Chapter 14

Pleasure's a sin,
And sometimes sin's a pleasure.
- Byron

They exchange breaths for a slow moment. And Ino sees that he wants her, and he adores her, and he hates her for it.

"So cruel. You didn't know how right you were, did you?" whispers Ino, her mouth hovering over his, and every word is a teasing, accidental half-kiss.

"Fuck," says Hidan.

He shifts below her and Ino knows what he is trying to hide.

She smiles a merciless grin. "Jashin is not a kind god."

Hidan's deep purple gaze flicks to where she sits astride his lap, to where her dress slips off her shoulder and invites him to touch, to where her parted lips tell him to kiss. Her mention of his god's name enlivens him with a sudden assurance. He searches her eyes.

"He's given me you," says Hidan. "And that's fuckin' amazing."

"I guess that's true," concedes Ino, because it flatters her wine-soaked ego.

"Is this… wrong, if you're his angel?" asks Hidan, his gaze drifting back to her body, nestled so close to his. "Are you doing his bidding right now?"

Ino shrugs carelessly, more interested in watching the play of the candlelight in Hidan's fascinating eyes, that confused conflation of religious fervor and human frailty…

"Can you even do wrong?" asks Hidan.

He slips his hands around her waist and holds her like a prayer and Ino's heart flutters, because being worshiped like this feels beautiful.

"Is this sinning?" asks Hidan.

He looks up at her expectantly, because, to him, right now, her word is the gospel. But Ino does not have answers to these theological queries; in fact, right now, they tax her patience and confuse her. Logically, she is not an angel, so she wouldn't know, so why the hell is he even asking her? Or, wait. Had she concluded that she was, in fact, an angel? She can't remember any more…

Logically, she needs more wine.

She leans over and swipes up her wineglass faster than Hidan can block her hand, but his fingers grip the thin glass stem and pull down on it so that she cannot quite bring it up to her mouth.

Ino pulls, Hidan pulls. The wineglass gives up on existence and explodes into a dozen shards. A half-cup of Riesling drenches the front of Ino's dress and splashes across Hidan's chest.

"…Really, Hidan," says Ino, looking down at the damage.

She touches at her mouth, where she distinctly felt a piece of glass nick at her lower lip. Her tongue flicks out, and yes, there it is, she tastes blood.

She returns her fierce gaze to Hidan, fully intent on smacking him for making her bleed and breaking her wineglass and wasting all of that lovely Riesling – but when she looks down, she finds that Hidan is staring at her in the way that men stare at her when she walks into the bedroom naked.

His pupils are huge, his breathing has quickened, he has gone pale – and, from where Ino is sitting, it feels like all the blood that left his face migrated to his already tight pants.

He stares, entranced, at the droplet of blood that has already welled back into existence on Ino's lip, as though his whole world has coalesced into this single red drop.

Ino brings up a hand to wipe at it, but he grips her wrist with unexpected force and pulls her hand back down.

"That one's mine," he breathes, before slipping his hand behind her neck and pulling her towards him.

He doesn't have far to go, to kiss her, because a moment ago she was ghosting kisses on him with every word. This time, though, their mouths meet for real, angel's lips against those of the true believer – and it feels like something detonates in Ino's head. This kiss is that staggering first breath of air after drowning, a blinding flash of sun between clouds, the impact of a blade unexpected.

She feels his tongue flick against her lower lip, licking off that drop of blood, then he presses their mouths together harder and swears something unintelligible. Ino digs her fingers into his shoulders to keep her head from spinning because fuck, she did not expect this to be so intense.

They part and he pulls back just enough that his wonder-filled eyes meet hers and she can see that he is reeling from it too.

"Holy shit," says Hidan breathlessly, looking at her with a mixture of shock, devotion and disbelief. "That was…fuck, who even stands a chance against you…"

Ino fights to regulate her own breathing and shakes her head, wanting to inform him that, actually, it's never like that, normally…

He stares at her. "That was like, approaching deathgasm territory, seriously…"

Ino opens her mouth to respond, but instead of words, a shriek emerges, because Hidan's body and face have suddenly turned pitch black, except for some white lines vaguely reminiscent of bones crisscrossing his skin.

