(no subject)
Title: Be Not Afeard
Fandom: Petshop of Horrors
Characters: Tetsu/Chris Orcot
Prompt: 70; Storm.
Word Count: 4528
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Deep within the bowels of the shop, no sounds or scents from the outside world can penetrate. But, Chris’ preternatural awareness of the world around him makes him sensitive to such things. The tempests Chris must weather.
Author's Notes: I originally began this as a response to Years, but I thought Storm more suitable. Chris’ sensitivity would naturally cause him to experience things more vividly than others, making his experiences in life more tumultuous. Beware of AU (D never left), blood play (this is Tetsu, after all), underage sex (Chris is fifteen at the beginning of their relationship) and mpreg (involving Count D, not Chris *shudders*).
I hope the html is right on this...maybe I should find another way to differentiate between Chris' dialogue and text beyond italics. Thoughts? -thought- *thought* 'thought' or stick with thought? Please give feedback on which you prefer.
Six
There is a storm raging outside the pet shop. From within the confines of the magical walls, Tet-chan knows this only because he was out in it earlier. Here, deep in the bowels of the shop, no sounds or scents from the outside world can penetrate. But, Chris’ preternatural awareness of the world around him makes him sensitive to such things.
“Baby,” Tet-chan scoffs derisively, when Chris peeks around the corner of the heavy golden door.
Chris steps hesitantly over the threshold, dithered, then shudders violently, probably hearing thunder that besides him only D and the oldest of the shop can. P-please, can I--? His eyes are wide and fearful and Tet-chan feels a rush of annoyance.
“Your weakness makes me hate you,” what he wants to say. “I’ve eaten little boys more frightened and sweeter than you.” Instead, he rolls onto his side, back to Chris and harrumphs. D would never let him hear the end of it if Chris went crying to him instead. And Tet-chan will do what he must to earn the Count’s approbation.
“Whatever,” he finally growls, then looks over his shoulder with a glare. “Don’t hog the blankets.”
Chris lies shivering next to him for the longest time, and Tet-chan can smell all those things which makes a human repulsive and he wants to slide a talon across that pale throat, see those eyes so like Leon’s go dead, and then all he’ll smell will be blood, which really, is the only part of a human worth existing.
And when Tet-chan wakes the next morning to find the boy has curled against him, he hurries to cleanse himself of the offending scent, expletives in every language spilling from his lips. He has heard tell of the sweetness of Ds, tasted just a hint of it himself in D’s kiss. He is not entirely convinced it is worth this.
Seven
Josie and Samantha have left. The Count seems beside himself. It was disconcerting, to say the least, to see a D so discomposed. He paced around the shop for hours until Leon came and then he tried to be cool and distant, and failing at that, took to pacing again.
“You’re supposed to be gone,” he says dully, when he hears the scrape of the door across the floor.
Is D going to leave? Chris is already at the bedside. He no longer pauses, sure of his admittance, and Tet-chan has no one to blame but himself. He lifts the covers for Chris and the boy slides beneath them.
“It would serve your stupid brother right,” Tet-chan mutters, glaring at the dimly lit ceiling. The candles flicker, casting shadows, and the ribbons of incense curl, gather and disperse, and sometimes he and Chris observe them like clouds, picking out shapes. He doesn’t really feel like it, tonight. Chris was supposed to be gone.
Chris’ small fingers play over the comforter, following the golden threads with a nail. W-would… Even without voice, Chris’ words are heavy with despair and thick with tears. Would you leave, too?
Tet-chan looks at him too quickly, catches those blue eyes, nothing like Leon’s. He folds his hands over his chest and looks back at the ceiling. The smoke traces a looping sigil around the crystals of the chandelier. “Why would I stay?” He sneers.
Chris falls into an uneasy sleep and Tet-chan watches his slight frame rise and fall with each breath. His head is to the side, blonde hair that needs cut veiling his features and the long line of his vulnerable, pale throat is bare. Perhaps this is why he sleeps uneasily, knowing what it is he sleeps next to. But then Tet-chan slides his claw down Chris’s cheek, over his soft jaw, down his neck and as simply as that Chris sighs and settles and Tet-chan frowns and does not sleep.
Nine
Leon and the Count are fighting, which isn’t exactly revolutionary, and Tet-chan has locked himself in his room and blocked it all out because he’s just so sick of it. He’d expect as much from someone like Leon, but the Count should know better, really. It was different, the bickering from before they were lovers. Tet-chan could watch the banter disapprovingly and know, with absolute certainty, that nothing would ever happen.
Only.
Then it did.
And now…the Count had never before suffered from a lack of discretion, but it appeared that Leon’s behaviour could reduce the Count to a flushed, enraged harpy.
“Come here, kid,” he says gruffly, when Chris shuffles into the room, and Chris goes into his waiting embrace. Tet-chan closes shaking, slender shoulders in his arms, tucks his chin into Chris’ neck and just waits, glaring at the door and the argument he knows takes place beyond it. They have to do it around the kid, knowing what a nervous wreck he is, anyway.
D…D…he said…Chris hiccoughs and his fingers spasm and clench around the fabric of Tet-chan’s vest.
“Don’t listen to them,” Tet-chan says, and tries to keep his fury at the pair of them from his voice
.
He said he wished he’d never met Leon-that nothing in his life had been…had been…pleasant or enjoyable since Leon had come into it. Chris subsides into soft tears.
Tet-chan doesn’t know much about human children, nor at what age they are supposed to enter into maturity, but he worries that Chris, with his delicate disposition, will never make the transition. And D and Leon certainly don’t help matters.
“Chris, they lo-”he thinks about the word he meant to use, and it feels heavy and lurid and slimy on his tongue, so he lets it fall. Instead, he shakes Chris none-to-gently and shoves him onto the bed. He walks away so Chris can’t see his expression of disdain. “Quit being such a crybaby. You know how they feel about you. And if you’re just coming in here looking for me to tell you about how pleasant and enjoyable you’ve made my life, you can forget it, cause your whining makes me absolutely miserable.”
