Shitennou multiplication table!
Hello, newbie alert! I'm quite new to PGSM (although I've been writing fic for years), and I come bearing an armload of ficlets to spam you with.
This is the result of a challenge I set myself: yaoi fiend that I am, I was overwhelmed by the plethora of pretty men and accompanying subtext, and went to write a ficlet for every possible combination of the Shitennou and Endymion. Hence the concept of a multiplication table. I had way too much fun doing this.
Author Name: Arkady
Story Title: Multiplication Tables
Genre: Various, though predominantly smutty drama.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: The sex is usually implied, but not always, and the solo bits are exactly what you think they are. All ficlets can be expected to contain BDSM elements (I find it peculiarly hard to write vanilla), and spoilers abound. Individual ficlets will have warnings as appropriate for stealth het or kinkier sex. Also note that not all of the boys were particularly pleasant people during their time in the Dark Kingdom; there are pieces with consent issues and similar unpleasantness, and those will have triggery warnings.
Pairing: Besides the obvious, there are bits of Nephrite/Ami, Kunzite/Darkury, Jadeite/Beryl, and Mamoru/Usagi.
Time Frame: Various.
Status: Complete.
So pick a ficlet from the table (cut so it doesn't break friendspages), from the list, or just read 'em through if you're brave. (I did attempt to assemble a vaguely coherent reading order.)
Endymion
Kunzite
Zoisite
Nephrite
Jadeite
Endymion
Lost
(angst, het)
Alpha
(power exchange)
Rings
(heavy D/s, angst)
Forgetting
(angry snogging)
Fruit
(fluff)
Kunzite
Alpha
(power exchange)
Power
(het)
Duel
(mind games, triggery)
Painslut
(heavy S&M)
Punishment
(heavy BDSM)
Zoisite
Rings
(heavy D/s, angst)
Duel
(mind games, triggery)
Appassionata
(musical sex magic)
Persona
(curse issues, triggery)
Eclipse
(gratuitous symbolism)
Nephrite
Forgetting
(angry snogging)
Painslut
(heavy S&M)
Persona
(curse issues, triggery)
Obedience
(het, triggery)
Skirts
(crossdressing, het, crack)
Jadeite
Fruit
(fluff)
Punishment
(heavy BDSM)
Eclipse
(gratuitous symbolism)
Skirts
(crossdressing, het, crack)
Loyalty
(angst)
1x1 - Endymion, solo
Lost
Hina's gone.
He stands naked in the spacious British bathroom and squints at his back in the mirror. There isn't a scar. Kunzite had laid him open to the ribs, he thought, and he remembers the pain, and he'd lain in the hospital from shock, but now he looks and there's nothing. All sewn up with golden light.
He rubs his shoulder and sits weakly on the edge of the tub. Hina's gone. Usagi knows who he is. Usagi is Sailor Moon, is the flutter of a skirt in the wind, is the Princess, is silky bare arms in the grass a billion years ago. And the ghost, he'd thought, that man's ghost, is haunting him still, is Zoisite, is alive, is striped red bare back in the parlor a billion years ago.
He's had two lovers he doesn't even remember, and Hina's gone, and that doesn't account for the odd stray memories of Jadeite naked or Kunzite's teeth on the back of his neck, and Usagi is in middle school you lech, and Hina's gone, and Zoisite had come to him in the hospital, and what is he doing in England now anyway, and he's died and doesn't even have a scar to prove it, and Hina's gone, and he's lost.
White silk. He's jet-lagged and his whole life has fallen to pieces and turned upside-down and been hijacked by fate, and all he can think of is white silk. Fine white silk spinning against his legs as a Princess laughed. Heavy white silk crumpling to the floor as a Shitennou stripped for his master. He doesn't understand why he'd held one end of a chain round Zoisite's neck and smiled. And he doesn't understand why he and Serenity died with, for, because of love.
He's so hard it aches, and he jerks off mechanically down the bathtub drain to make it go away, and then washes it down and leaves the water running until it overflows and steams, and he hunches down to his eyes long as he could hold his breath, because everything's fallen apart into white silk.
~~~
3x5 - Zoisite/Jadeite
Eclipse
It started with the Master and Kunzite talking in low, clipped tones out on the lawn, with Kunzite spinning a black-lensed telescope in his gloved hands and frowning a lot, but the moment Nephrite came striding over the new-mown grass it had turned into a screaming fight, and now Jadeite is hiding in the parlor, arms folded tight across his chest, hunched as though his half-cape can somehow cover him.
"I hate it when they fight," he mutters, and Zoisite, who's been in silence at the piano for some time, looks over with a distant note of sympathy.
"Could you close the blinds, please?" he asks, and after a moment, Jadeite shakes himself into motion and walks over slowly to pull the cords. Curtains glide slow across the floor-to-ceiling windows; the yelling men fade from view; the light dims an octave.
Jadeite lights the lamps before he's asked, and doesn't need to know what they're fighting about, and doesn't ask if Zoisite wants to watch the eclipse. The moon will cover the sun, and Kunzite will watch it grim through his telescope, and they're fighting about the Princess.
Lately it's like everyone is becoming dim and dark and worried and no-time-for-jokes, like that bit near the end of a really rollicking adventure story when the writer decides to suddenly make it serious and boring, and Jadeite can't think what he could possibly, possibly do with himself.
He hears Nephrite yell, and startles, but can't make out the words.
"Jadeite," Zoisite says softly. "Let's do something worthwhile with our time."
He slides over a bit, and pats smooth dark wood beside him, and Jadeite comes hesitant to sit, the soprano end of the keyboard spread before him, the heat of Zoisite's body all up his side.
Zoisite nudges his foot out of the way so he can reach the pedal and begins to play, long swelling arpeggios, and Jadeite recognizes the piece and lifts one hand to pluck out notes. He'd tried to teach him once, a while back, and he'd been terrible at it, so they'd mostly played duets, easy stuff, with him playing one simple line, slow enough that it almost didn't matter if he messed up, and no matter what he did it sounded good anyway, because Zoisite could cover for him. It had never made sense to him, that the bad player gets the melody.
The piece ends; they let the sound fade. The sunlight leaking round the curtains is starting to darken. Zoisite puts his arm round his shoulders, beaded brocade crinkling, and then turns his head to look at him with a shimmer of earring, and there is a slight change to the set of his mouth, a slight flicker in his eyelids, and the message is clear, the command absolute, and they kiss, long and slow, with Zoisite's hand firm on the back of his neck, holding him. Because Zoisite never hurts him like Kunzite does; he merely controls him, all quiet and implacable mastery, and now that little falling feeling he gets in his stomach when Zoisite looks at him that way is a mooring line and a lamp.
When the light fades entirely, totality, Jadeite is curled naked in Zoisite's lap as he sits cross-legged, fully dressed, on the floor beside the piano, and he lets out a little frightened kitten whine as the curtains go dark, and Zoisite strokes his hair, white gloves in golden curls.
~~~
2x2 - Kunzite, solo
Power
Kunzite never looks at women, and yet when he masturbates methodically, most mornings, he thinks of them.
By now he's disporting himself frequently with all the Shitennou, and, less often, with Master Endymion himself. He's never considered himself a sexual being--one thing or another, training or duties or power, has always been more important, and still is--but he's somehow metamorphosed into one, and it's too late to be disconcerted by it. They've all come to rely on him, and now that he's discovered that sex and power could go hand in hand...well, that's that.
Hence the ritual morning release of tension. Easier to play the game when the urge to simply grab his victim and fuck him so he could come already is lessened. Control is another aspect of power, after all.
And what would be the point of having sex with a weakling? That is why he loves his Shitennou so--the power in Nephrite's seemingly boundless yen for pain, the exquisite mind games he plays with Zoisite and the Master. Power even in Jadeite's sheer energy and sexual appetite. Not like the wilting flowers of Earth's court, all shy and weak-willed and wasting their time in jealousy and gossip. Like that red-haired wench who keeps making doe-eyes at the Master--how can a woman expect to find a lover by hiding from him? No guts.
She'd be a horrible match for him anyway. Bad family.
He wishes he could force his mind to stop presenting vague, shining fantasies, impossible dreams, of women with guts and brains, with spark and shadow in their eyes and appetites as perverse as his own. It's an exercise in frustration. And humiliation, to not have control of such things.
Earth doesn't make women well. But the heavens, he discovers, the heavens are another matter. When the envoys come, for once, he looks: at the four soldiers who guard them, small bodies standing tall and proud, long bare legs scandalous down the marble halls of Earth. Even the quietest one, in blue, stronger than any woman he's yet met. He wonders, before checking himself, if they play amongst themselves as his Shitennou do...
But they were of the Moon, and he was of the Earth, and of course it could not be. And of course he understood when his master looked long after their high-strung princess. And of course, in the end, he hated him all the more, for giving in when he did not.
~~~
3x4 - Zoisite/Nephrite
Persona
"This isn't who we are," Zoisite says quietly, and there's a rare note of despair in his voice.
Nephrite, curled bruised and naked in some far-off nook, feels Beryl's eyes upon him, always upon him, and he's drunk stupid on pain in the long shadows of the Kingdom. Everyone else has hurt him and trampled him down; Zoisite will want a turn, he supposes.
His life began when Beryl's power tugged him out of limbo, when black petals embraced him and set him down on the cavern floor, a blank slate upon which was written nothing more than love her, obey her--but he is beginning to think things that should not be there, things that make no sense, shadows before the eraser scuffed over him, and every time he does his head aches. Jadeite should be smiling, he thinks, for no reason, and a vise closes round his skull. He should be happy when Kunzite beats him, he thinks, and the screw tightens. Zoisite should be his friend, he thinks, and it's iron drilling into his temples. There should be a prince--and whenever he thinks that his vision goes black with pain.
