Renewal: Chapter 6
<<= Chapter 5 Beginning Archive Chapter 7 =>>
Title: Renewal 6
Author: saurgristiel
Rating: NC-17/Mature
Pairings/Characters: Gackt (Satoru), Kami, Hyde (Hideto), Evil men, Usami, Unnamed Woman
Genre: Friendship
Disclaimer: Don't own them, just the idea.
Warnings: Torture, Rape, Character Death, Sexual Content, Language. (The sex parts aren't really detailed, but they are there).
Words: 5,364 + 147
Summary: Bad things happen to good vampires.
Notes: Yeah, this is a rough one. This one's also humongous.
~*~*~*~*~*~
~~~*~~~
He said he’d only be gone a couple of days… Satoru thought as he stared up at the ceiling of their living room, tied up in the most uncomfortable way. His arms were tied behind his back, forearms together, his calves and thighs were tied together, and he had some sort of leather mask strapped on that prevented him from opening his mouth. His yukata was mostly open and off his shoulders, only held on by the obi, revealing his fundoshi and several red and purple marks from the torture he’d gotten.
He hadn’t fed since 2 days before Kami left, and he’d been gone for 2 days, he said he had some business to attend to. The morning after Kami left, this gang of men jumped Satoru when he was just about inside their secluded home.
They never told Satoru what they wanted.
“Hey fucker, quit looking at him like you want to eat him.”
Satoru ignored the crude man and looked at the fusuma to their dining room when he heard one of the fusuma to that room open and 4 men enter, the gait of one being that of his lover. He heard two of the men sit at their table.
“What have you done to him?”
“He’s… alive, in the other room.”
Satoru heard one of the men in his room moving and turned to look at him, but received a hard kick to the head, knocking him out.
When he started coming to, he realized he was being dragged along the tatami, mostly by his hair, but there was a loop on his bondage as well. He was then manhandled onto his knees and the leather mask was removed. He checked his surroundings and saw that he was near the fusuma to the room where Kami was.
The fusuma clacked as it was shoved open, revealing Kami and another man at the table, just like he’d heard. Satoru reached his fingers towards Kami.
A hand tangled itself in his hair and pulled his head back and he screamed inhumanly as he was stabbed in the groin. His eyes were red and wide as he screamed, and someone placed a rope in his mouth and tied it behind his head. The man gripping his hair shifted it into two sections and hacked it off, tossing it to another man. He pulled Satoru back by his remaining hair and gag, letting him land hard on his back.
“Ka-ii~…” Satoru looked into the next room at his disgusted lover. Satoru quivered from the pain as the knife was taken out and plunged into his abdomen.
“Stop…” Kami said, his eyes furious.
The fusuma slid mostly closed, but kept Satoru’s head and shoulders visible.
“Only if we have a deal, oni…” The man at the table said. There was the sound of fabric being ripped with a knife.
Satoru made a pained noise as he shifted up on the tatami. That was his breaking point. He didn’t have Kami’s comfort to get through this. He’d never been completely comfortable when they started, but quickly melted with Kami’s words and touches. He didn’t have that now.
“Ka-ii!!” He screamed to the best of his ability, his bound knee becoming visible. Satoru started moving back and forth on the floor and Kami noticed one of the other torturers sliding a hand into his own yukata.
Kami hated the horrified, scared, pained look on his lovers face, and his heart nearly broke at the pleading look in his Gacchan’s eyes.
“W-What do you want…?” Kami stuttered. As much as he hated it, he couldn’t look away from his lover, but was forced to when the fusuma closed. Satoru’s screams continued for a while longer before the human at the table spoke.
~~~
Satoru passed out two stabbed chopsticks and one man later.
He woke to the short bangs being brushed from his eyes, and a quiet “Gacchan…”
At first he turned away, but realized it was Kami and opened tearful eyes. Kami’s eyes were equally teary.
“I’m so sorry…” Satoru groaned as Kami pulled the two lacquered chopsticks and two knives out of him. They had figured out that if you left an object in, it didn’t heal. He used one knife to cut the gag on his lover and wiped away the drool and tears with his yukata sleeve.
“Kami…” Satoru’s voice was hoarse.
“Shhh…” Kami cut a couple of ropes across his chest and helped Satoru roll onto his side. He cut the bonds and freed Satoru’s arms, then his legs. He noticed something disgusting.
“Gacchan… This is going to hurt…” He placed a hand on his lover’s hip and rotated his hips a little more forward.
“Where are those- ahow…- freaks? I’m gonna kill ‘em…” He groaned after his sentence after Kami pulled something rippled and slightly bulbous from his backside.
Kami set the object aside, scooted closer to his lover’s head, and pulled him onto his back. He lifted his wrist to his mouth.
“What are you doing Ka-" Satoru was interrupted by a bleeding wrist being shoved into his mouth. He glared at his lover, but still accepted the blood.
“I fed before I came home… You need it more than I do…”
Satoru pushed Kami’s wrist away. “Wha-?” but Kami pushed his wrist right back in place.
“Just drink…”
Satoru had enough and felt his injuries heal. He licked Kami’s wrist clean. “Explain. Where are those thugs? Who were they?”
Kami got quiet. Sure he wasn’t one to run his mouth, but there’s noise quiet and there’s aura quiet. He got up and walked to the closet in the room. He felt Satoru’s fingers brush his ankle as he reached for him, and heard a noise of pain from his lover and turned. Satoru was on his side, eyes closed, concentrating on not letting the pain get to him. “What’s wrong?”
“Muscle spasm…nnnn…” Satoru’s lower back had ceased up. Kami continued to the closet, took out a small towel and their massage oil, and returned to his lover’s side. He wiped the blood off Satoru’s torso as Satoru pulled the front half of his cut fundoshi down to cover himself.
Kami rubbed his oiled hands together and started to massage his lover’s back. “I’m sorry…”
“Kaachaaan… You haven’t explained why…” Satoru knew it really irritated Kami when he called him that.
Kami, in a brief moment of humor, poked Satoru in the ribs, and then sighed, slowing his massage.
“Kami…?” Satoru turned to look at his lover.
“Gacchan…” He wiped his hands off and wiped Satoru’s lower back off. He looked at the fusuma, which was bright, since the sun hadn’t set yet. “Before I met you, before you were even born… I did something very bad… And it got you hurt…”
Satoru pushed himself up to sitting and turned to look at Kami. “What did you do…?” They killed and drank people’s blood for a living, what was worse than that?
“I was injured and she was just… there…” Kami sobbed, startling Satoru.
“Huh?” He wiped away a tear that streaked down Kami’s cheek.
“I hadn’t fed in nearly two months… I got jumped and stabbed… She was trying to help me… When I came to my senses, there’s this beautiful girl, dead in my arms… She was a wealthy merchant’s first daughter…
“By the time I met you… I thought I’d gotten away with it…. But…”
Satoru stroked Kami’s wet cheek.
“They were just watching and waiting, waiting for the right moment… My mistake got my Gacchan hurt…” Kami’s teary eyes looked up to Satoru’s loving ones.
“It was a mistake… an accident.”