Chris laughs a little. It still startles Tet-chan when Chris makes real noise, instead of just thinking it. He turns and frowns at the boy, his scowl demanding an explanation. It’s just…Chris giggles again, this time in his head, and rubs his sleeve under his nose. You say stupid, mean stuff, and you make me happy. His grin is soppy and lopsided, but at least he’s stopped crying.
Pon-chan comes in after a while, finally frustrated enough with the argument still raging outside. Chris makes Tet-chan tell them both fairytales only he knows, and when Tet-chan wakes the next morning he has a crick in his neck and Chris has flung himself over Tet-chan’s body and is radiating rather a lot of heat. Pon-chan is snoring, sprawled across the width of the bed, slippered feet hanging off the side, and Tet-chan just sighs and rubs his face and feels very ancient.
Eleven
Sometimes, just sometimes, Tet-chan thought he was too gentle with Chris, allowed him too much attention. He wondered if Chris would ever harden. He was too innocent, allowing the emotions of others to affect him too greatly. But Tet-chan would have preferred tears and screaming over this…silence.
D hadn’t even fought with Chris over his staying at the hospital, but after the first week, Chris came home willingly. He looked like a stranger, with dark circles under his eyes and the corners of his mouth drawn perpetually down. He didn’t think a word, which was fairly terrifying.
D sat in Leon’s preferred seat and bowed his head and wept and Chris had set at his feet and held his hands and had remained dry-eyed and still. The reversal of their characteristic behaviours was too much to bear.
After D is persuaded to sleep, Chris comes and sits on the edge of Tet-chan’s bed, knees drawn to his chest. What if he never wakes?
Tet-chan doesn’t have an answer for that. He only knows he has never hated Leon more in his life, and has never wished more for his well-being all at once. He crouches behind Chris, wraps an arm around Chris and draws the boys back to his chest. Chris’ hand comes up to rest lightly against Tet-chan’s wrist. His shoulders shudder, but there is no sound from him, and no tears fall.
Tet-chan presses his forehead against the soft swell of Chris’ shoulder, fights the urge to crush this delicate frame and all the horrible vulnerability it makes him feel.
Thirteen
A baby? Chris scoffs, and kicks the door hard enough to send it slamming into the wall. Tet-chan raises an unimpressed brow. That had to hurt. He stands and goes across the room, snatching the door and shutting it gently but purposefully.
He already knew. He’d known practically the day it happened, smelling the subtle change from D. He’d had to excuse himself from the breakfast table before he got sick all over it.
“So what?” Tet-chan challenges, as if it means nothing to him. He crosses his arms over his chest and slouches against the wall. He tries not to pout when Chris begins to pace the length of his carpet. Six inches in as many months, one each since March, and if he keeps up like this, by Christmas he’ll overtake Tet-chan by at least a couple inches. Still, he is all limbs, his slender frame nothing like Leon’s bulky one. Of that, at least, Tet-chan approves. The less he looks like that ape, the better. Of course, that comparison isn’t fair to the noble ape…Tetsu just hopes the baby favours D.
So what? Chris repeats in bewilderment, looking at Tet-chan as if he’d just lost his horns.
“Is this some sort of weird displacement thing? Like, you’re mad at your mother for dying and leaving you and your taking it out on this baby ‘cause you think its going to hurt D?”
Chris is startled into laughter. Please never try to use psychology again, ever, okay, T-chan? For a second Tet-chan thinks that will be it, but then Chris’ lips curve into a frown. I don’t think the baby’ll hurt him. He stops pacing and flings himself down on the bed with enough force to move it a couple inches. He punches the comforter and bites his lip.
“Okay. So when you’re done with the dramatics and want to tell me what the problem really is…”
Chris scowls. It’ll be D’s baby.
Oh. As if that is supposed to explain everything. Tet-chan chooses not to respond, only glare, and wait for more.
D’s baby…and my brother’s.
“Well, probably,” Tet-chan allows, scratching the back of his head in confusion. Chris’ expression tells him he is not amused.
Don’t you see? Chris practically shrieks, and Tet-chan is honestly impressed the kid can attain that pitch in his thoughts, though he’d prefer not to experience it again.
“I really don’t,” Tet-chan says warily. He sorta wonders when he became the go to guy for emotional crises. Chris used to go to others first when he was confused about things. Come to Tet-chan when he was scared and needed protection, and that made sense, but what does Tet-chan know about this sort of thing?
Will it-Chris swallows and shakes his head-be like D?
“Probably,” Tet-chan says and shrugs unhelpfully. If Chris isn’t going to explain himself better, Tet-chan can’t really make any great attempts at understanding. “Do you think they’ll like it better?”
Chris shoots him a dark look of deepest contempt, lips pressed thinly together, slender shoulders hunched, eyes dark under narrowed lids. Gee, I never thought of that, he sneers, but even as Tet-chan can tell this is more than a passing concern, it is not the one that weighs heaviest on Chris’ mind. Never mind, Chris says and stands abruptly. It was stupid to come here. What do you care, anyway?
He leaves in much the same way he came, but just to spite him, Tet-chan catches the door before it can slam. He almost shakes with suppressed rage and vows that he’s not letting the little brat in his room ever again.
Fifteen
D will be fine. They both know it, but Tet-chan opens the door and lets Chris slip under his arm into the chamber beyond. It is something of a tradition, anyway, that whenever Leon is ill or injured, Chris turns to Tet-chan for reassurance. He is not sure what reassurance he can give the boy, because he has never cared for Leon, and even if he had, he doesn’t have the powers to heal humans, only to harm them.
I think this is enough, for now, Chris murmurs wearily.
Tet-chan smiles, but Chris can’t see it, because his face is in Chris’ hair. “Tell your brother that.” Chris punches him in the arm, hard enough to sting. Tet-chan doesn’t let him know that. “Just wait til you have someone you’re making a litter with. You won’t wanna stop, either.”
He anticipates another punch, but it never comes. Chris’ hand tightens briefly where it rests on Tet-chan’s bicep. “I’m never going to have someone I’m making a litter with, T-chan,” he whispers. His voice is achingly sweet, possessing an echoing vibrancy his thoughts lacked. The exhalation of breath with his words is hot on Tet-chan’s throat. It robs him, for a moment, of his ability to speak.
