&;all the white horses

Orestes (working title), Prologue

2007-11-28T04:29:44Z

Orestes
working title
Prologue

Slaid Kul is six, and the noble is very, very tall.

He crouches in front of him, though, and Slaid smiles nervously into the man’s eyes, because no one ever lowers themselves to his level when they speak to him.

“My name is Orestes,” the noble says. He says nothing of the gaping abyss between his status and Slaid’s.

Slaid is six, and he doesn’t understand social power, or why the tattoo on Orestes’ face frightens his mother so. He’s never seen a tattoo before, and doesn’t realize they’re not meant to move.

Slaid is eleven, and very cold.

The day is dark, sky thick with clouds pregnant with rain, and the wind oozes through skeleton trees. He shivers as it slides like eels across his skin.

“Bundle up,” his mother had advised. “You’ll catch a chill.”

It hadn’t seemed that cold at first, so he’d ignored his mother’s advice and gone out without a coat, instead a simple, heavy jerkin and tunic. He hunches over himself as he walks, arms wrapped tightly against his chest, and he grits his teeth to keep them from chattering. Week-old snow crunches beneath his boots, and he’s just thankful the walk to the village isn’t overly long.

The sound of horse hooves beating a fast pace against the packed dirt road makes him look up, and he stares as a noble races past. He catches a brief glimpse of dark features against pale skin, an aristocratic nose and a strange tattoo that seems to move across his skin at the corner of the noble’s eye.

This time, when he shivers, it’s not because of the cold, but he smiles, because he’s known Orestes for as long as he can remember.

Slaid is sixteen, and he is deeply in love.

Myrna is fifteen, though, and he’s not allowed to see her without her mother there as well. It grits along his nerves, but he accepts it because he loves her.

Orestes smiles when he tells him of her.

Slaid is sixteen, and doesn’t recognize the sadness in Orestes’ eyes.

Slaid is twenty-four, now, husband to the woman he loves and father of three.

His children are his world, and he toils long and hard in the fields for them. Myrna—beautiful, glorious Myrna—works alongside him, sleeves rolled up to her elbows and skirt bunched around her thighs despite the cold. There is a streak of dirt across her cheek, and he loves her for it.

He hears noise behind him and sees the shadow of a man on horseback fall across the wheat. He turns, and high up on the road is Orestes, dark and powerful and glorious in a way Myrna can never be.

Slaid smiles and waves, and feels Myrna go still beside him. When he looks at her in confusion, she says nothing, just raises the scythe.

Slaid is thirty-seven, and feeling old.

His oldest is seventeen and already married, and he’s expecting a grandchild in the coming months. He prays the child is born in the summer, when it’s warm, and not in the cold dark of winter, when the sun rises mere hours before noon and sinks below the horizon not long after. The days are long, in the summer, and he wants his grandchild to see that first.

Myrna is growing delicate with age and hard work, wrists fragile in his hands and skin growing pale and thin. Such is the life of living so far north, he supposes.

He has to go into the village, now, to see Orestes. Myrna won’t allow him in the house, and Slaid doesn’t understand why.

Slaid is forty-nine, and Myrna died a year ago, fragile and old as one can wish to be in this place.

He lives on his own, now, with an old, graying sheep dog, and the walk to the village aches in his bones, but any attempt to mount a horse leaves him in such agony he can barely move.

Orestes visits him often, cool and dark and soothing. Slaid’s skin is papery beneath his hands as he presses it to his brow, but Orestes’ is strong and smooth.

Slaid smiles, and sees pain in Orestes’ eyes.

Slaid is fifty-four, and dying.

He’s seen his children more often the past week than he has in the last three years, and it is a solid, heavy ache in his chest.

Orestes visits almost daily now, and Slaid can see his children have some misgivings about him, but they say nothing and he is thankful. He notices Orestes is careful to visit when his children are away, and Slaid wonders why the people he loves most cannot love each other.

