*cough* naughty bits in the second half of this chapter.
Rating: R for sure.
Pairing: KuroxFai
Notes: Naughty content! Avast! Abandon ship if that not be yer thing, arrrr!
... Sorry, I'll put down the cutlass and the pirate hat now. (Onward, ye scurvy curs!)
Lady of War part four
(well i was wrong, it never lasts, there is no... this is no modern romance)
She woke to the scent of incense and autumn, a crisp scent and both ones she remembered. Perhaps that was why it didn't surprise her to open her eyes and know she was home at last. Ceres, she thought faintly. We were in Ceres. I killed the king and the world... my arm.
She rolled her head to look at her shoulder, and her nostrils flared at the mass of bandages shielding it from view. Even from this angle she could see it was more truncated than it should be, but that wasn't the worst part. She didn't know what she should have expected when it came to her missing arm - numbness or pain or something in between - but what she got was nothing. Not nothing as in a lack of sensation, but nothing as in... She could swear she could feel the futon underneath her missing fingers.
"Welcome home, Kurogane," said a very familiar voice to her right, and she turned away from the remains of her shoulder to see her princess sitting there calmly, her hair in its customary arrangement and compassion in her warm purple eyes.
"Tomoyo," she said, her voice croaking and hoarse in her ears. She attempted to lift her good arm, and found it heavy but cooperative; she groped slowly behind her head for her tail of hair and found it greasy but not noticeably longer. "How long...?"
Tomoyo closed her eyes; there were faint lines across her brow and at the corners of her eyelids. Stress, Kurogane thought, and it was a surprise to see the Tsukuyomi looking anything but perfect. "Two days," she said. "Your companions have been quite worried about you."
"Are they okay?" Kurogane asked, urgently. "The princess - "
"Princess Sakura is still unconscious. I have placed her body amongst one of the great sakura trees outside; the youth named Syaoran is keeping an eye on her. Your magician friend has been here almost every hour to check on you."
"Fai," Kurogane said, and struggled to sit up. She half-expected Tomoyo to tell her not to, but her princess said nothing, just watched her with bright, knowing eyes. "Is he -?"
"Fine," Tomoyo answered smoothly. "I sent him outside so that we could talk. Kurogane, your arm..."
Kurogane looked down at her shoulder and reached out to touch the coverings lightly with her only remaining hand. The wound felt more healed than it ought to have been; healing magics. They didn't come cheap. "That was you, wasn't it?" she said. "In Ceres. I heard your voice."
Tomoyo blinked at her gravely. "Yes," she said. "You were dying from the wound to your side. It was close enough that I could reach you from a dream."
She bit her lip. She didn't remember much of those last moments. Fai, in that bubble that was all that remained of Ceres - his fingers in hers - the terrible resigned look in his eye, the sadness that said he was unwilling but prepared, and then Tomoyo's voice in her ear, the hot sweep of Souhi, pulling him flush against her and throwing her remaining arm around his neck to keep them together as the blood pounded in her ears and he screamed words at her that were lost to the maelstrom around them.
"Thanks," she said gruffly, and Tomoyo laughed, the bells in her hair chiming gently as she covered her mouth with one delicate sleeve.
"So," she said, after she'd recovered, "Have you forgiven me for sending you on that journey yet?"
Kurogane snorted. "Yeah," she said. "I think I get it now. What my dad taught me. I wanted strength so what happened to my mother wouldn't happen again, but... strength isn't enough, is it? You have to have a reason to use that strength. Otherwise it's useless."
"Yes," said Tomoyo softly, and smiled at her fondly. Kurogane snorted and shook her head.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I could have worked it out on my own here," she said hastily, and Tomoyo raised an eyebrow.
"Could you?" she said. "Without the people you've met?"