“You’re still young.” Very young, if not for one of his own kind, then for a human. It is something Tet-chan has become very familiar with, the human teenager’s progress through puberty toward sexual maturity.
That doesn’t matter, Chris dismisses, and Tet-chan feels the loss of his voice like a physical blow. Surely, he’ll use it again. I’m not going to have any children. He speaks with such finality that Tet-chan is taken aback.
“You have a long time before you should even have to think about it,” is his lame response.
“Then why did you say it?” Chris asks. His tone is like honey, sweet to lure you in, sticky to trap you…Tet-chan could swear Chris’ lips brush his skin as he speaks. “Do you want to know why I’ll never have children?”
Tetsu is entranced. His hands move all on their own, up Chris’ side to his bare shoulder, lightly down Chris’ downy soft arms, tickling over the back of Chris’ neck. Chris gasps, then whimpers. Chris touches his neck, his jaw and Tet-chan turns his head, first kissing the palm, then biting gently on the swell below the thumb. Chris lets out a shaky breath and brings up his other hand to cup Tet-chan’s cheek.
“Chris, are you in here?”
They spring apart guiltily. Leon doesn’t seem to notice and when his gaze falls upon them, it is with relief. “Please take Heng-Yi. Huan won’t stop crying and D passed out and he looks so tired I can’t wake him up, and then once Huan started Heng-Yi wouldn’t stop, and…” he subsided, looking ridiculous holding a screaming infant in either arm, hair mussed, face unshaven, eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep.
Chris smiles tenderly, and Tet-chan knows that no matter what Chris felt previously, and no matter what concerns he still has about Leon and D procreating, he loves his niece and nephew entirely. He reaches to take them both, but Tet-chan scoops up Heng-Yi first. As usual, she gives up her crying almost immediately to try to yank Tet-chan’s horns from his head.
Get some sleep, Chris says sweetly to his brother and Leon gives them both a look of such gratitude that even Tet-chan feels a little sorry for him.
Heng-Yi grabs at Tet-chan’s horns until she grows tired and as her eyes begin to droop and she begins to make instinctive suckling motion with her lips, he offers her the pacifier attached to her nightgown and she falls asleep almost at once. Huan succumbs more slowly, Chris gentling him with caressing thoughts like lullabies to his mind, then offering him his bottle til his breath evens out.
Chris goes through the motions like a pro, having had over a year of experience with Heng-Yi. He carefully readjusts Huan over his shoulder, cradling the delicate skull, and helps the child burp, then tucks him back in his arms. It is a terrible shame that Chris will never be a father, but now Tet-chan knows that that is the unmistakable truth. Chris lifts his gaze and gives Tet-chan a smouldering look, as if he can read Tet-chan’s mind.
He wakes the next morning to the sound of the door creaking open and lifts his head slightly to see Leon approaching the bed on tiptoes, looking much refreshed. Not refreshed enough, Tet-chan hopes, to think about doing this whole baby-making thing over again. Maybe Chris was right about this being enough.
Chris…He sleeps still, half propped against the headboard, Huan sleeping in the crook of his arm. His other arm stretches toward Tet-chan, to where their hands are clasped, and Heng-Yi is stirring between them. Leon looks at them for a long moment, his eyes fixed on their joined hands. When he looks at Tet-chan, expression pensive, Tet-chan wants to glare at him defiantly, but is all too aware that Leon can say ‘no,’ and that D will listen, and then what?
But Leon doesn’t say anything, and Heng-Yi starts to make little, unhappy noises that will soon become wailing. Leon hurriedly scoops her up, bouncing her a little. “Bring Huan and Chris to breakfast?” He asks over his shoulder, as he leaves, and their eyes meet, and Tet-chan thinks he might have just been given Leon’s approval. He might even be feeling civil enough toward Leon to eat his crappy breakfast, at least til D is feeling well enough to cook again.
Chris slips through the door with barely a sound, only the metallic click of the lock sliding behind him that makes Tet-chan’s throat go tight. Tet-chan says nothing, makes no indication he is awake, but lets his eyes glide in Chris’ direction. He hovers near the bed, letting his eyesight adjust to the dark, no doubt. Fewer candles than usual give off only the faintest glow, pinpoints of orange surrounded by golden circles of light in the otherwise pitch black room.
Chris reaches out to touch and Tet-chan catches his wrist in a tight grip and tugs. Chris makes a startled sound, both out loud and in his mind, creating a strange echo that makes Tet-chan’s stomach flip. His skinny elbows press into Tet-chan’s ribs in his struggles and his breath is fast and hot. Tet-chan drinks in the scent of him, knows what Chris wants probably better than Chris knows himself and the smells curl in the back of his throat til he can almost taste them. He nudges his way up Chris’ throat, behind his ear, hearing Chris’ wild pulse as if it is inside his head, just the way Chris’ thoughts can be.
Tet-chan wonders what the rules are. He knows from scent, and because he simply knows Chris, that the boy has never experienced any of these sensations with anyone else. He almost asks for permission, but the mere idea rankles him, makes the hairs on his neck stand on end and not in a pleasant way. He opens his mouth against the skin, lets his lower lip drag across Chris’ neck and touches his lip to his tongue, tasting. It is a chain reaction from there, something inevitable and he can’t be expected to stop now. His tongue follows the curve up, teeth closing around Chris’ earlobe.
“Ohmygodohmygod--!” Chris’ cry dies in a whimper and his hips jump, bumping his suddenly very prominent erection into Tet-chan’s pelvis. Tet-chan will taste him everywhere, learn every flavour, and these will be known only to him…but he knows that a human Chris’ age has little patience for such things, particularly having never known the touch of another. His inexperience is apparent in his every movement, but Tet-chan prefers it this way, having him scared and unsure, rather than having done this with anyone else. Totetsus are fiercely jealous.
