*comes out with megaphone, clears throat*
Attention! This is CRACK! Crack, crack, crackity crack, crack! I repeat, this is CRACK! This is NOT cocaine! This is bargain basement, five bucks a vial CRACK! If it ain't your drug of choice, I ain't shoving it into your face-do not come for me for this CRACK! I don't even know where this came from!
*puts down megaphone, bows*
Thank you. Please enjoy my sleep deprivation-induced madness.
(Okay...so maybe I have a vague idea where it came from.)
The summer sun was shining overhead, the air warm without being oppressive, the sword spirit Onikiri was repaired and freed from the Minamoto Clan once again, and-one of the most important of all to a certain Demon King-the denizens of Mt. Oe were moving along rapidly with rebuilding their home...again. Of course, Shuten Doji's day was made even better-in his own eyes anyway-by his white-haired lover lounging comfortably at his side, head in his lap, with only the barest hint of a sake-fueled blush visibly coloring his darker skin. If anything, today could be charitably called 'perfect'.
The Demon King settled back comfortably, resting his weight on one hand, on the porch of his partially rebuilt manor-despite the opinions of most of Mt. Oe's denizens, he had been adamant, after piecing together some of his lost memories, that all of Mt. Oe should focus on their own homes and the defenses of both the mountain and the surrounding valley just in case the Minamoto, or anyone else by this point, decided to come after them once more. His and Ibaraki's home could wait in a half-finished state-that Ibaraki had started rebuilding not long after he had resurrected Shuten-until everything else of importance had been handled.
"Shuten?"
"Hm?" The Demon King blinked as his love's voice drew him from his musing. "Yeah? What is it, Ibaraki? Need some more sake?"
The white-haired male laughed a bit drunkenly in response and waved his hand. "No, no. Not yet. I was wondering what you were thinking of."
"Eh...not too much. Just drifting I suppose." Shuten said as he looked down at the male partially sprawled across his lap, a fond half-smile forming on his face before he downed the remains of his cup of sake. "What are you thinking of? Nothing bad I hope."
"No, no. I just had a weird thought is all."
'Oh...this could be entertaining.' With his memories or without, Shuten always found some humor-and, fairly often, exasperation-in the drunken inner workings of his lover's mind. Sometimes the other spirit said the most profound of things, sometimes the most ridiculous, and other times...he made Shuten question his lover's sanity. "Enlighten me."
"Hm?" Ibaraki looked up at Shuten, blinking in confusion at the other male. "Oh. Yes. Well...it's a silly thing. Very stupid and weird. Nothing to talk about really."
'Uh huh, sure.' If there was one thing Shuten knew very well, it was that any time that his Ibaraki tried to deflect away from something, it was probably more important than the white-haired spirit was letting on...or at least, something that was weighing on the other's mind more often than he wanted to admit to. Either way, there was little harm in prying, right?
"Come on, Ibaraki-you can tell me. I promise, no judgment." Well...not a lot of judgment anyway-it would depend. "Unless you're going to suggest that we invite Onikiri to drink with us, because I will have to say 'never again' if that's the case."
Ibaraki just blinked then sat up and shook his head; he picked up his cup, drinking down the remainder of the contents. "No, no. I do believe that we all learned our lesson last time. No. This had nothing to do with Onikiri and sake."
"Okay...so what is it?" Shuten asked, lounging back against the wall and watching his lover with amusement as he set the bottle down after refilling his own cup. "Shall we play the guessing game then? Let's see...does it involve anyone we know?"
"Uh...well, obviously it would. But it's not-"
"You're blushing more." Shuten said with a smirk, bringing his cup up to his lips-a part of him glad that his Ibaraki had not fumbled and dropped the bottle while trying to grab it to refill his own cup. "What? Trying to figure out who we could have a threesome with or something?"
The look that came on Ibaraki's face right there-that wide-eyed, slack-jawed, 'how did you know' expression-immediately brought about the impossible by making the Demon King choke on his sake. As Shuten spluttered, Ibaraki crawled over-bottle and cup forgotten-and slapped lightly at the other's back in an attempt to encourage the choking fit to subside. Once the coughing had ended, the pair locked eyes and Shuten cautiously spoke up-his voice far too raspy for his own liking at the moment. "Was...is that seriously what you were thinking about?"