In her mind's eye Kurogane saw - Syaoran in the Hanshin rain, Sakura's ethereal arms looped gently around Fai's neck, the statues of the two Generals of Yama sitting next to each other, her father lifting a strand of her mother's hair to his face, and Fai. Fai with his hand in his twin's, Fai scrabbling his way up the bottom of that corpse pile in his tower, Fai standing up before Ashura with his own death in his eye and resolve in his shoulders.
Fai ordering her to let go, that the world was collapsing on him and she had to leave him if she wanted to live.
"... Maybe," she said cagily, and Tomoyo giggled again.
"You're so different now," she said, "But you're still the same at heart, Kurogane."
She tailed off and Kurogane touched her fingers lightly to the spot on her forehead where the curse had been placed. It didn't feel any different, but then again, it never had. "This thing... The King there, he said it was a protection charm. Not a curse."
The corner of Tomoyo's mouth quirked up. "Yes."
"Did you see this in your dreams?" she asked, curious. "Is that what you meant when you said I'd lose strength if I killed someone?"
"Yes," said her princess again, and there was nothing in her voice, no clue or hint.
"I guess you were right," Kurogane said slowly. "But..."
She looked out, at the walls of her sickroom. She didn't regret it.
Some of that must have showed, because Tomoyo sighed softly and said, "You found something you valued more than strength, Kurogane. Ever since you came to me I have been hoping for this day."
"Yeah, well," Kurogane growled, but her princess just laughed. She turned her head, the bells in her hair chiming softly, and smiled; it was a fond smile, wistful, and not something Kurogane had seen on her princess' face often.
"Someone else wanted to speak to you today," she said. "It would be rude of me to delay them any longer. Come in, Fai-san!"
This last was said louder than the rest, and Kurogane found herself turning to look at the sliding entrance to the room; when Fai came through her mouth fell open. There was no mistaking the garment he was wearing or the taut, tight look to his mouth. He inclined his head to Tomoyo, but didn't look at her as he made his way over to her futon; the furisode fitted him perfectly and Kurogane wondered suspiciously if Tomoyo had foreseen that they would return together.
Fai came all the way up to the edge of her futon and stepped there, his head bowed, his eye avoiding contact, and suddenly Kurogane's mouth was very dry. She had... her arm, and he... Were they going to go through the silence again? Was she going to continue being Kurogane-san?
"... Hey," she said warily, for lack of anything else.
He bared his teeth, still refusing to look her in the eye, and she had just enough time to notice they weren't vampire fangs before his hand clenched into a fist at his side and he swung at her, so fast she was too surprised to duck. He caught her a good thwack on the temple that sent her reeling, and she raised a hand to touch the injury spot, indignantly.
"What the fuck?" she roared, but stopped at the expression on his face, the way his eye (his clear, blue eye) was crinkled; relief and gratitude and something deeper she had only just started to realize was love.
"Payback, Kuro-sama," he said, and her heart thudded happily in her chest, a rising beat that made her grin back at him giddily, her stomach doing flips of joy.
"I'm gonna kill you," she said, although her heart wasn't in it; it was reflex, automatic response to those goddamn nicknames that she had missed more than she even knew.
"I think," Tomoyo said delicately, with a small smile on her face, "that the two of you shall get along just fine without me."
If they noticed her exit, neither of them reacted to it.
They had a lot to say to each other, of course, after that. He sat next to her futon and pushed her back down with a hand on her good shoulder when she tried to rise, and they talked for a long time.
She wanted to tell him about herself and her life. She thought that mattered. She had glimpsed the bat-wing magician, this Fei Wang Reed, showing him images of her past in his memories when he ordered Fai to kill her, but she found she wanted to talk to him herself, too keep it fair. He had had his past given away in excruciating detail (small withered nails torn on impassable walls, two cut down to one) and he sat and listened quietly, the sleeves of his furisode folded precisely in his lap and his eye fixed intently on hers.
She didn't want to relieve those memories. Bad enough the other Syaoran had seen them, in Lecourt; she had pushed them away, pushed them back and she hadn't wanted to see them again, not ever. It hurt her, almost physically, to dredge them back out and show them to him, but she wanted to share that much with this man, and so she talked of those early years for what felt like hours as her voice grew hoarse and the light changed outside.
