Bittersweet

Dedicated to Nyte Kit, who wanted me to "dazzle her with my creative brilliance," and obviously has some of her own to think of this before i did.

Warnings:
1) Shounen ai. (Coulda seen that comin' from a mile away...)
2) Sexual implications, rape implications, S&M implications, pedophilia/necrophilia implications, etcetera.
3) My favorite pairing, which should be obvious to you people by now. (It makes me smile.)
4) Murder. (That makes me smile too.) Character death.
5) A completely fabricated, disturbing past for one character.

Genre: i think it's horror. A tad mystery, suspense; maybe a little angst.

Author's notes: What's really ironic is that when i began this, the song "Tainted Love" by Marilyn Manson was playing on my stereo. O.o Anyway, this is something else that i had thought of doing for a while, though not specifically with these two characters. i'll explain after the chapter.

To Nyte Kit: This isn't exactly how you asked, but i included some of the points you made. i'm sorry if it disappoints, but i can always write something else if you want. Just say the word and i'll try to adhere to your specifications a little better. It wasn't intentional, i just didn't take a close enough look at what you'd said before i began.

Enjoy.

With a quiet look of savage appreciation, he slinked forward, eyeing the one sitting in the chair. The other had a look of bored exhaustion on his face, as if he had been sitting there for a long day with nothing to do, but thought alone had devastated his energy supply. It was the look one had after getting off an airplane, the look that was brought about by doing nothing but staring out the window and wondering how long it would be until something interesting would happen.

The chair was of redwood, high-backed with long arms and a black plush cushion. Said cushion was currently hidden, though. A down blanket was covering the occupant's lap and did a thorough job of hiding the cushion as well as the legs of the occupant and of the chair, one of which was splintering. The chair would have to be replaced, though neither of them were up for the task. It had been several long months since either had left the lofty castle, with its high-rising towers and jet-black stone walls, with its marble floors and crystal chandeliers that were covered with many decades' worth of grime. The remnants of a fallen chandelier were scattered in an unused ballroom down the hall from the bedchamber the pair were lingering within. The fixture had only fallen three weeks before, caused by the tremors of an angry explosion. The broken edges of the crystals were free of all filth save a fine layer of dust and glittered to the room around them, casting illusions of light on the walls that would astound a child, the light coming from the candles that were perpetually lit and never seemed to melt. These candles were strewn around the stone citadel, always there for light to whomever it would benefit. After the family of this castle had nearly died out almost half a century before, the radiance only benefitted the rats and insects that would starve to death in these halls. The bats tended to shun the light and fluttered around the scarce unlit corridors, feeding on the foolish insects that dared to wander into their territory.

This bedchamber the pair occupied was as in disrepair as the rest of the castle with the exception of the large bed, which was made of ebony and decked out in black covers; it was a four-poster bed with black lace hangings generously shrouding whoever chose to sleep there. The walls seemed to bleed with morning dew and the raindrops that leaked in through other breeches in the castle's exterior; they trickled as if through instinct down walls and through cracks and made the stone walls sweat. This course of water had, in time, eaten away at the ancient portraits that were adorning the walls. The wooden frames were warped and discolored, the paintings themselves nursing mold in the corners as the paint bled with the dew and rain water. Only one of the seven portraits on the walls could be visually distinguished as a demon countenance. This picture was of an attractive female in a scarlet taffeta dress, sitting in the very same chair that one of the occupants of the room was lounging in. Her hair was ebony and her skin fair, her body beautiful with all its curves and plump breasts and tiny waist. Her face was melting, though. The only possible way to tell that her face was indeed attractive was the word of the master of this castle, who had admitted that such a female had been his mother before she'd been murdered. However, he refused to admit that it had been his older brother that had caused her demise.

That older brother who had killed his mother had also had a hand in slaughtering their father, then proceeded to murder their sister, whose plan it had been to butcher everyone else in the family and take the treasures hidden within the villa. She had been foolish to trust her brother. He killed her after they murdered their parents, then turned his attentions to the shocked violet eyes of his younger brother, a sly smirk on his lips. Evil brother, that one. Demented, cruel, sadistic, and lustful. He had bid his brother forward and proceeded to warp his young mind. Poor child had only been seven in years, added to three months. He had been so proud of those three months, as it made him seem older in his own eyes. But with these revelations, that age brought insanity, he didn't want to be older like his brother, who had begun touching the corpses in places that ought not to be touched, and in ways that shouldn't be done. As these bodies decomposed, he got tired of them and turned his attentions to that no-longer-innocent, nonconsensual little brother.

These tales were locked deep within two minds, and only two minds, with the addition of the murder of that older brother. Fratricide. Murder. Blood.