So Jadeite is angry and power-hungry, and it makes perfect sense that he'd smile brutally and line up to fuck him when Kunzite says go ahead, you're better than him anyway, take him. So Kunzite is cruel and wanton, and it makes perfect sense that he watches with a black look in his eyes and his sword in his hand and that damn Senshi perched on his knee, and his mouth is bloody after she kisses him. And they'd tied him down and used him up and left him alone with only his Queen's distaste, because nobody, not even Zoisite, was his friend. Because the word friend does not exist in the Dark Kingdom.
"I think you know just a little too much for comfort," Zoisite says, "and I believe you think rather much too little for use."
He's pretty sure Zoisite's just insulted him, but he hurts too much to care. And besides, Zoisite's untrustworthy, always has been, prefers working alone, is delusional now, says his Queen--kind, and hammers pound in his skull, caring, and there are ice picks behind his eyes--and Zoisite, the traitor who some shred of his mind is screaming through all the pain is a friend, is touching his cheek gently with one gloved hand, above the bruise Jadeite had left on his mouth.
"I wish I could lift the curse from you," Zoisite says, just a whisper, and for a moment with cut-crystal clarity he remembers Zoisite standing over him in bright slanting sunlight, soft-napped fabric of his gloves on his face, and he's kneeling at his feet and collared like a dog, but it's okay, it's good, Zoisite will take care of him, Zoisite will be kind and gentle and hurt him only when he wants it, and Jadeite runs up laughing, and his head crackles with agony, skull-splitting, but the brush of Zoisite's lips on his cheek is real.
~~~
4x4 - Nephrite, solo
Obedience
She, that damn Senshi, stands in the mouth of the cave he hides in, all but a silhouette in the dim purplish light, and the mist moves around her, and her eyes are colder than Beryl's, harder than Kunzite's, and he's a broken and crawling thing with crinkled red silk in his hand.
"Oh, come on," she says. "You know why I gave it back to you."
For kindness, he wants to say, only she's Kunzite's beast, she probably doesn't know the meaning of the word--and why should he? He's Beryl's. Beryl's lame hound, Beryl's untamed and unwanted pet.
He jacks off angrily with it, at first crouched and staring at the ground like an animal, but in the end--and it's interminable, it's hard, he's so humiliated he can barely keep himself erect--he can't keep his eyes off hers. Empty. Metallia's.
It's only later, when those same dark eyes look at him soft and warm over a bag of cookies, that he recognizes them. No, he thinks, it was for kindness. And he's free from Beryl, but he doesn't want to be, but he loves her, but she would flee from him.
He wonders if she remembers standing over him, that time, and that. And he wonders if she knows that he'd be almost happy to obey her now. But...
When he goes to sleep that night on his pallet in the back room of the Crown, he dreams of her standing over him, soft pale blue, no darkness at all, and she smiles and says you know why, only he doesn't, but when he wakes up he's still afraid that Motoki will yell at him for the mess on the sheets.
~~~
1x4 - Endymion/Nephrite
Forgetting
He finds Mamoru in an parking garage near the Crown, late at night, footsteps trailing his with hunter's ferocity.
"Master--"
"I'm not taking you back there," Mamoru says quietly, without turning around; he cannot bear to see the despair in Nephrite's eyes, and he can hear it all too well in his voice.
There's no answer. Mamoru turns then, looks back at him, all tall and thin with clenched fists under the electric lights and the concrete. He's radiating rage, pain, other things.
"I don't," he says slowly, jaw tight, "remember you. Not well."
Mamoru stares at him, puzzled. "Zoisite didn't awaken you?"
"He tried. Didn't work." Nephrite lets out a sort of choking gasp that he might have taken as a sob from another man, and looks away. "I guess I'm a failure even at that."
Mamoru stares at the familiar face all screwed up with pain under wrong-colored hair, and thinks--well, his memories aren't all there yet, aren't entirely in order, but there's the proud red-headed boy first swearing loyalty, first time in the uniform, and wrestling with Jadeite in the grass, crossing training swords with Kunzite, arguing with Zoisite over some little political matter and sputtering and collapsing exhausted and outwitted on the sofa until the music began, and naked in a cold shower all red down his back from Kunzite's whip and laughing his ass off, and singing drunk so off-key that Zoisite flinched until he fell buckled-kneed and horny into his master's lap, and pawing Jadeite's chest in the dim light of dawn, and, and--and thinks, he shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be like this.
His eyes are the wrong color.
Something in him snaps with the pain and defeat in the slump of Nephrite's shoulders, and he crosses the concrete in long strides and catches him by the front of the black rags he's been reduced to and--the garage is empty, good--backs him against the nearest pillar and whispers, "Fuck, at least remember this," and kisses him. He's half-surprised he hasn't transformed; Endymion's anger is boiling through him, Endymion's protective outrage. Nephrite is struggling, but he's the stronger by far, frightening strong, world-shaking strong, and Mamoru pins him against the concrete just by leaning against him and takes his face in his hands, the face of an ancient friend, so familiar it makes his gut twist; and Nephrite is kissing back even as he squirms, with devouring intensity, and Endymion wants to tear through anyone that would hurt him.
He slides a hand up Nephrite's shirt, feels the burning heat of him, the soft skin of his flat stomach with his muscles shifting under it as he pants for air--and there's a rough patch, a dead spot, and he lifts up the thin black shirt to see a jagged sword's-point scar to one side of his belly, and there would be another, he thought, on his back, where he'd stabbed himself through.
Endymion flares rage, and he grabs Nephrite, pulls him into a tight hug, and he's shaking in his arms.
"What did that bitch do to you?" he hears himself hiss.
"I..." Nephrite's voice is small, choking. "I failed her. I'm useless. I deserve--"
"No," he snaps, before Nephrite could even get the words out. "She set you up. She wasn't leading you properly, she wasn't taking care of you like I used to. You're not useless, you're a fine warrior. She set you up and she..."
"I don't remember you." And Endymion stops, in Mamoru's mind; the surge of his emotions and memories stops, just like that, cut to a standstill. Nephrite's voice rises, shaking with rage and loathing. "I don't remember being good! I don't remember being anything! And--and--I love her."
Mamoru closes his eyes in pain sharp like a blade as Nephrite knocks his hands away. The curse runs too deep, he thinks; it's hopeless if he still, still loves her after all this.
But then why, he thinks, does it hurt him so much to see me?
~~~
3x3 - Zoisite, solo
Appassionata
He's never needed to.
The parlor and the corridors beyond are empty, and he slides out old parchment and spreads it out on the desk and begins to play, one chord into another, a few tentative rising notes, a musical evolution, shock, resolution, the line downwards, the explosion afterwards. The brilliance, the innovation, the harsh beauty, slicing through him as he plays.
Music too complicated for magic, too unpredictable. It tugs deeper than power, than emotion, than intellect. Straight to his core, body, mind, and soul.
His hands move by themselves by now; he knows his music that well; he must. The coda soars and shrieks and fades and settles over him in a haze, and for a moment he sits there, subliminal power hanging on the air, and then drops his head and laughs his little creaky laugh and transforms out and then back into his uniform in two quick washes of light, because the front of his pants was soaked.
~~~
2x3 - Kunzite/Zoisite
Duel
Sex was power, amongst other things, and he'd put the other two in their places swiftly enough when Beryl had recalled him, and so he grabs Zoisite by the crossing of ropes in the center of his chest and kicks his bare feet out from under him and lets him fall, helpless with his hands tied in the small of his back, and catches him sharp, a hand's breadth from impact, with his hair brushing the floor--and Zoisite, calm Zoisite, shakes just a little, and he considers it a small victory.
He drops him full to the parlor floor, a bound and naked bundle, and swiftly spins more rope out of sheeting white energy and grabs for Zoisite's ankles, and the little bastard doesn't fight him in the least as he binds them, crossed so he can't close his legs to protect himself, and ties the end up to the back of the harness digging into his narrow chest, so he can't stretch them out. And Zoisite has the impudence to simply lie there, unafraid, and let him roll over a bit to get at his back, then roll him back down, chest arched where he's lying on his forearms.
At least he can't see if he's smiling anymore, not with the rope he's tied tight between Zoisite's teeth, stifling that mocking voice, then twined up over his face and along elegant cheekbones, in some black and painful urge to distort his beauty.
"I told you," he says quietly, "that you weren't to interfere."
Zoisite doesn't respond in the least; his eyes are closed peacefully, and he only arches his chest and hums slightly when Kunzite twists at a nipple pinned tight between ropes.
"Damn you," Kunzite hisses, and hoists Zoisite's legs onto his knee so he has access, and spits twice on his fingers, and forces one up his ass. Zoisite's eyelids flicker, and his dry lips move a little around the rope--and then he wiggles, rolls his hips, impales himself on Kunzite's finger, and Kunzite fights hard to keep his anger from reaching his face.
And waits, a long while, wondering when Zoisite's shoulders will ache, wondering when his hard-on will become frustrating; and loses patience, and shoves another finger into him. The little lubrication, he thinks, must be hurting him--oh, he remembers, of course, how they once were close, but he doesn't really care anymore if he hurts anybody--but after a while longer Zoisite, no pain in his eyes, looks up at him.
And hums, again, and this time it's a phrase, and Kunzite's stomach wrenches with the sudden realization of a move misplayed as the keys on the piano move by themselves, sinking slightly, a pianissimo echo of Zoisite's breathy hum, and the ropes on his face and ankles dissolve in green light, leaving only pink marks at the corners of his mouth.
"Damn you," he hisses again.
"You underestimated me," Zoisite says, untroubled. "That's not like you. It's not just your goals that have changed, Kunzite." He draws a deep breath, looks down with interest at his own erection. "Now get down here and finish the job."
