Soul
Chapter Twenty
The Long Night: And So It Ends
What follows is five months of torment and strangeness, five months of healing and hell.
It is five months of Yukimura forgetting every night and remembering every morning that the prisoner he tends and questions is nothing like a prisoner should be – that despite his own reputation for gentleness and care in handling the defeated, something more, something that should not be allowed, is growing between himself and Date Masamune.
He has never, since the first day, allowed himself to speak or think of his prisoner as anything but Date Masamune. He cannot think of him as a man, or as a soldier – and especially, he cannot think of him as Dokuganryu. That way lies madness. That way lies the strange sensation that he thinks is his soul, surging – a feeling like a beast leaping within him, rearing in joyful greeting and cringing in fear all at once.
But Masamune has no compunction about calling him Red, though the name has never made sense to Yukimura. Masamune seems driven by some compulsion, some need, that Yukimura cannot fathom. He talks endlessly of the past – the distant past, the recent past, yesterday. He ignores the future and the present, for the future will separate them into uncertainty and the present is a problem, an imbalance that cannot be corrected without loss. He wants to bring back that light of confusion to Yukimura's eyes, wants to prod and corrode and pry and find the one who knows.
Every day he tries, and every day he fails, and every day he whittles away at his pride a little more - but he is unbowed and unbroken. He is confident still, because he must be; because giving up is the end of all options and the end of all hope.
He does not know of the lessons Yukimura has learned in this life; there has not been enough time, enough conversation, and there is no equality between them for asking questions. The thing that stands out the most to him is the strongest of these lessons, for though Yukimura remains a warrior, and though there is is the steel of one who has taken lives in his eyes, there is also a softness – a gentleness.
Masamune knows this because every night there are screams without fail, and none of them are his. There is no torture, only questions, and perhaps it is because Masamune knows no secrets, can speak freely without lies - but he hopes it isn't. He hopes it is because somewhere in the silence of Yukimura's memory there is a voice crying out his name.
But the truth is Nanking. The truth is Yukimura's knowledge of the darker half of man's nature – the truth is that he has seen too many travesties and too much pain to willingly inflict torment on another. In battle, in the flash of his hot blood, he can kill – but he cannot take a helpless man and flay him with agony.
He does not want to remember that what happened then is happening now, any more than he can remember all the lives that came before.
More than this, though, he does not want to confront the tension in his belly, the heat that is Masamune's laughter. He does not want to confront the feeling that does not belong, the desire that has grown up alongside it, does not want to to admit that it has been five months of confinement and not five days because he cannot bear to let his prisoner go.
There is no memory in it that he is aware of, but the pull between them is part of the past, a continuation of all that has been before even when Yukimura doesn't know this. Even if he did, it would change nothing. He has a job to do; he cannot define his life with desire and sensation.
Not even when the dreams are vivid, splendid darkness. Not even when he comes to know sigh and sound and skin without ever touching; not even as his questions grow less and less important.
The end, when it comes, is sudden – even for Yukimura. The order comes from the highest command; no more prisoners. No more time or resources wasted on demands for information that is more and more inaccurate as the days go by.
That night, for the first time, there is silence, and it is more penetrating than the screams. Without the noises of the interrogators or their helpers, the facility is blanketed in white quiet. There are moans, but most of the prisoners are in no condition to do anything but whimper with relief that the darkness has come without pain.
He wonders how many of them know it is soon to become an eternal darkness.
He wonders how many of them will be grateful.
His feet lead him down the empty corridors to Date Masamune, and he peers through the slot in the door and sees the other man lying on his cot, an arm thrown over his eyes. With practiced movements, Yukimura slides back the bolt, lifts the lock, opens the door. There is a tremendous creaking as the heavy door opens, a familiar sound now, and Masamune pushes himself up on his elbows, pastes a grin on his face.
"Hello, Red."
Yukimura feels the familiar shiver, and then does something he hasn't since the beginning of this...this.
"Date Masamune...Dokuganryu."
The eye facing him, dark in the shadow Yukimura's body casts in the hallway light, goes wide. Yukimura hears Masamune's breath growing faster, feels his own heartbeat pounding dark in his chest. Something changes in the atmosphere as he steps into the room and closes the door behind him; something grows sharper, firmer, heavier. Perhaps it is his own decision; perhaps it is that flash of not-quite-memory which always touches him when he says that word.
He steps forward, slowly, and before he knows what he is doing his hands are unbuttoning his jacket, undoing the careful, pressed corners of fabric. He hears his voice speaking as if it is not his own, but it is, and he wonders if he has been planning this all along, even when he thought he had no plan.
"Dokuganryu, this is your last night on earth. Mine too, I think. Word has come from High Command; there are to be no more questions, no more answers – no more prisoners. In the morning, the execution squads will arrive, and you will be brought with the others to the courtyard, where you will die."
Masamune's eyes are on Yukimura's hands, on the buttons of his uniform shirt being undone one by one. He is not so distracted that he does not hear, but he can't think how to react; it is something he has expected, even while he hoped for anything else.
Anything else, standing in front of him, undressing.
Beneath the uniform shirt is a plain, cotton undershirt, and beneath that, smooth, dark, skin. Yukimura is golden, golden as the sun, his nipples dark as shadows on the sand; Masamune stares, and then leans forward without a word and pulls his own shirt over his head.
He is pale, too pale, and thin, too, his slenderness almost gaunt from five months of minimal food and exercise and no sun. Yukimura stares, pausing for a moment, reaching out to lay his fingers against Masamune's chest. Just above his fingers is a pale line of scar tissue; a spark leaps up his arm as he traces it, bounces around in his brain. This contrast is so perfect, so familiar; his skin is darker, always darker -
And then it becomes a question, a needle of confusion in his mind.
