[Talk Like a Pirate Day] Chapter 9: "Well, Blow Me Down" -- Full Version
STORY TITLE: "Talk Like a Pirate Day"
CHAPTER: 9 - "Well, Blow Me Down" (Full Version)
SERIES: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, xxxHoLic, X/1999, Tokyo Babylon
DISCLAIMER: Everything in the CLAMP Megaverse was originally created by CLAMP. They are entirely to blame for creating a system of crossovers that do not easily disclaim. Characters have been adapted without authorization or approval, and I am making no profit from their use.
PAIRINGS: Kurogane x Fai D. Fluorite (main). References made to: Doumeki Shizuka x Watanuki Kimihiro, Aoki Seiichirou x Kasumi Karen, Li Syaoran x Princess Sakura, Sakurazuka Seishirou x Sumeragi Subaru, Clow Reed x Ichihara Yuuko, Ashura-Ou x Fai D. Fluorite, Monou Fuuma x Shirou Kamui, Shirou Kamui x Monou Kotori (this list applies to the work as a whole and may not be depicted equally in every chapter)
RATING: NC-17. Strong language and explicit sex, prisoner situation.
WARNINGS: 1) Pirates. 2) Ninjas.
SEQUEL TO: Rum & Popcorn
SUMMARY: Long ago, in a universe slightly askew to this one, circumstances beyond anyone's control led to a fierce and bitter rivalry between Pirates and Ninjas, but Kurogane doesn't care about that. His only concern was to retrieve Princess Sakura and Syaoran from the Pirate King's ship...
But his work here is finished, except for the detail of being tied up in the brig. He's got some time to spare for settling the score with Fai.
Previously...
1: Ahoy, Matey! // 2: Drivelswigger // 3: Jolly Roger // 4: Shot Across the Bow // 5: Batten Down the Hatches // 6: Athwartships // 7: Futtock Shrouds // 8: Hornswaggle
Well, Blow Me Down (excl) used to express amazement or disbelief
Tonight was certainly a night for late strolls, Fai thought. And the close, wooden halls had that feeling of lonely timelessness that sometimes haunted the wee hours. He stretched his arms over his head, working out the comfortable discomfort of late turning early as he took the stairs down to the brig where his parlay waited. The crew had all made themselves scarce, but no matter. The ship herself felt more like a companion to him than sailors who drifted in and away, like specters and dreams as the years passed.
He could live for countless centuries, he was sure, and never feel out of his time as long as a man like that ninja could walk into his life. He made the room reverberate with the same strength as the ancient men who'd been made into legends and gods by history.
That Kuro-tan could hold his own in a fight against anyone -- even Subaru -- was no shock. Twenty years ago, he'd been the young prodigy who'd fought to a standstill half of the previous Council, in the form of all four Ryuudo brothers. A talented little kid, he'd thought, and true to promise the ninja had grown up even more impressive. But who could have expected he would walk alone through the front door to take the Princess and succeed? And by exploiting the Pirate Code itself, too.
Parlay. Of all things.
He couldn't wait to find out what the ninja wanted to 'discuss'. Once he was outside the brig, he could feel every heartbeat as he waited and listened with a grin he couldn't quell. The faint scrape of a chair leg on the floor said that his ninja hadn't escaped. Subaru had said he'd bound the man's hands -- as one simply had to do to keep ninja anywhere -- and he'd said Kurogane had suffered it with the air of someone who expected escape not to trouble him. That being the case, he'd been 'extremely thorough' about it. No doubt that meant there was magic involved. Knots were no more secure than rope was impervious to a blade -- often less so, when ninja were concerned. The young Syaoran had given them trouble enough, trying to break Princess Sakura free in the week past.
Well, the girl might have required a change of tactic anyway. She clearly wasn't the type to form alliances with her captors, at least not with her boyfriend around. And besides, he'd gotten his extremely rare Kuro-danna in exchange -- one of a kind, just like Aoki had said. Really, the disappointment of losing the Princess was more than compensated for.
Lifting the latch as he bit his lip, Fai swept into the brig. And didn't Kuro-puu make a pretty picture, all trussed and tied to his chair? Eyes like that outshone even the watchfires on the walls of Yuuko's own fortress with the way they promised to spy every false move. Quite ravishing. Granted, the spread of fruits laid on the table next to him -- parlay did demand some hospitality -- had done him no good, but he wasn't likely to have eaten anything even if he'd been free. As it was, one could hardly tell he'd been struggling against Subaru's ropes at all. Fai stepped closer, passing into range to see every detail.
The lashings crossed over his ninja's chest had pushed his shirt open far enough to see collarbones shining with a light sweat in the lamplight. The faintest hint of rope burn glowed pink on his skin. And if he looked hungry... well, it was for something other than the apples and pears just in from the mainland. Fai would have said that luck was smiling on him if he hadn't known that bastard Clow was in charge of luck, and Clow only smiled when someone else's pants were (literally or metaphorically) on fire.
The man in front of him was as close to relaxed as a man could look with his wrists knotted up behind a chair back and his ankles lashed to the chair legs. All his experience with ninja over the years told him that so much ease meant his captive had a plan, though the shape of it was as yet unclear. Kuro-nin's attention seemed fully fixed on delivering Fai the ever complimentary 'up and down'. Without bothering to hide his grin, Fai took a seat on the edge of the table. His captive audience could take as good a look as he wanted. Fai knew when a man liked what he saw.
"Well, now you look the part."
"I've always cleaned up well," he answered, and nicked a pear off the table behind him. "Since I heard you wanted to talk to me..."
"Sorry, haven't had a chance to change myself."
No one present had complained about the shirt tattered almost into nonexistence, nor about the worn breeches as far as Fai recalled. On the contrary, that aesthetic flattered the ninja's sturdy build. Politesse might usually demand that he, as host, return the jacket the ninja had worn aboard, but Fai had no intention of it. Kurogane had left it behind after making romantic overtures, which made the jacket his if he wanted it -- and he did. Fai couldn't remember the last time one of his bedfellows had left something that he hadn't thrown out the door behind the man, but there was a first for everything. So with a shrug, Fai pulled a knife from his boot and cut a slice from the pear in his hand. "I'll forgive you, since it's your first time at parlay, Kuro-kicchi." A pair of red eyes studied him, flickering fiercely at the nickname. "Though you must tell me where you picked up the notion. I think we'd know if it had been added to the ninja training manuals."
"Like I'd tell you that. You said you know me; you should know I take secrets to my grave."
"Oh, you're so serious, Kuron-pi."
He thought he'd seen it earlier, when they'd had their last discussion on the floor of his cabin, but he'd been too occupied to be sure. Now he was certain: even through his ninja's battle face, each nickname earned him another twitch of an eyebrow. More fun for him.
"We can hardly have a conversation if neither of us says anything the other doesn't already know. So why don't I start?" he went on, playing up a sorrowful pout. "To be honest, it's my privilege to provide suitable attire to a guest who asks for parlay, as they're usually without the means, but I'm afraid you're broader in the shoulders than any of the lords present. That, and Subaru considered you a flight risk."
"Your Sumeragi's nothing to trifle with. I'll give him that. And to look at him, you wouldn't think he was much more than a boy." He narrowed his eyes at Fai, who kept smiling as he ate his bit of pear. "That said, I've fought some of the previous Pirate Lords. Before the rest of your crew's time -- but I'd swear he was there, just as he is now."
"Mm-mm," Fai answered, shaking a finger. "I told you, Kuro-wanwan. If I spare you those details, it's for your own good. What happens to men who involve themselves with demons..." He sighed at the lift in his ninja's eyebrow and ate another slice from the fruit. "Well, I suppose it's in the eye of the beholder whether you're less than human afterwards or more, but believe me --"
"So which are you?"
He stopped mid-bite to stare down a man doing his best to look right through him. Fai had met a very few people who were better at that, but that wasn't bad. How many years had it been since anyone had taken that talk seriously? More than he could count -- not that he intended to let any surprise show. A calm swallow, then a smile. He could depend on a smile. "Which am I?"
"You're the one I want to know, not him," he said, and Fai felt a warm shiver all over from the unforgiving tone in the man's voice. 'I want to know'. It had a dangerous ring to it, as if Kurogane realized exactly how unreasonable a desire that was. And even though the ninja's eyes focused in on his own, he could feel their glance like a brush on his bare skin. Odd, to think someone could make him feel suddenly naked, just with a few words and a look, when he'd always felt decent stripping down to nothing. But stripping down on purpose wasn't like getting caught ironing your shirt while wearing just your socks -- and by a man who could make every cheek you had blush. "Whatever line he crossed, you did, too," his companion followed on his silence. "Don't try to lie."
And there was no way the ninja was working with something Yuuko had told him -- there wasn't a creature in the world who could afford that kind of information. Seishirou catching up Subaru in his game. He, falling in with Ashura and watching his love go mad. He and the Sumeragi might be as different as night and day, but they had both, without a doubt, sailed right past whatever 'line' that was. Fai had a feeling Kurogane thought that meant something other than it did, but he didn't need to explain just because he didn't want to think of a lie good enough to get him out of that conversation.
The pear and the knife went down on the table, and he laid his hat to the other side as he played off his ninja's serious eyes with a chuckle. "We're not exactly the same, Subaru and I," he answered. Hopping off the table, he took the two steps to the chair and leaned in so they were face to face. Not a touch, though. They were just talking. Until he figured out the ninja's game and how best to win it, talking was all he planned to indulge in. "Maybe you'd be safer with him, lover. Subaru never messes around."
