Saiyuki Fic - Blind Man's Bluff
Title: Blind Man’s Bluff
Author: Sharpeslass
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): Ukoku/Hakkai (Hints of 58)
Disclaimer: No profit made, just for fun, etc. Written for Vayshti for the 2010 Yuletide Smut Exchange and also posted there. x-posted.
Summary: At what appears to be the end of the adventure, Hakkai turns to Ukoku for some help with his future.
Warnings: If dub-con bugs ya, dont' read this.
Blind Man’s Bluff
Blind man's bluff is a children’s game; a variant of tag. Sometimes referred to as "blind man's buff," wherein the word ‘buff’ is used in its obsolete sense of a small push, the game claims lineage as far back as the late Zhou Dynasty (circa 500 B.C.) and the Han Dynasty of ancient China.
The mood at Houtou - in spite, or maybe because of, recent events - was cloudy. Yaone and Dokugakuji fluttered helplessly around Kougaiji – inconsolable at the recent, final loss of his mother. Goku and Lirin sat at a small table, stuffing bits of cloth into white, wrapped bundles, creating small, round-headed, ghost-like shapes, each tied with a thread to form a small neck. Goku glanced up from his work from time to time, flicking worried eyes toward the windows, which were slate grey with the reflection of clouds, and then back to the face of their turbulent Sanzo priest, whose face was no less stormy following their unsatisfactory triumph. Hakkai knew that Sanzo regarded his work as still largely unfinished; he had not yet managed to recover the Muten Sutra.
Privately, Hakkai thought it was just as well that Ukoku Sanzo had been absent upon their arrival. Even as a team, they were still far from ready to take on that man again; Hakkai still bore the scars from their last encounter and, in spite of his best work, Sanzo would likely be feeling a twinge in some of those re-knit bones for the rest of his life… especially during wet weather. As if he needed another reason to loathe the rain.
“Really think these’ll make the sun come out, Chibi?”
Goku just gave a small shrug, not rising to Gojyo’s bait.
The atmosphere in the room combined with the threatening storm outside was doing nothing for Hakkai’s own spirits. He was tense and full of unreleased energy. Something had built in him – likely in all of them – and not been allowed to burst forth. His body burned with a frustrated restlessness. He needed alone-time to call his chi back into balance.
“I’m going for a walk,” he decided aloud, rising and moving toward the door. Gojyo flicked a concerned glance in his direction but didn’t move to stop him.
“Be careful, Hakkai,” he cautioned before turning back to Goku. “Move over, Monkey. Gimme those. I’ll do the eyes.”
If you can’t beat them… Hakkai smiled to himself as he left the group to its collective brooding and arts and crafts.
***
Hakkai was a self-made man in many respects. He had no father, no mother, no master (before Sanzo, and through him the Sanbutsushin). Through his sins he had shaped his destiny. And he had no one to thank or blame but himself for the person he had become.
Now it seemed this endless adventure had, unbelievably, reached a rather anticlimactic end; the castle had been all but deserted when they had arrived. Koushou had surrendered completely to madness. And the revival project, apparently abandoned when Ukoku had failed to return to Houtou, had been at a standstill. With Kougaiji’s help, it had taken almost no effort at all to destroy what remained.
In the aftermath, there was nowhere to look but to a future Cho Hakkai had never done more than vaguely dream about. He’d always told himself he wanted what he’d never had. He had always wanted a family: blood relations, sons and daughters to be proud of, to dote upon. But the happy family he longed for could not be his as long as he had a taint to pass along.
In spite of the realizations he had made during his time in the youkai village, he still had no desire to live as a youkai. And he would not spread his stain onto an innocent human woman; he would not create another Kanan, unless it was a Kanan untouched by horror - a happy daughter, utterly unaware of the evils in the world and kept untouched by a doting father, a father who could and would protect her.
Ukoku’s words from their first and only meeting echoed in his mind. How I’d love to get you into my lab. They should have been chilling words, but they niggled at him. Ukoku, the dark priest and mad scientist, had seemed to know everything. So he had to know, if anyone knew, how to reverse the process – whether physical, mental, or magical at its root – that had made Hakkai into the creature he was now.
With this in mind, Hakkai was unsurprised when his silent wanderings led him to the lab that had been Ukoku’s base of operations during his tenure at the castle. He was unsure what he hoped to find there – his studies had not been in the sciences and he was doubtful he would understand anything of import even if it had been left behind and not destroyed. But he turned on the lights and dedicated himself to finding out.
Empty glass tanks lined the far wall of the room and a row of dark-screened computers took up another. There were filing cabinets pressed along every available inch of the other two walls and several ugly, industrial office desks squatted in the middle of the room, along with a chess board, apparently abandoned in the middle of play. The computers were broken – the power source doubtless blown when they had taken out the still-slumbering demon king. So Hakkai turned instead to the rows of filing cabinets and began to peruse their contents.
He’d only been in the room for a few hours when he became utterly convinced that he was no longer alone. The skin on the back of his neck prickled as he perused one of the hundreds of incomprehensible files available to him. He grew still in spite of himself and was uncomfortably reminded of a rabbit freezing in the sights of a predator. He pasted a small smile on his lips and turned smoothly to face whoever it was who had managed to creep up behind him.
His smile faltered and died at the sight of the figure slung casually into the chair behind the room’s largest work desk. Ukoku was dressed, as he had been the last time Hakkai had seen him, in the garb of a negative-image Sanzo priest, all in black. His feet were propped up on the wooden surface of the desk. In addition to his robes of office, he wore a smirk and a pair of expensive-looking dark sunglasses.
“Alms for a blind man?” he drawled, nudging a coffee mug toward the edge of the desk with a lean, socked foot. The mug bore a cartoon rabbit design.
“You are no blinder than I am,” Hakkai spoke softly.
Ukoku paused, appearing to reflect deeply upon this.
“That may be true…” He tapped steepled fingers against his chin. “Have you any idea what you are even looking for in that?”
Hakkai tossed the file he was holding onto a cabinet next to him and dropped his arms to his sides, preparing to gather his chi to him.
“I imagine you are going to tell me,” he replied. “As I recall you are rather fond of the sound of your own voice.”
Ukoku swung his feet off the desk and rose, one hand trailing lightly over the surface of the desk as he moved to stand in front of it. A flicker of doubt assailed Hakkai. Perhaps Sanzo truly had blinded the man. He still moved with a surety – but, as master of the Muten Scripture, navigating the darkness was surely second nature to him. Hakkai waved a hand in front of Ukoku’s face. Ukoku’s hand shot out and grasped Hakkai’s wrist firmly.
“You doubt my word?” he asked in a wounded tone. “What have I done to make you to mistrust me so?”
“You are an inveterate liar.”
“Hearsay,” Ukoku shrugged but didn’t loosen his grip. His fist clenched, unshaken by Hakkai’s pull against it. “I don’t think I’ve ever lied to you personally. Besides, we all have truths; yours is blood and pain and…” he released his grip, causing Hakkai to stumble back a few steps. “Vines?” Ukoku smirked and pushed his dark glasses up farther up the bridge of his nose with a slender index finger.
“Can you reverse the process?” Hakkai saw little point in prevaricating. Ukoku seemed to know what he was looking for; he always seemed to know everything. It was unsettling, but just this once, Hakkai would at least try to use it to his own advantage. Ukoku grinned.
“What’s in it for me?” Hakkai floundered for a moment. “You didn’t see that coming? Maybe you are the blind one after all…” Ukoku’s fingers reached for Hakkai’s face and Hakkai forced himself not to flinch away from the touch. “Such a pretty little monster,” Ukoku sing-songed. “I wish I could claim the credit for this one.” He slid his fingers down to caress Hakkai’s jaw, to tilt his chin slightly. “Good genes, I suspect. Altered or otherwise.” He sighed. “It was almost like looking into a mirror,” his lips quirked. “If I recall…”
“We’re nothing alike,” Hakkai said, surprised by the comparison.