Kurogane told him about Suwa as it had been in her youth; of her parents, her brave, smart father and her wise, beautiful mother.
She told him about the illness that left her mother's body too weak to bear a child after her, and how her father had decided to disregard tradition gender roles and raise her to be his heir to more than just his lands. She told him about the lessons he'd taught her in the hazy good weather days that only nostalgia could provide, of his pride when she first performed the howling dragon rush of his hama ryuu-ou jin, of her own drive to be the best and bravest warrior out there to do her parents proud.
She told him of the day the magician attacked, and she opened the shrine door to see her mother murdered; of her panicked retreat to the courtyard and the tattooed, severed, familiar hand clutching still the hilt of her father's sword. She explained about the rampage she had gone on, cradling that dismembered hand to her chest with one hand and the fury that had consumed her and left room for little else but the rage and hate.
And quietly, ashamed of even the memory, she told him what Souma had done to pin her down, and how little Princess Tomoyo had approached her - all feral bloodlust and shock - and wound her tiny arms around Kurogane's throat in an embrace that did what nothing else could.
"After that I had to be strong," she said. "I thought if I had been stronger then I would never have lost them at all, so I... I worked. I trained. I didn't have time for anything else."
Fai tilted his head, watching her with a half-lidded eye, and then said softly, "What did I do, that you would sacrifice so much for me?"
She snorted. "Don't you get it?" she said, and hesitated. "You... I can't explain it, wizard. Aren't you supposed to be smart?"
He lifted an eyebrow and gave her a wan smile. "Apparently not," he said quietly, and she looked away. She could feel heat rising in her cheeks. She didn't know how to word this; she'd always been fucking terrible at that talking-about-feelings crap even when it was so obvious her princess was dressing him in a handmade furisode and deliberately leaving them alone together because Tomoyo was a matchmaker and a mischief-maker and Kurogane didn't know whether to wring her neck or thank her, because he was... beautiful, in that outfit and that light.
"You're you," she said, stiffly, through gritted teeth. "And you're not all bad."
The furisode fabric rustled as he shifted and she glanced up, flushed and angry because she was embarrassed and anger had been her go-to emotion for so long. He was smiling gently, his blue eye bright and warm in his face, and he caught her gaze and held it as he raised himself up, on his knees, so that their eyes were level, and he was moving closer and her stomach was twisting into knots and her heart was thudding and it was every lonely night in Infinity at once, but better because he wasn't pushing her away anymore.
"Why, Kuro-sama," he purred, his tongue darting out pinkly to wet his lips. "Is that the closest thing I'm going to get to a love confession?"
"Oh, shut -" up, she started to say, but his mouth was on hers then and she was happy to let him swallow her words.
His lips were softer than she was expecting, softer even than they had felt against her skin when he drank from her. He kissed her slowly but firmly, and at first she wasn't sure what to do.
Kissing had never featured in her world view much before, but she liked it and so she cautiously parted her lips and kissed back, raising her free hand to curl around his shoulder and support him against her. One of his hands slid to her bare hip, and she didn't even remember having pushed the blanket down but she couldn't deny that she didn't mind at all. There was a slow, shy heat between her legs, and her nipples were tenting the bandages wrapped around her torso, the rough fabric a pleasant feeling although not as good as his mouth; again, no different to Infinity world and his scent on the sheets, only this time she didn't fight her body.
She wanted him. She didn't feel like lying to herself about it anymore.
He broke the kiss first, and she made a small, irate noise at his withdrawal; his eye was a murky, muddy green, torn between blue and yellow, and his pupil was not as round as it could have been. He licked his lips. "Your shoulder," Fai said, and she made a rude noise and curled her good hand around the back of his neck; her palm was wide enough to cover the whole area and she could feel the gentle bumps of his spine against her hand.