“I know that… They know that… but it doesn’t change what happened… their thirst for vengeance is as strong as ever… They used you for leverage… to… force my hand… to get what they want…”
Satoru’s love changed to question, “What do you mean…?”
“I made a deal with them… if they gave me tonight, uninterrupted… you’d go free… They don’t want you, they want me…”
Satoru’s eyes widened, “K-Kami… No, we can take them.” Satoru realized what Kami’s deal was.
“No, we can’t. Maybe if we had both fed… but not now… And even if we did kill all of them… There’s more out there, they’d hunt us, both of us… until they got us… that’s no way to live…”
“Kami, you can’t just give up-”
“It’s for you… You need to live, Gacchan. I want you to…” They heard a tree fall outside.
Before Satoru could voice his question, Kami answered it, “They have the house surrounded… And they’re preparing for sunrise…” Another unspoken question, “I told you when I made you that the longer you live, the more difficult it is to cease existing… They’re building a pyre…” Satoru’s eyes widened. “We have each other until sunrise…”
“H-How can you be so accepting?!”
Kami looked down and took a deep breath, “I went to see my maker when I left you alone. I had a talk with him… Gacchan… Some of our kind don’t handle the passage of time too well… It can happen at any age, but the longer you live, the higher the chance, though it doesn’t happen to everyone…”
“What are you talking about…?”
A tear plopped onto Kami’s yukata, “I feel myself slipping… losing my grip on reality… I’ve seen it happen to others, a few of my own offspring… I don’t… I don’t want to put you through that…
“I want you to remember me in the good times…”
“W-What happens…?”
“Mental deterioration… like when people get old… then insanity, but for our kind, we essentially turn into animals… uncontrollable beasts with no human feelings… and you’d have to kill me, but you could be seriously injured in the process… I want to spare you from that… This… situation… will hurt both of us less…”
“Kami…”
“I love you too much to make you go through that…”
“How can watching you die now hurt less, when you’re fine right now?”
“Because I’m not 100%... Haven’t you noticed that we’ve been feeding only together for the past few years? You anchor me… but it’s getting harder… I want to go out my way… You just… You have to trust me… Please…” Kami begged.
In the 100 or so years Satoru had known Kami, he’d never seen him like this. It scared him. “Kami…”
“Gacchan… I… I want you to take me…”
Satoru’s eyes widened. In the 30 years they’d been having sex, Satoru had been dominant only a handful of times compared to how active they were.
“K-Kami… I…”
“Please! I want to remember the way you feel…” Kami took Satoru’s face in his hands. “Please…” Tears streamed down his cheeks.
Satoru sniffed and took Kami’s wrists and lowered his hands, “Don’t you think I want to remember you in me…? I want you to replace the feel of that scum in me…”
They both could see, out of the corner of their eyes, the object Kami had removed from his backside, blood and semen dried on it.
Satoru shakily stood and was trapped by Kami, who was now on his knees with his arms around Satoru’s waist. “Please…” Kami whispered as he slid his hand to Satoru’s covered nethers. Satoru stopped him and backed towards the fusuma to their dining room, to go get fresh clothes, but stepped on his yukata and landed on his bum, wincing at the pain that shot up his spine. When he opened his eyes, he jumped at how close Kami was to his face.
“I have an idea… Go get what you were going to get…” Kami was looking him square in the eye.
“O-okay…” Satoru slid the fusuma open and went to get his stuff, shaking off how creepy that had just been. Kami rarely stared him down like that. He returned to see Kami, only in his fundoshi, laying out his yukata on the tatami.
Satoru set his fresh clothes down near the wall. Kami motioned for Satoru to come sit next to him.
“Gacchan… We’ve done marathons before… let’s go at it as many times as we can… see how it goes… hopefully we’ll both get what we want…” He slid his hand up Satoru’s thigh, making him blush.
“Y-You know what they did to me…” Satoru looked away.
“Yes… I can connect the dots… But it’s me… You know I won’t hurt you…” He took Satoru’s cheek and kissed him, sliding his hand up further.
Just like the first time Kami had romantically touched him there, a small quake went through his body, but he quickly melted into the kiss.
~~~
“I want you to be as loud as you can be…” Kami whispered to him from his position over Satoru. His lover nodded, panting. “Let’s give them something to remember us by…”
~~~
Waking up from the second round, Kami was kissing his chest. He always seemed to know when the younger man was waking.
He smiled at his lover and ran a hand through his hair, “I tried to fix your hair… It… looks better…” Satoru’s hand joined Kami’s and his eyes widened.
“My hair hasn’t been this short since I left the temple…” He liked his longer hair, it showed that he had some sort of status in the world.
“It’s… kinda cute…” Kami grinned like a predator.
“Kami… I’m ti-” Satoru was cut off but Kami’s tongue in his mouth. He set his hands on Kami’s chest and lightly pushed. “Kami-chan, I’ve been awake for 2 days…” The look he got said that being passed out counted as sleep. Kami cupped Satoru, making him gasp.
“Your body says otherwise…”
“Mean…” He pulled Kami down for a kiss.
“Since you’re tired…” Kami rolled Satoru onto his side and entered him, lifting Satoru’s leg and playing with him in the process. Satoru bunched his hand in Kami’s yukata as Kami awkwardly thrust into him. He pushed on the tatami and rolled them onto their back. He sat up, knowing Kami loved the look of his back, and rode him for a while. He stopped when he nearly came on one particularly hard thrust. He turned and faced Kami, slowly setting himself back down. He smiled at the look of pure pleasure on Kami’s face. A tear dripped off his chin on his way to kiss him.
“I love you…” He started moving again and swallowed Kami’s moans. Kami tugged on him, breaking their kiss and making Satoru moan loudly. A few erratic tugs and thrusts later, Satoru came between them and barely held himself up.
Kami wrapped his arm around his lover and rolled him onto his back, finishing up.
He lay on top of Satoru, kissing his neck and chin, ear and collarbone, before gently biting into his neck. He wanted to remember Satoru’s taste. He trailed his hand between them, pulled back, and licked Satoru’s seed off his fingers, then pushed up and kissed Satoru deeply. Satoru’s kisses slowed as sleep claimed him.
Kami pulled out of his spent lover, rolled him onto his side, and spooned with him as sleep came for him.
When Satoru woke, Kami was still curled up to him, but awake.
“Kami…” Satoru slurred as he woke up more.
“Hmmm…?” Kami stroked his chest.
“In 30 years, you’ve never explained why you call me ‘Gacchan’…”
Kami nuzzled Satoru’s head. He might as well explain it now. “Written with the kanji ‘Gaku’ for music… because… you’re my music…” He kissed the nape of Satoru’s neck down to his shoulder, “So, familiarize ‘Gaku’ and you get ‘Gacchan’... I want you to use the name ‘Gakuto’ sometime in the future… You’ll know when to use it…” Kami’s hand slid down Satoru’s abs, all the way down.
“Don’t you get tired…?”
“We can’t afford to get tired tonight…” There was just a hint of fear in Kami’s voice.
“I’m going to start cumming dust…” Satoru joked before moaning.
~~~
This time (the 4th round) they both came harder and louder than they had in over a year. They collapsed face down on the tatami, Kami on top of Satoru. Satoru felt like a puddle of goo this time and quickly fell asleep. Kami fell asleep on top of him. At some point in their sleep, Kami had extricated himself and slid off Satoru.