Kunzite clenches his fists white-knuckle tight--but Zoisite has won, this round, because he misplayed, because he wasn't playing seriously enough. Only this round, he promises himself. He will win all in the end. But there's no denying that he's aching hard himself under his uniform, and the thought of fucking Zoisite still bound on the floor is getting to his head, so he inclines his head in a mocking bow, tugs up his jacket, and unzips his pants. And going in this dry would hurt him too, so he concedes to the necessity, pulls oil from the malleable ether of the Kingdom, yanks up Zoisite's legs, and plunges hard into him.
"I suppose," he says, between gritted teeth as Zoisite deliberately squeezes down tight and hot around him, "you wish I was Endymion at the moment. Your Master."
Zoisite looks up at him with a fey smile. "You have no idea what I want." He rolls his hips, strokes Kunzite's chin with the side of his foot. "Now harder."
~~~
1x5 - Endymion/Jadeite
Fruit
Kunzite has been drilling Jadeite in the courtyard for hours under the blazing summer sun, daggers against sword, past any semblance of luncheon, and when he's finally dismissed to slump sweaty and ravenous towards the dining room, he finds nothing but an empty table and a note.
I know Kunzite's being mean. Saved lunch for you. In my chambers. Master.
He collapses panting in a chair for a little while before he can bring himself to move again, and reads the note over and over, shakes his head, and grins.
Endymion is sprawled in his shirt-sleeves on the sofa in his private parlor, and greets Jadeite with a big grin and a plate of lunch--chilled fish with fruit sauce, classic midsummer's fare. Jadeite grins back, weakly, and collapses to sit on the floor at his feet, grabbing for the pitcher of ice water. Endymion ruffles his matted hair like a puppy's, though he has to wipe his hand on his pants afterwards.
"Can I," Jadeite starts, still a little breathless, and tugs on the neck of his uniform.
"'Course." So he strips to the waist in a scuffling blur and tosses his jacket aside with venom.
"Man is a menace," Jadeite mutters. "A monster. God. Remind me why I wear black?"
"Because it looks hot, dummy. Now eat."
Jadeite gathers up his lunch and leans back against the sofa with his head on the edge of a pillow and Endymion's long legs on either side of him, and as he eats they laugh and joke like boys half their age, mostly about Kunzite and what's biting his ass. Jadeite thinks sometimes that the Master probably has a little secret like this with each of them, but he can't even begin to guess how he is with the others; he just knows that, alone with Endymion, they can both be the big silly idiots they never really can around anyone else.
He finishes and sets the plate on the table, nothing but a puddle of sauce left, and Endymion bends down and licks the back of his neck. He yelps, and his spine tingles--there's that weird instinct he gets whenever anyone touches him there that says he's won, roll over now--and he blurts out, "No, stop, I'm all sweaty, that's got to taste--"
"Not too bad," says Endymion, pure mischief, and reaches for the plate. "Could use some sauce though."
Jadeite squirms as fruity fingertips streak over his neck and shoulder, but it's the methodical cleaning afterwards, all flickering tongue, that reduces him to a wiggling, giggling mess between his master's legs--and then he sees Endymion reaching for the half-empty pitcher.
"Cooled down enough yet?" he asks pleasantly as he fishes out a chunk of ice, and Jadeite goes bug-eyed as the other long-fingered hand slides down to tap his nipple.
"Oh nononono no you don't!"
"Ohhhhh yes..."
~~~
2x4 - Kunzite/Nephrite
Painslut
"So," Kunzite says, conversationally, "one of the pleasant things I've discovered about this incarnation of Earth is that there are quite a few people out there playing games like ours. And some of them have come up with some rather brilliant and, even by my standards, sadistic ideas. Consider these." He sits down on the other end of the bench that Nephrite is straddling, appreciatively eyeing the muscles in long wiry brown legs canted awkward to keep pressure off his tightly bound cock and balls, at least as best as he can with his hands cuffed behind his back.
Kunzite folds back the lid of the box he holds with a smile and watches piercing dusty blue eyes go wide over the gag.
"As you can see, they're needles. Good steel, quite fine, and very sharp. You'll be glad for that last, I think. They're meant to be inserted temporarily, with proper sterilization, of course." He sets down the box and pinches up a fold of skin from his own forearm. "Through like this, so they rest along your skin. You probably won't even bleed much."
Nephrite's eyes follow his fingers, and he smiles at him--the kind of smile that makes Jadeite back away from him--and reaches over to pick up a long, thin, vicious cane. He nudges Nephrite's head back a bit with it, watches the muscles in his throat work as he swallows hard around his gag. "Now I'm going to strap you up some place a little more convenient and warm you up with this for a while." Irregardless of the fact that he's already warmed him up with his hands and a soft leather cat'o'nine-tails, of course. He caresses Nephrite's cheek with the tip of the cane, runs it over the little mole by his nose. "Then I'm going to put some of these in down your back and ass."
Nephrite's eyes are starting to haze with that potent mix of fear, lust, and endless yearning need. Kunzite scratches the cane slowly down his chest, over a nipple, listens to his breathing getting ragged. The gag is frustrating him, he knows, but he'll need it soon; otherwise he'll bit his lip bloody.
"Then," he says, savoring the moment, "right over the needles in your skin, I'm going to keep caning you."
There's an indistinct noise that might have been a shocked and fervent curse, if not for the heavy leather bit, and he watches those bright eyes go drowning huge and all the blood drain from Nephrite's face--no doubt straight to his swollen purple cock.
"After all," and the tip of the cane reaches Nephrite's groin, tangling through thick red curls, "it's been a while since I really tested how much you can take. Now." He taps Nephrite's balls with the cane, ever so lightly, and drinks in the terrified grunt. "Stand up."
~~~
5x5 - Jadeite, solo
Loyalty
Two days before the wedding he stops nervous and alone by Mamoru's, and Usagi greets him almost like an old friend. But that's kinda nice; too long under the curse and he'd forgotten how to laugh.
He apologizes to his master in mumbles, alone upstairs, with Usagi rattling up the kitchen for some unmentionable dinner. Ever since that endless gray time began, four years as an insensate shadow clutching a painting, he's been torn in two. Master, Queen. Endymion, Beryl. He had taken him back. She had turned to him.
He goes to use the bathroom. There's a pink porcelain rabbit on the back of the toilet. Ever since he's seen his master, he's been thinking of her. Drifting dead was easy. This isn't. He's hard enough that it's hard to piss, and for a moment he just sits down on the toilet, crumples, scrubs one hand over his face with his hair curling into his eyes and fists his cock with the other, once, hard, and her cold dark eyes are softening for she had turned to him--and then thinks that if her split-off little human shadow had lived instead of her, had her power instead of her, oh fuck, she's really dead.
He chokes back tears.
A little while later, when a worried Mamoru knocks, he says he's just feeling a little queasy. Still getting used to this food thing. Been a while since he had to be human.
Mamoru leaves, and he's lied to his master, and he slides to the floor, divided.
~~~
2x4 - Kunzite/Jadeite
Punishment
"Kunzite..." Jadeite hesitates in the doorway, stomach churning, and Kunzite looks up from deep contemplation of an opening formation on his chessboard, quirks his eyebrows with that knowing smirk, and knocks a pawn down to roll in a circle on the table.
"Come in," he says, little emotion, and Jadeite drags one boot after the other, head bowed.
It's the first time he's had the guts to approach him alone. First time since he'd lifted the sword in the subspace greenwood, one step forward, plunge deep through the velvet cloak...
"I," he starts, choked up with fear. "I'm sorry. I betrayed you. Betrayed all the Shitennou. I--" He can't say all of it. He can't. If Kunzite knew--that he'd stayed after the curse was lifted, that he still loved her--he'd kill him. That's all. Just kill him. So he would have to pretend his sins were lesser.
"Say it," he hears from Kunzite, quiet and implacable. "Look at me and say it."
He looks up, slowly, forces himself to meet cool tawny eyes. Kunzite doesn't look angry. Good thing--if he did, he might have fled. He's younger than the others, he knows, not as tough; Kunzite normally is to rough for him, on the best of days, and with what he's asking now...
"I seek punishment."
Kunzite looks at him heavy-lidded, smiles faintly to himself. "Strip and kneel." He turns and paces, suitably disdainful, as Jadeite hesitates, deciding, then fumbles his way out of his clothes without magic, sets them aside, shivers naked, and sinks to his knees. And waits, staring fearful at the floor, until Kunzite's boots and the swinging hem of his cloak come into view.
"I hope," Kunzite says, "that you're not stupid enough to be doing this for my benefit."
Jadeite just shakes his head. If Kunzite wanted revenge, he'd just punish him directly, most likely cast him out of the Shitennou--one of the worst thoughts of his life, admittedly--and not wait for him to come crawling and begging. But maybe if he hurt him enough, he'd feel...
"Good," Kunzite purrs, and reaches down for a handful of golden curls to yank Jadeite's head up painfully--and there now is that horrible cruel Kunzite smile, and fear and obscene anticipation shoot through Jadeite's gut. "But you're right--it's been a good while since anyone's properly whipped you into shape." That's just murmured offhand; he hisses the word whip, and Jadeite shudders. "Now." His voice sharpens, firm as a hand round his throat. "I'm going to hurt you. A lot. And then I'm going to pass you on to the others, to Zoisite and Nephrite and the Master." Jadeite feels his eyes widen. "You'll be at everyone's disposal for as long as this lasts. When you've had enough, when you've forgiven yourself, you stand up, you apologize properly, you put your clothes back on, and it's over."
Jadeite stares up at him in confusion, scalp burning, and Kunzite smiles, only a little mocking.
"You'll understand that eventually," he says, dismissing, and then, with terrible ease, yanks Jadeite forward by the hair and tosses him full length on the floor, and he yelps in surprise, limp cock caught awkward against the hardwood, and Kunzite plants a boot in the middle of his back when he tries to squirm into a more comfortable position. "But until that point," he goes on, unruffled, "you will be naked and crawling. Should it last long enough for this to be an issue, you will sleep and eat on the floor. You will not speak unless spoken to, you will not be allowed to come...I'd imagine you know what you're in for."
