Sorcerer Hunters Fan Fiction ❯ Hunting Oblivion ❯ Run, Carrot, Run! ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Sorcerer Hunters, but that hasn't stopped me from writing about them.

Warning: This story contains the themes of violence, sex (a bit graphic in scenes), and male/male relationships. If any of these may offend you then stop reading. If, however, you do read this, in spite of my warnings, and find it offensive then I have to say it is your own fault. Some scenes are of an erotic nature, but I have attempted to write them as tastefully as my ability allows.

Note: I will not accept any flames, however, comments and criticisms are welcome. I am under the assumption that anyone reading this has a clear understanding of the difference between flames and criticisms so I don't have to explain it. Here are some reason why I don't accept flames: 1) they generally include an attack on the author's character without regard to previous or future works that may or may not be in the same vein, 2) not only are they childish, but they make the writer of them sound immature and not old enough to read the material contained herein, 3) flames help neither the author nor the flamer to improve the work and, therefore, are not constructive, 4) if something is so offensive as to elicit the impulse to flame then it is better forgotten and not dwelled upon, 5) you waste time writing it and I waste time reading and then deleting it, 6) it won't do you any good to point out my lack of scruples, morals, intelligence, sanity, etc., because not only don't I care, but I won't listen.

So, anyway, please review and no flames.

Hunting Oblivion

Cool hands gripped his shoulders. Fingers gently, tenderly worked loose thick knots of muscle. He leaned back, eyes closed, lips parted on soft sighs. It felt so good, so warm. Safe. The warmth of the man behind him washed across his back, seeped into his skin, his bones. Safe.

"Carrot," the man breathed, cleaver fingers undoing knot after knot of tension. He sagged back into the wonderful heat of the man. Safe.

"Hmm?"

"Carrot…" The fingers stilled, then bit deep into his flesh. The security that had wrapped his mind in a languid daze began to deliquesce. Safe?

"Carrot…Run!"

Blind panic gripped his mind and catapulted his body into motion. He surged forward, away from the intoxicating warmth, into darkness.

Not safe!

"When I catch you, you're mine."

* * *

With a yelp of surprise Carrot Glace found himself kicked out of bed. He landed on the floor with a muffled thump and then clawed his way up from the tangle of blankets.

"What the hell?" A pillow met his indignant outcry. "Hey!" Another pillow hit him in the face. He batted it away and glared balefully over the edge of the bed.

"Keep it down, if you would," his lover growled in the early morning darkness. "I have no desire to wake up yet."

"You're already awake." Yet another pillow struck the boy. He wondered how many pillows there were.

"Thank you for pointing out the obvious."

"That's my job," Carrot quipped as he climbed onto the bed.

"So what brought about this fit?" Sacher Torte inquired dryly through a tangle of dark hair. The boy frowned as he pulled up the blankets from the floor. Flashes of panicked darkness flittered about his brain. He shook his head to dislodge the images.

"A nightmare."

"Oh?"

"I was being chased, hunted." Sacher frowned and scanned the boy's abnormally pale face.

"By what?" Carrot drew his knees up to his bare chest and wrapped his young arms around them. His brown turned away from his lover and focused on a spot amid the rumpled blankets.

"By whom, you mean."

"'Whom'?"

"Yeah, this person was…" Carrot heaved an exasperated sigh and stretched out. He flopped back against the bed, discovered that Sacher was hogging the remaining pillows, and reached down to grab the former projectiles off the floor. "Then you kicked me out of bed."

"I humbly apologize. Perhaps next time I will let you kick me black and blue," the man said dryly as he tugged the blankets over himself. The boy held onto the blankets and a short tug-of-war ensued. "There are a few more hours of dark. Go back to sleep, little one." Carrot in assent and curled up beside the man. Sacher sighed softly and settled the covers over them both. The boy shivered against the encroaching dreams and clutched the older man. His lover wasn't one who particularly enjoyed cuddling, but the man allowed the boy the luxury in the face of disturbing nightmares. Carrot was grateful.

He didn't want to fall asleep. If he did, then the hunt would be on. An impression of burning, golden eyes bubbled up under the guise of sleep's first touch. He bit back a whimper and curled closer, seeking the reassuring warmth of the man. He didn't want to dream because when the nightmare apparition caught him…

He wouldn't think about that. Stupid dreams, stupid meaningless dreams that had the gall to bother him. They didn't mean anything. They were just the irritating remnants of last night's dinner or something.