Ukoku heaved an exaggerated sigh and lifted his hands from Hakkai’s face, raising them up as his face tilted heavenward. “Oh, Lord. Grant this blind man eyes that he may see.” He leveled his (unseeing?) gaze on Hakkai. “You once offered your soul in an attempt to save your lover; will you offer your body in an attempt to save your soul?”
“I’ve never had a soul to barter with,” Hakkai replied, struggling to hold in the appalled shock he was feeling at what he thought the other man had just proposed.
“So infinite in reason,” Ukoku mused. “‘How,” he laughed then, as if at some private joke. “‘Like a god.’ If you knew what I know, little demon...”
“Please.” Hakkai felt master of himself again. “Enlighten me.”
“If there were world enough and time.” Ukoku sighed, and then smiled again. “No, I still wouldn’t tell you. The game is not over yet. Don’t expect me to show all of my cards.” He leaned back, bracing his arms against the desk. “Well, off with the clothes, darling. I’ve miles to go before I sleep and not a lot of time to waste on your petty problems.”
“Is this an exam, or…?”
“Oh, it’s ‘Or’.” Ukoku said, then shrugged, his expression inscrutable behind dark glasses. “What else have you got to offer? You won’t give me Genjyo – though you’d make a pretty Judas…” There was a question there.
“Of course not,” was Hakkai’s answer. Ukoku showed no surprise.
“So I’ll take the kiss for myself,” he finished smoothly as if Hakkai hadn’t spoken. “And all you have to sacrifice is your pride. It’s a bargain, considering what I can do for you. Plus, I am kinda hot…”
With that, Hakkai began the process of shutting his mind down, tucking his pride – not his soul – into a corner, as he reached for the hem of his tunic. He hesitated, the fabric raised to his abdomen.
“You’ll leave us alone?”
“Not part of the bargain.” Ukoku shrugged expansively. “But little Kouryuu and his friends started to bore me long ago.”
“Before or after we left you blind?” Hakkai asked with a smile, shedding his tunic and undershirt in one swift move.
Ukoku’s ever-present smirk sharpened. “Have you ever considered,” he asked mildly, “that for a group of such fine-looking young men, your little crew is awfully hard on the eyes?”
Hakkai couldn’t help but let out a rueful laugh at that. “‘If thine right eye offend thee’… since we seem to be doing the Bible this morning.”
“I thought I’d speak to your upbringing,” Ukoku said, pulling his robes over his head to reveal jeans and a black silk undershirt beneath. Perhaps jeans were part of a Sanzo’s uniform… “But lighten the mood. Give me a verse on sodomy. Just for atmosphere…”
“The relevant passages escape me,” Hakkai replied, feeling every muscle grow tense. “I’ve never had much call for them.”
“Oh?” Ukoku raised a brow. “So you and the half-breed aren’t…?” He used both hands in an obscene gesture, the meaning of which was unmistakable. Hakkai felt himself flush with anger and other emotions he didn’t wish to examine too closely. He moved toward Ukoku and curled his fingers in the front of his silk undershirt as he pressed a hard kiss against Ukoku’s closed lips.
“Now, now, son,” Ukoku said, disengaging himself easily from Hakkai’s grip. “You don’t think you’re going to take the lead in this dance, do you?”
“I am not your son,” Hakkai replied evenly.
“No? Are you entirely certain? What do you know about your parents, after all? It might be fun to pretend… You could call me father? No? As you wish. Is everyone in your little gang this uptight?” Ukoku had backed Hakkai against the desk as he spoke. He leaned in close to continue. “Perhaps I should be barking up another tree? A taller tree? Perhaps a redwood?”
“Are you going to talk,” Hakkai asked smoothly. “Or are we going to fuck?”
In spite of his bravado, Hakkai felt his composure begin to crumble as Ukoku trailed his fingertips lightly over Hakkai’s bared arms and chest. He fought to suppress a shudder and closed his eyes in self-disgust as his long-neglected body sang into the touch. He thought he could handle this if he hated it. Kanan’s rape was something he’d never atoned for and he’d hoped this could be that – hoped for some portion of her pain and fear to be visited upon him in this encounter, which would hopefully end in returning him to what he had been when he’d been worthy of her love. But this… He wasn’t prepared for this.
Ukoku’s lips whispered against his own. “Oh, don’t worry,” he murmured. A tongue flicked against Hakkai’s mouth and he flinched away from the kiss, turning his head so that soft, maddening breaths instead hummed at his ear. “There will be pain.” Hands gripped Hakkai’s hips, pulling his pelvis in tight against Ukoku’s, and he felt heat and the hardness, even through two layers of denim. He struggled not to fight, not to gasp. “But you aren’t your twin, Cho Hakkai. Demon, sinner, fallen-god.” Ukoku turned Hakkai’s face back toward his own. “You are going to enjoy this.”
Hakkai opened his mouth on a denial and Ukoku took that opening, pressing in on him with a hard, deep kiss. Hakkai allowed him entry, but refused to return the parries and thrusts of Ukoku’s tongue. He spared a thought, through the heat licking like flames over his entire body, to be proud of that fact… until, a moment later, when he realized he had a death grip on Ukoku’s hips and that his penis was responding, waking with a fierce and angry ache. He silently cursed the years of so-called self-control that had prevented him from giving any vent at all to the physical needs that now surged, with so little prompting, to the surface.
He loosened his grip on Ukoku and turned with a curse, facing the desk as he unbuttoned his jeans and pushed them roughly down over his hips along with his underwear. Ukoku had taken a step back at Hakkai’s abrupt shift, and stood silently behind him as he removed his remaining clothing. Though he did not speak, Hakkai could feel the waves of amusement nearly vibrating off of Ukoku and he felt a black fury that nearly – nearly - quelled the tide of rising lust in him. He braced himself against the desk, leaning forward slightly.
“Do it,” he said, not looking back.
“Oh, dear,” sighed Ukoku in mock dismay. “Are you in this much of a hurry with all of your lovers?” Hakkai gritted his teeth and remained silent. He heard the whisper of a zipper, the rustle of cloth, and, even bracing himself for the touch, nearly jumped out of his skin when Ukoku’s hand returned to caress his hip, folding neatly over the sharp ridge of protruding bone. “Hmmm…” A soft sigh of appreciation followed Ukoku’s other hand as he reached around to softly stroke Hakkai’s chest, flicking at one nipple then the other, skating his fingers lightly over Hakkai’s abdomen, and then drifting back up before dropping any lower. “But then, I forget,” Ukoku purred. “That you’ve only had the one lover.”
Hakkai hissed as Ukoku wrapped an arm around him, pulling him upright so that they stood, back pressed to chest, both of them stripped bare. Hakkai could still hear Ukoku’s voice at his ear, but he had almost no awareness of what was being said, as each word was punctuated by the small licks and nibbles of a hot, greedy mouth. Hakkai could see that mouth in the eye of his mind and he felt its dark promises as it nipped against his flesh and it was wrong, wrong, wrong to want this, but--- He clenched his hands into fists at his sides and tried to rein himself in, to focus. Ukoku was talking about Kanan now, and he had no right to do that – no right to caress her name with that obscene tongue as he used it to drive Hakkai’s treacherous and sensitive skin to open rebellion.
“Shut,” he ground out. “Up.”
Ukoku breathed a laugh. “And you are normally such a polite boy. But we both know…” Hakkai resisted as Ukoku pushed at him, turning him around. He forced a cold smile as they faced one another, wondering briefly if it was even worth the effort it cost him to keep it in place, if Ukoku couldn’t even see it. “It’s just a mask you wear,” Ukoku continued. Hakkai had to do a quick mental rewind to reassure himself that Ukoku hadn’t somehow been reading his thoughts. “I wonder how long you can keep up that act during this one.” Ukoku took Hakkai’s erection firmly in hand and Hakkai felt the muscles in his face tighten as he struggled to keep his expression of cold indifference in place. But if Ukoku couldn’t see that slip, then certainly he’d felt Hakkai’s movement, the sharp thrust forward of his hips as he reflexively pushed his length more firmly into Ukoku’s strong grip.
