For War is Kind ~ Chapter 8

Night had come, and he was here again, standing in the hall just outside this familiar room. And though he knew better, Aoshi swore he could feel Sagara's eyes on him, even through the drawn panel. Pulling at him, urging him on.

He had spent all day avoiding the inn's other residents as best he could; he could still feel Sagara's lips on his, as though they had left behind a mark which was as indelible as a scar. Surely anyone who looked closely enough would be able to see it. Would know that something had changed about him.

It was hard to believe that something like that could have affected him at all. He had never thought of himself as a chaste man, and he hadn't had any particular desire to remain untouched forever. But Sagara's kisses tormented him. If he left them alone for too long, they would change him. He wouldn't even recognize his own face anymore. That was why he was here: he just had to be sure.

Aoshi cleared his throat quietly, and then he called out, "Sagara? Are you in? It's Shinomori Aoshi."

A swishing of movement came from within. When Sagara spoke, there was a quivering around the edges of his voice. "Yes. Come in."

Aoshi slipped inside, making sure the panel was drawn tightly behind him before he looked up to meet the man's eyes. It was strange to see Sagara standing there, his yukata rumpled at the collar where he had hastily clenched it closed. His smile no different than other smile, and yet his eyes betraying so much. Aoshi stepped forward. There was something he'd wanted to say all day.

"I'm not afraid of you."

"Oh." Sagara drew back, as if startled. "That's good, I suppose."

"I just don't like being surprised," Aoshi continued, though by now he was wondering if there was really a need. Sagara seemed to understand him, know every move before he made it. "I'm not used to being touched like that."

"Then you have my apologies."

Aoshi had expected something like that, but had not expected it to sound sincere. "I didn't ask you to apologize."

Sagara looked away, but not quickly enough that Aoshi didn't catch the tiny smile that flickered across his lips. He retreated a few steps, as if beckoning Aoshi on. "In that case, I'm sorry for apologizing. I just can't win with you, can I?"

Aoshi watched him go, and then, in the end, he followed. "Don't worry about it."

"I have to worry," he said, turning then and coming forward a step. "Because, Aoshi, you are..."

"I'm what?" Aoshi couldn't stop himself. He was still moving forward, until he stood just before Sagara. "I still don't understand what you want..."

Sagara laughed, and Aoshi felt his stomach turn over at the sound of it.

"You are..." Sagara tried again. "You are so close to me I can hardly breathe."

He reached up, brushing a lock of hair from Aoshi's temple.

Usually Aoshi would have scoffed at such a declaration. Until Sagara's fingertips feathered over his skin, giving him a taste of that experience.

"No," Aoshi said. "Hold still a moment." Fixing Sagara with a steady stare, as if that alone would be enough to pin him in place, Aoshi took another step forward, reaching out to rest one hand against Sagara's chest.

"I'm glad to see we're friends again," Sagara said.

"Friends?" Aoshi echoed, lifting the other hand to Sagara's chest as well, gliding his palms over the sloping indentation of ribs, slipping his fingertips beneath the folds of Sagara's yukata. His skin felt hot to the touch, and Aoshi bit his lip. "Is that what we are now? Were we ever?"

He shook his head. "Will you just let me touch you, for a while?"

Sagara watched the movement of his hands. "I think I can live with that arrangement." But he reached up, brushing his fingertips over the back of Aoshi's wrist to catch his attention. "There's no reason to be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you, you know."

"Hurt me?" Aoshi snorted softly, his fingers curling, almost into fists, against Sagara's chest. "I don't even think you could."

"But you're still nervous..."

"I'm not..." But Aoshi knew he wouldn't be able to convince Sagara of as much. He could tell how clearly his thoughts must be painted on his face right now; he felt so fragile, as he lowered his eyes, leaning in a little more until his forearms lay flat against Sagara's chest. "I'm not."

"All right, then." Sagara wrapped an arm around the small of Aoshi's back. Then they were kissing again, though Aoshi could not say with any certainty which of them had started it. Sagara seemed reticent, though. He was holding back.

"I'm not a child," Aoshi said abruptly. "So don't think you can just... just..." But another kiss cut his protests short, leaving him feeling distant and shaky.

When Sagara leaned back once more, he was smiling, as if savoring some great triumph. "I know what you are, Aoshi," he said. "And I know what you're not."

Sighing, Aoshi turned away. "I'm their leader. I shouldn't be so weak."

Sagara stepped closer, and pressed a hand to Aoshi's back, between his shoulder blades. "Is that what you think this is about?"