“Try not to worry so much,” Orestes says, seated on a heavy wooden stool Slaid made years ago. If it weren’t for his bearing and clothes, Orestes would never look like a noble: He sits with his legs spread wide, a foot hooked around a stool leg, leaning forward and resting against his knees.

Slaid likes to watch the tattoo swirl against his skin. It’s a way of distracting himself from Orestes’ eyes, how bruised they look against his skin, like old wounds. He can’t imagine why Orestes would be in so much pain.

Slaid is fifty-five, and he knows he’ll be dead within a week. Breath comes difficultly to his lungs, now, hard and cold. His tongue is thick and heavy in his mouth, and it pains him to swallow.

Orestes spends more time with him than his children do; slowly, they’ve stopped visiting, as though trying to put their dying father from their mind. He can’t honestly blame them; he can only imagine how he must look.

Orestes, though, is with him for most of the day, before and after dark.

Slaid wakes to find Orestes by his bed, watching him with sorrow in his eyes. He tries to smile, but if his lips move at all it turns his face into a grimace, something gruesome.

A strong, pale hand brushes the hair out of his eyes, and Orestes leans forward, presses a kiss to the parchment-skin of his forehead. “I love you, my old friend,” he murmurs, and leans back.

Slaid realizes, suddenly, that Orestes has not aged a day since he was six.

He swallows, almost chokes on it, and closes his eyes.

The day is dark, but it’s never really been anything different, here. Orestes shivers in the cold, watching the breeze kick up dead, rotting leaves, and pulls his coat tighter around him.

Head down and hands tucked into his pockets, he turns and walks away.

He has no place here, now.

Slaid is eight, ninety-three, forty-seven, twenty-five, one thousand, all at once. He is strong as he has not been in ten, fifty, one hundred years, and the wood of the plow is solid in his hands.

He smiles as he raises the scythe, laughs as he tills good earth. The weather is always warm, here, the sky blue, the sun high in the sky, and the grass greener than anything he can remember. Sweat glistens sleek on his skin.

Sometimes, Orestes visits him, and when Slaid looks deeply enough into his eyes he sees a map of the world on his face. He doesn’t understand the sorrow he finds there.

Inertia Creeps, chapter 1.

2007-09-13T15:12:01Z

Inertia Creeps
Chapter One

i almost ran over an angel, he had a nice big fat cigar.
"in a sense," he said, "you're alone here, so if you jump, you best jump far."
oh, god, could it be the weather? oh, god, why am i here?
if love isn't forever and it's not the weather, aha...
-Tori Amos, Leather

She’s filling the birdfeeders as he approaches, black jeans and a black sweatshirt with the hood up, battered sneakers and humming just loudly enough that he can hear her.

He hesitates for a moment, takes a deep breath — you can do this, Sam, she can’t be crazy like they say oh god oh god what if she is? — and steps forward. “Excuse me—”

He backpedals with a shout, and his foot slipping on grass still damp with afternoon rain is the only thing that keeps him from getting brained with a birdfeeder. Good god, she is crazy— He goes down loudly, arms windmilling in a desperate but failed attempt to keep him standing, and feels the breath whoosh out of his lungs as he lands flat on his back.

Oh, what the hell.

She stares at him like he’s out of his mind, and her face is dark with a scowl, and oh god, he wishes he’d told his mother he loved her (even if half the time he doesn’t) because he’s going to die. “Who the hell are you?” she asks. Her voice is surprisingly rough.

Sam scrambles to his feet, slips again and yelps as he bangs his knee on a rock, and when he manages to find his balance he’s breathless and flushed in the cool spring air. “Sam,” he says, rushing, “Sam Piers. My friends—” He stops.

A strange, crooked grin is pulling at her lips, and she has a knowing glint in her eye. “Ah,” she says. “Dared you to talk to Crazy Lady Remington, did they?”

He flushes. “How did you—”

She laughs, low and vibrating, and he stares at her. “Think I don’t know what they call me?” She seems honestly amused. She turns around and hangs up the birdfeeder she’d almost killed him with. “Sam, you said?”