They both slept for longer than usual, and when Satoru woke, he found that one of his feet was asleep. Kami had a leg over his and an arm across his back. Satoru turned and found that Kami was still asleep.
Kami… Why do you have to leave…? You still love me, right? Because… “I love you…” A shiver went up his spine as he felt a finger slide up his back.
“I love you too.” Kami opened his beautiful brown eyes. They both could feel that it would be getting light far too soon.
“Kami…”
“Shhh…” Kami stroked his cheek and hugged Satoru to him. “Don’t think of such things…”
Satoru pushed up and kissed Kami, sliding his hand down his lover’s back, around his bum, and moved Kami’s thigh over his hip.
“Y-you still love me, right…? This… isn’t a breakup…?”
“I will always love you. I’ll always, forever, I’ll be with you.” He ran his hand through Satoru’s short hair. “Forever…” He kissed Satoru’s forehead and gasped as Satoru rubbed their hips together.
Satoru continued doing so, took over Kami’s mouth, and rolled Kami onto his back. Satoru pulled back and reached for the oil, but Kami stopped him.
“It’s okay.” The look of happiness in his eyes, from Satoru taking him, was overwhelming and Satoru lost himself in pleasuring his most precious person.
~~~
When Satoru woke, he could feel the beginning of the tingling in his stomach that the hour or so before sunrise brought.
“Kami.” Panic could be heard in Satoru’s voice because Kami wasn’t next to him.
“It’s alright, I’m just finishing something up.” Kami was in the corner, where a small table was. He hid something in the bookshelf so The Avengers wouldn’t find it.
Satoru sighed in relief. Kami sat down next to him and played with his short hair.
“I hope you only remember the good parts of the past few days,” Kami whispered. “You can have anything of mine that you want-”
“Don’t…” Satoru whimpered. Kami leaned down and kissed his forehead.
“I love you,” they said at the same time. Satoru reached up and stroked Kami’s cheek.
“Wanna go for a record?” Kami smirked.
“Yes…” Satoru smiled at him. The most they’d been able to do was five in succession.
This was the epitome of ‘making love’. They took their time; it was gentle, loving, sweet, and precious, and relatively quiet. They didn’t need to show off this round.
**
“Shit… how many times is it now?” One of the men outside pretended to cover his ears.
“I don’t know… I lost count after three…”
“Oi!” Their superior gestured to the house.
**
Satoru and Kami were so wrapped up in each other that they didn’t notice their uninvited guests.
Kami came and his eyes widened at the presence of the men in the room.
A control stick was clamped around Satoru’s neck and he yelped in surprise when he came as he was pulled off of Kami, his seed landing on Kami’s nethers.
“Gacchan…”
“Sick fuck,” was followed by a swift kick to Satoru’s abdomen. He recoiled in pain as someone tied his yukata on by its sleeves.
“Kami!” he held a hand to where he was kicked and reached the other out to his lover.
Kami was hauled to his shaky feet, his dirty yukata tied to his waist by its sleeves. Satoru couldn’t help but watch his semen dribble down Kami’s leg as he was dragged away.
“Kami!” Satoru took hold of the collar around his neck and jerked forward, trying to grab onto his lover. He was pushed to the ground with a quick stomp on his ribs. He lifted his head and stretched out an arm as he watched, helplessly, his lover being wrangled through their knee-high grass. “Kami…” he cried.
“Behave, or you’ll be joining him.” The foot ground into his back. He stopped fighting.
“Gacchan… You’ll be okay… Don’t fight them… I love you…” Kami whispered, just loud enough for Satoru to hear.
“I love you too…” Satoru replied.
He slowly sat up in shock as he watched them tie Kami to the pyre. All the fusuma in the house slammed open, cutting off any possible escape route for Satoru. Tears streamed down his cheeks as they lit the fire.
“I love you… I’ll always be with you…” Satoru could see tears stream down Kami’s cheeks just before the sun hit him. Kami couldn’t help but scream when the fire licked at his legs.
Within a matter of moments, Kami let out a horrifying scream, essentially being the release of his soul from his body.
“Kami!” Satoru reached toward the fire as Kami’s body sunk further into the flames. He flinched back as a blue and purple butterfly flew in front of him. The others didn’t seem to see it.
His eyes returned to the pyre, entranced by it. It was in full sun now.
“Ah!” Satoru felt a molten bead of sun hit his back and he tried to scramble away, but the man holding the stick wouldn’t let him. He finally noticed the smell of burning flesh and harshly yanked Satoru into the shade. Satoru coughed from the pain and the force used on his neck.
They all watched the fire burn down, Satoru passing out around midday, from exhaustion. Until their boss came up to them, they just let him slouch forward, held up by the control stick. After they received their orders (watch the fire to make sure the forest doesn’t burn down, then let him go. They were men if their word after all) they let Satoru crumple to the floor. Their superior left, taking the 20 or so men with him.
When the fire was barely smoldering, about an hour or so before sunset, the shorter man handed the taller man the control stick. “Make sure he doesn’t move…” He loosened his yukata and nudged Satoru onto his back with his foot.
“Dude… he’s had enough…” The taller one said in remorse. They’d been needlessly cruel to the young-looking man.
“You all got to fuck him… I didn’t.”
The taller one turned away as the shorter one pounded the unconscious Satoru into the tatami.
When he was finished, he wiped himself off with Satoru’s yukata. They released Satoru, gathered their swords, checked the fire and left.
~*~
“Hey…” Someone was shaking his shoulder and softly calling to him. “Hey… wake up.”
Satoru’s eyes fluttered open. It was dark and the first thing he noticed was the burning in his back (both muscular and skin) and his legs wide open.
“They ruined it… didn’t they…” His dead eyes looked up at the man staring down at him.
“I think so…”
“W-Who are you…?”
“I’m Kami’s maker, Takarai Hideto. You’re his ‘Gacchan’, aren’t you?”
“Yeah…” Satoru wiped at his eye.
“Can I do anything for you?”
“… Prepare a bath…?” Hideto nodded, lit a few lamps in the room and went to start the fire under the outdoor bathtub.
Satoru struggled to sit up and slowly crawled to their…his, now, bedroom and got some fresh clothes. Hideto came back and found Satoru staring at a couple of boxes that he’d brought inside.
“Wh-What are those…?”
“I’ll tell you later… Your bath should be nice and warm now.” Hideto moved to help Satoru, but he was waved off. Satoru painfully walked to the tub, his mind a little numb.
As he removed his yukata, he noticed a blood and semen stain on it. He carefully climbed in and regretfully washed himself. He cried as he tried to get as much out of him as he could, since he was losing part of Kami as well.
Once he was finished, he doused the fire and stood, naked, looking up at the full moon. He stumbled back as something flew across his vision. He searched around, startled when the thing landed on his hip. He gently pinched one of its wings and set it in his other hand. It had the same coloring as the one he saw before, but this one was a bit bigger.
