Clip Your Wings
Warnings: Guro, torture, non-con, character death(s), catatonia, angst.
Pairing: Karasu/Kurama (Kurama/Hiei)
Rating: R18+ (for gore and sex)
Summary: Kurama's last few weeks after Team Urameshi failed to defeat Team Toguro.
Notes: Erm...too much time on Gurochan...yeah... Bui failed to defeat Hiei, for the purpose of plot, but the others of Team Toguro won.
-
Clip Your Wings
We share the last champagne and watch necropolis.
Still and so let's leave her to her silent walks.
The sun of Rome is set and our day is gone.
A kiss a taste of red from your open lips.
-
One could only wonder just how things would have really turned out if Team Toguro hadn't won.
Would life have been simpler? Would Botan have not had such a wretched look on her face as she ferried the souls of those whom she had come to respect and think of as friends rather than just another faucet of her job.
The lives of many people certainly could have been very, very different.
-
“Hiei,” Kurama whispered, the night before they were due for the finals. It had come down to this, and there was something in the air, something thick and almost vibrating. Kurama thought he could choke on it if he wasn't careful. But it came from inside him as well, the ache for a vicious and bloody fight.
Moonlight cut a shaft of light over the foot of their bed, the rumpled covers almost glowing under the full moon's grace. It was early morning now and the room smelt of sex and anticipation. Naturally, the knowledge of such violence in the day to come bumped up the demonic libido. It was something that no demon could simply swat away. Instincts like this had their way due to utter persistency. There was no other way to pass by the time before they stood, looking up at the large door before they opened, where they would walk out into the view of the baying masses of demons.
Kurama rolled over onto his side and lay his head on Hiei's chest, coiling his hand within the sheets that covered them both. It was bitterly cold, that night, and Hiei's body beside him was like a furnace, something warm to hold onto. Or at least, that was what he told himself.
“If the time comes…I want you to close your eyes.”
Hiei's response was a mere snort.
But his hand rested itself on Kurama shoulder and his fingers twitched just enough to have been small, light strokes. Hiei had developed a habit of doing so, of feeling as well as soothing Kurama in such a way. Something he'd grown fond of in their regular fucks. Kurama had the skin of a true kitsune, utterly perfect and flawless, as if he'd been lifted straight from a painting.
After a long stretch of silence, Hiei said, “And you will not deny me an honourable death.”
Kurama traced one of his fingers along Hiei's collarbone in illustration of his understanding. If Hiei failed, if worse came to worse, it would be Kurama who killed Hiei, and no other. To do him the honour of ending his suffering while he still had his honour.
An appropriate swordsman's death.
Kurama strained his neck a little and pushed his hair aside as he placed a kiss on Hiei's lips. Hiei seemed reluctant to let Kurama leave, and so a minute later, they were back to where they had been hours ago. Aroused and wanting more, more than they could get from each other. Simply because, what they really wanted, rather than sex, was the thrill of the fight, their impending deaths.
This time, Hiei spread his thighs for Kurama, who did not look over the act for what it was. A subtle gesture, a nod to the growing link the two of them shared.
Unsaid words hung in the air, where they would stay.
Nothing else was said until the sun rose, and they knew that they would have to begin getting ready for the day ahead.
-
Facedown, pressed to the cracked and buckled concrete of the stadium's fighting space, Kurama hacked up a mouthful of blood and stared down at it in wide-eyed denial.
No.
Juri had just counted to ten and he had been unable to stand, whilst Karasu had.
Karasu...had won.
A shoe slammed down on his right hand's fingers and he screamed and convulsed with pain as they broke and twisted oddly. Kurama couldn't look up, didn't dare to risk it, because he knew what he'd see.
He'd see nothing. Just emptiness. He’d see his teammates...he...wasn’t sure he wanted to know their reactions.
And Karasu...
Karasu, he'd say, was a demon born without emotion. Forever chasing the very idea of what it would be like to love someone so much, to appreciate them beyond anything else they could have possibly have possessed, and then to have it taken away from them. Karasu wanted, out of curiosity and perhaps addiction to the slight insight into what emotion truly was, to feel the very different lengths of which demons and humans alike felt on a daily basis.
Anger. Love. Hate. Grief.
But Kurama didn't want to look up into those dead, emotionless eyes and see only a morbid curiosity at Kurama's death. Because he was dying, slowly, and he could feel it approaching like a big black fucking cloud; crawling closer to him, growing stronger as he grew weaker.
Kurama would not admit to death, nor surrender.
“You've lost, Kurama,” Karasu mumbled as he crouched down and petted Kurama's hair, letting his fingers catch in the knots and run through the clumps of blood-soaked flesh and dirt.
Kurama shuddered.
“As soon as two more of your team fail and we are victorious…I will have you, and I will give you a proper and deserving death befitting of one I love as much as I do you.” Oddly, it almost sounded as if Karasu had let emotion creep into his voice as he spoke about emotions that seemed impossible for him to understand. Love, it seemed, was something he felt passionate about.
Kurama swallowed thickly and winced as Karasu's shoe lifted off his now mangled fingers.
He yelped in pain as a hand fisted in his hair and yanked his head up. He could hear Yusuke screaming somewhere behind him, and the roar of the delighted crowd, Sakyo's mildly amused voice as he spoke softly to Toguro, who laughed, finding whatever he’d said amusing.
“I do love you, Kurama,” he said, his blond hair sliding from his shoulder as he leant down and pressed his lips gently against Kurama's forehead. “I love you so much I want to see you in pieces, and you shake so prettily when I tell you so.”
And he was shaking with utter revulsion for the creature that was staring at him.
“You won't ever succeed in killing me,” he growled meeting those dreadful eyes. They were tinted a faint red, as his demonic instinct rose.
“Oh, I know. You're quite crafty in the matter of keeping what matters most. But I want to break your spirit before I finally do kill you, that way, I can give myself time to make you even more beautiful, so that when you die, the pain will be greater and you will be too broken to even try to save yourself.”
He said the only thing he could think of. “You're sick.”
“Am I? Perhaps it is you that is defective. I have never met a demon who has ever embraced the human condition as much as you have. Although it makes you unique, it also disgusts me.”
-
Later, in the infirmary, Kurama merely stared at the ceiling, waiting to hear of whether he would die by Karasu's hands, or if he would be left sorting through the wreckage of his relationship with Hiei. Whether Hiei had even lived.
Yusuke, Kuwabara, Hiei and even Koenma...oh if Koenma was forced to fight...
He had…failed them all.
He had...failed himself, most of all. Failed to defend himself against such a sadistic demon. He hadn’t been so terrified of his own fate since he’d been a young, skittish kit and he’d hid behind his mother’s skirt whenever something new and unfamiliar passed by their den.
His own weakness angered him most of all. Better he had died in the ring, than left to ponder over it for the rest of his time here.
-
He’d been asleep when Karasu had come to collect him after Yusuke had been crushed by Toguro.
-
“I like duct tape,” Karasu said, turning the roll of silver tape over in his hand as he stared down at it. His eyes flicked up to Kurama after a moment. Their frightening intensity made Kurama fight back a flinch. “Would you like to know why?”
Kurama could not reply past a quiet whimper. He twisted his wrists, ignoring how the wire bit into them. Blood was dripping down his fingers in rapidly; falling to the sheets and carpet below, trailing down the bedpost he'd been secured to. The wire was thin, but there was a lot of it. It wound around his thumbs all the way up to his elbows and forced his spine straight against the wooden bedpost. His legs were sprawled out on the mattress, tangled in the sheets where a thick silver chain connected to the foot of the bed poked out from the covers. The manacle around his right ankle was quite strong, and warded to add insult to injury. The white paper with crisp, black kanji wrapped around the metal sent sparks of pain shooting up his arms every time he attempted to tear it off.
Karasu had long since stripped him of all clothing. Days ago in fact, when he'd first captured his sweet little plaything. His hair was perhaps the only part of him that was kept clean now, along with his face. The rest of his body suffered minor cuts and bruises where the long lines of nails or whips hadn’t cut red lines into his skin and bled out the most beautiful shade of red. Even then the majority of the damage was inside Kurama's body and mind.
Kurama shook his head a little, willing his breathing to return to something resembling normal, the world was going dim as he became light headed. He was hyperventilating. He'd fought Karasu tooth and nail as he'd restrained him, but still here he was, cornered and unable to escape, and it was enough to drive him insane. His blood rushed through his ears, the adrenalin seeping away and leaving him with the downfall from the rush of desperate hope.
Karasu tossed the tape onto the bed and crawled towards Kurama, swaying a little and smiling as Kurama pulled his knees up and turned his head away. It was easy to force apart the pale knees so he could place himself between them, laying one of Kurama's legs on either of his thighs. Tied to the corner of the foot of the bed as he was, Karasu was free to let his legs rest over the edge of the bed, bent at the knee, and tilt Kurama's face up to him.
They were nice and close like this. Karasu enjoyed it perhaps a little too much. He had much to do today, much to do indeed. He only had the rest of the week before Toguro required him again, and Karasu would make his time with Kurama before the drone of life continued on worth it. Most certainly.
“I can't kiss you, no. But you also can't make comments against me that you would regret, pretty. No. Instead I still get to hear your whimpers and screams through the plastic.” With his fingers of his left hand tilting Kurama's chin up, his others were free to tap over the thick tape pointedly, as if he were placing his finger on Kurama's lips in a hushing motion.
