Fushigi Yuugi Fan Fiction ❯ Love Lies Bleeding ❯ Sticky Like Honey ( Chapter 5 )

Love Lies Bleeding

Memories are just where you laid them,

dragging waters 'til the depths give up their dead.

What did you expect to find?

Was it something you left behind?

Don't you remember everything I said when I said:

Don't fall away, and leave me to myself.

Don't fall away, and leave love bleeding in my hands,

in my hands again;

leave love bleeding in my hands.

In my hands,

love lies bleeding.

'Hemorrhage (Love Lies Bleeding)', Fuel

The monk slept.

The last two days had been rough; Hikou's rapid departure and Tasuki's desire to know everything about the demon had left the shichiseishi of Gemini drained. He was unsure of what to feel about Hikou's abrupt exit. He was tired of Tasuki's questions.

After a meal of strong, spicy food--the region's specialty--he found himself tired. A slight unease to his stomach reminded him why it had been so easy for him to avoid strong tasting foods as a monk of Suzaku. Spicy meals aside, he found himself sluggish with weariness of body and soul, and so excused himself from Tasuki's company as politely as he could to rest.

He curled upon his small, cramped bed, and looked at the wind chime that hung above it. To the stars beyond it. He contemplated on them as he looked out his window, his eye slowly closing.

The night was so strangely comforting. Ebon arms cradled those tiny points of light. Was he not a star? Even a collection of stars, dedicated to Suzaku? He pondered on it as his eyelid shut, imagining himself kept in the dark's protective embrace.

One is rarely aware when they fall to sleep and when they begin dreaming. Houjun was no different. The darkness of the sky and the darkness behind his eyelid was one and the same. The arms that held him were no longer the insubstantial chill of the night, but flesh and blood.

The weight of a body, so warm, was above him. A human weight, though, not the extra mass of a man forged out of water, heavy with unnaturalness. He was warm; warmer then he had really been. But there he was, though Houjun did not look at him. His hair trailed over Houjun's face, and in its wake, the scar--the seal of his sin--erased like a faulty mathematical equation, no longer correct or relevant.

He opened his eyes.

Hikou smiled at him quirkily, his face that of the boy and not of the demon. He was all that Houjun could see; he was close enough to feel the wash of his breath against the monk's face, and so, beyond the darkness, nothing else could be seen.

Hikou leaned in and kissed the prone monk, his hands sweeping over his shoulders. And Houjun found himself responding automatically; lips parted, tongues tangled with an easy sensuality that their coupling had certainly not possessed. But it was the Houjun he could give the younger man.

But still, it trembled in him. It felt wrong.

He loved Hikou. As a brother. Or perhaps, as a lover. But not as a partner. What did it matter, how he loved him, so long as he did? Here he was, offering freely of his flesh, even as Hikou's hands ran the length of him.

Was it love?

What is love, anyway?

( -- Warm bodies, entangled, rocking against each other in a way they'd never done before, hands in hair, over skin, passion not of anger but of something else -- )

But was that really what he wanted?

The kiss broke. The weight atop him changed, the center of gravity dropping slightly. The body slimmed, hair growing longer. And slowly, Houjun's partner sat up.

And there she was.

"Kouran," Houjun found himself breathing. Seen as she might've been on their wedding night, straddling his hips. Her lavender hair tumbled down her shoulders, hid her breasts and tickled his skin where it brushed over his belly. Golden eyes were warm as she smiled, the coquette atop him, and seemed to invite him with her loving gaze.

This is love. Take it.

His long-fingered hands reached for her, straining abruptly for the strength to lift and grasp. But he latched onto her arms, and held on tightly. It was not the action of a lover or fiancé. It was the action of a man drowning.

She only giggled. Oh, you've caught me, her eyes said. What's a girl to do?

From demonic darkness to the light of a woman he'd so often put on a pedestal. His hands trembled on her, but still, he held on.

He wanted to hold her.

He wanted to shake her.

He wanted... he wanted...