It felt… so good to be touched. Ukoku moved in closer as he pulled and stroked. Hakkai’s head fell back and Ukoku pressed hot kisses along his throat and jawline, decorating his racing pulse points with sucking bites. Hakkai shut his eyes and bit his lip, hard. Ukoku’s silky hair brushed against his shoulders and skimmed his chest as Ukoku bent to take a nipple into the heat of his mouth. Hakkai clenched his fingers around the edge of the desk, fighting not to raise them to tangle in Ukoku’s hair. He hated this man. Hated him… He had tried to kill Goku, had tried to kill Sanzo. Hakkai pictured Gojyo then, torn after his encounter with Kami-Sama, remembered leaning over him to heal him, stroking long, crimson strands back from a pained face, twining his fingers in that hair and pulling Gojyo in to kiss ---
“Ah ah!!” Ukoku scolded, breaking the kiss. Hakkai shook his head, trying to still his spinning sensibilities. He was leaning against and nearly draped upon Ukoku, his fingers tangled in his hair. He quickly pulled them away, pressing his palms flat on the desk behind him in an effort to quell their shaking. “You don’t have to call me ‘daddy,’ ” Ukoku leered. “But don’t go mistaking me for one of those sad, motherless waifs you usually get cuddly with, okay?”
“I…” Had he? Hakkai honestly didn’t know. A sick wash of shame pushed at the edges of his previously, unrelenting desire and he pulled that guilt around him like a familiar blanket, coming more to himself in the process.
Ukoku was considering him, eyes still obscured behind the dark glasses, expression inscrutable. As if reading Hakkai’s thoughts again Ukoku reached for the sunglasses and slipped them off, tossing them carelessly onto the desk.
“Now,” he said, focusing his gaze somewhere in the middle distance between himself and Hakkai’s mouth. “About that pain I promised you.” Hakkai nodded, feeling almost relieved at the prospect. He was well schooled in pain. He understood it. This carnal pleasure, on the other hand, was alien to him; it was a long-ago memory, broken then put away, now dusted off and scraped free of any stain of tenderness. It felt ruthless and soul-stripping. He was afraid of it, of what it could do to him – of what it could make him do to others. He had always equated his own lust with his own capacity for violence and so he had done his best to shut it away and keep it out of reach.
He began to turn, to again bend over the desk, but Ukoku stopped him with a hand on his elbow.
“I want to see those pretty green eyes,” he leered.
“You…” Hakkai froze. “Want to…”
“Oopsie,” shrugged Ukoku. He pushed himself nearly nose-to-nose with Hakkai, focusing upon him with eyes that were very clearly unimpaired. “Your healing powers are legendary,” he smirked. “Hallelujah!” The smirk turned into another leer. “I was blind, but now I see!”
“You…”
“Yes. You said that… And what I want to see now, is your ass on that desk.” He clapped sharply. “Up you go. Flat on your back, knees bent.”
Hakkai maintained eye contact with Ukoku, but pulled himself onto the desk, privately relieved to be taking the weight off of knees that had been increasingly threatening to buckle beneath him. He broke eye contact to settle back on the desk, staring at the ceiling as he bent his knees according to instruction. Strong hands pushed at them, spreading them wide and open. Hakkai felt Ukoku’s gaze on him like a physical weight. He masked his discomfort with a benign smile as the moment stretched.
“Problem?” he asked, struggling to keep his tone light.
“Hnnn… Lubrication?”
“Skip it,” Hakkai said flatly, feeling his irritation rise again to the surface when Ukoku laughed.
“So eager for the pain,” Ukoku teased, tracing the crack of Hakkai’s ass with light fingers, and then dipping deeper to flick over his opening. Hakkai held his cold smile as his nails dug into his palms and he fought to keep from quivering. “Ah, well.” Ukoku pulled a chair up to the edge of the desk and settled into it between Hakkai’s parted legs, like a doctor preparing to examine a patient. “I don’t do this for just anyone.” Ukoku’s dark head bobbed, his features disappearing from view.
“I… No.” Hakkai’s composure cracked as first warm breath, then a hot tongue flickered over the sensitive skin surrounding his anus. He groaned as the tongue stroked, then jabbed, swirled, and plunged into him, then repeated the same torturing dance. Hakkai felt wetness on his palms where his nails had drawn blood. He heard harsh whispers echoing through the blood roaring in his ears and realized with a start that the voice he was hearing was his own: snatches of half-remembered prayers in both English and Latin, unburied and tumbling out of him with each ragged breath.
“Oh, I like that!” came an obscene giggle from between his legs. “Pray to me, my little demon.”
Hakkai could only groan and helplessly comply, hovering on the edge of he-didn’t-know-what, as Ukoku’s fingers slid over his cock and teased in tandem with the rolling, pushing, invading heat and wetness of his wicked tongue. Hakkai was going to come. This was too much – too much after so long with nothing. His toes were curling and his eyes were rolling back when suddenly the assault ended. A firm hand gripped the base of Hakkai’s cock, stemming the rising tide of orgasm as it began to overwhelm him. Hakkai’s whole body jerked in violent protest.
A grinning Ukoku appeared above him – all blurry; Hakkai realized that his monocle had been knocked away and that his eyes were watering slightly, perhaps from the almost unconsciously registered pain in his palms. Ukoku took one of Hakkai’s hands in his own and coaxed his fingers open. Hakkai was too nerveless to protest.
“Lookie,” Ukoku crowed softly. “Stigmata… This is a religious experience for you, isn’t it?”
“Don’t,” Hakkai croaked. He coughed to clear his throat. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Please,” Ukoku murmured. He brought his other hand away from Hakkai’s twitching penis and held it up where Hakkai could see it – dripping with strands of pre-ejaculate. “There is no point in telling me you weren’t enjoying that.” Ukoku slurped at his fingers. “Hnn…” he shrugged. “Human, youkai: they all taste the same. You know,” he said as he braced an arm on either side of Hakkai’s head and leaned over him. “If the conversation slows on your trip back east, you could always tell your little Sanzo priest how much his daddy Koumyou enjoyed that special treatment as well.” Ukoku chuckled again. “He spent hours trying not to scream while the brat slept just on the other side of the screen.”
Hakkai wasn’t certain what kind of meditation would be required to get that particular image out of his brain, but thinking wasn’t coming easily, so he gave it up for he moment and just lay still, waiting and trying to breathe. He didn’t have to wait long. Talk of Koumyou had apparently spurred Ukoku to action. One of the hands by Hakkai’s head disappeared and a moment later he felt a blunt hardness nudging at him, nosing at his opening. He shut his eyes as his body clenched against the invasion, but opened them again at a rough rap on his forehead.
“Eyes open. Body relaxed. Well, I don’t care so much about the second part, but you’ll thank me later if you take my advice now.”
“Speaking from experience?” Hakkai taunted weakly.
Ukoku was utterly unfazed. “You know it, kiddo,” he shot back. “Oh, were you looking for ‘shame’? I don’t do that emotion. It’s all yours.” Hakkai opened his mouth to respond and instead let out a choked gasp as Ukoku moved forward, sheathing himself entirely in Hakkai’s body with one hard thrust and a grunt of pleasure. Hakkai gasped for air and blinked rapidly as tears of pain sprang unbidden to his eyes.
“Goddamn you,” he hissed – quietly, but with feeling - once his jaw had unclenched and he could speak.