“Wh-what are you…?” He felt just a little silly talking to a butterfly. It flew up and landed on his lips. It tickled his nose with its curly thing (he didn’t actually know the name for that appendage). He made an amused noise and felt a little better. The butterfly took off and then Satoru realized how much time had passed. He was completely dry now, so he got fully dressed and went back inside.
When he stepped on the porch, he noticed that ‘Hideto’ had the tatami mats up and was turning them over. “Takarai-san…?”
Hideto waved in dismissal, “Call me Hideto. You’re pretty much my grandson…”
“A-lright…” Satoru played with his sleeves. “I’m going to go to bed…” Satoru retreated to his (and Kami’s) bedroom. He took out one of Kami’s kimono and curled up with it in bed.
~*~
He woke to an arm around him. He scrambled away, realizing when he was nearly to the wall, that it was Hideto. Apparently, the movement woke the man up. Satoru noticed it was late afternoon and he was clutching Kami’s kimono to his chest. Hideto didn’t really move before he spoke.
“You were having a restless sleep... You calmed down when I held you… I promise I didn’t do anything to you.” Hideto sat up and wiped the sleep from his eyes.
Satoru loosened his grip on Kami’s kimono. “Don’t do it again…”
Hideto looked at him, “Okay… I didn’t mean to offend you… just comfort you…” Satoru looked away. Hideto got up and went to another room, leaving Satoru to wallow.
When evening came, Satoru heard Hideto leave, and started to go through the bookshelf to find what Kami had hidden.
Hideto came home full, to find Satoru unresponsive on the floor. He read Kami’s note, feeling a pang of pain at the contents.
Before sunrise, he got through to Satoru and coaxed him to bed. He had a very restless sleep, full of nightmares.
~*~
“Gacchan, you need to feed…” Satoru turned from his touch.
“Don’t call me that…”
“Fine. Saaaaaa-chaaaaan… Come on…” Hideto tugged on Satoru’s arm.
“Go away.”
“No. I’m not going anywhere.” They’d had two similar arguments the morning before, and at sunset.
“Leave me alone.”
“Sa-chan, you need to feed. If it was just me, I would leave you alone, but it’s not. Kami asked me… Made me promise to watch over you. Now,” He pulled Satoru onto his back. “You’re going to feed.”
“No!”
“Look,” He grabbed Satoru’s chin hard. “Kami made me promise to help you live. That includes not standing by and letting you die.”
Satoru pushed Hideto away, but was quickly pinned to the futon. Hideto was sitting on his abdomen, one knee holding down one arm, one hand holding Satoru’s other wrist, and Hideto’s free hand squeezing Satoru’s cheeks. For a small man, he sure was quick and powerful.
Satoru made an indignant grunt.
“I know you don’t know me, I just dropped in. I do wish I could have seen you and Kami-chan together…” Hideto’s fierce golden eyes misted up, “But… we didn’t have that chance. You have to trust me…”
“I on’t ow u…” (I don’t know you)
“I know… But Kami trusted me, enough to ask me to look after you… He had a bad feeling that something was going to happen… You trusted Kami, so try to trust me…”
Satoru saw the butterfly flit across the ceiling. He took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak, but found Hideto’s bloody wrist placed there. He shook his head, but Hideto plopped onto his stomach, making Satoru’s mouth open. Both their eyes shifted to the fusuma as it opened, revealing Usami.
Satoru’s eyes closed as he sucked on Hideto’s wrist, hunger and its beautiful taste drawing him in. It… tastes similar to Kami… Satoru missed anything Usami and Hideto said, except that, from the non-hostile tone, they’d met before.
Satoru sucked hard on Hideto’s wrist, before it was pulled away. “Okay… ‘nuf fur you…” Hideto slurred. He lay down on the floor next to the futon.
“Usami…” Satoru said. Usami smiled kindly as Satoru broke into tears.
~~~*~~~
She opened tearful eyes, barely being able to breathe from how tight Gackt was holding her. She could tell from the way he was breathing and shivering that he hadn’t remembered all of that (he was trying to hold back tears) and it was the worst kind of memory to bring to the surface.
“I’m sorry…” She said as she kissed his forehead. She sniffed as he broke down. She comforted him the best she could, though she knew that kind of pain never truly went away.
Sunrise came, and just like young vampires, that’s when Gackt fell asleep, but he didn’t let go of her. He slept through that day, that night, and the next day.
He finally, after nearly 40 hours, let her go. He opened his eyes and saw her sympathetic ones.
“Sorry…”
Her eyes widened. “I should be the one to say that… I urged you to remember everything…”
“Yeah…” her stomach growled. Gackt looked at his watch, telling him that it was a lot longer than he should have slept. “Were you there for the last day and a half?”
“You had a tight grip on me… and you probably needed someone to hold…”
“Right…” He checked the time again. “I’ll go get some take-away for you.” He got up and went to his own room. She heard him leave and she got up, cleaned up a bit, and explored the house.
~*~
She paused and lowered her rice bowl. They were sitting at the traditional low table in his dining area/tatami room. They hadn’t said too much to each other since he got home, he was mostly watching the light snow outside the slider with a look of longing.
“What was in the boxes that Hyde had?”
He vaguely pointed to the mantle. There was an ornate wooden box sitting there, with a purple and blue butterfly on it. “Kami’s ashes... there probably wasn’t much of him in the box of ashes that Hyde gave me, but…” Gackt smiled sadly. “Kami loved butterflies… Always had one somewhere on him…” Gackt chuckled bitterly, “About 30 years ago, I got utterly smashed and got a tattoo like that butterfly… Obviously, the next night, it was gone… For the last 60 years I’ve been using some form of ‘Gakuto’… 30 years ago I started going by ‘Gackt Camui’…” He played with one of his bracelets. “I have a couple of trunks of his stuff stored here…”
She smiled at him.
He thought that pretty much covered any questions from his past-that-just-got-shared. No one but Usami and Hyde knew that stuff.
“How did Chacha and You come about?”
“Well, their parents-” Gackt caught the chopstick thrown at him and smirked.
“About 50 years later, Hyde thought I should find some friends. Cha entertained people and You collected donations. They were the first I came across… And I fell for them. I love them, but not like Kami. Chacha got mugged and I found him before he died. He made You about a month later…”
She sipped her tea.
“Hyde helped me make Cha, but somehow he just plain knew how… Cha let his feelings get to him and the four of us have been mostly together for the last 300 years.”
She smiled, then looked at the table. “I’m sorry I pulled all of that to the surface… I didn’t mean to…”
He handed her chopstick back. “It’s good to remember things now and then.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
~~Extra Explanatory Snippet~~
“Why is he so different from back then?”
“When Kami died, he was shaken to the core. After Chacha and You were made, he realized the cruel side of humans and he got cynical, angry at the world. The last 100 years or so, he’d been getting better. I think the country’s modernization helped. But World War Two happened and he took some steps back. Before you came, he was back on his recovery path and doing quite well, but it’s sped up in the time he’s known you…”
“Huh…” she said in acknowledgement as Usami explained Gackt’s behavior.
“It’s not like he was happy-go-lucky to begin with. Our time period was pretty tough, so it’s not unusual that he’s stubborn and reserved. He had to be to be the great leader that he was… Kami’s death ripped his heart out… but he’s slowly been regaining it.”