Tet-chan sits up and Chris moves with him, the change in their position makes Chris look down at him. Chris’ eyes are wide and glazed and he is panting, his mouth open enticingly. Tet-chan lifts Chris’ arms from his side and Chris gets the idea, extending them over his head so Tet-chan can lift off his shirt and throw it aside. Chris looks unsure of himself, arms frozen overhead, shivering not from cold. Tet-chan wraps his arms around Chris’ middle, pulling him close, sniffing and tasting his way up Chris’ chest and Chris hesitates only slightly before bringing his arms around Tet-chan’s shoulders. His fingers toy with Tet-chan’s hair and down his bare back.
They roll together back onto the sheets, twisting so Chris is beneath Tet-chan, and that’s when Tet-chan kisses him. Chris is so sweet with his mouth, this use even more foreign than speech, but he submits to Tet-chan’s touch, slowly mimicking the movements of Tet-chan’s lips. It is clumsy and wet, and the most singularly arousing thing Tet-chan has ever experienced. He holds onto Chris’ hips and grinds.
“Hhn!” Chris cries into the kiss, mouth opening in surprise and Tet-chan plunges inside, sucking and biting and licking and Chris begins to make the sound over and over, writhing beneath him.
“Tet-chan!” Chris protests, when he pulls away, but Tet-chan ignores him, shimmying out of his pants and tossing them aside. Chris blushes at the sight of him, and blushes even harder when Tet-chan grabs the waistband of Chris’ pyjama bottoms and begins to work them down. His hands move instinctively to cover himself and Tet-chan doesn’t try to move them away, but when he moves to cover Chris again, and when he takes another possessive kiss, Chris’ hands raise to grip Tet-chan’s shoulders.
Tet-chan lowers his hips, holding Chris in place, sliding between his legs and Chris widens his legs to accommodate him, hooking a knee around Tet-chan’s waist and when they meet, Chris begins to move with an instinctual rhythm. His erection against Tet-chan’s is smooth and hard and leaking eagerly and only a few inelegant thrusts later, Chris comes, his mouth a grimace, the sound from his throat like a keen of loss or pain. Tet-chan ducks his head again to Chris’ throat, gritting his teeth against the urge to sink them into Chris’ skin and comes hard, but unsatisfactorily. It will not be right until he claims Chris.
Chris doesn’t seem to be able to stop trembling and he clings to Tet-chan’s arms. He takes in a breath, opens his mouth as if to speak, then closes it again. Tet-chan waits, because he wouldn’t know what to say even if he wanted to say something. He just tightens his hold on Chris and plants hard, possessive kisses over Chris’ hair, down his neck, up the slope of his shoulder.
He realises, as Chris’ breathing evens out, that he does not actually need to claim Chris. He knows, as Chris reaches out with his mind, a touch more intimate than speech and expresses, without forming actual words, that Chris is already his.
Eighteen
It’s storming outside. The wind is a high-pitched whistle, tossing the rain with enough force to make it slap against the windows and roof. Beside him, Chris is as stiff as a board, clutching the sheets like protection, as if at any moment the ceiling will collapse.
“Price you pay when you insist on renting an ancient farmhouse for it’s ‘character,’” Tet-chan mutters, and adds with a scoff, “baby.” Chris stares fixedly at the ceiling. Tet-chan rolls over, wraps an arm around Chris’ middle, buries his face in Chris’ throat, delighting in the subtle scent of fear.
Chris sighs and shifts his hips in that way he does that lets Tet-chan know he wants to be fucked… “Right now,” Chris murmurs huskily, “p-please.” He lifts his knees, tenting the blanket, spreads his legs wide.
Tet-chan kisses his jaw, his temple, the tender spot behind his ear. “Your weakness makes me love you.” He slicks himself in oil, slides into that place between Chris’ thighs that belongs to him alone. He doesn’t bother with the formalities, just guides himself to Chris’ opening and pushes slowly inside. Chris’ head falls back, hitting the headboard with a dull thump. His nails score Tet-chan’s back, fingers dig into Tet-chan’s ass, his touch urgent.
And Tet-chan fucks him hard, each downward thrust met with an upward one from Chris, until Chris is lifting himself several inches from the mattress and begging for more, and Tet-chan wants to crawl inside him, wants to devour him. He snaps his hips harder, digs his toes into the mattress and pushes deeper, straining with all his strength and Chris’ head keeps slamming against the headboard, neck at an odd angle but he’s screaming and clinging to Tet-chan and saying never stop. The bed and floor creak and groan louder than the storm, ensconcing them in a world entirely of their own creation.
Chris’ whole body goes taut. “Now, now, please, Tetsu, fuck,” a sharp whine and gasp, “now.” Tet-chan’s hips slow, gentle, and he bites down with more force than he meant, and blood rushes so fast and thick that he can’t swallow it all and he feels it trickle from the corner of his mouth down his jaw. Chris’ fingers clench and he finally lets himself go, giving a few, final, weak thrusts, his cum searing hot on Tet-chan’s belly.
The blood has renewed his lust, though; he could go on for hours. Will go on for hours. Chris groans as Tet-chan’s thrusts pick up again, fucking him into the sheets. His throat is red, two streams of blood staining the pillowcase. Chris grips his own knees and pulls them further apart til they’re both touching the sheets and Tet-chan can get deeper now, changes his angle, drives into Chris over and over and vows that he’ll get Chris off at least twice more before he follows.
Far later, when Chris’ throat is raw and Tet-chan has licked up every trace of blood and cum from Chris’ body and Tet-chan is sated, Chris wraps him up in his arms. His head is cradled to Chris’ chest where he can hear the steady thrum that is Chris being, and Chris’ fingers card through his hair. “Storm is gone,” Chris murmurs sleepily.
“Hmm.” Tet-chan glances at the bedside clock, an glaringly obnoxious digital piece that Chris picked, insisting that he didn’t care if Tet-chan had the best internal clock ever, he wasn’t going to be late to class because he can’t have an alarm, so stop being stupid. It’s almost four in the morning, now, and Chris will be miserable come time for his eight o’clock chemistry lab.
“I hear its supposed to be even worse tomorrow night,” Chris adds, tone almost flippant and Tet-chan grins into his collarbone, kisses the place above his lover’s heart, and draws him nearer.
fin.
Title comes from The Tempest Act III Scene II:
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.