The ninja's glare didn't waver, he noticed with a nearly honest smile. That hot-out-of-the-oven studmuffin was going to have to learn that ninja weren't the only ones who could keep a secret when they wanted to. Holding lightly to a corner of the chair back, Fai wound his way behind his guest. "Messing around is my specialty, though."
A quick glance down at the man's hands showed that they were a bit worse for the wear than his chest. Proper rope burn, verging on being rubbed raw, and a bit of frayed rope to show for it. He couldn't see a blade, but there had to be one somewhere to make those cuts in his bonds. So, escape was at least part of the goal.
"You didn't mind it before," he hinted, brushing his thumb across the lovely piece of real estate where the ninja's neck met his shoulder. And then trailing both his hands down the ropes pinning his chest to the chair... and possibly grazing his skin a little, too. So much for not touching.
No problem. The way the ninja breathed heavier and smirked said he liked it. "Could have been better."
Fai let out a tiny scoff, basking in the confident ring of what some might have called an insult. A pleasant scent of eau d'exertion tinged the man's dark hair as he leaned close enough to whisper, "Is that a promise?" against his ear. He had to admit, he was hoping when he stepped around to straddle his enemy's lap that he might see Kurogane taken aback. Taken off guard. It was a very pleasant surprise to see him staring hard instead and halfway to the snarl of a wolf set to rip out his prey's throat with his teeth.
In the good way.
The ropes creaked and complained and dug a little tighter into the ninja's skin when he pulled on them to draw himself closer in. He brushed their noses and laughed. "Because you know, Kuro-rin--"
"It's Kurogane," the man corrected, his breath making Fai's lips tremble.
He took a moment to enjoy the shiver dancing up and down his spine, and wrapped his arms around the ninja's neck. "If you really want to fuck me again," he murmured, close enough for Kurogane to taste his words. "... I'd advise against asking if I'm older than I look."
It was possible he'd left his mouth parted inside his companion's threat range to see if he'd take the bait. He didn't have to wait too long to find out the answer was 'Yes'. The ninja laid claim to a kiss practically before his words had stopped. Fai felt like a starving man on his second bite of food, as it rushed past his consciousness into a third and a fourth with the sensation of taste and feel lagging an instant behind. His mind caught up to his body to find himself pitched into the kiss, from his toes on the floor to his thighs feeling the cut of the chair to his tongue playing a reel against his new lover's.
He'd definitely wanted to play it cooler than this, even if any plans of staying hands-off had been doomed to fail as soon as he'd seen Kurogane all wrapped up like a present. The chance to trail his fingers down the solid chest hiding under those weather-beaten rags was all he'd wanted for the past little while, but now that he could feel his ninja, warm between his thighs and close as breathing, anticipation filled him like a sudden wind in a slack sail. The unguarded moan breaking from his throat was his last cue to back off. Either he'd wanted Kurogane more than he'd realized, or that man was better at kissing than a man had any right to be.
But a good strategic retreat didn't mean surrender. It just meant retaking control with a gleeful laugh at a fraction of an inch's distance. At least, retaking control of himself. He couldn't claim to have control of the entire situation yet, as Kurogane reminded him with a soft peck to the corner of his lips and a gentle brush of their faces as real lovers might do. The man was good. All a-shiver from tip to toes, Fai closed his eyes to better feel the breath on his cheek.
"I don't care how old you are," that voice whispered, "but I think I'll do you best if you give me my hands to work with." The throaty rumble had to be calculated to send that thrill down his spine. It was too perfect -- not that he was upset. Honed technique was an excellent trait in a partner. "I wouldn't say no to being up from this chair, putting you on your back on that table. Though if you prefer the floor--"
Oh, dear, Fai thought, breaking out into a snicker. Well, that was downright classic.
Exploiting your enemy's weakness for an advantage. Generally that worked better on enemies who didn't spend most of their time on the other side of the equation.
"I prefer you right where you are, lover," he answered. Fai pushed himself back across the ninja's legs and stepped away. It'd been a long time since he'd enjoyed a parlay this much. "If you want your hands, you'll have to take them back yourself. You don't think I'm fool enough to let you run?"
The ninja looked as amused as he felt himself, gorgeous mouth pulled into a brash smirk. "I haven't seen anything to run from yet."
"Well, Kamui looked like he planned to change your mind about that." Fai could watch the shifts on that face through self-satisfied and confused and unimpressed from sunset to sunrise and probably not get bored once. So while he took his seat on the table edge again, swinging his legs like a child, he teased... and watched. "You really upset him with this ploy of yours, you know. He's incensed." And he had been, too. The first mate's hair was amazingly expressive some days, and today it had looked like pure violence. Maybe if Kuro-tan would have seen it, he'd have been swayed, but it wasn't likely. No sense pressing the matter, either. Instead, Fai cut off a slice of the pear he'd set aside before. "Now, won't you have some fruit? You'll make me out to be a bad host when you get home."
"I'll pass, thanks. Don't like to eat within an hour before swimming."
Fai met meaningful stare for meaningful stare and ate the slice himself, through a grin he definitely didn't need to fake. "Mmm. I love bravado. We don't get that from nearly enough ninja." Sighing, he set the rest aside for now. "Too bad you won't eat, though. You want to know me, don't you? That's what you said. We have a saying in the fleet -- you never really know a man 'til you've shared his food."
"I've heard that. But in your case, I think I'll need more than a pear."
"Sweet-talker." Fai leaned forward with his face set in his smile. "If you're offering me another shot at you in exchange for your freedom, just say so. I might be willing to negotiate."
Kuro-puu shook his head. "If I thought that'd work, you wouldn't be worth my time. No negotiations."
Now he was getting a little too sweet, and a little too harsh at the same time. There was no way a man with Kurogane's reputation would drop everything in the middle of a rescue mission gone slightly wrong, just to play around, no strings attached. "We'll have to negotiate something if we're going to get out of this little mess. You see, I'm sure you can tell keeping your protege locked up was a becoming a problem. I'll admit that. You're better than he is, and you're not guarding someone; I'm letting myself and my crew in for a world of trouble if I try to keep you here. All kinds of vexation, and nothing to show for it, except maybe a good lay now and again. So, the way I see it, you're not worth my time." There was a bit of a lie in that, but long-term it always ended up being true. The ninja didn't blink at the critique -- kept his peace and kept his eyes locked. "I could kill you, but I get the feeling it'd be just as much trouble and I wouldn't get anything out of it at all. Which leaves me with letting you go, and that's trouble, too. I'm sure I don't need to explain to one of Yuuko's men why I can't give you something for free."
"So don't give me anything. I'm leaving this ship by daybreak, one way or another," he answered. "There's only one thing I want from you--"
"Clichés, Kuro-tan. Not a selling point."
"--and that's an answer you won't put on the table. But you can't hide behind that mask forever."
He'd see about that.
"A mask? Don't be silly, lover -- you know how pirates are. What you see is what you get."
"What I see is a crew of good men who wouldn't put up with your shit without a good reason." Without a response, Fai looked steadily back at his captive's glare. Then, all of a sudden, the glare changed just as it had when the ninja had kissed him back in his quarters. His eyes weren't soft by any means, but they pierced him as if he were soft. It didn't hurt like it should have, and he couldn't fear it breaking him enough to try making it stop. "So give me a good reason. Next time I see you, why am I going to put up with it, too?"
When would that ninja stop saying things to make him blush? Fai hadn't blushed in longer than he could remember, and he'd had no intention of starting again. "Were next times up for discussion?" he asked, and immediately had to bite his tongue. The words had come out more hopeful than he'd meant them to sound.
The answer was supposed to be 'No', but the silence he got instead was full of promises.
Whether or not they ran into each other again, he wasn't going to talk about it. Any of it. Planning on someone led to having someone you planned on, and coming up with reasons to stay together beyond a passing mutual benefit was asking for trouble. "I won't give you reasons. A better man than me says there's no way to truly understand another person. You'll always be someone else to them. I can't tell you what to think of me."
Yet again, that hadn't come out as cool as he'd meant to be. The words might have been fine if he could have sounded more detached -- less vulnerable -- when he said them, but speech seemed to be problematic for him today. It was his own fault, really, for quoting Subaru to try shutting someone out. 'I can never understand your pain,' had practically been the words that turned them from acquaintances into friends. Maybe the ninja's eyes made him feel like he'd forgotten to breathe. He could handle a little physical attraction, and he certainly hadn't known the man long enough to be at risk of anything else.
But. No more conversation, not if he couldn't trust his tongue and Kurogane was just going to sit there and let him hang himself with it. No choice but to get closer and change the topic, or to admit defeat in whatever game they were playing. That wasn't going to happen on his own home ground. Instead, he put on a smirk that was as close as he could manage to the ninja's own and strode up to the side of the chair. He stood close, one knee resting across the ninja's lap and drawing up against his bare chest. The unmistakable sensation of warm skin burned through his trousers with a slow and steady heartbeat drumming against his groin. With one hand, he raked his fingers into Kurogane's hair and pulled his head back while he traced the flexed arch of his neck with the other.
"If you want to come find me, that's on you." Fai bit his lip with a pout, looking for a hungry shine to rise up again in his ninja's eyes. "There's nothing to negotiate, you said, so I suppose the parlay's over. Time for me to decide your fate. Or maybe you thought you could keep me entertained long enough that you could escape and 'incapacitate' me again?"
"I still think that."
"You might find yourself at a disadvantage, Kuro-sama. I won't be holding back."
"Is that a challenge?"