<<= Chapter 5 Beginning Archive Chapter 7 =>>
Title: Renewal 6
Author: saurgristiel
Rating: NC-17/Mature
Pairings/Characters: Gackt (Satoru), Kami, Hyde (Hideto), Evil men, Usami, Unnamed Woman
Genre: Friendship
Disclaimer: Don't own them, just the idea.
Warnings: Torture, Rape, Character Death, Sexual Content, Language. (The sex parts aren't really detailed, but they are there).
Words: 5,364 + 147
Summary: Bad things happen to good vampires.
Notes: Yeah, this is a rough one. This one's also humongous.
~*~*~*~*~*~
~~~*~~~
He said he’d only be gone a couple of days… Satoru thought as he stared up at the ceiling of their living room, tied up in the most uncomfortable way. His arms were tied behind his back, forearms together, his calves and thighs were tied together, and he had some sort of leather mask strapped on that prevented him from opening his mouth. His yukata was mostly open and off his shoulders, only held on by the obi, revealing his fundoshi and several red and purple marks from the torture he’d gotten.
He hadn’t fed since 2 days before Kami left, and he’d been gone for 2 days, he said he had some business to attend to. The morning after Kami left, this gang of men jumped Satoru when he was just about inside their secluded home.
They never told Satoru what they wanted.
“Hey fucker, quit looking at him like you want to eat him.”
Satoru ignored the crude man and looked at the fusuma to their dining room when he heard one of the fusuma to that room open and 4 men enter, the gait of one being that of his lover. He heard two of the men sit at their table.
“What have you done to him?”
“He’s… alive, in the other room.”
Satoru heard one of the men in his room moving and turned to look at him, but received a hard kick to the head, knocking him out.
When he started coming to, he realized he was being dragged along the tatami, mostly by his hair, but there was a loop on his bondage as well. He was then manhandled onto his knees and the leather mask was removed. He checked his surroundings and saw that he was near the fusuma to the room where Kami was.
The fusuma clacked as it was shoved open, revealing Kami and another man at the table, just like he’d heard. Satoru reached his fingers towards Kami.
A hand tangled itself in his hair and pulled his head back and he screamed inhumanly as he was stabbed in the groin. His eyes were red and wide as he screamed, and someone placed a rope in his mouth and tied it behind his head. The man gripping his hair shifted it into two sections and hacked it off, tossing it to another man. He pulled Satoru back by his remaining hair and gag, letting him land hard on his back.
“Ka-ii~…” Satoru looked into the next room at his disgusted lover. Satoru quivered from the pain as the knife was taken out and plunged into his abdomen.
“Stop…” Kami said, his eyes furious.
The fusuma slid mostly closed, but kept Satoru’s head and shoulders visible.
“Only if we have a deal, oni…” The man at the table said. There was the sound of fabric being ripped with a knife.
Satoru made a pained noise as he shifted up on the tatami. That was his breaking point. He didn’t have Kami’s comfort to get through this. He’d never been completely comfortable when they started, but quickly melted with Kami’s words and touches. He didn’t have that now.
“Ka-ii!!” He screamed to the best of his ability, his bound knee becoming visible. Satoru started moving back and forth on the floor and Kami noticed one of the other torturers sliding a hand into his own yukata.
Kami hated the horrified, scared, pained look on his lovers face, and his heart nearly broke at the pleading look in his Gacchan’s eyes.
“W-What do you want…?” Kami stuttered. As much as he hated it, he couldn’t look away from his lover, but was forced to when the fusuma closed. Satoru’s screams continued for a while longer before the human at the table spoke.
~~~
Satoru passed out two stabbed chopsticks and one man later.
He woke to the short bangs being brushed from his eyes, and a quiet “Gacchan…”
At first he turned away, but realized it was Kami and opened tearful eyes. Kami’s eyes were equally teary.
“I’m so sorry…” Satoru groaned as Kami pulled the two lacquered chopsticks and two knives out of him. They had figured out that if you left an object in, it didn’t heal. He used one knife to cut the gag on his lover and wiped away the drool and tears with his yukata sleeve.
“Kami…” Satoru’s voice was hoarse.
“Shhh…” Kami cut a couple of ropes across his chest and helped Satoru roll onto his side. He cut the bonds and freed Satoru’s arms, then his legs. He noticed something disgusting.
“Gacchan… This is going to hurt…” He placed a hand on his lover’s hip and rotated his hips a little more forward.
“Where are those- ahow…- freaks? I’m gonna kill ‘em…” He groaned after his sentence after Kami pulled something rippled and slightly bulbous from his backside.
Kami set the object aside, scooted closer to his lover’s head, and pulled him onto his back. He lifted his wrist to his mouth.
“What are you doing Ka-" Satoru was interrupted by a bleeding wrist being shoved into his mouth. He glared at his lover, but still accepted the blood.
“I fed before I came home… You need it more than I do…”
Satoru pushed Kami’s wrist away. “Wha-?” but Kami pushed his wrist right back in place.
“Just drink…”
Satoru had enough and felt his injuries heal. He licked Kami’s wrist clean. “Explain. Where are those thugs? Who were they?”
Kami got quiet. Sure he wasn’t one to run his mouth, but there’s noise quiet and there’s aura quiet. He got up and walked to the closet in the room. He felt Satoru’s fingers brush his ankle as he reached for him, and heard a noise of pain from his lover and turned. Satoru was on his side, eyes closed, concentrating on not letting the pain get to him. “What’s wrong?”
“Muscle spasm…nnnn…” Satoru’s lower back had ceased up. Kami continued to the closet, took out a small towel and their massage oil, and returned to his lover’s side. He wiped the blood off Satoru’s torso as Satoru pulled the front half of his cut fundoshi down to cover himself.
Kami rubbed his oiled hands together and started to massage his lover’s back. “I’m sorry…”
“Kaachaaan… You haven’t explained why…” Satoru knew it really irritated Kami when he called him that.
Kami, in a brief moment of humor, poked Satoru in the ribs, and then sighed, slowing his massage.
“Kami…?” Satoru turned to look at his lover.
“Gacchan…” He wiped his hands off and wiped Satoru’s lower back off. He looked at the fusuma, which was bright, since the sun hadn’t set yet. “Before I met you, before you were even born… I did something very bad… And it got you hurt…”
Satoru pushed himself up to sitting and turned to look at Kami. “What did you do…?” They killed and drank people’s blood for a living, what was worse than that?
“I was injured and she was just… there…” Kami sobbed, startling Satoru.
“Huh?” He wiped away a tear that streaked down Kami’s cheek.
“I hadn’t fed in nearly two months… I got jumped and stabbed… She was trying to help me… When I came to my senses, there’s this beautiful girl, dead in my arms… She was a wealthy merchant’s first daughter…
“By the time I met you… I thought I’d gotten away with it…. But…”
Satoru stroked Kami’s wet cheek.
“They were just watching and waiting, waiting for the right moment… My mistake got my Gacchan hurt…” Kami’s teary eyes looked up to Satoru’s loving ones.
“It was a mistake… an accident.”
“I know that… They know that… but it doesn’t change what happened… their thirst for vengeance is as strong as ever… They used you for leverage… to… force my hand… to get what they want…”
Satoru’s love changed to question, “What do you mean…?”