He moved his fingers aside and replaced them with his lips a moment later, ignoring the way Kurama tried to jerk his head away and free his arms. Kurama's legs were also a problem (they wouldn't be for long, however, so he forgave that minor offense) rising and trying to push Karasu away from him, kneeing Karasu in his sides.
Chuckling at Kurama's attempts to get him to back away, Karasu merely brushed Kurama's gorgeous hair back away from his face and littered small kisses on every patch of bare skin he could reach, digging his teeth into delicate skin until it broke and blood swelled and poured into his mouth. Bruises remained. He licked at the tears that were leaking from wide, vacant eyes whilst he was at it, smacking his lips happily thereafter and smiling at him, a mere quirk of his lips.
“Your tears are sweet to me Kurama because you always give me so many.” He rubbed a thumb under the boy's eye, watching as the panic in them returned.
He was sorely tempted to scratch out that eye. It was like a sudden surge of violent need twisting inside him, begging him in the back of his mind, a nagging thought needed to be brought into reality. He ignored it in favour of kissing him again. He hushed the whimpers, forcing his mouth open and fucking his mouth with his tongue hungrily. Kurama was such a pretty thing and he didn't want to destroy him in that manner. No, the eyes stayed. He liked them too much.
The legs though. Karasu glared at the thigh that knocked him in the ribs that which belonged to the same knee that kept hitting him in the back. Kurama was cornered and he was not all that surprised that he'd sunken to such...desperate measures of illustrating free will and defiance.
Not for long.
Karasu gave him what he wanted, for the moment. He slipped further back onto the bed, away from Kurama, and the crawled off the bed again. He disappeared into the bathroom that adjoined the bedroom.
Whilst he was gone, Kurama let his chin rest on his stomach as he kept twisting his wrists and pulling at his arms. The wire was thin, but there was too much of it. He forced back a barely contained growl that sounded more like a pathetic sob to his own ears. Desperately he wished for freedom. Just enough to get even one good solid punch before he resigned himself to his inevitable death.
Karasu returned, a white wraith with trailing black hair. He knelt behind Kurama, his leather pants squeaking as he did so. He ignored Kurama's small sounds and the whine of the bedpost each time Kurama tugged and shifted.
With his recently acquired wire cutters Karasu cut through the wire that bound Kurama to the bedpost. He pinched and snipped skin without much concern, Kurama only made more pretty sounds for him, throwing his head back into the hard post repeatedly as if it would distract him. Karasu had only cut through half of them by the time Kurama managed to snap through the rest and fling himself over to the other side of the bed, hands flying to the duct tape at his mouth.
Karasu stood and watched as Kurama pulled the tape from his mouth, closed his eyes at the gasp of pain and glorious little whimpers that he could hear in full now. The kitsune threw the tape off to the side and curled into a delicate little ball, trying to hide himself. Though he still glared at Karasu from behind the curtain of his hair.
“I will kill you,” he growled, although his voice was husky and thick from screaming. His eyes blazed a righteous fury that sent a delicious shiver down Karasu's spine. Then he buried his face in his knees. Not weakness, no. Weakness was bearing his throat and spreading his legs, Karasu understood that. Protective balls like he was curled up in now were mere energy conservers and a precise way to shield emotions. Karasu could still see his shoulders quivering and hands shaking though.
Such long legs...coloured so prettily with dried blood and bruises in the shape of his own hands. He wanted -- oh he wanted...
Karasu bent at the waist a little to twist the silver chain connected to the manacle around Kurama's ankle around his wrist loosely. “What are you doing, Kurama?” he asked in curiously.
When Kurama stilled and looked at him past weightless crimson hair, Karasu allowed himself a slight smile. His eyes flashed a dangerous, hungry red.
He tugged on the chain and his smile widened into a vicious grin at Kurama's panicked yelp. He tugged again, placing one hand over the other, pulling the red haired boy closer to him, dragging him against his will. Kurama’s sounds altered to a frantic scream and clutched at the white sheets desperately. They only tore away from the mattress with a firmer tug on Karasu's end; his efforts were in vain.
When Kurama was close enough, Karasu grasped Kurama's ankle itself and gave one last vicious tug that pulled Kurama off the bed completely. He fell to the floor a few metres away with a scream, naked and rubbed raw from his glide along the carpet. The chain on his ankle was pulled taught, having stoped his glide away from the bed.
Karasu canted his head slightly, merely watching him as he twisted at the waist to see him better. He watched the boy ease the pressure on his leg by moving a tad closer. His head was still down; his dishevelled hair covering his face, though nothing covered the rest of him. Ripe and bared for Karasu to see, long expanses of beautiful soft white skin.
The wire cutters fell to the carpet by Karasu's bare feet with a loud thud, drawing Kurama's attention.
Making sure Kurama was watching, Karasu dug his finger tips into his left pocket and pulled out a small, clear plastic bag. Inside was a single, blue pill. “I wasn't going to give this to you if you kept the tape,” he taped his own lips with a long finger, “but perhaps you’d like a surprise, maybe your reaction will be sweeter when you wake...”
“What are you going to do?” Kurama growled, moving back as far as he could. Karasu dropped to his knees and advanced, crawling toward Kurama, settling himself over him.
Kurama was such a small thing compared to Karasu, who was nigh twice as tall as Kurama. This much was painfully obvious when Karasu rested over him and placed two of his fingers at Kurama’s lips, then forced them inside his mouth, holding down his tongue.
“Shh, no questions yet, my beautiful Kurama.” Then he removed his fingers.
His size made it easy to restrain him when he struggled. Straddling the redhead's waist and kneeling on the boy's shredded wrists, Karasu grasped Kurama's chin to hold his head still and placed the pill on his own tongue, then lowered himself to press his lips against Kurama's. He pinched Kurama’s nose when he refused to open his mouth and dug his fingers into his jaw to coax them open. Eventually, when Kurama conceded, Karasu fed him the pill that was already dissolving on his tongue. He made sure he swallowed it, then allowed Kurama to breathe through his nose again.
He stayed a while longer, exploring Kurama's mouth as he wished, enjoying Kurama's attempts to rid Karasu of his tongue. His mouth warm hot, lips soft and perfect, the small sounds of protest idyllic to his ears, his nubile pretty young thing...
Karasu’s hand fisted in glorious red hair as it mixed with his own black as death mane, slipping from his shoulders.
Kurama's resistance died away, his jerking and thrashing slowing, stoping. He became sluggish, and then limp and lifeless after a time.
Karasu released his lips and licked away the drool that ran from the corner of Kurama's mouth as the urge to laugh suddenly passed through him. He gave into it, chuckling and kissing Kurama's closed eyes and harsh pulse at his neck. Then he reared back and laughed hysterically at the ceiling, dragging his hands up his own thighs, passing them over his hard cock, trapped behind his pants. He moaned a little, then looked down to Kurama.
“You will survive this,” he said gleefully, cupping Kurama's face in long, pale fingers and bending down to press his lips to Kurama's own. His hair slipped from his shoulders again at the action, a curtain of black. Kurama would be moulded into and even prettier thing.
He'd kill Kurama only when he truly was the epitome of all things perfect and beautiful.
-
Kurama woke shivering, sweating and sobbing. His eyes rolled back in his head at the utter pain in his legs. He cried out deafeningly and tried to calm his breathing when he ran out of air. His lower half from hips downward ached and pounded, synapses screaming at the utter lack of connection they found.
For a moment, Kurama was terrified that Karasu had taken his legs, but a glance downward proved him wrong. Only, his lower half was covered in blood, leaking onto the white sheets of the bed. The manacle was still around his ankle, the chain replaced with a longer, newer one.
It was the sight stitched wounds that circled his legs and crisscrossed almost haphazardly, following the lines of his muscles terrified him the most.
Karasu was lying naked beside him, his chin propped up on his palm, watching him calmly.
“What did - what did you do?” Kurama asked, his voice reluctant to work for him past the utter agony and loss. Propped up against the metal headboard, his own legs looked like they were twisted oddly, and his inner thighs were coated with blood.
“I hamstringed you, among other things,” Karasu purred, placing a hand on Kurama's stomach and circling Kurama's belly button with his smallest finger. His touch was cold.
Hamstringed...Karasu had cut the tendons at the back of his knee. He wouldn't be able to walk or move his legs. Eyes flying wide, Kurama felt an immeasurable sense of horror creep up. He gagged and jolted.
Karasu pulled and pushed at Kurama until he leant over to the side of the bed, then held his hair back reverently as Kurama dry retched until he threw up bile and blood. Karasu hadn't fed him in the time he'd spent in this room, other than the small amounts of water he allowed him.
Feeling weak, Kurama's hands coiled in the sheets that slipped off the edge of the bed, his cheek pressed on the hard corner of the mattress. He could feel Karasu's hardness against his backside and the warmth of long legs against his own mangled ones. He couldn't hide the desperate sob that escaped him. He closed his eyes, and held them so tight, as if he could make it all go away, if only he wished it so hard enough.
When Karasu was satisfied that Kurama's retching fit had passed, he wrapped his arms around Kurama's waist and pulled him up, then propped him against the cushions once more.
“Why don't you just kill me?” Kurama whispered hoarsely, defeated in all senses. He'd lost everything, and now he was being stripped of his vanity too. His last sense of peace of mind, his last hope...crushed in Karasu's fingers.
Karasu laughed, long and cold. “What would be the point in killing you now? You're not perfect yet, once you are absolutely beautiful that it hurts to look at you, and I love you as deeply as I could ever love anything made of material matter, then, only then, I will kill you...”