The glimmer in his grin was exactly what Fai had wanted to see. "Maybe," he answered in a purr, voice obeying his whims again now that he was right where he wanted to be.
A sharp jerk of Kurogane's leg from under his knee shifted the chair and the steadiness of his perch just enough to send Fai plunging straight down. He had enough awareness in that instant to keep anything delicate from catching on the ropes in the fall, and to pull his arms onto the ninja's shoulders before he toppled over, but that was all. With a breathless start, he found himself back nose to nose, straddling one very cocksure brute, and this time already unbalanced before the kissing had even started.
"Then bring it."
Growling men were such a turn-on. He could hardly be blamed for devouring his mouth in a kiss. This time he was ready to savor every second: the way the fabric in Kurogane's shirt sounded as he tore it the rest of the way open, the throaty laugh he could turn into a moan by grinding hard against his body, how the ninja's tongue liked to tease. Part of his curiosity from earlier was settled in fairly short order as his Kuro-han proved beyond a doubt that he was a better kisser than a man had a right to be. Thank goodness for little miracles. And he was different now than when he'd been playing the role of 'the pirate Breath-Wallace' in Fai's berth. Before, he'd felt properly invaded and ravaged, as if the man had been playing out a textbook model of a 'pirate's kiss'. Now, Kurogane must have been using a fully honed skill-set, because the luring caresses and sudden bites managed to set him at least twice as strongly ablaze.
He couldn't separate in his mind where the breath on his ear stopped and the quivers running through his body began. "Coat. Off," the ninja said.
"Are you ordering me around now?"
"You know you like it."
Well, facts were facts. He shrugged his coat off his shoulders and swung it around to hang on the back of the chair, playing with an earlobe between his teeth. He could imagine where he'd want the ninja's hand to search for space under his shirt or force him closer with a squeeze of his ass, and pulling himself in by his grip on a tightly muscled back or his fingers tangled in a mess of dark hair just wasn't enough. His skin was hungry. Oh, he loved the sound of a good, low moan when he scraped his fingernails across bare skin as much as the next man, and there was no feeling in the world pleasant in quite the same way as a good bite to the neck in just the right spot to cut off the flow of blood to his head. But all the little things, and even the searing and insistent bliss swelling in his cock every time they pushed against each other through their clothes wasn't enough.
From some men, maybe, but he knew what this one was capable of; and if the difference in a kiss was so extreme as soon as the ninja was making love the way he did it best, what was the rest going to be like? If only Kuro-kyon had been willing to deal, they might have found something worth the trade for freeing his hands, or untying him completely. It was so hard to be patient when he'd been promised a good time. He could swallow his frustration, swallow the words 'Let me cut you loose' that would call a forfeit in their little game, but that only locked it inside his blood, making him surge that much harder against the body rolling like a stormy sea below him.
"What do you want next, Kuro-sama? I don't want a little handicap getting in your way."
One tiny bite below his chin and a tug like nothing, and he could feel his cravat coming loose. "I can get the rest," he murmured through kisses down the front of Fai's neck that left his shirt falling open like magic and burned with a lingering heat on his skin after they'd passed. That was more than worth rewarding the ninja with the moan that welled up from the base of his spine and fought its way out to his quivering lips. "I'll let you unlace your pants, but only that. Don't even push 'em down."
'He'd let...'
Fai let out a soft laugh and pressed his mouth back into Kurogane's kiss as he pulled his hands down to the strings holding his pants closed. He needed a slight shift to keep himself balanced forward without his arms around the man's back or neck, but that was easy enough. Bracing his legs on the rungs of the chair, he circled his hips a few times roughly around and tasted the choked growl rolling off out of his ninja's throat.
"Do you want me to get yours while I'm in the area, lover? Or am I getting ahead of myself?"
"Just stick to the script, your majesty." With a rumbled command like that, he wasn't about to refuse. "When you're all loose, push that hand down inside. Nails and all, right down from your spine. You know where you want it."
"Your wish is my command."
Wrapping an arm around Kurogane's neck again, he rolled forward and did as he was told. One hand, dragging a trail of tingling scratches down from the small of his back slowly, flattening inside his pants and reaching two fingers to tease the ring of muscle around his opening. He thrust fore and aft with a slow rhythm, now pushing his cock forward and up along the ninja's abs to feel the sweet pressure building, now pushing down onto as much of his finger as he could manage inside his trousers. The touch teased just shy of ecstasy, and with every pass, he rubbed a little harder against the stiffening ridge standing on the man below him. Heavy breath and an occasional gasp were like ancient music in his ears that never grew old.
Kurogane murmured against his lips. "Looks like it hurts."
"Oh, do you think you were too rough before?" he scoffed. He hadn't thought any sign of distress would have been showing on his face, but he bent down to nibble the ninja's neck -- safely out of eyesight. "This is nothing. I promise, I can take whatever you feel like laying on me."
"Hmm? That's good. 'Cause I've got a few plans for you." The easy, laughing groan as Kurogane stretched out his neck to give him better access just made Fai want to bite harder. And he did. Lots. His teeth slid over the skin hiding steely muscles, the earthy scent of cedar filling his nose. A good, solid smell for a solid man. A slight flex in the ninja's knees pushed him up as he surged forward, blinding him a little bit with a flash of rapture when his already shuddering cock met sweat-dampened skin harder than he'd meant. Then, as he fell backwards again, between his compromised control and the drag of his legs pulling his pants further down on his hips, he felt his fingers hit the spot. He didn't want to fight the instinct to let the pleasure shut everything else out of his mind, but he couldn't concede until Kurogane wanted it just as much as he did. Wanted it more.
He couldn't.
"I've had you so many ways in my head." The rough whisper fell on his ear, and Fai saw no harm in playing along. With a grin peeking at the corners of his mouth, he leaned his cheek into the caress of the ninja's murmuring jaw. "Heard you beg, heard you cry out. Felt your legs wrapped around me in silk sheets and taken you with your face against the wall."
Maybe he didn't have to worry about how much his lover wanted him after all. In the middle of intimate moments, Fai preferred to believe every silly word was true. A different goal, then: to push until the man had lost the ability to put such pretty sentences together. He hadn't had a chance to make Kurogane speechless once in their little affair, and that simply wasn't acceptable. In the meantime, he'd enjoy the feel of a man tracing the line of his neck with kisses and telling him he was coveted.
"I've seen your skin shining like cream in the sun or gold under an oil-lamp, watched you spread your thighs to invite me in a thousand times. And however your eyes start, teasing or seducing or condemning me, in the end they always look like they do now. Telling me what you need."
Playing the sweetheart his ninja seemed to want, Fai kissed his eyes, that looked for so much they'd probably never see. "Is that so?" he asked, leaving off playing with himself to search for the sensitive spot behind his companion's knee. Just following orders was no good. He had to find out where the lines were, and what happened when he went too far past them. "When did you have time for all those fantasies? Busy night like tonight, I'd think you'd need your mind on your work."
"Congratulations. You were a distraction." He bit his lip to hold in a chuckle when the ninja let out a low groan. Right spot. Leaning back with a hand on each knee, he sought out a matching place on his other leg. "And if I don't want you haunting me when I leave..." Fai ground forward, reveling in the feel of Kurogane's legs tightening and pushing against his touch, the way he tilted his head back to choke back a gasp. When he moved just right, he could feel the rigid press of arousal taunting him through both their pants. Closing his eyes, he arched his back and laid himself out so he could roll his hips where the man's hardness made the nerves around his opening sing for more. His chest heaved in time with the heavy breaths of his dark-haired challenger, and he licked his lips to answer a deadly red gaze. "When I get free of these ropes, I'll make you into every vision you've conjured up in my head. You'll still be feeling me inside when your ship's timbers have gone to dust, and I'll walk out of here with you as a memory."
"I'll settle for still feeling you when you come back for more. You won't get me out of your system that easily, lover." Fai rolled himself up, clutching the ropes and whispering through kisses that let him feel the racing pulse in Kurogane's neck. "Please... let me touch you. I don't want to come by myself." He slipped his hands down under the man's waistband, pulling their bodies tighter together. His swollen erection called for him to buck, to push for satisfaction, but he fought against it until he got the word.
"Fine with me," the ninja murmured. "If you're sure you can't hold it."
With a smile, he hovered just outside of range to kiss. "Oh, I'll last a little while. I'm sure you've realized I'm not fourteen." He sat slightly back and, stroking the head of a cock standing nobly at attention, thrust his own along the shaft. Up and back, letting the sparks flying through his skin melt into moans in this throat. Rough breathing on his ear had taken the place of sweet nothings, but it was still too controlled for his tastes. "... letting go... is part of the fun, isn't it?" he gasped.
"No wonder you had me sent to your bed." Kurogane bit at his mouth and Fai let him in for another kiss that tingled all over his inflamed lips. "I bet most men who try you can't shake that facade. Can't crack you. You can feel the rush, but in the end it's only a trace of what you're after."
"Says the man who still hasn't gotten his hands untied."
He'd never asked for more than the flashes of blindness and need as the moment peaked. Never wanted more than the release he could feel coming when he brushed a hand around each of their erections, stroked harder and forgot about control. The flush staining the tender skin, the shine of the fluid trickling out. The sights, the sounds... the scent of warmed bodies filled him up with the yearning that was the most honest thing between two people. It always had been.