“I made a deal with them… if they gave me tonight, uninterrupted… you’d go free… They don’t want you, they want me…”
Satoru’s eyes widened, “K-Kami… No, we can take them.” Satoru realized what Kami’s deal was.
“No, we can’t. Maybe if we had both fed… but not now… And even if we did kill all of them… There’s more out there, they’d hunt us, both of us… until they got us… that’s no way to live…”
“Kami, you can’t just give up-”
“It’s for you… You need to live, Gacchan. I want you to…” They heard a tree fall outside.
Before Satoru could voice his question, Kami answered it, “They have the house surrounded… And they’re preparing for sunrise…” Another unspoken question, “I told you when I made you that the longer you live, the more difficult it is to cease existing… They’re building a pyre…” Satoru’s eyes widened. “We have each other until sunrise…”
“H-How can you be so accepting?!”
Kami looked down and took a deep breath, “I went to see my maker when I left you alone. I had a talk with him… Gacchan… Some of our kind don’t handle the passage of time too well… It can happen at any age, but the longer you live, the higher the chance, though it doesn’t happen to everyone…”
“What are you talking about…?”
A tear plopped onto Kami’s yukata, “I feel myself slipping… losing my grip on reality… I’ve seen it happen to others, a few of my own offspring… I don’t… I don’t want to put you through that…
“I want you to remember me in the good times…”
“W-What happens…?”
“Mental deterioration… like when people get old… then insanity, but for our kind, we essentially turn into animals… uncontrollable beasts with no human feelings… and you’d have to kill me, but you could be seriously injured in the process… I want to spare you from that… This… situation… will hurt both of us less…”
“Kami…”
“I love you too much to make you go through that…”
“How can watching you die now hurt less, when you’re fine right now?”
“Because I’m not 100%... Haven’t you noticed that we’ve been feeding only together for the past few years? You anchor me… but it’s getting harder… I want to go out my way… You just… You have to trust me… Please…” Kami begged.
In the 100 or so years Satoru had known Kami, he’d never seen him like this. It scared him. “Kami…”
“Gacchan… I… I want you to take me…”
Satoru’s eyes widened. In the 30 years they’d been having sex, Satoru had been dominant only a handful of times compared to how active they were.
“K-Kami… I…”
“Please! I want to remember the way you feel…” Kami took Satoru’s face in his hands. “Please…” Tears streamed down his cheeks.
Satoru sniffed and took Kami’s wrists and lowered his hands, “Don’t you think I want to remember you in me…? I want you to replace the feel of that scum in me…”
They both could see, out of the corner of their eyes, the object Kami had removed from his backside, blood and semen dried on it.
Satoru shakily stood and was trapped by Kami, who was now on his knees with his arms around Satoru’s waist. “Please…” Kami whispered as he slid his hand to Satoru’s covered nethers. Satoru stopped him and backed towards the fusuma to their dining room, to go get fresh clothes, but stepped on his yukata and landed on his bum, wincing at the pain that shot up his spine. When he opened his eyes, he jumped at how close Kami was to his face.
“I have an idea… Go get what you were going to get…” Kami was looking him square in the eye.
“O-okay…” Satoru slid the fusuma open and went to get his stuff, shaking off how creepy that had just been. Kami rarely stared him down like that. He returned to see Kami, only in his fundoshi, laying out his yukata on the tatami.
Satoru set his fresh clothes down near the wall. Kami motioned for Satoru to come sit next to him.
“Gacchan… We’ve done marathons before… let’s go at it as many times as we can… see how it goes… hopefully we’ll both get what we want…” He slid his hand up Satoru’s thigh, making him blush.
“Y-You know what they did to me…” Satoru looked away.
“Yes… I can connect the dots… But it’s me… You know I won’t hurt you…” He took Satoru’s cheek and kissed him, sliding his hand up further.
Just like the first time Kami had romantically touched him there, a small quake went through his body, but he quickly melted into the kiss.
~~~
“I want you to be as loud as you can be…” Kami whispered to him from his position over Satoru. His lover nodded, panting. “Let’s give them something to remember us by…”
~~~
Waking up from the second round, Kami was kissing his chest. He always seemed to know when the younger man was waking.
He smiled at his lover and ran a hand through his hair, “I tried to fix your hair… It… looks better…” Satoru’s hand joined Kami’s and his eyes widened.
“My hair hasn’t been this short since I left the temple…” He liked his longer hair, it showed that he had some sort of status in the world.
“It’s… kinda cute…” Kami grinned like a predator.
“Kami… I’m ti-” Satoru was cut off but Kami’s tongue in his mouth. He set his hands on Kami’s chest and lightly pushed. “Kami-chan, I’ve been awake for 2 days…” The look he got said that being passed out counted as sleep. Kami cupped Satoru, making him gasp.
“Your body says otherwise…”
“Mean…” He pulled Kami down for a kiss.
“Since you’re tired…” Kami rolled Satoru onto his side and entered him, lifting Satoru’s leg and playing with him in the process. Satoru bunched his hand in Kami’s yukata as Kami awkwardly thrust into him. He pushed on the tatami and rolled them onto their back. He sat up, knowing Kami loved the look of his back, and rode him for a while. He stopped when he nearly came on one particularly hard thrust. He turned and faced Kami, slowly setting himself back down. He smiled at the look of pure pleasure on Kami’s face. A tear dripped off his chin on his way to kiss him.
“I love you…” He started moving again and swallowed Kami’s moans. Kami tugged on him, breaking their kiss and making Satoru moan loudly. A few erratic tugs and thrusts later, Satoru came between them and barely held himself up.
Kami wrapped his arm around his lover and rolled him onto his back, finishing up.
He lay on top of Satoru, kissing his neck and chin, ear and collarbone, before gently biting into his neck. He wanted to remember Satoru’s taste. He trailed his hand between them, pulled back, and licked Satoru’s seed off his fingers, then pushed up and kissed Satoru deeply. Satoru’s kisses slowed as sleep claimed him.
Kami pulled out of his spent lover, rolled him onto his side, and spooned with him as sleep came for him.
When Satoru woke, Kami was still curled up to him, but awake.
“Kami…” Satoru slurred as he woke up more.
“Hmmm…?” Kami stroked his chest.
“In 30 years, you’ve never explained why you call me ‘Gacchan’…”
Kami nuzzled Satoru’s head. He might as well explain it now. “Written with the kanji ‘Gaku’ for music… because… you’re my music…” He kissed the nape of Satoru’s neck down to his shoulder, “So, familiarize ‘Gaku’ and you get ‘Gacchan’... I want you to use the name ‘Gakuto’ sometime in the future… You’ll know when to use it…” Kami’s hand slid down Satoru’s abs, all the way down.
“Don’t you get tired…?”
“We can’t afford to get tired tonight…” There was just a hint of fear in Kami’s voice.
“I’m going to start cumming dust…” Satoru joked before moaning.
~~~
This time (the 4th round) they both came harder and louder than they had in over a year. They collapsed face down on the tatami, Kami on top of Satoru. Satoru felt like a puddle of goo this time and quickly fell asleep. Kami fell asleep on top of him. At some point in their sleep, Kami had extricated himself and slid off Satoru.