Fandom: Petshop of Horrors
Characters: Tetsu/Chris Orcot
Prompt: 70; Storm.
Word Count: 4528
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Deep within the bowels of the shop, no sounds or scents from the outside world can penetrate. But, Chris’ preternatural awareness of the world around him makes him sensitive to such things. The tempests Chris must weather.
Author's Notes: I originally began this as a response to Years, but I thought Storm more suitable. Chris’ sensitivity would naturally cause him to experience things more vividly than others, making his experiences in life more tumultuous. Beware of AU (D never left), blood play (this is Tetsu, after all), underage sex (Chris is fifteen at the beginning of their relationship) and mpreg (involving Count D, not Chris *shudders*).
I hope the html is right on this...maybe I should find another way to differentiate between Chris' dialogue and text beyond italics. Thoughts? -thought- *thought* 'thought' or stick with thought? Please give feedback on which you prefer.
Six
There is a storm raging outside the pet shop. From within the confines of the magical walls, Tet-chan knows this only because he was out in it earlier. Here, deep in the bowels of the shop, no sounds or scents from the outside world can penetrate. But, Chris’ preternatural awareness of the world around him makes him sensitive to such things.
“Baby,” Tet-chan scoffs derisively, when Chris peeks around the corner of the heavy golden door.
Chris steps hesitantly over the threshold, dithered, then shudders violently, probably hearing thunder that besides him only D and the oldest of the shop can. P-please, can I--? His eyes are wide and fearful and Tet-chan feels a rush of annoyance.
“Your weakness makes me hate you,” what he wants to say. “I’ve eaten little boys more frightened and sweeter than you.” Instead, he rolls onto his side, back to Chris and harrumphs. D would never let him hear the end of it if Chris went crying to him instead. And Tet-chan will do what he must to earn the Count’s approbation.
“Whatever,” he finally growls, then looks over his shoulder with a glare. “Don’t hog the blankets.”
Chris lies shivering next to him for the longest time, and Tet-chan can smell all those things which makes a human repulsive and he wants to slide a talon across that pale throat, see those eyes so like Leon’s go dead, and then all he’ll smell will be blood, which really, is the only part of a human worth existing.
And when Tet-chan wakes the next morning to find the boy has curled against him, he hurries to cleanse himself of the offending scent, expletives in every language spilling from his lips. He has heard tell of the sweetness of Ds, tasted just a hint of it himself in D’s kiss. He is not entirely convinced it is worth this.
Seven
Josie and Samantha have left. The Count seems beside himself. It was disconcerting, to say the least, to see a D so discomposed. He paced around the shop for hours until Leon came and then he tried to be cool and distant, and failing at that, took to pacing again.
“You’re supposed to be gone,” he says dully, when he hears the scrape of the door across the floor.
Is D going to leave? Chris is already at the bedside. He no longer pauses, sure of his admittance, and Tet-chan has no one to blame but himself. He lifts the covers for Chris and the boy slides beneath them.
“It would serve your stupid brother right,” Tet-chan mutters, glaring at the dimly lit ceiling. The candles flicker, casting shadows, and the ribbons of incense curl, gather and disperse, and sometimes he and Chris observe them like clouds, picking out shapes. He doesn’t really feel like it, tonight. Chris was supposed to be gone.
Chris’ small fingers play over the comforter, following the golden threads with a nail. W-would… Even without voice, Chris’ words are heavy with despair and thick with tears. Would you leave, too?
Tet-chan looks at him too quickly, catches those blue eyes, nothing like Leon’s. He folds his hands over his chest and looks back at the ceiling. The smoke traces a looping sigil around the crystals of the chandelier. “Why would I stay?” He sneers.
Chris falls into an uneasy sleep and Tet-chan watches his slight frame rise and fall with each breath. His head is to the side, blonde hair that needs cut veiling his features and the long line of his vulnerable, pale throat is bare. Perhaps this is why he sleeps uneasily, knowing what it is he sleeps next to. But then Tet-chan slides his claw down Chris’s cheek, over his soft jaw, down his neck and as simply as that Chris sighs and settles and Tet-chan frowns and does not sleep.
Nine
Leon and the Count are fighting, which isn’t exactly revolutionary, and Tet-chan has locked himself in his room and blocked it all out because he’s just so sick of it. He’d expect as much from someone like Leon, but the Count should know better, really. It was different, the bickering from before they were lovers. Tet-chan could watch the banter disapprovingly and know, with absolute certainty, that nothing would ever happen.
Only.
Then it did.
And now…the Count had never before suffered from a lack of discretion, but it appeared that Leon’s behaviour could reduce the Count to a flushed, enraged harpy.
“Come here, kid,” he says gruffly, when Chris shuffles into the room, and Chris goes into his waiting embrace. Tet-chan closes shaking, slender shoulders in his arms, tucks his chin into Chris’ neck and just waits, glaring at the door and the argument he knows takes place beyond it. They have to do it around the kid, knowing what a nervous wreck he is, anyway.
D…D…he said…Chris hiccoughs and his fingers spasm and clench around the fabric of Tet-chan’s vest.
“Don’t listen to them,” Tet-chan says, and tries to keep his fury at the pair of them from his voice
.
He said he wished he’d never met Leon-that nothing in his life had been…had been…pleasant or enjoyable since Leon had come into it. Chris subsides into soft tears.
Tet-chan doesn’t know much about human children, nor at what age they are supposed to enter into maturity, but he worries that Chris, with his delicate disposition, will never make the transition. And D and Leon certainly don’t help matters.
“Chris, they lo-”he thinks about the word he meant to use, and it feels heavy and lurid and slimy on his tongue, so he lets it fall. Instead, he shakes Chris none-to-gently and shoves him onto the bed. He walks away so Chris can’t see his expression of disdain. “Quit being such a crybaby. You know how they feel about you. And if you’re just coming in here looking for me to tell you about how pleasant and enjoyable you’ve made my life, you can forget it, cause your whining makes me absolutely miserable.”