Did he want this?

Was this love?

Did love lie to him? Deceive him? He found himself staring at her in wide-eyed confusion. He did not notice that her eyes were somewhat narrower than before, or that her hair turned silver at the tips. He only saw her face, felt her weight.

Did love lie?

No! He didn't want to believe that. Somewhere within, he was still a child building sandcastles before high tide. He refused to believe that their parapets would be toppled, that their fortress would fall. He wanted to believe in love. He did.

But love had lied.

"Why?" he finally asked, voice hoarse. "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you come to me with the truth?"

He didn't want to believe that love had been a lie.

"Would you have hated him, Houjun?" she found her voice. It was sugary sweet, like honey. Honeyed like her eyes; amber hued, clingy, sticky.

Something else had been sticky, too. He couldn't get it off his skin. He could feel it now.

"No," he denied without hesitation. He wouldn't have submitted to hate. He wouldn't have. He would... He would...

He would have beaten the shit out of him and enjoyed every goddamn moment. The spatter of blood would have been wine, the break of bone its drinking music. He would have hated Hikou for the violation, for the shattering of trust, the attempt to ruin what was supposed to be the happiest day of his life. He would have hated him for that tiny thing stolen. He'd never kissed her; what right did Hikou have to be the first? He would have hated him just as he did at the river.

"Yes," came the broken admittance, his eyes closing.

"Do you hate yourself for loving us?"

He let go of her arms, brought them across the face. If Hikou was the dark, and she was the light, Suzaku, please, strike him blind. It hurt. It burned. He didn't want to see anymore.

"Stop," he pleaded. "Stop."

She stopped. In fact, she did not move. She simply sat there astride him and watched with her honeyed gaze.

But the questions did not stop. From whence they came, he did not know. Inside? Outside? But still, they rang in his ears.

Could he blame Hikou for hating him?

No.

Would Hikou blame Houjun for hating him?

He didn't know.

Kouran--would she hate him for loving Hikou?

He didn't know.

What would she say?

Stop.

What would she think?

Stop!

To see her lover and her friend, entwined an satiated upon that small bed, limbs entangled.

STOP!

Is love real, or is merely a prelude of hate?

Stopstopstopstopstop!

She was gone. He stood, disoriented and weeping, and his legs went out from under him. But there was arms there. Strong from farm work, lifting him up and pulling him close. A sharp chin found his shoulder.

Hikou's breath was warm against his neck, his voice husky, "Do you want love?"

Houjun swallowed, even as he felt his body respond to the man's hands, warm around his torso at first, before moving as Hikou guided him. Was this love? Was love spawned from their hate? Or was this something different, something base and disgusting?

"No," he rasped. "No. I don't. I don't." This wasn't love. It was a pale facsimile. He wasn't worthy of the real thing. He'd killed it. Killed it with Hikou. Killed it with Kouran, punished by her family and drowned in her cellar like a rat, unable to flee from the floodwater.

He killed it with his own two hands.

He began to weep, again, in Hikou's arms. The hands moved over his skin, and drew him near, heedless of his tears. "Suzaku," he breathed.

"What good is he, anyway?" Hikou asked, as he eased the limp-bodied shichiseishi down to somewhere soft. "What did you have in the end? Nothing."

Houjun's eyes cracked open to the sight of Hikou lowering himself atop the prone monk.

"Is a tool all that you are?" Hikou said, before he kissed him, hands parting his legs. "I'll protect you."

The monk sighed softly. To be protected, instead being the protector. To have his burden lifted. He relaxed now, never mind what Hikou was doing. He didn't care. It didn't matter. He disconnected from his flesh, even as he dimly felt an invasion, the demon-man's body above him, his mouth on his skin.

His eyes closed and there was darkness again. He did not see anything but stars when he opened the unscarred eye again. The windchime gave it's soft, sweet music, and he listened. He felt tired. Everything in the room was peaceful and serene, just as when he had first closed his eye.

But he felt the stickiness.

And he felt ashamed.