Jadeite bites back a terrified protest. It wouldn't do a thing. He's Kunzite's toy now; he knows by the terrible command in his voice. The pressure of the boot lifts a little and slides rough up his back, and then the toe forces his head down, face to the floor, and holds him there for a long minute as he pants, eyes screwed tight shut.
And he needs this, so much.
"When you've forgiven yourself, you stand up. Remember that. Now, I believe I left one of my toys in the other room. A multi-stranded whip with knotted ends. It shouldn't be out of your reach. Go find it, and bring it back in your teeth."
The boot lifts. Jadeite picks himself up shaking to all fours and starts slowly for the door.
"Jadeite," Kunzite says, soft and harsh. "I just gave you an order. What didn't you say?"
"Yes," Jadeite chokes out, "Master."
~~~
1x2 - Endymion/Kunzite
Alpha
"Master," Kunzite says quietly. "Are we alone?"
It's been three months. Three months since Kunzite appeared before him in the forest outside that damn amusement park. Three months of watching his shoulders become a little less tense every time he visited, of watching his formality and self-discipline settle down to their usual--still strict--level, rather than the terrible high they'd been on when he first returned. He figured Usagi was part of the problem, too, and Nephrite's romance with Ami, but still...
"Yeah. Usagi's gone for the day." He looks Kunzite up and down. There's clarity in his face. Peace. After untold lifetimes twisted by vengeance. It had been easy to rebuild his loyalty, their friendship...but three months until they were again comfortable with closeness. "I'll close the blinds."
He goes to do so, and latches the windows, and locks the doors. He feels a little paranoid, but his hands move of their own accord, for the part of him that's Endymion needs to feel utterly safe. As does, he thinks, Kunzite. When two alpha males go to play a game, it's not for their followers, nor anyone else, to know who ends up on top. A matter of honor.
He returns to stand before Kunzite, and for a long while, they just look at each other, two friends who read each other's faces like open books and do not know what's written in their own. It could go either way. Kunzite so rarely swallows his pride enough to submit to him fully, but he could need it now, need the security, the acceptance. He wonders if he has the presence of mind to take him, if that's what he wants; it's not easy.
"Master," Kunzite says, pleasant and diplomatic. "Am I correct in thinking that you have not had the pleasure of submission since our falling out in the past life?"
A sort of profound relief washes through him. "No." He smiles ruefully. "It's not like I'd let anyone else do it. You've spoiled me."
There's that familiar lop-sided, twisting curve of Kunzite's lips--an expression of raw confidence and lust far more than happiness. "I'm flattered." After a moment, the smile drains away. "After all I've done," he whispers, "you still--"
"I trust you with my life," Mamoru says, and sinks slowly to his knees before the leader of his Shitennou, and it feels like rediscovering some secret cave, crawling into some safe space he hasn't been in for years, lighting candles and curling up, cradled in the hands of a great man.
Kunzite looks down at him with respect in his tawny eyes, and runs his hands gently through his hair, over his face, as if he'd never expected to see him beneath him again. Gloved hands--he keeps to his uniform, even now, when they're not around strangers. And Mamoru is in just his plain human clothes, feeling small beneath Kunzite's regalia. He leans into the touch a little, and Kunzite pets him like a cat, hands so warm, as they always were.
They both smile, small, at each other, and then Kunzite's smile twists and his eyes spark and Mamoru feels the first hint of delicious, anticipating fear as Kunzite seems to draw power to himself in a sudden storm, looking down at him now with terrible, indomitable force of will, a sense of command that bleeds out into the air around him, and the hands leave his face, slide down his neck, and rip his shirt open in one swift, painful tug.
~~~
4x5 - Nephrite/Jadeite
Skirts
Well, fair enough, Nephrite thinks, they've been living on Earth and slowly assimilating for two months now, ever since the Master's wedding, and he's even talked Kunzite out of flying into a fit every time he goes out with Ami, but Jadeite is really, even by his standards, taking this too far. He looks over at his roommate sprawled out on the bed in only his pants--blue jeans, for the love of all that is holy, and they look too damn good on him--reading a book and scratching his bare belly.
"Jadeite?"
"Mm?"
"Why do you have a dress in your closet?"
Jadeite blinks, then shrugs, a roll of sleek shoulders. "You sure Ami didn't leave something here?"
"No." Nephrite thumbs the soft, plain black fabric dubiously. "It's not hers. And I would've given it back to her, not hung it up..."
Jadeite shrugs again, tosses the book aside, stretches, and wiggles. The late afternoon light through the thin curtains is painting him all gold. The swells of wiry muscle in his shoulders, the scattering of fine hair on his forearms, the dusty dark spots of his nipples--all gold, and it's giving Nephrite a hard-on, and so is the way those jeans frame his hips and ride just below his trim waist. But when Nephrite just stares at him, still dubious, Jadeite sits up, elbows on knees, and tosses his hair out of his face, and peeks over his shoulder into the closet.
"Right, that dress," he says, blue eyes sparkling. "Want to see me in it?"
Nephrite sputters. "You wear dresses? Why the hell do you wear dresses?"
"They look nice." He shrugs. "Nothing fancy. I just think my legs look hot in a skirt. Besides, I have this really weird memory of getting really, really drunk--a while ago, maybe Beryl had fucked with my head--and pretending I was a policeman. Only in a skirt. Do you remember anything like that?"
Nephrite stares at him in utter disbelief, head spinning a little, and has a very, very faint memory of wearing a hat. And yelling a lot, but he remembers that most of the time from those days. "Maybe we should ask Zoisite?" he ventures.
"Eh, he'll think we're mad. Besides, it's probably not important. Anyway, want to see me in it?"
He'll probably look like an idiot, Nephrite thinks; it'll be a good laugh. But when he tries to picture it--the soft stretchy stuff probably clings to Jadeite's ass a little, like Ami's skirts do sometimes, and his legs probably would look good, and damn it, the thought is sort of hot. Though it would look stupid with the jeans. "Will you take your pants off first?"
"Sure," Jadeite says cheerfully, and reaches for his fly. "Will you fuck me afterwards? It's been a while."
Nephrite's dick comes to the decision rather faster than he does, and he finds himself tugging the dress off the hanger and tossing it at Jadeite's head. "You're bloody mad, and I'm going to pound you senseless. Go put it on."
"Yay!"
~~~
1x3 - Endymion/Zoisite
Rings
His Master is a virgin; or rather, the human boy who is becoming his Master is a virgin; and he does not want to die like this.
The black tooth of that damned stone pulses under the skin of his chest, and Zoisite can feel it cold beneath his skin when he runs his hands down his Master's chest, power pulsing like the distant touch of a silky black flower. Every time he sees it, his heart wrenches, an angry fist on the bass notes, a wrong chord. He's dying. He's dying before his eyes.
His mind, Zoisite thinks, must be slipping and sliding, grating this way and that, catching again and again on the Princess--and every time it does his Master's groans of pain are like knives through him, and he can feel the whisper of black magic draining away another mouthful of his life, and it passes over his skin and raises goosebumps and he can never catch it.
He had not been particularly afraid in lifetimes. Not with the castle ceiling caving in upon him. Not spiraling into death the first time, nor any of the rest. Certainly not in battle, or enduring Beryl's torture. But now--
He wants to tell him he isn't going to die. But the stone beats there like a new heart, and he cannot lie to his Master. So he just locks the door against Beryl's prying human shadow, and it's a strange dance, so strange, and painful, because his Master remembers, he can tell, remembers every step, but has never before walked them, and he is dying, and his heart is dying with him, sucked away. And Zoisite has spent countless millennia wanting this, more than anything in the world, but not even knowing why, or how, or with who, but wanting so hard that the first sight of the perfectly familiar figure in the tux had shattered--everything he thought he was.
He, here now, is not the Master he remembers. He's a bit thinner, very morose, circumcised, and the barenaked head of his cock alarms Zoisite in ways he cannot name. And he does not command him with the same power, and he shakes with virgin nerves when he touches him, shakes his head when he hesitates. "Go ahead," he whispers. "Fuck me, please." I don't want to die a virgin.
Zoisite lies back along the bed--and just being here again, naked beneath his Master, makes his eyes water--and guides him down atop him, and his Master groans as he sinks down slowly on his cock, almost painfully tight, and it's one long strange blinding pleasure in the mad night in the Kingdom.
His Master has an odd look upon his face, contemplative, even as he shakes with the pain of a virgin.
"I remember," he says, at length, and stills his shuddering attempts to move and just sits there impaled upon him. "I was...riding you like this, once, long ago." He runs his hands down Zoisite's arms, and Zoisite pants at his touch, because he wants it so much it hurts. "You were chained to my bed with silver rings. There was a scarf tied round your eyes. There was a ring..." He doesn't say it, but wraps thumb and middle finger round the base of his cock and balls, and there's a puzzled look on his face which means he doesn't understand why. "And--this seems like the most important thing in the world, I don't know why..." He lets go of his cock, hesitantly brings his hand to touch the base of Zoisite's throat. "There was a ring round your neck."
"You had it made for me, in secret," Zoisite whispers. "It locked shut, and you kept the key, and it would be hidden under my uniform, so only you and the Shitennou knew what I was to you. It--I lost it. When I died."
The sound that lock had made when it first closed, silvery steel around his throat forever, was etched into his memory. The weight of it at the base of his neck, the way it tugged if he was leashed by it, exactly how he would spin the lock to the back and fold his collar over it.
"But why?" his Master asks, now, the circumcised boy atop him. "Why did I--own you?"
Zoisite closes his eyes for a moment, because the mere fact that his Master had to ask that hurt more than anything else in his life.
