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My bgm for this chapter was "You Know You Like It" by DJ Snake and AlunaGeorge.
And, oh, poor Kaito in this chapter. His cute little brain is all scrambled up.
Kaito: I can deal with my brain being scrambled up, as long as there isn't torture, violence, or rape.
...What else is left? D:
Kaito: OTHER STUFF DX
...
Kaito woke up in fragments. Part of one sense, part of another sense, making the world feel disjointed as his mind tried to wake up the rest of the way and make sense of where he was, whether he was safe, whether he should be afraid. His body felt warm, and there was a mild, almost spicy scent in the air that seemed comforting and vaguely familiar.
The soft sounds of breathing were in the room, two sets of breath. There was a slight pressure around Kaito's body where arms were loosely wrapped around him. His front was warm with proximity to another person's body. Kaito's eyes looked in front of him, realizing that the person holding him was Gakupo. The violette was asleep, his breathing soft and regular. His long hair fell lankily across his face and over his shoulders.
Kaito's eyes softened, and he took in the feeling of being safe. His body felt achy, as if he had run a long race, and failed to cool back down with a walk to relax his muscles afterwards. The scent in Kaito's nose was Gakupo's scent.
Kaito closed his eyes and inhaled a little, feeling an almost dizzy relief. Opening his blue eyes once more, Kaito stared at the purple-haired man's face, tracing his features boldly, knowing that the Vocaloid male wouldn't catch him staring while he slept. The violette's lips were slightly parted as he breathed in, and out. The soft sound was mesmerizing, relaxing.
Kaito felt a sudden need welling up in him from out of nowhere. He needed to be physically closer to the source of comfort. Throughout Kaito's frights over the past few days, Gakupo had held him, keeping him safe from himself, and calming him with his presence, while Kaito's memories wreaked havok on the bluenette's state of mind.
Gakupo's proximity, Gakupo's care, Gakupo's arms around Kaito, all had provided a much-needed sense of support and reliability. Kaito knew that when the violette was there, he was safe. The thought produced a feeling of craving; Kaito /needed/ that intimacy. He struggled to move closer to Gakupo, even though he was already loosely in the violette's arms.
'How can I get even closer?' Kaito thought, his mind feeling like a wild thing, as he pressed himself tightly against Gakupo's sleeping form, taking in breaths of the mild, masculine scent that he only noticed when he was this close to Gakupo's body.
Kaito's stricken eyes stared at Gakupo's face, feeling like he needed the violette to wake up, to help him, to hold him closely, tightly. To hear Gakupo's soft, encouraging voice. The violette had never once told Kaito, "It's alright," and the knowledge of that gave Kaito a trust in the purple-haired male's words.
The breath coming out of Gakupo's mouth was unchanged in rhythm, though Kaito was close enough to feel the rise and fall of Gakupo's chest against his own. Kaito breathed in sync with Gakupo, willing his anxious heart to calm down. He focused on Gakupo's lips. They looked soft. Gakupo always touched Kaito softly; even when he was holding him bodily, his hands were gentle with their stength.
Kaito moved his head closely to Gakupo's face, until he could feel Gakupo's breath against his own lips. Kaito's heart was jackhammering. He felt needy, and wanted to be ashamed of that feeling, but the need and longing for closer contact was stronger than the shame, for once. Kaito tilted his head very slightly, and moved so that his lips were touching just very slightly against Gakupo's lips, breathing in Gakupo's exhalations, breathing out Gakupo's inhalations.
Kaito closed his eyes slowly, pressing their lips even further together into a soft, dry kiss.
...
The warm, comfortable feeling of Kaito's body against Gakupo's gained a pressure as Kaito pressed himself against Gakupo's front. The warm, moist breath against Gakupo's face was also comfortable, and the pleasant combination of warmth, pressure, and comfort didn't wake the violette up.
But the feeling of Kaito's lips pressing against his lips somewhat forcefully produced a sexual sort of tickle down Gakupo's stomach, even in his sleep. The violette sleepily opened his eyes, to see that Kaito was pressed firmly against him, and his pale face was tilted, kissing Gakupo just as firmly. Kaito's facial expression had a hunger to it that caused Gakupo's eyes to widen like he had just been splashed with a bucket of cold water. Oh, Gakupo was awake, definitely awake. Instantly, shocked.
Gakupo pulled away slightly in his startlement. Kaito's half-lidded eyes stared back at him, and the bluenette tried to press his body firmly back against the violette's. "K-Kaito?" Gakupo stuttered out, speechless at the unexpected actions he had awoken to.
"Please hold me," The needy statement came out from between the bluenette's lips as he stared boldly back at Gakupo.
"UH..." Gakupo paused, flummoxed. Hold, or kiss? Gakupo sweatdropped, the slight feeling of pleasure from the unexpected contact with Kaito's soft lips was still noticably there in his lower belly.
Kaito's face stilled, his eyes suddenly going blank, and he stopped trying to wiggle closer to Gakupo. Kaito withdrew a little bit, his facial features slackening into an expression of... despair? Gakupo couldn't place the exact word that would fit the look on Kaito's face.
"I'm sorry," Kaito's voice sounded like it was full of a sudden self-hatred. "I just... you've been so good to me and I... touched you, with my dirty, messed-up body. It's disgusting. Of course you're angry."
"What? I? I'm not angry, Kaito," Gakupo tried to recover from the rapid changes in the bluenette's behavior, feeling like a fish out of water. He gaped at Kaito, who was withdrawing into himself in self-loathing. "And you're not dirty, Kaito."