“Yeah.”

She gives the backyard the most thorough once-over he’s ever seen and nods. “Come on in, kid.”

“Um...”

He hesitates in the doorway, looking helplessly around himself into the kitchen, and finally just shrugs and scuffs his shoes on the welcome mat.

“Hm?” She half turns, and vivid pink hair tumbles down her back as she throws back her hood.

About to speak, he stops. “...Your hair is pink,” he says, and stares. He’s never seen such a color before.

She quirks an eyebrow. “Funnily enough I’d noticed that,” she says, crooked grin and laughing surprisingly smooth for how rough her voice is.

...Yeah, he deserved that.

Sam flushes, clearing his throat, and looks around again. The kitchen is small, warm and clean and cozy, a few odd knickknacks lying about and a pile of bread loaves in the corner of the counter.

“Want some tea?” she asks, already pouring water into the kettle.

“Ah, sure.”

He really has nothing to do and so watches her move around the kitchen, kettle on the stove, setting out two pale green cups and dropping a teabag in each. “White tea,” she says. “Once brewed only for the Chinese royalty, a~all the way back in the Quing Dynasty. Have a seat.”

He sits, flounders for a moment. It’s not thought out, simple knee-jerk reaction, and he stares because his parents haven’t been able to do that to him since he was four. “How did you know that?” he finally asks, trying to distract himself.

She glances up at him through a spill of pink bangs, lips curling with amusement. “Says it on the box,” she says.

...Makes sense, although it’s not the answer he was expecting.

“You new to the neighborhood?” she asks, cocking her head, and Sam gets the sudden impression of an exotic bird. The brilliantly colored hair doesn’t help, and he notices her eyes are a strange shade of brown, almost golden.

He shrugs, eyes sliding away from hers. “Just moved in a couple days ago.”

She makes a sound of understanding, and he can feel her watching him. He shifts, tugging at the hem of his shirt.

The sound of the teakettle whistling makes him jump, and he knocks his knee again, this time on the bottom of the table, and hisses. She’s up and in front of the stove in a blur of color that leaves him staring.

“I’ve never had tea before,” he says, watching her pour the water into the cups. “Um—”

“Call me Adrian,” she says, and sets his mug on the table in front of him before he can think to ask why she has a boy’s name. “Sugar? Milk?” she asks.

“Uh, both,” he says, flustered and hating it.

She’s humming under her breath again, and after she drops a spoonful of sugar in her tea she pushes the sugar bowl across the table to him. He hesitates, finally drops two spoonfuls into his, and accepts the milk when she hands it to him. This is so weird... For a long moment he stares between the tea and her, and when she quirks an eyebrow he shrugs, braces himself, and takes a sip.

Sam always thought tea would be sharp and bitter, an assault on the taste buds; he hears the word and thinks of royalty and politics and uncomfortable chairs and formalities and thought tea would be, well, gross. He’s pleasantly surprised to find it light and mildly sweet, and he actually savors the taste.

“So?”

He glances up at Adrian. “What—”

“What do you think?”

“...I like it,” he finally says. There’s an odd expression on her face, eyes hooded and why did he let the kids next door bully him into this?

She smiles though, and says, “It’s good for you, too. White tea especially. Strengthens your immune system.”

“How—”

“Back of the box.” She’s grinning at him, crooked but all straight, white teeth.

Ah. Figures.

“So where are you from?” she asks, eyebrows lifted in interest.

He scratches behind his ear and says, “Washington.”

Wow. He’s never seen anyone lose their eyebrows in their hair, before. “And you moved all the way to Massachusetts?”

He looks away as his belly knots, and drinks more tea to cover the bitter taste in his mouth. The mug is warm against his palms. “Mum wants to live closer to family, again,” he mutters.

There is a long moment of silence before Adrian asks, “And you?” Her voice is quiet. “What do you want?”