"Because I loved you."
~~~
This is the result of a challenge I set myself: yaoi fiend that I am, I was overwhelmed by the plethora of pretty men and accompanying subtext, and went to write a ficlet for every possible combination of the Shitennou and Endymion. Hence the concept of a multiplication table. I had way too much fun doing this.
Author Name: Arkady
Story Title: Multiplication Tables
Genre: Various, though predominantly smutty drama.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: The sex is usually implied, but not always, and the solo bits are exactly what you think they are. All ficlets can be expected to contain BDSM elements (I find it peculiarly hard to write vanilla), and spoilers abound. Individual ficlets will have warnings as appropriate for stealth het or kinkier sex. Also note that not all of the boys were particularly pleasant people during their time in the Dark Kingdom; there are pieces with consent issues and similar unpleasantness, and those will have triggery warnings.
Pairing: Besides the obvious, there are bits of Nephrite/Ami, Kunzite/Darkury, Jadeite/Beryl, and Mamoru/Usagi.
Time Frame: Various.
Status: Complete.
So pick a ficlet from the table (cut so it doesn't break friendspages), from the list, or just read 'em through if you're brave. (I did attempt to assemble a vaguely coherent reading order.)
Endymion
Kunzite
Zoisite
Nephrite
Jadeite
Endymion
Lost
(angst, het)
Alpha
(power exchange)
Rings
(heavy D/s, angst)
Forgetting
(angry snogging)
Fruit
(fluff)
Kunzite
Alpha
(power exchange)
Power
(het)
Duel
(mind games, triggery)
Painslut
(heavy S&M)
Punishment
(heavy BDSM)
Zoisite
Rings
(heavy D/s, angst)
Duel
(mind games, triggery)
Appassionata
(musical sex magic)
Persona
(curse issues, triggery)
Eclipse
(gratuitous symbolism)
Nephrite
Forgetting
(angry snogging)
Painslut
(heavy S&M)
Persona
(curse issues, triggery)
Obedience
(het, triggery)
Skirts
(crossdressing, het, crack)
Jadeite
Fruit
(fluff)
Punishment
(heavy BDSM)
Eclipse
(gratuitous symbolism)
Skirts
(crossdressing, het, crack)
Loyalty
(angst)
1x1 - Endymion, solo
Lost
Hina's gone.
He stands naked in the spacious British bathroom and squints at his back in the mirror. There isn't a scar. Kunzite had laid him open to the ribs, he thought, and he remembers the pain, and he'd lain in the hospital from shock, but now he looks and there's nothing. All sewn up with golden light.
He rubs his shoulder and sits weakly on the edge of the tub. Hina's gone. Usagi knows who he is. Usagi is Sailor Moon, is the flutter of a skirt in the wind, is the Princess, is silky bare arms in the grass a billion years ago. And the ghost, he'd thought, that man's ghost, is haunting him still, is Zoisite, is alive, is striped red bare back in the parlor a billion years ago.
He's had two lovers he doesn't even remember, and Hina's gone, and that doesn't account for the odd stray memories of Jadeite naked or Kunzite's teeth on the back of his neck, and Usagi is in middle school you lech, and Hina's gone, and Zoisite had come to him in the hospital, and what is he doing in England now anyway, and he's died and doesn't even have a scar to prove it, and Hina's gone, and he's lost.
White silk. He's jet-lagged and his whole life has fallen to pieces and turned upside-down and been hijacked by fate, and all he can think of is white silk. Fine white silk spinning against his legs as a Princess laughed. Heavy white silk crumpling to the floor as a Shitennou stripped for his master. He doesn't understand why he'd held one end of a chain round Zoisite's neck and smiled. And he doesn't understand why he and Serenity died with, for, because of love.
He's so hard it aches, and he jerks off mechanically down the bathtub drain to make it go away, and then washes it down and leaves the water running until it overflows and steams, and he hunches down to his eyes long as he could hold his breath, because everything's fallen apart into white silk.
~~~
3x5 - Zoisite/Jadeite
Eclipse
It started with the Master and Kunzite talking in low, clipped tones out on the lawn, with Kunzite spinning a black-lensed telescope in his gloved hands and frowning a lot, but the moment Nephrite came striding over the new-mown grass it had turned into a screaming fight, and now Jadeite is hiding in the parlor, arms folded tight across his chest, hunched as though his half-cape can somehow cover him.
"I hate it when they fight," he mutters, and Zoisite, who's been in silence at the piano for some time, looks over with a distant note of sympathy.
"Could you close the blinds, please?" he asks, and after a moment, Jadeite shakes himself into motion and walks over slowly to pull the cords. Curtains glide slow across the floor-to-ceiling windows; the yelling men fade from view; the light dims an octave.
Jadeite lights the lamps before he's asked, and doesn't need to know what they're fighting about, and doesn't ask if Zoisite wants to watch the eclipse. The moon will cover the sun, and Kunzite will watch it grim through his telescope, and they're fighting about the Princess.
Lately it's like everyone is becoming dim and dark and worried and no-time-for-jokes, like that bit near the end of a really rollicking adventure story when the writer decides to suddenly make it serious and boring, and Jadeite can't think what he could possibly, possibly do with himself.
He hears Nephrite yell, and startles, but can't make out the words.
"Jadeite," Zoisite says softly. "Let's do something worthwhile with our time."
He slides over a bit, and pats smooth dark wood beside him, and Jadeite comes hesitant to sit, the soprano end of the keyboard spread before him, the heat of Zoisite's body all up his side.
Zoisite nudges his foot out of the way so he can reach the pedal and begins to play, long swelling arpeggios, and Jadeite recognizes the piece and lifts one hand to pluck out notes. He'd tried to teach him once, a while back, and he'd been terrible at it, so they'd mostly played duets, easy stuff, with him playing one simple line, slow enough that it almost didn't matter if he messed up, and no matter what he did it sounded good anyway, because Zoisite could cover for him. It had never made sense to him, that the bad player gets the melody.
The piece ends; they let the sound fade. The sunlight leaking round the curtains is starting to darken. Zoisite puts his arm round his shoulders, beaded brocade crinkling, and then turns his head to look at him with a shimmer of earring, and there is a slight change to the set of his mouth, a slight flicker in his eyelids, and the message is clear, the command absolute, and they kiss, long and slow, with Zoisite's hand firm on the back of his neck, holding him. Because Zoisite never hurts him like Kunzite does; he merely controls him, all quiet and implacable mastery, and now that little falling feeling he gets in his stomach when Zoisite looks at him that way is a mooring line and a lamp.
When the light fades entirely, totality, Jadeite is curled naked in Zoisite's lap as he sits cross-legged, fully dressed, on the floor beside the piano, and he lets out a little frightened kitten whine as the curtains go dark, and Zoisite strokes his hair, white gloves in golden curls.
~~~
2x2 - Kunzite, solo
Power
Kunzite never looks at women, and yet when he masturbates methodically, most mornings, he thinks of them.
By now he's disporting himself frequently with all the Shitennou, and, less often, with Master Endymion himself. He's never considered himself a sexual being--one thing or another, training or duties or power, has always been more important, and still is--but he's somehow metamorphosed into one, and it's too late to be disconcerted by it. They've all come to rely on him, and now that he's discovered that sex and power could go hand in hand...well, that's that.
Hence the ritual morning release of tension. Easier to play the game when the urge to simply grab his victim and fuck him so he could come already is lessened. Control is another aspect of power, after all.
And what would be the point of having sex with a weakling? That is why he loves his Shitennou so--the power in Nephrite's seemingly boundless yen for pain, the exquisite mind games he plays with Zoisite and the Master. Power even in Jadeite's sheer energy and sexual appetite. Not like the wilting flowers of Earth's court, all shy and weak-willed and wasting their time in jealousy and gossip. Like that red-haired wench who keeps making doe-eyes at the Master--how can a woman expect to find a lover by hiding from him? No guts.
She'd be a horrible match for him anyway. Bad family.
He wishes he could force his mind to stop presenting vague, shining fantasies, impossible dreams, of women with guts and brains, with spark and shadow in their eyes and appetites as perverse as his own. It's an exercise in frustration. And humiliation, to not have control of such things.
Earth doesn't make women well. But the heavens, he discovers, the heavens are another matter. When the envoys come, for once, he looks: at the four soldiers who guard them, small bodies standing tall and proud, long bare legs scandalous down the marble halls of Earth. Even the quietest one, in blue, stronger than any woman he's yet met. He wonders, before checking himself, if they play amongst themselves as his Shitennou do...
But they were of the Moon, and he was of the Earth, and of course it could not be. And of course he understood when his master looked long after their high-strung princess. And of course, in the end, he hated him all the more, for giving in when he did not.
~~~
3x4 - Zoisite/Nephrite
Persona
"This isn't who we are," Zoisite says quietly, and there's a rare note of despair in his voice.
Nephrite, curled bruised and naked in some far-off nook, feels Beryl's eyes upon him, always upon him, and he's drunk stupid on pain in the long shadows of the Kingdom. Everyone else has hurt him and trampled him down; Zoisite will want a turn, he supposes.
His life began when Beryl's power tugged him out of limbo, when black petals embraced him and set him down on the cavern floor, a blank slate upon which was written nothing more than love her, obey her--but he is beginning to think things that should not be there, things that make no sense, shadows before the eraser scuffed over him, and every time he does his head aches. Jadeite should be smiling, he thinks, for no reason, and a vise closes round his skull. He should be happy when Kunzite beats him, he thinks, and the screw tightens. Zoisite should be his friend, he thinks, and it's iron drilling into his temples. There should be a prince--and whenever he thinks that his vision goes black with pain.