Chris laughs a little. It still startles Tet-chan when Chris makes real noise, instead of just thinking it. He turns and frowns at the boy, his scowl demanding an explanation. It’s just…Chris giggles again, this time in his head, and rubs his sleeve under his nose. You say stupid, mean stuff, and you make me happy. His grin is soppy and lopsided, but at least he’s stopped crying.
Pon-chan comes in after a while, finally frustrated enough with the argument still raging outside. Chris makes Tet-chan tell them both fairytales only he knows, and when Tet-chan wakes the next morning he has a crick in his neck and Chris has flung himself over Tet-chan’s body and is radiating rather a lot of heat. Pon-chan is snoring, sprawled across the width of the bed, slippered feet hanging off the side, and Tet-chan just sighs and rubs his face and feels very ancient.
Eleven
Sometimes, just sometimes, Tet-chan thought he was too gentle with Chris, allowed him too much attention. He wondered if Chris would ever harden. He was too innocent, allowing the emotions of others to affect him too greatly. But Tet-chan would have preferred tears and screaming over this…silence.
D hadn’t even fought with Chris over his staying at the hospital, but after the first week, Chris came home willingly. He looked like a stranger, with dark circles under his eyes and the corners of his mouth drawn perpetually down. He didn’t think a word, which was fairly terrifying.
D sat in Leon’s preferred seat and bowed his head and wept and Chris had set at his feet and held his hands and had remained dry-eyed and still. The reversal of their characteristic behaviours was too much to bear.
After D is persuaded to sleep, Chris comes and sits on the edge of Tet-chan’s bed, knees drawn to his chest. What if he never wakes?
Tet-chan doesn’t have an answer for that. He only knows he has never hated Leon more in his life, and has never wished more for his well-being all at once. He crouches behind Chris, wraps an arm around Chris and draws the boys back to his chest. Chris’ hand comes up to rest lightly against Tet-chan’s wrist. His shoulders shudder, but there is no sound from him, and no tears fall.
Tet-chan presses his forehead against the soft swell of Chris’ shoulder, fights the urge to crush this delicate frame and all the horrible vulnerability it makes him feel.
Thirteen
A baby? Chris scoffs, and kicks the door hard enough to send it slamming into the wall. Tet-chan raises an unimpressed brow. That had to hurt. He stands and goes across the room, snatching the door and shutting it gently but purposefully.
He already knew. He’d known practically the day it happened, smelling the subtle change from D. He’d had to excuse himself from the breakfast table before he got sick all over it.
“So what?” Tet-chan challenges, as if it means nothing to him. He crosses his arms over his chest and slouches against the wall. He tries not to pout when Chris begins to pace the length of his carpet. Six inches in as many months, one each since March, and if he keeps up like this, by Christmas he’ll overtake Tet-chan by at least a couple inches. Still, he is all limbs, his slender frame nothing like Leon’s bulky one. Of that, at least, Tet-chan approves. The less he looks like that ape, the better. Of course, that comparison isn’t fair to the noble ape…Tetsu just hopes the baby favours D.
So what? Chris repeats in bewilderment, looking at Tet-chan as if he’d just lost his horns.
“Is this some sort of weird displacement thing? Like, you’re mad at your mother for dying and leaving you and your taking it out on this baby ‘cause you think its going to hurt D?”
Chris is startled into laughter. Please never try to use psychology again, ever, okay, T-chan? For a second Tet-chan thinks that will be it, but then Chris’ lips curve into a frown. I don’t think the baby’ll hurt him. He stops pacing and flings himself down on the bed with enough force to move it a couple inches. He punches the comforter and bites his lip.
“Okay. So when you’re done with the dramatics and want to tell me what the problem really is…”
Chris scowls. It’ll be D’s baby.
Oh. As if that is supposed to explain everything. Tet-chan chooses not to respond, only glare, and wait for more.
D’s baby…and my brother’s.
“Well, probably,” Tet-chan allows, scratching the back of his head in confusion. Chris’ expression tells him he is not amused.
Don’t you see? Chris practically shrieks, and Tet-chan is honestly impressed the kid can attain that pitch in his thoughts, though he’d prefer not to experience it again.
“I really don’t,” Tet-chan says warily. He sorta wonders when he became the go to guy for emotional crises. Chris used to go to others first when he was confused about things. Come to Tet-chan when he was scared and needed protection, and that made sense, but what does Tet-chan know about this sort of thing?
Will it-Chris swallows and shakes his head-be like D?
“Probably,” Tet-chan says and shrugs unhelpfully. If Chris isn’t going to explain himself better, Tet-chan can’t really make any great attempts at understanding. “Do you think they’ll like it better?”
Chris shoots him a dark look of deepest contempt, lips pressed thinly together, slender shoulders hunched, eyes dark under narrowed lids. Gee, I never thought of that, he sneers, but even as Tet-chan can tell this is more than a passing concern, it is not the one that weighs heaviest on Chris’ mind. Never mind, Chris says and stands abruptly. It was stupid to come here. What do you care, anyway?
He leaves in much the same way he came, but just to spite him, Tet-chan catches the door before it can slam. He almost shakes with suppressed rage and vows that he’s not letting the little brat in his room ever again.
Fifteen
D will be fine. They both know it, but Tet-chan opens the door and lets Chris slip under his arm into the chamber beyond. It is something of a tradition, anyway, that whenever Leon is ill or injured, Chris turns to Tet-chan for reassurance. He is not sure what reassurance he can give the boy, because he has never cared for Leon, and even if he had, he doesn’t have the powers to heal humans, only to harm them.
I think this is enough, for now, Chris murmurs wearily.
Tet-chan smiles, but Chris can’t see it, because his face is in Chris’ hair. “Tell your brother that.” Chris punches him in the arm, hard enough to sting. Tet-chan doesn’t let him know that. “Just wait til you have someone you’re making a litter with. You won’t wanna stop, either.”
He anticipates another punch, but it never comes. Chris’ hand tightens briefly where it rests on Tet-chan’s bicep. “I’m never going to have someone I’m making a litter with, T-chan,” he whispers. His voice is achingly sweet, possessing an echoing vibrancy his thoughts lacked. The exhalation of breath with his words is hot on Tet-chan’s throat. It robs him, for a moment, of his ability to speak.
