Champagne Satin

Description (Chapter Six!) [Being a rather... Youko-centric chapter...] Kurama learns in Makai from the summoned specter of his old friend Kuronue that consummating the commitment of mating a ningen to a youkai can have the direst of consequences, unless the youkai is willing to first convert the human. Meanwhile, in Ningenkai, Shuiichi is growing more ill by the moment, just as Kuronue predicted. Neither can afford to take chances or make mistakes, when they are playing with their collective life... Chapter ends with one hell of a plot twist! Ten merits to whoever can figure it out!

He had always thought of Makai as a bright, exotic place that bloomed in every way, with misty clouds of jungle-scented fog that rose from the ground. Here, however, was a different story. The ground beneath the fox demon's feet reeked of rotting moss and dead leaves, the unsavory odor of death and bitterness and grudges held across time and space. Kurama was surprisingly nervous, his tail fluffed with discomfort and his eyes dark with worry.

Ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, and then Kurama stopped dead. He squinted down at the ground with a semblance of calm. It had been a good twenty years since he had seen this place. For the last five of his years as a youko he had spent mourning the friend who had died here, brutally slaughtered. Now he had returned, bringing things full-circle. He had come to resurrect the ghosts of the past -- his former love, Kuronue -- to save the spirit of his future, Shuiichi, his little redbird.

The unnatural stillness was not in the least surprising to Kurama. Birds stilled their chirping, no cricket made a sound, and no animal rustled in any bush. Winds watched with bated breath, wroth with Kurama for the travesty he was committing. It was youko way to accept things, and move on without protest or incident, but not this youko. With a deep breath, he began the remembrance ceremony.

Laughing violet eyes began the impression, narrow and heavy-lashed with a mischievous glint in their depths. And then, following that, came the fair softness of the skin, crinkled with laughter around those warm eyes and lined, dimpled in one cheek with the traces of a perpetual cocky grin on full lips that the younger demon instinctively knew were soft, but could crush possessively against another's. The images were flowing now: silky black hair bound into a swinging, bouncing ponytail that was so much a part of him; a lean, hard body that was strong and well-tuned and responded to any command given it by a clever mind that was quick to jump to solving a problem.

And then, with the splash of truth, there came the sound of the bat-youkai's laughter, so sweet and so welcome after all the years Kurama had spent without him. It gladdened the youko to hear that sound, and his pointed, silver-furred ears flicked involuntarily. "So you found the gate, did you? You old pickpocket, I don't suppose it would have come easy to you," came the amiable dart at Kurama's pride. The youko about-faced, his hair flying. When it settled, Kurama nearly choked.

There before him, in all his dark glory, was Kuronue, that lithe body cockily canted against a tree. His grin was bright and mirthful, and his expression was one of high spirits. That wealth of hair still framed his face, which was pale as death itself but still cheerful. "Yeah, I'm here in the flesh, kitsune," pointed out the bat-youkai, smirking that old familiar smirk that revealed his sharp-pointed fangs.

Kurama stepped forward hesitantly, looked at the violet-eyed youkai, and then took another step forward. He swallowed hard. Kuronue snorted. "Eh, kitsune, just as strange as ever I see. C'mere." With that, they met one another in perhaps two steps, and the youko found himself locked into the bat-youkai's strong embrace. The familiar cinnamon-and-earth scent enveloped Kurama, and Kuronue was in turn brought to full awareness by the oddly soft scent of Kurama's pure kitsune musk, tainted with roses and herbs. A moment later the embrace had loosened, and Kuronue had kissed the youko, a fleeting brush of those silk-over-steel lips that made Kurama remember why he had been so attached to him, and then, a moment later, he stiffened.

"I can't, Kuro. Wait, wait..." The bat-youkai's bold hand had been wandering down along Kurama's hard-muscled stomach, and even through the soft cloth of his tunic, Kurama was certain that Kuronue could feel the clenching and locking of his muscles. What he wouldn't give to be able to let Kuronue relieve the great, lustful tension that had been building in him since the ningen puberty he had suffered as Shuiichi. "Kuro. I have claimed a mate. I cannot risk nulling that!"