“Such language!” Ukoku cut him off, sounding far more delighted than shocked. Hakkai’s was prevented from further comment as Ukoku’s mouth came down to cover his own. Hakkai found that resisting the man’s kisses was no longer a struggle; he bit down hard on Ukoku’s lower lip. Ukoku pulled back with a curse and dealt Hakkai a rough slap across the face, leaving him momentarily stunned. Stunned by the slap, but not hurt. That pain barely registered; the other pain was consuming him alive. He almost didn’t feel Ukoku’s fingers pulling at his now nearly flaccid penis. “No biting,” Ukoku scolded, wiping the blood from his mouth with his free hand. “I got enough of that from the Koushou bitch. Now, be a good little plant demon and grow for me.”
Demon… Hakkai reached for his limiters without thinking, his mind spinning in a fight or flight demand that his body couldn’t answer. Ukoku caught his hand easily and shot Hakkai a look that cut through he haze of pain and humiliation with a sharp reminder that this was one man – possibly the only man – who could take Cho Hakkai apart with little more than a glance. Hakkai forced his body to relax and reminded himself that he was here by choice, that he had made this deal, and that he had wanted this pain. It would all be different he told himself there would be no hurting when he was with—“
“A penny for your thoughts?” chirped Ukoku, who held himself still, above and within Hakkai, heavily-lidded eyes belying his unaffected tone. The tearing pain was subsiding to a dull throb, replaced by a feeling of aching fullness, of being stretched. Hakkai smiled through the ache and grinned through a clenched jaw.
“I hate you,” he ground out.
“No,” Ukoku reflected. “I mean,” he amended. “I’m sure you do, but that wasn’t it. No penny for you.”
“It’s all you need to know.”
“Very possibly. For now at least. But if that is going to be all for the pillow talk, then take my advice and relax this time. You’re tight as hell and you look downright edible, so I’m done screwing around.” The smirk returned. “Metaphorically speaking, that is.”
Hakkai struggled to unclench his muscles as Ukoku began a tugging slide out of his protesting body. He was halfway out, the rending pressure just becoming bearable, when he thrust forward again. Ukoku leaned in toward Hakkai, gripping his right thigh and moving it with him, opening Hakkai further as he drew close enough to rest his forehead against Hakkai’s own. He rotated his hips slowly, slowly, barely retreating before pushing forward, the head of his cock rubbing circles inside of Hakkai, slowly replacing the burning pain with sparks of an intense and entirely different sensation. The sparks finally caught and, to Hakkai’s shame and dismay, he was soon as aroused as he had been before and gasping slightly at each of Ukoku’s skilled movements. Ukoku’s fingers slid between them and once again grasped Hakkai’s leaking erection. Hakkai stopped fighting with a deep groan of surrender.
Tongues tangled, breath mingled and Hakkai tightened his arms around his enemy, pushing a palm flat against Ukoku’s sweat-slicked, smooth lower back, pressing him closer as his own hips rose to meet increasingly more urgent thrusts. His wide eyes caught his own reflection in the dark surface of one of the many empty glass chambers lining the room and the two blurred figures he saw there were alike: two lean bodies strove against one another, two dark heads dipped and rose, engaged in tasting, touching, moaning, and gasping after escaped breaths.
Hakkai struggled and looked away, caught between pleasure and pain, shame and gratitude, pride and pursuit of release. Ukoku gave him a final smirk and let his face fall into an expression of dumb pleasure and Hakkai felt his own expression slacken into a mirror image of the face above his. The sensations building inside of him pulled taut and snapped and he cried out as waves of pleasure spread out from his center, sending lapping waves of heat to his very toes. Ukoku’s voice reached his ears, chanting something low and dark, and Hakkai felt a blackness surrounding him and pouring into him, felt invisible fingers coiling through his body and mind and, for an endless moment, he became nothing at all.
Ukoku was up and off of him, already dressing, before Hakkai had fully returned to his senses. His body ached, even through a bone-deep relaxation the like of which he hadn’t known in years. He probed his psyche for new scars left by this experience, and found nothing new to add to the nightmares that already visited him in his restless sleep. He was soon focusing on the Next Step with alarming clarity and no little trepidation. He gathered his scattered clothing and dressed, wincing a bit as parts of his body, usually silent, made their hurts known to him. But he ignored the twinges and the almost more disturbing stickiness, and put himself in order. When he was dressed and as neat as could be expected, he turned to Ukoku. The man was utterly unruffled, fully clothed and leaning against a filing cabinet as he lit a cigarette.
“You did something,” Hakkai said, sounding calmer than he felt. He tried to ignore Ukoku’s ‘well, duh!’ leer. “I mean, to my mind,” he continued, noting with interest that he was experiencing more anxiety over what might be coming next than he had before his impromptu tryst with possibly the largest threat to his safety and sanity in existence. “Did you fix me?” Another leer. Hakkai struggled to maintain his tenuous grasp on his temper and waited. Ukoku shrugged.
“I took you apart and looked around,” he said simply. “And you are one confused puppy.” He tapped at his own forehead. “Your bod’s a nice place to visit, but your mind is a m---“
“Can you reverse the process?” Hakkai snapped, crossing his arms. “Can you make me human again, or not?”
“Sorry, kiddo. I’ve got nothing.” Ukoku smirked around his cigarette as he straightened his sutra. Hakkai stared at him, stricken. A surge of nausea preceded the emotion that rushed forward like a tide, taking him under.
He bent, pressing his palms to his eyes. He felt the family he’d never known fall away from him into the void, his sacrifice for nothing. But before he’d lost his footing and slipped after them, another image filled his mind and from within it he felt a heat and a light holding him in place. Red hair, a cocky grin….
Ukoku’s chuckle was cut short by Hakkai’s own laughter; Hakkai’s heart felt lighter than it had in…. ever, he realized, as helpless rage dissipated and turned into a dizzying and unexpected feeling of raw, blank relief.
Hakkai was not a self-made man. He had friends, a family of sorts, and the possibility of so much more that could now be explored with the world and time before them all. He’d been made what he was along this journey as much as before, and many of the hands that had molded and even put him back together had not been his own. He had so many others to thank – and to blame – for the person he had become.
He looked up, meeting Ukoku’s nonplussed stare.
“Hallelujah,” Hakkai smiled. “I was blind,” he continued, grinning madly. “But now I see.”
“Well… fuck me.” Ukoku sounded sincerely at a loss. “I’ve converted you.”
“Not quite.” Hakkai let his chi gather and turned, hurling everything he had at the still-baffled heretic priest. “You just gave me a push.”
There was a flash of light followed by the blackest darkness, and when his vision cleared, Hakkai was alone in the dimly lit lab.
“Hakkai?” He turned to the door, feeling his expression gentle as he took in the sight of Gojyo with an armful of teru-teru-bozu dolls, some slipping from his long-armed embrace. “Guess these worked,” he shrugged, scattering more of the small ghost-like figures as he moved. “The sun’s back up. Sanzo says it’s time to go home.” Hakkai smiled and moved toward his friend. He slung an arm over his shoulder and Gojyo shot him a surprised look that slid easily into a shy smile as he draped his own arm around Hakkai.
“I think,” Hakkai said. “That Sanzo is absolutely right.”
He flicked the light off as they left the lab behind them and, from the doorway, Hakkai gave the room one last cursory glance. A single lens of Ukoku’s forgotten sunglasses seemed to blink at him for just one moment before the light faded from the room the and darkness swallowed it whole.
-fin-
End note: Teru teru bōzu was a suggested prompt from Vayshti. Here’s what Wiki had to say on the little fellas: A Teru teru bozu is a little traditional hand-made doll made of white paper or cloth that Japanese farmers began hanging outside of their window by a string. This amulet is supposed to have magical powers to bring good weather and to stop or prevent the rain. "Teru" is a Japanese verb which describes sunshine, and a "bōzu" is a Buddhist monk, or in modern slang, "bald-headed.”