"When I catch you…"

'I won't be caught,' he thought as somnolence weighed down his mind.

"You're mine."

A shiver of something more than fear shook his body. What would it be like to be caught?

* * *

It seemed as if Tira Misu had been to every bar, tavern and place that sold alcohol in ten-block area about the inn the three companions were staying in. Not only had she visited them, she had given them a detailed description of Carrot and told them not to serve him anything stronger than coffee. At least that's how it appeared to the exasperated boy. He didn't know if it was true, but he wouldn't put it past the petite redhead. Whatever the case may have been, he couldn't find anyone willing to sell him wine or beer, watered down or no, and forget even thinking about the hard stuff. Alcohol was the stuff of life; enough pregnancies due to drunken revelries ought to have proven that already.

Scratching his head distractedly he entered yet another bar. The dimly lit, smoke field place was inhabited by the usual assortment of bar denizens. He strolled up to the counter and the appalling thin bartender behind it. He could feel the unfriendly eyes of several patrons drill into the back of his spiky head. He coughed self-consciously and caught the bartender's eye.

"What can I get ya?" the thin man asked hollowly. The sallow light jaundiced his sagging flesh and made dark holes of his black eyes.

"Anything with alcohol in it!" Carrot declared loudly. Several muted growls prodded him to use a soft tone. "Please." The bartender glared impersonally at him and chewed at his ragged bottom lip.

"Sorry, we're out." The boy blinked in surprise, in shock, in complete bafflement. Out? How was that possible? How could every single bar, tavern and place that was supposed to sell alcohol be out?

"You can't be serious?"

"I am."

"But-"

"We're out. Won't get another shipment till next month. Sorry."

"How can you call yourself a bar?" Carrot demanded hotly, leaning in close.

"That's what the sign outside says. It says 'Shady Cat's Bar'. That's what this is, a bar," the man replied tonelessly as he continued to abuse his lower lip.

"Bars serve some form of an alcoholic beverage."

"We do."

"Then where is it?"

"It'll be coming next month."

"I can't wait that long! I won't even be in this hell hole next month!"

"Next month. Not my problem."

"This isn't a very good bar, is it then?" The man narrowed sunken eyes and glared at the boy. Carrot matched him scowl for listless scowl. They glared at each other for several minutes.

"Are you going to order something or not?" the bartender demanded at last.

"If it doesn't give me a buzz, then I don't want it," the boy huffed and turned away. He stalked back across the floor, ignored several belligerent glares tossed his way, and exited the exasperating place. Outside in the twilit darkness he heaved a tremendous sigh and kicked aside a broken green bottle. Was there some sort of strange and twisted law that prevented people from selling a little wine? Or had Tira really managed to coerce all the owners into denying him a drink?

He loved drinking. He knew it wasn't right to think that alcohol would make him happy, but it did the next best thing: it made him numb. He could look as normally exuberant and carefree as always only more so, and it wouldn't even be mostly pretend. After a couple of glasses a pleasant buzzing would drown his mind in a warm haze. Nothing would matter while he floated through an alcohol-induced daze. The horrors stored in his brain would drift away and leave him in peace for a time. If he had his way, he'd spend a vast majority of his life inebriated. Sacher might have a thing or two to say about that, but Carrot figured that it was his body and he could do what he wanted with it.

He navigated the warren of dimly lit streets with disappointing ease. Everything was much more interesting under a cloud of alcohol. Pushing back his spiky black hair, he glared impotently at the scattering of stars peeking between the narrow separation between buildings. Damn, rundown town. It was harder to be cheerful once the sun set.

"Excuse me." Cautiously he craned his head in the direction of the husky, melodic voice. A shadowed figure beckoned to him from the dark maw of an unlit alleyway. He rested one hand on his hip and regarded the stranger with ill-concealed contempt.

"You expect me to follow you into an unlit alley?" A breezy giggle met his query. "I'm not that stupid."

"I have something you might want."

"And what is that?"

"This." A slim, honey-toned hand emerged into the light holding a bottle of expensive wine. Carrot could feel the saliva begin to flow in his mouth.

"Really?" he asked eagerly. Maybe the night wasn't a total waste. So what if taking things from a stranger was dangerous? It wasn't like his line of work, being a Sorcerer Hunter, ensured a long life.

