Champagne Satin

Description (Chapter One!) Minamino Shuiichi begins to hear the voice of a very possessive youko, who claims they belong together. He tries to rebel, but the seductive promises his kitsune counterpart whispers are almost too much...

The first time Shuiichi heard the voice, it startled him terribly.

"You are mine."

The voice was like satin, and it wrapped itself around his tired mind like a cool shower. It seemed to promise Shuiichi all sorts of things -- unbearable pleasure, unbearable pain. Sardonic. Rich. And oh-so-seductive.

His pen hit the desk with a clatter of porcelain on plastic, and he gasped softly.

"You are mine," the voice repeated, then laughed when a frisson of fear ran through Shuiichi. "You have been mine since the day of your birth."

Shuiichi stood up, gripping his own forearms in a white-knuckled grasp. The acrid scent of fear overpowered his soft rose fragrance as he gasped. "Who are you?" Inane, yes; but as terrified as he was, it was quite understandable, even for the sadistic youko.

"There, there," the voice came, almost soothing. "I would never -hurt- you, little one." The endearment was spoken so quietly -- such a paradox, that, like velvet whips -- but Shuiichi felt it down to the very core of his being. "You know me."

"I-I do?" The redhead sat down heavily on his bed. Could it be... the youko within him? Impossible! He was too tired. That had to be it... He hadn't slept well in days; his dreams had been haunted by heated visions of things that he'd never imagined, before then. He'd woken, during the night, and been so damnably uncomfortable, he'd had to right things himself before he could sleep again. But this voice -- it was a new low. 'I'm exhausted,' Shuiichi reasoned, 'and therefore am afraid of my own mind. How foolish of me.' He almost relaxed, but then that low, taunting laughter began in the back of his mind.

"Oh, yes," mocked the youko in that -voice-. "You need sleep, little one. Sleep yourself out, and see if I'm gone in the morning."

Shuiichi rubbed his eyes, swallowed hard, and slipped out of his shirt, stretching. "That's just what I intend to do," he said briskly, trying not to be worried. He flicked out the lights and slid into bed, and was lulled to sleep by the kitsune's low, purring laughter and the remembered sound of rain on roses.



"Just a little longer," Shuiichi moaned, and writhed under the blanket to reach his pillow, and buried his head beneath it. "Just a few more minutes." Four hours of sleep. That was all he'd managed to snatch from the youko and his incredible... presence. So indolent, so self-assured, and damnably matter-of-fact about it. He was in control, and Shuiichi was the vessel to be tossed at his will.

There it went. The high, shrieking alarm of his clock made Shuiichi growl fiercely and reach out from under the pillow, groping for the snooze alarm. "Where are you?" Stupid alarm clock. Stupid sleep... Gritting his teeth, he tentatively peeped out, squinting against the daylight flooding in the window through the blind.

"Not a clever idea," came the velvet voice from its place deep within him.

Retreating beneath the covers again, Shuiichi swore creatively, clenching his hands helplessly in the sheets. "Damn you." What a wonderful situation. He was running on next to no sleep, beyond irritated with the voice in his mind that persisted in calling him 'little one',

'pet', 'baby'.

"Come now, pet, no need to curse me," pouted the youko. "You know you enjoyed the dreams." He sounded so sweetly reasonable that Shuiichi moaned in unwelcome memory. "I know whose name you whispered... and I'm loath to believe it was in hatred. You have never hated anyone, little one, least of all me." Shuiichi could almost feel the grin that would have curved Kurama's lips in their wry, sardonic twist, and he growled into the tangled sheets, but there was nothing he could say to refute his statement, aside from a choked, "I'm straight, damnit!"

"Oh, that's no fun," the kitsune purred mockingly, almost poutingly. "Besides... I don't care."

"Y-you don't... care?" Shuiichi spluttered.

"Of course not, baby," Kurama reasoned. "You're mine anyway. Nobody else counts."

At Shiori's second call for her son, Shuiichi rolled out of bed to face the blinding sunlight. "Oh, yeah?" muttered Shuiichi. "As far as I'm concerned, you don't count either." He had meant it maliciously, cruelly, to drive away the Youko with his velvet voice and seductive dreams.

Kurama gave a snort. "You'll change your mind, pet, given time... and persuasion." Part of Shuiichi's mind closed to him, and the

redhead swore again roundly, deadly angry with the damned kitsune. Yawning wearily, he stretched, arching his back, the sunlight gilding his body in a wash of gold. He paused to take in the familiar surroundings. Rumpled bed, one pillow thrown across the room, knocked down photograph from the wall... and...

Oh. No. His homework lay open on the desk, virtually untouched aside from the neat scrawl of his name across the top of the paper, the date and the subject. Shuiichi groaned, eyeing it. He had a choice. Shower, or do his homework... choices, choices.

Shuiichi breathed deeply, intending to sigh, and the sputtered as he caught a glimpse of himself, indignant. "You bastard," he breathed, and plucked distastefully at his shorts and the product of the Youko's damned dreams.

But still, the choice was made for him. Shuiichi sighed fatalistically, seized a clean uniform, and fled to the bathroom, the apples of his cheeks pink with a flush of fury and rebellion. Manipulate him, indeed! Kurama would catch hell from him if -- when -- he deemed it necessary to show himself again.

Shuiichi thought he could hear Kurama's laughter as he stood beneath the hot spray of the shower, washing away all evidence of the night before, cleaning the perspiration from that long red hair, but decided it was just a trick of his imagination nearly as soon as it happened. He was damnably sore, but it was a languid sort of soreness that the hot water washed away in due course.

Rubbing the bar of soap between his palms, Shuiichi let himself think. He couldn't deny that he had enjoyed the dreams. So? That didn't mean he'd lost his mind. The only thing was, he couldn't deny that Kurama's voice could reduce him to a quivering mass of red hair and need. Couldn't deny that he had whispered the Youko's name, had dreamt his body, had heard the kitsune's nicknames for him as he left sanity behind. Shuiichi shuddered as he smoothed the soap over the lean planes of his body. He didn't need this, not one bit of it, but it seemed he was in it for keeps. It was either resist and live in a hell of unwanted desire, or...

Or what, Minamino? he asked himself. Can't handle it? Say it. You're not a coward.

Or give in, and lose himself completely.

Choices, choices, Shuiichi thought wryly as he bent to adjust the water pressure and heat. He stood beneath the hot, blasting

spray and let it rinse away the lather and, with it, some of his tension.

No, he couldn't deny it -- any of it -- but he could try to resist.

His decision was made, and once Shuiichi made a decision, it took nothing less than a law of nature to budge him. Or an incredibly sexy, possessive, sardonic kitsune with a voice like satin and a twisted imagination, Shuiichi thought sourly, but his resolve held firm. "Oh, am I in for a treat," he muttered to himself as he savagely switched off the water and wrung the worst of it from his hair before beginning a vigorous rubdown with his towel.

Over the steam and the scent of his soap came the fragrance of breakfast. Shuiichi's stomach rumbled viciously, so loudly he could hear it, and he sighed his exasperation. "I have no self-control," he murmured mirthlessly as he slid into his clothes and out of the bathroom.

But self-control was overrated, anyway.