Author: Sharpeslass
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): Ukoku/Hakkai (Hints of 58)
Disclaimer: No profit made, just for fun, etc. Written for Vayshti for the 2010 Yuletide Smut Exchange and also posted there. x-posted.
Summary: At what appears to be the end of the adventure, Hakkai turns to Ukoku for some help with his future.
Warnings: If dub-con bugs ya, dont' read this.
Blind Man’s Bluff
Blind man's bluff is a children’s game; a variant of tag. Sometimes referred to as "blind man's buff," wherein the word ‘buff’ is used in its obsolete sense of a small push, the game claims lineage as far back as the late Zhou Dynasty (circa 500 B.C.) and the Han Dynasty of ancient China.
The mood at Houtou - in spite, or maybe because of, recent events - was cloudy. Yaone and Dokugakuji fluttered helplessly around Kougaiji – inconsolable at the recent, final loss of his mother. Goku and Lirin sat at a small table, stuffing bits of cloth into white, wrapped bundles, creating small, round-headed, ghost-like shapes, each tied with a thread to form a small neck. Goku glanced up from his work from time to time, flicking worried eyes toward the windows, which were slate grey with the reflection of clouds, and then back to the face of their turbulent Sanzo priest, whose face was no less stormy following their unsatisfactory triumph. Hakkai knew that Sanzo regarded his work as still largely unfinished; he had not yet managed to recover the Muten Sutra.
Privately, Hakkai thought it was just as well that Ukoku Sanzo had been absent upon their arrival. Even as a team, they were still far from ready to take on that man again; Hakkai still bore the scars from their last encounter and, in spite of his best work, Sanzo would likely be feeling a twinge in some of those re-knit bones for the rest of his life… especially during wet weather. As if he needed another reason to loathe the rain.
“Really think these’ll make the sun come out, Chibi?”
Goku just gave a small shrug, not rising to Gojyo’s bait.
The atmosphere in the room combined with the threatening storm outside was doing nothing for Hakkai’s own spirits. He was tense and full of unreleased energy. Something had built in him – likely in all of them – and not been allowed to burst forth. His body burned with a frustrated restlessness. He needed alone-time to call his chi back into balance.
“I’m going for a walk,” he decided aloud, rising and moving toward the door. Gojyo flicked a concerned glance in his direction but didn’t move to stop him.
“Be careful, Hakkai,” he cautioned before turning back to Goku. “Move over, Monkey. Gimme those. I’ll do the eyes.”
If you can’t beat them… Hakkai smiled to himself as he left the group to its collective brooding and arts and crafts.
***
Hakkai was a self-made man in many respects. He had no father, no mother, no master (before Sanzo, and through him the Sanbutsushin). Through his sins he had shaped his destiny. And he had no one to thank or blame but himself for the person he had become.
Now it seemed this endless adventure had, unbelievably, reached a rather anticlimactic end; the castle had been all but deserted when they had arrived. Koushou had surrendered completely to madness. And the revival project, apparently abandoned when Ukoku had failed to return to Houtou, had been at a standstill. With Kougaiji’s help, it had taken almost no effort at all to destroy what remained.
In the aftermath, there was nowhere to look but to a future Cho Hakkai had never done more than vaguely dream about. He’d always told himself he wanted what he’d never had. He had always wanted a family: blood relations, sons and daughters to be proud of, to dote upon. But the happy family he longed for could not be his as long as he had a taint to pass along.
In spite of the realizations he had made during his time in the youkai village, he still had no desire to live as a youkai. And he would not spread his stain onto an innocent human woman; he would not create another Kanan, unless it was a Kanan untouched by horror - a happy daughter, utterly unaware of the evils in the world and kept untouched by a doting father, a father who could and would protect her.
Ukoku’s words from their first and only meeting echoed in his mind. How I’d love to get you into my lab. They should have been chilling words, but they niggled at him. Ukoku, the dark priest and mad scientist, had seemed to know everything. So he had to know, if anyone knew, how to reverse the process – whether physical, mental, or magical at its root – that had made Hakkai into the creature he was now.
With this in mind, Hakkai was unsurprised when his silent wanderings led him to the lab that had been Ukoku’s base of operations during his tenure at the castle. He was unsure what he hoped to find there – his studies had not been in the sciences and he was doubtful he would understand anything of import even if it had been left behind and not destroyed. But he turned on the lights and dedicated himself to finding out.
Empty glass tanks lined the far wall of the room and a row of dark-screened computers took up another. There were filing cabinets pressed along every available inch of the other two walls and several ugly, industrial office desks squatted in the middle of the room, along with a chess board, apparently abandoned in the middle of play. The computers were broken – the power source doubtless blown when they had taken out the still-slumbering demon king. So Hakkai turned instead to the rows of filing cabinets and began to peruse their contents.
He’d only been in the room for a few hours when he became utterly convinced that he was no longer alone. The skin on the back of his neck prickled as he perused one of the hundreds of incomprehensible files available to him. He grew still in spite of himself and was uncomfortably reminded of a rabbit freezing in the sights of a predator. He pasted a small smile on his lips and turned smoothly to face whoever it was who had managed to creep up behind him.
His smile faltered and died at the sight of the figure slung casually into the chair behind the room’s largest work desk. Ukoku was dressed, as he had been the last time Hakkai had seen him, in the garb of a negative-image Sanzo priest, all in black. His feet were propped up on the wooden surface of the desk. In addition to his robes of office, he wore a smirk and a pair of expensive-looking dark sunglasses.
“Alms for a blind man?” he drawled, nudging a coffee mug toward the edge of the desk with a lean, socked foot. The mug bore a cartoon rabbit design.
“You are no blinder than I am,” Hakkai spoke softly.
Ukoku paused, appearing to reflect deeply upon this.
“That may be true…” He tapped steepled fingers against his chin. “Have you any idea what you are even looking for in that?”
Hakkai tossed the file he was holding onto a cabinet next to him and dropped his arms to his sides, preparing to gather his chi to him.
“I imagine you are going to tell me,” he replied. “As I recall you are rather fond of the sound of your own voice.”
Ukoku swung his feet off the desk and rose, one hand trailing lightly over the surface of the desk as he moved to stand in front of it. A flicker of doubt assailed Hakkai. Perhaps Sanzo truly had blinded the man. He still moved with a surety – but, as master of the Muten Scripture, navigating the darkness was surely second nature to him. Hakkai waved a hand in front of Ukoku’s face. Ukoku’s hand shot out and grasped Hakkai’s wrist firmly.
“You doubt my word?” he asked in a wounded tone. “What have I done to make you to mistrust me so?”
“You are an inveterate liar.”
“Hearsay,” Ukoku shrugged but didn’t loosen his grip. His fist clenched, unshaken by Hakkai’s pull against it. “I don’t think I’ve ever lied to you personally. Besides, we all have truths; yours is blood and pain and…” he released his grip, causing Hakkai to stumble back a few steps. “Vines?” Ukoku smirked and pushed his dark glasses up farther up the bridge of his nose with a slender index finger.
“Can you reverse the process?” Hakkai saw little point in prevaricating. Ukoku seemed to know what he was looking for; he always seemed to know everything. It was unsettling, but just this once, Hakkai would at least try to use it to his own advantage. Ukoku grinned.
“What’s in it for me?” Hakkai floundered for a moment. “You didn’t see that coming? Maybe you are the blind one after all…” Ukoku’s fingers reached for Hakkai’s face and Hakkai forced himself not to flinch away from the touch. “Such a pretty little monster,” Ukoku sing-songed. “I wish I could claim the credit for this one.” He slid his fingers down to caress Hakkai’s jaw, to tilt his chin slightly. “Good genes, I suspect. Altered or otherwise.” He sighed. “It was almost like looking into a mirror,” his lips quirked. “If I recall…”
“We’re nothing alike,” Hakkai said, surprised by the comparison.