So Jadeite is angry and power-hungry, and it makes perfect sense that he'd smile brutally and line up to fuck him when Kunzite says go ahead, you're better than him anyway, take him. So Kunzite is cruel and wanton, and it makes perfect sense that he watches with a black look in his eyes and his sword in his hand and that damn Senshi perched on his knee, and his mouth is bloody after she kisses him. And they'd tied him down and used him up and left him alone with only his Queen's distaste, because nobody, not even Zoisite, was his friend. Because the word friend does not exist in the Dark Kingdom.
"I think you know just a little too much for comfort," Zoisite says, "and I believe you think rather much too little for use."
He's pretty sure Zoisite's just insulted him, but he hurts too much to care. And besides, Zoisite's untrustworthy, always has been, prefers working alone, is delusional now, says his Queen--kind, and hammers pound in his skull, caring, and there are ice picks behind his eyes--and Zoisite, the traitor who some shred of his mind is screaming through all the pain is a friend, is touching his cheek gently with one gloved hand, above the bruise Jadeite had left on his mouth.
"I wish I could lift the curse from you," Zoisite says, just a whisper, and for a moment with cut-crystal clarity he remembers Zoisite standing over him in bright slanting sunlight, soft-napped fabric of his gloves on his face, and he's kneeling at his feet and collared like a dog, but it's okay, it's good, Zoisite will take care of him, Zoisite will be kind and gentle and hurt him only when he wants it, and Jadeite runs up laughing, and his head crackles with agony, skull-splitting, but the brush of Zoisite's lips on his cheek is real.
~~~
4x4 - Nephrite, solo
Obedience
She, that damn Senshi, stands in the mouth of the cave he hides in, all but a silhouette in the dim purplish light, and the mist moves around her, and her eyes are colder than Beryl's, harder than Kunzite's, and he's a broken and crawling thing with crinkled red silk in his hand.
"Oh, come on," she says. "You know why I gave it back to you."
For kindness, he wants to say, only she's Kunzite's beast, she probably doesn't know the meaning of the word--and why should he? He's Beryl's. Beryl's lame hound, Beryl's untamed and unwanted pet.
He jacks off angrily with it, at first crouched and staring at the ground like an animal, but in the end--and it's interminable, it's hard, he's so humiliated he can barely keep himself erect--he can't keep his eyes off hers. Empty. Metallia's.
It's only later, when those same dark eyes look at him soft and warm over a bag of cookies, that he recognizes them. No, he thinks, it was for kindness. And he's free from Beryl, but he doesn't want to be, but he loves her, but she would flee from him.
He wonders if she remembers standing over him, that time, and that. And he wonders if she knows that he'd be almost happy to obey her now. But...
When he goes to sleep that night on his pallet in the back room of the Crown, he dreams of her standing over him, soft pale blue, no darkness at all, and she smiles and says you know why, only he doesn't, but when he wakes up he's still afraid that Motoki will yell at him for the mess on the sheets.
~~~
1x4 - Endymion/Nephrite
Forgetting
He finds Mamoru in an parking garage near the Crown, late at night, footsteps trailing his with hunter's ferocity.
"Master--"
"I'm not taking you back there," Mamoru says quietly, without turning around; he cannot bear to see the despair in Nephrite's eyes, and he can hear it all too well in his voice.
There's no answer. Mamoru turns then, looks back at him, all tall and thin with clenched fists under the electric lights and the concrete. He's radiating rage, pain, other things.
"I don't," he says slowly, jaw tight, "remember you. Not well."
Mamoru stares at him, puzzled. "Zoisite didn't awaken you?"
"He tried. Didn't work." Nephrite lets out a sort of choking gasp that he might have taken as a sob from another man, and looks away. "I guess I'm a failure even at that."
Mamoru stares at the familiar face all screwed up with pain under wrong-colored hair, and thinks--well, his memories aren't all there yet, aren't entirely in order, but there's the proud red-headed boy first swearing loyalty, first time in the uniform, and wrestling with Jadeite in the grass, crossing training swords with Kunzite, arguing with Zoisite over some little political matter and sputtering and collapsing exhausted and outwitted on the sofa until the music began, and naked in a cold shower all red down his back from Kunzite's whip and laughing his ass off, and singing drunk so off-key that Zoisite flinched until he fell buckled-kneed and horny into his master's lap, and pawing Jadeite's chest in the dim light of dawn, and, and--and thinks, he shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be like this.
His eyes are the wrong color.
Something in him snaps with the pain and defeat in the slump of Nephrite's shoulders, and he crosses the concrete in long strides and catches him by the front of the black rags he's been reduced to and--the garage is empty, good--backs him against the nearest pillar and whispers, "Fuck, at least remember this," and kisses him. He's half-surprised he hasn't transformed; Endymion's anger is boiling through him, Endymion's protective outrage. Nephrite is struggling, but he's the stronger by far, frightening strong, world-shaking strong, and Mamoru pins him against the concrete just by leaning against him and takes his face in his hands, the face of an ancient friend, so familiar it makes his gut twist; and Nephrite is kissing back even as he squirms, with devouring intensity, and Endymion wants to tear through anyone that would hurt him.
He slides a hand up Nephrite's shirt, feels the burning heat of him, the soft skin of his flat stomach with his muscles shifting under it as he pants for air--and there's a rough patch, a dead spot, and he lifts up the thin black shirt to see a jagged sword's-point scar to one side of his belly, and there would be another, he thought, on his back, where he'd stabbed himself through.
Endymion flares rage, and he grabs Nephrite, pulls him into a tight hug, and he's shaking in his arms.
"What did that bitch do to you?" he hears himself hiss.
"I..." Nephrite's voice is small, choking. "I failed her. I'm useless. I deserve--"
"No," he snaps, before Nephrite could even get the words out. "She set you up. She wasn't leading you properly, she wasn't taking care of you like I used to. You're not useless, you're a fine warrior. She set you up and she..."
"I don't remember you." And Endymion stops, in Mamoru's mind; the surge of his emotions and memories stops, just like that, cut to a standstill. Nephrite's voice rises, shaking with rage and loathing. "I don't remember being good! I don't remember being anything! And--and--I love her."
Mamoru closes his eyes in pain sharp like a blade as Nephrite knocks his hands away. The curse runs too deep, he thinks; it's hopeless if he still, still loves her after all this.
But then why, he thinks, does it hurt him so much to see me?
~~~
3x3 - Zoisite, solo
Appassionata
He's never needed to.
The parlor and the corridors beyond are empty, and he slides out old parchment and spreads it out on the desk and begins to play, one chord into another, a few tentative rising notes, a musical evolution, shock, resolution, the line downwards, the explosion afterwards. The brilliance, the innovation, the harsh beauty, slicing through him as he plays.
Music too complicated for magic, too unpredictable. It tugs deeper than power, than emotion, than intellect. Straight to his core, body, mind, and soul.
His hands move by themselves by now; he knows his music that well; he must. The coda soars and shrieks and fades and settles over him in a haze, and for a moment he sits there, subliminal power hanging on the air, and then drops his head and laughs his little creaky laugh and transforms out and then back into his uniform in two quick washes of light, because the front of his pants was soaked.
~~~
2x3 - Kunzite/Zoisite
Duel
Sex was power, amongst other things, and he'd put the other two in their places swiftly enough when Beryl had recalled him, and so he grabs Zoisite by the crossing of ropes in the center of his chest and kicks his bare feet out from under him and lets him fall, helpless with his hands tied in the small of his back, and catches him sharp, a hand's breadth from impact, with his hair brushing the floor--and Zoisite, calm Zoisite, shakes just a little, and he considers it a small victory.
He drops him full to the parlor floor, a bound and naked bundle, and swiftly spins more rope out of sheeting white energy and grabs for Zoisite's ankles, and the little bastard doesn't fight him in the least as he binds them, crossed so he can't close his legs to protect himself, and ties the end up to the back of the harness digging into his narrow chest, so he can't stretch them out. And Zoisite has the impudence to simply lie there, unafraid, and let him roll over a bit to get at his back, then roll him back down, chest arched where he's lying on his forearms.
At least he can't see if he's smiling anymore, not with the rope he's tied tight between Zoisite's teeth, stifling that mocking voice, then twined up over his face and along elegant cheekbones, in some black and painful urge to distort his beauty.
"I told you," he says quietly, "that you weren't to interfere."
Zoisite doesn't respond in the least; his eyes are closed peacefully, and he only arches his chest and hums slightly when Kunzite twists at a nipple pinned tight between ropes.
"Damn you," Kunzite hisses, and hoists Zoisite's legs onto his knee so he has access, and spits twice on his fingers, and forces one up his ass. Zoisite's eyelids flicker, and his dry lips move a little around the rope--and then he wiggles, rolls his hips, impales himself on Kunzite's finger, and Kunzite fights hard to keep his anger from reaching his face.
And waits, a long while, wondering when Zoisite's shoulders will ache, wondering when his hard-on will become frustrating; and loses patience, and shoves another finger into him. The little lubrication, he thinks, must be hurting him--oh, he remembers, of course, how they once were close, but he doesn't really care anymore if he hurts anybody--but after a while longer Zoisite, no pain in his eyes, looks up at him.
And hums, again, and this time it's a phrase, and Kunzite's stomach wrenches with the sudden realization of a move misplayed as the keys on the piano move by themselves, sinking slightly, a pianissimo echo of Zoisite's breathy hum, and the ropes on his face and ankles dissolve in green light, leaving only pink marks at the corners of his mouth.
"Damn you," he hisses again.
"You underestimated me," Zoisite says, untroubled. "That's not like you. It's not just your goals that have changed, Kunzite." He draws a deep breath, looks down with interest at his own erection. "Now get down here and finish the job."