I want to go home— But he doesn’t say it out loud, instead grasps desperately for something else to talk about and blurts, “Why do you have a boy’s name?”

Oh brilliant, Sam, she’ll never notice that, because everyone’s as stupid as you are, and he feels like banging his head on the table.

She raises an eyebrow at him, and there is no way she doesn’t know what he’s doing, but she lets it slide and oh god, he thinks he’s in love with her, now. “It’s actually a neutral name,” she says. “It’s generally spelled a-d-r-i-e-n-n-e for girls, but my mother preferred a-d-r-i-a-n, so that’s what I ended up with.” She shrugs.

He watches her for a moment, feeling strangely helpless, and asks, “Didn’t you get made fun of in school?”

Adrian stares at him for a second, and he turns red and feels like he just gave her something very, very important of himself and wonders what the hell is going on. “All the time, actually,” she says, and he lets out a breath of relief. “I stopped caring about eighth grade, though, so they stopped doing it.”

Her voice really is rough, is she sick?

She blinks at him. “What?”

He chokes on his tea. “I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“...Damn. I was afraid of that.” He sinks low in his chair, face burning and trying to hide behind his mug. “It’s just...your voice is really hoarse.”

“Ah.” She sips her tea, and he wonders if her throat hurts. “Surgical accident, unfortunately.”

She doesn’t seem to want to elaborate. He doesn’t ask.

This time, it’s Adrian who blatantly changes the subject. “You have school in the morning?”

Sam shrugs. “Guess so, yeah,” he says, and he’s just noticed how fascinating the grain of the table’s wood is.

“Ah.”

...Is that it?

“Not much for school, are you?”

The~ere it is.

“Not really,” he says, and is that freckle on his knuckle new or has it always been there? He suddenly realizes the silence is one of waiting, and bites his lip before shrugging again. “Never really fit in.”

She nods. “It can be tough,” she agrees, but doesn’t push further, thank god. Then, out of the blue, “I think you need a new filter,” thoughtfully, like it isn’t something totally crazy.

After a moment, Sam asks, “What?”

Adrian laughs. “The filter between your brain and your mouth,” she explains. “Keeps you from saying things like ‘yes, you do look fat in those pants.’ Seems like yours is either broken or clogged.”

“...Oh.” It does make sense, in a weird way. Sam eyes her askance. “You’re crazy, aren’t you?”

And then he sighs and leans forward to begin smacking his forehead against the table. She lets him for a bit and then presses a hand to the back of his head to make him stop. “You need those brain cells you’re so thoughtlessly murdering, you know,” she chides.

He nods against the wood. “Sorry,” he says.

He can feel her shrug through the hand on his head. “S’okay,” she says, “it’s kind of refreshing, actually. I don’t generally have conversations with teenagers. Adults hide too much of what they think, sometimes.”

“Amen to that,” he mutters.

When he sits up there’s a small smile on her lips. “It was nice meeting you, Sam,” she says. “It does get a little lonely here, because most people avoid me. You should go home, though, it’s late.”

Two minutes later he finds himself halfway down the street, and he stops for a moment to blink; he doesn’t even remember standing. Ah, well. Sam turns around and sees Adrian standing on the front porch, and he waves.

She laughs, waving back, and calls, “Make sure you tell your friends I offered you human heads for dinner!”

He laughs and shakes his head as he continues down the street. Too bad he doesn’t really have any friends; he’ll just have to tell the kids who’d dared him that yes, he’d done it, and could he have his thirty bucks?

Tomorrow.

His amusement’s faded by the time he reaches his house, and he closes the front door quietly behind him. The TV’s on in the living room, shockingly enough, and he sighs. He stands in the doorway to the living room for a long moment, waiting for his mother to notice him, and finally just says during a commercial break, “I’m home, Mom.”

His voice is quiet and he’s actually amazed she hears him, but she looks over in his direction.

“Ah,” she says. Then she turns back to the TV and absently says, “There’s some dinner left in the fridge, if you want to heat it up. Don’t forget you have school in the morning.”

