It was thick and red. The liquid reflected Karamatsu's face. He stared back at himself. It was warm around his hands.
"Well . . .," Ichimatsu loomed at Kara's side. "Drink it."
This was the second time tonight that Ichimatsu had told him to 'drink' something. The first time had been far from the pleasant experience. He had still been gagging. Too much. It was why Ichimatsu had been 'so kind' to make him a cup of tea now.
Except what was in the mug he held wasn't tea at all. It was cough syrup. At least Ichi had been decent enough to heat it up for him as if it were a nice cup of rooibos.
"Actually . . .," Karamatsu smiled, another strained and skewed one, "that's okay. I'm good!"
"Eh?" Ichimatsu turned the corner, and just as quickly appeared back with a baseball bat in his hands.
"Ah!" Karamatsu instantaneously shoved the mug to his lips and started to chug the medicine without Ichi even having to say or do anything further. Gulping it down like that caused for his whole mouth to ache and prickle. The substance did not go well against all the microscopic cuts he still had from accidentally eating fiberglass earlier in the day. It also generally hurt his stomach too. That was way more cough syrup than the recommended dose. "Ugh . . . I'm really not feeling too well."
"Then you should find it even easier to go to bed early."
That sentence made Karamatsu draw pale. The 'dream' he had last night still haunted him, and he continued to fall short in coming to a conclusion on if it really was a dream or a memory. With the way everything else was adding up though: The way Ichi had helped him with that semen sample, the choice of punishment he received, Ichimatsu █████, being forced to sit in front of him as he ████ into a God damn bowl of sukiyaki, and then that strange lick the other had given him at the end of it all . . . and now, that previous sentence.
Just what the hell was going on . . .
Karamatsu stared down into the now empty mug as he realized, this was another part of everything. Ichimatsu was knocking him out without the use of a bat at all.
"Hey, come on-" Ichi grabbed at the end of Kara's leash. "Let's go bathe, then you can go to bed. Atsushi plans on attacking you with all his HP tomorrow."
Karamatsu cinged. It wasn't his leash being pulled. It was hearing that name again from his brother. Ichimatsu had said he wasn't interested in Atsushi in return, and so he tried to tell himself he just called him by his name like that out of general disrespect. Then again, why did it bother him? "Yeah . . . coming . . ." Kara mumbled and got up.
This night's 'bath time' had replayed like the previous one. He showered with the curtain open, Ichimatsu just leaning against the door watching deadpan the whole while. Then after he was done, he was forced to sit on the floor near the tub as Ichi washed himself.
Last night he had just stared down the whole while, counting the tiles. Maybe it was the medicine getting to his head, but Karamatsu found himself stealing glimpses every so often at his brother. 'It's not as if I want to watch him . . . but I can't stand looking at the floor.'
And then, he took one too many glances when Ichimatsu had noticed him watching and gave him the worst look ever: That of death daggers from the eyes, but yet a shark smile simultaneously. It was a look that could easily cause nightmares. How he hoped the cough medicine would knock him out deep enough that he wouldn't even dream.
Thank God nothing had been said with that demeanor though.
Or . . . maybe something was said, but Karamatsu just couldn't hear it or process it with how he could barely stay awake a second longer.
The tile was cold against his bare flesh as he fell to his side on it.
The chill was soon gone though as he felt warmth instead. It wasn't much, barely there at all, but he could feel what little body heat Ichimatsu had as he was picked up and carried in his arms.
Karamatsu tried saying something but only grumbled noises formed, and soon after he felt himself getting laid down on the bed.
The bed.
Not the floor.
The bed.
"It's okay . . .," Ichimatsu all so lovingly pet a hand through his hair, but his face held nothing but contempt. "Go to sleep now . . ."
The world was already fading in and out as Karamatsu tried keeping his eyes open. Each blink made his eyelids feel heavier than the last. "No . . .," he mumbled as he tried to keep himself up. He just had a really bad feeling that wouldn't shake off. Especially for the fact that he was put on the bed.
"Yes . . . Goodnight, brother. Sleep tight. Eheh-"
Ichimatsu's laugh faded as did Karamatsu's sight.
The rest of the night expired. Midnight had soon come. The time fell into the dark a.m. hours.
That prickling ache.
It was that repeated pain within his mouth that awoke Karamatsu. The grogginess was severe. Not only did everything hurt, but breathing was also difficult. All it took was one time trying to swallow for him to feel something was stuffed within his mouth.
That, along with a gag did the job in making his eyes open wide. From over him he saw Ichimatsu with one of his unhinged grins, hand gripped within his hair, and █████████████.
Karamatsu writhed and squirmed from under his weight, tossing his head to the side with attempts to get his brother's ████████.
"No, no~" Ichi chuckled, tightening his hold in his hair, "don't fight it. This is what you wanted, right~?"
"Mnh-!" Kara jerked his head sharply up, being able to just barely dislodge that ██████. "No! Ichima-st-stop it!" He coughed, trying to catch his breath as his own saliva mixed with █████████████████████. "Why . . . are you doing this-nh-"
"Why?" The smile faded from Ichimatsu as he grabbed at his ████████, forcing ████████████, "You really are such an idiot!" ███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████.
Roughly Kara coughed ████████████████████████████ ███ █████████████████████████████████████
"See~! You like it!" Ichimatsu removed his fingers from Kara's hair and swept his hand behind his back to ████████████████. "I can feel you ███ █████!" He then moved that same hand to ever so quickly grab hold of the collar's chain. "Don't think I didn't notice the way you looked at me when you saw Atsushi on me-" A laugh mixed with a ████ then as he proceeded to ███████████, █████████████████.
Further grunts and rasps poured out from Karamatsu as he shut his eyes, but it was rugged and only to deal with the distress that his brother was issuing to him both physically and mentally. Once more he tried lolling his head, but with how Ichimatsu had his clutch on the chain right near the collar, he could barely move his neck at all.
"Mn. You wanted to see what it was like to kiss me, didn't you? You wanted to taste my lips against yours. Well now I'm giving you something better ah~ my ████ in your mouth."
【 *** 】
"Ichi . . . Ichimatsu . . .," Karamatsu's voice was low.
Another glare was given for a moment before Ichimatsu drew further up. Just as during 'dinner', he slowly traced his tongue along the fresh line of blood at the side of Karamatsu's mouth. "What-"
Karamatsu winced again, even that slightest of touch made him feel all so sensitive. And why? Why wouldn't Ichimatsu just kiss him? "Is this . . . a dream too?"
"No."
" . . . What . . ."
"It's reality. And the reality is, is that you're nothing more than a sick piece of shit who has the hots for his brother," Ichimatsu replied with a completely straight face and vacant tone.
"But . . ."
"Now . . . get off my bed," he moved himself to the side, roughly pushing Kara to the floor.
The ground smacked Karamatsu as hard as reality did at that moment.
One of the cats had been sitting within the door frame just watching. For how long?
It meowed once and then jumped up on the bed as if to make sure Karamatsu wouldn't think about returning to those blankets.