And in the clutch and spasm of the man beneath him, hearing that shuddering grunt, Fai gave himself over to the building ecstasy. With a tense shake, locking his legs in to keep from losing his seat in the feverish haze at climax, every other sensation disappeared behind the burst of raw exhilaration. Slowly, one perception at a time, the world faded back in. The over-sensitive hum through his falling cock and the warm gush over his hand, the brush of his lover leaning into his neck. He could feel his own pulse beating against Kurogane's chest in the heavy ease of their bodies falling together. He tasted the salt of his seed on his tongue before he realized he'd drawn his hand up and started licking it.
But it wasn't until the ninja stole his fingers into his own mouth to finish the job, waking up his whole body for another whirl, that he noticed the press of the other man's cock, warm and still solid and unspilled, against his abdomen.
"You bastard..." he whispered with a soft laugh. "See if I follow your rules again."
"Doesn't bother me if you fight back."
Someone was just begging to have his precious control stripped away.
Balanced with his hands on the ninja's thighs, Fai pushed his legs back and stepped onto the ground. "Well, Kuro-sama, if you've been having fantasies, you can't tell me this wasn't one of them." He slid down to his knees, slowly tracing a taut stomach with his lips and tongue until he was in place to leave a kiss on the quivering head of the man's cock. And then a little more. It was almost as pleasant to feel the sanguine skin, smoother than wet silk under his tongue, as it was to hear the rough shudder in his lover's breath.
"I could tell you that..."
He worked his hand around the shaft as he turned a pointed glare up at the red-eyed man he planned to drive out of his mind. "Let's keep your lies to a minimum, shall we?"
As the ninja's legs pushed open as wide as the ropes would allow, letting him lap his tongue as far as he liked, Fai heard the hissed breathing and soft groans of the mighty falling. If Kurogane meant to make a repeat appearance in his future, he was going to have to learn to abandon silly things like restraint. A chance to lose his head and act out every desire he thought he couldn't let himself have was the beginning and end of what Fai was willing to offer. And it sounded like his captive was starting to appreciate the service. Once he felt the push of the man's hips raising slightly toward him and heard him groan some rather impolite requests for more, he trailed up the slick, fevered shaft to press the head inside his mouth. Fai might have smiled quite honestly if he hadn't been so intent on relishing every tiny push against his tongue of a man years overdue for being broken.
A quake passed through Kurogane's whole body, and he answered with a push of his own, swallowing the man deep inside. He hadn't counted on the hand that suddenly raked into his hair and pulled tight, the touch sparking through all of his skin and making him moan around the phallus in his throat. He'd meant to do that anyway, but on his own terms, not because he couldn't help himself when that ninja put his hands on him.
He had to breathe, but there was no way he was going to betray how much that had shaken him. Pulling off slowly and blowing softly down the glistening cock, he asked, "So, what'll it be, lover?" punctuating the question with a quick swirl of his tongue. "Did you dream about spilling all over my face, or do you want me to taste it when you come? It's your fantasy."
Fai cast his eyes up as he attended to the insistence pushing back inside his mouth even as the ninja answered "... surprise me," around his groans. His eyes were burning, just like they should have been. With all the abandon he wanted his lover to feel, he licked and sucked, and when that last sweet shudder happened drank down the bitter fruits of his labor like it was wine. A lively, spirited vintage with overtones of steel, he thought with a laugh. He might not say no to tasting it again someday.
"Get the fuck back up here," his ninja growled, fisting a hand in his collar.
With a smirk, Fai braced himself on the edge of the seat. "Make me."
Not that he fought when the man dragged him to his feet. Much. His only time limit was how long it took him to get bored, and the grip the ninja had on the back of his thigh now was very interesting. He'd already been humming, and the sensation of that went right to his head.
Then, without letting go of the pressure shooting new arousal through his veins, Kurogane pulled his leg up and forward. He knew just how to pull the bone in Fai's hip so that the pain was searing, mingling with the pleasure until he had no hope of keeping his feet. In a blur of being handled, he felt flash after flash of his body moving by instinct without time for thought. The knee bracing him on the seat of the chair, the man tearing away his painstakingly improvised waistcoat and pulling his waistband down so hard it cut into his thigh. He pulled off his own shirt and cast it aside, gasping at the ninja's tongue on his chest. When the electrifying touch on his thigh faded into a caress up his side, Fai felt his knee go slack and had to lean into Kurogane to stand. He could see, opening his eyes, a transported expression on the ninja's face as he did something that was so much more than teasing to the gratified skin below his nipple. The chain around his neck glanced off his lover's chin, the key hanging precipitously in the air, hitting his chest again and again as it twirled.
He could feel it in his arms, now, braced on the back of the chair -- how he was pushing into the ninja's touch -- and he could hear how moans wracked his body. When one of the hands gripping his ass, pulling him in, drifted forward to stroke his shaft, he thought for an instant of saying, 'Wait... not yet.' He hadn't thought he'd be hard again so quickly. While the caress set him thrusting harder forward, there was still a bit of hurt to the touch... and if his body wouldn't listen when he tried to stop...
But he slid his foot up Kurogane's leg, and over, bracing it on the chair again, and pulled his standing leg under his weight instead, opening himself up to let the ninja's hand fondle him lower. God, there was nothing wrong with that. The word, 'Wait,' died on his tongue, and he leaned into the hair above the man's ear to whisper, "Harder..."
The world was flickering in and out before his eyes. Orgasm was threatening like a storm on the horizon, and he was set to weather its coming winds with all his sails open full. "Give it to me," he pleaded in a gasp when a finger played against his opening.
Kurogane circled him slowly, saying, "Tell me."
"Inside... I..." He felt the same power that made his knees weak stealing his words before he could speak them, but he felt a touch within him shooting an intense savor through everything.
"Why... you?"
"Why...?"
The ninja's breath played against his torso. "Everything you do, everything you are... I swear, you're everything I hate more than anything."
"Go ahead and hate me," he murmured, riding into the touches that set him aflame inside and out. "I don't mind."
As long as he...
"That's the problem." The ninja's words took a moment to register, and once he did hear them Fai couldn't be bothered to think about what they meant. He sometimes thought he hadn't wanted this touch or that so much in a century or more, but this time he was sure. He wanted this more than he had in a long, long time. Arching closer, his skin fluttered under Kurogane's lips reaching his neck, and delicious chills spread down his back. "How do you pull me in this way?"
He wanted to laugh, but it came out as another gasp, and the first words to mind tumbled through his lips. "Dearest, I'm just picking up the gauntlet you dropped."
Fai heard his own words, and threw his eyes open, forcing himself to focus on the golden key hanging between their bodies. He knew where he'd heard those words before. Hadn't Ashura whispered them, the first time he'd taken his pleasure in the demon lord's bed? He hadn't meant that. Never that. Though he fought to push the word, 'Stop,' out of his mouth, the wanting in every inch of his skin wouldn't let him say it any more than he'd been able to ask the ninja to wait.
Two hands caught him as he started falling, guiding him down to sit, caressing his thighs, pressing up his back...
"What's wrong?"
This wasn't what he wanted. Not a pair of tender arms to hold him when he was weak. And this wasn't Ashura. He was fucking a stray ninja while he waited for the dawn, not making love back when he'd had no idea how deep that could go. But the words, 'Nothing's wrong,' were stopped in his throat like all the rest. He breathed out a strained moan, the only sound he could make, and reached out to kiss the ninja's mouth. Rocking steadily against his touch, he came at last, the feeling searing everything else out of his brain like he'd known it would.
But when the haze cleared, he found himself pulling Kurogane's arms around his back and holding on tight. Their breaths mingling, their lips touching now and again, two hearts beating at odd rhythms hammering against his chest and slowing to rest. But this wouldn't happen again. He wouldn't have to let the ninja go if it never happened like this again.
"This has been a nice chat," he said when he found his voice. He fought the urge to nuzzle against the man's neck, no matter how much he'd meant to play with his romantic notions. Right now, it was too dangerous. "Inconclusive, though. I really should give the Lords their vote in what's to become of you."
Kurogane laughed against his neck. "I think I know what they'll say."
He drew his hands down the man's shoulders and arms, which fell away without argument to let him stand and put himself to rights. His legs felt fine now. Barely a tremor, except when his lover's eyes looked at him with shadows of questions that they both knew weren't going to be answered. "I'm sure you do. So, fair's fair." Fai knelt to pick up his shirt and pulled it over his head, dropping the scarf as he stood on the table by his hat. "You gave me a head start. I'll give you the same," he said, circling behind the chair to take his coat.
"And what then?"
Fai trailed his fingers through the sweaty spikes of dark hair and leaned over to kiss him one last time under the ear.
"Like I'd tell you that."
He didn't look back as he walked away, placing his hat on his head and throwing the scarf over his arm. He didn't need to look back. If he did, the only thing that'd be waiting for him was a face and a man he well remembered.
Naturally six of his seven lords were waiting in the hall outside. Subaru would be back in his room, basking in the momentary calm. Kamui was standing facing the wall, but he turned around (and then turned red as he dropped his face into his palm) as soon as he heard the door close.
"Uh," Sorata began, scratching his head with a bright smile. "So..."
"I'll tell you everything you need to know..."
Fai cast his eyes toward the entrance to the brig. The council behind him sounded like they were one and all holding their breaths.
"Just stay right where you are until I say, 'Go.' Ten... nine... eight... seven..."
And like a burst of wind, the door flew open to show an empty chair surrounded by cut ropes.
"Six-five-four-three-two-one-go."
concluded in...
10: Davy Jones
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AUTHOR'S NOTES
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The tenth and final chapter has already been written beta'd, so this time when I say "You won't have to wait long," I'm talking about a matter of hours rather than days. Hope you're still having fun!
I'll get around to posting crosslinks tomorrow. It's late.