"I…" Aoshi sighed. He didn't know what this was, but he knew what it wasn't. The broken intake of his breath, the slight shiver that went through him at even that casual touch; all of it, drawing him in, making him doubt even his ability to not need this man so much it hurt. And he turned back, catching Sagara by the wrist as he tried to recoil. Pulling him forward a step so they met in a hard kiss.

A shiver passed through Sagara's body; the hands that took Aoshi by the hips were trembling. It was strange, to think that maybe he really did have some kind of power over this man. They had moved before he even had an opportunity to think that he shouldn't be letting this happen, shouldn't have let Sagara's arms wrap around his waist, shouldn't have let him pull them both down to the tatami. Aoshi braced his forearm against the floor before he could be forced onto his back, but there were still lips on his, hair in this eyes that was not just his own, and the urgent heat that he could feel even through two layers of clothing.

And then, Sagara stopped. He leaned back, tilting his head to the side and searching Aoshi's expression.

"Sorry," he said at last.

"I'm just not used to this." Aoshi's hands curled into fists. "And if you keep apologizing for everything, I'm going to leave."

Sagara laughed wearily, and it felt like a light breeze against Aoshi's cheek and the curve of his ear. "That's too bad," he said. "That you're not used to this, that is." He might have been a little disappointed, or maybe even a little surprised.

Aoshi reached up to slide the fingertips of one hand over Sagara's hip, down to the outside of his thigh. He swallowed hard against the knot in the back of his throat. "Is that acceptable to you?"

"I think it's fine." Sagara feathered a quick, chaste kiss over his temple, and then he pulled away, stretching out on the mats at Aoshi's side with an arm crooked behind his head.

"Stop patronizing me."

Sagara glanced toward him. "I'm not."

"You are, though," Aoshi said. "You do it without even knowing."

Sagara turned onto his side and looking up into Aoshi's eyes. "What do you want from me?"

"Back to what I want?" Aoshi muttered, lowering his hand to slide over the seam between two of the mats.

"Doesn't it matter to you?" Gently, Sagara touched his wrist, stilling his hand. "Are you going to spend the rest of your life living the way other people want you to?"

Aoshi lifted his head; for a moment there was something different - more vibrant - in Sagara's gaze. And he turned away from it. "Don't lecture me; you don't understand anything. We're dying, Sagara."

He heard Sagara move, but he was slow to react to it. He submitted to the arms that wrapped around his body, embracing him.

"Don't say that," Sagara whispered They were close now, and he could feel the vibration of Sagara's voice behind his ribs. "No one is going to die anymore."

Aoshi's breath caught. "I didn't mean that. I was talking about my men, our kind. There's not much left for us anymore. They keep telling me that I shouldn't stay here for their sake." He lifted a hand to his chest to rest over Sagara's. "But I have to protect them."

"Aoshi..." The way Sagara said his name made it sound like a sigh. "I understand. I was like that too…"

"I know. Which is why I'm telling you." He leaned back, so he could fee Sagara's breath on his throat. He felt as if he was trembling - one of them was, at least - and he should have been ashamed. "I didn't ever know I was young, until they told me so."

"But you are," Sagara said. "Is it so bad?"

"No, it isn't," Aoshi said softly. "Because it shouldn't matter. I'm stronger than them. That's why I lead them..."

But none of that really mattered. Aoshi knew the truth; he was young, separate from them. And he hated that more than anything.

Sagara reached down, taking one of Aoshi's hands in his own, trailing his thumb slowly over the backs of his knuckles. "You are strong, but don't you think there are times when it's better to be weak?"

For the first time, Aoshi considered pulling away. He could throw off Sagara's arms; he could walk away, just like the last time, and it wouldn't be that he was running, that he was afraid. But he didn't move. "I don't ever want to be weak."

"That's not quite what I meant.

" Sagara was quiet for a long moment, his fingers shifted against Aoshi's skin, as though searching for something he almost remembered. At last, he leaned closer, pressing his lips to the side of Aoshi's throat. "Let's not talk anymore."

Aoshi swallowed hard; he hadn't been expecting that. Sagara's touch seemed to infuse him with something simultaneously hot and chilling, but this time he didn't try to pull away. He was stronger than that, after all. Or was this a different matter?

"Do you... want me to be weak?" he asked cautiously, stretching his back so that his shoulder blades rubbed faintly against Sagara's chest.

Sagara's breath caught. "Only if you need to be."