Kunzite clenches his fists white-knuckle tight--but Zoisite has won, this round, because he misplayed, because he wasn't playing seriously enough. Only this round, he promises himself. He will win all in the end. But there's no denying that he's aching hard himself under his uniform, and the thought of fucking Zoisite still bound on the floor is getting to his head, so he inclines his head in a mocking bow, tugs up his jacket, and unzips his pants. And going in this dry would hurt him too, so he concedes to the necessity, pulls oil from the malleable ether of the Kingdom, yanks up Zoisite's legs, and plunges hard into him.
"I suppose," he says, between gritted teeth as Zoisite deliberately squeezes down tight and hot around him, "you wish I was Endymion at the moment. Your Master."
Zoisite looks up at him with a fey smile. "You have no idea what I want." He rolls his hips, strokes Kunzite's chin with the side of his foot. "Now harder."
~~~
1x5 - Endymion/Jadeite
Fruit
Kunzite has been drilling Jadeite in the courtyard for hours under the blazing summer sun, daggers against sword, past any semblance of luncheon, and when he's finally dismissed to slump sweaty and ravenous towards the dining room, he finds nothing but an empty table and a note.
I know Kunzite's being mean. Saved lunch for you. In my chambers. Master.
He collapses panting in a chair for a little while before he can bring himself to move again, and reads the note over and over, shakes his head, and grins.
Endymion is sprawled in his shirt-sleeves on the sofa in his private parlor, and greets Jadeite with a big grin and a plate of lunch--chilled fish with fruit sauce, classic midsummer's fare. Jadeite grins back, weakly, and collapses to sit on the floor at his feet, grabbing for the pitcher of ice water. Endymion ruffles his matted hair like a puppy's, though he has to wipe his hand on his pants afterwards.
"Can I," Jadeite starts, still a little breathless, and tugs on the neck of his uniform.
"'Course." So he strips to the waist in a scuffling blur and tosses his jacket aside with venom.
"Man is a menace," Jadeite mutters. "A monster. God. Remind me why I wear black?"
"Because it looks hot, dummy. Now eat."
Jadeite gathers up his lunch and leans back against the sofa with his head on the edge of a pillow and Endymion's long legs on either side of him, and as he eats they laugh and joke like boys half their age, mostly about Kunzite and what's biting his ass. Jadeite thinks sometimes that the Master probably has a little secret like this with each of them, but he can't even begin to guess how he is with the others; he just knows that, alone with Endymion, they can both be the big silly idiots they never really can around anyone else.
He finishes and sets the plate on the table, nothing but a puddle of sauce left, and Endymion bends down and licks the back of his neck. He yelps, and his spine tingles--there's that weird instinct he gets whenever anyone touches him there that says he's won, roll over now--and he blurts out, "No, stop, I'm all sweaty, that's got to taste--"
"Not too bad," says Endymion, pure mischief, and reaches for the plate. "Could use some sauce though."
Jadeite squirms as fruity fingertips streak over his neck and shoulder, but it's the methodical cleaning afterwards, all flickering tongue, that reduces him to a wiggling, giggling mess between his master's legs--and then he sees Endymion reaching for the half-empty pitcher.
"Cooled down enough yet?" he asks pleasantly as he fishes out a chunk of ice, and Jadeite goes bug-eyed as the other long-fingered hand slides down to tap his nipple.
"Oh nononono no you don't!"
"Ohhhhh yes..."
~~~
2x4 - Kunzite/Nephrite
Painslut
"So," Kunzite says, conversationally, "one of the pleasant things I've discovered about this incarnation of Earth is that there are quite a few people out there playing games like ours. And some of them have come up with some rather brilliant and, even by my standards, sadistic ideas. Consider these." He sits down on the other end of the bench that Nephrite is straddling, appreciatively eyeing the muscles in long wiry brown legs canted awkward to keep pressure off his tightly bound cock and balls, at least as best as he can with his hands cuffed behind his back.
Kunzite folds back the lid of the box he holds with a smile and watches piercing dusty blue eyes go wide over the gag.
"As you can see, they're needles. Good steel, quite fine, and very sharp. You'll be glad for that last, I think. They're meant to be inserted temporarily, with proper sterilization, of course." He sets down the box and pinches up a fold of skin from his own forearm. "Through like this, so they rest along your skin. You probably won't even bleed much."
Nephrite's eyes follow his fingers, and he smiles at him--the kind of smile that makes Jadeite back away from him--and reaches over to pick up a long, thin, vicious cane. He nudges Nephrite's head back a bit with it, watches the muscles in his throat work as he swallows hard around his gag. "Now I'm going to strap you up some place a little more convenient and warm you up with this for a while." Irregardless of the fact that he's already warmed him up with his hands and a soft leather cat'o'nine-tails, of course. He caresses Nephrite's cheek with the tip of the cane, runs it over the little mole by his nose. "Then I'm going to put some of these in down your back and ass."
Nephrite's eyes are starting to haze with that potent mix of fear, lust, and endless yearning need. Kunzite scratches the cane slowly down his chest, over a nipple, listens to his breathing getting ragged. The gag is frustrating him, he knows, but he'll need it soon; otherwise he'll bit his lip bloody.
"Then," he says, savoring the moment, "right over the needles in your skin, I'm going to keep caning you."
There's an indistinct noise that might have been a shocked and fervent curse, if not for the heavy leather bit, and he watches those bright eyes go drowning huge and all the blood drain from Nephrite's face--no doubt straight to his swollen purple cock.
"After all," and the tip of the cane reaches Nephrite's groin, tangling through thick red curls, "it's been a while since I really tested how much you can take. Now." He taps Nephrite's balls with the cane, ever so lightly, and drinks in the terrified grunt. "Stand up."
~~~
5x5 - Jadeite, solo
Loyalty
Two days before the wedding he stops nervous and alone by Mamoru's, and Usagi greets him almost like an old friend. But that's kinda nice; too long under the curse and he'd forgotten how to laugh.
He apologizes to his master in mumbles, alone upstairs, with Usagi rattling up the kitchen for some unmentionable dinner. Ever since that endless gray time began, four years as an insensate shadow clutching a painting, he's been torn in two. Master, Queen. Endymion, Beryl. He had taken him back. She had turned to him.
He goes to use the bathroom. There's a pink porcelain rabbit on the back of the toilet. Ever since he's seen his master, he's been thinking of her. Drifting dead was easy. This isn't. He's hard enough that it's hard to piss, and for a moment he just sits down on the toilet, crumples, scrubs one hand over his face with his hair curling into his eyes and fists his cock with the other, once, hard, and her cold dark eyes are softening for she had turned to him--and then thinks that if her split-off little human shadow had lived instead of her, had her power instead of her, oh fuck, she's really dead.
He chokes back tears.
A little while later, when a worried Mamoru knocks, he says he's just feeling a little queasy. Still getting used to this food thing. Been a while since he had to be human.
Mamoru leaves, and he's lied to his master, and he slides to the floor, divided.
~~~
2x4 - Kunzite/Jadeite
Punishment
"Kunzite..." Jadeite hesitates in the doorway, stomach churning, and Kunzite looks up from deep contemplation of an opening formation on his chessboard, quirks his eyebrows with that knowing smirk, and knocks a pawn down to roll in a circle on the table.
"Come in," he says, little emotion, and Jadeite drags one boot after the other, head bowed.
It's the first time he's had the guts to approach him alone. First time since he'd lifted the sword in the subspace greenwood, one step forward, plunge deep through the velvet cloak...
"I," he starts, choked up with fear. "I'm sorry. I betrayed you. Betrayed all the Shitennou. I--" He can't say all of it. He can't. If Kunzite knew--that he'd stayed after the curse was lifted, that he still loved her--he'd kill him. That's all. Just kill him. So he would have to pretend his sins were lesser.
"Say it," he hears from Kunzite, quiet and implacable. "Look at me and say it."
He looks up, slowly, forces himself to meet cool tawny eyes. Kunzite doesn't look angry. Good thing--if he did, he might have fled. He's younger than the others, he knows, not as tough; Kunzite normally is to rough for him, on the best of days, and with what he's asking now...
"I seek punishment."
Kunzite looks at him heavy-lidded, smiles faintly to himself. "Strip and kneel." He turns and paces, suitably disdainful, as Jadeite hesitates, deciding, then fumbles his way out of his clothes without magic, sets them aside, shivers naked, and sinks to his knees. And waits, staring fearful at the floor, until Kunzite's boots and the swinging hem of his cloak come into view.
"I hope," Kunzite says, "that you're not stupid enough to be doing this for my benefit."
Jadeite just shakes his head. If Kunzite wanted revenge, he'd just punish him directly, most likely cast him out of the Shitennou--one of the worst thoughts of his life, admittedly--and not wait for him to come crawling and begging. But maybe if he hurt him enough, he'd feel...
"Good," Kunzite purrs, and reaches down for a handful of golden curls to yank Jadeite's head up painfully--and there now is that horrible cruel Kunzite smile, and fear and obscene anticipation shoot through Jadeite's gut. "But you're right--it's been a good while since anyone's properly whipped you into shape." That's just murmured offhand; he hisses the word whip, and Jadeite shudders. "Now." His voice sharpens, firm as a hand round his throat. "I'm going to hurt you. A lot. And then I'm going to pass you on to the others, to Zoisite and Nephrite and the Master." Jadeite feels his eyes widen. "You'll be at everyone's disposal for as long as this lasts. When you've had enough, when you've forgiven yourself, you stand up, you apologize properly, you put your clothes back on, and it's over."
Jadeite stares up at him in confusion, scalp burning, and Kunzite smiles, only a little mocking.
"You'll understand that eventually," he says, dismissing, and then, with terrible ease, yanks Jadeite forward by the hair and tosses him full length on the floor, and he yelps in surprise, limp cock caught awkward against the hardwood, and Kunzite plants a boot in the middle of his back when he tries to squirm into a more comfortable position. "But until that point," he goes on, unruffled, "you will be naked and crawling. Should it last long enough for this to be an issue, you will sleep and eat on the floor. You will not speak unless spoken to, you will not be allowed to come...I'd imagine you know what you're in for."