"It crossed my mind out of curiosity." Ibaraki said quickly, trying to placate the other male. "But it's only a weird thought, really. I'm...probably very drunk right now."
"I think...we should table the sake for now." Shuten said after a moment of what he could only call awkward silence, setting his cup aside and moving to collect the near-empty bottle and Ibaraki's empty cup. "We both drink water, sober up, and discuss this rationally...or as rationally as we're capable of."
"Are...are you saying that you want one too?" Ibaraki asked, tilting his head to one side as he regarded his lover curiously.
"It...it's crossed my mind too. But, well...I don't want to push you into anything." For fuck's sake, Shuten knew that if he said that he wanted a harem, Ibaraki would agree to it in a heartbeat despite how much the white-haired male might truly be against the entire idea...and, even if it made him miserable, he knew that his lover would agree only to make Shuten happy.
The Demon King knew that he had taken advantage of his lover after he had been resurrected-he'd treated him as little more than a constant annoyance and a slave most of the time, then ran off chasing after Momiji while his Ibaraki had been left to chase after him and had suffered so much because of him-and still, the white-haired spirit had remained loyally at his side, watching over him and trying to help him in every way that he could...trying to defend him and his honor at every turn...and all that he had done to repay such devotion, during that time, was misuse him.
Well...those days were over. His Ibaraki deserved whatever he might desire and, if it was in Shuten's power to provide, he would make certain that his lover had it.
As evening rolled around and the pair had retired to their room, considerably more sober than they might normally be. If anything, both had agreed that this discussion should take place behind the closed doors of the bedroom, well away from the prying and often curious eyes and ears of the spirits of Mt. Oe.
The pair stripped away their clothing and laid down on their futon, turning to face one another as they tried to figure out how to approach the subject from earlier in their day. Taking a deep breath, Shuten raked the fingers of one hand back into his loose mane of hair. "Okay...so, just to confirm: we both would be interested in having a threesome, right?"
"That appears to be the case." Ibaraki said with a slight nod, shifting himself forward so that they were closer to one another. "Though...if we do bring in a third, even temporarily, well...what gender would you prefer?"
"Eh...I don't know. A female could work...but most of the ones we know are crazy or obsessed with the onmyoji-" Shuten said thoughtfully-it was unsaid that they would never even consider Momiji for something like this. On one hand, she would emphatically say 'no', and there was a high likelihood that she would get violent in her use of exploding maple leaves or those dolls of hers-those things packed quite a wallop-to provide further emphasis on her refusal.
On the other hand, Ibaraki would never forgive him if he even jokingly suggested the maple spirit-hell, if he did something that stupid, his suggestion whole-hearted and honest, Shuten knew that he wouldn't be seeing anything even remotely resembling sex for months. "-Or they're married or prefer other females."
"I am surprised that you didn't argue when Mio slapped you for staring at her chest at the festival." Ibaraki said with a small, amused smile-unable to resist trying to cut the tension that had been growing between them since earlier-as he tugged the blankets up over their bodies before returning to laying on his side next to his lover.
"Everything she wears practically puts her breasts on display-you can't help but look. " Shuten muttered defensively, rubbing at his cheek at the memory-really, he could not be faulted if his eyes just happened to drift downwards at what was obviously there while he was talking to the fox, regardless of whatever Yoto Hime had said during her subsequent laughing fit at his expense. "Okay...fine. I am enough of a somewhat functional, mature spirit to admit that I may have, possibly, deserved that slap. The claws near hitting my eye, not so much, but probably the slap. Though, again, I was aiming for her eyes, but her breasts were literally right there. Hell, she's how much shorter than I am?"
"She is not that much shorter than you, Shuten...but you do still have a point. So...bringing in a female is out. At least that narrows things down to only the males in our acquaintance group." Ibaraki said as one of Shuten's arms settled firmly around the white-maned spirit's body, drawing him closer until they were chest to chest. "Though now that leaves the fairly obvious question of which one we ask."