“You’re still young.” Very young, if not for one of his own kind, then for a human. It is something Tet-chan has become very familiar with, the human teenager’s progress through puberty toward sexual maturity.
That doesn’t matter, Chris dismisses, and Tet-chan feels the loss of his voice like a physical blow. Surely, he’ll use it again. I’m not going to have any children. He speaks with such finality that Tet-chan is taken aback.
“You have a long time before you should even have to think about it,” is his lame response.
“Then why did you say it?” Chris asks. His tone is like honey, sweet to lure you in, sticky to trap you…Tet-chan could swear Chris’ lips brush his skin as he speaks. “Do you want to know why I’ll never have children?”
Tetsu is entranced. His hands move all on their own, up Chris’ side to his bare shoulder, lightly down Chris’ downy soft arms, tickling over the back of Chris’ neck. Chris gasps, then whimpers. Chris touches his neck, his jaw and Tet-chan turns his head, first kissing the palm, then biting gently on the swell below the thumb. Chris lets out a shaky breath and brings up his other hand to cup Tet-chan’s cheek.
“Chris, are you in here?”
They spring apart guiltily. Leon doesn’t seem to notice and when his gaze falls upon them, it is with relief. “Please take Heng-Yi. Huan won’t stop crying and D passed out and he looks so tired I can’t wake him up, and then once Huan started Heng-Yi wouldn’t stop, and…” he subsided, looking ridiculous holding a screaming infant in either arm, hair mussed, face unshaven, eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep.
Chris smiles tenderly, and Tet-chan knows that no matter what Chris felt previously, and no matter what concerns he still has about Leon and D procreating, he loves his niece and nephew entirely. He reaches to take them both, but Tet-chan scoops up Heng-Yi first. As usual, she gives up her crying almost immediately to try to yank Tet-chan’s horns from his head.
Get some sleep, Chris says sweetly to his brother and Leon gives them both a look of such gratitude that even Tet-chan feels a little sorry for him.
Heng-Yi grabs at Tet-chan’s horns until she grows tired and as her eyes begin to droop and she begins to make instinctive suckling motion with her lips, he offers her the pacifier attached to her nightgown and she falls asleep almost at once. Huan succumbs more slowly, Chris gentling him with caressing thoughts like lullabies to his mind, then offering him his bottle til his breath evens out.
Chris goes through the motions like a pro, having had over a year of experience with Heng-Yi. He carefully readjusts Huan over his shoulder, cradling the delicate skull, and helps the child burp, then tucks him back in his arms. It is a terrible shame that Chris will never be a father, but now Tet-chan knows that that is the unmistakable truth. Chris lifts his gaze and gives Tet-chan a smouldering look, as if he can read Tet-chan’s mind.
He wakes the next morning to the sound of the door creaking open and lifts his head slightly to see Leon approaching the bed on tiptoes, looking much refreshed. Not refreshed enough, Tet-chan hopes, to think about doing this whole baby-making thing over again. Maybe Chris was right about this being enough.
Chris…He sleeps still, half propped against the headboard, Huan sleeping in the crook of his arm. His other arm stretches toward Tet-chan, to where their hands are clasped, and Heng-Yi is stirring between them. Leon looks at them for a long moment, his eyes fixed on their joined hands. When he looks at Tet-chan, expression pensive, Tet-chan wants to glare at him defiantly, but is all too aware that Leon can say ‘no,’ and that D will listen, and then what?
But Leon doesn’t say anything, and Heng-Yi starts to make little, unhappy noises that will soon become wailing. Leon hurriedly scoops her up, bouncing her a little. “Bring Huan and Chris to breakfast?” He asks over his shoulder, as he leaves, and their eyes meet, and Tet-chan thinks he might have just been given Leon’s approval. He might even be feeling civil enough toward Leon to eat his crappy breakfast, at least til D is feeling well enough to cook again.
Chris slips through the door with barely a sound, only the metallic click of the lock sliding behind him that makes Tet-chan’s throat go tight. Tet-chan says nothing, makes no indication he is awake, but lets his eyes glide in Chris’ direction. He hovers near the bed, letting his eyesight adjust to the dark, no doubt. Fewer candles than usual give off only the faintest glow, pinpoints of orange surrounded by golden circles of light in the otherwise pitch black room.
Chris reaches out to touch and Tet-chan catches his wrist in a tight grip and tugs. Chris makes a startled sound, both out loud and in his mind, creating a strange echo that makes Tet-chan’s stomach flip. His skinny elbows press into Tet-chan’s ribs in his struggles and his breath is fast and hot. Tet-chan drinks in the scent of him, knows what Chris wants probably better than Chris knows himself and the smells curl in the back of his throat til he can almost taste them. He nudges his way up Chris’ throat, behind his ear, hearing Chris’ wild pulse as if it is inside his head, just the way Chris’ thoughts can be.
Tet-chan wonders what the rules are. He knows from scent, and because he simply knows Chris, that the boy has never experienced any of these sensations with anyone else. He almost asks for permission, but the mere idea rankles him, makes the hairs on his neck stand on end and not in a pleasant way. He opens his mouth against the skin, lets his lower lip drag across Chris’ neck and touches his lip to his tongue, tasting. It is a chain reaction from there, something inevitable and he can’t be expected to stop now. His tongue follows the curve up, teeth closing around Chris’ earlobe.
“Ohmygodohmygod--!” Chris’ cry dies in a whimper and his hips jump, bumping his suddenly very prominent erection into Tet-chan’s pelvis. Tet-chan will taste him everywhere, learn every flavour, and these will be known only to him…but he knows that a human Chris’ age has little patience for such things, particularly having never known the touch of another. His inexperience is apparent in his every movement, but Tet-chan prefers it this way, having him scared and unsure, rather than having done this with anyone else. Totetsus are fiercely jealous.