He bites his lip, tries not to let her distance hurt, and heats up left over take-out in the microwave.

Sam wakes up with a splitting headache and the alarm clock shrieking in his ears. He rolls over and swears, and turns the demonic thing off with his eyes closed. After a moment, he groans and heaves himself upright, throwing on whatever clean clothes he finds first and popping a couple headache pills in the bathroom.

The light in the hallway hurts his eyes and he swears under his breath, walking with a hand against the wall to keep his balance.

His sister flounces out of her room, wearing robins’ egg blue pajamas with the characters of the comic strip Mutts on them, hot pink curlers in her hair and green sludge on her face. He stares for a second through eyes that water with pain and mutters, “You look disgusting.”

She turns her nose up at him, hmphs and rushes to steal the bathroom as their father exits his bedroom. Their father stares after her, looks at Sam, and then says, “I don’t know why she bothers, we have a private bathroom in there.”

Sam would smile if his head weren’t being split open, so he settles for making a noise somewhere between a laugh and a grunt and forces himself down the stairs.

His father catches up with him and grabs an elbow to help steady him. “Headache?” he whispers, and Sam grits his teeth and nods. “Sit.”

He does, carefully lowering himself into the nearest chair. His father dims the overhead lights, which helps, and he settles back and closes his eyes.

A moment later, his father presses a warm mug into his hands. “Here, drink,” he says quietly.

The smell of hot chocolate wafts into his nose, and he sighs and takes a sip. It slides down his throat, hot and sweet, and Sam can feel himself relaxing. His father urges him to lean his head back, and presses a hot compress to his forehead. Sam moans and says, “Thanks.” Already he can feel the headache subsiding, and the hot chocolate is warming him up from the inside out.

Ah, heaven.

His father makes a low sound of acknowledgement and then goes about his regular morning ritual, making coffee, turning on the news—but quietly, today—and Sam drowses for a bit.

He rouses to the sound of bacon sizzling on the skillet, and his father is making him a cheese and mushroom omelet. Sam’s mouth waters almost instantly—his father makes the best omelets—and he watches greedily as the omelet and several slices of fresh bacon are flipped onto his plate.

“Thank you,” he says, and digs into the food with relish.

His father chuckles and smiles, ruffling his hair, and he loves his father so much right now he only puts up a token resistance.

They live at that point the school considers walking distance but really isn’t, and of course no buses run by, so their father drives them in on his way to work. They listen to Interpol in the car, and Tabitha complains bitterly—she thinks they should have to listen to her music, brat that she is—but Sam loves it. He’s always been into the electronica side of music.

He drops them off in the parking lot and wishes them a good first day, much to Tabitha’s embarrassment—“Daddy, people are going to see!”—and Sam stands for a moment and watches the people mill about them.

The bell rings and he follows the mob inside, stopping in the office to get his schedule and, surprisingly enough, a map of the school, and heads off to his first class. English III, the schedule says, with Remington.

The name doesn’t click in his brain until he walks into the classroom and sees Adrian sitting at the desk. He stops and stares.

She looks up and grins at him, crooked as usual. “Hello, Sam,” she says. “Welcome to Waterboro High School.”

“You’re a teacher?” he finally asks, and moves to a desk in the front of the class; he’d been blocking the doorway.

Instead of replying she makes a grand gesture, like a queen displaying her domain.

The class is watching them with interest, because he’s new and he already knows the teacher. Oh well. As long as he doesn’t have to get up in front of the class.

He suddenly realizes Adrian’s grin has slid into a sly smirk. “Sam, why don’t you come up and introduce yourself?”

His blood runs cold. “What?”

She lifts an eyebrow. “Sam, get up here.”

Dammit. He’s on his feet in front of the class before he knows what he’s doing. He slouches forward, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Tell them your name,” she urges.

“Sam Piers,” he mutters. God, he hates this woman.

Silence.

...Yeah, hello to you too, assholes.