"The healers have seen to me and I had some pain-dulling concoction that tasted like the plague," she said, impatiently. "Don't lick it and it'll be fine."
He looked like he wanted to laugh at that, and she found herself grinning at him - freely, unreserved - to encourage him to do so. When he smiled for real, it was like seeing the sun for the first time after growing up in a world of lantern-lights; the corner of his eye crinkled and there was a hint of teeth, and it was less refined than those fake smiles he'd used to distance himself and Kurogane knew then that things were going to go way beyond kissing right now, because she wanted him and so did her body and she could have him and so she would.
"What are you waiting for?" she said, breathless and tense with anticipation. She'd never done anything like this and she could feel that odd mix of both excitement and nerves in her belly, mixing with the heat he put there already, and he leaned forward and kissed her again. She took the opportunity to yank out the black ribbon holding his hair out of his face and smoothed her fingers through it, twisting the soft strands between her fingers. Abruptly she remembered how greasy and natty her own was in comparison, and she stiffened.
"What's wrong?" he murmured, against her lips.
She thought about lying to him, and then decided against it. He didn't deserve that kind of hypocrisy. Her fingers played quietly in his hair as she asked, "Are you sure you want me?"
Fai blinked at her, and then his mouth twisted into a grin and he raised a hand in the space between them; when she glanced down at it he flashed his fingernails into claws, and then gently pressed them against her right side. The fabric of the bandages was nothing to the vampiric claws, and they fell away easily, leaving her torso naked in front of him. She resisted the urge to wrap her arm protectively over her breasts or her mutilated shoulder, but his eye was on her face.
"Kuro-slow," he said, amused. "I have never wanted anyone the way I want you."
Kurogane bit her lip. All her life she'd been told that she was too different - too strong, too rude, too mannish, too abrupt, so many things she'd been 'too' of - and yet, here, now... it didn't matter. His eye was bright and there was a heady warmth to his face, and she'd lost an arm for this man and given up her freedom to be his food source and she thought maybe she'd fallen for him long before then. Souma was going to have a field day. "I've never done this before," she said, quietly, and Fai tilted his head to one side.
"Well," he said. "Tell me if I do anything you don't want."
She nodded, and she didn't say what she was thinking, which was: I just want you, and he bent his head to her throat, and suddenly she wasn't thinking about anything but more of him.
It was sweet and it was slow, and he was good at what he did. When he slipped a hand between her legs and began playing with her she made a small grunting noise of surprise that she immediately disowned, although his long clever fingers were sending short shocky flickers of pleasure through her abdomen; she clenched her fingers on his shoulder and growled at him. It wasn't enough, but when he slipped a finger inside her she jerked at how strange and how good it felt and he grinned at her with warmth in his blue eye and well, smug bastard, he had a point.
It still wasn't enough.
She'd had the basics of sex explained to her by an overly gleeful Souma and as far as she knew she was supposed to be laying underneath him, except when she cautiously reached down and seized his wrist - he was fucking two fingers inside her now, and she was wetter than she'd ever been and each slick slide of his fingers was igniting a slow thrumming starburst of heat inside her, and she was so turned on she ached to stop him - and tried to tug him down he just looked at her, baffled. "Kuro-sama?"
"I. I think... isn't this how it goes?"
He was still looking at her in confusion. "I'm not sure," he said slowly. "In Ceres the man went underneath and the woman on top. Would you rather do it the other way...?"
"Does your way work better?"
He shrugged, and she could feel herself scowling; she was embarrassed and so she covered for it with anger. "Well, what the hell am I supposed to do, moron?"
Fai twisted his wrist to lace their fingers together. His were still slick with her fluids, and his smile was brighter than anything she'd ever seen. "Let me..."
He tugged at his obi with his other hand, and his brows drew together as he squirmed; with a sigh Kurogane yanked her hand free and pulled it open for him tetchily. The furisode fell open and she felt her breath catch. He wasn't wearing an underrobe, and his skin was milky and pale in the weak light.