Ukoku heaved an exaggerated sigh and lifted his hands from Hakkai’s face, raising them up as his face tilted heavenward. “Oh, Lord. Grant this blind man eyes that he may see.” He leveled his (unseeing?) gaze on Hakkai. “You once offered your soul in an attempt to save your lover; will you offer your body in an attempt to save your soul?”
“I’ve never had a soul to barter with,” Hakkai replied, struggling to hold in the appalled shock he was feeling at what he thought the other man had just proposed.
“So infinite in reason,” Ukoku mused. “‘How,” he laughed then, as if at some private joke. “‘Like a god.’ If you knew what I know, little demon...”
“Please.” Hakkai felt master of himself again. “Enlighten me.”
“If there were world enough and time.” Ukoku sighed, and then smiled again. “No, I still wouldn’t tell you. The game is not over yet. Don’t expect me to show all of my cards.” He leaned back, bracing his arms against the desk. “Well, off with the clothes, darling. I’ve miles to go before I sleep and not a lot of time to waste on your petty problems.”
“Is this an exam, or…?”
“Oh, it’s ‘Or’.” Ukoku said, then shrugged, his expression inscrutable behind dark glasses. “What else have you got to offer? You won’t give me Genjyo – though you’d make a pretty Judas…” There was a question there.
“Of course not,” was Hakkai’s answer. Ukoku showed no surprise.
“So I’ll take the kiss for myself,” he finished smoothly as if Hakkai hadn’t spoken. “And all you have to sacrifice is your pride. It’s a bargain, considering what I can do for you. Plus, I am kinda hot…”
With that, Hakkai began the process of shutting his mind down, tucking his pride – not his soul – into a corner, as he reached for the hem of his tunic. He hesitated, the fabric raised to his abdomen.
“You’ll leave us alone?”
“Not part of the bargain.” Ukoku shrugged expansively. “But little Kouryuu and his friends started to bore me long ago.”
“Before or after we left you blind?” Hakkai asked with a smile, shedding his tunic and undershirt in one swift move.
Ukoku’s ever-present smirk sharpened. “Have you ever considered,” he asked mildly, “that for a group of such fine-looking young men, your little crew is awfully hard on the eyes?”
Hakkai couldn’t help but let out a rueful laugh at that. “‘If thine right eye offend thee’… since we seem to be doing the Bible this morning.”
“I thought I’d speak to your upbringing,” Ukoku said, pulling his robes over his head to reveal jeans and a black silk undershirt beneath. Perhaps jeans were part of a Sanzo’s uniform… “But lighten the mood. Give me a verse on sodomy. Just for atmosphere…”
“The relevant passages escape me,” Hakkai replied, feeling every muscle grow tense. “I’ve never had much call for them.”
“Oh?” Ukoku raised a brow. “So you and the half-breed aren’t…?” He used both hands in an obscene gesture, the meaning of which was unmistakable. Hakkai felt himself flush with anger and other emotions he didn’t wish to examine too closely. He moved toward Ukoku and curled his fingers in the front of his silk undershirt as he pressed a hard kiss against Ukoku’s closed lips.
“Now, now, son,” Ukoku said, disengaging himself easily from Hakkai’s grip. “You don’t think you’re going to take the lead in this dance, do you?”
“I am not your son,” Hakkai replied evenly.
“No? Are you entirely certain? What do you know about your parents, after all? It might be fun to pretend… You could call me father? No? As you wish. Is everyone in your little gang this uptight?” Ukoku had backed Hakkai against the desk as he spoke. He leaned in close to continue. “Perhaps I should be barking up another tree? A taller tree? Perhaps a redwood?”
“Are you going to talk,” Hakkai asked smoothly. “Or are we going to fuck?”
In spite of his bravado, Hakkai felt his composure begin to crumble as Ukoku trailed his fingertips lightly over Hakkai’s bared arms and chest. He fought to suppress a shudder and closed his eyes in self-disgust as his long-neglected body sang into the touch. He thought he could handle this if he hated it. Kanan’s rape was something he’d never atoned for and he’d hoped this could be that – hoped for some portion of her pain and fear to be visited upon him in this encounter, which would hopefully end in returning him to what he had been when he’d been worthy of her love. But this… He wasn’t prepared for this.
Ukoku’s lips whispered against his own. “Oh, don’t worry,” he murmured. A tongue flicked against Hakkai’s mouth and he flinched away from the kiss, turning his head so that soft, maddening breaths instead hummed at his ear. “There will be pain.” Hands gripped Hakkai’s hips, pulling his pelvis in tight against Ukoku’s, and he felt heat and the hardness, even through two layers of denim. He struggled not to fight, not to gasp. “But you aren’t your twin, Cho Hakkai. Demon, sinner, fallen-god.” Ukoku turned Hakkai’s face back toward his own. “You are going to enjoy this.”
Hakkai opened his mouth on a denial and Ukoku took that opening, pressing in on him with a hard, deep kiss. Hakkai allowed him entry, but refused to return the parries and thrusts of Ukoku’s tongue. He spared a thought, through the heat licking like flames over his entire body, to be proud of that fact… until, a moment later, when he realized he had a death grip on Ukoku’s hips and that his penis was responding, waking with a fierce and angry ache. He silently cursed the years of so-called self-control that had prevented him from giving any vent at all to the physical needs that now surged, with so little prompting, to the surface.
He loosened his grip on Ukoku and turned with a curse, facing the desk as he unbuttoned his jeans and pushed them roughly down over his hips along with his underwear. Ukoku had taken a step back at Hakkai’s abrupt shift, and stood silently behind him as he removed his remaining clothing. Though he did not speak, Hakkai could feel the waves of amusement nearly vibrating off of Ukoku and he felt a black fury that nearly – nearly - quelled the tide of rising lust in him. He braced himself against the desk, leaning forward slightly.
“Do it,” he said, not looking back.
“Oh, dear,” sighed Ukoku in mock dismay. “Are you in this much of a hurry with all of your lovers?” Hakkai gritted his teeth and remained silent. He heard the whisper of a zipper, the rustle of cloth, and, even bracing himself for the touch, nearly jumped out of his skin when Ukoku’s hand returned to caress his hip, folding neatly over the sharp ridge of protruding bone. “Hmmm…” A soft sigh of appreciation followed Ukoku’s other hand as he reached around to softly stroke Hakkai’s chest, flicking at one nipple then the other, skating his fingers lightly over Hakkai’s abdomen, and then drifting back up before dropping any lower. “But then, I forget,” Ukoku purred. “That you’ve only had the one lover.”
Hakkai hissed as Ukoku wrapped an arm around him, pulling him upright so that they stood, back pressed to chest, both of them stripped bare. Hakkai could still hear Ukoku’s voice at his ear, but he had almost no awareness of what was being said, as each word was punctuated by the small licks and nibbles of a hot, greedy mouth. Hakkai could see that mouth in the eye of his mind and he felt its dark promises as it nipped against his flesh and it was wrong, wrong, wrong to want this, but--- He clenched his hands into fists at his sides and tried to rein himself in, to focus. Ukoku was talking about Kanan now, and he had no right to do that – no right to caress her name with that obscene tongue as he used it to drive Hakkai’s treacherous and sensitive skin to open rebellion.
“Shut,” he ground out. “Up.”
Ukoku breathed a laugh. “And you are normally such a polite boy. But we both know…” Hakkai resisted as Ukoku pushed at him, turning him around. He forced a cold smile as they faced one another, wondering briefly if it was even worth the effort it cost him to keep it in place, if Ukoku couldn’t even see it. “It’s just a mask you wear,” Ukoku continued. Hakkai had to do a quick mental rewind to reassure himself that Ukoku hadn’t somehow been reading his thoughts. “I wonder how long you can keep up that act during this one.” Ukoku took Hakkai’s erection firmly in hand and Hakkai felt the muscles in his face tighten as he struggled to keep his expression of cold indifference in place. But if Ukoku couldn’t see that slip, then certainly he’d felt Hakkai’s movement, the sharp thrust forward of his hips as he reflexively pushed his length more firmly into Ukoku’s strong grip.