“Filter~,” Adrian sing-songs, and Sam blanches. The entire classroom is staring at him, in either anger or horror.

He feels himself go hot, then cold, and stares at the floor in misery. Open, please, he thinks. Then, desperately, Open sesame?

...Disney should really be sued for false advertisement, because that never works when he tries it. Not even in times of desperate need. He looks pleadingly at Adrian. “Can I please throw myself out the window, now?” he asks, only half joking.

“I’d wait until I got home, if I were you,” she says brightly, smiling fit to blind. Sweet Jesus, she’s utterly mad. “That way the janitors don’t have to clean the blood off the cement.”

Which is obviously why she’s called Crazy Lady Remington, because no sane person could ever say that with a straight face. Or, well, at least without immediately bursting into laughter, because she’d been smiling in the first place, but that’s not the point.

So again with that whole silence thing, he thinks, despair clogging his breath, and he miserably sits back down and hopes some raving psychopath will conveniently burst into the room with a gun. Of course, with his luck, if that were ever to happen he’d only get clipped with the bullet and he’d survive, and wouldn’t that just suck?

...He should probably stop wishing for death, because it can’t be healthy.

“So!” Adrian suddenly claps her hands together, teeth white against her smile and the dark tan of her skin. No doubt about it, she’s off her rocker. “Let’s get to work, hm~?”

all information on the tea was taken from the back of a box of Bentley’s white tea. no, seriously.

Viewfinder - Because we are amorphous

2007-09-13T03:10:49Z

Because we are amorphous

We hold that in reverence

-Kubo Tite’s BLEACH, chapter 1

Rating: NC-17

Warning: graphic sex, photographical mumbo jumbo

Pairings: Asami/Akihito

Summary: Akihito, his photography, and Asami.

Notes: this has been sitting on my computer for a couple months, now, slowly being worked on section by section. XD; please excuse the exactness of much of the photography-process details, I’ve been taking classes for over six years now. XD; and since I don’t know much about digital photography, and there were a few scenes that were obviously in a darkroom, I figured I’d go with what I know.

Akihito listens to a lot of music in his darkroom. Today, it’s Coldplay.

He hates developing film, because it’s slow and tedious, and he normally prefers digital. Occasionally, though, the shot he wants doesn’t get the right feel through digital and the end product is worth the wait.

All the lights are on because he doesn’t need to be in the dark to develop film; he only needs to turn the lights off while he loads the film onto the reels, but he hates the pitch-black (film is sensitive to any light) and turns the lights on as soon as the canister is light-sealed.

The film looks good when he holds it up to the light, and he hangs it up in the cabinet to dry.

He’ll be back tomorrow.

He’s visited that night by Asami, surprise of all surprises, and as is their strange ritual he struggles at first.

Eventually, as usual, he gives in, and finds himself fucked almost brutally against the kitchen counter. It’s hot and sticky and the countertop is digging painfully into his lower back, but it’s all he can do not to scream because Asami’s just that good. When he comes, it’s with his blood roaring in his ears, and he falls limp against the cabinets behind him, Asami the only thing holding him up as he gasps for air.

And as usual, they argue, though Akihito’s not really paying attention to what. His chest feels oddly tight as Asami walks out the door, and he slides to the linoleum floor in silence, trying to swallow around the sudden dryness in his throat.

He needs a shower.

The man who introduced him to photography was an American by the name of Henry Whitcock. He worked with Akihito’s father for a while when he was younger, and by the age of sixteen had turned him into a total photography junky.

Henry is probably the reason Akihito refuses to use anything but American products; it’s expensive, but he’s tried a good amount of Japanese films and much prefers Kodak 125 Plus-X film, or, in a pinch, 400 Tri-X. Of course, both are ridiculously hard to find online, but he still occasionally keeps in touch with Henry and will receive large shipments of film from America.

Akihito’s interest in English music came from Henry, too. (Thank God for the internet.)

Today, he’s listening to Tori Amos.