"I'm mutilated. I'm not even a whole person anymore. I'm disgusting," Kaito murmured hatefully and fell back silent. His slim shoulders were shaking. Gakupo looked at him, feeling very concerned, the memory of Kaito's freakout earlier, front and center in his mind. Gakupo reached out a hand to touch Kaito's cheek, and while the bluenette didn't flinch away this time, he didn't look up to meet Gakupo's eyes again, either.
"You /are/ a whole person. Your body is just... different than it used to be," Gakupo tried to comfort Kaito by reasoning with him.
"I'm a freak," Kaito stated in a low, blunt tone. "I've got no hands. Nobody is going to want me, after this. Even you, even you pull away. I don't have any value like this. Not anymore. My body is disgusting. I'm worthless. I'm dirty. Maybe I deserved this. Why did this happen to me? Is it somehow my fault? My Master..."
Gakupo slowly reached out his hands to touch Kaito's shoulders, and pulled the male into a hug against his chest. Kaito didn't resist, but he didn't try to push back against Gakupo seeking comfort again, either. Gakupo's voice was soft, his heart beating hard at the lingering sense of Kaito's lips on his lips, and the returning proximity of the bluenette's body against his chest.
"You're beautiful," Gakupo murmured, putting his face against Kaito's soft blue hair. "It's not your fault. Kaito... every part of you is beautiful. You're still a whole person. It's just your body that is different."
Kaito wanted to believe Gakupo. His face twisted up, and he asked in a pained voice, pulling back from the purple-haired Vocaloid male and holding his bandaged stubs up for inspection, "How can this be beautiful? I'm... defective. I'm crippled. I don't have /hands,/ Gakupo!"
Gakupo met Kaito's eyes with a quiet, calm look. "I know, Kaito." Gakupo reached his hand out to touch the end of one of the bandaged stumps, gently. Kaito flinched his arm away, looking horrified, that Gakupo would have to touch his damaged places. Gakupo snatched his elbow, holding Kaito awkwardly, forcing him to keep his arm stub in front of him, between them, for Gakupo's inspection.
"I think it's probably time that it's okay to take these bandages off," Gakupo said after a long momenent, as the two faced off, staring at each other, refusing to break their eye contact. Kaito's eyes widened at this, and he looked downwards, surrendering first.
"No... I don't want to," Kaito mumbled. "I don't want to look at it. You shouldn't have to, either."
"Don't argue with me," Gakupo stated, and reached to unwrap the bandages of Kaito's arm. Kaito struggled a moment, until Gakupo grabbed his shoulder tightly, and forced the bluenette to return his alarmed eyes to Gakupo's face. "You can't put this off. Show it to me. It's not like I haven't been changing your bandages for the past few days."
Kaito's expression clouded at the reminder that Gakupo had already seen Kaito's deformities. He looked away, shamed, and let Gakupo do as he pleased. The violette unwrapped the bandages on first one arm stump, then the other. They really were healing quite well, and he nodded to himself that it did look like it was time for the injuries to be getting some fresh air as they continued their healing.
Kaito moved his arm stumps away, trying to cross his arms over his chest, as if to hide them. 'It doesn't work well, when it's your arms, though,' Gakupo thought to himself. Kaito's face was frozen in a very unhappy frown. Those soft pink lips that had been pressed against Gakupo's just a short while before, were now full of displeasure and anxiety once again.
Gakupo reached out his hand to touch against those lips. Kaito's eyes snapped back up at him, unreadable. Gakupo stared at them, burning their blue gaze into his vision. He softly said, "...Beautiful," and Kaito's sullen eyes widened at the word. Kaito flushed, looking away again quickly, feeling a little angry.
"You're lying," Kaito said in a hurt, angry tone. He felt betrayed by Gakupo's comment.
"This is a bad idea, Kaito," Gakupo said softly, and his palm cupped Kaito's face, turning it back towards him. The bluenette's eyes had an added look of confusion to them, as if he wanted to ask what it was that was a bad idea. Gakupo leaned forward and pressed his lips back against Kaito's.
...
A somewhat long footnote:
This chapter came about in this particular way due to my curiously googling amputation recovery, to determine both how long Kaito's stumps would likely need to heal before the stitches came out, and at what point itching on his stumps would likely to be the worst, in regards to physical recovery of the wounds.
Instead, I stumbled across a site regarding amputee "phases" specifically, being the mental states that an amputee generally goes through. They were surprisingly similar to the mental states that an abuse victim goes through, and one of those phases included "more assertive; need for intimacy." Since Kaito has been through two seperate types of trauma, and I already know the "desperate need for affection, reassurance, approval, and intimacy" that can also occur with rape trauma victims (clashing with feelings of worthlessness and being dirty and unlovable,) I could realistically imagine this sort of response from him.
Although, I detest the image that this is necessarily anywhere near the norm; everyone goes through phases in a different way, at different times, under different circumstances. There's not exactly a "normal" to adhere to, since the situation of trauma is not a normal situation.
Of course, as with any trauma, the mental phases that a person goes through are fluid, and can regress or progress, multiple times, to different phases, irregardless of where they are in the healing process. I do not in any way expect Kaito to be magically healed 100% by the tender sweet loving of one handsome, purple-haired samurai's sexing him up. Just sayin', you're in for a ride, Gakupo.