Loyalty lies in blood, and this was his form of loyalty. He had let the sword fall from his grasp and lapped up the blood from his fingers and face, then gave his older brother the same farewell that the monster had given to their parents and sister. Immediately afterward, he burned the body in one of the many grates scattered among the castle walls. He spat into the ashes and left, ignoring that the fortress around him was falling to pieces, just as he did now. His guest didn't mind that the building was decimating itself over their heads and under their feet. He didn't mind much of anything anymore.

These stories were only for one mind, but two held it within. The master of this castle was unaware that the spirits lingering around could whisper to his guest and speak the yarns hidden inside these walls, could easily lead that guest to where the bones of that murdered family were buried inside a trunk stored in a locked room that would forever be barred from anyone going inside. But his guest didn't care to rise and uncover these bones. His respect for the dead and thoughts of burying those bones vanished when his will to live was depleted. He couldn't acknowledge that they were actually worth respecting when they made such pathetically desperate attempts to be recognized. They couldn't affect him anyway.

But the tales themselves had left their mark. After hearing the whispers in his tormented sleep for so long, these occurrences were etched into his conscious thoughts. He saw through the eyes of these murdered demons and through the eyes of the abusive brother and through the reflection in the eyes of the demon that was his host. He saw it all and, at first, it had made him cough up a tide of vomit out the window. That window had been the closest thing to a toliet he could get to, but he heard the splash of his fluids clashing against the stone walls outside before soiling the brown grass on the ground. The sound had awaken his host, upon which time his face had been forced into the pillow, as it had been every evening and most mornings. Eventually, it wasn't so sickening, seemed almost acceptable. The more he saw through the brother's eyes, the more he thought like this abusive, demented, sadistic, necrophiliac demon. And, slowly, he grew listless and cold.

So, as violet eyes met emerald eyes, that savage need appeared. Again the one in the chair looked out the window, begrudgingly moving the blanket aside. A mask was dropped to the ground, causing a resounding clang. Lips were pressed brutally to lips and two hands tore into the river of ebony hair. This inital exchange was the softest that the fox would allow himself to drop to. He thought himself too giving at times, allowing such a gentle touch to his host, but he was sure that the bomb-wielding demon's brother would not have allowed such a luxury. He would have tore into him, done as he chose, hurt his playmate into shedding tears not of pain, but of horror and shame. His psychological abuse would force his partner into assuming he, that partner, was at fault. And as the years had snailed by, he'd gotten much better at it and had chosen to divulge the secrets to the fox.

No longer was Kurama the defenseless one. No longer was it Karasu's sadism that brought them physically together. It was the fox's lessons from a demon long since executed and cremated, sent to the grave by one that resented those lessons and memories. And these actions of his beloved fox were so familiar that it actually scared him. He was genuinely afraid of his fox. But he detested allowing this fear to show, so he thought on other things, boring things, trivial things, as he ignored that those emerald orbs were always at attention and watching him with a lust similar to that of his older brother. But he couldn't ignore it as soon as only the horizon bled and the majority of the sky was a silky sapphire. For that had become the fox's favorite time of evening, just as it had been his brother's, and such was a just reason for a celebratory ritual of degrading and demoralizing that violet-eyed child that sat within the hidden chambers of Karasu's heart, crying and alone. And every time the fox saw fit to play his games, that child wept harder and whispered curses he'd heard his father mutter when something had gone sour, or that he'd heard his sister spout when she was denied freedoms, or heard his brother whisper to him to rip another hole in his soul. But never would his mother swear. She was the proper, comforting one that chose to hold him when he was scared, but she was lying on the floor of his mind, bleeding, dead eyes watching him as the fox did and frightening him further.

The fox heaved a sigh and watched the ceiling, his arms folded behind his head as a makeshift pillow, despite him having several beneath him. His gaze didn't see fit to stray to his host when Karasu left the bed. He didn't care to look up as his host donned his pants or left the room, a deep frown affixed to his face. He only cared to look up when a sense of déjà vu came over him and his eyes widened.

For the second time in his life, Karasu lapped up the blood from his hands and the sword, then gave the corpse of an oppressing demon the derogatory farewell it deserved.

And that is an example of a protagonist/antagonist switch, which i had wanted to do, but never got around to it. Thank you Nyte Kit for bringing this up. i really like this chapter. i'm so proud of it. Almost brings a tear to the eye. Heh.

Thanks! Mr. Shishio, Miya, miyako14, and Nyte Kit. (i have 234 kilobytes done for Poetic Justice and eight and a half chapters added to that prologue done. Am i working hard enough?)

Hope you liked.

11:50 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time. U.S. Wednesday, September 28, 2005.

Owakare.

Chiisai Mu.
Little Nothing.