He doesn’t really pay attention to the lyrics—he doesn’t speak much English—and it’s quiet music, but it fits the solitude of the dark room. He’s only making contact sheets at the moment, but it’s enough to remind him that he really does love the darkroom. Digital photography can be fun, but there’s nothing quite like watching the print slowly develop before your eyes.

Of course, he’s a strange one and flips the paper over as soon as the grays start appearing. It lends a certain magic to the developing tray, that he turns the print back over and the image is there. He likes watching the reflection of the orange lights in the ripples as he swirls the tongs around.

Three rolls of film, three corresponding contact sheets: Two minutes in the developer, ten seconds in the stop bath, a minute in the fixer, a quick rinse, bring out to the light to look over, three minutes in the other tray of fixer and then in the water to be washed, leave them to dry on the racks and he’s done for the day.

He snatches up his keys and his favorite camera, a beaten up Canon AE-1 that’s probably as old as he is, and he’s out the door.

It’s about five o’clock, that time of day between daylight and darkness when the light is almost perfect, and the air is warm with summer. He loads his film on the train, snaps a couple photos of interesting people at various stops—he sees one man who randomly plunked himself down on a corner with a guitar, and at another stop a tiny little woman is trying desperately to control her three children and carry a large amount of grocery bags at the same time—and gets off by the park.

It’s Amuro Namie’s newest CD, this time, upbeat hip-hop to match his excitement over these latest six rolls of film; he went a little crazy in the hours before the sun sank fully behind the city skyline. The city is never boring, though, which means it’s the perfect place for a photographer to live, and he found everything from children playing on swing sets to an elderly couple celebrating their fiftieth anniversary—they gave him their information when they saw his camera, and he’s promised to send them the photos if they come out well—to Paris-styled streetlamps on his way home.

He’s so excited about these rolls, in fact, that he totally forgets about the previous three.

He wakes about three in the morning, bent over the side of his bed, with Asami’s mouth on the back of his neck and a cock in his ass. He’s moaning like a bitch in heat, pleasure singing across his nerves as Asami’s cock drives into him over and over again. Sweat-slick skin slides against his back, big hands pressing his wrists into the mattress, and the sound of his cries echoes in his ears as he comes and his vision goes gray around the edges.

Morning finds him rolling over and onto a large, warm body. He starts fully awake, blinking sleep-gummed eyes in amazement. Asami rarely stays the night.

For a moment, Akihito watches him, and then he huffs and rolls off the bed, pulling on a pair of boxers—probably a wasted effort—and pads across the apartment to the kitchen.

By the time Asami’s awake, Akihito’s sitting at the table devouring a bowl of rice and a couple slices of buttered toast. Asami quirks an eyebrow, glancing at the clock (6:58, it reads), and says, “You’re up early.” There’s a smirk on his lips.

Akihito snorts into his rice. “Especially since you woke me up at three in the morning, asshole.”

Amber eyes simmer as Asami stalks around the table towards him, and Akihito’s on his feet and halfway across the apartment in a blur of movement. “Didn’t you get enough last night?!” he yelps, and the yakuza laughs, low and rich. He’ll deny it to his last breath, but it sends a delicious shiver down Akihito’s spine.

“No,” the man says.

He abruptly finds himself pinned to the wall, a rough mouth biting at his own, and he tries vainly to push Asami away. A large hand palms his ass, though, and he whimpers as Asami leaves a string of bites and bruises down his throat to his nipple. He chews at it until Akihito is all but climbing him, keening low in his throat, and he smacks his head against the wall as Asami slams into him.

When they’re finished, his voice is rough and hoarse. He’s panting, shivering on the floor, and Asami’s back (red-marked from his desperate clawing) is large and forbidding as he dresses and leaves.

Akihito thumps his head against the wall and swallows.

He doesn’t even remember losing his boxers.

Three weeks later he finds the contact sheets he’d forgotten about, and he looks over them in surprise. He doesn’t remember taking these photos, but a particular one catches his eye and he hunts down the negatives.