They both slept for longer than usual, and when Satoru woke, he found that one of his feet was asleep. Kami had a leg over his and an arm across his back. Satoru turned and found that Kami was still asleep.
Kami… Why do you have to leave…? You still love me, right? Because… “I love you…” A shiver went up his spine as he felt a finger slide up his back.
“I love you too.” Kami opened his beautiful brown eyes. They both could feel that it would be getting light far too soon.
“Kami…”
“Shhh…” Kami stroked his cheek and hugged Satoru to him. “Don’t think of such things…”
Satoru pushed up and kissed Kami, sliding his hand down his lover’s back, around his bum, and moved Kami’s thigh over his hip.
“Y-you still love me, right…? This… isn’t a breakup…?”
“I will always love you. I’ll always, forever, I’ll be with you.” He ran his hand through Satoru’s short hair. “Forever…” He kissed Satoru’s forehead and gasped as Satoru rubbed their hips together.
Satoru continued doing so, took over Kami’s mouth, and rolled Kami onto his back. Satoru pulled back and reached for the oil, but Kami stopped him.
“It’s okay.” The look of happiness in his eyes, from Satoru taking him, was overwhelming and Satoru lost himself in pleasuring his most precious person.
~~~
When Satoru woke, he could feel the beginning of the tingling in his stomach that the hour or so before sunrise brought.
“Kami.” Panic could be heard in Satoru’s voice because Kami wasn’t next to him.
“It’s alright, I’m just finishing something up.” Kami was in the corner, where a small table was. He hid something in the bookshelf so The Avengers wouldn’t find it.
Satoru sighed in relief. Kami sat down next to him and played with his short hair.
“I hope you only remember the good parts of the past few days,” Kami whispered. “You can have anything of mine that you want-”
“Don’t…” Satoru whimpered. Kami leaned down and kissed his forehead.
“I love you,” they said at the same time. Satoru reached up and stroked Kami’s cheek.
“Wanna go for a record?” Kami smirked.
“Yes…” Satoru smiled at him. The most they’d been able to do was five in succession.
This was the epitome of ‘making love’. They took their time; it was gentle, loving, sweet, and precious, and relatively quiet. They didn’t need to show off this round.
**
“Shit… how many times is it now?” One of the men outside pretended to cover his ears.
“I don’t know… I lost count after three…”
“Oi!” Their superior gestured to the house.
**
Satoru and Kami were so wrapped up in each other that they didn’t notice their uninvited guests.
Kami came and his eyes widened at the presence of the men in the room.
A control stick was clamped around Satoru’s neck and he yelped in surprise when he came as he was pulled off of Kami, his seed landing on Kami’s nethers.
“Gacchan…”
“Sick fuck,” was followed by a swift kick to Satoru’s abdomen. He recoiled in pain as someone tied his yukata on by its sleeves.
“Kami!” he held a hand to where he was kicked and reached the other out to his lover.
Kami was hauled to his shaky feet, his dirty yukata tied to his waist by its sleeves. Satoru couldn’t help but watch his semen dribble down Kami’s leg as he was dragged away.
“Kami!” Satoru took hold of the collar around his neck and jerked forward, trying to grab onto his lover. He was pushed to the ground with a quick stomp on his ribs. He lifted his head and stretched out an arm as he watched, helplessly, his lover being wrangled through their knee-high grass. “Kami…” he cried.
“Behave, or you’ll be joining him.” The foot ground into his back. He stopped fighting.
“Gacchan… You’ll be okay… Don’t fight them… I love you…” Kami whispered, just loud enough for Satoru to hear.
“I love you too…” Satoru replied.
He slowly sat up in shock as he watched them tie Kami to the pyre. All the fusuma in the house slammed open, cutting off any possible escape route for Satoru. Tears streamed down his cheeks as they lit the fire.
“I love you… I’ll always be with you…” Satoru could see tears stream down Kami’s cheeks just before the sun hit him. Kami couldn’t help but scream when the fire licked at his legs.
Within a matter of moments, Kami let out a horrifying scream, essentially being the release of his soul from his body.
“Kami!” Satoru reached toward the fire as Kami’s body sunk further into the flames. He flinched back as a blue and purple butterfly flew in front of him. The others didn’t seem to see it.
His eyes returned to the pyre, entranced by it. It was in full sun now.
“Ah!” Satoru felt a molten bead of sun hit his back and he tried to scramble away, but the man holding the stick wouldn’t let him. He finally noticed the smell of burning flesh and harshly yanked Satoru into the shade. Satoru coughed from the pain and the force used on his neck.
They all watched the fire burn down, Satoru passing out around midday, from exhaustion. Until their boss came up to them, they just let him slouch forward, held up by the control stick. After they received their orders (watch the fire to make sure the forest doesn’t burn down, then let him go. They were men if their word after all) they let Satoru crumple to the floor. Their superior left, taking the 20 or so men with him.
When the fire was barely smoldering, about an hour or so before sunset, the shorter man handed the taller man the control stick. “Make sure he doesn’t move…” He loosened his yukata and nudged Satoru onto his back with his foot.
“Dude… he’s had enough…” The taller one said in remorse. They’d been needlessly cruel to the young-looking man.
“You all got to fuck him… I didn’t.”
The taller one turned away as the shorter one pounded the unconscious Satoru into the tatami.
When he was finished, he wiped himself off with Satoru’s yukata. They released Satoru, gathered their swords, checked the fire and left.
~*~
“Hey…” Someone was shaking his shoulder and softly calling to him. “Hey… wake up.”
Satoru’s eyes fluttered open. It was dark and the first thing he noticed was the burning in his back (both muscular and skin) and his legs wide open.
“They ruined it… didn’t they…” His dead eyes looked up at the man staring down at him.
“I think so…”
“W-Who are you…?”
“I’m Kami’s maker, Takarai Hideto. You’re his ‘Gacchan’, aren’t you?”
“Yeah…” Satoru wiped at his eye.
“Can I do anything for you?”
“… Prepare a bath…?” Hideto nodded, lit a few lamps in the room and went to start the fire under the outdoor bathtub.
Satoru struggled to sit up and slowly crawled to their…his, now, bedroom and got some fresh clothes. Hideto came back and found Satoru staring at a couple of boxes that he’d brought inside.
“Wh-What are those…?”
“I’ll tell you later… Your bath should be nice and warm now.” Hideto moved to help Satoru, but he was waved off. Satoru painfully walked to the tub, his mind a little numb.
As he removed his yukata, he noticed a blood and semen stain on it. He carefully climbed in and regretfully washed himself. He cried as he tried to get as much out of him as he could, since he was losing part of Kami as well.
Once he was finished, he doused the fire and stood, naked, looking up at the full moon. He stumbled back as something flew across his vision. He searched around, startled when the thing landed on his hip. He gently pinched one of its wings and set it in his other hand. It had the same coloring as the one he saw before, but this one was a bit bigger.
“Wh-what are you…?” He felt just a little silly talking to a butterfly. It flew up and landed on his lips. It tickled his nose with its curly thing (he didn’t actually know the name for that appendage). He made an amused noise and felt a little better. The butterfly took off and then Satoru realized how much time had passed. He was completely dry now, so he got fully dressed and went back inside.