He leaned over and kissed Kurama's chest, wrapping the arm that had been on Kurama's stomach underneath him to lift his hips up a little. His warm lips closed over a nipple, and Kurama gasped through his tears, reached up and placed his hands on Karasu's shoulders. He pushed and clawed weakly, arched his back...tried to move his legs to kick him away...
It was useless, Karasu only chuckled as he lathed his tongue over Kurama's nipple and closed his teeth over the sensitive bud and pulled lightly.
Kurama wailed. He could feel arousal spiking through him, rising to match the intensity of the pain in his legs, and distress pulled at his core. He turned his head away, shaking as his hands fisted in Karasu's hair, pulling at the long black mane feebly.
Damn his kind for being weak to pleasure, he'd never hated it so much before in his life.
Karasu sunk lower, kissing a trail down Kurama's stomach. He'd moved his hair over to one side, and tilted his head just so. Kurama could see Karasu's lips parting, see the hunger in his mostly downturned face. His hands caressed Kurama's hips and then his fingers splayed as the tip of his hot tongue flicked out from between his lips and drew a line up Kurama's cock.
The sensation slammed into him, and he quickly became fully hard. He clenched his teeth and tipped his head back, pressing it back into the pillows and hard bars of the headboard as Karasu's mouth took him in and a delicious, hot and wet heat chipped away at his resistance. He swallowed thickly and let go of Karasu's shoulders and hair, instead covering his own mouth with them to stop the sounds he couldn't help. His cheeks flushed a violent red with shame as much as horror and lust.
Focus on the pain in your legs! Focus on how you can't move them, no matter what you try to do!
Focus on your hatred!
He ignored the tittering voice, very much aware of how wrong it was to like the pleasure Karasu was giving to him, tormenting him with. Instead he bit on a knuckle and tried to muffle the choked sob of pleasure.
Unfortunately, it seemed smothering his cries was something that Karasu only found just that much more arousing. Karasu's mouth was replaced with the biting cold of the room, and Kurama found himself flipped over and pulled up against Karasu's chest in the blink of an eye. Even now, managing to kneel only because Karasu had an arm around his waist to help support him, Kurama cursed at himself inside. He hated Karasu, hated him. He'd taken many things, and now he was forcing upon him a pleasure that made his senses cross until rational thought became a thing of utter delusion. It was sick and he didn't like it, yet his body was betraying him, liking it, begging for more.
Karasu was shifting behind him. He could feel the brush of his forearm along his side, and it wasn't until he felt the warmth of Karasu's cock sliding between the round globes of his ass that he realised just what it was Karasu was doing.
“Don't!” he cried out in desperation, his own voice sounding pathetic to his own ears as it cracked.
Karasu only laughed and moved around a little more. Kurama could feel him press the head of his cock against his loose entrance. Loose from the torment Karasu had been putting him through endlessly ever since he'd been in this damnable room, chained to the bed like a common mistreated whore.
“Still protesting like you have a choice in the matter, Kurama...” Karasu murmured against his ear, and then pushed his hips forward, forcing his way into Kurama.
He screamed and clenched at the blood-soaked sheets, choking on his own sobs as Karasu buried his face into his neck and sighed heavily. It made him a little light headed, the utter pain and burning in such a sensitive place, even if he had been raped in such a manner repeatedly the past few days. It was an old, familiar pain by now, but that did not mean that he liked it anymore than he had the first time Karasu had held him down and fucked him against his will.
Held against Karasu's chest as he was, he couldn't struggle to get away, twisting was difficult without the use of his legs to steady himself. Karasu had done something else to his legs, something more than merely hamstringing him. He couldn't control the muscles in his thighs at all and so his legs were as good as a dead weight, a mere hindrance.
Karasu continued his assault, biting at his shoulder and nudging Kurama's legs apart a little further when he lost the ability to hold Kurama up. He dropped him to the mattress and its sodden sheet, damp and caked with dried blood and new alike.
Kurama buried his face into the sheets and clenched at them until his knuckles turned white, stifling his cries of agony and traitorous moans of sharp pleasure. He waited out Karasu's rape, willing him to just be done with it, so that his body could concentrate on heeling him sooner, and without so much interference. Karasu was making wounds faster than his body could keep up with.
Karasu took his time, clenching a fist in his long red hair as he planted open mouthed kisses along Kurama's shoulder blades, tossing his head with a snarl as he neared his peak to rid himself of the annoyance of hair in his face.
He gasped and hummed, closing his eyes and licking his lips at the delicious sensation Kurama's body gave him, and the quite whimpering was such a perfect dull track that seemed far away, less important than the storm of sensations rising from within him.
Oh yes, he enjoyed it now, very much so. He was becoming deliciously attached to Kurama, the more perfect he became the more vicious his lust and obsession became.
How sweet it would be to see him lifeless when the time came.
How sweet the grief would be. It would leave him in a broken heap as if he had been the one that had been killed, and not Kurama.
“Fuh...ck! Uha...!”
Karasu's breath hitched, and his eyes widened. The maddening thoughts sent him over the edge and into the hands of his awaiting orgasm. He shuddered and sustained his harsh thrusts, ridding out the bliss of orgasm in a frantic and odd rhythm, writhing in hope it'd last a moment longer.
“Oh...Kurama...” he moaned, opening his eyes a sliver.
He collapsed when his elbows gave out, falling on Kurama who gave a small whine and a moan of pain.
Sighing and fighting back victorious insane laughter, Karasu rolled onto his back, disengaging in doing so. He left Kurama to moan and whimper beside him. Raising his head a little and looking down, he could see the blood on his cock and streaking down his thigh. He'd ruptured something inside Kurama. A glace over to Kurama's pale ass provided much the same results.
He sighed and rolled onto his side, hooking one of his legs with Kurama's as he caressed the pale globe of his ass contently, resting his head on his other arm. He slid a finger down the ravine of Kurama's ass and slipped them inside the abused entrance. Amusingly Kurama only gave a small sound of protest. He seemed close to passing out now.
Facedown, face hidden behind a mass of tangled hair and shaking limbs, Kurama looked pathetic.
Karasu pulled his fingers back out. They were coated with Kurama's blood and his own come, and he couldn't resist the sudden urge to taste. He brought his hand to his lips and sucked on one of his long digits, then cast his eyes over to Kurama when the rustle of sheets and hair alerted him to Kurama lifting his head.
“I despise you,” he said, voice weak and husky. A single emerald eye glared out at him from behind the veil of hair. “I will kill you if it is the last thing I do...”
Karasu pulled his finger from his mouth, letting it slip out with a quite pop, and smiled dispassionately at Kurama. “I've been thinking about sewing your lips together, or would you prefer glue?”
“Release me, you coward!” Kurama screamed furiously, his voice cracking with emotion. He had no way of attacking Karasu, as he'd taken his seeds long ago, and his youki was spent on trying to keep himself alive long enough to survive the next of Karasu's next visits.
Karasu merely chuckled and rolled over onto his back again. He stared up at the blank ceiling and closed his eyes for a moment. Kurama's protests were making him hard again, and it was a delicious sensation. The undercurrent of arousal, slipping beneath the calm contentment.
Without warning, Karasu reached over to Kurama and fisted a hand in the long, crimson hair and tugged until Kurama was forced to crawl on his hands to rest himself across Karasu's chest. With his right hand occupied, Karasu used his left to trace down his own abdomen and grasp his own steadily hardening cock once again.
“I have often wondered about your stamina, Kurama,” he murmured as he stroked himself, watching Kurama try to arrange himself more comfortably. The wince that refused to leave his captive's face was such a beautiful thing to behold, it made his cock jump and his breathing hitch for a mere second.
The utter humiliation on the boys face was delicious.
Karasu licked his lips.
“It's your human biology, I suppose, you cannot withstand that which your demonic body could. But that is perfectly fine with me. I happen to like your fragile form quite a bit.”
Kurama squirmed viciously for a moment and then his hands closed around Karasu's throat, thumbs pressing against his windpipe. Karasu would have laughed if he hadn't been preoccupied. His hand continued its slow pace on his cock, calm and yet eager, as Kurama tried to squeeze the life out of him. Useless in the end, as Kurama was too weak to properly constrict his airway.
Karasu jerked Kurama head back, forcing his hands away as he twisted his spine awkwardly, and instead his hands went to the one Karasu had fisted in long crimson hair.
While his lover struggled, Karasu brought himself to completion once again, sighing and grunting slightly as he came.
Kurama gave up struggling and instead slumped against Karasu's chest, his shoulders shaking with what Karasu assumed were either shudders or whimpers. He was crying too, Karasu could feel the wetness on his stomach. There were no sounds coming from him, and his hair hid his face from view.
“Shhh...” He petted the crimson hair as one would a sleeping feline. Mockingly calming in his soothing murmurs, he sung quite, demonic rhymes about love, lust and ultimate failure.
Content and sated, Karasu allowed himself to fall into the arms of sleep. Clutching his nigh perfect love to his chest, oblivious to the blood, come and tears that soaked the rumbled sheets about them.
Kurama lay wide-eyed, refusing to acknowledge the trails of wet tears cutting paths down his cheeks, until he eventually passed out.
-
“Now, hold still. It would be a shame if I were to miss and get other sensitive places,” Karasu purred, waving the needle held between his forefinger and thumb before Kurama's face as he writhed and whimpered.