In the meantime, innumerable thanks go to my beta reader, sumeria, who keeps my prose on the right side of mauve.
CHAPTER: 9 - "Well, Blow Me Down" (Full Version)
SERIES: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, xxxHoLic, X/1999, Tokyo Babylon
DISCLAIMER: Everything in the CLAMP Megaverse was originally created by CLAMP. They are entirely to blame for creating a system of crossovers that do not easily disclaim. Characters have been adapted without authorization or approval, and I am making no profit from their use.
PAIRINGS: Kurogane x Fai D. Fluorite (main). References made to: Doumeki Shizuka x Watanuki Kimihiro, Aoki Seiichirou x Kasumi Karen, Li Syaoran x Princess Sakura, Sakurazuka Seishirou x Sumeragi Subaru, Clow Reed x Ichihara Yuuko, Ashura-Ou x Fai D. Fluorite, Monou Fuuma x Shirou Kamui, Shirou Kamui x Monou Kotori (this list applies to the work as a whole and may not be depicted equally in every chapter)
RATING: NC-17. Strong language and explicit sex, prisoner situation.
WARNINGS: 1) Pirates. 2) Ninjas.
SEQUEL TO: Rum & Popcorn
SUMMARY: Long ago, in a universe slightly askew to this one, circumstances beyond anyone's control led to a fierce and bitter rivalry between Pirates and Ninjas, but Kurogane doesn't care about that. His only concern was to retrieve Princess Sakura and Syaoran from the Pirate King's ship...
But his work here is finished, except for the detail of being tied up in the brig. He's got some time to spare for settling the score with Fai.
Previously...
1: Ahoy, Matey! // 2: Drivelswigger // 3: Jolly Roger // 4: Shot Across the Bow // 5: Batten Down the Hatches // 6: Athwartships // 7: Futtock Shrouds // 8: Hornswaggle
Well, Blow Me Down (excl) used to express amazement or disbelief
Tonight was certainly a night for late strolls, Fai thought. And the close, wooden halls had that feeling of lonely timelessness that sometimes haunted the wee hours. He stretched his arms over his head, working out the comfortable discomfort of late turning early as he took the stairs down to the brig where his parlay waited. The crew had all made themselves scarce, but no matter. The ship herself felt more like a companion to him than sailors who drifted in and away, like specters and dreams as the years passed.
He could live for countless centuries, he was sure, and never feel out of his time as long as a man like that ninja could walk into his life. He made the room reverberate with the same strength as the ancient men who'd been made into legends and gods by history.
That Kuro-tan could hold his own in a fight against anyone -- even Subaru -- was no shock. Twenty years ago, he'd been the young prodigy who'd fought to a standstill half of the previous Council, in the form of all four Ryuudo brothers. A talented little kid, he'd thought, and true to promise the ninja had grown up even more impressive. But who could have expected he would walk alone through the front door to take the Princess and succeed? And by exploiting the Pirate Code itself, too.
Parlay. Of all things.
He couldn't wait to find out what the ninja wanted to 'discuss'. Once he was outside the brig, he could feel every heartbeat as he waited and listened with a grin he couldn't quell. The faint scrape of a chair leg on the floor said that his ninja hadn't escaped. Subaru had said he'd bound the man's hands -- as one simply had to do to keep ninja anywhere -- and he'd said Kurogane had suffered it with the air of someone who expected escape not to trouble him. That being the case, he'd been 'extremely thorough' about it. No doubt that meant there was magic involved. Knots were no more secure than rope was impervious to a blade -- often less so, when ninja were concerned. The young Syaoran had given them trouble enough, trying to break Princess Sakura free in the week past.
Well, the girl might have required a change of tactic anyway. She clearly wasn't the type to form alliances with her captors, at least not with her boyfriend around. And besides, he'd gotten his extremely rare Kuro-danna in exchange -- one of a kind, just like Aoki had said. Really, the disappointment of losing the Princess was more than compensated for.
Lifting the latch as he bit his lip, Fai swept into the brig. And didn't Kuro-puu make a pretty picture, all trussed and tied to his chair? Eyes like that outshone even the watchfires on the walls of Yuuko's own fortress with the way they promised to spy every false move. Quite ravishing. Granted, the spread of fruits laid on the table next to him -- parlay did demand some hospitality -- had done him no good, but he wasn't likely to have eaten anything even if he'd been free. As it was, one could hardly tell he'd been struggling against Subaru's ropes at all. Fai stepped closer, passing into range to see every detail.
The lashings crossed over his ninja's chest had pushed his shirt open far enough to see collarbones shining with a light sweat in the lamplight. The faintest hint of rope burn glowed pink on his skin. And if he looked hungry... well, it was for something other than the apples and pears just in from the mainland. Fai would have said that luck was smiling on him if he hadn't known that bastard Clow was in charge of luck, and Clow only smiled when someone else's pants were (literally or metaphorically) on fire.
The man in front of him was as close to relaxed as a man could look with his wrists knotted up behind a chair back and his ankles lashed to the chair legs. All his experience with ninja over the years told him that so much ease meant his captive had a plan, though the shape of it was as yet unclear. Kuro-nin's attention seemed fully fixed on delivering Fai the ever complimentary 'up and down'. Without bothering to hide his grin, Fai took a seat on the edge of the table. His captive audience could take as good a look as he wanted. Fai knew when a man liked what he saw.
"Well, now you look the part."
"I've always cleaned up well," he answered, and nicked a pear off the table behind him. "Since I heard you wanted to talk to me..."
"Sorry, haven't had a chance to change myself."
No one present had complained about the shirt tattered almost into nonexistence, nor about the worn breeches as far as Fai recalled. On the contrary, that aesthetic flattered the ninja's sturdy build. Politesse might usually demand that he, as host, return the jacket the ninja had worn aboard, but Fai had no intention of it. Kurogane had left it behind after making romantic overtures, which made the jacket his if he wanted it -- and he did. Fai couldn't remember the last time one of his bedfellows had left something that he hadn't thrown out the door behind the man, but there was a first for everything. So with a shrug, Fai pulled a knife from his boot and cut a slice from the pear in his hand. "I'll forgive you, since it's your first time at parlay, Kuro-kicchi." A pair of red eyes studied him, flickering fiercely at the nickname. "Though you must tell me where you picked up the notion. I think we'd know if it had been added to the ninja training manuals."
"Like I'd tell you that. You said you know me; you should know I take secrets to my grave."
"Oh, you're so serious, Kuron-pi."
He thought he'd seen it earlier, when they'd had their last discussion on the floor of his cabin, but he'd been too occupied to be sure. Now he was certain: even through his ninja's battle face, each nickname earned him another twitch of an eyebrow. More fun for him.
"We can hardly have a conversation if neither of us says anything the other doesn't already know. So why don't I start?" he went on, playing up a sorrowful pout. "To be honest, it's my privilege to provide suitable attire to a guest who asks for parlay, as they're usually without the means, but I'm afraid you're broader in the shoulders than any of the lords present. That, and Subaru considered you a flight risk."
"Your Sumeragi's nothing to trifle with. I'll give him that. And to look at him, you wouldn't think he was much more than a boy." He narrowed his eyes at Fai, who kept smiling as he ate his bit of pear. "That said, I've fought some of the previous Pirate Lords. Before the rest of your crew's time -- but I'd swear he was there, just as he is now."
"Mm-mm," Fai answered, shaking a finger. "I told you, Kuro-wanwan. If I spare you those details, it's for your own good. What happens to men who involve themselves with demons..." He sighed at the lift in his ninja's eyebrow and ate another slice from the fruit. "Well, I suppose it's in the eye of the beholder whether you're less than human afterwards or more, but believe me --"
"So which are you?"
He stopped mid-bite to stare down a man doing his best to look right through him. Fai had met a very few people who were better at that, but that wasn't bad. How many years had it been since anyone had taken that talk seriously? More than he could count -- not that he intended to let any surprise show. A calm swallow, then a smile. He could depend on a smile. "Which am I?"
"You're the one I want to know, not him," he said, and Fai felt a warm shiver all over from the unforgiving tone in the man's voice. 'I want to know'. It had a dangerous ring to it, as if Kurogane realized exactly how unreasonable a desire that was. And even though the ninja's eyes focused in on his own, he could feel their glance like a brush on his bare skin. Odd, to think someone could make him feel suddenly naked, just with a few words and a look, when he'd always felt decent stripping down to nothing. But stripping down on purpose wasn't like getting caught ironing your shirt while wearing just your socks -- and by a man who could make every cheek you had blush. "Whatever line he crossed, you did, too," his companion followed on his silence. "Don't try to lie."
And there was no way the ninja was working with something Yuuko had told him -- there wasn't a creature in the world who could afford that kind of information. Seishirou catching up Subaru in his game. He, falling in with Ashura and watching his love go mad. He and the Sumeragi might be as different as night and day, but they had both, without a doubt, sailed right past whatever 'line' that was. Fai had a feeling Kurogane thought that meant something other than it did, but he didn't need to explain just because he didn't want to think of a lie good enough to get him out of that conversation.
The pear and the knife went down on the table, and he laid his hat to the other side as he played off his ninja's serious eyes with a chuckle. "We're not exactly the same, Subaru and I," he answered. Hopping off the table, he took the two steps to the chair and leaned in so they were face to face. Not a touch, though. They were just talking. Until he figured out the ninja's game and how best to win it, talking was all he planned to indulge in. "Maybe you'd be safer with him, lover. Subaru never messes around."