"Ohmygod," squeals Ino, leaping off of him. "What the hell?!"

The ghastly skeleton-man on the couch looks at his hands and appears mildly surprised. "Oh. Yeah. Oops."

"Oops?!" repeats Ino, her fingers pressed to her mouth. "What is wrong with you? You're like a – a corpse…"

"I'm Jashin's grim fuckin' reaper," says Hidan. "Duh."

"But why?" says Ino. "What just happened?"

"Your blood, obviously," says Hidan impatiently, as though Ino is being obtuse. Then he shakes his head. "Frig. I keep forgetting, angels don't need to do this kind of shit. This normal. Consume blood, go black. Step one of the ritual, actually."

"Step one…?"

Since Hidan does not appear to be ready to grimly reap her, Ino approaches the sofa again and sits back down next to him, though quite a bit further away than she was previously.

"Yeah," says Hidan, unsettling Ino by looking directly at her with that horrible white skull masking his features. "Step two… I'm gonna have to kill us."

"Kill us?" repeats Ino, because she can't have heard him correctly.

"Yeah."

"Um. I might have an objection to raise…" Ino trails off distractedly, because she can't stop staring at him, taking in the lines of the death's head imprinted on his face, the stylized ribs slashing his chest. In the flickering candlelight, the effect is even more grotesque.

"What?" says Hidan, noticing her look of distaste.

"It's so creepy," says Ino.

His eyes have remained the same despite his transformation and they flash annoyance at her in a familiar way. "No shit. That's kind of the idea."

That familiarity helps Ino regain her customary composure. She sniffs. "It's gross. I'm going to tell Jashin to redo the design…"

"Don't you fucking dare," says Hidan. "I like it."

"But you look like a skeleton," says Ino.

"Exactly. It's badass."

"An ugly skeleton."

"No," says Hidan. "It's cool."

"It's not even anatomically correct!" says Ino.

"It's fine," says Hidan.

"But why does the skull have a hole in its forehead?" asks Ino, reaching over to poke the area in question.

"Artistic fucking liberties," says Hidan, batting away her hand.

"Whatever. I don't like it," says Ino. "How do you get back to normal?"

"Like I said, I'm gonna have to kill us," says Hidan. "You know, this could be kind of hot…"

Ino raises an eyebrow. "Um. Like I said, I might have an objection to raise."

"Angel. We won't really die, obviously," says Hidan with a gentle sort of patience, as though she's being paranoid and kind of dumb. "We're Jashin's blessed."

Ino is not so sure that it's so obvious. "…I don't want to be killed."

"It's not really optional at this point," says Hidan. "We kind of have to. It's your blood that made me like this, it's like a contract..."

Ino stares hard at him in response to this statement, because being forced into a blood-contract with Hidan and his god was really not high on her priority list today.

"... Excuse me?!" she says, her voice increasing in volume with every word – "…not optional? Then why'd you do it? Why'd you take my blood, Hidan?"

Hidan opens his mouth, pauses to think about it, and then apparently slides into a pleasant memory, wherein he remains for a long moment with an air of beatific contentment.

Ino smacks him on the arm. "Hello?! Earth to planet fucking Hidan…!"

Hidan blinks and gazes at Ino with a soft dreamy look despite the hard lines of the skull on his face. "Mm… what were we saying?"

"Oh, nothing important," says Ino caustically. "Just discussing how you took my blood, knowing what would happen, and you did it anyway, and we were trying to understand why you would do something so stupid."

"It wasn't stupid," says Hidan. "It was goddamn amazing, and I will remember it till the day I die. If I ever die. It was that good."

And you know, he is right, it was an amazing moment, a mind-blowing moment, but there will be time to reminisce on it later. Right now, there are other things preoccupying Ino, such as unfulfilled contracts with death-gods. She glares at him. "But there were consequences to think of, weren't there?"