With his mouth covered again, there was very little sound or proper protest that Kurama could make, however he did realise that it was indeed possible to scream through his nose, though his throat was sore afterwards to a degree that it was painful to merely swallow.
When it was over, Karasu seemed to enjoy clamping his teeth over his new nipple rings and tugging until Kurama thought the tender flesh would tear and his own voice would fail because he was screaming so loud and for so long.
-
“His left eye can open just enough to see us,” Karasu's voice greeted him as he woke. Something was pulling at his hair gently, and he could feel fingers against his scalp, he heard the sound of plastic bristles, but smelt on blood and fetid rot. Something in the room was dying in its own filth.
Licking his lips, Kurama raised his head, pulling his chin off his chest. He blinked a few times, willing the blur to fade.
He was used to passing out and waking in strange places now. It was a common occurrence, something to expect. If he wasn’t unconscious, then he was tormented and in pain until he thought he’d crack under the pressure of it all.
The sight before him made him sick to his stomach, he could feel the bile climbing up his throat.
“You...” he managed to croak. His throat was dry and his voice husky. “He’s...”
“Not I,” Karasu replied, running the brush through Kurama hair again, leaning back a bit to smooth it down and take another clump in his hand to work with the brush. Such silky, light weight hair. So beautiful and perfect. “Toguro ani.”
Kurama coughed, dry retched, turned his head to the side and slumped a little. His hair was raked away from his face with long fingers, held out of the way reverently.
Kurama closed his eyes.
“Is he dead?”
Karasu laughed. “No, his core is still working. Can't you hear it?”
Kurama shook his head.
Karasu pushed Kurama upright again, so that he was cradled against his chest between his knees once again, and returned to brushing Kurama's hair nonchalantly. His mask was in place again, as were his clothes. Kurama, meanwhile, wore nothing but white stockings that reached the top of his thighs, the nylon crumbling around the crude stitches marring his legs, soaking up the blood and staining the precious, smooth material.
He placed a hand either side of Kurama's face and turned his head forward, his nails extending to their sharp points against Kurama's temples as his voice shook. Kurama could feel just how very hard Karasu was against his middle back. “Look at him.”
Kurama shook violently but he fought back his emotions. They were getting in the way of his survival, and that was his first priority, survival.
He would survive.
And then he'd take Hiei off that wall, and everything would be okay once again. When they were well, they'd return, and they'd slaughter Karasu, the Toguro brothers, and all those they'd ever spoken to, had allegiance with, or merely looked at.
He’d kill everyone and everything until his hands were permanently drenched in red and he could get the utterly broken image of Hiei out of his eyes.
Biting his tongue, Kurama slowly opened his heavy eyes again, and looked at Hiei.
He was slumped in the corner of the room, one arm held above his head with a chain and rusted manacle. From the angle, it was obviously dislocated at the shoulder, and his elbow had sustained a compound fracture. What he could see of Hiei's face was a dark purple, swollen and dark. One eye was open, watching them. His legs were twisted oddly and scarred.
He had no right arm, only a stump that was hastily wrapped in what Kurama knew to be Hiei's own shirt, that which was in tatters by his side, other shred wrapped around old, infected wounds on his limbs.
He...he could see the white of three of Hiei’s ribs from where the flesh had been worn down and lathed away.
Blood was splattered along the walls, and pooled beneath him.
Hiei blinked and his cracked lips parted, even though that small movement must have been agony for him. Kurama's eyes dropped to the stitches running from Hiei's collarbone to chin and his breath escaped him in a long, shuddering rush. His throat closed up, and his eyes ached but he had no tears to give. He only had the sadness that seemed so suddenly overpowering, and the desperation that gripped at him deep inside.
“I tore out his voice box shortly before I gave him to Toguro ani. Pretty, isn't it?” Karasu purred in Kurama's ear.
Kurama stared. Hiei stared back.
“You like it, don't you?”
Hiei blinked again.
“Think of it as a present.”
The sight of the dark hair over his shoulder and the spindly fingers dancing over his stomach, the scars and brash stitches, fell on him all at once. The pain and the reason with which it had been obtained suddenly became very clear.
It was terribly sharp, stabbing through his mind.
He had thought, that with his days as a demon, he'd be able to put up with seeing evidence of such vicious torture, but the with the knowledge that his chance of escape having been reduced almost eighty percent by Karasu making his legs utterly useless, and his body weak from malnutrition and lack of energy to spare that wasn't spent on healing the worst of his wounds, he found it suddenly very, very hard to have any sort of hope in coping with merely living another day. Hiei was dying, Kurama was crippled, everyone else was dead.
The injustice made him want to choke on his own vomit. And he couldn’t even do that.
He wanted to scream and tear his hair out, wanted to kill something, wanted to make it stop, just for a little while...
But Karasu wouldn’t let him. Because Karasu owned his body.
Karasu controlled everything he did, right down to washing him and controlling when he slept, ate and spoke. He controlled the deaths and lives of those whom he loved.
Ultimately Kurama had failed. Failed to save so many people. Failed as a stronger demon.
The dull concept of time became abstract and incomprehensible. Kurama ceased to exist and all that remained was an empty, black void inside the shell of that which had once been Kurama.
-
Karasu lifted Kurama's chin up with a knuckle. He peered at the red-haired boy in his lap over his shoulder. His eyes narrowed happily. Hiei was not sure if Karasu actually ever did bother to move his lips when in regular company, and instead smiled with his inert eyes.
Kurama's beautiful emerald eyes stared forward blankly, his body lax and motionless except for occasional blinking and his steady breathing. To Hiei he looked like a wax figure, somehow animate. It was not Kurama. Kurama was locked away inside somewhere, hiding. This body, as the other one had been, had been rejected for the sake of self-preservation. Only this time, Kurama hadn't fled the fleshy prison, and instead was locked inside -- just as he was locked inside Karasu's long limbed embrace.
Karasu chuckled to himself. “I was wondering when you would finally give in. It's your pride that did you the most harm, Kurama,” he said, stroking a slightly flushed cheek. There was no reaction. “I hardly had to do anything at all; you thought it all up on your own. You made it all the more easier for me. You can't bear the humiliation of being so utterly controlled.”
In his corner, Hiei fought to breathe. One of his lungs was punctured, and it ached terribly. Each time he drew air in, his lungs rattled and protested, sending sharp pain through his chest as blood curdled in his throat. His arm, useless as it was dislocated, and even if it hadn't been the break that forced the bone to poke its way through infected skin would have destroyed any chance of using it. His other…or rather lack thereof, was a familiar sight, although it was terribly more permanent now, in a way that he loathed to admit worried him.
But something inside urged him to push past all this. He couldn't fix some of the things that had been done to his body, and perhaps neither could Kurama, but he was determined to at least show Karasu just how very furious he was with his treatment of the once vain and arrogant demon propped in the bird demon's lap.
They had...made a promise, the night before all this had begun. And they had to carry it out. Hiei would not die like this. Fetid and broken, and he would not watch Kurama die as such either.
Karasu, unfortunately, seemed to expect Hiei's hatred and unwillingness to simply admit defeat, even as it was staring him right in the face. He traced Kurama's slightly parted pink lips and half closed eyelids, the slightly flushed cheeks and pronounced collarbone, and then cast his eyes over to Hiei. “This used to be yours…but guess who it belongs to now, little fire demon….” He taunted, slipping his hands under Kurama's arms and caressing the smooth chest.
If Hiei could still talk, he would have told Karasu to fuck off. The fact that he couldn't made something inside clench, and his head hurt more than it already did. He ignored the single bead of wetness at the corner of his unabused eye, even as it crystallised and fell with a barely audible clink on the cold concrete floor.
“He's mine,” Karasu hissed, fisting a hand in Kurama hair and yanking his head to the side as he buried his face in Kurama's neck. If he hadn't had the mask on, Hiei would have bet Karasu's lips would have been abusing the sensitive flesh there.
His other hand sunk lower, dipping between Kurama's thighs and circling around Kurama's flaccid cock. Even then, Kurama still did not react. He blinked, he breathed, he stared forward blankly and remained in whatever position Karasu placed him in. There was nothing behind the jade eyes and crimson eyelashes. The spirit had been crushed and driven to retreat lest it be wiped out completely. If there was one thing Kurama knew, it was how to survive something like this.
Unfortunately, Hiei did not have such an option.
Karasu's hand continued to drink in Kurama's body, bringing it to arousal and watching with obvious fascination as Kurama's breathing sped up and his body did not react to the muscle spasms and twitches as would any normally functioning creature's would. Such a mechanism was privy only to humans. The demons that attempted to witness such a coping mechanism often didn't know their own strength and ended up killing their subject before they gained the appropriate tightrope with which to force the human to step off themselves.
Hiei closed his eye and tilted his head away, unwilling to see such an old friend be taken advantage of in such a belittling way. He wouldn't witness it, wouldn't acknowledge it. Wouldn't acknowledge how very angry it made him to see Karasu's hands pass over Kurama's beaded nipples and cup his balls before pulling at the hard cock Hiei had come to know intimately over the years.
He licked his cracked lips and grimaced. He could not shut out the sounds.
Kurama was sighing and gasping, his breath hitching, though his face must have showed no emotion. He could hear the slide of skin, and feel the sudden flare of bitter youki from Karasu as the chain around Kurama's leg rattled as he arched his back and hid head fell back, his hair gliding through the air as he did.
And then there was only heat, and pain, and bits of flying concrete and dust.
Karasu's laughter was cold, and piercing.
“I love you,” he heard Karasu whisper to Kurama. “So…very much.”