The ninja's glare didn't waver, he noticed with a nearly honest smile. That hot-out-of-the-oven studmuffin was going to have to learn that ninja weren't the only ones who could keep a secret when they wanted to. Holding lightly to a corner of the chair back, Fai wound his way behind his guest. "Messing around is my specialty, though."
A quick glance down at the man's hands showed that they were a bit worse for the wear than his chest. Proper rope burn, verging on being rubbed raw, and a bit of frayed rope to show for it. He couldn't see a blade, but there had to be one somewhere to make those cuts in his bonds. So, escape was at least part of the goal.
"You didn't mind it before," he hinted, brushing his thumb across the lovely piece of real estate where the ninja's neck met his shoulder. And then trailing both his hands down the ropes pinning his chest to the chair... and possibly grazing his skin a little, too. So much for not touching.
No problem. The way the ninja breathed heavier and smirked said he liked it. "Could have been better."
Fai let out a tiny scoff, basking in the confident ring of what some might have called an insult. A pleasant scent of eau d'exertion tinged the man's dark hair as he leaned close enough to whisper, "Is that a promise?" against his ear. He had to admit, he was hoping when he stepped around to straddle his enemy's lap that he might see Kurogane taken aback. Taken off guard. It was a very pleasant surprise to see him staring hard instead and halfway to the snarl of a wolf set to rip out his prey's throat with his teeth.
In the good way.
The ropes creaked and complained and dug a little tighter into the ninja's skin when he pulled on them to draw himself closer in. He brushed their noses and laughed. "Because you know, Kuro-rin--"
"It's Kurogane," the man corrected, his breath making Fai's lips tremble.
He took a moment to enjoy the shiver dancing up and down his spine, and wrapped his arms around the ninja's neck. "If you really want to fuck me again," he murmured, close enough for Kurogane to taste his words. "... I'd advise against asking if I'm older than I look."
It was possible he'd left his mouth parted inside his companion's threat range to see if he'd take the bait. He didn't have to wait too long to find out the answer was 'Yes'. The ninja laid claim to a kiss practically before his words had stopped. Fai felt like a starving man on his second bite of food, as it rushed past his consciousness into a third and a fourth with the sensation of taste and feel lagging an instant behind. His mind caught up to his body to find himself pitched into the kiss, from his toes on the floor to his thighs feeling the cut of the chair to his tongue playing a reel against his new lover's.
He'd definitely wanted to play it cooler than this, even if any plans of staying hands-off had been doomed to fail as soon as he'd seen Kurogane all wrapped up like a present. The chance to trail his fingers down the solid chest hiding under those weather-beaten rags was all he'd wanted for the past little while, but now that he could feel his ninja, warm between his thighs and close as breathing, anticipation filled him like a sudden wind in a slack sail. The unguarded moan breaking from his throat was his last cue to back off. Either he'd wanted Kurogane more than he'd realized, or that man was better at kissing than a man had any right to be.
But a good strategic retreat didn't mean surrender. It just meant retaking control with a gleeful laugh at a fraction of an inch's distance. At least, retaking control of himself. He couldn't claim to have control of the entire situation yet, as Kurogane reminded him with a soft peck to the corner of his lips and a gentle brush of their faces as real lovers might do. The man was good. All a-shiver from tip to toes, Fai closed his eyes to better feel the breath on his cheek.
"I don't care how old you are," that voice whispered, "but I think I'll do you best if you give me my hands to work with." The throaty rumble had to be calculated to send that thrill down his spine. It was too perfect -- not that he was upset. Honed technique was an excellent trait in a partner. "I wouldn't say no to being up from this chair, putting you on your back on that table. Though if you prefer the floor--"
Oh, dear, Fai thought, breaking out into a snicker. Well, that was downright classic.
Exploiting your enemy's weakness for an advantage. Generally that worked better on enemies who didn't spend most of their time on the other side of the equation.
"I prefer you right where you are, lover," he answered. Fai pushed himself back across the ninja's legs and stepped away. It'd been a long time since he'd enjoyed a parlay this much. "If you want your hands, you'll have to take them back yourself. You don't think I'm fool enough to let you run?"
The ninja looked as amused as he felt himself, gorgeous mouth pulled into a brash smirk. "I haven't seen anything to run from yet."
"Well, Kamui looked like he planned to change your mind about that." Fai could watch the shifts on that face through self-satisfied and confused and unimpressed from sunset to sunrise and probably not get bored once. So while he took his seat on the table edge again, swinging his legs like a child, he teased... and watched. "You really upset him with this ploy of yours, you know. He's incensed." And he had been, too. The first mate's hair was amazingly expressive some days, and today it had looked like pure violence. Maybe if Kuro-tan would have seen it, he'd have been swayed, but it wasn't likely. No sense pressing the matter, either. Instead, Fai cut off a slice of the pear he'd set aside before. "Now, won't you have some fruit? You'll make me out to be a bad host when you get home."
"I'll pass, thanks. Don't like to eat within an hour before swimming."
Fai met meaningful stare for meaningful stare and ate the slice himself, through a grin he definitely didn't need to fake. "Mmm. I love bravado. We don't get that from nearly enough ninja." Sighing, he set the rest aside for now. "Too bad you won't eat, though. You want to know me, don't you? That's what you said. We have a saying in the fleet -- you never really know a man 'til you've shared his food."
"I've heard that. But in your case, I think I'll need more than a pear."
"Sweet-talker." Fai leaned forward with his face set in his smile. "If you're offering me another shot at you in exchange for your freedom, just say so. I might be willing to negotiate."
Kuro-puu shook his head. "If I thought that'd work, you wouldn't be worth my time. No negotiations."
Now he was getting a little too sweet, and a little too harsh at the same time. There was no way a man with Kurogane's reputation would drop everything in the middle of a rescue mission gone slightly wrong, just to play around, no strings attached. "We'll have to negotiate something if we're going to get out of this little mess. You see, I'm sure you can tell keeping your protege locked up was a becoming a problem. I'll admit that. You're better than he is, and you're not guarding someone; I'm letting myself and my crew in for a world of trouble if I try to keep you here. All kinds of vexation, and nothing to show for it, except maybe a good lay now and again. So, the way I see it, you're not worth my time." There was a bit of a lie in that, but long-term it always ended up being true. The ninja didn't blink at the critique -- kept his peace and kept his eyes locked. "I could kill you, but I get the feeling it'd be just as much trouble and I wouldn't get anything out of it at all. Which leaves me with letting you go, and that's trouble, too. I'm sure I don't need to explain to one of Yuuko's men why I can't give you something for free."
"So don't give me anything. I'm leaving this ship by daybreak, one way or another," he answered. "There's only one thing I want from you--"
"Clichés, Kuro-tan. Not a selling point."
"--and that's an answer you won't put on the table. But you can't hide behind that mask forever."
He'd see about that.
"A mask? Don't be silly, lover -- you know how pirates are. What you see is what you get."
"What I see is a crew of good men who wouldn't put up with your shit without a good reason." Without a response, Fai looked steadily back at his captive's glare. Then, all of a sudden, the glare changed just as it had when the ninja had kissed him back in his quarters. His eyes weren't soft by any means, but they pierced him as if he were soft. It didn't hurt like it should have, and he couldn't fear it breaking him enough to try making it stop. "So give me a good reason. Next time I see you, why am I going to put up with it, too?"
When would that ninja stop saying things to make him blush? Fai hadn't blushed in longer than he could remember, and he'd had no intention of starting again. "Were next times up for discussion?" he asked, and immediately had to bite his tongue. The words had come out more hopeful than he'd meant them to sound.
The answer was supposed to be 'No', but the silence he got instead was full of promises.
Whether or not they ran into each other again, he wasn't going to talk about it. Any of it. Planning on someone led to having someone you planned on, and coming up with reasons to stay together beyond a passing mutual benefit was asking for trouble. "I won't give you reasons. A better man than me says there's no way to truly understand another person. You'll always be someone else to them. I can't tell you what to think of me."
Yet again, that hadn't come out as cool as he'd meant to be. The words might have been fine if he could have sounded more detached -- less vulnerable -- when he said them, but speech seemed to be problematic for him today. It was his own fault, really, for quoting Subaru to try shutting someone out. 'I can never understand your pain,' had practically been the words that turned them from acquaintances into friends. Maybe the ninja's eyes made him feel like he'd forgotten to breathe. He could handle a little physical attraction, and he certainly hadn't known the man long enough to be at risk of anything else.
But. No more conversation, not if he couldn't trust his tongue and Kurogane was just going to sit there and let him hang himself with it. No choice but to get closer and change the topic, or to admit defeat in whatever game they were playing. That wasn't going to happen on his own home ground. Instead, he put on a smirk that was as close as he could manage to the ninja's own and strode up to the side of the chair. He stood close, one knee resting across the ninja's lap and drawing up against his bare chest. The unmistakable sensation of warm skin burned through his trousers with a slow and steady heartbeat drumming against his groin. With one hand, he raked his fingers into Kurogane's hair and pulled his head back while he traced the flexed arch of his neck with the other.
"If you want to come find me, that's on you." Fai bit his lip with a pout, looking for a hungry shine to rise up again in his ninja's eyes. "There's nothing to negotiate, you said, so I suppose the parlay's over. Time for me to decide your fate. Or maybe you thought you could keep me entertained long enough that you could escape and 'incapacitate' me again?"
"I still think that."
"You might find yourself at a disadvantage, Kuro-sama. I won't be holding back."
"Is that a challenge?"
The glimmer in his grin was exactly what Fai had wanted to see. "Maybe," he answered in a purr, voice obeying his whims again now that he was right where he wanted to be.