She'd seen naked men before. Hard not to, when you lived a martial life; she'd seen her fellow ninja in all stages of undressed as healers worked on their injuries and she hadn't cared much. She'd glimpsed him naked a time or two before, during their travels; the decision to split the group by age rather than gender meant that she shared a room with him more often than not, and sometimes she'd walked in to find him freshly bathed or showered and wearing... a smile, and then a leer when he noticed her. Those glimpses of his skin had been brief because she'd yelled at him and thrown stuff until he put clothes on.
This was different. Kurogane sat there for several seconds, aware she was staring and not particularly concerned. He was so... lean, not an ounce of fat on him, and the muscles of his chest were lightly defined and before she could stop herself she reached out and touched, pressing her fingertips against his pecs and then ghosting them up and down his abdomen, skating a blunt fingernail around one pink nipple just to see what he'd do. He made a small noise of amusement and something else, something throaty, so curiously she repeated the gesture to see if he would make it again. This time he moaned, and she grinned to herself: pride.
Abruptly he moved, leaning forward until his forehead bumped against hers, resting nose-to-nose. It was an oddly intimate gesture, somehow more sweet than his lips against hers. She could feel his eyepatch rough against her eyelash when she blinked.
"Kuro-sama," he said. "This is how we're going to do it." And he told her, and warned her that it might hurt her, and she looked at him oddly and leaned back to gesture at her shoulder. He grinned at her ruefully and she snorted and shook her head. He was an idiot, but... but he was her idiot.
She let him go underneath her, since he seemed more familiar with it that way, and threw her leg over his thighs. She'd seen cock before but it had never been something she gave much of a damn about before now, so she took a few curious moments to play with his, fascinated by its heat and hardness, the softness of the skin there and the surprising heft and heaviness of his balls. He let her, although she was amused and intrigued by the noises he made when she did, his mouth falling open and his chest panting as he sucked in air. There was a need building inside her, so eventually she let him go and shifted her weight over him.
"Kuro-sama," he said, his eye glinting up at her. His cheeks were flushed and his lips pink where they'd been kissing, so she bent down and bumped their noses together for some more. He slid a comfortable arm around her shoulders, his other hand gliding to cradle the bones of her hips. He tasted so good, and she thought she was getting a little better at this kissing thing...
"I want you," Kurogane said gruffly.
"Whenever you're ready," he replied. His eyelashes fluttered as he swept his gaze down. "Kuro-sama..."
"Don't ruin this with your rambling," she warned him, but she was grinning and he smiled back at her with so much affection in his eye it took her breath away. Yes. This. She sat back up and as he began to instruct her she took hold of his cock - so sensitive, it was amazing boys could do anything with this thing to distract them - and she pushed her hips down, guiding it inside her, and watched the way coherency ebbed from him with some satisfaction as it slid slowly... as he slid slowly inside her, perfect and hot and sending warm ebbing throbs of pleasure through her all the way.
She hadn't had much expectation because she hadn't thought about this much before, but Kurogane had, when she thought about it at all, expected it to hurt. She'd expected blood. She knew about noblemen and virgin's blood on the sheets and she had thought she would have to endure. Instead there was a sharp sting, laughable in the face of Souhi sweeping through her flesh, severing muscle and bone and everything else, and then there was...
"Oh," she said. "Huh."
His throat worked as he swallowed. "Kuro-sama," he said, in a soft, velvety voice, and she rocked her hips testingly and gasped at how it felt.
Kurogane had never thought she'd have this. She'd thought she wasn't good enough for that life and that kind of relationship, mostly because she'd never thought she'd find a lover who didn't care that she could break him in half with her little finger. And though she'd given up to much to and for Fai, she had... she had learned from him and she had taught him, and the man underneath her and in her and hot and great against her was as welcome as he was stupid, and she kind of understood now why she had had to change to get this.
She didn't regret it. It was better than she'd imagined.
Maybe Tomoyo had been right after all.