And then blackness.
-
The End
Pairing: Karasu/Kurama (Kurama/Hiei)
Rating: R18+ (for gore and sex)
Summary: Kurama's last few weeks after Team Urameshi failed to defeat Team Toguro.
Notes: Erm...too much time on Gurochan...yeah... Bui failed to defeat Hiei, for the purpose of plot, but the others of Team Toguro won.
-
Clip Your Wings
We share the last champagne and watch necropolis.
Still and so let's leave her to her silent walks.
The sun of Rome is set and our day is gone.
A kiss a taste of red from your open lips.
-
One could only wonder just how things would have really turned out if Team Toguro hadn't won.
Would life have been simpler? Would Botan have not had such a wretched look on her face as she ferried the souls of those whom she had come to respect and think of as friends rather than just another faucet of her job.
The lives of many people certainly could have been very, very different.
-
“Hiei,” Kurama whispered, the night before they were due for the finals. It had come down to this, and there was something in the air, something thick and almost vibrating. Kurama thought he could choke on it if he wasn't careful. But it came from inside him as well, the ache for a vicious and bloody fight.
Moonlight cut a shaft of light over the foot of their bed, the rumpled covers almost glowing under the full moon's grace. It was early morning now and the room smelt of sex and anticipation. Naturally, the knowledge of such violence in the day to come bumped up the demonic libido. It was something that no demon could simply swat away. Instincts like this had their way due to utter persistency. There was no other way to pass by the time before they stood, looking up at the large door before they opened, where they would walk out into the view of the baying masses of demons.
Kurama rolled over onto his side and lay his head on Hiei's chest, coiling his hand within the sheets that covered them both. It was bitterly cold, that night, and Hiei's body beside him was like a furnace, something warm to hold onto. Or at least, that was what he told himself.
“If the time comes…I want you to close your eyes.”
Hiei's response was a mere snort.
But his hand rested itself on Kurama shoulder and his fingers twitched just enough to have been small, light strokes. Hiei had developed a habit of doing so, of feeling as well as soothing Kurama in such a way. Something he'd grown fond of in their regular fucks. Kurama had the skin of a true kitsune, utterly perfect and flawless, as if he'd been lifted straight from a painting.
After a long stretch of silence, Hiei said, “And you will not deny me an honourable death.”
Kurama traced one of his fingers along Hiei's collarbone in illustration of his understanding. If Hiei failed, if worse came to worse, it would be Kurama who killed Hiei, and no other. To do him the honour of ending his suffering while he still had his honour.
An appropriate swordsman's death.
Kurama strained his neck a little and pushed his hair aside as he placed a kiss on Hiei's lips. Hiei seemed reluctant to let Kurama leave, and so a minute later, they were back to where they had been hours ago. Aroused and wanting more, more than they could get from each other. Simply because, what they really wanted, rather than sex, was the thrill of the fight, their impending deaths.
This time, Hiei spread his thighs for Kurama, who did not look over the act for what it was. A subtle gesture, a nod to the growing link the two of them shared.
Unsaid words hung in the air, where they would stay.
Nothing else was said until the sun rose, and they knew that they would have to begin getting ready for the day ahead.
-
Facedown, pressed to the cracked and buckled concrete of the stadium's fighting space, Kurama hacked up a mouthful of blood and stared down at it in wide-eyed denial.
No.
Juri had just counted to ten and he had been unable to stand, whilst Karasu had.
Karasu...had won.
A shoe slammed down on his right hand's fingers and he screamed and convulsed with pain as they broke and twisted oddly. Kurama couldn't look up, didn't dare to risk it, because he knew what he'd see.
He'd see nothing. Just emptiness. He’d see his teammates...he...wasn’t sure he wanted to know their reactions.
And Karasu...
Karasu, he'd say, was a demon born without emotion. Forever chasing the very idea of what it would be like to love someone so much, to appreciate them beyond anything else they could have possibly have possessed, and then to have it taken away from them. Karasu wanted, out of curiosity and perhaps addiction to the slight insight into what emotion truly was, to feel the very different lengths of which demons and humans alike felt on a daily basis.
Anger. Love. Hate. Grief.
But Kurama didn't want to look up into those dead, emotionless eyes and see only a morbid curiosity at Kurama's death. Because he was dying, slowly, and he could feel it approaching like a big black fucking cloud; crawling closer to him, growing stronger as he grew weaker.
Kurama would not admit to death, nor surrender.
“You've lost, Kurama,” Karasu mumbled as he crouched down and petted Kurama's hair, letting his fingers catch in the knots and run through the clumps of blood-soaked flesh and dirt.
Kurama shuddered.
“As soon as two more of your team fail and we are victorious…I will have you, and I will give you a proper and deserving death befitting of one I love as much as I do you.” Oddly, it almost sounded as if Karasu had let emotion creep into his voice as he spoke about emotions that seemed impossible for him to understand. Love, it seemed, was something he felt passionate about.
Kurama swallowed thickly and winced as Karasu's shoe lifted off his now mangled fingers.
He yelped in pain as a hand fisted in his hair and yanked his head up. He could hear Yusuke screaming somewhere behind him, and the roar of the delighted crowd, Sakyo's mildly amused voice as he spoke softly to Toguro, who laughed, finding whatever he’d said amusing.
“I do love you, Kurama,” he said, his blond hair sliding from his shoulder as he leant down and pressed his lips gently against Kurama's forehead. “I love you so much I want to see you in pieces, and you shake so prettily when I tell you so.”
And he was shaking with utter revulsion for the creature that was staring at him.
“You won't ever succeed in killing me,” he growled meeting those dreadful eyes. They were tinted a faint red, as his demonic instinct rose.
“Oh, I know. You're quite crafty in the matter of keeping what matters most. But I want to break your spirit before I finally do kill you, that way, I can give myself time to make you even more beautiful, so that when you die, the pain will be greater and you will be too broken to even try to save yourself.”
He said the only thing he could think of. “You're sick.”
“Am I? Perhaps it is you that is defective. I have never met a demon who has ever embraced the human condition as much as you have. Although it makes you unique, it also disgusts me.”
-
Later, in the infirmary, Kurama merely stared at the ceiling, waiting to hear of whether he would die by Karasu's hands, or if he would be left sorting through the wreckage of his relationship with Hiei. Whether Hiei had even lived.
Yusuke, Kuwabara, Hiei and even Koenma...oh if Koenma was forced to fight...
He had…failed them all.
He had...failed himself, most of all. Failed to defend himself against such a sadistic demon. He hadn’t been so terrified of his own fate since he’d been a young, skittish kit and he’d hid behind his mother’s skirt whenever something new and unfamiliar passed by their den.
His own weakness angered him most of all. Better he had died in the ring, than left to ponder over it for the rest of his time here.
-
He’d been asleep when Karasu had come to collect him after Yusuke had been crushed by Toguro.
-
“I like duct tape,” Karasu said, turning the roll of silver tape over in his hand as he stared down at it. His eyes flicked up to Kurama after a moment. Their frightening intensity made Kurama fight back a flinch. “Would you like to know why?”
Kurama could not reply past a quiet whimper. He twisted his wrists, ignoring how the wire bit into them. Blood was dripping down his fingers in rapidly; falling to the sheets and carpet below, trailing down the bedpost he'd been secured to. The wire was thin, but there was a lot of it. It wound around his thumbs all the way up to his elbows and forced his spine straight against the wooden bedpost. His legs were sprawled out on the mattress, tangled in the sheets where a thick silver chain connected to the foot of the bed poked out from the covers. The manacle around his right ankle was quite strong, and warded to add insult to injury. The white paper with crisp, black kanji wrapped around the metal sent sparks of pain shooting up his arms every time he attempted to tear it off.
Karasu had long since stripped him of all clothing. Days ago in fact, when he'd first captured his sweet little plaything. His hair was perhaps the only part of him that was kept clean now, along with his face. The rest of his body suffered minor cuts and bruises where the long lines of nails or whips hadn’t cut red lines into his skin and bled out the most beautiful shade of red. Even then the majority of the damage was inside Kurama's body and mind.
Kurama shook his head a little, willing his breathing to return to something resembling normal, the world was going dim as he became light headed. He was hyperventilating. He'd fought Karasu tooth and nail as he'd restrained him, but still here he was, cornered and unable to escape, and it was enough to drive him insane. His blood rushed through his ears, the adrenalin seeping away and leaving him with the downfall from the rush of desperate hope.
Karasu tossed the tape onto the bed and crawled towards Kurama, swaying a little and smiling as Kurama pulled his knees up and turned his head away. It was easy to force apart the pale knees so he could place himself between them, laying one of Kurama's legs on either of his thighs. Tied to the corner of the foot of the bed as he was, Karasu was free to let his legs rest over the edge of the bed, bent at the knee, and tilt Kurama's face up to him.
They were nice and close like this. Karasu enjoyed it perhaps a little too much. He had much to do today, much to do indeed. He only had the rest of the week before Toguro required him again, and Karasu would make his time with Kurama before the drone of life continued on worth it. Most certainly.
“I can't kiss you, no. But you also can't make comments against me that you would regret, pretty. No. Instead I still get to hear your whimpers and screams through the plastic.” With his fingers of his left hand tilting Kurama's chin up, his others were free to tap over the thick tape pointedly, as if he were placing his finger on Kurama's lips in a hushing motion.