When he stepped on the porch, he noticed that ‘Hideto’ had the tatami mats up and was turning them over. “Takarai-san…?”
Hideto waved in dismissal, “Call me Hideto. You’re pretty much my grandson…”
“A-lright…” Satoru played with his sleeves. “I’m going to go to bed…” Satoru retreated to his (and Kami’s) bedroom. He took out one of Kami’s kimono and curled up with it in bed.
~*~
He woke to an arm around him. He scrambled away, realizing when he was nearly to the wall, that it was Hideto. Apparently, the movement woke the man up. Satoru noticed it was late afternoon and he was clutching Kami’s kimono to his chest. Hideto didn’t really move before he spoke.
“You were having a restless sleep... You calmed down when I held you… I promise I didn’t do anything to you.” Hideto sat up and wiped the sleep from his eyes.
Satoru loosened his grip on Kami’s kimono. “Don’t do it again…”
Hideto looked at him, “Okay… I didn’t mean to offend you… just comfort you…” Satoru looked away. Hideto got up and went to another room, leaving Satoru to wallow.
When evening came, Satoru heard Hideto leave, and started to go through the bookshelf to find what Kami had hidden.
Hideto came home full, to find Satoru unresponsive on the floor. He read Kami’s note, feeling a pang of pain at the contents.
Before sunrise, he got through to Satoru and coaxed him to bed. He had a very restless sleep, full of nightmares.
~*~
“Gacchan, you need to feed…” Satoru turned from his touch.
“Don’t call me that…”
“Fine. Saaaaaa-chaaaaan… Come on…” Hideto tugged on Satoru’s arm.
“Go away.”
“No. I’m not going anywhere.” They’d had two similar arguments the morning before, and at sunset.
“Leave me alone.”
“Sa-chan, you need to feed. If it was just me, I would leave you alone, but it’s not. Kami asked me… Made me promise to watch over you. Now,” He pulled Satoru onto his back. “You’re going to feed.”
“No!”
“Look,” He grabbed Satoru’s chin hard. “Kami made me promise to help you live. That includes not standing by and letting you die.”
Satoru pushed Hideto away, but was quickly pinned to the futon. Hideto was sitting on his abdomen, one knee holding down one arm, one hand holding Satoru’s other wrist, and Hideto’s free hand squeezing Satoru’s cheeks. For a small man, he sure was quick and powerful.
Satoru made an indignant grunt.
“I know you don’t know me, I just dropped in. I do wish I could have seen you and Kami-chan together…” Hideto’s fierce golden eyes misted up, “But… we didn’t have that chance. You have to trust me…”
“I on’t ow u…” (I don’t know you)
“I know… But Kami trusted me, enough to ask me to look after you… He had a bad feeling that something was going to happen… You trusted Kami, so try to trust me…”
Satoru saw the butterfly flit across the ceiling. He took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak, but found Hideto’s bloody wrist placed there. He shook his head, but Hideto plopped onto his stomach, making Satoru’s mouth open. Both their eyes shifted to the fusuma as it opened, revealing Usami.
Satoru’s eyes closed as he sucked on Hideto’s wrist, hunger and its beautiful taste drawing him in. It… tastes similar to Kami… Satoru missed anything Usami and Hideto said, except that, from the non-hostile tone, they’d met before.
Satoru sucked hard on Hideto’s wrist, before it was pulled away. “Okay… ‘nuf fur you…” Hideto slurred. He lay down on the floor next to the futon.
“Usami…” Satoru said. Usami smiled kindly as Satoru broke into tears.
~~~*~~~
She opened tearful eyes, barely being able to breathe from how tight Gackt was holding her. She could tell from the way he was breathing and shivering that he hadn’t remembered all of that (he was trying to hold back tears) and it was the worst kind of memory to bring to the surface.
“I’m sorry…” She said as she kissed his forehead. She sniffed as he broke down. She comforted him the best she could, though she knew that kind of pain never truly went away.
Sunrise came, and just like young vampires, that’s when Gackt fell asleep, but he didn’t let go of her. He slept through that day, that night, and the next day.
He finally, after nearly 40 hours, let her go. He opened his eyes and saw her sympathetic ones.
“Sorry…”
Her eyes widened. “I should be the one to say that… I urged you to remember everything…”
“Yeah…” her stomach growled. Gackt looked at his watch, telling him that it was a lot longer than he should have slept. “Were you there for the last day and a half?”
“You had a tight grip on me… and you probably needed someone to hold…”
“Right…” He checked the time again. “I’ll go get some take-away for you.” He got up and went to his own room. She heard him leave and she got up, cleaned up a bit, and explored the house.
~*~
She paused and lowered her rice bowl. They were sitting at the traditional low table in his dining area/tatami room. They hadn’t said too much to each other since he got home, he was mostly watching the light snow outside the slider with a look of longing.
“What was in the boxes that Hyde had?”
He vaguely pointed to the mantle. There was an ornate wooden box sitting there, with a purple and blue butterfly on it. “Kami’s ashes... there probably wasn’t much of him in the box of ashes that Hyde gave me, but…” Gackt smiled sadly. “Kami loved butterflies… Always had one somewhere on him…” Gackt chuckled bitterly, “About 30 years ago, I got utterly smashed and got a tattoo like that butterfly… Obviously, the next night, it was gone… For the last 60 years I’ve been using some form of ‘Gakuto’… 30 years ago I started going by ‘Gackt Camui’…” He played with one of his bracelets. “I have a couple of trunks of his stuff stored here…”
She smiled at him.
He thought that pretty much covered any questions from his past-that-just-got-shared. No one but Usami and Hyde knew that stuff.
“How did Chacha and You come about?”
“Well, their parents-” Gackt caught the chopstick thrown at him and smirked.
“About 50 years later, Hyde thought I should find some friends. Cha entertained people and You collected donations. They were the first I came across… And I fell for them. I love them, but not like Kami. Chacha got mugged and I found him before he died. He made You about a month later…”
She sipped her tea.
“Hyde helped me make Cha, but somehow he just plain knew how… Cha let his feelings get to him and the four of us have been mostly together for the last 300 years.”
She smiled, then looked at the table. “I’m sorry I pulled all of that to the surface… I didn’t mean to…”
He handed her chopstick back. “It’s good to remember things now and then.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
~~Extra Explanatory Snippet~~
“Why is he so different from back then?”
“When Kami died, he was shaken to the core. After Chacha and You were made, he realized the cruel side of humans and he got cynical, angry at the world. The last 100 years or so, he’d been getting better. I think the country’s modernization helped. But World War Two happened and he took some steps back. Before you came, he was back on his recovery path and doing quite well, but it’s sped up in the time he’s known you…”
“Huh…” she said in acknowledgement as Usami explained Gackt’s behavior.
“It’s not like he was happy-go-lucky to begin with. Our time period was pretty tough, so it’s not unusual that he’s stubborn and reserved. He had to be to be the great leader that he was… Kami’s death ripped his heart out… but he’s slowly been regaining it.”
<<= Chapter 5 Beginning Archive Chapter 7 =>>