A sharp jerk of Kurogane's leg from under his knee shifted the chair and the steadiness of his perch just enough to send Fai plunging straight down. He had enough awareness in that instant to keep anything delicate from catching on the ropes in the fall, and to pull his arms onto the ninja's shoulders before he toppled over, but that was all. With a breathless start, he found himself back nose to nose, straddling one very cocksure brute, and this time already unbalanced before the kissing had even started.
"Then bring it."
Growling men were such a turn-on. He could hardly be blamed for devouring his mouth in a kiss. This time he was ready to savor every second: the way the fabric in Kurogane's shirt sounded as he tore it the rest of the way open, the throaty laugh he could turn into a moan by grinding hard against his body, how the ninja's tongue liked to tease. Part of his curiosity from earlier was settled in fairly short order as his Kuro-han proved beyond a doubt that he was a better kisser than a man had a right to be. Thank goodness for little miracles. And he was different now than when he'd been playing the role of 'the pirate Breath-Wallace' in Fai's berth. Before, he'd felt properly invaded and ravaged, as if the man had been playing out a textbook model of a 'pirate's kiss'. Now, Kurogane must have been using a fully honed skill-set, because the luring caresses and sudden bites managed to set him at least twice as strongly ablaze.
He couldn't separate in his mind where the breath on his ear stopped and the quivers running through his body began. "Coat. Off," the ninja said.
"Are you ordering me around now?"
"You know you like it."
Well, facts were facts. He shrugged his coat off his shoulders and swung it around to hang on the back of the chair, playing with an earlobe between his teeth. He could imagine where he'd want the ninja's hand to search for space under his shirt or force him closer with a squeeze of his ass, and pulling himself in by his grip on a tightly muscled back or his fingers tangled in a mess of dark hair just wasn't enough. His skin was hungry. Oh, he loved the sound of a good, low moan when he scraped his fingernails across bare skin as much as the next man, and there was no feeling in the world pleasant in quite the same way as a good bite to the neck in just the right spot to cut off the flow of blood to his head. But all the little things, and even the searing and insistent bliss swelling in his cock every time they pushed against each other through their clothes wasn't enough.
From some men, maybe, but he knew what this one was capable of; and if the difference in a kiss was so extreme as soon as the ninja was making love the way he did it best, what was the rest going to be like? If only Kuro-kyon had been willing to deal, they might have found something worth the trade for freeing his hands, or untying him completely. It was so hard to be patient when he'd been promised a good time. He could swallow his frustration, swallow the words 'Let me cut you loose' that would call a forfeit in their little game, but that only locked it inside his blood, making him surge that much harder against the body rolling like a stormy sea below him.
"What do you want next, Kuro-sama? I don't want a little handicap getting in your way."
One tiny bite below his chin and a tug like nothing, and he could feel his cravat coming loose. "I can get the rest," he murmured through kisses down the front of Fai's neck that left his shirt falling open like magic and burned with a lingering heat on his skin after they'd passed. That was more than worth rewarding the ninja with the moan that welled up from the base of his spine and fought its way out to his quivering lips. "I'll let you unlace your pants, but only that. Don't even push 'em down."
'He'd let...'
Fai let out a soft laugh and pressed his mouth back into Kurogane's kiss as he pulled his hands down to the strings holding his pants closed. He needed a slight shift to keep himself balanced forward without his arms around the man's back or neck, but that was easy enough. Bracing his legs on the rungs of the chair, he circled his hips a few times roughly around and tasted the choked growl rolling off out of his ninja's throat.
"Do you want me to get yours while I'm in the area, lover? Or am I getting ahead of myself?"
"Just stick to the script, your majesty." With a rumbled command like that, he wasn't about to refuse. "When you're all loose, push that hand down inside. Nails and all, right down from your spine. You know where you want it."
"Your wish is my command."
Wrapping an arm around Kurogane's neck again, he rolled forward and did as he was told. One hand, dragging a trail of tingling scratches down from the small of his back slowly, flattening inside his pants and reaching two fingers to tease the ring of muscle around his opening. He thrust fore and aft with a slow rhythm, now pushing his cock forward and up along the ninja's abs to feel the sweet pressure building, now pushing down onto as much of his finger as he could manage inside his trousers. The touch teased just shy of ecstasy, and with every pass, he rubbed a little harder against the stiffening ridge standing on the man below him. Heavy breath and an occasional gasp were like ancient music in his ears that never grew old.
Kurogane murmured against his lips. "Looks like it hurts."
"Oh, do you think you were too rough before?" he scoffed. He hadn't thought any sign of distress would have been showing on his face, but he bent down to nibble the ninja's neck -- safely out of eyesight. "This is nothing. I promise, I can take whatever you feel like laying on me."
"Hmm? That's good. 'Cause I've got a few plans for you." The easy, laughing groan as Kurogane stretched out his neck to give him better access just made Fai want to bite harder. And he did. Lots. His teeth slid over the skin hiding steely muscles, the earthy scent of cedar filling his nose. A good, solid smell for a solid man. A slight flex in the ninja's knees pushed him up as he surged forward, blinding him a little bit with a flash of rapture when his already shuddering cock met sweat-dampened skin harder than he'd meant. Then, as he fell backwards again, between his compromised control and the drag of his legs pulling his pants further down on his hips, he felt his fingers hit the spot. He didn't want to fight the instinct to let the pleasure shut everything else out of his mind, but he couldn't concede until Kurogane wanted it just as much as he did. Wanted it more.
He couldn't.
"I've had you so many ways in my head." The rough whisper fell on his ear, and Fai saw no harm in playing along. With a grin peeking at the corners of his mouth, he leaned his cheek into the caress of the ninja's murmuring jaw. "Heard you beg, heard you cry out. Felt your legs wrapped around me in silk sheets and taken you with your face against the wall."
Maybe he didn't have to worry about how much his lover wanted him after all. In the middle of intimate moments, Fai preferred to believe every silly word was true. A different goal, then: to push until the man had lost the ability to put such pretty sentences together. He hadn't had a chance to make Kurogane speechless once in their little affair, and that simply wasn't acceptable. In the meantime, he'd enjoy the feel of a man tracing the line of his neck with kisses and telling him he was coveted.
"I've seen your skin shining like cream in the sun or gold under an oil-lamp, watched you spread your thighs to invite me in a thousand times. And however your eyes start, teasing or seducing or condemning me, in the end they always look like they do now. Telling me what you need."
Playing the sweetheart his ninja seemed to want, Fai kissed his eyes, that looked for so much they'd probably never see. "Is that so?" he asked, leaving off playing with himself to search for the sensitive spot behind his companion's knee. Just following orders was no good. He had to find out where the lines were, and what happened when he went too far past them. "When did you have time for all those fantasies? Busy night like tonight, I'd think you'd need your mind on your work."
"Congratulations. You were a distraction." He bit his lip to hold in a chuckle when the ninja let out a low groan. Right spot. Leaning back with a hand on each knee, he sought out a matching place on his other leg. "And if I don't want you haunting me when I leave..." Fai ground forward, reveling in the feel of Kurogane's legs tightening and pushing against his touch, the way he tilted his head back to choke back a gasp. When he moved just right, he could feel the rigid press of arousal taunting him through both their pants. Closing his eyes, he arched his back and laid himself out so he could roll his hips where the man's hardness made the nerves around his opening sing for more. His chest heaved in time with the heavy breaths of his dark-haired challenger, and he licked his lips to answer a deadly red gaze. "When I get free of these ropes, I'll make you into every vision you've conjured up in my head. You'll still be feeling me inside when your ship's timbers have gone to dust, and I'll walk out of here with you as a memory."
"I'll settle for still feeling you when you come back for more. You won't get me out of your system that easily, lover." Fai rolled himself up, clutching the ropes and whispering through kisses that let him feel the racing pulse in Kurogane's neck. "Please... let me touch you. I don't want to come by myself." He slipped his hands down under the man's waistband, pulling their bodies tighter together. His swollen erection called for him to buck, to push for satisfaction, but he fought against it until he got the word.
"Fine with me," the ninja murmured. "If you're sure you can't hold it."
With a smile, he hovered just outside of range to kiss. "Oh, I'll last a little while. I'm sure you've realized I'm not fourteen." He sat slightly back and, stroking the head of a cock standing nobly at attention, thrust his own along the shaft. Up and back, letting the sparks flying through his skin melt into moans in this throat. Rough breathing on his ear had taken the place of sweet nothings, but it was still too controlled for his tastes. "... letting go... is part of the fun, isn't it?" he gasped.
"No wonder you had me sent to your bed." Kurogane bit at his mouth and Fai let him in for another kiss that tingled all over his inflamed lips. "I bet most men who try you can't shake that facade. Can't crack you. You can feel the rush, but in the end it's only a trace of what you're after."
"Says the man who still hasn't gotten his hands untied."
He'd never asked for more than the flashes of blindness and need as the moment peaked. Never wanted more than the release he could feel coming when he brushed a hand around each of their erections, stroked harder and forgot about control. The flush staining the tender skin, the shine of the fluid trickling out. The sights, the sounds... the scent of warmed bodies filled him up with the yearning that was the most honest thing between two people. It always had been.
And in the clutch and spasm of the man beneath him, hearing that shuddering grunt, Fai gave himself over to the building ecstasy. With a tense shake, locking his legs in to keep from losing his seat in the feverish haze at climax, every other sensation disappeared behind the burst of raw exhilaration. Slowly, one perception at a time, the world faded back in. The over-sensitive hum through his falling cock and the warm gush over his hand, the brush of his lover leaning into his neck. He could feel his own pulse beating against Kurogane's chest in the heavy ease of their bodies falling together. He tasted the salt of his seed on his tongue before he realized he'd drawn his hand up and started licking it.