Kuronue's face went white. "A mate? Kurama... a mate?" The bat-youkai looked as though Kurama had punched him soundly in the stomach. "Then... why did you summon me back? To rub it in --"

"Steady on, Kuronue," Kurama soothed, taking his friend's clawed hands in his own, though Kuro's hands were trembling and stiff, as though someone had poked little wires into what had once been the embodiment of lust to Kurama. "I need you. You always were wiser in the ways of the world than I. I fear for his life -- I have not yet claimed him physically, nor have I convinced him to return the marking."

Kuronue, stifling the pain in his heart, nodded. "Yes. Is he a proper youkai, that he can take your mark and go on unscathed?"

"What do you mean?" asked Kurama softly. "Go on unscathed? He is a human, Kuronue... what do you mean?"

The bat-youkai frowned. "You did not convert him before you marked him? Surely he cannot be living -- how long ago did you claim him, Kurama? It is imperative that you remember and remember well, because it could mean the difference between life and death for him."

Kurama's brows furrowed, and he said quietly, "Two weeks," and Kuronue eyed Kurama as though he were a particularly unclever child, his winged dark brows arched over bemused violet eyes.

"Two weeks... Ugh, Kurama, you've just sentenced the boy to death, unless you're willing to convert him within three days now. His body cannot handle the change to his systems. A lifemate must share the very rhythms of your life -- your breathing, your heartbeat, your very mental patterns. Surely you have noted that your breathing and your heartbeat are a thousand times slower than his!" Kuronue berated the other youkai furiously.

Kurama's heart stopped, and gave a sick flip-flop in his chest. His beloved Shuiichi... a youkai? There was no way... he couldn't. How bad of him would that be? Surely Shuiichi would not wish to live that sort of life. He couldn't risk it but yet he -had- to, if only for love and for the way they were so closely interlinked already. "How?" said Youko simply, miserably. He had to.

Kuronue surveyed the one who had been the closest to him for so very long. "You must gain his permission, and you must allow him to return the claim you staked on him. He must drink the blood he draws until it no longer flows, and then you must enter his mind and help him to endure the pain of the change. For a full night, you will be as one person in your pain -- but when the morning comes..."

Kurama looked down at the ground. "He will be as I am." He nodded slowly, then those amber eyes hardened, brightened like topaz jewels. "So be it." He clenched a clawed hand into a fist. "Kuronue... thank you." He reached out, pressed a careful hand to his old friend's shoulder, his expression as elegantly unreadable as it ever was.

Silently the bat-youkai nodded his head. "Then go, Kurama."

~*~

He had convinced himself that this deep, bone-aching weariness was all in his head and so he had risen, despite the pain, to tend his garden. Shuiichi had spent too much time away from it, and it had been languishing in his absence. He frowned unhappily at the sight of brown leaves. Despite the fact that he could not use the youko's demon energy, he had retained some of the more open characteristics of the one who had lived so long within him, among them being the love for plants. He bent to observe a withering stem and sighed deeply, not in the least bit surprised when that action brought him to a cough so deep and wrenching it had him kneeling with one arm clamped over his aching chest. "Where is that baka kitsune?" rasped Shuiichi, forcing his fingers to relax from where they had practically cramped. A rush of lightheadedness forced him to sit down, leaning against the rails of the balcony dizzily. The green of his plants blurred before his eyes, fuzzing in and out, and his head felt as though it were filled with some thick, sloshing liquid. His lungs began to burn as he desperately tried to suck in air, his eyes wide and filled with tears, his cheeks flushing crimson.

The last thing Shuiichi knew was a flash of darkness and the taste of silky bitter blood upon his lips, and a familiar small, burning-hot hand pressed against the back of his head, encouraging Shuiichi to 'drink, for your life and your mate's,' in a gruff but familiar voice.

And then the world went black.