"So now it's a matter of what I need?" Aoshi said quietly. "At least that's a little better than what I want."

He took Sagara's wrists, making him hold him tighter. Sagara's fingers were long and delicate - hands new to a sword. He liked being touched by hands like that, without judgment, and Aoshi tilted his head back, exposing his throat for another kiss. He was just curious.

This time he was not shocked by the feel of lips skating along the underside of his jaw. Gentle on the first pass, and then more deliberate. "You don't know you're young," Sagara said. "But surely you know that you're beautiful, right? And something else too. Something... I don't know yet."

"I'm beautiful?" Despite all his earlier declarations, Aoshi suddenly felt inexperienced and naïve. It was such a ridiculous compliment to be giving a man, but he was flattered by it. "Sagara." His hand reached out, alighting on the man's thigh. Sagara seemed to tremble a little at the touch, and that at least made him confident. "What I need..."

He didn't say more, but somehow Sagara seemed to understand. Aoshi wasn't certain if he was grateful for that or not, but suddenly he was being pushed back again. This time he didn't resist. Sagara knelt astride his hips, and then he leaned down, tangling the fingers of one hand in Aoshi's hair to hold him still while he kissed him.

None of this was how he had imagined it. His entire body felt electrified and tense, like it did before a battle, but Aoshi didn't struggle against this. He relented instead, slipping his hands beneath the folds of Sagara's yukata and pushing it off his shoulders. As Sagara freed himself from the folds, Aoshi pressed his palms to bare his chest, taking a moment to feel him.

Beneath his right hand throbbed the urgent pulse of Sagara's heart, beneath his left the rise and fall of his breathing. He curled his fingers around the man's ribs, the ghosts of what had been lithe, trained muscle. His injuries hadn't wasted him, not completely - there was still strength in him somewhere. It was only hidden, like a city sunken beneath the ocean. But Sagara was weaker than he once had been.

Aoshi hesitated when he realized it. He didn't like that; he had never liked fighting when his enemy wasn't at its strongest, and though this was far from battle, what it was doing to his body made him think that it wasn't so different.

At last, Sagara freed himself from his yukata, but when he turned back to Aoshi for another kiss, a frown came over his lips. "What's wrong? If you don't want to..."

Aoshi tensed. "After all this trouble, you're saying things like that now?" His eyes narrowed. "If you want me so badly, then come and take me."

"I will." Sagara kissed him again; harder this time, and as if with greater direction. His hands pawed over the front of Aoshi's civilian clothes; at first his touches seemed harmlessly clumsy and aimless, but then Aoshi's felt cool air on his bare throat. And then that cold touch drifting lower, to his chest and his navel, and Aoshi realized how precisely his yukata had been peeled away.

So, Sagara was experienced. Aoshi wasn't sure if that made him nervous, or thrilled him. Perhaps a little of both, though he hadn't thought until now that was possible. Sagara was experienced, and Aoshi himself was not. It seemed like it should be a simple equation; the conclusion he was supposed to draw from it should have been an easy one, but he could give those two thoughts, in that order, no particular meaning. Every time his mind stumbled toward reason, the press of Sagara's lips, the burning caress of fingertips over newly exposed skin pulled him abruptly back.

When Sagara had opened his yukata to the waist and it lay spread out around him like wings, he pulled away. Not far, but enough that Aoshi was left gasping in the absence. "Sagara..." he panted.

Sagara raked his fingernails slowly down Aoshi's chest, from collarbones to waist, raising twin chills over his flesh. Talented, experienced hands loosened his obi in less time then he could have done it himself, casting it aside in a whisper of fabric. Aoshi knew he must have looked a little startled, because Sagara gave him a stern look. "Stay put."

He bent his head, moving down Aoshi's body slowly, leaving a line of intermittent kisses over his throat and chest. He paused long enough to swirl his tongue around a nipple, and then pulled away again, leaving the air to cool the flesh he had just dampened. Aoshi shivered, and Sagara told him, "Shh."

As he reached the hollow between Aoshi's hipbones, Sagara slowed, pressing his lips a few times to the skin beneath his navel. And in spite of his vow to not appear weak before Sagara, Aoshi writhed, gritting his teeth and arching his back, trying to guide Sagara down, just a little more, to ease the tightness growing between his thighs.

He wanted this man; Aoshi was almost shocked to realize it. That it was someone like Sagara, with eyes that were still innocent, with clever hands and desperate caresses who could almost make him beg, almost make him plead. Aoshi reached down, his hands trembling now, and curled his fingers in Sagara's hair, feeling his thighs part a little more in anticipation.