"I'm not really a long-term planner," says Hidan with a dismissive shrug.

"Long-term?!" says Ino, reaching over to shake him by his jet-black shoulders. "You went all skeletal thirty seconds after your idiotic decision!"

"Calm your tits, angel-face," says Hidan. "This is not that big a fuckin' deal. I'll kill us and we'll be fine again."

He places one of his hands on hers in an attempt to calm her. Ino looks down at the dead-man hand overlapping hers. Needless to say, the attempt does not work very well.

"I don't think you heard me," says Ino, whipping her hand out from under his. "I. Don't. Want. To. Die."

"C'mon. It won't hurt that much," says Hidan, in what is presumably supposed to be a comforting tone, except, given the subject matter and his whole grim reaper aspect, it really isn't. "I'll make it quick."

"No."

"What are you so fucking scared of?"

"Dying!" says Ino exasperatedly.

It's like he doesn't even hear her, or they're not talking the same language… Ino can see that the message is just not getting through his thick skull – either of his skulls, despite one having a hole in it – because, to him, she is absolutely as immortal as he is. She knows that he has good reasons to think this, and perhaps he is right to think this. However, for Ino, perhaps is not a good enough reason to put her life on the line. Some divine entity is definitely messing around with her, but from there to willingly letting Hidan off her in a ritual suicide… just, no.

"You won't die," says Hidan, rolling his eyes. "Jeez, you angels are spoiled… I can't believe you've never even gone through this before. I've done it hundreds of times. You'll just have to trust me."

"No, Hidan."

"You don't trust me?"

"Not with this."

"Then what's your solution?" says Hidan, growing irritated now. "You want me to look like this forever? You're already bitching non-stop and it hasn't even been ten minutes."

Ino glares at him. "I don't know. We go back in time ten minutes and stop you from being a complete careless moron."

"Wow, that's a great idea," says Hidan. "Thank fuck we have you around to suggest these realistic alternatives."

"Okay, fine, maybe that wasn't useful," says Ino. "But – come on… isn't there some other way…?"

"Another way to die? No."

There is a beat of silence. Then they look at each other.

"Actually..." says Hidan.

And Ino suspects that Hidan has just had the same idea that she just had. Which is kind of surprising, because he is an unimaginative monk with an extremely rigid and narrow world view, so maybe she truly has broadened his horizons…

"You are not thinking what I think you're thinking," says Ino.

"I think I am," says Hidan. The makings of a slow smirk creep across his face, doubly creepy because of the skull thing.

"…Do you think that could work?" asks Ino.

"You're the angel, you tell me," says Hidan.

"I don't know anything about your weird ritual crap," says Ino. "I don't know what the rules are… I don't know how flexible Jashin's definition of death is, in this context…"

She has a fairly solid hunch, though, because of the way that certain events have transpired in the past few months, the way that deaths big and small have been markers for Jashin's actions in the world – flower-picking and orgasms and killing chickens and killing children… and if nothing else, it could buy her some time before Hidan decides to stab them both to death…

Ino bites her lip. The question is, does she dare? Ten minutes ago, she was playing around with Hidan, turning him on to amuse herself and indulge in her own powers of attraction, because the wine made her flirty and cuddly and it was entertaining to watch him squirm and make him remember his weakness. But now…

She looks at Hidan, his familiar – and, moments ago, handsome – features masked by the colours of his god of death. Ino does not want to cuddle and tease him anymore – and the prospect of sex with the grim reaper in full regalia is kind of a mood killer.

Hidan's physical appearance aside, Ino plain doesn't like this new manifestation of Jashin's existence, of his power, of the rightness of Hidan's belief. It frightens her.

Ino looks away from him with a shudder.

She doesn't dare.

"Up to you," says Hidan. "Or we can do it the traditional way. I'll get a knife."

Well okay. Maybe she does.

VVV