An hour and ten pieces of photo paper later he’s got a finished print, and he stands in the darkroom for a long time just staring at it.

He thinks it’s the best photo he’s ever printed, and of course it has to be of Asami.

Viewfinder - Leather

2007-07-31T14:01:15Z

written for the following 30_lemons prompt:

1. Anonymity, or, “Taken by the Faceless Stranger”

some themes in this were inspired by a Weiß Kreuz fanfic that I can't find at the moment. --; I'll link to it when I find it.

Leather

Rating: hard R/NC-17
Warnings: semi-explicit non-con, language, bondage
Pairings: Asami/Akihito
Summary: a small introspective piece from Asami's POV.

Asami doesn’t usually tie people up.

It’s a well-known secret, at least among his own, that he loves bondage. But bondage, to be done properly, is all about ownership, and there’s nothing easy about owning another man. Most people realize the possible troubles about being owned, but owning another man is like playing with fire; it’s far too easy to lose oneself, to want too much and to push too far.

So he rarely indulges himself.

There’s something about Akihito, though. Something about the supple lines of his thighs, the curve of his spine.

Something about the shock of black leather against his skin that hits Asami like a fist to the stomach.

So he stands and watches and waits, and upends a glass of water over Akihito’s head when he doesn’t wake up because he’s feeling unusually impatient.

The boy’s as loud as he would have expected, as pretty flushed and panting and hard as he could have hoped for, and all the foreplay just makes Asami want to fuck him.

So he does.

It isn’t until he fucks him in the shower after Feilong’s kidnapped him that he realizes he’s in danger of losing himself in owning someone he barely knows.

Viewfinder - You Think I am Your Possession

2007-07-30T01:42:11Z

written using the following 30_lemons prompt:

9. Sex and Drugs, or, "That's Some Funny Tobacco in that Pipe, Mr. Caterpillar."

title stolen from Tori Amos's Big Wheel.

You Think I am Your Possession

Rating: NC-17, definitely (or a very, very hard R; I seem to like these vaguely explicit sex scenes)
Warnings: semi-explicit non-con, language, drug use
Pairings: Feilong/Akihito, Asami/Akihito

Akihito wonders fuzzily why they always seem to drug him before fucking him.

The party had been the first time he’d seen Asami since, well, then — it’s the only way he allows himself to think of the time Asami tied him up, drugged and fucked him — and it sent a strange thrill down his spine.

Of course, then he snatched the data and erased it, and now he’s been kidnapped by the fucking Chinese mafia and he’s draped across Feilong’s lap like some sort of possession. Like he actually wants to be here.

His hands are bound in some wooden contraction that looks like it came straight from a medieval torture chamber, his lip is split from where the fat man struck him, and his ribs are bruised and sore. Like hell does he want to be here.

But the drug is clouding his mind and he doesn’t really know what he’s saying, Feilong is smug and then white hot pain shooting up his back and down his legs and he doesn’t think he’ll be able to walk after this and through the haze of pain he feels blood trickling down his thighs.

After, when Asami’s performed his completely unexpected rescue and water beats down on them as Asami fucks him, he knows it’s not the drugs that make him want Asami so badly.

Naruto - SasuNaru - untitled drabble

2007-07-25T18:33:12Z

short little thing, written entirely in my brain while going to the bathroom last night as I was preparing for bed.

rated R, for the record, if not NC-17.

Sasuke’s trimmed short and shaved around the edges, and Naruto snorts because it’s Sasuke and he’s neat and prim and girly like that, and apparently snorting around a mouthful of cock is an interesting sensation because Sasuke jerks and comes like he’s dying. Down Naruto’s throat.

Naruto chokes and bites down on reflex, and then he’s got a whole other problem to worry about because they’ve fought more times than he can count but never has Sasuke looked so much like he wants to kill him.

Later, after the screaming and chasing and fighting, Sasuke’s not quite as girly when he fucks Naruto into the wall and it’s Naruto who comes like the world’s ending.