He moved his fingers aside and replaced them with his lips a moment later, ignoring the way Kurama tried to jerk his head away and free his arms. Kurama's legs were also a problem (they wouldn't be for long, however, so he forgave that minor offense) rising and trying to push Karasu away from him, kneeing Karasu in his sides.
Chuckling at Kurama's attempts to get him to back away, Karasu merely brushed Kurama's gorgeous hair back away from his face and littered small kisses on every patch of bare skin he could reach, digging his teeth into delicate skin until it broke and blood swelled and poured into his mouth. Bruises remained. He licked at the tears that were leaking from wide, vacant eyes whilst he was at it, smacking his lips happily thereafter and smiling at him, a mere quirk of his lips.
“Your tears are sweet to me Kurama because you always give me so many.” He rubbed a thumb under the boy's eye, watching as the panic in them returned.
He was sorely tempted to scratch out that eye. It was like a sudden surge of violent need twisting inside him, begging him in the back of his mind, a nagging thought needed to be brought into reality. He ignored it in favour of kissing him again. He hushed the whimpers, forcing his mouth open and fucking his mouth with his tongue hungrily. Kurama was such a pretty thing and he didn't want to destroy him in that manner. No, the eyes stayed. He liked them too much.
The legs though. Karasu glared at the thigh that knocked him in the ribs that which belonged to the same knee that kept hitting him in the back. Kurama was cornered and he was not all that surprised that he'd sunken to such...desperate measures of illustrating free will and defiance.
Not for long.
Karasu gave him what he wanted, for the moment. He slipped further back onto the bed, away from Kurama, and the crawled off the bed again. He disappeared into the bathroom that adjoined the bedroom.
Whilst he was gone, Kurama let his chin rest on his stomach as he kept twisting his wrists and pulling at his arms. The wire was thin, but there was too much of it. He forced back a barely contained growl that sounded more like a pathetic sob to his own ears. Desperately he wished for freedom. Just enough to get even one good solid punch before he resigned himself to his inevitable death.
Karasu returned, a white wraith with trailing black hair. He knelt behind Kurama, his leather pants squeaking as he did so. He ignored Kurama's small sounds and the whine of the bedpost each time Kurama tugged and shifted.
With his recently acquired wire cutters Karasu cut through the wire that bound Kurama to the bedpost. He pinched and snipped skin without much concern, Kurama only made more pretty sounds for him, throwing his head back into the hard post repeatedly as if it would distract him. Karasu had only cut through half of them by the time Kurama managed to snap through the rest and fling himself over to the other side of the bed, hands flying to the duct tape at his mouth.
Karasu stood and watched as Kurama pulled the tape from his mouth, closed his eyes at the gasp of pain and glorious little whimpers that he could hear in full now. The kitsune threw the tape off to the side and curled into a delicate little ball, trying to hide himself. Though he still glared at Karasu from behind the curtain of his hair.
“I will kill you,” he growled, although his voice was husky and thick from screaming. His eyes blazed a righteous fury that sent a delicious shiver down Karasu's spine. Then he buried his face in his knees. Not weakness, no. Weakness was bearing his throat and spreading his legs, Karasu understood that. Protective balls like he was curled up in now were mere energy conservers and a precise way to shield emotions. Karasu could still see his shoulders quivering and hands shaking though.
Such long legs...coloured so prettily with dried blood and bruises in the shape of his own hands. He wanted -- oh he wanted...
Karasu bent at the waist a little to twist the silver chain connected to the manacle around Kurama's ankle around his wrist loosely. “What are you doing, Kurama?” he asked in curiously.
When Kurama stilled and looked at him past weightless crimson hair, Karasu allowed himself a slight smile. His eyes flashed a dangerous, hungry red.
He tugged on the chain and his smile widened into a vicious grin at Kurama's panicked yelp. He tugged again, placing one hand over the other, pulling the red haired boy closer to him, dragging him against his will. Kurama’s sounds altered to a frantic scream and clutched at the white sheets desperately. They only tore away from the mattress with a firmer tug on Karasu's end; his efforts were in vain.
When Kurama was close enough, Karasu grasped Kurama's ankle itself and gave one last vicious tug that pulled Kurama off the bed completely. He fell to the floor a few metres away with a scream, naked and rubbed raw from his glide along the carpet. The chain on his ankle was pulled taught, having stoped his glide away from the bed.
Karasu canted his head slightly, merely watching him as he twisted at the waist to see him better. He watched the boy ease the pressure on his leg by moving a tad closer. His head was still down; his dishevelled hair covering his face, though nothing covered the rest of him. Ripe and bared for Karasu to see, long expanses of beautiful soft white skin.
The wire cutters fell to the carpet by Karasu's bare feet with a loud thud, drawing Kurama's attention.
Making sure Kurama was watching, Karasu dug his finger tips into his left pocket and pulled out a small, clear plastic bag. Inside was a single, blue pill. “I wasn't going to give this to you if you kept the tape,” he taped his own lips with a long finger, “but perhaps you’d like a surprise, maybe your reaction will be sweeter when you wake...”
“What are you going to do?” Kurama growled, moving back as far as he could. Karasu dropped to his knees and advanced, crawling toward Kurama, settling himself over him.
Kurama was such a small thing compared to Karasu, who was nigh twice as tall as Kurama. This much was painfully obvious when Karasu rested over him and placed two of his fingers at Kurama’s lips, then forced them inside his mouth, holding down his tongue.
“Shh, no questions yet, my beautiful Kurama.” Then he removed his fingers.
His size made it easy to restrain him when he struggled. Straddling the redhead's waist and kneeling on the boy's shredded wrists, Karasu grasped Kurama's chin to hold his head still and placed the pill on his own tongue, then lowered himself to press his lips against Kurama's. He pinched Kurama’s nose when he refused to open his mouth and dug his fingers into his jaw to coax them open. Eventually, when Kurama conceded, Karasu fed him the pill that was already dissolving on his tongue. He made sure he swallowed it, then allowed Kurama to breathe through his nose again.
He stayed a while longer, exploring Kurama's mouth as he wished, enjoying Kurama's attempts to rid Karasu of his tongue. His mouth warm hot, lips soft and perfect, the small sounds of protest idyllic to his ears, his nubile pretty young thing...
Karasu’s hand fisted in glorious red hair as it mixed with his own black as death mane, slipping from his shoulders.
Kurama's resistance died away, his jerking and thrashing slowing, stoping. He became sluggish, and then limp and lifeless after a time.
Karasu released his lips and licked away the drool that ran from the corner of Kurama's mouth as the urge to laugh suddenly passed through him. He gave into it, chuckling and kissing Kurama's closed eyes and harsh pulse at his neck. Then he reared back and laughed hysterically at the ceiling, dragging his hands up his own thighs, passing them over his hard cock, trapped behind his pants. He moaned a little, then looked down to Kurama.
“You will survive this,” he said gleefully, cupping Kurama's face in long, pale fingers and bending down to press his lips to Kurama's own. His hair slipped from his shoulders again at the action, a curtain of black. Kurama would be moulded into and even prettier thing.
He'd kill Kurama only when he truly was the epitome of all things perfect and beautiful.
-
Kurama woke shivering, sweating and sobbing. His eyes rolled back in his head at the utter pain in his legs. He cried out deafeningly and tried to calm his breathing when he ran out of air. His lower half from hips downward ached and pounded, synapses screaming at the utter lack of connection they found.
For a moment, Kurama was terrified that Karasu had taken his legs, but a glance downward proved him wrong. Only, his lower half was covered in blood, leaking onto the white sheets of the bed. The manacle was still around his ankle, the chain replaced with a longer, newer one.
It was the sight stitched wounds that circled his legs and crisscrossed almost haphazardly, following the lines of his muscles terrified him the most.
Karasu was lying naked beside him, his chin propped up on his palm, watching him calmly.
“What did - what did you do?” Kurama asked, his voice reluctant to work for him past the utter agony and loss. Propped up against the metal headboard, his own legs looked like they were twisted oddly, and his inner thighs were coated with blood.
“I hamstringed you, among other things,” Karasu purred, placing a hand on Kurama's stomach and circling Kurama's belly button with his smallest finger. His touch was cold.
Hamstringed...Karasu had cut the tendons at the back of his knee. He wouldn't be able to walk or move his legs. Eyes flying wide, Kurama felt an immeasurable sense of horror creep up. He gagged and jolted.
Karasu pulled and pushed at Kurama until he leant over to the side of the bed, then held his hair back reverently as Kurama dry retched until he threw up bile and blood. Karasu hadn't fed him in the time he'd spent in this room, other than the small amounts of water he allowed him.
Feeling weak, Kurama's hands coiled in the sheets that slipped off the edge of the bed, his cheek pressed on the hard corner of the mattress. He could feel Karasu's hardness against his backside and the warmth of long legs against his own mangled ones. He couldn't hide the desperate sob that escaped him. He closed his eyes, and held them so tight, as if he could make it all go away, if only he wished it so hard enough.
When Karasu was satisfied that Kurama's retching fit had passed, he wrapped his arms around Kurama's waist and pulled him up, then propped him against the cushions once more.
“Why don't you just kill me?” Kurama whispered hoarsely, defeated in all senses. He'd lost everything, and now he was being stripped of his vanity too. His last sense of peace of mind, his last hope...crushed in Karasu's fingers.
Karasu laughed, long and cold. “What would be the point in killing you now? You're not perfect yet, once you are absolutely beautiful that it hurts to look at you, and I love you as deeply as I could ever love anything made of material matter, then, only then, I will kill you...”