Tet-chan sits up and Chris moves with him, the change in their position makes Chris look down at him. Chris’ eyes are wide and glazed and he is panting, his mouth open enticingly. Tet-chan lifts Chris’ arms from his side and Chris gets the idea, extending them over his head so Tet-chan can lift off his shirt and throw it aside. Chris looks unsure of himself, arms frozen overhead, shivering not from cold. Tet-chan wraps his arms around Chris’ middle, pulling him close, sniffing and tasting his way up Chris’ chest and Chris hesitates only slightly before bringing his arms around Tet-chan’s shoulders. His fingers toy with Tet-chan’s hair and down his bare back.
They roll together back onto the sheets, twisting so Chris is beneath Tet-chan, and that’s when Tet-chan kisses him. Chris is so sweet with his mouth, this use even more foreign than speech, but he submits to Tet-chan’s touch, slowly mimicking the movements of Tet-chan’s lips. It is clumsy and wet, and the most singularly arousing thing Tet-chan has ever experienced. He holds onto Chris’ hips and grinds.
“Hhn!” Chris cries into the kiss, mouth opening in surprise and Tet-chan plunges inside, sucking and biting and licking and Chris begins to make the sound over and over, writhing beneath him.
“Tet-chan!” Chris protests, when he pulls away, but Tet-chan ignores him, shimmying out of his pants and tossing them aside. Chris blushes at the sight of him, and blushes even harder when Tet-chan grabs the waistband of Chris’ pyjama bottoms and begins to work them down. His hands move instinctively to cover himself and Tet-chan doesn’t try to move them away, but when he moves to cover Chris again, and when he takes another possessive kiss, Chris’ hands raise to grip Tet-chan’s shoulders.
Tet-chan lowers his hips, holding Chris in place, sliding between his legs and Chris widens his legs to accommodate him, hooking a knee around Tet-chan’s waist and when they meet, Chris begins to move with an instinctual rhythm. His erection against Tet-chan’s is smooth and hard and leaking eagerly and only a few inelegant thrusts later, Chris comes, his mouth a grimace, the sound from his throat like a keen of loss or pain. Tet-chan ducks his head again to Chris’ throat, gritting his teeth against the urge to sink them into Chris’ skin and comes hard, but unsatisfactorily. It will not be right until he claims Chris.
Chris doesn’t seem to be able to stop trembling and he clings to Tet-chan’s arms. He takes in a breath, opens his mouth as if to speak, then closes it again. Tet-chan waits, because he wouldn’t know what to say even if he wanted to say something. He just tightens his hold on Chris and plants hard, possessive kisses over Chris’ hair, down his neck, up the slope of his shoulder.
He realises, as Chris’ breathing evens out, that he does not actually need to claim Chris. He knows, as Chris reaches out with his mind, a touch more intimate than speech and expresses, without forming actual words, that Chris is already his.
Eighteen
It’s storming outside. The wind is a high-pitched whistle, tossing the rain with enough force to make it slap against the windows and roof. Beside him, Chris is as stiff as a board, clutching the sheets like protection, as if at any moment the ceiling will collapse.
“Price you pay when you insist on renting an ancient farmhouse for it’s ‘character,’” Tet-chan mutters, and adds with a scoff, “baby.” Chris stares fixedly at the ceiling. Tet-chan rolls over, wraps an arm around Chris’ middle, buries his face in Chris’ throat, delighting in the subtle scent of fear.
Chris sighs and shifts his hips in that way he does that lets Tet-chan know he wants to be fucked… “Right now,” Chris murmurs huskily, “p-please.” He lifts his knees, tenting the blanket, spreads his legs wide.
Tet-chan kisses his jaw, his temple, the tender spot behind his ear. “Your weakness makes me love you.” He slicks himself in oil, slides into that place between Chris’ thighs that belongs to him alone. He doesn’t bother with the formalities, just guides himself to Chris’ opening and pushes slowly inside. Chris’ head falls back, hitting the headboard with a dull thump. His nails score Tet-chan’s back, fingers dig into Tet-chan’s ass, his touch urgent.
And Tet-chan fucks him hard, each downward thrust met with an upward one from Chris, until Chris is lifting himself several inches from the mattress and begging for more, and Tet-chan wants to crawl inside him, wants to devour him. He snaps his hips harder, digs his toes into the mattress and pushes deeper, straining with all his strength and Chris’ head keeps slamming against the headboard, neck at an odd angle but he’s screaming and clinging to Tet-chan and saying never stop. The bed and floor creak and groan louder than the storm, ensconcing them in a world entirely of their own creation.
Chris’ whole body goes taut. “Now, now, please, Tetsu, fuck,” a sharp whine and gasp, “now.” Tet-chan’s hips slow, gentle, and he bites down with more force than he meant, and blood rushes so fast and thick that he can’t swallow it all and he feels it trickle from the corner of his mouth down his jaw. Chris’ fingers clench and he finally lets himself go, giving a few, final, weak thrusts, his cum searing hot on Tet-chan’s belly.
The blood has renewed his lust, though; he could go on for hours. Will go on for hours. Chris groans as Tet-chan’s thrusts pick up again, fucking him into the sheets. His throat is red, two streams of blood staining the pillowcase. Chris grips his own knees and pulls them further apart til they’re both touching the sheets and Tet-chan can get deeper now, changes his angle, drives into Chris over and over and vows that he’ll get Chris off at least twice more before he follows.
Far later, when Chris’ throat is raw and Tet-chan has licked up every trace of blood and cum from Chris’ body and Tet-chan is sated, Chris wraps him up in his arms. His head is cradled to Chris’ chest where he can hear the steady thrum that is Chris being, and Chris’ fingers card through his hair. “Storm is gone,” Chris murmurs sleepily.
“Hmm.” Tet-chan glances at the bedside clock, an glaringly obnoxious digital piece that Chris picked, insisting that he didn’t care if Tet-chan had the best internal clock ever, he wasn’t going to be late to class because he can’t have an alarm, so stop being stupid. It’s almost four in the morning, now, and Chris will be miserable come time for his eight o’clock chemistry lab.
“I hear its supposed to be even worse tomorrow night,” Chris adds, tone almost flippant and Tet-chan grins into his collarbone, kisses the place above his lover’s heart, and draws him nearer.
fin.
Title comes from The Tempest Act III Scene II:
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.