuming, driving him to lie, to sin – driving him ultimately to madness.
But….it had been a dream only, those golden, long-ago days, fleeting and pure. He'd known it all along, though he'd clung so desperately then to the illusion it would last him forever. And he had never been worthy, not once. His lot was to be his family's sacrifice. There was no escaping his fate, nor changing his future, even if the gods themselves intervened. He was doomed to be his nation's blood-bound offering to the Divine Emperor, and to the Emperor he would go, even if Hell opened an abyss at his very feet to stay them.
He remembered the dream of love ever after, though, unto death, his wasted body wracked with the fevers that came from the dread syphilis, his mind twisted and broken by the endless days of being the Divine's 'favourite.' He'd been 'favourite' from the moment he'd been whisked away from his Lord and escorted forcibly to the Emperor. 'Favourite', sadly, meant nothing more than 'toy', or so he'd learnt from hard experience. Better if he had died at that moment of love's revelation, he was sure, than suffer that.
Better if he had never lived at all, if he only lived to deny his god.
"Who're you?" That very same voice asked once again and the young kitsune scrambled up from his futon, trembling, for he was not fit to be in the same room with the Fox God and he knew it, no matter what the odd Count had said to the contrary.
Oh, gods! Better if Oma had left him to die that first night, for hunger and exhaustion were as nothing compared to this painful half-remembered longing.
The boy half-crawled, half-stumbled away from the bright, inquiring gaze, sobbing, his coverlet dragging behind and entangling him, but the Fox God was between him and the door.
"My Lord! My Lord!" He whimpered the words, in prayer, in apology, and kept his brown-green gaze trained firmly on the tatami mat. If he looked—if he even looked!
"What ails you, young one? Are you ill?"
Lord Ten was nothing like angry; he was puzzled.
He peered at the hunched form of the young fox spirit fallen into a heap before his bare feet, brows climbing a confused and still somewhat sleepy face.
"Do I know you, boy? Are you from around here?"
"…m'Lord…so s-sorry!"
Answered only by a pathetic moan of incoherent apology, Ten-chan knelt and put his arms around the shivering, crying boy, entirely unaware that his action only caused the young kitsune more grief.
"My Lord! Do not touch me!" The young man finally looked up, his fine eyes red from a seemingly never-ending stream of tears, his face glazed with shock and horror at his own position. He struggled weakly against the Fox God's firm grasp.
"I am unclean! You must not be near me!"
"Pish tosh." Ten stared at the boy's face more closely, a little frown creasing his fair brow. "Are you certain I don't know you?"
"No! No, you don't know me! I am nothing, my Lord, nothing! Please—" the kitsune cried out, still sobbing breathlessly. He bowed down, wretched, trying to escape Ten's hands and press his burning face into the floor.
All a dream, and yet his heart soared in his chest—
"Please disregard me, Lord – please!"
Only a dream, and yet he reveled in the fleeting touch of fingertips, and grasped the scrap of unknowing kindness to his soul.
"Who hit you? That looks nasty." Ten-chan ran a finger across the bruise that marred the kitsune's face instead, entirely disregarding the boy's impassioned pleas.
"Don't! Don't touch me, my Lord! I am dirty! Please don't torment me so! Look away! Ignore me!"
"Hardly. You're in my quarters and you're screaming bloody murder, boy. A little difficult to ignore, yes?"
The kitsune only shook his head in a wordless plea, jerking away from the touch of the Fox God. He fell backward onto the floor in an ungainly sprawl and attempted to cover his wet face with trembling hands.
Ten-chan's gaze sharpened further, sliding to the discarded heap of leather and fishnet, catching the faint traces of blush and lip liner that the old badger had missed in her hasty scrubbing. He did not miss the faint marks of teeth and lips on the boy's neck, nor the scratches that showed fading weals on his thin chest, visible now that the pajama top had slipped from one pale shoulder.
"I see. This is how you feed that whiny maw? How very…sad, that one of mine should've come to such a pass."
The kitsune boy threw himself forward at Ten-chan's feet in abject obeisance, pressing himself flat against the tatami, clearly desiring to hide himself among the fibers if he could. The stern voice of his god completely unmanned him and there was no fire left within his soul to protest.
"Lord…" he whispered, faintly, but not what to say after.
He was indeed 'no better than he should be': an eyesore, a disgrace to his kind. If the great Lord Ten would only be so merciful as to leave him for a moment, turn that all-seeing gaze away, so that he could flee back to the street-corner from whence he'd come…or perhaps the Lord Ten might finally kill him now, in disgust; take his worthless life, so that, at the last, he could die at the hands of his beloved, as was his wish.
Oma would knock him ass-over-teakettle if she were here to see how far he had fallen, but, really, what was there left to wish for?
He could not even risk a confession, for the Lord Ten would not remember one silly, pretty boy from a hundred lifetimes ago. He'd been nothing but a piece of available tail to his Lord then—a passing fancy, a thing to fuck and while away the pleasant hours; it would only embarrass the Fox God to be worshipped still by one such as he.
Ten-chan rose, as if he'd somehow read the kitsune's mind, his pajamas whispering around limbs as fair and firm as the kitsune remembered, his merry features set and severe.
"I shall call the Count, boy. He'll know best what to do with you."
The kitsune nodded abjectly, focusing on the lordly toes at his eye level, feasting on the sight of them, though he knew he should not. He did not dare say a word in return, for the sound of his voice would only sully Lord Ten's ears.
Ten-chan turned away, unaware of the hungry eyes that peeped up cautiously, following the sweep of silk at his trim ankles. The door opened before he could get to it, though, and Count D swept into the room.
"I see you've met." Count D's mismatched eyes examined each of the occupants, missing nothing, from the huddle of miserable teenager on the floor to the puzzled and slightly miffed expression on his favourite Fox God's face. But D carried on as though everything were absolutely normal within.
"Excellent. Breakfast, then? No need to change, kitsune – we are not formal here...or, at least, not in the mornings. Leon, the police detective who brought you here last night, dear boy, will no doubt be stopping by at any moment demanding an opportunity to check up on you. Our young Christopher is practically dancing in his seat in excitement, Ten-chan, for you have woken much sooner than expected. Was your latest dream a good one?"
The young fox boy's gaze inched back down to the rush matting, for he was in the presence of power, doubled now that his god was joined by another, and he could only be deathly silent. He nodded, unwilling to draw attention but obedient, as ever.
"Come on then, boy." Ten-chan shrugged off his pique and rearranged his face into a truly merry one. He grabbed the teenager's arm and hauled him to his unsteady feet, urging him willy-nilly toward the exit. "Can't keep the kid waiting."
The kitsune nearly swooned at Ten's rough touch and had to keep his eyes fixed firmly to his toes for endless minutes after the Fox God carelessly shrugged him off, his head swimming with shame and the shamelessness of longing, till he could barely see the crush of people in the Parlor for the rush of emotion clouding his hazel eyes.
0O0