He leaned over and kissed Kurama's chest, wrapping the arm that had been on Kurama's stomach underneath him to lift his hips up a little. His warm lips closed over a nipple, and Kurama gasped through his tears, reached up and placed his hands on Karasu's shoulders. He pushed and clawed weakly, arched his back...tried to move his legs to kick him away...
It was useless, Karasu only chuckled as he lathed his tongue over Kurama's nipple and closed his teeth over the sensitive bud and pulled lightly.
Kurama wailed. He could feel arousal spiking through him, rising to match the intensity of the pain in his legs, and distress pulled at his core. He turned his head away, shaking as his hands fisted in Karasu's hair, pulling at the long black mane feebly.
Damn his kind for being weak to pleasure, he'd never hated it so much before in his life.
Karasu sunk lower, kissing a trail down Kurama's stomach. He'd moved his hair over to one side, and tilted his head just so. Kurama could see Karasu's lips parting, see the hunger in his mostly downturned face. His hands caressed Kurama's hips and then his fingers splayed as the tip of his hot tongue flicked out from between his lips and drew a line up Kurama's cock.
The sensation slammed into him, and he quickly became fully hard. He clenched his teeth and tipped his head back, pressing it back into the pillows and hard bars of the headboard as Karasu's mouth took him in and a delicious, hot and wet heat chipped away at his resistance. He swallowed thickly and let go of Karasu's shoulders and hair, instead covering his own mouth with them to stop the sounds he couldn't help. His cheeks flushed a violent red with shame as much as horror and lust.
Focus on the pain in your legs! Focus on how you can't move them, no matter what you try to do!
Focus on your hatred!
He ignored the tittering voice, very much aware of how wrong it was to like the pleasure Karasu was giving to him, tormenting him with. Instead he bit on a knuckle and tried to muffle the choked sob of pleasure.
Unfortunately, it seemed smothering his cries was something that Karasu only found just that much more arousing. Karasu's mouth was replaced with the biting cold of the room, and Kurama found himself flipped over and pulled up against Karasu's chest in the blink of an eye. Even now, managing to kneel only because Karasu had an arm around his waist to help support him, Kurama cursed at himself inside. He hated Karasu, hated him. He'd taken many things, and now he was forcing upon him a pleasure that made his senses cross until rational thought became a thing of utter delusion. It was sick and he didn't like it, yet his body was betraying him, liking it, begging for more.
Karasu was shifting behind him. He could feel the brush of his forearm along his side, and it wasn't until he felt the warmth of Karasu's cock sliding between the round globes of his ass that he realised just what it was Karasu was doing.
“Don't!” he cried out in desperation, his own voice sounding pathetic to his own ears as it cracked.
Karasu only laughed and moved around a little more. Kurama could feel him press the head of his cock against his loose entrance. Loose from the torment Karasu had been putting him through endlessly ever since he'd been in this damnable room, chained to the bed like a common mistreated whore.
“Still protesting like you have a choice in the matter, Kurama...” Karasu murmured against his ear, and then pushed his hips forward, forcing his way into Kurama.
He screamed and clenched at the blood-soaked sheets, choking on his own sobs as Karasu buried his face into his neck and sighed heavily. It made him a little light headed, the utter pain and burning in such a sensitive place, even if he had been raped in such a manner repeatedly the past few days. It was an old, familiar pain by now, but that did not mean that he liked it anymore than he had the first time Karasu had held him down and fucked him against his will.
Held against Karasu's chest as he was, he couldn't struggle to get away, twisting was difficult without the use of his legs to steady himself. Karasu had done something else to his legs, something more than merely hamstringing him. He couldn't control the muscles in his thighs at all and so his legs were as good as a dead weight, a mere hindrance.
Karasu continued his assault, biting at his shoulder and nudging Kurama's legs apart a little further when he lost the ability to hold Kurama up. He dropped him to the mattress and its sodden sheet, damp and caked with dried blood and new alike.
Kurama buried his face into the sheets and clenched at them until his knuckles turned white, stifling his cries of agony and traitorous moans of sharp pleasure. He waited out Karasu's rape, willing him to just be done with it, so that his body could concentrate on heeling him sooner, and without so much interference. Karasu was making wounds faster than his body could keep up with.
Karasu took his time, clenching a fist in his long red hair as he planted open mouthed kisses along Kurama's shoulder blades, tossing his head with a snarl as he neared his peak to rid himself of the annoyance of hair in his face.
He gasped and hummed, closing his eyes and licking his lips at the delicious sensation Kurama's body gave him, and the quite whimpering was such a perfect dull track that seemed far away, less important than the storm of sensations rising from within him.
Oh yes, he enjoyed it now, very much so. He was becoming deliciously attached to Kurama, the more perfect he became the more vicious his lust and obsession became.
How sweet it would be to see him lifeless when the time came.
How sweet the grief would be. It would leave him in a broken heap as if he had been the one that had been killed, and not Kurama.
“Fuh...ck! Uha...!”
Karasu's breath hitched, and his eyes widened. The maddening thoughts sent him over the edge and into the hands of his awaiting orgasm. He shuddered and sustained his harsh thrusts, ridding out the bliss of orgasm in a frantic and odd rhythm, writhing in hope it'd last a moment longer.
“Oh...Kurama...” he moaned, opening his eyes a sliver.
He collapsed when his elbows gave out, falling on Kurama who gave a small whine and a moan of pain.
Sighing and fighting back victorious insane laughter, Karasu rolled onto his back, disengaging in doing so. He left Kurama to moan and whimper beside him. Raising his head a little and looking down, he could see the blood on his cock and streaking down his thigh. He'd ruptured something inside Kurama. A glace over to Kurama's pale ass provided much the same results.
He sighed and rolled onto his side, hooking one of his legs with Kurama's as he caressed the pale globe of his ass contently, resting his head on his other arm. He slid a finger down the ravine of Kurama's ass and slipped them inside the abused entrance. Amusingly Kurama only gave a small sound of protest. He seemed close to passing out now.
Facedown, face hidden behind a mass of tangled hair and shaking limbs, Kurama looked pathetic.
Karasu pulled his fingers back out. They were coated with Kurama's blood and his own come, and he couldn't resist the sudden urge to taste. He brought his hand to his lips and sucked on one of his long digits, then cast his eyes over to Kurama when the rustle of sheets and hair alerted him to Kurama lifting his head.
“I despise you,” he said, voice weak and husky. A single emerald eye glared out at him from behind the veil of hair. “I will kill you if it is the last thing I do...”
Karasu pulled his finger from his mouth, letting it slip out with a quite pop, and smiled dispassionately at Kurama. “I've been thinking about sewing your lips together, or would you prefer glue?”
“Release me, you coward!” Kurama screamed furiously, his voice cracking with emotion. He had no way of attacking Karasu, as he'd taken his seeds long ago, and his youki was spent on trying to keep himself alive long enough to survive the next of Karasu's next visits.
Karasu merely chuckled and rolled over onto his back again. He stared up at the blank ceiling and closed his eyes for a moment. Kurama's protests were making him hard again, and it was a delicious sensation. The undercurrent of arousal, slipping beneath the calm contentment.
Without warning, Karasu reached over to Kurama and fisted a hand in the long, crimson hair and tugged until Kurama was forced to crawl on his hands to rest himself across Karasu's chest. With his right hand occupied, Karasu used his left to trace down his own abdomen and grasp his own steadily hardening cock once again.
“I have often wondered about your stamina, Kurama,” he murmured as he stroked himself, watching Kurama try to arrange himself more comfortably. The wince that refused to leave his captive's face was such a beautiful thing to behold, it made his cock jump and his breathing hitch for a mere second.
The utter humiliation on the boys face was delicious.
Karasu licked his lips.
“It's your human biology, I suppose, you cannot withstand that which your demonic body could. But that is perfectly fine with me. I happen to like your fragile form quite a bit.”
Kurama squirmed viciously for a moment and then his hands closed around Karasu's throat, thumbs pressing against his windpipe. Karasu would have laughed if he hadn't been preoccupied. His hand continued its slow pace on his cock, calm and yet eager, as Kurama tried to squeeze the life out of him. Useless in the end, as Kurama was too weak to properly constrict his airway.
Karasu jerked Kurama head back, forcing his hands away as he twisted his spine awkwardly, and instead his hands went to the one Karasu had fisted in long crimson hair.
While his lover struggled, Karasu brought himself to completion once again, sighing and grunting slightly as he came.
Kurama gave up struggling and instead slumped against Karasu's chest, his shoulders shaking with what Karasu assumed were either shudders or whimpers. He was crying too, Karasu could feel the wetness on his stomach. There were no sounds coming from him, and his hair hid his face from view.
“Shhh...” He petted the crimson hair as one would a sleeping feline. Mockingly calming in his soothing murmurs, he sung quite, demonic rhymes about love, lust and ultimate failure.
Content and sated, Karasu allowed himself to fall into the arms of sleep. Clutching his nigh perfect love to his chest, oblivious to the blood, come and tears that soaked the rumbled sheets about them.
Kurama lay wide-eyed, refusing to acknowledge the trails of wet tears cutting paths down his cheeks, until he eventually passed out.
-
“Now, hold still. It would be a shame if I were to miss and get other sensitive places,” Karasu purred, waving the needle held between his forefinger and thumb before Kurama's face as he writhed and whimpered.
With his mouth covered again, there was very little sound or proper protest that Kurama could make, however he did realise that it was indeed possible to scream through his nose, though his throat was sore afterwards to a degree that it was painful to merely swallow.