Sagara pressed his cheek to the inside of Aoshi's thigh, and Aoshi watched him, unable to look away, cataloguing every subtle shift behind Sagara's eyes, every parting of his lips.

Sagara slid the tip of his index finger along the underside of Aoshi's cock, tracing it from root to tip. Aoshi shuddered, a soft, breathless moan slipping from his throat. It seemed to him impossible that such a calculated touch could enflame him so. And yet he felt cold when it was withdrawn.

Their eyes met over the rise of Aoshi's body, and Sagara smiled rakishly.

It was so sudden. Until that moment, there had still been a part of him that hadn't really believed Sagara would do it. Then his hands were on him, and his mouth, greedy and hot, and Aoshi no longer knew what to believe.

He could do nothing but submit while his own body betrayed him, lashing him into a frenzy. And then, mercifully, it was finished.

Aoshi lay still for a long time, trying catch his breath and make his thoughts run in order. He had nearly succeeded when Sagara crawled back up his body, pressing a salty kiss to his lips, which swept away in an instant even the desire to reclaim his scattered pride.

"Sagara..." He gave up explaining himself before he began; it was too much effort. He felt warm here, safe, beneath Sagara's calm inquisitive gaze. "This had better not be what you meant about feeling weak," he murmured.

"Why? Do you?" Sagara whispered, so softly he couldn't be sure if it had been intended to be serious or not.

Aoshi closed his eyes again. "I'm exhausted," he admitted. "But that's not the same thing."

"No, I suppose it isn't." Sagara kissed him again, then turned his head to bury his nose in locks of dark hair, breathing a deep sigh against Aoshi's cheek. "Let's get some sleep, all right? You can stay tonight, if you like."

Aoshi swallowed hard; it was becoming difficult to ignore the subtle signals from Sagara's body. His breath was ragged, his heartbeat a little elevated. More than that, his need was palpable, almost something Aoshi could taste. He just nodded, and Sagara rolled off him. He stood, gathering his yukata loosely around himself, and unrolled the futon for sleeping. Aoshi caught his elbow as he was in the act of spreading the blankets over it.

"Sagara..." He tugged the man back against him, sliding the back of his hand down his abdomen. He was still agitated, and suddenly Aoshi found himself wondering if he could make Sagara feel weak.

Sagara caught his hand, pulling it to his mouth so he could kiss his fingertips. "It's all right," he said quietly. He sank down onto the futon, tugging Aoshi after him. "Let's just try to get some sleep, all right?"

Aoshi hesitated. "Did I do something wrong? Have I offended you?"

"No." Sagara shook his head. "You didn't do anything wrong. But I just want to lie down and be quiet for a while."

"I see," Aoshi said. But he didn't really understand. Sagara's moods changed so quickly, no one could be expected to keep up with them. Aoshi knelt beside the bed while Sagara fixed the blankets around himself. He didn't speak, or even look up at him. Aoshi had an unshakable feeling that Sagara was annoyed, but he could no even begin to determine the reason.

"Do you want me with you?" he asked at last, when it became clear that Sagara had no intention of breaking the silence.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, for the last time. Yes."

Aoshi was startled. He had never heard Sagara speak in such a way. Feeling for all the world like a scolded child, Aoshi pulled back the blankets and climbed into bed.

"No one ever dared speak to me like that before," he whispered.

Sagara turned over on his side, pulling Aoshi close. He found his cheek pressed suddenly against Sagara's chest, his head tucked beneath his chin. He could not see his expression when he spoke next.

"Yes," Sagara said. "You are who you are. You've always been a warrior, and I've been many things in my life, but never that. If these were the old days, I'd never be able to say such things to you. I'd never touch you like this…"

I was hard to be angry with Sagara when they were this close, and so he wasn't mad. But Sagara's words had been dangerously close to insulting, and Aoshi could not permit that. "Don't make this about rank," he warned quietly. "I won't be a foil for your failed revolution."

"Failed…" Sagara echoed. But he didn't sound angry either, just resigned. "Be quiet now, Aoshi. I'm very tired, and I want to sleep."

Their argument cut short before it began, Aoshi wasn't sure what to do. If Sagara wasn't going to fight him, then he could think of no excuse to leave his side. With a sigh, he settled himself more comfortably in bed, leaning his head close to Sagara's so they could share the pillow.

"Good night," Aoshi said.

He didn't expect an answer.