Disclaimer: I don't own. This chapter has ADULT CONTENT. DO NOT READ if you are under 18 or you're just not the lemon/lime type of reader. ADULT CONTENT WARNING!!!
ADULT CONTENT WARNING
Tea.
So many days spent with tea. It seems almost impossible to irradicate the taste from his mouth. A swish and a swirl of it around his mouth and its gone. The warmth pervading through his every fiber. It's amazing how such a simple liquid could calm one's soul so much. He finishes his daily cup and he pushes it disdainfully aside – the cup useless without the liquid.
He looks up and mutters a thanks.
She disappears and won't come back until the next day. She never sits with him anymore. She never has time anymore.
"Aoshi- sama… are you okay?" She questioned him one day.
He looks up and sketches her face into his mind, he doesn't want to forget it – ever.
"Are you OKAY?" She questions him again and louder this time.
"No." He replies and unfolds his impossibly long legs and stands up. He overshadows her and looks down at her and walks away.
She is left dejected; her folded legs sprawl out in exasperation. A puppet without its strings, or a woman without her support – it is still the same posture.
She bends over and gathers what is the remnant of an everyday tradition - the tea, the whisk, the cup that he so ceremoniously pressed to his lips, the very things that are her last ties to him. It's no wonder that she has an unnatural attachment to such ordinary things.
That night, she hears his shallow breathing and she swallows her pride and climbs out of her bed and pushes her shoiji aside. She paces her way towards his screen door, and quietly pries it open.
It doesn't matter to her that her entering his room was extremely taboo, it doesn't matter to her that it could doubtlessly ruin her reputation, and it doesn't matter to her if he could possibly hate her afterwards.
She pauses before his bed. She's extremely surprised he hasn't awoken yet, and even further surprised by the fact that even in his sleep – he seems distraught.
It takes all of her courage for her to peel the blanket slightly back and place her hand on his bed for support as she climbs into with him.
She feels his languid body stiffen at the intruder. She hears his breathing quicken as he realizes it's her - Misao.
He yanks back the blanket and shuffles his way into a sitting position. His eyes wide and his nostrils flaring. Gaping at her and her disheveled appearance, he is unsurprisingly speechless.
"Misao, what are you doing here?!" The words seething out of his mouth.
She doesn't answer him. She pulls the blanket down and nudges him back into a laying position.
He is too shocked to move on his own accord.
"Misao, you shouldn't be here, it is improper. Get out."
The whisper sounding harsh against the silence, it almost brings Misao to tears.
"Please stop. Please stop this." She croaks, her eyes rimmed with tears.
"Please stop all of this Aoshi. Please I can't take it any longer. If you are no longer satisfied by staying here then leave. I don't want to bind you to ties that you've never felt. I don't want you to stay here if it kills you, if it is suffocating you. Don't stay here because you think it'll kill me – because honestly you can't kill what's already dead. So please stop."
"Already dead?" He questions her, his mind slightly fearing what she had to say.
"I've turned to dust Aoshi, haven't you noticed?"
"Turned to dust?"
"Turned into dust, I've nothing but ashes to offer you and you didn't even want me when I was whole, how could you ever love me when I've turned into something less?"
"You're not anything less. I don't understand Misao. You just need to go back to your own bed and sleep and you'll feel better."
She looks at him, and leans into him, and whispers to him, "If I leave this bed, I'll disperse into the winds, there are no more ties here for me Aoshi. There is nothing for me to live for; all I've wanted is gone. "
Her lips barely inches away from his ears as she mutters, "Gone" again and again into his ears.
It was certainly not a threat, just an honest confession.
"Have I done this to you? Have I made you this way?"
There is no response to his question, and silence lays over them like a suffocating blanket. He already knows the answer and she doesn't reply because she knows that he already knows the answer to his question. A response would've have been rude, a response would've crushed him.
She lies next to him and wishes him a good night.
He was pinned to corner; he couldn't do anything but sleep.
He wakes up the next day to find her gone.
He'll never tell her that when she slept next to him, he didn't have nightmares. He would die before he told her that it was his first peaceful sleep in more than a decade.
He dresses in a simple yukata and walks to the temple. Just because she slept with him last night didn't mean that his everyday routine would be broken.
He meditates for hours before he hears the footsteps of Misao.
She smiles at him, and settles herself into their tradition. They were both animals of habits.
He wishes he could speak to her about last night, how it can't happen again, how it must not happen again – but nothing comes out but a thanks .
The cup is released from his lips. He is done and she gathers the things to leave.
Is it too selfish of him to ask for one more night of peace? Two nights of sleep where the demons didn't visit him, two nights of a torment- less sleep among a decade of nights spent in chaos was all he was asking for.
That night, she did the same thing she did before. She peeled back his blanket and crawls into bed with him.
He doesn't stiffen this time and he doesn't say a single word.
He just sleeps because she'll protect him from his demons, because she's right next to him.
It's not too much to ask for – two nights. Two nights were doable, and he wonders in his sleep if three nights would be pushing it, and he wonders if eternity would be just too much, if forever was too rude and selfish to ask for.
Misao smiles in her sleep, and Aoshi doesn't know – he doesn't know what this is doing for her.
She hasn't slept well since the years when she was still a child. She hasn't had rest in her days or nights.
She can't ask him for too much though. She can't ask for what he can't give. She can't ask anymore because he's already a broken man – asking for anything else will leave him hollowed out.
The next day she offers him his tea.
