This fic is largely based on one of my dreams. Anything you want explained, can be explained by that.
PASSAGE
This wasn't how he ever would have pictured it, here in this room full of broken shadows and heavy Western-style furniture. But still he understood that sometimes scenery was necessary to set the stage, to let one step outside of oneself and do things one normally wouldn't do.
Oishi shrugged off his school jacket and hung it from one bony arm of a worn wing chair by the door, clapping his hands together for warmth. It was so cold in the house that he could see his breath indoors; and the room they had been given was unheated, obviously not having been used for some time. Tezuka slid ahead of him through the gloom, finding and turning on a hurricane lamp sitting on a massive roll-top desk; then drawing the screens closed over the windows, one by one. The lamplight faintly illuminated what the streetlight had not- books stuffing every wall, sagging out of antique glass-fronted cabinets; dust lining the threads of the patchy Turkey carpet; a strange-looking quilt made of fine silk rags topping the layers of more ordinary duvets that weighed down the thick wooden bed. The phosphorescent flash of white shirt as Tezuka took off his own jacket and folded it neatly, laying it on top of a water-stained seaman's chest. Oishi's hadn't known places like this existed; this inn-not-inn Tezuka had led them to, tracing a path through winding side-streets as if he knew instinctively where it would be. He had asked Oishi here, and Oishi had come without hesitation: an odd favor given to an old friend. But as he stood there now in that place of queer shadows and cryptic foreign miscellany, it felt as if he had merely been chosen to assist in some kind of ancient ritual, working magic for a spell only Tezuka knew the whole of. He remembered something Fuji had said once, about how some cultures thought of sorcery as a strictly feminine thing, and that a man wishing to gain that sort of power could only do it by becoming like woman, and lying underneath another man. Looking at Tezuka now, lamplight scissoring his friend's cheekbones, his eyes sharp even in the dimness, and Oishi couldn't help but wonder what such a transformation might make him capable of.
He froze as Tezuka turned back to look at him, expectation whispering through the dark space between them. In that moment the man before him was a stranger, englamored by the Otherness of his surroundings; but then it was only Tezuka, and that old, sweet, what-can-you-do smile that hardly anyone save Oishi ever saw anymore, as he nodded towards the empty bed. The frame creaked faintly as his friend climbed in without undressing, as it was still far too cold for bare skin. They would have to warm up the bed themselves first, Oishi knew. He pulled back the covers on the other side, but Tezuka motioned gently for him to wait, before gingerly handing Oishi his glasses. Oishi folded the metal earpieces flat and padded back to the desk, where he laid them gently on top of the green felt blotter. He reached up then to switch off the lamp, but a small noise behind him made him look over his shoulder to see Tezuka shaking his head. Oishi felt another twinge of dislocation- he had seen Tezuka without his glasses before, many times, but there was something different about it now. He looked- unsteady, somehow- frayed and unsure of himself in this place, as if the man he knew were unraveling ever so slightly. Dimly, he realized that he had no idea how strong his friend's prescription was. He didn't know if Tezuka was merely disoriented by the blurring of the world or plunged into outright blindness; perhaps even a dim source of light made all the difference between the two.
Leaving the lamp burning, he slid awkwardly between the covers, pausing to grope in his pockets for the jar Tezuka had given him before setting it with a click on top of the headboard. Even this seemed out of the ordinary, with its glass stopper and curiously old-fashioned medicinal smell, quite unlike anything Oishi had ever used for such purposes before. Tezuka did not resist when Oishi tugged him gently towards the center of the bed and rolled him onto his back, so that he could lay himself down on top of the other boy. Not quite skin-to-skin, but yes- chest to chest and hip meeting hip and the oddly intimate brush of Tezuka's feet against his, their bodies fitting together with reeling perfection. He looked down at his friend, whose chilled hands had closed hard over Oishi's shoulders; Tezuka's expression grim and unchancy, lustful yet strange. Their grip tightened abruptly, cold fingers searing right through his shirt; then let go to run coaxingly down his arms, transparent in their desire to pull him down and do as they always had. This was Tezuka, his captain- and the desire to let him take the lead was so natural, so unconsciously familiar no matter what form the act might take that it almost hurt to pull away and sit back on his heels, watching the other frown in confusion as his blurred form moved back out of Tezuka's range of sight. Easy and familiar, yes, but ease and familiarity had no place here. It might be unpleasant for both of them, but he knew what had to be done.
Oishi gently untangled their limbs and slid back out of the bed, ignoring the other's irritation, and reached out to snap off the light.
"Oishi!" Tezuka barked his name in the sudden cloying blackness, anger obvious at an order disobeyed. Oishi knew that retribution would come for this sooner or later, in one form or another; but he stayed right where he was, hidden in the fall of shadows, silently counting off the seconds. For the moment there was nothing, only the rustle of Tezuka moving around on the bed, trying to locate him in the dark. Then he heard his name called again, in little more than a whisper, the other boy keeping his voice carefully flat so as not to betray panic. He let the silence build, feeling little tendrils of tension slither through the room, like a monster beginning to emerge from under the bed- just a glimpse of claw or tentacle showing now, but with the promise of more to come. The everyday Tezuka, the man he knew- the respected captain, the tennis ace, the natural leader, the perfect student- would never have let himself be led where he asked Oishi to take him. No matter what they did here, when they left nothing would have changed. But like this, Tezuka would be left to stumble through the darkness; entering this unknown territory blind and uncertain.
"Shuichiro…?" The voice was husky now, burning with things unsaid; and Oishi moved then, reaching out to the other boy through the shadows, feeling those strong arms clutch at him like a drowning man reaches for shore. He pushed his friend back down into the covers, the touch of their skin together speaking even more sweetly sight unseen. The only way out now was through, and Tezuka would journey through the underworld with only Oishi's hands to guide him, trusting in him to lead them back into the light.
FIN(What Fuji was referring to specifically is a passage in the Ynglinga Saga, which mentions how Odin, in learning seidr (sorcery, prophecy) committed ergi (unmanliness and/or cowardice, suggesting sexual receptiveness), and so thereafter it was regarded as a solely feminine art. Few scholars agree on exactly what this implies, and later English translations (including the OMACL one available online) have taken certain liberties from Snorri Sturluson's eleventh-century original, to keep the Saga in line with modern romanticized notions of what Vikings should be like. If I could find the translation I originally read, I would quote it here- but it's not in either the OMALC or the Dover editions of the Heimskringla, so I'm starting to wonder if I only dreamed it existed.)