"Not Onikiri. That...that would be awkward and I feel like we'd be taking advantage of the guy." Shuten said firmly-sure, Onikiri was attractive to look at, but the sword spirit...was complicated. Everything about Onikiri was complicated because of the Minamoto-because of Yorimitsu and everything that he had done. It would never be fair to try to bring the sword spirit into the bedroom, even less when there was no way to prove that Onikiri was truly giving consent for such things.
Shuten could admit that he had moments where he was an absolute bastard-mostly to Ibaraki from his resurrection and up until the last couple of months or so-but he refused to ever be that level of bastard.
Ootengu was not even to be considered since-as far as both Shuten and Ibaraki were concerned-he was little more than a traitor to all of spirit kind for siding with that dark onmyoji-Ibaraki shifting forward, pressing a series of quick kisses to the other male's lips, to silence any potential grumbling about "idiot onmyoji" from the Demon King-and helping try to resurrect Yamata-no-Orochi. If not for how few spirits there were that could match that bastard and the two siding with him, Shuten would have considered putting out a bounty on both Ootengu and the Yuki-Onna.
Ibaraki merely reassured his lover that they would deal with both of the traitors and the dark onmyoji in time-not tonight, but in time.
Tamamo-no-mae was also not even considered in the slightest based on the fact that Shuten was personally furious at the fox for that entire stunt at the festival with Oboroguruma's froglets being 'transformed' to resemble so many high rank spirits, especially himself. That entire thing was a mockery and an insult in every way to the Demon King...despite Ibaraki's snickering insistence that-after you got used to seeing them-the froglets were "kind of funny", especially "the one that was supposed to look like Arakawa", because "no, Ibaraki. They are not".
Kamikui was pretty, but too high maintenance for either spirit-and neither wanted to deal with Kamikui's sister, Enenra, who would most likely become furious at the idea of anyone attempting to 'soil' her little brother's 'virtue'. The fact that the beauty-obsessed spirit seemed to-much like Momiji-be obsessively in love with Abe no Seimei was also a firm tally in the 'no' bracket.
Though Ibaraki couldn't help but to joke about how 'grateful' he imagined that Momiji would be to them for "removing her rival", much to Shuten's faux-pained groan-accompanied by a dramatic drape of his arm over his eyes-of "can we please let that go?", that was suitably met with a mocking "no".
Either one of the Mujou brothers? Another hard pass, despite how good both looked, as Shiro Mujou seemed to be far too serious to be of any real fun and Kuro Mujou...was Kuro Mujou. Of course there was the glaringly obvious issues that both Shuten and Ibaraki barely knew the two emissaries beyond occasionally running into the brothers at Abe no Seimei's courtyard on the off-chance that either Shuten or Ibaraki felt the need to speak to the onmyoji, and-while trying to invite either brother to their bedroom might entertain Lady Enma beyond measure-they really did not have any way to contact either one of the pair.
At least, there was no way for them to contact the pair that wouldn't risk getting them in trouble with someone-be it Lady Enma, Abe no Seimei, or whoever. Really, it would be more trouble than it was worth.
Hangan was an immediate hard pass for similar reasons as the brothers...and the additional reason of-in Ibaraki's own, almost annoyed-sounding, words-the judge having "a tree shoved up his ass". Shuten wanted to press his lover for details...but, at the same time, he was also pretty sure that he really did not want to know, especially if it had anything to do with what Ibaraki had to do to resurrect him.
If the Demon King had pulled his lover closer and kissed him gently, near reverently, that was his business.
Youko was handsome, a decent friend to Ibaraki-though Shuten wondered when that had happened, and the fox was quite creative...but he was also very much into females-even if a couple of the fox's previous pursuits had seemed a bit uncomfortably young to Ibaraki, and to Shuten when the white-maned spirit had explained which females he was referring to-rather than males (outside of one time-to-never-be-spoken-of where the fox had been hammered and had drunkenly told Ibaraki that he thought that Ootengu was pretty) and both spirits figured that asking the fox would only be an invitation for awkwardness.