He relishes the taste, a bitterness that awakes him to reality.
"Aoshi, I apologize for the intrusion."
He places his cup down, a silent signal of his finishing, of the ending of their routine.
She doesn't crawl into his bed that night, and he is left again to face his tormentors. His bed is cold and he sleeps fitfully.
The day after that night, she returns to her muted conversation. They both act like nothing has happened.
Her eyes are shallow and there are telltale signs of bags under her eyes.
She doesn't tell him that she didn't sleep a wink last night, but of course, she never tells him anything anymore.
The night after that night, and that night after that night – he remains alone, alone with his demons. Night after night are added onto an already growing number of sleepless nights.
Several of weeks have passed and not one word is exchange between them.
Then the tradition is broken one late evening.
He realizes Misao has not yet come to serve him his tea. The routine was broken. She arrives an hour late huffing and puffing. Her eyes red from what he could only guess as tears. She doesn't explain to him what was wrong and he doesn't ask.
It's not his business.
She doesn't belong to him.
She serves him tea, hands shaking from anger and she almost spills her tea. She waits impatiently as he finishes the last drop of tea and whisks her material away. Her hair flying as she rushes from the temple. Her feet caring her with as much urgency as it could with tray full of pottery.
He finds out later that night from Okon that Misao has retired early because Okina has upset her by mentioning an arranged marriage.
Okina looks at Aoshi for a response, but Okina is awarded with nothing.
Stoic as ever, even when something was being taken away from him – even as his soul was being stolen from him.
No more peaceful nights ever if Misao left.
No more solace.
No more of anything.
He walks upstairs and lies in his bed fully clothed. He has already begun to waste away.
Later that night Misao lets a terrified but small shriek. But a hand clamps her mouth and the scream dies in her throat.
"Misao, it's me." The intruder whispers into her ear – the same way she had done for him.
"Forgive me. I came to ask you if you could offer me something."
She doesn't respond because she doesn't know how to.
"I was wondering if it would be alright to stay here, just tonight."
She looks at him and silently nods and reaches over to cover him with a blanket only to realize that Aoshi is completely naked.
Not a stitch of thread is on his skin.
Her hand pauses and hovers above him.
He reaches over to her and whispers into her ear, "It's okay to touch."
Her delight grows unfettered.
She traces light patterns over his chest until her hands rests slightly above his pubic bone.
She looks at him and his eyes are shut and he grimaced as she started making circles around his pubic bone.
"Please Misao. Please."
She smiles, and reaches down for him.
He's hard and yet so warm and soft. Her hands are overfilled with him. She is speechless.
She licks her lips.
This is a dream she tells herself, but then again she only dreams of nightmares – and this is
definitely not a nightmare.
He grunts as she tightens her hold as she glides her hand along his length.
A sticky substance begins to leak from his tip.
She places her index finger and rubs the tip collecting the substance and placing it inside her mouth.
Aoshi stares at her.
He gapes at her.
He is dumbfounded.
He has never seen a more provocative or sensual image and what happens next causes him to moan out loud.
Misao bends down and places her hot and wet mouth on his tip and swallows him.
He is lusting and loving and everything in between. He is torn from the inside out. He couldn't believe she was doing this. He wonders if she's ever done it for anyone else. He wonders who she learned this from.
His pleasure gives her pleasure. She is delighted to find that such a strong man would ever bend to her will.
He places his large hands on shoulders and closes his eyes.
His mouth parts to let out deep sighs. Misao hands continued to glide to wear her mouth couldn't reach. He was impossibly big and thick. She only hopes that he is satisfied.
She wants to sate him to make him forget his sins. She wants him to remember nothing but the feel of her lips against him. She wants this moment ingrained in his memory.
She just wants him to think of her.
Her tongue adds pressure and he groans as her tongue flicks against the slit of his cock and he is gone.
She feels him bursting her mouth and swallows because it's his and because it tastes like him.
Her name rolls of his lips and the syllables sound melodious. His sins turn to ash and dust and they're absolved. His demons have left him and he is detoxified.
She slides his length out of her mouth and he pulls her up with his big hands and squeezes her petite body against his.
His nose buried in her hair. Her face is in the crock of his neck.
Nothing matters now. Nothing.
He cups her chin and looks into her eyes and kisses her slowly. It is a kiss that offers love and growth in a place that was once desolate and barren.
He tastes himself in her – this brings him an unwarranted amount of pleasure.
He looks at her imploringly and fingers the material of her nightshirt and begins to lift it up but her hand clasps over his, stopping the movement.
She reaches over to him and whispers, "No. Not tonight. Tonight is for you and you only.
Tonight we will defeat your demons together. Please let me do this for you – let me be your salvation."
He nods at her. What else can he do for his tongue is tied and his heart is inundated with emotions and his brain is clouded?
He is overwhelmed by her selflessness.
He wonders how he has resisted her as long as he has.
Misao trails wet kisses down his chest and her hand fondles him, delighted that he is already thick and erect for her.
He feels the curvature of her smile on his abdomen and that is the last thing he remembers before Misao places her mouth on his length again.
Tomorrow he promises, tomorrow he will tell her everything.
Well, hope you guys enjoyed it. I wanted to do a full blown lemon, but I don't want to get kicked off and I don't know where I could post my work if it is a lemon, so alas I opted for something less, something much less. I am fairly happy with what I did. I do apologize for the tense changes. Constructive criticism is very happily received!