"Yes, really." A pair of golden eyes winked at him.

"Nice." He skipped over to the stranger and grabbed the bottle. "Thank you." With finesse born of practice he popped the cork out of the bottle. "Want any before I drink it all?"

"No thanks." The boy shrugged before tilting his head back and chugging down a good portion of the bottle's contents. The alcohol settled comfortably in his stomach like a warm fist. After several more minutes the bottle was empty and a pleasant lassitude had usurped his mind. He stumbled slightly, the world tilting delightfully, as he bent to set the bottle down.

"Careful there," the stranger murmured.

"I've got it," the boy slurred straightening. He sighed contentedly and tipped his head back to watch the wavering pinpricks of light dance crazily. He felt so good. It seemed as if everything was fine, would always be fine if he could just stay like this.

"Where'd you get this stuff?" Lazily Carrot turned towards the patiently watching stranger.

"Why do you ask?"

"None of the places here have any." The stranger flashed him a coy smile in the dim light. A flicker of unease attempted to warn Carrot of something, but he felt too relaxed to care.

"It seems that way, doesn't it?" the stranger said.

"Why?"

"The festival a week earlier."

"Festival?"

"Five days of continuous alcoholic consumption by all age groups. Quite amusing for outsiders to be sure." The stranger shrugged with the air of someone who couldn't quite understand the local idiosyncrasies. "The next shipment of wine won't come in for about a month. Every year this happens. I never miss it." With each sentence the stranger crossed the intangible border into the boy's personal space. He blinked rapidly against the oddly tilting surroundings.

"That's crazy." The stranger's heat lapped against him across the narrow slice of space between them. The stranger giggled impishly and touched the tip of his nose.

"You have no idea." The boy jumped in drunken surprise as a cool hand slid up the heated flesh of his stomach beneath his tank top.

"E-Excuse me?" The hand paused and lightly stroked the slight protrusion of his lower ribs. Delicate strands of honeyed warmth tightened in his groin.

"Can I ask you a question?" A lush mouth hovered near his. Golden eyes drowned his vision.

"Y-Yes." Carrot could feel his heartbeat in the pit of his stomach. He had always thought that only Sacher could elicit such a response.

"Do you like girls? Or boys?" The last word left the stranger's mouth like a sumptuous, sensual sweet. The boy could almost taste the words from the other's oh-so-near mouth. The barest tilt of his head would bring their lips together. His breath skittered past his lips in excited puffs and mingled with warm breath of the other. A second hand joined the first and the two of them glided around to play about the line of the boy's spine.

"G-Girls!" he lied around an oddly strangled gasp.

"Really?" With a small yelp the boy found himself firmly pressed against the heat of the stranger's body. The hands roamed freely about his back, dancing across his shoulder blades and sliding down to the beginning swell of his buttocks.

A startling realization crashed into Carrot's inebriated mind. The stranger was a…guy! He swayed unsteadily from the shock and drink and would have fallen except for the stranger, the man's strong hold about him.

"I think you're lying, Carrot-dear," the man laughed before claiming the boy's lips in a heated, bruising kiss. He struggled for a moment, but the stranger was insistent, commanding, and he had no choice but to yield his mouth to the assault. A slick tongue probed the seal of his lips and slipped past. He whimpered helpless as he suckled the wicked invader.

Abruptly the man shoved him away. He staggered unsteadily back into the alley wall. Gasping around the flash-fire surging through his body, he turned questioning eyes to the stranger.

"Not yet," the stranger laughed breathlessly. "The hunt is only starting."

A bolt of boreal fear shuddered through Carrot. 'Hunt'?

"Hunt?" A hand grazed his cheek lovingly.

"Run, Carrot."

The boy stumbled away, flinging himself into the blurring darkness. The stranger's melodic laughter curled inside his ears and spurred him to greater bursts of fear. The wine seemed to drag against the edges of his mind and sap his strength. He couldn't run. Where was that damned inn?

"When I catch you, you're mine."

* * *

From Sarryn:

Questions? Comments? Click that wonderful reviewing button, if you would be so kind.

Just for clarity's sake, Mille Feuille is the who betrayed Big Mama instead of Sacher Torte. He wants to remake the world using Carrot's latent powers (i.e. the God of Destruction, GoD!). It's all flipped around! Isn't that just spiffy? Thought so.