It felt… so good to be touched. Ukoku moved in closer as he pulled and stroked. Hakkai’s head fell back and Ukoku pressed hot kisses along his throat and jawline, decorating his racing pulse points with sucking bites. Hakkai shut his eyes and bit his lip, hard. Ukoku’s silky hair brushed against his shoulders and skimmed his chest as Ukoku bent to take a nipple into the heat of his mouth. Hakkai clenched his fingers around the edge of the desk, fighting not to raise them to tangle in Ukoku’s hair. He hated this man. Hated him… He had tried to kill Goku, had tried to kill Sanzo. Hakkai pictured Gojyo then, torn after his encounter with Kami-Sama, remembered leaning over him to heal him, stroking long, crimson strands back from a pained face, twining his fingers in that hair and pulling Gojyo in to kiss ---
“Ah ah!!” Ukoku scolded, breaking the kiss. Hakkai shook his head, trying to still his spinning sensibilities. He was leaning against and nearly draped upon Ukoku, his fingers tangled in his hair. He quickly pulled them away, pressing his palms flat on the desk behind him in an effort to quell their shaking. “You don’t have to call me ‘daddy,’ ” Ukoku leered. “But don’t go mistaking me for one of those sad, motherless waifs you usually get cuddly with, okay?”
“I…” Had he? Hakkai honestly didn’t know. A sick wash of shame pushed at the edges of his previously, unrelenting desire and he pulled that guilt around him like a familiar blanket, coming more to himself in the process.
Ukoku was considering him, eyes still obscured behind the dark glasses, expression inscrutable. As if reading Hakkai’s thoughts again Ukoku reached for the sunglasses and slipped them off, tossing them carelessly onto the desk.
“Now,” he said, focusing his gaze somewhere in the middle distance between himself and Hakkai’s mouth. “About that pain I promised you.” Hakkai nodded, feeling almost relieved at the prospect. He was well schooled in pain. He understood it. This carnal pleasure, on the other hand, was alien to him; it was a long-ago memory, broken then put away, now dusted off and scraped free of any stain of tenderness. It felt ruthless and soul-stripping. He was afraid of it, of what it could do to him – of what it could make him do to others. He had always equated his own lust with his own capacity for violence and so he had done his best to shut it away and keep it out of reach.
He began to turn, to again bend over the desk, but Ukoku stopped him with a hand on his elbow.
“I want to see those pretty green eyes,” he leered.
“You…” Hakkai froze. “Want to…”
“Oopsie,” shrugged Ukoku. He pushed himself nearly nose-to-nose with Hakkai, focusing upon him with eyes that were very clearly unimpaired. “Your healing powers are legendary,” he smirked. “Hallelujah!” The smirk turned into another leer. “I was blind, but now I see!”
“You…”
“Yes. You said that… And what I want to see now, is your ass on that desk.” He clapped sharply. “Up you go. Flat on your back, knees bent.”
Hakkai maintained eye contact with Ukoku, but pulled himself onto the desk, privately relieved to be taking the weight off of knees that had been increasingly threatening to buckle beneath him. He broke eye contact to settle back on the desk, staring at the ceiling as he bent his knees according to instruction. Strong hands pushed at them, spreading them wide and open. Hakkai felt Ukoku’s gaze on him like a physical weight. He masked his discomfort with a benign smile as the moment stretched.
“Problem?” he asked, struggling to keep his tone light.
“Hnnn… Lubrication?”
“Skip it,” Hakkai said flatly, feeling his irritation rise again to the surface when Ukoku laughed.
“So eager for the pain,” Ukoku teased, tracing the crack of Hakkai’s ass with light fingers, and then dipping deeper to flick over his opening. Hakkai held his cold smile as his nails dug into his palms and he fought to keep from quivering. “Ah, well.” Ukoku pulled a chair up to the edge of the desk and settled into it between Hakkai’s parted legs, like a doctor preparing to examine a patient. “I don’t do this for just anyone.” Ukoku’s dark head bobbed, his features disappearing from view.
“I… No.” Hakkai’s composure cracked as first warm breath, then a hot tongue flickered over the sensitive skin surrounding his anus. He groaned as the tongue stroked, then jabbed, swirled, and plunged into him, then repeated the same torturing dance. Hakkai felt wetness on his palms where his nails had drawn blood. He heard harsh whispers echoing through the blood roaring in his ears and realized with a start that the voice he was hearing was his own: snatches of half-remembered prayers in both English and Latin, unburied and tumbling out of him with each ragged breath.
“Oh, I like that!” came an obscene giggle from between his legs. “Pray to me, my little demon.”
Hakkai could only groan and helplessly comply, hovering on the edge of he-didn’t-know-what, as Ukoku’s fingers slid over his cock and teased in tandem with the rolling, pushing, invading heat and wetness of his wicked tongue. Hakkai was going to come. This was too much – too much after so long with nothing. His toes were curling and his eyes were rolling back when suddenly the assault ended. A firm hand gripped the base of Hakkai’s cock, stemming the rising tide of orgasm as it began to overwhelm him. Hakkai’s whole body jerked in violent protest.
A grinning Ukoku appeared above him – all blurry; Hakkai realized that his monocle had been knocked away and that his eyes were watering slightly, perhaps from the almost unconsciously registered pain in his palms. Ukoku took one of Hakkai’s hands in his own and coaxed his fingers open. Hakkai was too nerveless to protest.
“Lookie,” Ukoku crowed softly. “Stigmata… This is a religious experience for you, isn’t it?”
“Don’t,” Hakkai croaked. He coughed to clear his throat. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Please,” Ukoku murmured. He brought his other hand away from Hakkai’s twitching penis and held it up where Hakkai could see it – dripping with strands of pre-ejaculate. “There is no point in telling me you weren’t enjoying that.” Ukoku slurped at his fingers. “Hnn…” he shrugged. “Human, youkai: they all taste the same. You know,” he said as he braced an arm on either side of Hakkai’s head and leaned over him. “If the conversation slows on your trip back east, you could always tell your little Sanzo priest how much his daddy Koumyou enjoyed that special treatment as well.” Ukoku chuckled again. “He spent hours trying not to scream while the brat slept just on the other side of the screen.”
Hakkai wasn’t certain what kind of meditation would be required to get that particular image out of his brain, but thinking wasn’t coming easily, so he gave it up for he moment and just lay still, waiting and trying to breathe. He didn’t have to wait long. Talk of Koumyou had apparently spurred Ukoku to action. One of the hands by Hakkai’s head disappeared and a moment later he felt a blunt hardness nudging at him, nosing at his opening. He shut his eyes as his body clenched against the invasion, but opened them again at a rough rap on his forehead.
“Eyes open. Body relaxed. Well, I don’t care so much about the second part, but you’ll thank me later if you take my advice now.”
“Speaking from experience?” Hakkai taunted weakly.
Ukoku was utterly unfazed. “You know it, kiddo,” he shot back. “Oh, were you looking for ‘shame’? I don’t do that emotion. It’s all yours.” Hakkai opened his mouth to respond and instead let out a choked gasp as Ukoku moved forward, sheathing himself entirely in Hakkai’s body with one hard thrust and a grunt of pleasure. Hakkai gasped for air and blinked rapidly as tears of pain sprang unbidden to his eyes.
“Goddamn you,” he hissed – quietly, but with feeling - once his jaw had unclenched and he could speak.