Jadeite bites back a terrified protest. It wouldn't do a thing. He's Kunzite's toy now; he knows by the terrible command in his voice. The pressure of the boot lifts a little and slides rough up his back, and then the toe forces his head down, face to the floor, and holds him there for a long minute as he pants, eyes screwed tight shut.
And he needs this, so much.
"When you've forgiven yourself, you stand up. Remember that. Now, I believe I left one of my toys in the other room. A multi-stranded whip with knotted ends. It shouldn't be out of your reach. Go find it, and bring it back in your teeth."
The boot lifts. Jadeite picks himself up shaking to all fours and starts slowly for the door.
"Jadeite," Kunzite says, soft and harsh. "I just gave you an order. What didn't you say?"
"Yes," Jadeite chokes out, "Master."
~~~
1x2 - Endymion/Kunzite
Alpha
"Master," Kunzite says quietly. "Are we alone?"
It's been three months. Three months since Kunzite appeared before him in the forest outside that damn amusement park. Three months of watching his shoulders become a little less tense every time he visited, of watching his formality and self-discipline settle down to their usual--still strict--level, rather than the terrible high they'd been on when he first returned. He figured Usagi was part of the problem, too, and Nephrite's romance with Ami, but still...
"Yeah. Usagi's gone for the day." He looks Kunzite up and down. There's clarity in his face. Peace. After untold lifetimes twisted by vengeance. It had been easy to rebuild his loyalty, their friendship...but three months until they were again comfortable with closeness. "I'll close the blinds."
He goes to do so, and latches the windows, and locks the doors. He feels a little paranoid, but his hands move of their own accord, for the part of him that's Endymion needs to feel utterly safe. As does, he thinks, Kunzite. When two alpha males go to play a game, it's not for their followers, nor anyone else, to know who ends up on top. A matter of honor.
He returns to stand before Kunzite, and for a long while, they just look at each other, two friends who read each other's faces like open books and do not know what's written in their own. It could go either way. Kunzite so rarely swallows his pride enough to submit to him fully, but he could need it now, need the security, the acceptance. He wonders if he has the presence of mind to take him, if that's what he wants; it's not easy.
"Master," Kunzite says, pleasant and diplomatic. "Am I correct in thinking that you have not had the pleasure of submission since our falling out in the past life?"
A sort of profound relief washes through him. "No." He smiles ruefully. "It's not like I'd let anyone else do it. You've spoiled me."
There's that familiar lop-sided, twisting curve of Kunzite's lips--an expression of raw confidence and lust far more than happiness. "I'm flattered." After a moment, the smile drains away. "After all I've done," he whispers, "you still--"
"I trust you with my life," Mamoru says, and sinks slowly to his knees before the leader of his Shitennou, and it feels like rediscovering some secret cave, crawling into some safe space he hasn't been in for years, lighting candles and curling up, cradled in the hands of a great man.
Kunzite looks down at him with respect in his tawny eyes, and runs his hands gently through his hair, over his face, as if he'd never expected to see him beneath him again. Gloved hands--he keeps to his uniform, even now, when they're not around strangers. And Mamoru is in just his plain human clothes, feeling small beneath Kunzite's regalia. He leans into the touch a little, and Kunzite pets him like a cat, hands so warm, as they always were.
They both smile, small, at each other, and then Kunzite's smile twists and his eyes spark and Mamoru feels the first hint of delicious, anticipating fear as Kunzite seems to draw power to himself in a sudden storm, looking down at him now with terrible, indomitable force of will, a sense of command that bleeds out into the air around him, and the hands leave his face, slide down his neck, and rip his shirt open in one swift, painful tug.
~~~
4x5 - Nephrite/Jadeite
Skirts
Well, fair enough, Nephrite thinks, they've been living on Earth and slowly assimilating for two months now, ever since the Master's wedding, and he's even talked Kunzite out of flying into a fit every time he goes out with Ami, but Jadeite is really, even by his standards, taking this too far. He looks over at his roommate sprawled out on the bed in only his pants--blue jeans, for the love of all that is holy, and they look too damn good on him--reading a book and scratching his bare belly.
"Jadeite?"
"Mm?"
"Why do you have a dress in your closet?"
Jadeite blinks, then shrugs, a roll of sleek shoulders. "You sure Ami didn't leave something here?"
"No." Nephrite thumbs the soft, plain black fabric dubiously. "It's not hers. And I would've given it back to her, not hung it up..."
Jadeite shrugs again, tosses the book aside, stretches, and wiggles. The late afternoon light through the thin curtains is painting him all gold. The swells of wiry muscle in his shoulders, the scattering of fine hair on his forearms, the dusty dark spots of his nipples--all gold, and it's giving Nephrite a hard-on, and so is the way those jeans frame his hips and ride just below his trim waist. But when Nephrite just stares at him, still dubious, Jadeite sits up, elbows on knees, and tosses his hair out of his face, and peeks over his shoulder into the closet.
"Right, that dress," he says, blue eyes sparkling. "Want to see me in it?"
Nephrite sputters. "You wear dresses? Why the hell do you wear dresses?"
"They look nice." He shrugs. "Nothing fancy. I just think my legs look hot in a skirt. Besides, I have this really weird memory of getting really, really drunk--a while ago, maybe Beryl had fucked with my head--and pretending I was a policeman. Only in a skirt. Do you remember anything like that?"
Nephrite stares at him in utter disbelief, head spinning a little, and has a very, very faint memory of wearing a hat. And yelling a lot, but he remembers that most of the time from those days. "Maybe we should ask Zoisite?" he ventures.
"Eh, he'll think we're mad. Besides, it's probably not important. Anyway, want to see me in it?"
He'll probably look like an idiot, Nephrite thinks; it'll be a good laugh. But when he tries to picture it--the soft stretchy stuff probably clings to Jadeite's ass a little, like Ami's skirts do sometimes, and his legs probably would look good, and damn it, the thought is sort of hot. Though it would look stupid with the jeans. "Will you take your pants off first?"
"Sure," Jadeite says cheerfully, and reaches for his fly. "Will you fuck me afterwards? It's been a while."
Nephrite's dick comes to the decision rather faster than he does, and he finds himself tugging the dress off the hanger and tossing it at Jadeite's head. "You're bloody mad, and I'm going to pound you senseless. Go put it on."
"Yay!"
~~~
1x3 - Endymion/Zoisite
Rings
His Master is a virgin; or rather, the human boy who is becoming his Master is a virgin; and he does not want to die like this.
The black tooth of that damned stone pulses under the skin of his chest, and Zoisite can feel it cold beneath his skin when he runs his hands down his Master's chest, power pulsing like the distant touch of a silky black flower. Every time he sees it, his heart wrenches, an angry fist on the bass notes, a wrong chord. He's dying. He's dying before his eyes.
His mind, Zoisite thinks, must be slipping and sliding, grating this way and that, catching again and again on the Princess--and every time it does his Master's groans of pain are like knives through him, and he can feel the whisper of black magic draining away another mouthful of his life, and it passes over his skin and raises goosebumps and he can never catch it.
He had not been particularly afraid in lifetimes. Not with the castle ceiling caving in upon him. Not spiraling into death the first time, nor any of the rest. Certainly not in battle, or enduring Beryl's torture. But now--
He wants to tell him he isn't going to die. But the stone beats there like a new heart, and he cannot lie to his Master. So he just locks the door against Beryl's prying human shadow, and it's a strange dance, so strange, and painful, because his Master remembers, he can tell, remembers every step, but has never before walked them, and he is dying, and his heart is dying with him, sucked away. And Zoisite has spent countless millennia wanting this, more than anything in the world, but not even knowing why, or how, or with who, but wanting so hard that the first sight of the perfectly familiar figure in the tux had shattered--everything he thought he was.
He, here now, is not the Master he remembers. He's a bit thinner, very morose, circumcised, and the barenaked head of his cock alarms Zoisite in ways he cannot name. And he does not command him with the same power, and he shakes with virgin nerves when he touches him, shakes his head when he hesitates. "Go ahead," he whispers. "Fuck me, please." I don't want to die a virgin.
Zoisite lies back along the bed--and just being here again, naked beneath his Master, makes his eyes water--and guides him down atop him, and his Master groans as he sinks down slowly on his cock, almost painfully tight, and it's one long strange blinding pleasure in the mad night in the Kingdom.
His Master has an odd look upon his face, contemplative, even as he shakes with the pain of a virgin.
"I remember," he says, at length, and stills his shuddering attempts to move and just sits there impaled upon him. "I was...riding you like this, once, long ago." He runs his hands down Zoisite's arms, and Zoisite pants at his touch, because he wants it so much it hurts. "You were chained to my bed with silver rings. There was a scarf tied round your eyes. There was a ring..." He doesn't say it, but wraps thumb and middle finger round the base of his cock and balls, and there's a puzzled look on his face which means he doesn't understand why. "And--this seems like the most important thing in the world, I don't know why..." He lets go of his cock, hesitantly brings his hand to touch the base of Zoisite's throat. "There was a ring round your neck."
"You had it made for me, in secret," Zoisite whispers. "It locked shut, and you kept the key, and it would be hidden under my uniform, so only you and the Shitennou knew what I was to you. It--I lost it. When I died."
The sound that lock had made when it first closed, silvery steel around his throat forever, was etched into his memory. The weight of it at the base of his neck, the way it tugged if he was leashed by it, exactly how he would spin the lock to the back and fold his collar over it.
"But why?" his Master asks, now, the circumcised boy atop him. "Why did I--own you?"
Zoisite closes his eyes for a moment, because the mere fact that his Master had to ask that hurt more than anything else in his life.
"Because I loved you."
~~~