Shuten, oddly enough, want to hear more about this time where his Ibaraki and the fox had been drinking, but the white-maned spirit only smirked and kissed him until the other male decided to let that particular subject drop.
Maestro was a beautiful spirit, creative...but both agreed that he seemed a little too high maintenance for their tastes-not as bad as Kamikui, but still. Of course, Ibaraki admitted that he was positive that something was going on between the white-haired zither player and the flutist, Mannedake, but he had little evidence to support his theory. Both, however, agreed that it would be pretty stupid and rude on their parts to risk drawing the wrath of another individual's lover-or possible lover as whatever case may be-just for a bit of fun in bed.
Mannedake-while very appealing to look at-was a pass for the similar enough reasons of 'not risking an angry partner/possible partner's wrath', though Shuten did make a note to himself to invite both of the musicians to perform at the next festival.
The monk, Aobozu was a hard pass as well-sure he was handsome and there was potential with seeing just what lay beneath the quiet monk's outward facade, but both of them didn't think that it would be worth the trouble considering that the blood-thirsty sea spirit, Yasha, seemed obsessed-to them anyway-with said-monk. Ibaraki wondered aloud if the two had been lovers in the past or if they were now and Shuten could only shake his head and mutter that, regardless, the two spirits probably did-or would-have incredible "mountain cracking hate-sex" if they were involved.
The fact that Ibaraki had snorted when he had laughed at that comment-and that he'd needed to shove his face into the pillow to muffle said-snort and laughter-was something that the white-haired male would deny having happened until his dying day, despite Shuten's teasing claim of it being 'adorable' because "no, Shuten. I am not adorable".
Ichimokuren was a possibility, but both discarded the thought as neither wanted to even consider what would happen if Susabi found out that someone had dared to proposition HIS Ichimokuren. Despite the aloof facade, nearly every spirit knew that Susabi was more than a little possessive of the once minor wind god, and that Ichimokuren merely accepted that possessiveness with a polite smile if not a pleased little laugh-the latter often shared with Miketsu who, according to what Ibaraki had heard from Hououka, thought that the pair were "so cute together".
Susabi? Not even considered as, despite being insanely handsome, the spirit-much like Hangan, according to Ibaraki-seemed to "have a stick up his ass", though Ibaraki couldn't resist snickering and adding "I think it is more of a tree, perhaps as big as Hangan's." and Shuten had to kiss his lover to silence his snickers before they both ended up in a laughing fit that would be heard all over the mountain.
Bukkuman ("Who, Ibaraki?", "You really need to get out more, Shuten.", "Bite me.", "Ask nicely."), Kisei-for obvious reasons, Okuribito-for very obvious reasons, and few others-the names of whom caused Shuten to question both where and how his Ibaraki had met these seemingly random spirits, but only earned an amused "the onmyoji's courtyard is quite a popular gathering place"-were passed on as well for the simple reasons that they were barely even acquaintances or there would be far too many issues with trying to arrange anything, let alone the problems in the bedroom that could arise.
Shuten sprawled onto his back, a hand fisted into his hair as he stared up at the ceiling. "Fuck...I think we've gone through everyone we know."
Ibaraki merely nodded and settled himself next to the Demon King once more. "It appears so. Maybe we...should consider the females that we know?"
"Pretty sure most of them will say no. At least three of them would throw a punch." Shuten muttered in annoyance before his eyes widened as an internal lighting bolt flashed through his mind. "...This is gonna sound real stupid, but hear me out. What about a human?"
Ibaraki blinked at that, considering...then nodding-that could be interesting. He couldn't recall the last time that he had bedded a human. "That could work."
The pair stared at each other as a crazy idea took root in their heads, mouths quirking into simultaneous grins when they realized that they were thinking of the exact same person. Sure, there would need to be a lot of negotiation on the subject with the human in question-as well as putting aside a few things for the moment, but they could hash out those details as needed. They had time.
And...even if everything couldn't be put aside, they could all still have an interesting time together.
After all...maybe the human would have some fun ideas of his own.