“Such language!” Ukoku cut him off, sounding far more delighted than shocked. Hakkai’s was prevented from further comment as Ukoku’s mouth came down to cover his own. Hakkai found that resisting the man’s kisses was no longer a struggle; he bit down hard on Ukoku’s lower lip. Ukoku pulled back with a curse and dealt Hakkai a rough slap across the face, leaving him momentarily stunned. Stunned by the slap, but not hurt. That pain barely registered; the other pain was consuming him alive. He almost didn’t feel Ukoku’s fingers pulling at his now nearly flaccid penis. “No biting,” Ukoku scolded, wiping the blood from his mouth with his free hand. “I got enough of that from the Koushou bitch. Now, be a good little plant demon and grow for me.”
Demon… Hakkai reached for his limiters without thinking, his mind spinning in a fight or flight demand that his body couldn’t answer. Ukoku caught his hand easily and shot Hakkai a look that cut through he haze of pain and humiliation with a sharp reminder that this was one man – possibly the only man – who could take Cho Hakkai apart with little more than a glance. Hakkai forced his body to relax and reminded himself that he was here by choice, that he had made this deal, and that he had wanted this pain. It would all be different he told himself there would be no hurting when he was with—“
“A penny for your thoughts?” chirped Ukoku, who held himself still, above and within Hakkai, heavily-lidded eyes belying his unaffected tone. The tearing pain was subsiding to a dull throb, replaced by a feeling of aching fullness, of being stretched. Hakkai smiled through the ache and grinned through a clenched jaw.
“I hate you,” he ground out.
“No,” Ukoku reflected. “I mean,” he amended. “I’m sure you do, but that wasn’t it. No penny for you.”
“It’s all you need to know.”
“Very possibly. For now at least. But if that is going to be all for the pillow talk, then take my advice and relax this time. You’re tight as hell and you look downright edible, so I’m done screwing around.” The smirk returned. “Metaphorically speaking, that is.”
Hakkai struggled to unclench his muscles as Ukoku began a tugging slide out of his protesting body. He was halfway out, the rending pressure just becoming bearable, when he thrust forward again. Ukoku leaned in toward Hakkai, gripping his right thigh and moving it with him, opening Hakkai further as he drew close enough to rest his forehead against Hakkai’s own. He rotated his hips slowly, slowly, barely retreating before pushing forward, the head of his cock rubbing circles inside of Hakkai, slowly replacing the burning pain with sparks of an intense and entirely different sensation. The sparks finally caught and, to Hakkai’s shame and dismay, he was soon as aroused as he had been before and gasping slightly at each of Ukoku’s skilled movements. Ukoku’s fingers slid between them and once again grasped Hakkai’s leaking erection. Hakkai stopped fighting with a deep groan of surrender.
Tongues tangled, breath mingled and Hakkai tightened his arms around his enemy, pushing a palm flat against Ukoku’s sweat-slicked, smooth lower back, pressing him closer as his own hips rose to meet increasingly more urgent thrusts. His wide eyes caught his own reflection in the dark surface of one of the many empty glass chambers lining the room and the two blurred figures he saw there were alike: two lean bodies strove against one another, two dark heads dipped and rose, engaged in tasting, touching, moaning, and gasping after escaped breaths.
Hakkai struggled and looked away, caught between pleasure and pain, shame and gratitude, pride and pursuit of release. Ukoku gave him a final smirk and let his face fall into an expression of dumb pleasure and Hakkai felt his own expression slacken into a mirror image of the face above his. The sensations building inside of him pulled taut and snapped and he cried out as waves of pleasure spread out from his center, sending lapping waves of heat to his very toes. Ukoku’s voice reached his ears, chanting something low and dark, and Hakkai felt a blackness surrounding him and pouring into him, felt invisible fingers coiling through his body and mind and, for an endless moment, he became nothing at all.
Ukoku was up and off of him, already dressing, before Hakkai had fully returned to his senses. His body ached, even through a bone-deep relaxation the like of which he hadn’t known in years. He probed his psyche for new scars left by this experience, and found nothing new to add to the nightmares that already visited him in his restless sleep. He was soon focusing on the Next Step with alarming clarity and no little trepidation. He gathered his scattered clothing and dressed, wincing a bit as parts of his body, usually silent, made their hurts known to him. But he ignored the twinges and the almost more disturbing stickiness, and put himself in order. When he was dressed and as neat as could be expected, he turned to Ukoku. The man was utterly unruffled, fully clothed and leaning against a filing cabinet as he lit a cigarette.
“You did something,” Hakkai said, sounding calmer than he felt. He tried to ignore Ukoku’s ‘well, duh!’ leer. “I mean, to my mind,” he continued, noting with interest that he was experiencing more anxiety over what might be coming next than he had before his impromptu tryst with possibly the largest threat to his safety and sanity in existence. “Did you fix me?” Another leer. Hakkai struggled to maintain his tenuous grasp on his temper and waited. Ukoku shrugged.
“I took you apart and looked around,” he said simply. “And you are one confused puppy.” He tapped at his own forehead. “Your bod’s a nice place to visit, but your mind is a m---“
“Can you reverse the process?” Hakkai snapped, crossing his arms. “Can you make me human again, or not?”
“Sorry, kiddo. I’ve got nothing.” Ukoku smirked around his cigarette as he straightened his sutra. Hakkai stared at him, stricken. A surge of nausea preceded the emotion that rushed forward like a tide, taking him under.
He bent, pressing his palms to his eyes. He felt the family he’d never known fall away from him into the void, his sacrifice for nothing. But before he’d lost his footing and slipped after them, another image filled his mind and from within it he felt a heat and a light holding him in place. Red hair, a cocky grin….
Ukoku’s chuckle was cut short by Hakkai’s own laughter; Hakkai’s heart felt lighter than it had in…. ever, he realized, as helpless rage dissipated and turned into a dizzying and unexpected feeling of raw, blank relief.
Hakkai was not a self-made man. He had friends, a family of sorts, and the possibility of so much more that could now be explored with the world and time before them all. He’d been made what he was along this journey as much as before, and many of the hands that had molded and even put him back together had not been his own. He had so many others to thank – and to blame – for the person he had become.
He looked up, meeting Ukoku’s nonplussed stare.
“Hallelujah,” Hakkai smiled. “I was blind,” he continued, grinning madly. “But now I see.”
“Well… fuck me.” Ukoku sounded sincerely at a loss. “I’ve converted you.”
“Not quite.” Hakkai let his chi gather and turned, hurling everything he had at the still-baffled heretic priest. “You just gave me a push.”
There was a flash of light followed by the blackest darkness, and when his vision cleared, Hakkai was alone in the dimly lit lab.
“Hakkai?” He turned to the door, feeling his expression gentle as he took in the sight of Gojyo with an armful of teru-teru-bozu dolls, some slipping from his long-armed embrace. “Guess these worked,” he shrugged, scattering more of the small ghost-like figures as he moved. “The sun’s back up. Sanzo says it’s time to go home.” Hakkai smiled and moved toward his friend. He slung an arm over his shoulder and Gojyo shot him a surprised look that slid easily into a shy smile as he draped his own arm around Hakkai.
“I think,” Hakkai said. “That Sanzo is absolutely right.”
He flicked the light off as they left the lab behind them and, from the doorway, Hakkai gave the room one last cursory glance. A single lens of Ukoku’s forgotten sunglasses seemed to blink at him for just one moment before the light faded from the room the and darkness swallowed it whole.
-fin-
End note: Teru teru bōzu was a suggested prompt from Vayshti. Here’s what Wiki had to say on the little fellas: A Teru teru bozu is a little traditional hand-made doll made of white paper or cloth that Japanese farmers began hanging outside of their window by a string. This amulet is supposed to have magical powers to bring good weather and to stop or prevent the rain. "Teru" is a Japanese verb which describes sunshine, and a "bōzu" is a Buddhist monk, or in modern slang, "bald-headed.”