When it was over, Karasu seemed to enjoy clamping his teeth over his new nipple rings and tugging until Kurama thought the tender flesh would tear and his own voice would fail because he was screaming so loud and for so long.
-
“His left eye can open just enough to see us,” Karasu's voice greeted him as he woke. Something was pulling at his hair gently, and he could feel fingers against his scalp, he heard the sound of plastic bristles, but smelt on blood and fetid rot. Something in the room was dying in its own filth.
Licking his lips, Kurama raised his head, pulling his chin off his chest. He blinked a few times, willing the blur to fade.
He was used to passing out and waking in strange places now. It was a common occurrence, something to expect. If he wasn’t unconscious, then he was tormented and in pain until he thought he’d crack under the pressure of it all.
The sight before him made him sick to his stomach, he could feel the bile climbing up his throat.
“You...” he managed to croak. His throat was dry and his voice husky. “He’s...”
“Not I,” Karasu replied, running the brush through Kurama hair again, leaning back a bit to smooth it down and take another clump in his hand to work with the brush. Such silky, light weight hair. So beautiful and perfect. “Toguro ani.”
Kurama coughed, dry retched, turned his head to the side and slumped a little. His hair was raked away from his face with long fingers, held out of the way reverently.
Kurama closed his eyes.
“Is he dead?”
Karasu laughed. “No, his core is still working. Can't you hear it?”
Kurama shook his head.
Karasu pushed Kurama upright again, so that he was cradled against his chest between his knees once again, and returned to brushing Kurama's hair nonchalantly. His mask was in place again, as were his clothes. Kurama, meanwhile, wore nothing but white stockings that reached the top of his thighs, the nylon crumbling around the crude stitches marring his legs, soaking up the blood and staining the precious, smooth material.
He placed a hand either side of Kurama's face and turned his head forward, his nails extending to their sharp points against Kurama's temples as his voice shook. Kurama could feel just how very hard Karasu was against his middle back. “Look at him.”
Kurama shook violently but he fought back his emotions. They were getting in the way of his survival, and that was his first priority, survival.
He would survive.
And then he'd take Hiei off that wall, and everything would be okay once again. When they were well, they'd return, and they'd slaughter Karasu, the Toguro brothers, and all those they'd ever spoken to, had allegiance with, or merely looked at.
He’d kill everyone and everything until his hands were permanently drenched in red and he could get the utterly broken image of Hiei out of his eyes.
Biting his tongue, Kurama slowly opened his heavy eyes again, and looked at Hiei.
He was slumped in the corner of the room, one arm held above his head with a chain and rusted manacle. From the angle, it was obviously dislocated at the shoulder, and his elbow had sustained a compound fracture. What he could see of Hiei's face was a dark purple, swollen and dark. One eye was open, watching them. His legs were twisted oddly and scarred.
He had no right arm, only a stump that was hastily wrapped in what Kurama knew to be Hiei's own shirt, that which was in tatters by his side, other shred wrapped around old, infected wounds on his limbs.
He...he could see the white of three of Hiei’s ribs from where the flesh had been worn down and lathed away.
Blood was splattered along the walls, and pooled beneath him.
Hiei blinked and his cracked lips parted, even though that small movement must have been agony for him. Kurama's eyes dropped to the stitches running from Hiei's collarbone to chin and his breath escaped him in a long, shuddering rush. His throat closed up, and his eyes ached but he had no tears to give. He only had the sadness that seemed so suddenly overpowering, and the desperation that gripped at him deep inside.
“I tore out his voice box shortly before I gave him to Toguro ani. Pretty, isn't it?” Karasu purred in Kurama's ear.
Kurama stared. Hiei stared back.
“You like it, don't you?”
Hiei blinked again.
“Think of it as a present.”
The sight of the dark hair over his shoulder and the spindly fingers dancing over his stomach, the scars and brash stitches, fell on him all at once. The pain and the reason with which it had been obtained suddenly became very clear.
It was terribly sharp, stabbing through his mind.
He had thought, that with his days as a demon, he'd be able to put up with seeing evidence of such vicious torture, but the with the knowledge that his chance of escape having been reduced almost eighty percent by Karasu making his legs utterly useless, and his body weak from malnutrition and lack of energy to spare that wasn't spent on healing the worst of his wounds, he found it suddenly very, very hard to have any sort of hope in coping with merely living another day. Hiei was dying, Kurama was crippled, everyone else was dead.
The injustice made him want to choke on his own vomit. And he couldn’t even do that.
He wanted to scream and tear his hair out, wanted to kill something, wanted to make it stop, just for a little while...
But Karasu wouldn’t let him. Because Karasu owned his body.
Karasu controlled everything he did, right down to washing him and controlling when he slept, ate and spoke. He controlled the deaths and lives of those whom he loved.
Ultimately Kurama had failed. Failed to save so many people. Failed as a stronger demon.
The dull concept of time became abstract and incomprehensible. Kurama ceased to exist and all that remained was an empty, black void inside the shell of that which had once been Kurama.
-
Karasu lifted Kurama's chin up with a knuckle. He peered at the red-haired boy in his lap over his shoulder. His eyes narrowed happily. Hiei was not sure if Karasu actually ever did bother to move his lips when in regular company, and instead smiled with his inert eyes.
Kurama's beautiful emerald eyes stared forward blankly, his body lax and motionless except for occasional blinking and his steady breathing. To Hiei he looked like a wax figure, somehow animate. It was not Kurama. Kurama was locked away inside somewhere, hiding. This body, as the other one had been, had been rejected for the sake of self-preservation. Only this time, Kurama hadn't fled the fleshy prison, and instead was locked inside -- just as he was locked inside Karasu's long limbed embrace.
Karasu chuckled to himself. “I was wondering when you would finally give in. It's your pride that did you the most harm, Kurama,” he said, stroking a slightly flushed cheek. There was no reaction. “I hardly had to do anything at all; you thought it all up on your own. You made it all the more easier for me. You can't bear the humiliation of being so utterly controlled.”
In his corner, Hiei fought to breathe. One of his lungs was punctured, and it ached terribly. Each time he drew air in, his lungs rattled and protested, sending sharp pain through his chest as blood curdled in his throat. His arm, useless as it was dislocated, and even if it hadn't been the break that forced the bone to poke its way through infected skin would have destroyed any chance of using it. His other…or rather lack thereof, was a familiar sight, although it was terribly more permanent now, in a way that he loathed to admit worried him.
But something inside urged him to push past all this. He couldn't fix some of the things that had been done to his body, and perhaps neither could Kurama, but he was determined to at least show Karasu just how very furious he was with his treatment of the once vain and arrogant demon propped in the bird demon's lap.
They had...made a promise, the night before all this had begun. And they had to carry it out. Hiei would not die like this. Fetid and broken, and he would not watch Kurama die as such either.
Karasu, unfortunately, seemed to expect Hiei's hatred and unwillingness to simply admit defeat, even as it was staring him right in the face. He traced Kurama's slightly parted pink lips and half closed eyelids, the slightly flushed cheeks and pronounced collarbone, and then cast his eyes over to Hiei. “This used to be yours…but guess who it belongs to now, little fire demon….” He taunted, slipping his hands under Kurama's arms and caressing the smooth chest.
If Hiei could still talk, he would have told Karasu to fuck off. The fact that he couldn't made something inside clench, and his head hurt more than it already did. He ignored the single bead of wetness at the corner of his unabused eye, even as it crystallised and fell with a barely audible clink on the cold concrete floor.
“He's mine,” Karasu hissed, fisting a hand in Kurama hair and yanking his head to the side as he buried his face in Kurama's neck. If he hadn't had the mask on, Hiei would have bet Karasu's lips would have been abusing the sensitive flesh there.
His other hand sunk lower, dipping between Kurama's thighs and circling around Kurama's flaccid cock. Even then, Kurama still did not react. He blinked, he breathed, he stared forward blankly and remained in whatever position Karasu placed him in. There was nothing behind the jade eyes and crimson eyelashes. The spirit had been crushed and driven to retreat lest it be wiped out completely. If there was one thing Kurama knew, it was how to survive something like this.
Unfortunately, Hiei did not have such an option.
Karasu's hand continued to drink in Kurama's body, bringing it to arousal and watching with obvious fascination as Kurama's breathing sped up and his body did not react to the muscle spasms and twitches as would any normally functioning creature's would. Such a mechanism was privy only to humans. The demons that attempted to witness such a coping mechanism often didn't know their own strength and ended up killing their subject before they gained the appropriate tightrope with which to force the human to step off themselves.
Hiei closed his eye and tilted his head away, unwilling to see such an old friend be taken advantage of in such a belittling way. He wouldn't witness it, wouldn't acknowledge it. Wouldn't acknowledge how very angry it made him to see Karasu's hands pass over Kurama's beaded nipples and cup his balls before pulling at the hard cock Hiei had come to know intimately over the years.
He licked his cracked lips and grimaced. He could not shut out the sounds.
Kurama was sighing and gasping, his breath hitching, though his face must have showed no emotion. He could hear the slide of skin, and feel the sudden flare of bitter youki from Karasu as the chain around Kurama's leg rattled as he arched his back and hid head fell back, his hair gliding through the air as he did.
And then there was only heat, and pain, and bits of flying concrete and dust.
Karasu's laughter was cold, and piercing.
“I love you,” he heard Karasu whisper to Kurama. “So…very much.”
And then blackness.
-
The End