But it wasn't until the ninja stole his fingers into his own mouth to finish the job, waking up his whole body for another whirl, that he noticed the press of the other man's cock, warm and still solid and unspilled, against his abdomen.
"You bastard..." he whispered with a soft laugh. "See if I follow your rules again."
"Doesn't bother me if you fight back."
Someone was just begging to have his precious control stripped away.
Balanced with his hands on the ninja's thighs, Fai pushed his legs back and stepped onto the ground. "Well, Kuro-sama, if you've been having fantasies, you can't tell me this wasn't one of them." He slid down to his knees, slowly tracing a taut stomach with his lips and tongue until he was in place to leave a kiss on the quivering head of the man's cock. And then a little more. It was almost as pleasant to feel the sanguine skin, smoother than wet silk under his tongue, as it was to hear the rough shudder in his lover's breath.
"I could tell you that..."
He worked his hand around the shaft as he turned a pointed glare up at the red-eyed man he planned to drive out of his mind. "Let's keep your lies to a minimum, shall we?"
As the ninja's legs pushed open as wide as the ropes would allow, letting him lap his tongue as far as he liked, Fai heard the hissed breathing and soft groans of the mighty falling. If Kurogane meant to make a repeat appearance in his future, he was going to have to learn to abandon silly things like restraint. A chance to lose his head and act out every desire he thought he couldn't let himself have was the beginning and end of what Fai was willing to offer. And it sounded like his captive was starting to appreciate the service. Once he felt the push of the man's hips raising slightly toward him and heard him groan some rather impolite requests for more, he trailed up the slick, fevered shaft to press the head inside his mouth. Fai might have smiled quite honestly if he hadn't been so intent on relishing every tiny push against his tongue of a man years overdue for being broken.
A quake passed through Kurogane's whole body, and he answered with a push of his own, swallowing the man deep inside. He hadn't counted on the hand that suddenly raked into his hair and pulled tight, the touch sparking through all of his skin and making him moan around the phallus in his throat. He'd meant to do that anyway, but on his own terms, not because he couldn't help himself when that ninja put his hands on him.
He had to breathe, but there was no way he was going to betray how much that had shaken him. Pulling off slowly and blowing softly down the glistening cock, he asked, "So, what'll it be, lover?" punctuating the question with a quick swirl of his tongue. "Did you dream about spilling all over my face, or do you want me to taste it when you come? It's your fantasy."
Fai cast his eyes up as he attended to the insistence pushing back inside his mouth even as the ninja answered "... surprise me," around his groans. His eyes were burning, just like they should have been. With all the abandon he wanted his lover to feel, he licked and sucked, and when that last sweet shudder happened drank down the bitter fruits of his labor like it was wine. A lively, spirited vintage with overtones of steel, he thought with a laugh. He might not say no to tasting it again someday.
"Get the fuck back up here," his ninja growled, fisting a hand in his collar.
With a smirk, Fai braced himself on the edge of the seat. "Make me."
Not that he fought when the man dragged him to his feet. Much. His only time limit was how long it took him to get bored, and the grip the ninja had on the back of his thigh now was very interesting. He'd already been humming, and the sensation of that went right to his head.
Then, without letting go of the pressure shooting new arousal through his veins, Kurogane pulled his leg up and forward. He knew just how to pull the bone in Fai's hip so that the pain was searing, mingling with the pleasure until he had no hope of keeping his feet. In a blur of being handled, he felt flash after flash of his body moving by instinct without time for thought. The knee bracing him on the seat of the chair, the man tearing away his painstakingly improvised waistcoat and pulling his waistband down so hard it cut into his thigh. He pulled off his own shirt and cast it aside, gasping at the ninja's tongue on his chest. When the electrifying touch on his thigh faded into a caress up his side, Fai felt his knee go slack and had to lean into Kurogane to stand. He could see, opening his eyes, a transported expression on the ninja's face as he did something that was so much more than teasing to the gratified skin below his nipple. The chain around his neck glanced off his lover's chin, the key hanging precipitously in the air, hitting his chest again and again as it twirled.
He could feel it in his arms, now, braced on the back of the chair -- how he was pushing into the ninja's touch -- and he could hear how moans wracked his body. When one of the hands gripping his ass, pulling him in, drifted forward to stroke his shaft, he thought for an instant of saying, 'Wait... not yet.' He hadn't thought he'd be hard again so quickly. While the caress set him thrusting harder forward, there was still a bit of hurt to the touch... and if his body wouldn't listen when he tried to stop...
But he slid his foot up Kurogane's leg, and over, bracing it on the chair again, and pulled his standing leg under his weight instead, opening himself up to let the ninja's hand fondle him lower. God, there was nothing wrong with that. The word, 'Wait,' died on his tongue, and he leaned into the hair above the man's ear to whisper, "Harder..."
The world was flickering in and out before his eyes. Orgasm was threatening like a storm on the horizon, and he was set to weather its coming winds with all his sails open full. "Give it to me," he pleaded in a gasp when a finger played against his opening.
Kurogane circled him slowly, saying, "Tell me."
"Inside... I..." He felt the same power that made his knees weak stealing his words before he could speak them, but he felt a touch within him shooting an intense savor through everything.
"Why... you?"
"Why...?"
The ninja's breath played against his torso. "Everything you do, everything you are... I swear, you're everything I hate more than anything."
"Go ahead and hate me," he murmured, riding into the touches that set him aflame inside and out. "I don't mind."
As long as he...
"That's the problem." The ninja's words took a moment to register, and once he did hear them Fai couldn't be bothered to think about what they meant. He sometimes thought he hadn't wanted this touch or that so much in a century or more, but this time he was sure. He wanted this more than he had in a long, long time. Arching closer, his skin fluttered under Kurogane's lips reaching his neck, and delicious chills spread down his back. "How do you pull me in this way?"
He wanted to laugh, but it came out as another gasp, and the first words to mind tumbled through his lips. "Dearest, I'm just picking up the gauntlet you dropped."
Fai heard his own words, and threw his eyes open, forcing himself to focus on the golden key hanging between their bodies. He knew where he'd heard those words before. Hadn't Ashura whispered them, the first time he'd taken his pleasure in the demon lord's bed? He hadn't meant that. Never that. Though he fought to push the word, 'Stop,' out of his mouth, the wanting in every inch of his skin wouldn't let him say it any more than he'd been able to ask the ninja to wait.
Two hands caught him as he started falling, guiding him down to sit, caressing his thighs, pressing up his back...
"What's wrong?"
This wasn't what he wanted. Not a pair of tender arms to hold him when he was weak. And this wasn't Ashura. He was fucking a stray ninja while he waited for the dawn, not making love back when he'd had no idea how deep that could go. But the words, 'Nothing's wrong,' were stopped in his throat like all the rest. He breathed out a strained moan, the only sound he could make, and reached out to kiss the ninja's mouth. Rocking steadily against his touch, he came at last, the feeling searing everything else out of his brain like he'd known it would.
But when the haze cleared, he found himself pulling Kurogane's arms around his back and holding on tight. Their breaths mingling, their lips touching now and again, two hearts beating at odd rhythms hammering against his chest and slowing to rest. But this wouldn't happen again. He wouldn't have to let the ninja go if it never happened like this again.
"This has been a nice chat," he said when he found his voice. He fought the urge to nuzzle against the man's neck, no matter how much he'd meant to play with his romantic notions. Right now, it was too dangerous. "Inconclusive, though. I really should give the Lords their vote in what's to become of you."
Kurogane laughed against his neck. "I think I know what they'll say."
He drew his hands down the man's shoulders and arms, which fell away without argument to let him stand and put himself to rights. His legs felt fine now. Barely a tremor, except when his lover's eyes looked at him with shadows of questions that they both knew weren't going to be answered. "I'm sure you do. So, fair's fair." Fai knelt to pick up his shirt and pulled it over his head, dropping the scarf as he stood on the table by his hat. "You gave me a head start. I'll give you the same," he said, circling behind the chair to take his coat.
"And what then?"
Fai trailed his fingers through the sweaty spikes of dark hair and leaned over to kiss him one last time under the ear.
"Like I'd tell you that."
He didn't look back as he walked away, placing his hat on his head and throwing the scarf over his arm. He didn't need to look back. If he did, the only thing that'd be waiting for him was a face and a man he well remembered.
Naturally six of his seven lords were waiting in the hall outside. Subaru would be back in his room, basking in the momentary calm. Kamui was standing facing the wall, but he turned around (and then turned red as he dropped his face into his palm) as soon as he heard the door close.
"Uh," Sorata began, scratching his head with a bright smile. "So..."
"I'll tell you everything you need to know..."
Fai cast his eyes toward the entrance to the brig. The council behind him sounded like they were one and all holding their breaths.
"Just stay right where you are until I say, 'Go.' Ten... nine... eight... seven..."
And like a burst of wind, the door flew open to show an empty chair surrounded by cut ropes.
"Six-five-four-three-two-one-go."
concluded in...
10: Davy Jones
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AUTHOR'S NOTES
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The tenth and final chapter has already been written beta'd, so this time when I say "You won't have to wait long," I'm talking about a matter of hours rather than days. Hope you're still having fun!
I'll get around to posting crosslinks tomorrow. It's late.
In the meantime, innumerable thanks go to my beta reader, sumeria, who keeps my prose on the right side of mauve.