Always?
He says it, tastes it, sees Masamune's eye go wide and brighten with a storm of feelings.
"Always..."
He sits, under Masamune's shining stare, and begins to untie his boots – slowly, methodically. He pulls them off, and then his socks, tucking one in each boot. When he stands again, barefoot, Masamune stands with him and this time they do not reach for their own clothes, they reach for each other's.
Masamune's fingers tremble on the buckle of Yukimura's trousers; he feels heat lancing through him, Yukimura's fingers touching his hips.
And then they are naked, skin pressing against skin, fingers igniting fire, skimming nerves, tracing muscles, reaching for everything, anything.
The last words spoken were death, and as if they were a spell, Masamune and Yukimura move in a silence of gasps and groans. It is Yukimura who pushes Masamune back onto his cot, Yukimura who traces the scars on pale skin with his tongue, wraps his lips around the crinkled peak of a nipple. Yukimura, who drags a long, long moan from Masamune's throat, pressing his hips down, pressing the heat of his erection against Masamune's answering arousal.
The gasps he gains as he moves back and forth, hard satin against hard satin, drive him onward. He can feel Masamune struggling to be still, to take this pleasure, to not throw him over and take control. Yukimura stares down at him, leans forward and takes his lip between his teeth, kisses him deeply. He feels muscles relaxing all through Masamune's body, and that one hardness, throbbing.
Words come then, but not many.
"Red – Red, I've been waiting -"
"You are mine, Dokuganryu. You have been mine since the beginning – you are always mine."
And then again, more gently.
"Dokuganryu."
He leans forward, and Masamune's mouth is hot on his skin, his tongue wet and rough as it passes over his chest, his nipples, pointed and dark, but Yukimura is on top, in control, and Masamune cannot find it in himself to care. He has been waiting for this his entire life; it is not what he expected, not the situation, not the position – but the man is the man he wants, and his kiss is a fire that burns away the rest of the world.
There is nothing in his memory to compare to these helpless moments of pleasure – the tongue that sweeps the length of his arousal, the fingers easing into his body, one and then two and then three. Masamune becomes an arch of back and thighs, panting with want, his hands reaching out for any kind of contact and then pinned, over his head, by a stronger hand. He is a larger man than Yukimura, taller, broader – but he has been imprisoned for five months and it shows.
He struggles, not to get free, but for the sake of the struggle. Yukimura's mouth is hot against his throat, lips and tongue and teeth, and then -
Yes, and then.
The penetration is fire, stretching on the edge of pain, and Yukimura's face is drawn tight with pleasure and concentration. He is trying to be careful, to be gentle, trying to wait for Masamune's pleasure, but Masamune bucks his hips forward, demanding more, setting a rhythm of roughness.
The world dissolves into gasps and heat and feeling.
It does not last forever, doesn't last nearly long enough – but that is all right. Crammed into the too-small space of Masamune's cot, they press their sweat-slicked bodies together and murmur of love, and the past – the past that Yukimura feels, now; the past that Masamune cannot forget.
But not the future.
Dozing, wrapped in a warm embrace, Yukimura listens to Masamune tell a story – their story, he says, and Yukimura is lulled to believing by the tingle that wakes inside him. Blips of familiarity rush at Yukimura now – names, places, events. He sees faces and wars flash across his mind as Masamune speaks.
" - and then Nobunaga – and after that, there was the battle in Saiga – I don't know what happened to you, but I – the second battle was the one that killed me, and I saw you walking away – was there something...no, I remember – but when you found me in China, I couldn't believe it was you, and everything that happened then was my fault..."
Masamune's words trail into silence.
Dawn breaks, and the light is a searing pain to Yukimura's eyes. Slowly, he untangles himself from Masamune and stands, crosses the room to his discarded clothes. He lifts his belt from the ground, and his hand lingers on his gun...and then moves, slowly, to the long knife sheathed beside it. His footsteps are silent as he pads back across the room; he stands naked in the single beam of sunlight, his skin glowing, his eyes flecked with scarlet fire.
Masamune is laying with his eyes closed, his body curled around the empty space that still bears the imprint of Yukimura's shape. His face is content, those loving lips curled in faint, fresh smile. Yukimura stands still, and then kneels at the edge of the cot, holding the knife tight in his hand. He positions it carefully, so that the blade will slide between Masamune's ribs, so that death will be quick and calm and mostly painless.
He stares, breaking, at the meeting of skin and steel, and though he knows that death is coming on swift wings, beating ever faster toward every prisoner in this place – though he knows that what he is offering his lover now is a painless end to deny his enemy -
His hands are frozen, still. He contemplates escape in dramatic and fantastic plans that crumble to ash in his mind.
A tremor moves through his whole body, and then -
A hand is on his hand, and one eye, blue in the shadows, is smiling at him with love.
The knife slips in, and out.
There is blood – blood.
Masamune's voice drains out of him with his life, one long sigh into silence.
"I'll be waiting, Red."
The room is suddenly empty, suddenly cold. The single line of sunlight is white and harsh now, but Yukimura leans back and smiles, smiles, and lets out a single sob of pain and self-reproach. He knows exactly what Masamune means.
The knife slips, in, and out.
There is blood – blood.
There is a lingering scent of love; ozone and ashes.
A/N: Well, now...finally! This is the longest chapter by far – at least so far – at 2400 words. And we have one more arc left to finish out this fic, one more lifetime, one more trial, one more chance...shall we see where it leads us? First we will visit a pair of wanderers in the outer darkness; then, forward one more time...
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